Son of a Gun (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 2)

by Ed Markham

  David found such photographs—the kind that captured the setting and sense of a place—were helpful when he tried later to recall the details of a scene. He also took pictures of anything that stood out to him, even if he couldn’t explain why or how the thing might be significant.

  As they approached the scene, he could see that the forensic examiners had erected a large white canopy over the patch of ground where the boy’s body was discovered. The earth beneath and around the canopy, as well as sections of the walking trail, were littered with numbered yellow placards marking various points of interest. Someone had also laid down a powder outline to indicate the position of Mark Stephenson’s body, and David took a photograph of this as well.

  Stopping near the outline, he nodded to one of the forensic technicians—an older woman with somber, dark eyes.

  He introduced himself and said, “Footprints?”

  “Everywhere,” she said, pointing to a trail of placards leading out from under the tent and over to the walking path. “This is a popular hiking spot, but we’ve isolated the prints belonging to the woman who found the boy and those of whoever brought him here. Not very large. Men’s size seven and a half.”

  David recalled the county coroner’s information about the angle of the entry wound—that the shooter was likely small of stature. “Was he murdered here?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not,” the tech said, shaking her head and brushing one of her gray-brown strands of hair away from her eyes. “We didn’t find much blood, and the ground beneath the body was wiped smooth, as though whoever brought him here had him wrapped up in something—a tarp or blanket—and then pulled it out from underneath the body after he’d set him down.”

  “Any other types of tracks?” Martin asked. “Something that might show if the boy wasn’t carried here?”

  The tech looked away from them and pointed toward the walking trail. “The indentations of the boot prints leading to the scene are deeper than those returning to the parking lot.” She turned back to Martin. “Trust me, he was carried here.”

  David and Martin took some time to walk around the woods surrounding the police tent. As they looked over the scene, David could hear his father flicking his old Ronson lighter open and closed in his jacket pocket. Snap. Click.

  David thought of the way the boy’s body had been placed—arranged almost peacefully very close to the walking trail. He said, “It feels like our subject is some kind of curator—like he’s putting his art out on view.”

  Martin snorted in a breath of cool air, his eyes on the ground. Snap. Click.

  “He wanted the bodies found,” David went on. “And not just found, but appreciated.”

  Snap. Click.

  David looked at the outline on the ground for a long time. Finally he said, “Obscuring their faces behind white masks . . . it feels like he wanted to blend their identities, to turn them into symbols of something—representations.”

  The snap and click of the lighter stopped, and David turned to find his father staring at him. “What is it?” he asked him.

  Martin looked at him for a moment and then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. He withdrew his notebook from his pocket and started flipping through it.

  Fifteen minutes later, as they walked back down the trail toward the parking lot, careful not to disturb any of the forensic team’s placards, David glanced at his father. Martin’s expression was clouded, as it had been since he’d first looked through the case files.

  As if sensing the question poised on his son’s lips, he said, “I don’t want to talk about it—not yet. But a lot of this seems familiar to me.”

  David didn’t answer right away. When he was sure his father didn’t intend to add more to this statement, he asked him, “You mean you’ve seen murders like this before?”

  Martin kept walking, and he waved David on toward the parking lot. “I need to poke around the old files when we get down to Quantico. Refresh my memory.”

  Chapter 7

  THE MAN CUPPED his hands around his eyes and squinted at the tiny screen. He adjusted the video camera, angling it down on its tripod so that less of the ceiling was visible at the top of the viewfinder.

  The room captured in the camera’s lens was dark and carpeted, and the only furniture visible was a twenty-year-old television set and the corner of what looked like a bare box-spring mattress, which lay directly on the floor. Faint daylight—the kind that shines through layers of window blinds and curtains—glowed from somewhere out of sight.

  When he was satisfied the camera was properly aimed, the man pressed the red RECORD button and stepped around to the bare patch of carpet, facing the lens.

  In the semi-darkness, it was difficult to tell his age or height. The hair on top of his head was short and light-colored, and did not begin until a point several inches behind his brow. He was clean-shaven. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, and though his forearms appeared muscular, his torso, neck, and wrists were slight.

  The man let his hands hang at his sides, and he closed his eyes. His mouth worked soundlessly, forming unspoken words, and he twisted his head from side to side slowly, stretching and cracking it. Then he was still.

  When he opened his eyes, they opened different. Not so wide as before. And his mouth was drawn up in a way that deepened the creases in his cheeks, making him appear older. He spoke softly to the camera, his voice coming out low and steady. He practiced smiling and looking confused or dismayed. He gestured with his hands, which seemed unusually large attached to his small wrists. He laughed and he feigned indignation, and always his mouth returned to the same drawn-up place that creased the sides of his face just so, accentuating the natural grooves time would eventually etch more deeply into his skin.

  After a few minutes, the man’s arms fell back to his sides. He took a few deep breaths and walked around to the back of the camera. He shut it off and plucked it from the top of the tripod. After retrieving a cord from behind the television set, he plugged in the camera, switched on the TV, and watched as his own image appeared on screen. He knelt down on both knees and stared at the video as it played his own image back to him.

  At times the man nodded and seemed pleased. At other times his face closely mimicked what was happening on screen, as though he weren’t quite satisfied with what he was watching. When the video had finished, he played it again. And again.

  Eventually, the man replaced the camera on the tripod, switched it on, and stepped back in front of its lens. He closed his eyes.

  When they opened, they opened different.

  Chapter 8

  AS THE THREE of them left Gilroy’s—a small tavern located a few blocks from David’s home in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia—Lauren looped her arm through Martin’s.

  The two walked a few steps ahead of David, who was content to hang back and watch his father and girlfriend laugh together and poke fun at him.

  “Your son is such a neat freak,” Lauren said. “It drives me nuts. Does he get that from you?”

  “From his mother,” Martin said, smiling. “I used to come back from the bathroom to find my water glass in the dishwasher. She couldn’t stand to have stuff lying around.”

  She laughed. “I get the straightening up part. But this guy rags on me if I don’t hang my towel up on the right hook.” She turned and shot David a mischievous smile to let him know she was only playing with him.

  He smiled back, unperturbed.

  “Actually,” she said to Martin, lowering her voice, “he doesn’t rag on me much at all. I just like to make him self-conscious. It’s not easy.”

  Martin nodded. “I know what you mean though—about how he likes his place. You know, a guy lives alone for a long time, he gets used to things a certain way.” He wagged a thumb over his shoulder in David’s direction. “And that one was a confirmed bachelor for a long time before you barged in and shook him up.”

  She laughed and slapped his shoulder playfully. “Bar
ged in, huh?”

  Martin smiled. “It’s a wonder we ever solved that Colony Killer case the way you were making eyes at him over the case files.” Before she had time to hit him again, he sidestepped away from her and ducked as though to dodge a blow.

  She blew up her bangs in mock frustration, and they both laughed.

  David and Martin had returned to Northern Virginia early that afternoon, a few hours after wrapping up their review of the murder site. They’d spent a few hours examining the DNA and ballistics reports from the evidence collected from Mark Stephenson’s body.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Clarence Perkins had told them.

  A veteran forensic analyst, Perkins had recently been promoted to head of his team at Quantico. He’d traded his white lab coat for a shirt and tie, but the switch didn’t make his six-foot-three, 270-pound frame appear any smaller.

  “The good news is ballistics matched the bullet fragments from Stephenson to those from the Bush kid,” Perkins said. “So, we have hard evidence linking at least two of the victims.”

  “I bet I can guess the bad news,” Martin had said.

  Perkins nodded his big head. “Yeah. Sorry to say, the DNA collected from the hair and saliva samples didn’t match anything in CODIS.”

  CODIS, David knew, stood for Combined DNA Index System—the FBI’s database of DNA profiles. The database was very far from complete, so not finding a match wasn’t surprising. Occasionally you got lucky, but usually you didn’t.

  All afternoon, while David reviewed the information that police and local detectives had collected from Mark Stephenson’s parents and neighbors, Martin had seemed tense and distracted. For a time, he’d excused himself to the Quantico file rooms, where agents had crammed row upon row of gray cabinets with the faded-yellow folders of their pre-1987 case records. Martin had emerged with a briefcase full of document photocopies, but had told his son not to ask.

  “I’ll explain later,” he’d said gruffly.

  They’d met Lauren for dinner after leaving Quantico. Normally she would have been in the office with them, but Carl had given her the afternoon off in order to prepare for her trip to Georgia for weapon’s training. At dinner, Martin had brightened noticeably. But David could still detect a shadow hovering like a storm cloud over his father’s thoughts.

  Now, as the three arrived back at David’s house, Martin announced he was calling it a night. He offered Lauren a rough kiss on the cheek and patted his son’s shoulder, and then he picked up the briefcase containing the file photocopies and disappeared up the stairs, headed for the guest room.

  “Something’s up with him,” Lauren said a few minutes later as she leaned against the counter in David’s bathroom, watching him brush his teeth. “He seemed a little distant at times tonight. Distracted. That’s not like him.”

  David rinsed his mouth and said, “He’s been like that since last night. I picked at him a little bit, and he told me something about these murders seems familiar to him. This afternoon he went digging around in the old records room, but he won’t tell me anything about it.”

  She looked at him and pruned her lips, her expression concerned. She knew what their investigation was about; David had given her the broad strokes the previous afternoon before he’d driven up to Philadelphia.

  “Like he thinks this may be a copycat?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know. He won’t tell me anything about it.”

  He left the bathroom and sat on the edge of his bed while Lauren took her turn at the sink.

  “I really don’t want to go down to FLET-C for this fucking weapons training,” she said from the bathroom.

  “You’re gone until Saturday?”

  “Yeah. Brunswick, Georgia. I’m sure learning how to shoot an MP5 will really come in handy in the field.”

  “You never know,” he said.

  She stuck her head out of the bathroom, her toothbrush hanging from the side of her mouth. “You’ve used one? Shut up. Tell me.”

  “I was on an apprehension years ago in Ohio. Two brothers had a woman locked up in the bedroom of their cousin’s house, and I made it there ahead of SWAT. I knew they were going to kill her, so I couldn’t wait.” He paused, remembering the stink of the house and the burn of sweat in his eyes as he moved from room to room, looking for the brothers and the woman they held captive. The brothers had found him first.

  He went on, “I ended up crouched in a passageway without my sidearm. They killed four SWAT members before I got my hands on one of their MP5s. Fortunately I knew how to use it.”

  He didn’t tell her he’d vomited afterward, thinking of the way the bullets had thunked into the men’s flesh. It reminded him too much of the young man he’d killed long before his time at the FBI.

  That young man’s name had been Grant Waller. Waller had raped David’s college sweetheart and left her body lying out of sight beneath a bush near the house where he’d slipped roofies into her drink. Her heart had failed sometime in the night.

  Where the justice system had failed to punish Waller, David had succeeded. On a deserted street on Philadelphia’s north side, he’d fired one round into Waller’s heart.

  Afterward, he hadn’t regretted his actions. But they still haunted him, and he knew he would never feel at ease holding a firearm.

  “Jesus, David!” Lauren said as she emerged from the bathroom. “I heard rumors about that Ohio bust when I first started. That was you?”

  He shrugged at her. “You know what a terrible shot I am, but even I couldn’t miss with an MP5 from a few feet away.” Hoping to change the subject, he said, “Does that turn you on?”

  “Does it!” She shoved him back onto the bed and then jumped on top of him playfully. He embraced her and they kissed. After a few seconds, she pulled her head away from his and looked at him squarely. “You’re too old to pull that Lone Ranger shit now, right?”

  “Too old?” he said, pretending to be offended.

  “Hey,” she said, clasping both her hands around his face. “I’m serious.”

  He pushed himself up on his elbows. “That’s part of the job, Butch. Don’t pretend you’d hold back if lives were at stake. You’re more of a cowboy than I am.”

  She sat back on his thighs and tucked her dark hair behind each of her ears, her expression growing more serious. After a quiet moment, she said, “You know what? Forget what I just said. Don’t play it safe.” She paused, and her green eyes held David’s. “When people hold back, that’s when they get hurt. You’re good at what you do because you don’t hesitate. So be yourself, and do what you do.” She smiled. “Just don’t fuck up. I’m attached to you.”

  “I’m attached to myself.”

  Her smile broadened and she kissed him again. Eventually they made their way under the bedcovers.

  Tuesday, November 5

  Chapter 9

  OMAR GHAFARI’S USUALLY cheerful face was somber. He handled the folders delicately, as though hoping to impart some tenderness to the boys and girls named in the enclosed case files. He handed one folder to David and another to Martin.

  “These lists come from the Center for Missing and Exploited Persons in Arlington,” he said. “It includes all missing children from New Jersey or PA reported in the last six months.” He tucked a few strands of his dark hair behind one of his ears.

  As a member of the Bureau’s Communications and Information Technology Unit, also known as CITU, Omar was often tasked with collecting and analyzing the data David needed to conduct his investigations.

  “I’ve also uploaded the digital files to your public folders,” Omar said. “But I know when your dad’s along you like to keep things old school.”

  David nodded his thanks and said, “How many are we looking at here?”

  Omar’s frown deepened. “Too many. Around forty-five I think.”

  After the small man had left David and his father alone in the conference room, Martin said, “What are we searching for here?” H
e spoke from his seat in the straight-backed wooden chair David had watched him carry in from one of the sitting rooms down the hall. As always, Martin refused to sit in one of the new office chairs that filled each of the FBI’s conference rooms. “A man can’t think straight leaning back in one of those nappers,” he would say as he scowled at the new furniture with contempt.

  David looked at the unopened file folder. “We’re looking for missing children who fit our profile.”

  “You think there are other kids he’s abducted but hasn’t killed?”

  “Or kids he’s killed and we haven’t found yet. I know the past three have all turned up quickly, and all in plain sight. But you know the behavioral patterns as well as I do. Sometimes the signature changes after the first victim or victims. We might find something here.”

  Martin nodded, but David thought his father seemed a little reluctant, as though he already knew the search would prove fruitless.

  “First let’s go over what we know about the three confirmed,” David said, rising and walking to the room’s dry-erase board. He picked up a black marker from the ledge and wrote as he spoke. “All three are white adolescents—thirteen or fourteen years old. Two from Eastern Pennsylvania, one from Central New Jersey. All from relatively safe, residential neighborhoods. All found within a few miles of where they were abducted.” After he’d finished writing each of these unifying facts, he turned to his father. “What else?”

  Martin paused to flip through his notebook. “None of them had siblings,” he said.

  David wrote out this detail on the dry-erase board and stepped back to re-read his list. After considering it quietly for a few moments, he said, “Seem pretty complete to you?”