Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  “And she never said what might have triggered that?” Mac pressed.

  The Donahues shook their head.

  “And you never asked? You never asked Hannah what’s changed? Where did all of this sudden maturity come from?”

  They both shook their head.

  “Seriously?” Mac pushed, going bad cop, needing to be sure. “I find it hard to believe you noticed this change in your daughter and you never asked her what triggered it.”

  “I don’t like the tone,” Bill Donahue barked.

  “I don’t care. I’m trying to find a killer.”

  “And we’re trying to help.”

  “We’re just trying to be thorough,” Wire suggested quietly, putting her hand on Mac’s knee to calm him while putting her hand out towards the Donahues. “There’s a connection here. The Biblical verses the killer leaves behind suggests he’s punishing the girls, they’re reaping what they sowed. So we’re just trying to find anything that gives us some insight into what that might have been. We have three of the four victims as counselors from that camp. We think something happened up there.”

  “Hannah and I were very close,” Barbara Donahue answered, her eyes welling. “And she never said a word. To be honest, I just thought she started maturing and found some purpose in life. I was happy with what she decided to do and had no desire to question it.”

  “We were proud of her,” Bill Donahue added. “I respected what she was doing and the direction she chose.”

  Mac still pressed forward. “And now seeing this picture, Melissa Goynes and Sandy Faye don’t mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Bill Donahue answered emphatically. “I swear to you, McRyan, I never heard her mention those names.”

  “If she knew them, she never said a word to me about it,” Barbara Donahue added, wiping the tears away from her face. “We’ve seen, and I’m sure, in fact I know, Hannah has seen Sandy Faye on television doing the news and not once did Hannah ever, ever, say she knew her. Not once.”

  “How about Janelle Wyland,” Mac asked, still pressing. “Her name never came up?”

  William and Barbara again shook their heads. “Other than these killings, we’ve never heard the name before. We don’t recognize her. She was not a friend of Hannah’s.”

  The Donahues’ sons arrived at the house and Mac and Wire walked them through the same series of questions. Hannah’s brothers recognized Sandy Faye from television but had never met her and never heard their sister talk about her. The same was true of all of Donahue’s friends that Mac and Wire talked to, including Wendy Jonas, who they reached in Singapore.

  From the front lawn of the Donahue’s home, well away from the house, the sun quickly descending in the west, Mac put his phone on speaker and called Gesch and reported in. Gesch basically received the same responses from Faye’s family and friends as did Dorsett from that of Goynes’s family. They even had the detectives in Salisbury questioning Wyland’s family and friends even though she wasn’t in the picture, the thought being if Donahue, Goynes and Faye were connected, Wyland fit in somehow.

  None of the names rang a bell with anyone.

  The picture triggered no recollections.

  “I thought this was our break,” Gesch moaned.

  “It is Aubry, it is,” Mac answered.

  “But what is it? What happened, Mac?” Wire asked. “I keep running it around in my head and I ask: what happened up there?”

  “Something bad,” Mac answered. “Something very very bad. Something that these women experienced that they never talked about, never acknowledged and I’m betting never spoke of again. In fact, I’m betting they agreed not to see or talk to each other ever again.”

  “You don’t know that’s what it is,” Delmonico stated.

  “I’m guessing, sure,” Mac answered, “but I’ve got four dead bodies, three of them with a direct connection yet no record of them being in contact with one another since that summer seven years ago. If something bad happened to make someone angry enough to start killing, then it’s not a stretch to think these women vowed never to discuss it, never to see one another again.”

  “Get back to DC, Mac,” Gesch ordered. “Tomorrow morning I’m flying you two up to Lake Seneca. If something bad happened up there, it’s time for the two of you to find out what it was. And Mac, one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want to read about our break in the Post tomorrow morning.”

  • • • •

  Just after midnight, Mac slithered into the bedroom and Sally popped awake. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he answered, coming over and kissing her lightly. “You should be sleeping.”

  “That always happens better when you’re in bed with me,” she answered sweetly. “Besides, I wanted to wait up for you. Why so late?”

  “We were briefing the director and attorney general.”

  “You got a break, didn’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Seriously?” Sally answered and then did her best cavewoman, “Me prosecutor, me really good reader of witnesses, me know you and see look in your eyes, me know you caught break,” she said smiling. “Besides, if you’re briefing the attorney general and director late at night, you have something more than an update to provide. So what happened?”

  “A small break, nothing big. I’m going on a day trip to upstate New York tomorrow to look into something,” Mac said as he put his clothes in a hamper and then walked back into the bedroom in his boxers.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got.”

  “That’s all I’m giving,” he answered as he slid into his side of the bed.

  “What? You don’t trust me?”

  Mac leaned over and kissed her, “Trust? You work in the White House. People are already talking about how you got us involved in the case. I think it might be time for me to talk less and you to ask less.”

  “Really? You think I’d compromise your case?” Sally asked, lying on her side, facing him.

  Mac shook his head, “No. But I wouldn’t put it past others in the West Wing.”

  “Didn’t take you long to get cynical.”

  “What are you talking about? I came to this town cynical,” he answered as he adjusted his pillows.

  “But now you’re cynical about me,” Sally said, a tinge of hurt in her voice and on her face.

  Mac turned to face Sally and saw the disappointed look on her face and felt terrible, for about three seconds. Then he recognized her expression for what it was, “Quit working me.”

  “Shit,” Sally replied, laughing, rolling onto her back. “I almost had you.”

  “Listen,” Mac answered, seriously, leaning on his side, facing her. “I’d like to tell you more but I think the less you know right now, maybe the better. If the director wants to give the White House more, he can give it. I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

  “I have just one question.”

  “Sally,” Mac warned, rolling onto his back.

  “Have you found something that could embarrass the White House?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mac answered, hedging. He’d not worked that out in his mind yet.

  “You’ll tell me if we could be damaged, somehow, you’ll tell me, you’ll let me know, right?”

  “Yes,” he answered and then rolled and gave Sally one last kiss. “Now go to sleep.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Small town cop with big city brains.”

  The FBI jet landed at the Penn Yan airport and two black Suburbans awaited their arrival along with two stereotypical agents in dark suits, sunglasses and their hands clasped in front of them. “They look like extras in a Michael Bay movie,” Mac quipped.

  One Suburban was for them, which Mac quickly drove to the north side of Lake Seneca, through a large stone arch with Lake Seneca Lodge engraved in the stone, underneath which hung a wood carved sign announcing it as the summer home of the American Academic Honor Socie
ty. Through the arch, Mac drove down a long tree-lined drive that emerged into a large open area with the road splitting the manicured lawn and eventually circling in front of the large lodge. As Mac hopped out of the SUV, he could see the small dorms set back into the woods as well as the deep blue waters of Lake Seneca.

  A woman who looked to be in her mid to late forties, a white golf shirt with an AAHS logo and long tan cargo shorts came quickly down the steps, extending her hand. “I’m Alice Walton, the executive director of the camp. Please come inside.”

  Mac and Wire followed Walton inside the main lodge entrance, straight through a large seating area of couches and chairs and past a large stone fireplace soaring high into the dark timbers of the rafters. Past the fireplace, they turned left down a long narrow hallway to a corner office with large windows that overlooked a grassy hill descending gently down to the sandy beach and the lake.

  Walton’s corner office was spacious with a U-shaped desk in the corner. To the right as they entered the office was a seating area arranged around a rustic two-toned colored wood carved table. Coffee and pastries were placed on a tray on the table between a couch and two soft chairs that awaited their arrival. Walton sat down on the couch and quickly served them and then stated, “I can’t tell you how shocked we are to learn that three of our former counselors were murdered by this killer you call The Reaper. Have you learned anything further?”

  “Only that the three of them were here at the same time,” Mac answered, opening his leather folder to take notes.

  “Well, from what I’ve been able to uncover from our records, it was just the one summer they were all here together,” Walton answered taking three manila folders out of a brown red-rope file. “Melissa Ross was here as a counselor that summer, as was Sandy Faye, back then her name was Helen Williams. Hannah Donahue was the only name that rang a bell here initially because she was a counselor here for three summers and her father William was and remains such a generous contributor. They of course were all students here when they were in high school but not the same weeks.”

  “How is it they became counselors?”

  “We like to have college kids as our counselors and we recruit the counselors from the students who were here when in high school.”

  “The summer they were all here together, was there some sort of conflict or incident that would have been cause for concern?”

  “There is nothing in the files that point to that,” Walton answered, shaking her head and then sipping her coffee. “I have a lot of turnover of staff, in addition to a new batch of counselors every summer. I’ve been contacting people who were here at the same time to see if they remembered anything and at least so far, nobody has.”

  “We’ll need a list of those people,” Wire stated.

  “Of course,” Walton answered, handing over a folder with the information. “That’s what I have so far and we’ll give you anything we have, just let me know.”

  “How about the relationship of the three women; what, if anything can you tell us about that?” Dara solicited.

  “The only information I can glean from our records is that Hannah Donahue and Melissa Ross were counselors in the same dorm and in fact were on the same floor. Helen Williams worked in the next dormitory over.”

  “So Hannah and Melissa knew each other fairly well then,” Mac suggested.

  “I would say that’s likely. You work as counselors together on the same floor, by the end of the summer you’ll know each other well.”

  Mac shook his head, “Odd.”

  “Why?” Walton asked.

  “There is no evidence whatsoever that Melissa and Hannah Donahue ever were in contact again after that summer in any way shape or form. No phone calls, no e-mails, Facebook, texts, nothing. In fact, that’s true of all four of our victims. Other than the picture we found with Hannah, Melissa and Sandy Faye, there is no record of contact and we still don’t know where Janelle Wyland fits in.”

  Mac and Wire spent the next half hour working through the files and questioning Walton, but nothing probative came to life.

  “Let’s turn to speculation then,” Mac asked, pouring another cup of coffee. “If these three were to have gotten in trouble in that summer up here, how could that have possibly happened?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that since last night. The only time I think something like that could have happened would be on a Saturday night.”

  “Why on Saturday night?” Wire asked.

  “Sunday through Friday night, the kids are locked in here and the counselors are looking after them in the dorms. Nobody gets out of here then. But Saturdays are the transition day here. The students from the previous week leave by noon on Saturday and the next batch of kids doesn’t arrive until Sunday afternoon. Saturday nights the counselors have free and we do let them leave the camp so if they go out and get involved in something on a Saturday night …”

  “You might not know about it,” Mac finished, nodding his head.

  “Right. That’s all I can think of,” Walton answered. “Otherwise, we’d have a record of it because if kids get out of line or the rules are violated, we deal with it. We’ve sent kids home for trying to sneak out at night or otherwise violating the rules of the camp, and that’s true of both students and counselors. We don’t have many problems, but every once in a while something happens.”

  “But there’s nothing in any of these three girls’ records to suggest anything like that happened?” Mac asked as he thumbed through the files, which contained general information, dates of birth, high school and college records and reviews of their performance, exemplary in all cases—three girls with incredibly bright futures.

  “No,” Walton answered, pouring herself more coffee.

  “What would the counselors do when they left on a Saturday night?” Dara asked.

  “Go into town, maybe find a party to go to and just do whatever young college age kids do. This is vacation land up here. Lots of college age kids are around in the summer so you can imagine what they might possibly get into. College kids are college kids. Sometimes, if they don’t find trouble …”

  “It finds them,” Mac finished. “But from what you’re telling me, you don’t recall anything from that summer?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t and I don’t have anything in my files, no incident reports, anything for these three, or for really anyone that summer. Other summers have been a little more eventful but seven years ago we had a good quiet year.”

  Mac sat back in his chair and sipped from the coffee, which wasn’t bad. He looked to his right to Wire who was looking out the window to the lake, thinking.

  “One thing you might want to do is talk to the police chief in Geneva,” Walton suggested. “Chief Whitlock was here back then. Perhaps the girls got into something we never found out about and maybe he’d have something for you.”

  “Does that happen?” Wire asked. “Where your students get into trouble offsite and you don’t hear about it?”

  Walton nodded. “Let’s say the chief has informed me of some mischief he and his officers have come across over the years that he’s not told us of until a much later date. These things are usually minor, sneaking out or sneaking back in midweek or some other issue when they happened. But then a year or two later, he’ll get this big smile on his face down when I see him down in his booth at the Cozy Cousin Restaurant and he’ll say: ‘Did I ever tell you about the time …”

  • • • •

  After a stop at the Geneva Police Department, Mac and Wire were directed to find Geneva Police Chief Percy Whitlock at the Cozy Cousin Restaurant, a classic diner sitting on the corner of Exchange Street and Paradise Alley in downtown Geneva, two blocks from the lake.

  Whitlock, a large, round, African American man with his aviator shades tucked in the breast pocket of his shirt opposite his badge, was occupying a significant percentage of a corner table with an elderly gentleman, both ordering lunch. They walked up in time to hear the chie
f order an open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes. After introducing themselves and displaying their identification, Mac and Wire took seats opposite of the chief and Milo Fissure, the former and now retired chief of police for Geneva. Whitlock and Fissure cordially invited them to join for lunch, and given the time of day, Mac and Wire agreed, ordering quickly from the menu themselves. “The food here is tremendous,” Whitlock exclaimed happily pointing to his rotund stomach. “As you can see, body by Cozy Cousin.”

  “Where did you come from, Chief?” Mac asked as Whitlock looked to be in his mid-forties.

  “Buffalo. I was a homicide detective but the hours were running me ragged and the wife, well, she wanted a slower life, so when the position opened up here, I came over and interviewed with ole Milo who was setting to retire. A week later he offered and I took it and I ain’t never looked back.” Whitlock guffawed, “In a life full of sometimes questionable decisions, this was a great one. So,” he gestured to Mac and then Wire, “has the FBI dropped their dress code?”

  Wire and Mac were both casually dressed. “No, we’re more like consulting Feds than real ones.”

  “Ahh, you’re the ones I heard about on the news the other day if I’m not now mistaken.”

  They both nodded.

  “Refusing to wear the FBI uniform? A sort of, shall we say, form of fashion defiance?”

  “I don’t know about her, but I left all my dark suits back in Minnesota,” Mac answered smiling and the conversation continued for a few minutes on various matters, everyone getting to know each other, Whitlock and Fissure were both bullshitters. As their food arrived, Mac finally got a chance to explain the purpose of their visit, even though Whitlock had undoubtedly been alerted to what this would be all about.

  “Chief, you would have been on the job here a year or so seven years ago, and I suspect I’m really pushing the limits of your memory here, but do you recall anything in that summer that these three girls were involved in?”