Five Knives: A Will Finch Mystery Thriller (Series Prequel)

by D. F. Bailey

  Finch typed the name and then paused. “How did you connect Babcock to Sessions?”

  “I’d sooner do this in person. You want to hike over here to get the details?”

  Will checked the time: 4:08. “I can be there by four-thirty.”

  “You better be. There’s a press conference at six. You want your one-hour exclusive? It’s either now or never.”

  Albescu hung up. Will held the phone in his hand, unsure how to move forward. After a moment he put the handset back in place. He scanned the surrounding pods where most of the reporters ticked silently at their keyboards. Olivia seemed preoccupied with a phone call. Costain had his face pressed against his computer screen — likely studying the details of another database search. At the desk behind Costain, Ross Sumner wrote notes on a yellow legal pad while he sipped coffee from a paper Starbucks cup.

  Will closed the lid on his laptop and slipped it into his courier bag. Then he tugged on his jacket and made his way to the reception desk to borrow the digital recorder from Dixie. On his way to the elevator bay, he laughed out loud, pumped a fist in the air, and reveled in the giddy feeling rising through his body.

  ※

  It took twenty minutes for Will to reach the FBI field office. When the elevator doors slipped open on the thirteenth floor of the Phillip Burton Building, Agent Raymond Albescu stood alone, waiting for Finch. To his relief, there was no sign of Busby.

  They squeezed through a large open area — the war room — filled with agents standing in groups of three or four. The room was abuzz with a taut, almost ravenous, energy. Next to the exterior windows, he spied Busby talking to two other agents. A smile creased Busby’s face, and he laughed as if he were celebrating a victory.

  “Don’t mind the fuss,” Albescu said as they walked beside the wall. “Sometimes the room temperature spikes when we bag a bad guy.”

  Albescu led Will to the same glassed-in meeting room where they’d interviewed him with Wally and Biscombe last week. He pulled a wide band of sheer drapes across the glass barrier to the door, and they sat facing one another at one end of the table. Will tugged his notepad from his courier bag and set the digital recorder between them.

  “You mind if I record this?”

  “Sure.” Albescu laughed. “Usually it’s the other way around.”

  “Right.” Finch grinned to acknowledge the irony, clicked on the recorder and then wrote the date and time at the top of a page.

  “Okay, let’s dive in. Now, you said on the phone that the FBI captured Vincent Sessions in the Tenderloin on Saturday. That he was living under the alias of Richard Babcock, and that subsequently, he confessed to the serial killings we’ve been calling the five knives murders. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah. He was picked up just after seven-thirty, Saturday night.”

  “And you’ve tied Sessions to a series of similar killings in Iraq that date back to 2005. How did you link the two?”

  “Fingerprints. The crime techs used a new matching technique called a topology-based algorithm. Not as good as DNA, but close enough. The Army had a record of his prints which matched what we had from his kills in the US. And the icing on the cake? This morning Sessions made a complete confession in the presence of his lawyer.”

  A confession. Will studied Albescu for a moment. This meant that there’d be no reason to reveal J.R. as his source. Albescu grinned again; he understood the implications, too. “So this means that Felix Madden’s murder of Seamus Henman had nothing to do with Vincent Sessions.”

  “Right. The five knives thing on Henman appears to be a copy-cat killing.” Albescu tipped his head toward Will. “Just as you said.”

  Finch rested his pen across the wire spiral of the notepad and took a moment to piece this together. Part of him couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Let me make sure I’ve got this right. Vincent Sessions committed four murders in Iraq and more recently in Wichita and Reno. And you’ve got physical evidence and a confession to prove it.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes Christmas comes early.” This time Albescu laughed with a lightness of spirit that revealed a persona different than the hard-nosed agent that he kept so tightly wrapped up. His long, weary face seemed fuller now. Even his voice carried an upbeat resonance.

  “Frankly,” he continued, “there’re more killings than the two in Wichita and Reno.”

  “More?”

  “At least six. From Miami on out.”

  “My God,” he said. Just as Olivia had predicted. “Where else?”

  He held up his right hand and counted off his thumb and fingers: “Miami, Atlanta, McComb — little town in Mississippi — then Nashville, Wichita, and Reno.” He bunched his fingers in a fist to account for the sixth murder.

  “So how’d you find him?”

  “Textbook protocol.” He shrugged as if it couldn’t have been easier. “Once we got his mug shot from his Army file, we put out a BOLO.”

  “So what was it? An SFPD cop in a squad car spotted him?”

  “No, two beat cops. And yes, the SFPD scored the take-down. In Paradise Coffee and Donuts on O’Farrell.” Albescu nodded to acknowledge that the local boys in blue could sometimes pull their own weight. “When they spotted Sessions, they called for backup. Two cars arrived, and five minutes later Sessions was cuffed and sitting in the back of a black-and-white. No resistance. No shots fired. Like I said, it was textbook.”

  “And the confession?”

  “Busby and I were called in and started to grill him around eleven on Saturday night. He buttoned up until we provided a lawyer. We got him one a little after midnight. Then he slept on whatever advice and wisdom he received. Must’ve had a decent snooze, ’cause the next day he opened up. Frankly, I think he wanted to let it all go. You know, confess and lift the burden of guilt.”

  Finch glanced away. He wasn’t so sure about the relief won through confession. As a teenager, he’d made weekly confessions to the Catholic priest and still felt the burden of his darkest thoughts. “So he told the whole story going back to Iraq?”

  “Not yet. There’s a helluva lot more to come, but he’s copped to the six we’ve been tracking since Miami. Anyway, the Iraq killings are a done deal. We’ve got his prints, and the Army still have their cold casebooks open.”

  Will now had the full dimensions and scope of the story. Once he got to work, he’d be able to frame the article for Wally within ten minutes.

  “I’ve got to tell you, Finch, without your tip, we’d still be blind on this thing.”

  Yeah?” Will suppressed a smile. “Was there a reward posted?”

  “Sorry.” Albescu turned his chin to one side, a gesture to indicate bad luck. “But you know, Busby was pressing for one. By the end of this week, the SAC would probably have given us the nod.”

  “Yeah? Who’s that?”

  “Anthony Rippin. He’s going to be leading the press conference” — Albescu checked his watch — “in two minutes.”

  Finch made a final note: Anthony Rippin, Special Agent-in-Charge.

  Someone knocked on the door and Albescu rose from his chair and pulled the curtain aside. Outside stood Busby. He tipped his head toward Finch. “Time,” he mouthed through the glass and pushed his way back toward the middle of the room.

  “You coming to the press con?” Albescu asked with a wry expression that suggested this was an inside joke amongst the agents. A jibe used to mock the press, the one — the only — public body that continually tested the limits and efficacy of the police and courts.

  Finch considered the offer for a moment and realized that at best, his exclusive scoop would last no more than half an hour. Better to run down to a coffee shop, crank out his story as fast as possible and email it to Wally and Olivia.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I have to give it a miss. Maybe next time.”

  “Okay.” Albescu held the door open as Finch dumped his notepad and the recorder into his bag. “I know you’re fighting the clock.”

  While
the media crews and reporters set up their cameras and settled in the chairs beneath the war room lectern, Finch made his way past the reception desk and over to the elevator bay. He stepped into an empty car. As the elevator dropped to the main floor, he closed his eyes and tried to absorb everything that had happened over the past week. Could it be? Had he outed two serial killers? More important, was he about to break the story that would make his career? Yes. Yes. And yes.

  A minute later he stood on the sidewalk in front of the Burton Building. Half a block down the street he spotted a cafe. Philz Coffee. Perfect. He could set up his laptop and file the story from there. He jogged over to the corner of Larkin and Golden Gate.

  “You’ve got this,” he cried aloud and pumped his fist as he stepped into the crosswalk. He realized that the mass of pedestrians streaming towards him would think he was crazy. A madman. He didn’t care. Let them believe what they want.

  “Not only do you have this” — he lifted his arms in the air, and his voice rose in a screeching rant as he pressed through the crowd — “you own it.”

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  BONE MAKER

  One

  A whiff of blood in the air.

  The bear rose on his back feet, turned his head upwind and flared his moist nostrils. He needed food — anything to slake the deep hunger that clawed through his empty belly. The forest, thick with fir and cedar trees, surrounded him. In the distance he could see a blur of rocks on the hillside. His ears filled with the sounds of the spring melt rushing down the creek beds and the heavy tree limbs pulling in the wind. He listened for the sound of more gunshots and car engines but they had passed now. Still, he felt a lingering danger. He set his forepaws on the ground and made his way up the slope to the gravel road. He paused and looked along the muddy track and then walked with purpose toward his prey. As he approached, he could make out the scent of several men and their machines. He hesitated and moved forward again — a force of nature.

  Hungry, willful, unrelenting.

  ※

  When Ethan Argyle first caught sight of the bear he assumed it was a boulder that had fallen from somewhere above the ridge onto the gravel road. The bear stood motionless, hunched forward, about a fifty yards up the track from the Mercedes GLK. But since something was obviously amiss with the car — the driver’s window wide open, despite the late morning drizzle — neither Ethan nor his son Ben focused on the animal. Until it began to move.

  “Look at that, Dad.” Ben pointed toward the bear with his gloved hand. He dug through his pocket for his binoculars. “It’s big enough, but it can’t be a grizzly. Not here.” He pressed the glasses to his eyes, then gasped at the size of the animal gnawing away at something on the roadside. “Have a look,” he whispered and passed the binoculars to his father.

  “It’s not a grizzly.” Ethan focused the lens with the nose screw. “It’s a black bear. He’s feeding on something,” he added but he couldn’t make out what it might be. “No wonder we haven’t come across any deer all day.”

  The father and son worked their way down the hill onto the switchback. There were dozens of dirt roads like this that cut through the forest above the coast, gravel tracks barely wide enough for two cars to squeeze past one another. But today no cars were visible and no trucks could be heard struggling up the long ravine. Nothing except the Mercedes, Ethan whispered to himself. The car looked abandoned; its engine was silent. A spray of mud caked the exterior, a dusty-gray paste that had hardened in the sun and then smudged under the light rain. He figured it had been parked here at least a day, since Saturday, when it had been sunny through the entire afternoon.

  “There’s just something wrong about that open window,” Ben said as they approached the vehicle from the rear and then stopped about five feet away. He eased his rifle into the crook of his elbow and studied the car.

  “Yeah.” Ethan kept an eye on the bear, who seemed oblivious to them as it nuzzled a carcass on the roadside. They stood downwind from the animal and as Ethan sniffed the air he caught a whiff of fresh kill. “He can’t smell us,” he whispered to his son, “but he might hear us. Keep ’er quiet.” He made a downward motion with his left hand and then brought his rifle from his shoulder into his arm. “Let’s look at that window.”

  They walked silently beside the big SUV and peered into the black interior. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light, and only a few seconds longer for Ethan to make out the pool of blood that soaked the driver’s seat. “Good lord!” he moaned, much louder than he wanted. He looked toward the bear to see if he’d startled.

  “Dad … I think that bear took him.” Ben’s voice was breathless. He wiped a hand over his mouth and angled the barrel of his gun towards the bear. A defensive move, nothing more. He kept his eyes on the bear, sure that it was more important than whatever might remain in the Mercedes.

  “Doesn’t make any sense,” Ethan said and drew a long breath before he forced his head back through the top of the window. He could see the key fob lying in the CD tray. An opened pack of cigarettes, Marlboros, lay above the dash. A half-empty bottle of water stood uncapped in the drink caddy and beyond it a discarded Starbucks cup had spilled across the passenger seat. A rain jacket had been tossed onto the back seat and a duffle bag tucked in the rear footwell. He tried to imagine what could have transpired: a lone driver crossing the switchbacks is confronted by a rogue bear who refuses to yield an inch of the road ahead.

  “He’s starting to move, Dad. He might be onto us.”

  Ethan turned his attention to the scene up the road. The bear now stood upright over his kill with his eyes fixed on Ethan and Ben. Must be six hundred pounds, Ethan murmured to himself. The bear stole a step toward them and paused as if to consider his next move.

  “I might have to take him out, Ben.” His voiced sounded apologetic but firm.

  “Yes sir.” Ben stood behind his father and readied his gun. They’d done this a dozen times before when they were after deer. They hunted the old-fashioned way, with bolt-action Winchester 70 rifles. If one missed his shot, the second fired the insurance round. But Ben never had to make a shot like th
is. Not with his fingers this damp, his heart pounding.

  The bear lurched another step forward, then charged. Ethan had to shoot before he was fully prepared. Still, when he fired, he thought he’d hit squarely in the bear’s torso. The bear bobbed and weaved, paused to sneer with a look of puzzlement and then staggered forward again. A second later Ben fired his rifle. The bear roared and wheeled away as its front paw dissolved into a red pulp. It clambered into the scrub brush at the edge of the road, moaning loud wails that filled the depth of the ravine below.

  “Damn. Now we have to go after it,” Ethan murmured and fixed his jaw with a weary determination. “It’s my fault, son,” he said to dispel any misgivings the boy might have. He set their pace toward the bloody, abandoned carcass sprawled next to the weed-infested shrubs beside the road.

  As they neared the corpse they staggered backward in an uneven motion that forced Ben to miss a step and move behind his father. The cadaver lay on its back, the chest cavity ripped open. Nothing of the man’s throat — or his face — remained. Already the corpse was abuzz with flies.

  “Oh no,” Ben whimpered. He sunk to his knees and began to vomit onto the gravel.

  “Give me your phone,” Ethan said as he turned away from the mess that lay at their feet. “We’ve got to call the sheriff.” As he punched 911 into the keypad, he prayed for a miracle. But he knew they were off the cellphone grid and they had little hope of connecting with anyone. They’d have to hike over to the switchback above the Lewis and Clark River where he’d parked the four-by-four, then drive down toward Astoria before they could make a cellphone connection.

  He pulled his son by the forearm and braced him against his side. “Come on, it won’t take us more than an hour,” he said with forced certainty as he directed them back toward the ridge under Saddle Mountain.