by Tami Dane
“Sure. But we’re not asking for any diagnoses or medical information. Just names.”
She shrugged.
Silence.
Looking a little more uneasy, she glanced back and forth between JT and McGrane. “Will this take much longer? I need to be at work in an hour.”
“I think we’re just about through,” JT said.
Pietrzak visibly relaxed. “Okay.”
“What sort of personal information do you have access to in the paperwork you’re provided by your employer? Name? Birth date? Address?”
“Sure. All of those.” Her eyebrows scrunched together. “But so would anyone else working for the doctor, doing medical billing or any other contracted services. I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at.”
“Just a few more questions,” McGrane said. “Have you ever visited a patient, for either personal or professional reasons, in her home?”
“No, never. I’d have no reason to.”
One thing I’d learned while reading up on interrogation on the way here was the relationship between eye movement and truthfulness. According to several studies, a subject’s eyes will shift up and to their right when they are asked to imagine something, to construct an image—aka, something that isn’t real. In contrast, that same subject’s eyes would shift up and to their left when they are asked to recall or remember a visual image of something that is real. I’d read that the technique wasn’t foolproof. But it was useful.
This is why I’d been watching Pietrzak’s eyes throughout the interview. If Bandler and Grinder’s research was accurate, Terry Pietrzak had been honest in answering all but one question.
I’m convinced that tragedy wants to harden us and our mission is never to let it.
—Unknown
10
An hour later, I was still sitting on the other side of the mirror. Things hadn’t changed much from my perspective, but they sure had from Pietrzak’s.
The interview had taken quite a turn. Detective McGrane confronted her with both the facts she’d supplied and some lies he’d constructed to make her look guilty. He interrupted her every time she started to deny guilt, suggesting several different scenarios that were completely plausible, while continuing to cut off every denial. He twisted her objections into justifications. He expressed empathy. He offered a couple more scenarios, which were more socially acceptable, hoping she’d confess to one of those. It was a textbook study in police interrogation techniques.
When she still held out, refusing to confess, he continued to ask the same questions over and over.
The woman never once admitted guilt.
She never once asked for a lawyer.
She only appeared to be lying once. As it turned out, that was because she had visited a patient’s home—though not one of our victims. To purchase some Vicodin. She had a twenty-pills-a-day habit.
JT and McGrane excused themselves from the room.
Out in the hallway, JT shrugged. “We need more evidence to go on. She’s not biting.”
“She has motive. Selling infants on the black market would certainly help support her addiction. And she has some medical training. But she looked genuinely shocked when you told her about the murders,” I told him. “I’ve been watching closely. The only possible sign of dishonesty I caught was when McGrane asked her if she’d ever visited a patient at her home.”
JT’s phone rang. He checked it, then answered.
Based on his end of the conversation, I knew we were leaving. He ended the call. “Shannon and Scott Kersey are in custody in Michigan. We’re flying out in thirty.”
“Okay. What about Pietrzak?”
“McGrane’s going to keep working on her. But if he can’t get anything, he’ll probably release her.”
We both had our overnight bags with us. All agents are required to keep a packed bag with them at all times—a go bag—in case they’re called out of town at a moment’s notice. We headed to the airport together. Anticipating a long night, and hoping to avoid any further problems with JT, I closed my eyes and pretended to take a nap. While I supposedly dozed, I was aware of JT sitting in the seat across the aisle from me. He was doing something on his computer. I didn’t bother looking.
The flight was short. I took the time to sort out the few facts we had in the case and the many questions that were left to be answered.
We knew:
Three women had died.
All three had been killed in their homes.
The killer had most likely delivered their babies and then drained their blood.
The children were missing.
The killer was targeting pregnant women.
Our one and only suspect—Terry Pietrzak—had recently moved from Michigan. And here we were, winging our way to Michigan.
And the killer had managed to deliver the infants and kill the mothers without leaving any signs of a break-in, no signs of the missing children, and no forensic evidence on the scene.
We suspected:
The unsub had killed before.
The unsub was a female.
We didn’t know:
How the unsub was finding her victims.
What, if any, connection there was between Pietrzak and the Kerseys.
What the unsub’s reason for killing was. (Monetary gain, perhaps. Or, in the case of a vampiric creature, sustenance. Or both.)
How the unsub was able to break in to her victim’s home.
How she was killing her victim, delivering the baby, and removing all evidence without being seen or heard by anyone else in the home at the time.
Nor did we know what the unsub was doing with the babies.
In summary, we had more questions than answers.
I was hoping, by some miracle, the Kerseys would give us at least some of those answers.
A few hours later, we were standing in the Grand Rapids Police Department, talking to an officer named Beasely. He said, “Want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Bad,” I said.
“Scott Kersey’s already lawyered up. Wouldn’t even give us his name.”
I heard JT mutter something that I would rather not repeat.
I sighed. Had we just traveled all this way for nothing? “Now ... the good?”
Beasely grinned. “His wife hasn’t.”
JT clapped his hands together. “Let’s talk to her before she changes her mind.”
We followed Beasely down the hall to the interrogation room.
“Got an observation mirror?” JT asked as we walked.
“Nope. Been wanting one, but our budget’s tight. We’d rather spend the dollars on safety gear.”
“I hear that,” JT responded. He glanced at me. “Promise you won’t say a word and you can come in the room with me.”
“You bet. I promise.”
In we went.
Shannon Kersey’s eyes tracked my movements as I made my way to an empty chair. We measured each other up across the table. Yesterday, back at the PBAU, I’d taken a look at her rap sheet. It wasn’t the longest I’d seen. Wasn’t the shortest either. She’d lived a rough life, spent a good number of years in and out of jail for prostitution. Only recently, after marrying Kersey, had she graduated to scamming people.
I took a chair set off to one side, reserving the other two—both facing Kersey—for Beasely and JT.
They sat.
Right away, Kersey started talking. “I’ll give you anything you want on my husband. I want to make a deal.”
Could it be that simple? I doubted it. For one thing, I doubted Scott Kersey was our killer. He was the wrong gender, if our initial profile was right.
“What can you give us?” Beasely asked.
“Names. Dates,” she said.
Beasely and JT exchanged glances. Then JT took over. “What do you know about Victoria Sprouse?” he asked.
“I know she’s dead. I know she’s my neighbor. And I know she was carrying my husband’s child.”
“What do you know about her death?” JT asked.
“Nothing, that’s what I know.” The woman’s eyes never left JT’s. If she was lying, she was a damn good liar.
“Are you sure?” JT asked.
“Positive. We were ... busy that night.”
“Can anyone else testify to your activities?”
“Yeah, Angie Feder.”
“Who’s Angie Feder?” Again, JT.
Shannon Kersey’s smile was seductive and sickening all at once. “A friend. Let’s just say none of us left our bedroom until well after dawn.”
If her claims could be verified, that cleared both her and her husband from our short list; though, in truth, they hadn’t been on our list, anyway. I was more hoping they’d heard or seen something.
As if JT had read my mind, he asked, “Can you tell us if you heard or saw anything out of the ordinary that night?”
“I told you, we were busy. Maybe we got a little noisy too.”
“Got it.” Beasley slid JT a sidelong glance. I had a feeling I knew what the two guys were thinking.
“Had Mrs. Sprouse told you she’d noticed anything out of the ordinary recently?” JT asked. “Had she heard or seen anything suspicious, felt uneasy about anyone, noticed someone following her?”
“No.” For the first time since the questioning had started, Kersey’s gaze flicked to the table. “Well, there was one thing. But it couldn’t be anything important.”
“What’s that?” JT asked.
“She said this ugly bird kept hanging around outside her window. It gave her the creeps. But a bird couldn’t have killed her. That’s silly. Oh, now that I think about it, there was something else. She’d said one of her husband’s buddies was giving her a hard time.”
“Did she say exactly what was going on?” JT asked.
“No. But when she told me, she got really emotional.”
“What about a name?” JT asked.
The woman thought about the question for several seconds. Her eyes lifted to her left. “I don’t remember. Maybe it was Joe. Or was it Jack?” She shook her head. “Sorry, my memory for names is shit.”
“If you remember the name, we’d appreciate a call,” JT told her.
“Sure.” She turned her attention back to Beasely. “Is that it? Don’t you want to ask me about the other stuff? Do I get my deal?”
“We’re not through yet.” He motioned to JT. “You need anything else?”
“Actually, yes. Does the name ‘Terry Pietrzak’ mean anything to you?”
Kersey echoed the name. “No. Who’s Terry Pietrzak?” Shannon Kersey’s lips thinned. “Who is Terry Pietrzak?” she repeated, her voice a tiny bit sharp. She mumbled something under her breath. I think it was along the lines of, “I’m going to castrate the bastard.”
Clearly, Shannon Kersey had no idea who Terry Pietrzak was.
“Did Mrs. Sprouse ever mention the name?”
“No.”
He pulled a picture of Pietrzak from his bag and slid it toward her.
Kersey’s eyes flashed. “Oh. I know her. That’s the woman who did my ultrasound before my baby was born. Why?”
“Did Mrs. Sprouse mention having an ultrasound recently?” JT asked.
“Sure. She had one last week. Found out she was carrying a boy. She was so happy. So was her husband. At the time, he didn’t know ... you know.”
JT nodded. “Did she talk about anything unusual happening during the procedure?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Did she mention talking to the technician, or knowing her?”
“No. All she did was show me the photographs. I couldn’t see a damn thing in them. I never can. Not even my own. But she said she could. Never said a word about the person who did it. Nothing good or bad. I can tell you this, that woman did my ultrasound too, and she didn’t do or say anything strange or suspicious to me.”
“Okay. Thank you.” To Beasely, JT said, “I think we’re done.”
We left the room.
Kersey got to stay.
Evidently, Beasely had plans for her.
I was disappointed, frustrated. We’d flown all this way for that. For a friend’s name she couldn’t recall and an ugly bird.
JT thanked Beasely and we both shook his hand before leaving.
In the rental car, I snapped on my seat belt. “So much for that. We’re no closer to solving this case than we were earlier.”
As he started the car, JT flicked his eyes at me. “This one’s bugging you.”
“Sure. There are babies involved. Infants. Isn’t it driving you nuts too?”
JT shifted the car into drive and steered out of the parking spot. “Yes. But I’ve been at this longer than you. I’ve learned to keep my emotions under control. At least to a certain extent.”
“Maybe I don’t want to get to that point.”
“Yeah. And maybe sometimes I wish I could feel more. Let’s head back to Quantico. I don’t think there’s any reason for us to stay the night here. Maybe by tomorrow we’ll catch another break. We haven’t talked to Peyton and the rest of the team yet.”
“Let’s hope they’ve done better than we have.”
We got back in town in the wee hours of the morning. Even after sleeping during the flight, I had to fight to stay awake during the drive home from the airport. After brushing my teeth and stripping out of my clothes, I fell into bed. My alarm rang five minutes later, or so it seemed. I hit snooze twice before finally summoning up enough energy to get out of bed.
My cell phone rang while I was in the shower.
JT.
“There’s been another killing,” he said in his message. He left the address and asked me to meet him there. I dosed up on caffeine and ran out of my apartment with a travel mug, my laptop case, and a couple of prewrapped muffins that came out of a box. I munched and slurped on the way. Thanks to the sugar and caffeine, I was feeling pretty much human by the time I’d parked.
JT met me in front of the house. “It’s the same as the others. Puncture wound in the groin. Blood drained. But we might have caught a break with this one. The husband woke up and said he saw something weird. McGrane isn’t buying his story, since the husband admitted he’d been drinking heavily last night.”
“What did he think he saw?” I asked, feeling a little tingle of hope.
“I don’t know. I haven’t interviewed him yet. I was waiting for you.”
“Let’s go.”
We found the victim’s husband, Ben Townsend, sitting in the living room, talking to McGrane. Townsend looked exhausted, mentally and emotionally spent, and overwhelmed. I could only imagine how awful he actually felt.
“Sloan Skye,” I said when McGrane introduced us to the husband. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“It was like something out of a Stephen King movie. I’m telling you,” Townsend said, his glance flicking toward the window, “I don’t know what the hell it was, but I gotta believe it was what killed my wife.”
“Sir, would you mind describing what you saw, from the beginning?” JT asked, pulling out a notebook.
I grabbed my phone and put on the audio recorder.
“It was just after one. I’d had a lot to drink and was feeling like shit, so I got up to go to the bathroom. Since my wife became pregnant, I’ve been sleeping on the far side of the bed. Natalie gets up a half-dozen times every night. It made sense. Anyway, as I was coming around the end of the bed, I tripped over something. It was ... long, pale, a tube of some kind. It was coming from the window, stretching across the floor, and disappearing under the bed. I thought about grabbing it. But I had to get to the bathroom in a hurry. You know how it is, right? Anyway, when I went back to bed, I looked for it, but it was gone.”
JT and I exchanged looks.
JT wanted to believe the husband’s testimony.
So did I. Even though he’d been under the influence of alcohol. This was the first time a husband had possibly been awake and alert around
the time of the killing.
“Sir, is there any possibility that you might have been under the influence of a drug that could have caused a hallucination?” I asked. “It’s not so much that we care what you were taking than it is that we need to make sure you really saw what you believe you saw.”
Townsend’s bloodshot eyes widened as he nodded. “It was real. I’m telling you. As real as you and me. I drink too much. I’ll admit that. But I don’t do drugs. Never have.”
“How much would you say you drank last night?” McGrane asked.
“I had twelve beers. And half a pint of vodka”
That was a lot of alcohol.
“How often do you drink?” I asked.
“Well ... every day,” he admitted reluctantly. “But, I swear, what I saw was real.”
“Have you ever hallucinated after drinking alcohol?” JT asked.
Townsend sighed. “Yes. But it was years ago. I’d been drinking really heavy back then. More than now. Every day. And I ended up in the hospital after having some problems. They called it”—he visibly searched for the words—“‘alcohol-induced psychosis,’ I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. I went through rehab and stopped drinking. Stayed sober for almost five years. I just started drinking again.”
“How long ago did you start drinking again?” JT asked.
“I started again when I was laid off work. I mean, who wouldn’t? I lost my job. The bills were piling up. That was right after Christmas.”
That was over six months ago. If he’d been drinking twelve beers and half a pint a night since then, he had built up a pretty hefty tolerance. It was a known fact that alcohol tolerance could impact the effect of certain drugs, such as painkillers and anesthesia. If the unsub was dosing the husbands to give her time to kill, that could be why he woke up and the others hadn’t. Then again, there was also a good chance he was having another bout of alcohol-related psychosis.
But something in the back of my mind told me he might have seen what he thought he saw.
“Would you consider providing a blood sample for testing?” I asked.
