by Jeff Miller
He wanted out of Bilford.
That night, after his parents went to bed, he slipped down the steps and grabbed the keys to his father’s new Skylark. He started it up and backed out of the driveway, edged it forward quietly for a block and a half, and then gunned it, tearing his way out of town. Merging onto the highway, he watched the speedometer bend toward one hundred, and then past it. He turned on the radio and cranked up the volume because the station was playing the entirety of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album. Track Six was “Kashmir,” and the pulsing beat shook the car so much that he felt the song in his hands as he gripped the wheel. In that moment, with the music blasting and the car shaking, he felt more free and more alive than he ever had before, so much so that he didn’t notice the police car behind him or its flashing lights and blaring siren.
He was in trouble, the way kids used to get in trouble. No arrest, no record, no real repercussions. The cops left it all to his dad, who beat him silly, but then it was done. Life went on as it had before. He finished high school, joined the navy, started a family, and somehow ended up back in the stench of Bilford.
Now, he was in a different kind of trouble. Now, there would be repercussions. Life would not go on as it had before.
Bilford was teeming with cops and agents, reporters and photographers, gawkers and scandal junkies. That’s why he’d driven to the Kroger in Cleves. Things were quiet here. The streets were empty. No one would be suspicious of a pickup truck in the Kroger parking lot.
He pulled an empty suitcase from the back of the truck and pulled it through the lot, across the street, down sidewalks east and north, until he got to 739 Harrison St., a house he knew to be empty and secluded. Sitting on the front step, he waited twenty minutes until a pair of headlights turned onto the road. The thin man walked to the base of the driveway, and the taxi pulled up, right on time.
The cabbie was an old man, with an old man’s sense of manners and propriety, so he hopped out of the cab and walked toward the thin man. “Early morning for you?” he said with uncommon cheer.
“And for you,” the thin man replied.
“Actually, a late night. You’re my last job, and then I’m on vacation.”
Another fortunate turn of events. “For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
Then it would be two weeks before anyone realized the old man was missing. “Anyplace special?”
“I’ve got a cabin in Michigan. Like to go up there and hunt.”
“I like a good hunt, too.”
“Big game?”
“The biggest. Would you mind popping the trunk?”
“Of course.” The cabbie slipped his key into the trunk and opened it. “Here you go, sir.”
“And here you go, sir,” the thin man replied, lifting a gun from his coat pocket. He pulled the trigger and shot the cabbie three times.
The thin man opened his suitcase and laid it on the ground, lifted the cabbie’s body under his arms, and dumped him into the cavity of the suitcase. The corpse’s legs dangled over the edge of the suitcase, and the thin man tried to bend them up against the cabbie’s chest so that he would fit inside it. No matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t get the old man to fit.
He lifted the old man out of the suitcase and tossed him in the trunk. Because there was no good place to stash a bloody suitcase, he tossed that in the trunk, too.
It was time to pick up Ms. Jenkins.
CHAPTER 44
At 4:55 a.m., there were already eleven cars in the Bilford County Morgue parking lot. Dagny pulled into the only empty space.
“Bunch of morning people,” Victor muttered.
As they exited the car, Dagny was startled by the anguished call of a wounded animal, but it was just Victor yawning. “I’m not a morning person,” he explained.
“No, you’re not.”
Bea Minor bounded out of the front door. “Right on time,” she said. “Like to see that.”
“Even early,” Victor replied.
“Early is on time,” she shot back. “On time is late in my world. Now follow me. You’re going to help me with this.”
They followed her to the rear of a Ford compact. She shoved a key into the rear lock and opened the trunk.
Dagny peered in at a boxed coffeemaker, an unopened package of four ceramic mugs, a bulk-size thirty-pound bag of ground coffee, a box of filters, and a brown box marked Cream and Sugar. “You said you needed coffee,” Bea said to Victor. “Well, here it is.”
Bea Minor had gone to Sam’s Club.
“You bought all this stuff last night?” he asked.
“We don’t drink coffee here.”
“And you did this just for us?”
“Not us. You. I didn’t ask for coffee,” Dagny noted.
“You said you needed coffee if we were going to meet in the morning,” Bea said to Victor.
Dagny wasn’t sure what was more unbelievable—that the coroner’s office didn’t have a coffee machine or that Minor didn’t understand that Victor was joking when he demanded coffee for their early meeting. She decided to enjoy his discomfort rather than think about the bewildering circumstances that had created it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you would—”
“We take hospitality seriously in Bilford, Special Agent Walton.” She shoved the coffeemaker into his hand. Dagny picked upon the enormous bag of Folgers, while Bea lugged the rest.
They followed the coroner into the building and down a hallway to her office. There were ten men and women of various ages and races standing there, waiting with somber visages. Each had a stack of folders, some several deep, in their hands. Dagny noticed that the papers in Minor’s office were all neatly stacked; there were jars filled with various tissues and organs, presumably human, and all of them were expertly labeled. A whiteboard on the wall was filled with drawings of various body parts and annotated with impressive and opaque scientific terminology.
Bea gestured for Victor to set up the coffee machine at the empty end of the table under the whiteboard, in the gap between neatly stacked piles of documents. He set his box down on the table and turned back to the assembled coroners, all of who were staring at him. “We can start,” he said.
“Get your coffee first,” Bea ordered.
“It’s really okay.” No one replied, but they all kept staring at him. Dagny signaled that he should make the coffee, lest Minor be offended that her troubles to procure the materials had been a waste. He set the box on the floor, opened the top, and lifted the Styrofoam casing from it. Pulling apart the Styrofoam, he removed the coffeemaker and set it on the table.
“There’s a sink over there,” Minor said, motioning to the back wall of her office. He took the carafe from the maker to the sink, filled it, and started back toward the machine.
“You really ought to rinse it out a few times,” one of the men offered.
Victor nodded and headed back to the sink, where he rinsed the carafe three times before filling it again. “Who else wants a cup?” he asked the crowd. No one answered. “So only me, then.” He turned to Dagny, looking for a lifeline. “You want one?” His face stayed frozen in a hopeful smile.
She let him suffer for a moment, and then said, “Yes, please.”
He mouthed, Thank you, and she nodded.
The crowd watched silently as he poured water in the coffeemaker, placed a filter in the machine, and dumped three scoops of coffee into it. Flicking the switch started the machine. He turned back to the crowd. “Okay, let’s start.”
Beatrice Minor stepped forward. “Between us all, we’ve got every unusual death of a Hispanic person for the last eight years in a two-hundred-and-fifty-mile radius. When I say unusual, it means that I have excluded deaths from obvious illness, clear accident, or a well-documented drug overdose. In sum, we’re talking about thirty-four people. Thirty-five once you count the death of the gas station attendant you asked about—we have that one, too.”
“Th
ank you,” Dagny said. “Who has that one?”
“I do.” A young woman in a white lab coat stepped forward and handed her a stack of three folders. “It’s on the top.”
Dagny opened it and skimmed through the file. Color photographs showed a charred body. The head had suffered the worst of it—only a sliver of the back of the blackened skull bone remained. “My goodness.”
“Yes,” the woman replied. “It was a bad one.”
She thought for a moment. “If he were standing back from the fireball, he’d have turned away before it hit him. If he were standing over it, it would burn him from the bottom up. I can’t imagine a way this wasn’t something unexpectedly inflicted upon him by another.”
“That’s what I found,” the woman said, flipping through the report and pointing to its conclusion.
Victor called out, “So, no one else wants coffee? You sure?” He had a mug in his left hand, and he lifted the carafe with his right. “Just Dagny, then?” He set two mugs on the table and began pouring. Tilting the pitcher too high, he poured coffee over the rim of the mug and onto the table, soaking some of Minor’s papers. He rushed to the sink and tore off a stream of paper towels, then wiped at the mess, all under the dour gaze of the coroner set. “So sorry.”
“When you pour, you should tilt it less,” one of the women suggested.
“Yes,” Victor said, dabbing at the spillage. “I think you’ve nailed the problem.” He looked up at Minor. “Really sorry about this.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m sure I will be able to read through the stains on those death papers.” For a moment, Dagny thought there might have been some humor in Minor’s deadpan delivery; there seemed to be a slight uptick at the corners of her mouth as she said it.
Turning to Dagny, Minor was all business again. “I’ve got samples for each of the cases in these files in the evidence room. Given the volume, I figured you wouldn’t want to take those with you, but they’re here if you need them.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Dagny turned to face the group. “In terms of prioritizing our review, it would help to note if anyone thinks they have something that might be linked to the unsub in our case.”
No one spoke.
“That’s what I figured,” Dagny said. “Thank you all for collecting these files—we truly appreciate it.”
They spent the next twenty minutes filling out the paperwork necessary for the transfer of the files into her custody. Each county had its own forms, and Dagny had hers. Photocopies were made, stapled, and clipped. Victor, perhaps out of obligation, drank three cups of coffee during the process.
As the coroners started to leave, Dagny pulled aside the woman who had examined the gas station attendant. “By any chance, did you get a sample of the fuel from the station?”
“Which one?” the woman replied. “All of the tanks blew—unleaded, supreme, diesel.”
“Which one started the fire?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did the investigators discover which fuel had been pumped last?”
“Not that I know of. My understanding is that the computers in the store were destroyed in the fire and that no data could be extracted from them.”
“Presumably a credit card would have been used to start the pump. Do you know if they checked to see which pump had been triggered last?”
“The transmission doesn’t have pump information attached to it, only the credit card number and amount of the charge.”
Dagny knew the charged amount wouldn’t identify the fuel type. Maybe there was another way. “Did any of the clerk’s clothes survive the fire?”
“The soles of his shoes. Parts of his pants. A piece of his collar.”
That might do it. “His collar?”
“It’s in Bea’s evidence room. I can get it.”
“Please do.”
The woman left and then returned with a small jar containing the collar fragment. Maybe it would help. Every gas company’s product had a different fingerprint. If the victim’s face had been doused in fuel, the collar might retain some of it. The FBI lab could try to extract it from the collar to see if it matched the fuel that had been collected at the silo. But then what? They were amassing good evidence of where the unsub had been, but none of it was helping discover who the unsub was or where he was now.
Dagny and Victor grabbed the stacks of files the coroners had given them and thanked Minor for her efforts. On their way out, Dagny handed Victor the keys. “You’re driving.” That way, she could start looking at the files in the car.
He opened the driver’s door. “By the way, thanks for helping me out with the coffee thing,” he said.
“Thanks for providing some comic relief.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the Bilford police station. I’ve got to get ready for a press conference.”
CHAPTER 45
When Allison Jenkins pulled her bag out the doors of the Hampton Inn at 5:32 a.m., the taxi was waiting. Its driver, a tall, thin man, leaned against the front passenger door.
“I know you,” the thin man said. “You’re the woman on the news. Abigail something?”
“Allison Jenkins.” This happened a lot—people insisted that they knew her but never remembered her name. It never failed to annoy her.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Can you pop your trunk?”
He looked at her suitcase somewhat wearily. “You going on a trip?”
“No.” The bag was filled with cosmetics, notes, papers, pens, her laptop, and a change of clothes—her standard haul for a remote shoot.
“Why don’t you climb into the backseat, and I’ll put this in the trunk for you,” he said.
“I’m capable,” she replied.
He grabbed the bag from her hand. “I’m an old-school driver, ma’am. My passengers don’t handle their own bags. They just ride in comfort to their destination.” He opened the rear door and gestured for her to slide inside. Rather than fight him on this, she obliged. He popped the trunk and shoved her bag inside, then climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Allison Jenkins. Oh, my. A celebrity in our midst. What brings you to Bilford?”
Was this man an idiot? “I’m here for the massacre.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “It would take a massacre to bring a fine lady like yourself to our hillbilly town. Where should I take you this morning?”
“Do you know where the silo is?”
“I do.”
“Take me there,” she said.
He turned the key and pressed the accelerator with such force that the car jolted forward. Allison grabbed the seat belt from above her shoulder and secured it to the seat.
The driver looked back at her. “Hard to believe something this big is happening in Bilford, don’t you think?”
Just her luck, she had a chatty cabbie. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through e-mails and texts. He didn’t take the hint.
“Have to imagine this is a pretty good deal for you?” he said.
That was a crass thing to say. “Excuse me?”
“Biggest story in the country. Have to think you’re getting some screen time on the network news. That’s got to be good for you.”
Of course it was good for her, but talking about it was unseemly. She ignored him and looked back at her phone. A text from her producer said they’d staked out a great location.
“I saw you on television yesterday,” he continued. “Looked pretty good to me. If I were a bigwig at NBC or something, you’d bet I’d hire you. Put you smack-dab on Good Morning America or something. You’re every bit as good-looking as any of them.”
She’d had enough of it. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to concentrate on some e-mails I’m getting for work—”
“New developments in the case?” he asked.
“No.”
“Like a lead on the guy who did all of this?”
She sighed. “No. I’m sorry, but I need
you to be quiet so I can concentrate.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m the same way. Hard for me to read if someone’s talking. Don’t worry, Ally. I will keep myself quiet.”
The forced familiarity of his use of Ally startled her. It was something only friends and family called her. There was something menacing about a man who went straight to a nickname.
She clicked into her Twitter account, trying to find the latest reports on the case. Instead, she found a lot of commentary but no new information. She clicked the “Compose” button and typed: Pretty sure my taxi driver is a maniac. Shades of De Niro. She clicked the “Tweet” button, but the tweet wouldn’t post. Her phone couldn’t connect to a network because she was a million miles from civilization.
“Now, me, I ditched my cell phone,” he said. “Don’t like what they do. We got along fine without them, so why do we need them now? You might need them for your job, I guess. I don’t need them for mine.”
“How does the dispatcher send you on a job if you don’t have a phone?” He’d tricked her into conversation. In her heart, she was always a journalist. No matter how little she cared about someone, she still couldn’t help but ask them questions.
“I’ve been driving for thirty-five years. All the cell phone did was make it easier for folks to get a ride from someone who doesn’t drive a cab.”
The car locks clicked. She looked up at the rearview mirror and caught his eyes looking back at her. “Forgot to lock them before,” he said. “Seems prudent, with a maniac out there.”
Or a maniac in here, she thought.
He laughed for no apparent reason. “Maniac, or whatever he is. Or she, I suppose. Could be a she, or even a them, I guess. What do you think?”
“I think I need to read through my texts,” she said, with little hope that he’d take the hint.
“Maybe it’s a them,” he said. “Probably a lot of people out there feeling what he feels. Feeling . . . a frustration.” He turned onto a small road. “Shortcut,” he explained.
