BATON ROUGE

by Carla Cassidy - Scene of the Crime 09 - BATON ROUGE

  The door finally opened to reveal a big guy clad in an undershirt and boxers. His hair was light brown and definitely sporting the bed-head look. “What the hell?” he demanded. “Everyone knows I work nights and sleep late in the mornings.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Georgina said and gazed pointedly at his hair. “It’s obvious your hair hasn’t had enough.” She flipped out her identification as Alexander showed his.

  “We have some questions to ask you,” Alexander said. “You want to do it out in the hallway or are you going to invite us in?”

  Roger raked a hand through his unruly hair and then opened his door. “Come on in. Do you mind if I at least pull some pants on?”

  “Go ahead,” Alexander said as they stepped into the small living room that had the feel of a very low budget television studio. Several computers sat on a desk, along with a couple of high-powered lights on stands. A large bulletin board appeared to serve as a backdrop and held a map of the United States, photos of the missing FBI agents and photos of the crime scenes.

  Alexander exchanged a glance with Georgina, who shrugged and sat on a sofa shoved against one wall. Freaky fan, or just a freak making news so he can report it? Alexander wondered.

  Roger returned to the room, now clad in a pair of worn jeans and with his hair damp and combed. “I assume you’re here to ask me questions about my part in the missing FBI agents case,” he said. He picked up his cell phone from the desk. “Mind if I videotape this interview?”

  “The only person doing any kind of taping is going to be me,” Alex replied and pulled a small tape recorder from his pocket.

  “Put your phone down,” Georgina said in a stern voice.

  He placed his phone back on the desk and then slumped down into the desk chair. “I can tell by your tones that there’s no good cop / bad cop thing that’s going to happen. You’re both bad cops, right?”

  “You’ve been watching too much television,” Alexander replied dryly. “We just want to ask you some questions...like how you have photos of crimes scenes that haven’t been released to the public.”

  He was particularly interested in the picture that depicted Sam and Daniella’s kitchen, with the milk and cookies on the table and a chair overturned. That was the only scene where it was obvious something wrong had happened.

  “I follow crime for my show.” Roger leaned forward, his round face animated. “The Roger Dodger Crime Scene Show. Have either of you ever caught it on the internet?” He gave them no time to reply. “Well, I guess one of you did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Actually it was a colleague of ours who caught your show last night,” Alexander said. “And I’d like to know how you got that photo of the Connellys’ kitchen. It was obviously taken during the crime scene investigation.”

  Roger beamed proudly. “Unfortunately, I can’t divulge my sources. It’s one of those amendment rights. But I’m very good at my job, and my job is to get as close to the investigation as possible, to make my viewers feel as if they know everything that’s happening with these cases.”

  “Why these particular cases?” Georgina asked. “There’s all kind of crimes happening all around the country.”

  “When I first heard that a former FBI agent, his wife and their kid had disappeared from Bachelor Moon, it felt like a story that might be big, so I immediately headed down to Bachelor Moon and started doing newscasts about that case.”

  “And how did you hear about the Mystic Lake case?” Alexander asked, at the same time trying not to be distracted by the scent of Georgina so close to him.

  “I check all the major news sources all the time. I caught wind of that one from a Kansas City source and left here by plane. I rented a car in Kansas City and then drove to Mystic Lake and started on-location podcasts.”

  For the next hour Alexander and Georgina grilled the baby-face Roger Dodger, who appeared open and eager to help them in any way possible. Unfortunately, nothing he had to offer was any help.

  By the time they left his apartment Alexander’s head was jumbled with thoughts. Neither of them spoke until they were back in his car.

  “I’ve heard of perps insinuating themselves into some element of the investigation,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s the case with Roger or not.”

  “He’s physically fit enough to be able to move the bodies if they were unconscious,” Georgina replied. “And he definitely simmered with excitement while he talked about the case.”

  “Yeah, simmered with a little too much excitement in my mind. Something about him left a bad taste in my mouth.” He started the car and pulled out of the apartment parking lot.

  “So, he goes up on our whiteboard and we do more digging into who he really is and what, exactly, he’s up to,” he added. What little background information they had gotten from Roger would have to be vetted.

  “That still makes our person of interest list pathetically short,” Georgina replied.

  “We’re only a couple of days into this, Georgina. It’s going to take time.”

  “I know. I just hope...” her voice trailed off as she turned to look out the passenger window.

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence; he knew exactly what she was going to say. She just hoped the seven people they sought had enough time to be found alive.

  * * *

  JACKSON REVANNAUGH HAD BEEN ANGRY ever since he’d awakened on a top bunk in a jail-like cell with Marjorie unconscious on the bunk below him. The last thing he’d remembered before arriving in the cell was making love to Marjorie and then falling asleep.

  He’d gone to bed wearing boxers and when he’d become conscious he’d found a pair of his jeans and a T-shirt in the cell. There had also been clothes for Marjorie, who had been taken from the bed in her nightgown.

  It had been six days since then, and in those days Jackson had come to know the others who shared the same fate. On one hand he was relieved to know that they were all alive; on the other hand he knew they were all in big trouble.

  The only ray of sunshine was little Macy, who sang songs and made up stories about princesses being rescued by handsome princes. The sound of her sweet little voice coming from the cell on the other side of Amberly and Cole’s broke his heart. No kid should be here. Nobody living and breathing should be here. Hell, he didn’t even know where here was.

  He’d already learned the daily routine. The creep who had taken them showed up each morning wearing a ski mask and bearing breakfast sandwiches and cups of coffee or juice. The trays were slid through a slot, just as prisoners were served in jail cells.

  There was rarely any lunch, and then dinner was served the same way. There was just enough food to keep them alive, but not quite enough to allow them to thrive.

  When their captor delivered the food, he never spoke, although Jackson had learned from the others that he’d interrogated Sam, Amberly and Cole several times.

  Jackson now sat on the lower bunk, Marjorie curled up against him. Guilt weighed heavily on him. She shouldn’t have been here. He’d encouraged her to leave Kansas City and come to Baton Rouge to continue the relationship they’d formed while he was working the case of the missing Amberly and Cole.

  If he hadn’t encouraged her, if he’d just walked away from her, then she wouldn’t be sitting in this hellhole with him. She’d be safe at home.

  He tightened his arm around her and she raised her head and looked at him, love shining from her eyes and pulling a lump into his throat. “I’m so sorry, Maggie,” he said softly. “I should have just walked away from you and left you in Kansas City.”

  “I didn’t want to stay in Kansas City. I wanted to be with you,” she replied, keeping her voice low so that the others couldn’t hear their conversation.

  “And now here you are,” he replied with a
trace of bitterness.

  “In your arms, exactly where I want to be,” she said. “Jackson, I love you, and no matter what happens here, I will always love you.”

  His heart filled with his love for her. “And I will always love you.” He lowered his lips and gave her a gentle kiss and at that moment the far door in the distance swung open and their captor walked in.

  He grabbed a folding chair and positioned it in front of Jackson and Marjorie’s cell. “I think it’s time we have a little chat, Agent Revannaugh.” He sat down.

  “I can’t imagine what we’d have to chat about,” Jackson returned, aware of the silence from the other two cells.

  “On the contrary, you have a wealth of information I need.”

  Marjorie threw herself against the bars. “Why don’t you take off that stupid ski mask and face us? Why don’t you just go to hell?”

  The captor pulled a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Marjorie. “Agent Revannaugh, I suggest you get control of your woman or I’ll take care of her and you can spend the rest of your time here with her rotting corpse.”

  Jackson instantly grabbed Marjorie and threw her behind him. “She won’t be a problem. What kind of information do you want from me?” His chest was tight, but it eased slightly as Marjorie curled up on the bottom bunk and the man shoved his gun into his waistband.

  “When you were chasing the Twilight Killer, what kind of mistakes did he make that eventually led to his arrest? He killed five women with baseball bats before you finally caught him.”

  What the hell? Jackson thought. That particular case was a little over two years old, and for a two-month period the women in Baton Rouge had been afraid to leave their homes at the time between day and night.

  “He got sloppy,” Jackson finally answered. “They always get sloppy and make mistakes.”

  “Like what?” The captor leaned forward as if eager to hear any information Jackson could impart.

  “In that particular case we found the bat he’d used on his last victim in a storm drain. He’d gotten careless and hadn’t bothered to wear gloves. We got a couple of good prints off it and the man was already in the system because of an arrest for domestic abuse.”

  “In your personal experience what other mistakes do killers make to get caught?”

  Jackson frowned. This was all so bizarre. Who was this man who’d managed to get seven people in his lair? And where was this place where he kept them?

  The question-and-answer period lasted for about twenty minutes. The man was totally focused on how criminals got caught, on what mistakes they made.

  Jackson didn’t pretend not to cooperate. The price was too high if he didn’t. Besides, most of the information he had to impart could be found by studying any criminology book or the dozens of tomes written on profiling.

  With a glance at his watch and appearing to be satisfied with the conversation, the man got up. He folded his chair and carried it to the wall.

  “You’re a mean Mr. Poopy Head,” Macy said.

  It was as if time stood still. Everyone froze as Macy’s words hung in the air. The man pointed his fingers like a gun at her.

  “Bang,” he said and then left by the door he’d entered.

  Chapter Seven

  The next couple of days went by in agonizing slow ticks of the hands on the clocks. Georgina’s phone had remained silent, and that worried her. She had hoped that the perp would continue to call at regular intervals. She had hoped that somehow the calls would give up some clues as to the identity of the man they sought. Each morning when she arrived, she set the phone in front of her on the table, just in case a call came in.

  She was also frustrated by Alex, who had done nothing at all but what she’d asked, treated her as part of the team and nothing more.

  It was exactly what she’d wanted and yet now that he appeared distant and completely professional, she realized she missed the way he’d looked at her before, as if he’d never really stopped loving her. She missed the private conversations that had gone beyond the case, even though most of them had made her uncomfortable.

  She glanced up from her laptop to see him at the end of the conference table, immersed in paperwork. As usual he wore black slacks, but today he’d paired them with an ice-blue shirt that made his eyes appear a glacier-blue. His dark hair was slightly rumpled, only adding to his overall hotness.

  She focused back on her computer, wondering if there would ever come a time when she didn’t find him attractive, when she didn’t look at him and remember what it had felt like to be naked with him, to feel his warm flesh against her own?

  The case, she told herself. Work on the case and stop thinking about Alex. She’d been tasked with finding out everything she could about the hotshot self-proclaimed newsman, Roger Cambridge.

  All the members of the team were in the room except Nicholas, who had left earlier to get some lunch. A cloud of frustration hung heavy in the air. Everyone felt the lack of forward motion, the stagnant condition of the case, despite the short length of time they’d been working it.

  The press conference had gone off, posters of Jackson and Marjorie had been plastered all around town and the TIPS lines that had been set up in another conference room, manned by trained volunteers, were receiving dozens of calls.

  The volunteers would be able to determine if the calls were the usual crazies or something that needed to be checked out. So far the TIPS line had yielded nothing worthwhile.

  It was just after two and Georgina was fighting against an afternoon drain in energy. She got up from her chair and walked over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. Before carrying it back to her chair, she stretched and tried to shove away the weariness of inactivity.

  She was halfway back to her chair with the coffee when her cell phone rang. The coffee sloshed over the rim as she hurried to her seat, conscious of everyone’s gaze focused on her.

  Her insides trembled as she placed her cup on the table and then answered the phone, as usual punching speaker and record at the same time. “Agent Beaumont,” she said.

  “Ah, Georgina, have you missed me?” Bob asked.

  “Actually I have,” she replied. “I thought maybe you didn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

  “You’re my closest friend, Georgina, and I want to continue the discussion we were having the other day about family.”

  Georgina closed her eyes, a familiar pressure of pain filling her chest as she thought about her family. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you let Macy go? Just drop her off at some mall or in the middle of a park and drive away and then we’ll talk about my family.”

  “Georgina, are you trying to call the shots here?” Bob laughed, the sound a sinister one that crawled up her spine. “How about we talk about you first and then I’ll consider your request to release the little princess.”

  A reckless hope buoyed up inside her as she kept her focus on the face of the cell phone. “Ask your questions, Bob, and then we’ll see if you’re a man of your word when it comes to reciprocating.”

  She felt Alex’s presence right behind her, smelled the familiar scent of his cologne and a sense of calm, of security swept through her.

  “Do you have siblings, Georgina?”

  “Two older sisters,” she replied.

  “Do you have a good relationship with them?”

  “I don’t have any relationship with them.”

  “Why is that?”

  Once again Georgina closed her eyes as ancient memories cascaded through her...bad memories...horrendous ones. “I don’t have anything to do with any of my family because they were verbally, physically and emotionally abusive to me,” she replied, despite the ever-stronger constriction in her chest.

  “Why was that, Georgina?” Bob asked. “Were you a bad little girl?�
��

  Alex’s hand fell to her shoulder and even though she’d told him she wanted him to treat her only as a professional, she was grateful for the touch that kept her connected to the here and now as she darted down the rabbit hole where all her monsters lived.

  “No, I wasn’t a bad little girl. My problem was that I was born a girl. My sisters are four and five years older than me. When my mother got pregnant again my father was certain she was going to deliver him the son he desperately wanted. Instead he got me. He called me the abortion that should have happened.”

  She was vaguely aware of Alex’s fingers tightening on her shoulder as she fought the demons of her past. The last thing she wanted to do was bare her skeletons in front of the team, in front of Alex, but she would do it if it helped further the investigation. She would give to Bob what she’d never been able to give to Alex or anyone else on the face of the earth.

  She’d give him her nightmares.

  It was as if Bob had poked a hole in a dam and now the flood of evil spilled from her in an emotional burst. “Yeah, Bob, I had a crappy childhood. My father hated me and insisted that my mother and sisters have nothing to do with me. I was kicked and beaten by all of them when I wasn’t locked in a closet for days at a time.”

  “I hear your pain, Georgina. I feel your pain,” Bob said. “My old man was a mean drunk and he was drunk most of the time. I was beaten nearly every day of my life and my dear mother did nothing to stop it.”

  “Tell me, Bob, how did you manage to get the people you kidnapped?” Georgina asked. Despite the turmoil and chaos the discussion about her past had stirred up in her head, she hadn’t lost track of her main goal—to get any information she could from him. “Did you take them alone or do you have a partner?”

  Bob snorted. “I work alone. Partners only screw things up.”

  “So did you just surprise them and force them at gunpoint to go with you?” she asked.

  “How pedestrian,” he replied dryly. “Actually, the one thing my daddy taught me was how to blow poison darts. From our saggy little porch I could shoot a gator in the eye from ten feet out. Of course I didn’t use poison for my victims. I used just enough tranquilizer to knock them out long enough for me to move them into their new homes. The drug has the aftereffect of loss of memory for several days, but that worked in my favor. Amberly and Cole were the most difficult because I had to keep them continuously drugged throughout the long road trip home.”