Opening Moves

by Steven James

  “What I have so far.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ring me if your team finds out anything.”

  “I will.”

  “And we’ll reconnect again, perhaps after lunch. If I can, I’ll swing by police headquarters before the seminar.”

  “Great.”

  Notes in hand, and feeling like we might have an avenue of inquiry that could take us someplace productive, I left for police headquarters.

  74

  9:25 a.m.

  7 hours until the gloaming

  I found Corsica, Lyrie, and Gabriele in the conference room.

  The other task force members were either out following up on leads or hadn’t made it to the office yet. Thompson had called in asking what kind of doughnuts people wanted—he was going to “pick up a few for the crew on the way in.”

  I told the three people who were here what Calvin and I had been thinking. “We’ll need to make some calls to airports, check flight manifests, and I want someone to go through the suspect list and tip list looking for people who live in that area near Franklin Heights. Also, let’s find out what we can about Miriam Flandry’s death—if there were any indications of foul play. Oh, and consulting firms in the cities under question, businesses that do business with businesses.”

  We split up the assignments and set to work.

  The more attached you get to people before they die, the more you’ll ache after they’re gone.

  So, really, the Maneater could think of no good reason to put yourself through any of that, to form any sort of emotional attachments with the people around you. After all, since you’ll be leaving them eventually, or they’ll be leaving you, why cause more grief in the world by extending or receiving love in the first place?

  Now, this morning, he didn’t find it difficult at all to get the person he’d decided to abduct into his car. She was a petite woman and he was strong for his size.

  He carried her into the slaughterhouse and set her in one of the walk-in freezers that was now without power, but quite soundproof and secure. She was still unconscious when he locked the freezer door.

  He would come back and visit her later, then take her to the place in the building where he’d taken Celeste last night.

  A test? Maybe. You could call it that. But the Maneater wanted to know how serious Joshua really was about all of this.

  If he did carry out something memorable at dusk, as he claimed he was going to do, they would meet up tonight and the Maneater would reward him with this woman.

  And they would share their first meal together.

  75

  10:25 a.m.

  6 hours until the gloaming

  In light of our current projects, the ten o’clock meeting had been cancelled. It seemed more prudent to pursue our leads than to sit around a table talking about them.

  While we were working, Ellen showed up and told us she’d interviewed the two waste management workers who drove the truck of Dahmer’s things. Both claimed they didn’t know Griffin or anything about him, but Strickland did know Detective Browning and went deer hunting with him.

  It was a link.

  Links form a chain.

  Chains form a case.

  She went on. “When I asked him if he might have mentioned to Browning where Dahmer’s possessions had been deposited, his memory seemed to become a bit fuzzy.”

  Yes, so information could’ve easily been passed from Strickland to Browning to Griffin, if the links were connected.

  As she was finishing up, Radar walked in and informed us that he’d just spoken with Colleen Hayes downstairs. “She was brought over here to see Vincent—he’s still in custody. Anyway, I thought we could finally get some answers from her about those cuffs. I pressed her about why she’d purchased a pair that had been used in the Oswalds’ arrest. It took some prodding, but she told me that a guy at work had thrown out a catalog. She saw it in the trash, flipped through it, saw the cuffs. She thought it would be…well, discreet to order them through there.”

  That was a little disappointing. “So she didn’t ask specifically for the ones involved in the Oswalds’ arrest?” I said.

  “It didn’t sound like it, no.”

  So, the killer could have found out about the cuffs from Griffin’s records and chosen Colleen that way. The connection between Adele and Colleen might not be the breakthrough clue we were hoping it would be after all.

  “Does she know who threw out the catalog?”

  He shook his head. “No, and she said she didn’t know who the guy was she ordered them from either, that it was all done through a post office box. The cuffs were shipped to her house.”

  Another corner of the labyrinth closed off, moving us inexorably in another direction.

  As far as the rest of our progress, Miriam Flandry’s stroke hadn’t seemed in any way suspicious and no autopsy had been done. The search for consulting firms had come up dry, but Lyrie had found that four people on the suspect list and tip list did live in the Franklin Heights area.

  I turned to Thompson who’d arrived during our recap and had, as promised, brought plenty of chocolate cream-filled and glazed doughnuts for everyone. “Don’t you go to church in that area?” I asked him. “Over near Franklin Heights?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t you follow up on those names. See what you can dig up.”

  “Right.” He grabbed three doughnuts and left again. Didn’t even get a chance to sit down.

  The rest of us went back to work.

  It took a little while, but all three airlines that flew out of General Mitchell Airport and serviced the cities we were looking at faxed us the flight manifests we’d requested and we took our time inspecting them. In the end, however, we didn’t come up with any names that matched.

  It was possible this whole airline idea was off base.

  Come on, Pat, you’re missing something here!

  I rubbed my head, then studied the maps on the corkboard again, thought about what Calvin had said about consulting firms, businesses that do businesses with other businesses.

  Roads you can’t see…

  Notice the obvious, Pat…The truth isn’t as obscure as it appears…Our preconceptions blind us to—

  “Hang on,” I said. “Chartered flights. Private jets. And let’s take a closer look not just at consulting firms but at any businesses that have satellite offices in those cities.”

  Agreement from the team.

  We pulled out phone books and began to make some calls.

  76

  11:25 a.m.

  5 hours until the gloaming

  Ellen struck gold.

  She found one company, High Profile Charter Service, based out of Milwaukee, that made regular chartered stops in Cincinnati and Champaign and had even done so two days before their respective murders, then returned to Milwaukee the day after them. They’d also sent a flight to Green Bay two days prior to the disappearance of a woman from nearby Appleton.

  There weren’t any flights to Rockford or Madison, but again, those cities weren’t too far from Milwaukee and it made sense that the killer could have driven to them easily enough.

  When we checked which company had chartered the flights in question, we found that they were all hired by Hathaway & Erikson, LLC, one of the biggest acquisition firms in the Greater Milwaukee area.

  A business that did business with other businesses.

  I remembered what Griffin had said right before he was killed, when I asked him about the Maneater: “Now there’s a man who knows how to acquire what he wants. Does it for a living.”

  A man who knows how to acquire what he wants.

  Does it for a living.

  A guy who works at an acquisitions firm? A double entendre from the man who called Mallory “baby”?

  I wouldn’t put it past him.

  Oh yeah, things were popping.

  High Profile Charter Service didn’t have flight manifests, but they did have a record
that nine people had been on the flight to Cincinnati, seven to Champaign, and five to Green Bay.

  “If we get those names from the acquisition firm,” Corsica said, “and the same name appears on all the lists—”

  “We have our guy,” Radar exclaimed.

  I didn’t think we could go quite that far, but I had the sense that it would certainly be one circumstantial link to the crimes that would be hard to discount.

  As it turned out, only Corsica was able to leave the department with me at the moment, but I didn’t care. I was willing to work with just about anyone if it meant moving things forward.

  We grabbed our things and left to pay a visit to Hathaway & Erikson, LLC.

  77

  A crowd of fifteen people had gathered in the West Reagan Street Mission’s cafeteria to remember Petey Schwartz.

  The small congregation sat behind folding tables with Styrofoam cups of coffee in front of them.

  All of the people, besides Joshua, worked for the mission or were transients who’d known Petey. And yet, because of his past involvement with the center, Joshua did not stand out.

  The question that seemed so hard to answer gnawed at him: “What kind of a God could ever forgive someone who’s done the things you’ve done?”

  And the answer he tried to cling to: “What kind of a God would he be if he couldn’t?”

  The Reverend Hezekiah Tate, the African-American preacher who’d started this shelter for the homeless more than thirty years ago, walked slowly to the front of the cafeteria, greeted those who’d come, unfolded his weathered Bible and laid it on the antique lectern he always preached from.

  After a few brief opening remarks, he started in with his “word from the Lord.” He spoke with the honest intensity, the intonation, the cadence of a veteran black preacher. “We all have choices that we face in this life. Petey had choices. I have choices. You have choices.”

  Yes, and you have chosen evil, Joshua. You will have to answer for that, you will—

  “Scripture is clear that we are each responsible for our own choices. No one can take credit for the godly works of another; no one will bear the blame for another’s ungodly acts. And this has been true, this is true, this will always be true. Amen?”

  The small group of homeless people knew Tate, knew the way he preached, and chimed in, “Amen.”

  “In Ezekiel eighteen, and verse four, we read that the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel and said unto him, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’”

  It shall die, Joshua.

  You shall—

  “‘If a father shall beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth the like to any one of these things…’”

  A shedder of blood.

  Like you, Joshua.

  A son.

  Who is.

  A shedder of blood.

  “‘Shall he then live? He shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him…The soul that sinneth, it shall die.’”

  Tate emphasized that last word, let it ring and echo through the room, then went on. “‘The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Therefore repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit.’”

  Repent, Joshua, it’s not too late. You have to—

  “And where does this new heart and this new spirit come from?” Reverend Tate asked rhetorically. “Only through faith in the grace of God, only through mercy at the hand of God, only through hope in the Son of God. Amen?”

  “Amens” from the ragtag congregation.

  “As the Lord told Ezekiel in the thirty-sixth chapter, the twenty-sixth verse: ‘A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.’”

  Tate’s voice took on a flavor of fire born of love. “This new spirit comes to us only from God and is a gift of God and draws us closer to God. Amen?”

  More amens. Two disabled vets, one of whom was missing a leg, and both of whom lived under an I-94 overpass, lifted their foam cups in an impromptu toast to the preacher.

  Tate wrapped up his brief but passionate homily: “This new heart, this new spirit, this new hope, come to all who will turn to the Lord to find forgiveness and atonement for their sins. This, Petey did right here in this very cafeteria, one month ago. And this you can do today, if you have never done so before. Right here, in the same place where Petey was saved, you can be too.” He took an expectant breath. “Let us pray. And let us take responsibility for our sins, let us bring our hearts to God, let us trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whose blood—”

  —Blood. Always blood—

  “—cleanseth us from all sin.”

  Tate began his prayer by referencing St. Paul’s conclusion about the struggle against his sinful nature: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…”

  As Reverend Tate went on, Joshua felt the crushing weight of his past, of his choices, nearly smothering him.

  He had to leave.

  So, while everyone else’s eyes were closed and heads were bowed, Joshua slipped out of the cafeteria. He made it to his car before he started to cry. And there he prayed and prayed, begging the God who had spoken those words to Ezekiel so long ago to speak to him today.

  “A shedder of blood shall not live. He hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.”

  He tried to grab hold of hope, but the promise of a new heart, a new spirit, a gift offered, was overwhelmed by a palpable darkness, one that felt almost visceral and alive, a consuming presence sliding into his heart, rising above the moment and muscling its way into his soul.

  Joshua ended his prayer.

  Wiped away his tears.

  It was too late for redemption.

  He left to pick up the shoebox.

  78

  Corsica and I were almost to the offices of Hathaway & Erikson, LLC.

  Everything was cycling around inside my head: the abductions, the murders, the unsolved missing persons cases. All seemingly intertwined, yet separate. Depending on how you looked at it, they were all one case, or more than a dozen.

  How all that worked, I wasn’t quite sure.

  Corsica spoke up, interrupting my thoughts. “I heard about you and Taci.”

  “What?”

  “You and Taci. I heard what happened.”

  “Oh.”

  “People talk. You know. You two have been together for a while. I…Well, we heard it from one of the doctors who works over there at the medical center.”

  “I see.”

  I pulled onto the road that would take us to the acquisitions firm. As far as I was concerned, we couldn’t get there quickly enough.

  “It’s hard,” Annise said. “Going through something like that.”

  I could hardly believe she was talking to me like this. We’d never before spoken about anything remotely personal and I really had no idea how to respond.

  She went on. “Just wanted you to know, I feel for you. I know you cared about her.”

  I pulled into the parking lot.

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to hate someone for loving something else more than you. You know?”

  I was about to say that I didn’t hate Taci, that I would never hate her, but I stopped myself short. I figured Annise must certainly know that. “Thanks,” I said again.

  “Okay.” And then the conversation I never would have expected was over.

  Though I might not have liked Annise very much, might never like her very much, as we left the car, I realized I was ashamed that
I’d never tried to understand her. But she had just now, in her own way, tried to understand me.

  Inside the building, we showed the receptionist our IDs and when we requested to speak to someone about their corporate flights to out-of-state accounts, she directed us to the senior vice president, a woman named Faye Palmer.

  Palmer’s corner office was stylish and yet simple. The window peeked out over a parklike employee break area outside. Everything about Palmer seemed to say “high-level corporate VP”: designer pants suit, stylish hair, a pleasant yet brisk and professional demeanor.

  She got right down to business. “So, how exactly can I help you, Detectives?”

  I told her forthrightly about the flights, asked her for the names of the people who’d been aboard them.

  She tapped a finger against her desk but gave no indication that she was going to grant the request. “And you’re certain that someone on these flights is involved in some way in these crimes?”

  “By no means.” Corsica’s voice was unequivocal. “We’re simply pursuing every possible lead.”

  After evaluating that, Palmer nodded and went to her file cabinet. It took her a little while, but at last she produced a manila folder—I just couldn’t seem to get away from those things this week. She shuffled through the sheets, then pulled out three.

  I could tell she was about to glance them over, but then without doing so, handed the pages to me.

  She must have noticed my surprise that she didn’t look at them. “I don’t want my perception of any of my employees to be shaded,” she explained, “even marginally, with unfounded suspicion. I’m sure you’ll let me know if you find anything regarding any of them.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Corsica answered.

  We thanked Palmer for her help and excused ourselves from her office.

  I could barely contain my curiosity as we returned to the reception area.

  Finally, when we were alone and in a corner of the room, I held up the papers, and Corsica and I examined the names.