Dead Hunt dffi-5

by Beverly Connor

  ‘‘No, I don’t know. That’s the next thing I’m going to look at. Is there a place I can fax you these pages? I’ll send them right away.’’

  He gave her a number.

  ‘‘Keep me informed,’’ he said. ‘‘Let us know immediately if you find out anything else.’’

  ‘‘I will. We have several things working here.’’

  Diane was putting the pages in the fax machine as she spoke. While the pages were transmitting, she got on her computer and looked up Grant Bacon on the Web. Too many hits. She looked up ‘‘Grant Bacon’’ Virginia and searched. That narrowed it down considerably. She started scrolling through the listings. Still too many. She put in ‘‘Grant Bacon’’ obituary and hit ENTER. There was one entry. Grant Bacon, Richmond, Virginia, died in a boating accident in 1998. He was survived by his wife, Kathy Delancy Bacon, and two sons from a previous marriage. Diane printed out the obituary and faxed it to the marshals as well.

  She then called Ross Kingsley.

  ‘‘I have a name for you,’’ she said when he answered.

  ‘‘For Clymene?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Yes.’’

  ‘‘I knew you could do it. Tell me,’’ he said.

  The excitement in his voice was electric. Diane was surprised her ears didn’t crackle.

  ‘‘It’s probably one of her aliases,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It could be one of the sisters. The name is Kathy Delancy Bacon. She was married to a Grant Bacon. I have a picture of the two of them at a banquet for lawyers. Give me your fax number and I’ll send you what we’ve found.’’

  He gave her a number. ‘‘Did you look up the husband?’’ he asked, more soberly.

  ‘‘I’m sending you his obituary also,’’ said Diane.

  Kingsley sighed. ‘‘How did he die?’’

  ‘‘Boating accident. There are no details,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I can look them up. Diane, this is great. I am amazed,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Frankly, so am I. The marshals are checking it out. There are other people in the picture too.’’ She told him about Emma Lorimer.

  ‘‘Now, that’s interesting. She denied knowing her, yet she actually called to defend her. I think I need to speak with this woman myself. I’m really interested in the way Clymene gets under people’s skin. When was this?’’

  ‘‘The picture is from 1997. He died in 1998,’’ she said. Diane entered Kingsley’s number in the fax machine and sent the pages through again.

  ‘‘The woman is still loyal after ten years. Where is this?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Richmond, Virginia,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Richmond. If Clymene’s from that region, perhaps she has some lingering accent. The prison didn’t have a tape of her voice; we’re still looking. I have a linguist named Marley working on her journal entries. Maybe he will be able to find something in her writing. Of course, you’re moving so fast it may turn out there is no need for the linguist. How did you find this information?’’ he asked.

  Diane had been dreading that question. ‘‘Just Internet searches,’’ she said.

  ‘‘This is a good lead. It’s a good thing Lorimer called. It was an excellent idea to send out those pictures and e-mails to the lawyer lists. I’d be willing to bet you’ll get some more hits before the day is through.’’

  He assumed that she had looked up Emma Lorimer on the Web and happily found Clymene, thought Diane. Good. She didn’t like keeping the truth to herself, but David would absolutely freak out if she told the FBI about Arachnid.

  Diane looked at her watch. She was hungry but it wasn’t even close to lunchtime; then she realized she hadn’t eaten breakfast. She was about to get up and go to the staff lounge for a snack when Jin knocked on her door and peeked in.

  Chapter 41

  ‘‘Jin,’’ said Diane. ‘‘More news?’’

  They had so many feelers out now that information should begin flowing in. It was the first time she had actually felt optimistic about finding Clymene. It was true what she had said to Jin earlier; Clymene didn’t have a chance. Diane waved a hand to the chair in front of her desk. Jin bopped into her office and threw himself into the stuffed chair.

  ‘‘You know, Boss, that spider program of David’s is something. Why is he keeping it hidden? I mean, besides the fact that he probably thinks the men in black will come get him.’’

  ‘‘I think it offends his root sensibilities. He believes the Internet should respect people’s privacy. When users post photographs it’s for people to look at and not to exploit in any way.’’

  ‘‘We didn’t exploit; we just looked for Clymene. It would have been the same if we did it manually. It would just take years. David’s funny sometimes, have you ever noticed that?’’

  ‘‘Occasionally,’’ said Diane, smiling. ‘‘Did you come in for a reason or are you just wandering around the building?’’

  ‘‘Oh, yeah, sure. This is good. We’re finding so much good stuff, looking for Clymene’s starting to get fun. The blood on the bedframe in apartment 1-D in your former apartment house belongs to Clymene Red,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Clymene Red?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, remember the Christmas trees? There’s Clymene Prime—she’s the murderer. And there’s Clymene Red and Clymene Blue, the two sisters I named after the colors of the ornaments.’’

  Diane nodded. ‘‘Okay. So the blood on the bed is one of the sisters,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Jin. ‘‘But the epithelials in the IV needle we found belong to Clymene Blue, the other sister.’’

  It gave Diane a chill to think they were living just a floor below her all that time and she didn’t know it. She wondered how long Clymene had been planning her escape.

  ‘‘Good work,’’ she said. ‘‘Did you find anything else in the apartment?’’

  ‘‘No, and David vacuumed the place good. You know how he is. The three Clymenes washed that place down with bleach before they left. They missed the blood on the bed, and we almost did too. It had dripped and run under the frame. The needle was caught in the corner between the floorboards. Lucky for us, they just didn’t see it. Clymene and company are not perfect,’’ said Jin.

  ‘‘Any sign of the young male who was with them?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘No. Nothing from him or Clymene Prime in the apartment,’’ said Jin.

  Diane started to comment when the phone rang. She picked it up.

  ‘‘Fallon.’’

  ‘‘Dr. Fallon, this is Alex Kade.’’ He had a slow drawl and a gravely voice. ‘‘How are you doing today?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Colonel Kade. I’m fine. I hope you have some news for me,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I do. But please call me Alex,’’ he said. ‘‘Colonel was a lifetime ago.’’

  ‘‘I will if you call me Diane,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Deal. I think I found your woman.’’ He paused. ‘‘You said it’s too late to save her?’’

  ‘‘She’s alive, but . . .’’ Diane let the answer fade away.

  ‘‘I don’t need to know. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to save this little girl,’’ he said.

  ‘‘I don’t think she was ever reported missing. We think, though this is not confirmed, but we think her father sold her,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Aw jeez. Aw jeez.’’

  Diane could hear the pain in his voice.

  ‘‘She looks to be fifteen or sixteen. I’m sending you just her face. I don’t think you need to see the rest of the picture. I’ll send the whole pics along if you need them, but—’’

  ‘‘I don’t really want them in my head,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Is there any information with the pictures?’’

  ‘‘I do have some information. This set of pictures has been on the Internet porn sites for years. A favorite collection, it seems. It was originally posted by a man who called himself Jurgen Heinrich, but his real name was Simon Greene. He’s from the U.S. but lived all around Europ
e in the seventies, eighties, and early nineties. Had family money but made his real fortune selling sex slaves. He was a mean one. I’d like to have had him at the end of my fist.’’

  ‘‘Is he still out there selling slaves?’’ asked Diane.

  She had called up the browser on her computer and found Alex Kade’s e-mail. She looked at the pictures. He had cropped out everything but the head and tops of the shoulders. Diane was glad. As she listened to Kade, she looked at the face in the images. She was so young, but it was Clymene. Clymene when she was about fifteen. In the photographs her mouth was always in some kind of seductive pout, but the eyes told the story. They were angry.

  ‘‘No. Greene was murdered. One of them misdemeanor homicides, if you ask me. Someone doused him with kerosene and lit a match to him. He lived for a few months before getting an infection and dying. A bad end to a totally miserable human being.’’

  Clymene’s first murder, Diane was willing to bet. Kingsley had told her the first murder usually set the pattern for the rest. This Heinrich, or Greene, died violently and painfully. Clymene may have changed her method of killing to suit the situation, but the death of Archer O’Riley was painful. Her previous husband, Robert Carthwright, died a painful death too. The odds that his death was an accident were dropping by the day. She killed wealthy men in a painful way. Her twist was to marry them first to get their money.

  ‘‘I appreciate what you do,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I know it has to be the most repugnant and emotionally draining undertaking.’’

  ‘‘I have some pictures people send me of them and their kids reunited. I posted them so I can look at them while I work at the computer. That gets me through. I know a little bit about your background and former line of work. That wasn’t easy either.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ said Diane simply.

  ‘‘The hard thing is that I know even when I find them and they go back home, their life will never be the same. They’ve always got to live with what was done to them. I saw on the news the other day about a new drug. Propranolol? It’s for high blood pressure, but they’re saying it might get rid of bad memories and traumatic events. I was thinking, when these kids come home, if they could be treated with something like that they might have a better chance at life,’’ he said. ‘‘Have you heard of that? You think it’s possible?’’

  ‘‘I haven’t heard of propranolol, but I’m sure something like that’s possible,’’ she said.

  Diane wasn’t sure she believed that, but Alex Kade was a man who desperately wanted to give back a normal life to kidnapped and abused kids and their families. That was his hope and Diane didn’t want to take that away from him with doubts about the efficacy of such a drug.

  ‘‘Is there any information on what happened to the girl?’’ asked Diane.

  ‘‘No, not a thing,’’ he said.

  ‘‘This helps a lot,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Thank you.’’

  ‘‘Glad to be of service anytime,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Was that the guy who looks for missing children?’’ asked Jin when Diane hung up the phone.

  ‘‘That’s him. He found Clymene at around the age of fifteen,’’ she said. ‘‘Kingsley and I are thinking that her father sold her to the sex trade.’’

  ‘‘Kind of makes you feel sorry for her,’’ said Jin. ‘‘Like all she’s doing is getting even.’’

  ‘‘I think on one level she is getting even. But she’s a rational adult now and she knows what she is doing is wrong. If she applied her considerable skills to doing good, like Colonel Kade, think of all she could do.’’

  ‘‘I guess so. Hey, you want to go eat? I’m starving,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yes, I do,’’ she said. ‘‘See if Neva and David would like to join us. I haven’t asked David if he found anything more about the artifacts.’’

  ‘‘Maybe Arachnid could be modified to look for stuff like that too,’’ said Jin. ‘‘What do you think?’’

  ‘‘You can bring it up with David,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ll meet you at the restaurant. I need to call Garnett first.’’

  Chapter 42

  Garnett was in his office and Diane was put through immediately.

  ‘‘What’s up?’’ he said. He sounded busy.

  ‘‘Just updating you with some information,’’ she said. ‘‘I can call back if this isn’t convenient.’’

  ‘‘No, this is fine. Just doing a little paperwork. One of the necessary evils of this job,’’ he said. ‘‘But I really hate it.’’

  Diane filled him in on everything they had discovered about Clymene. ‘‘I know this is in the marshals’ jurisdiction, but I just thought you would like to know the latest,’’ she said.

  ‘‘That’s quite a bit of information your team’s dug up,’’ he said. ‘‘My detectives here didn’t have any luck finding anything about her. Of course by that time she was already in the system and the DA had other murders to solve. I’d be interested to see how you did it,’’ he said.

  ‘‘A lot of luck.’’

  Here she was, fibbing again to protect David’s project. She told Garnett about the lawyer who called to scold her about e-mailing the Listserv and finding said lawyer in a picture with Clymene in one of her other lives.

  ‘‘Of course, I’m assuming it’s Clymene. It could be one of her sisters. At least we have some names and people to talk to. That’s more leads for the marshals.’’

  Garnet was silent and Diane could hear paper rustling.

  ‘‘So, if it is Clymene,’’ he said after a moment, ‘‘she’s probably been doing this a long time. That was what? Ten years ago? No telling how many bodies she’s racked up.’’

  ‘‘She probably started before ten years ago,’’ said Diane. She told him about Colonel Kade and his mission to find missing children. ‘‘He searched for Clymene on Internet porn sites—making adjustments for a younger age.’’ She described what Alex Kade found.

  ‘‘You’re having quite a bit of luck,’’ he said. ‘‘Of course, you have a lot of resources we don’t have here. I’ll remember this next time we have a missing person.’’

  ‘‘My staff is very talented and creative,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I’m very proud of them.’’

  ‘‘That stuff Jin did with the blood analysis was pretty good. The mayor and the commissioner were very impressed,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘They like having a DNA lab.’’

  Diane wondered if they realized the DNA lab, like her osteology lab, was part of the museum and not owned by the city. They should know it, since they didn’t pay for it. But they sometimes forgot trivial details like that and took a proprietary attitude toward anything in the west wing.

  ‘‘His analysis was impressive,’’ said Diane. So was his presentation, she thought. ‘‘I’m glad the marshals got a look at what we can do.’’

  ‘‘My bosses liked that idea too. They have aspirations of being Atlanta, but I guess you know that.’’ He laughed. ‘‘You using some of that face recognition software?’’ he asked. ‘‘They particularly wanted to know about that. Seems the commissioner saw it on television the other night.’’

  Diane rolled her eyes. Television had a lot to answer for. ‘‘We’re searching the national and international databases. So far we’ve come up empty on those. What I’m hoping is that another estate attorney will contact us.’’

  Diane updated Garnett on the findings in apartment 1-D and finally about the hairs from her attacker matching the blood on the money wrappers.

  ‘‘What money?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘I didn’t tell you about the money?’’ said Diane. ‘‘Right, I told Agent Jacobs. You know, between you, two marshals, and two FBI agents, I’m having trouble keeping track of who knows what and who has jurisdiction over what, not to mention who is investigating what.’’

  ‘‘You are getting a lot of law enforcement attention lately. The mayor was a little upset over the item in the paper about the museum and those . . . looted antiquities,
I think is what it said.’’

  ‘‘Did you tell him he doesn’t have a dog in that fight?’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘The problem with the mayor is he thinks all dogs are his,’’ said Garnett. He chuckled. ‘‘Jacobs, now, he’s investigating that thing about the artifacts, right?’’ said Garnett.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘And he thinks Clymene has something to do with it?’’

  Diane could hear the confusion in his voice. Nothing they had discovered pointed to that.

  ‘‘Just an angle he’s looking at,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Clymene does know something about archaeology and might have the contacts to mess with the museum. There’s no evidence of that whatsoever. So far everything’s a dead end in that investigation.’’