“See what you can find,” said Jeff. “I’ll be as quick as I can in the kitchen. Chief Hogan, wait here I don’t want to be crowded,” said Jeff.
Hogan returned to the den and found Jake sobbing.
“Jake, you can save us a lot of time. Where’s the body?”
“The bitch is in her bedroom under the floorboards. Under the bed,” he said and spat on the floor.
“Who is it?”
“Just a piece of garbage. It’s my so called mother!”
“Christ, Joe, telephone the Coroner.”
“Chief Hogan, we hit paydirt on this one. I found prints on the handle of the knife and on the blade in congealed blood. There’s a single thumbprint and a palm print on a sheet of writing paper bearing handwritten messages we found on the mirrors from the first two murder scenes. The blue rope is the same color as the fibers we found at the first two scenes.”
Hogan got his second wind. He shot out orders like a well-oiled machine gun. “Madge has some prints at the station. I want you to walk over there and check them out against the ones you’ve taken. Tell your guys to start ripping up the floorboards under the bed. Our sick friend here says his mother’s under there. The Coroner’s on his way. Joe, phone the station and get some uniforms over here to guard the building. Jeff, don’t forget to bag the laptop, we may need it. Agent Hammond, give me a hand to untie this scumbag. We gotta get him out of here and across the street.”
“With pleasure,” replied Hammond.
“What do we do about Jamie?” asked Hogan.
“Call off your search on Jamie Jameson. I’ll explain at the station,” said Eric Moody as he walked through the door.
Contents
Can Jamie solve the messages?
Jamie pulled his aching limbs out of the car and made his way toward the cabin. If Jake killed the first two, who killed the rest, and why? How did Ellie stab Bill if she was in cuffs? he wondered. Nothing but questions boiled in his mind in a raving torment. God I need some sleep, but why is that light on?
He knocked at the front door and it swung open on its own. Taking a step back, he fumbled in his pockets for bullets. Pulling out his gun, he loaded it with shaking hands and dropped one bullet in panic. Standing motionless, he craned his ear to listen for any noises in the cabin. He waited a full five minutes and entered, then stopped and listened. Again, no sound. Jamie moved quietly and swiftly into the hallway illuminated by the light from the open door of the bedroom. Entering the kitchen he could see the open window and, checking behind the door, he made his way to the bedroom.
Jamie grasped the door handle, turned it quickly and pushed it fully back to make sure no one was hiding behind it. Turning on the light switch, he checked behind and under the bed. Satisfied the room was clear, he moved to Bill’s bedroom. Scanning quickly, he could see no one and pushed the door back with force to make sure no one was behind it. He checked the closet; it was clear. Returning to the kitchen, Jamie closed the window and moved some pans and a cup rack on the windowsill to sound alarm if anyone should enter. He rushed to the front door and locked it.
Bill’s bedroom was a mess with clear signs of a struggle and blood on the blankets. The computer desk was turned on its side, and Stacy’s combat jacket was on the floor. Jamie entered the bedroom, put the table upright and lifted the computer back into place. Searching on the floor, he couldn’t find his notes. Jamie turned to the bed and lifted the pillows. There was nothing under the first pillow but under the second, his notes were in a crumpled mess. Stacy must have stashed them when she heard an intruder, but where the hell is she?
Jamie returned to the living and put the light on. He could see a blood smear on the back of the leather sofa, as if a bloodied hand had tried to grip it. Walking to the front door there was another handprint in blood on the casing of the foyer entrance. He turned the light out. Looks like Stacy put up one hell of a fight. What’s going on?
He returned to Bill’s bedroom, checking the spare bedroom on his way. Collecting the hunting knife from the drawer, he slipped it under his belt. This is stretching coincidence too far. He switched on the power to the computer, praying it would come alive. A message appeared on the screen, “Session interrupted press Enter to restore.” Jamie pressed Enter and the Word screen appeared, “Intruder, kitchen, notes, pillow. Answer first page.” Christ, she must’ve typed this in a panic.
Jamie wanted to scroll the page, but his training taught him to secure the area first, and he made for the patio doors, pulling down his ski mask. Sliding the door open, he scanned the lake and then made his way down to the mooring. The rowboat was still there. He walked along to the sand beach and cut into the woods. Circling the parking area, Jamie was thankful the clouds had cleared and the full moon lit the way. Reaching the highway, he moved across the entrance to the parking area and stopped in his tracks. Looking down he could see the unmistakable signs of burnt rubber leading from the driveway onto the road. Someone left in a hurry! He moved on, cutting back into the woods on the opposite side of the cabin and back to the patio door. Entering the cabin and locking the patio door, he stopped in Bill’s bedroom and sighed to himself, “Area secure.”
Jamie took off the ski mask and sat down at the computer desk, scrolling the document to the first page. He could see Stacy had been busy on the messages and had worked out the fifth one from Ellie’s bathroom mirror. “Who's sorry now, Revenge is sweet. Your bitch next. One shows worry, Rusting Hebrew toy even excites,” he could see on the screen.
The clue from Susan’s house, Stacy had only partly worked out, and he read it aloud.
“All considered. This one’s not for you try a suspect. Winced to go onto hot bone?...One, bitch, go, down.”
Jamie crossed off the letters to look at what remained and typed the letters on the page.
“onoet.”
“Net would leave ‘oo,’ so I can discount that. ‘One’ would leave ‘to,’” he said and added them to the words Stacy had found, “One, bitch, go, down, one, to go.” Jamie studied the words and rearranged them, “One bitch down, one to go?” That’s it! He typed the answers in a list.
1 Guess who I am
2 Mathematician
3 Here’s a clue?
4 No clues yet?
5 Whose sorry now, Revenge is sweet. Your bitch next?
6 One bitch down, one to go?
“What makes the last four different from Jake’s first two,” said Jamie aloud as he looked down the list. “Question marks. They’re all punctuated by question marks. Maybe Jake was telling the truth. ‘Here’s a clue,’ is total contempt for the police when he left DNA. ‘No clues yet,’ is a question to the police, mocking them. The fifth message at my house is strange. Maybe the killer knows someone in the police force and has a grudge knowing they would read it.” Jamie pondered on the fifth message. “Ellie didn’t live alone. I would’ve been the one to find her if he had succeeded. Say, the message was written on the mirror before a killing, ‘Whose sorry now. Revenge is sweet.’ Hmmm. That could refer to Ellie. The second part, ‘Your bitch next,’ would refer to Susan the sixth victim. Christ it’s aimed at me! They must have thought Susan was my girlfriend!”
Jamie sat back, his mind racing. It has to be someone that was at the Hawaiian night. What if Bill disturbed them at my house; he’s always turning up like a bad penny. That would explain everything. Ellie couldn’t have fought back; she was tied to the bed with her hands in cuffs, and Steve must’ve taken the blow to his head with his back to the intruder. Chief Hogan said his headphones where still on. There’s no way he could’ve heard anything. God Bill, I’m so sorry.
Jamie stood up, pacing up and down he tripped on a wire, pulling a cell phone from under the computer desk. Still chargin’, it must be Stacy’s. He picked it up. “One bitch down, one to go.” They wouldn’t know I’d find that, he reasoned. “What was the message? ‘All things considered,’ that’s the anagram part. ‘This one’s not for you try a suspect.’ That means
whoever it is knows I’m a suspect.” Someone must have been following me all along. “Damn! After speed dating. The guy under my car. The tracker device.” A picture flashed through his mind of the agents talking animatedly, as if they'd found something when they fitted their tracker. Oh my God! One down one to go, Mary must be next!
A burning sensation rose from the pit of his stomach to his gullet. Rushing to the bathroom, Jamie threw up in the sink. Lifting his head, he took a step back alarmed. On the mirror was a message. This time there was no anagram, it simply said, ‘Time is running, we have all three, did you enjoy your meal? Phone the police and death will be swift.’
Jamie pulled the cell phone from his pocket, inserted his SIM card into the other one and phoned Mary’s house, but the line was dead. What do they mean all three, does it mean they’ve killed Susan, maybe they think Stacy is a girlfriend too after following me here from the hospital, but why didn’t they kill her. Maybe they’re going to kill her away from here and are holding her hostage in case I phone the police. He hurried out to the car opening the trunk. Retrieving the rifles and putting them on the passenger seat, he took off for Mary’s house worried sick. He pulled out the cell phone, removed the SIM card and switched off the power.
Jamie looked at the time, five thirty. Fifteen minutes to Mary’s, the roads should be clear. His head was pounding, both from stress and from fatigue. The heavens turned dark, started to rain and then poured. Thank god! If there are any police looking for me, the rain should make it difficult. Jamie pressed the accelerator hard to the floor. All thoughts for his safety vanished.
When he arrived at Mary’s house, the rain stopped and the clouds disappeared. The curtains were drawn, the house in darkness, and her car was parked in the drive. Jamie jumped out and ran to the front door. There were no obvious hiding places for a key. He swiftly moved on, down the pathway to the back door. The door was open, a key still in the lock on the outside. Jamie drew his gun and entered with stealth.
He moved quickly, his eyes darting left and right, his gun grasped firmly in both hands following his vision, through the kitchen, into the living room and to the bottom of the stairway. The light from the full moon penetrated through a picture window, broken only by shadows cast from the branches of a swaying tree. Jamie stumbled on the first step, missing his footing and released a hand from his gun to steady himself on a stairwell. He instantly drew his hand back and looked in horror at his fingers covered in dark sticky goo. Blood! He darted up the rest of the stairs to find a doorway open. He entered, pushing the door full back with force and reached for the light switch.
“No! Dear God no!”
He fell to his knees. The comforter from the bed appeared as though it had being dragged in the direction of the doorway, the top sheet covered in blood.
Jamie’s arms fell to his sides, as he drudged to the other side of the bed and saw a lifeless body on the floor, the head almost completely severed.
“Christ why? Why did they kill Gertrude?”
On intuition, Jamie turned and moved to the bathroom, and his instinct proved correct. He found another message written in felt pen on the bathroom mirror.
“Time is ticking, third, fourth and sixth number of your army ID. West dock, if you want to save them. Wipe message.” Jamie looked at his watch, six ten. He committed the message to memory, wiped the message and hurried back to his car. He headed down the street, pulled off onto a side street and parked. Three four six of my ID, that makes the number two nine five, West Dock. What did he mean all three? He has Mary and Stacy. Who else, and why me? Time is ticking. Damn it’s six fifteen, but they don’t say how long I have. June should’ve arrived at the hospital. I’ll phone her. The kids need to know I can’t be there. Damn it, if I do, she may turn me in to the police. Instead, he switched on his phone, typed a text, sent it to Steve’s cell phone and switched his phone back off.
He turned on the ignition and headed for the docks.
Contents
Underhand deals
At the station, Joe took Jake down to the conference room under uniformed guard. Agent Hammond, Chief Hogan and CIA agent Eric Moody returned to Hogan’s office. None of them spoke. As they entered, Frank walked out straight ahead, expressionless, his hands cuffed. Ron Beckwith guided him, gripping his arm. Christine Baker followed in their wake. Hammond wondered what the hell was going on when Hogan grabbed Beckwith by the shoulder and brought him to a halt.
“What the shit? What’s Frank accused of?” Hogan asked.
“Fuck you, Hogan, off the shoulder,” he replied with a smirk, and then they trooped out of the office.
“Will someone for Christ’s sake tell me what’s going on around here?” shouted Hogan, as he entered his office and slammed his door shut.
“The same goes for me,” Hammond said. “What’s happening? Why call off the search on Jamie?”
Before Moody had a chance to answer, Hammond’s cell phone rang.
“We picked up a call from his SIM. He made the call fifteen minutes ago and we have a triangulation.”
“Does it show movement?” Hammond asked, turning away from Moody, pressing the cell phone to his ear and walking away.
“Five minutes along Brake’s Highway, heading toward the outskirts, then we lost him. Probably hit the city by now.”
“What’s your status?”
“We’re heading out there, to where he made the call. The map shows nothing but forest and farmland for miles, but there’s a building marked at Brake’s Lake where he switched his phone on. Looks like it could be the perfect hideaway. We’ve traced the number he phoned. Do you want the address it’s registered to?”
“I’ll phone back for that, keep me posted,” ordered Hammond and turned back to Moody.
“We need somewhere to talk in private,” Moody said to Hammond while glancing at Hogan.
“Just give me five minutes. I need to piss and I can freshen up. Maybe then I can take in what you have to tell me.”
“Yeah sure, you’ve had a long day.”
Hammond hurried to the bathroom and called his surveillance team back.
“Give me that address quickly,” he asked and took out his notebook to write it down.
“What you want me to do when we get there? Shouldn’t we wait for a search warrant?”
“He’s obviously heading away from there, so just take a look if you think it’s empty and try not to disturb anything. Then report back. I’ll arrange for a warrant later.”
Hammond looked in the mirror. The fatigue was plain to see in his eyes as he stroked the stubble on his chin, deep in thought. He didn’t like bending the rules, but he was certain Jamie was connected to the killings. He’s just too damn clever to be brought in by conventional means. Turning the tap, he cupped his hands and swilled his face with water running down his shirt. Not bothering to dry his face, he returned to the office.
“Do you want to talk to me with Chief Hogan?” Hammond asked Moody.
“No. The Governor is going to phone Hogan and put him straight.”
“Right then, if you would go find a conference room, I just need a few minutes with Chief Hogan on some procedural matters with the arrest,” said Hammond as he made his way into Hogan’s office.
“It’s all happenin’ today, Greg; I just hope we’re out of here before the day shift arrives. Joe phoned; Jake’s not talking. All he`s doin` is sittin’ there with a blank expression and humming Yankie freakin` Doodle Dandy. He might just slip this one with an insanity plea. Jeff confirmed the prints on the knife are his, and the message notes are a match to Jake. We have all the forensics we need, but...sorry his DNA doesn’t match the third murder. We have no forensics to tie him to any of the others. If you remember, the handwriting styles are different after the second murder. So, looks like we got a copycat.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about, but I don’t have much time. Eric Moody wants me in private about calling off the search for Jamie. Jamie made a cell call
and we have a triangulation,” he said and walked over to the map on the wall. “Here, take a look, Brake’s Lake,” he said, pointing to the map. “I have some guys checking out a building by the lake. He was moving on Brake’s Highway and we lost the signal.”
Pulling out his notebook, he showed Detective Hogan the address.
“I know that address; it’s right here.” Hogan put his finger on the map.
“That’s the address he telephoned.”
“Well if that’s the highway he was travelling on, and he’s heading for that address, I’ll have the helicopters search the vicinity and have a patrol car take a look.”
“Just one more thing, if you don’t mind. While I’m tied up with Moody, I need you to arrange a search warrant for that building, but I don’t have the address.”
“Brake’s Lodge? I used to patrol that area when I was on traffic,” said Hogan.
Hammond`s cell phone rang again and he answered.
“What?”
“You’re not gonna believe this. We found the police car in an outbuilding. Then we managed to enter through the kitchen window, but we made a mess. I’m afraid we smashed a few cups.”
“What’s there?”
“Definite crime scene. Plenty of blood stains and the computer was switched on. It’s on a Word document with a numbered list of weird messages and something about an intruder.”
“Read it all out to me,” he asked and wrote it down.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Stay there, I’ll get the search warrant out to you with forensics. Get out of there and stay alert in case he comes back. Keep watching for the cell phone.”
“Okay. By the way, the cell phone he used with his SIM card, It’s registered to a Stacy Gilmour. The address they have is an army barracks, but there’s a warrant out for her, GBH and she skipped bail. The records show she was discharged from the army and was due to have her apartment repossessed. God knows where she is.”
“Don’t tell me your guys went in without a search warrant?” asked Hogan, raising one eyebrow. “Don’t worry, Greg; I’ll have Madge cover your ass.”
Survival Instinct Page 28
