Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  “I’d agree he’s a dog, a dog whose head I’d like to bash in. That’s what I’d like to do,” Wire answered, arms crossed, defending Mrs. Weiss, a member of the sisterhood.

  Mac looked over to his partner, who was clearly peeved at the shocking discovery of yet another unfaithful husband in the world. He grabbed the radio, “Keller, I assume the lights have remained dimmed?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Mac looked at his watch, 9:48 P.M. “Settle in then, I suspect this could take a while.”

  “Copy that.”

  It took over four hours. “Mac, Cadillac is on the move,” Keller reported.

  “And Richardson?”

  “She must still be inside. There is only one person in the Caddy.”

  “Stay on her, she may stay and ride out the storm,” Mac directed and then yawned, a big yawn. It was after 2:00 A.M.

  Wire sat curled up in a leather chair, nodding off, exhausted.

  “You two go home,” Delmonico suggested. “The night is over. All they’re doing at this point is sitting on her, waiting for her to awake from her sex-induced slumber. If anything happens we’ll call.”

  Mac looked to Wire, “You want the spare bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Mac’s head hit the pillow.

  He slept deeply, sinking into the soft, comfortable bed, loving the coolness of the house, the strong hum of the air conditioner keeping out the outside noise. He didn’t react at the first ring, or even the second, but the ringtone eventually lifted him out of his slumber.

  The alarm clock showed it was 7:30 A.M. The display on his phone told him the call was from Delmonico, “Gracie, what’s up?”

  “Mac, we’ve got a problem, a great big problem.”

  “What?”

  “Mychal Richardson is missing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “How the hell do you think it is we found you?”

  At 7:45 A.M., Mac and Wire, gumball flashing, rapidly approached the townhouse on Thirty-Third to find multiple Washington PD patrol units, three crews of bureau agents and the three from Grogan Security. A patrol officer let the X5 through and Mac pulled up behind Keller’s black surveillance van. As Mac stepped out of the SUV, he looked back to see media trucks approaching.

  Keller saw Mac and Wire arrive and stepped down off the front steps and jogged over.

  “What the hell happened?” Mac asked as he took in the chaos surrounding the scene.

  “Well,” Keller scratched his head, and grimaced, “what can I say, she’s gone.”

  “How?”

  “Honestly, we haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “What have we figured out?”

  “Reilly and I are sitting down the street to the south, across N Street but right on the corner, we have a decent view of the front door, especially once the storm started easing around 3:00 A.M. Anyway, a few minutes after 7:00 A.M., two of the guys from Grogan went to the front door. One agent is knocking on the door and the other is on the phone. As we watched, the pounding got more frantic and the other guy on the phone is clearly agitated, gesticulating with his arms. Then they kicked in the front door and we knew there was a serious problem. So we pulled across N Street and got a little closer. Two minutes later all the Grogan guys are out on the steps, panicked, frantically running around and it became pretty clear something bad happened.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, we were thinking she was dead inside, but that wasn’t it. Richardson wasn’t there, she was gone, but we could tell from the looks on the Grogan guys’ faces that she didn’t leave willingly.”

  “What are the security guys saying?”

  “At first they weren’t terribly communicative, but eventually they told us that she wouldn’t let them in the house with her and that she would call if she needed anything. Unless she contacted them, they were to give her a wake-up call at 7:00 A.M. if she wasn’t up,” Keller reported. “They followed orders and she didn’t answer her cell phone despite repeated attempts. There was no response to their door knocking. Then they kicked it in and a few seconds later, it was apparent she was gone. At that point we approached, got them to talk, and now you know what we know.”

  Mac quickly walked up the steps and into the front of the townhouse and immediately upstairs to the bedroom and stopped at the doorway. The bedroom was definitely set up for a booty call, candles and satin sheets and in her night bag on the chair, other unmentionables from Victoria’s Secret. Then he saw it to the left of the bed; lying on the floor was the champagne bucket with the hardwood floor still damp, the water having run under the molding. As he kneeled down, Mac saw it lying on the floor under the bed, a needle cover. Mac was betting it was for the sodium pentothal.

  “We need to get a photo of this,” Mac pointed and Wire walked around to see the syringe cover on the floor.

  Mac leaned over the side of the bed and smelled the sheets and the pillow on the right side and he got a light whiff of it at first and then more as he leaned down close to the pillow.

  “What do you smell?” Wire asked from the doorway.

  “Chloroform, Johnson was here,” Mac stated and then looked to Keller, “We need an evidence team to go through this place.”

  “On it,” Keller answered, his phone already to his ear.

  “How? How did he get in?” Dara asked.

  “She drives here,” Mac replied. “The place is cleared by the security. A half hour later the …” Mac and Wire shared a knowing look and together exclaimed: “The congressman.”

  Mac and Wire sprinted down the steps and grabbed Keller and Reilly along the way. Mac called Delmonico. “Gracie, I need the address for Ulysses Weiss, text it to me. Second, we need people at Richardson’s place. Third, someone better inform the senator his daughter is missing. Fourth, I need traffic camera footage from this area, we need to see if we can see the congressman’s Cadillac, no matter the fact it was storming like mad outside. Fifth, Richardson is his last possible victim, we need a search made of every basement, empty or vacant building or warehouse in the area. Get Galloway to coordinate with the District PD on that. I think Johnson is going to take his time with her, so that maybe gives us a chance, a window to find her.”

  The congressman lived out in McLean, Virginia, west of DC. With flashing lights, they made it in less than fifteen minutes. Congressman Weiss’s home rested on a sprawling five-acre lot with a beautiful expansive two-story red-brick colonial sitting at the end of a long winding driveway. Two McLean PD squad cars were waiting for them at the end of the driveway.

  Mac powered down his window and asked the officers, “Have you approached?”

  “No,” the senior officer answered. “We got here a minute ahead of you and heard your sirens. We thought we should wait.”

  Mac nodded, “Follow us,” and hit his accelerator, driving up the long, winding driveway to the circular turn in front of the expansive house, stopping at the front door. Mac quickly jumped out, his Sig Sauer in his right hand, as he approached the front door. He rang the doorbell but there was no response. Mac looked in the side window and couldn’t see anything. They fanned out around the house, Mac and Wire going left, Reilly and Keller right and McLean PD remaining in front.

  Around the back, Mac and Wire scaled a six-foot-tall black wrought iron fence surrounding the pool and patio area. They approached the back of the house with their right hands on the butt of their guns, looking in the windows. Mac stepped up onto a stone patio and went to the sliding glass door and stopped and looked inside through a narrow slit in the shade. Wire walked passed Mac and to a door that led to the garage and tried the knob when they both heard it.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “From the garage?” Mac asked quietly.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Yes,” Wire whispered.

  Keller and Reilly came around the other side of the garage. Mac opened the gate to let them in and whispered, “Noise in the ga
rage.” Both men nodded and stacked up behind Mac, weapons drawn, while Wire positioned herself. Mac nodded and Wire stepped back and kicked the door and Mac, Keller and Reilly burst into the garage. To the left, on the floor, bound tightly with rope around his torso and legs and with duct tape over his mouth, kicking a wood cabinet, was Congressman Weiss.

  Ten minutes later, Congressman Weiss was sitting wearily at a kitchen table, sipping a bottle of water, ice packs applied to his head and the left side of his neck. Mac hung up his cell phone, after updating the director. Mac and Wire introduced themselves. Mac grabbed a chair, turned it backwards and sat down in front of the congressman. “So what happened?”

  “I was getting ready to leave the house. I walked into the garage and I was hit from behind, and when I woke, my mouth was duct taped and my arms and feet were tied.”

  “What time were you attacked?”

  “It was just after 9:00 P.M.”

  “You said you were leaving; where we you off to on such a stormy night?” Mac asked with a knowing tone.

  “I was just going out to get a little something.”

  “Hah,” Wire mocked. “I bet you were.”

  “Excuse me, Agent Wire?” the Congressman Weiss snapped.

  “You were off to see Mychal Richardson at a townhouse between N and O Streets on Thirty-Third in Georgetown.”

  “Mychal who?”

  “Please,” Dara replied tersely. “Please don’t insult our intelligence. Not if you don’t want to walk out of here without a limp to go along with that little itty bitty bump on your head.”

  Mac stifled a laugh. Dara was still fired up and wanted to get her shots in. Someone had to defend Mrs. Weiss. “Ms. Richardson is the next intended target of the Reaper. She is now missing.”

  “Look, Agent McRyan, I don’t have any idea of what you’re talking …”

  “Really? Are you going to keep trying this?” Mac replied smirking, “How in the hell do you think it is that we found you?”

  “I don’t like your tone.”

  “I don’t give a rip, Congressman. You were set to meet Mychal Richardson last night at a townhouse on Thirty-Third between N and O Streets in Georgetown that is owned by your family, so can we dispense with the bullshit. My guess is that this was hardly the first time you and Ms. Richardson were getting together,” Mac stated.

  “Listen, Agent McRyan, you might think that since the president is your buddy, you don’t have to respect me …”

  “Let’s be very clear, Congressman Weiss, I don’t respect you, but that has nothing to do with who I work for. You see, the Reaper, Drake Johnson, attacked you here in this garage, took your car, and during a hurricane drove to that townhouse and took Mychal Richardson. Now, how would he know that’s where she would be, unless the two of you made this a regular thing, if not a regular Wednesday thing?”

  “I have no idea …”

  “You see,” Mac continued, not letting Weiss finish, “the Reaper, he follows his victims for days, maybe even weeks, to find them at their most vulnerable point and apparently, in watching Richardson, he found the weakness to get to her.”

  “Which was what?” Weiss asked.

  Mac shook his head in disbelief. The congressman’s head must really hurt or maybe, just maybe, he was that dumb. Having now spent five minutes with Weiss, Mac was pretty sure it was dumb.

  So was Wire, who jumped in to bitterly complete the thought, “You’re the weakness, you lying, cheating, bastard. I hope your wife takes you for a ton when she finds out about this.”

  “My wife doesn’t need to know anything …”

  “Whatever,” Wire replied. “Given what’s happened this morning, the cat is out of the bag, Congressman. She’s going to know. You better start working on your story.”

  Mac looked to Weiss and shook his head, “Look, frankly, I don’t care about your marital situation. I really don’t. Maybe you have an open marriage, maybe you don’t, whatever, not my concern. Right now, my only question is whether you know anything that could help us find Mychal Richardson?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, so you finally admit you were having an affair,” Wire stated mockingly.

  Mac turned around and gave her a look that said that was enough, at least for now.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Wire muttered with a dismissive way and strolled away.

  “Congressman, is there anything you know that could help me? Did Mychal ever say anything about the Reaper?”

  “No,” the congressman replied, shaking his head.

  “Did you know she had personal security following her?”

  “Yes, for about a month or so now.”

  “She ever you tell you why?”

  “Said she was getting threats about some of the things she was saying on television. Her father put the security on her, she said. It seemed a little over the top to me. If you’re in politics or talk politics, you’re always getting threats. She’s been getting them for a couple of years. I’m not sure why now, all of a sudden, she needed security.”

  “But she never said anything about the Reaper?”

  “No,” Weiss answered quietly. “We never really talked about our professional lives. I didn’t really care about her career, nor did she care about mine. It was really just about sex.”

  “Of course it was.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “McRyan believes in the system. I don’t, not anymore.”

  The Reaper took a long sip from the bottle of water and casually wiped the dirt from his hands. The isolation of the basement of the farmhouse, miles from any other soul, would allow him the privacy to do as he pleased.

  About now it was being discovered that Mychal Richardson was missing. He drove right into the garage for the townhouse, just like he watched the congressman do six times before. The stormy weather, the constant sheets of rain, the thunder, the lightning, the wind gusts and violently swaying branches of the trees, made it that much easier. The anticipation walking up the steps to the upstairs bedroom was two years in the making. When he reached the door and peeked in the crack, she made it easy for him, lying with her back to him. He took out the rag, burst through the door and was on top of her before she knew what was happening, the rag to her mouth. She was subdued within a minute and drugged.

  After subduing her, shooting her up with the sodium pentothal, he took his time to bind and gag her tightly. Once secured, he carefully made his way down the steps of the house and into the garage and deposited her into the trunk of the congressman’s Cadillac. He waited the requisite four hours the tryst typically took and then simply backed out of the garage with his baseball cap pulled down low. In the rainstorm there was no way to tell it was him and not the congressman. The FBI, which was also watching, wasn’t interested in Ulysses Weiss, only Mychal Richardson. He took her out right from underneath their noses. It was sweet.

  Now it was 10:00 A.M. and he had evaded McRyan and his crew, was hundreds of miles away, and had her in his possession and control. Sitting twenty feet away was the person most responsible for taking away his little sister and for starting the downward spiral of his life.

  She would now be punished.

  She would now learn why.

  He took one last sip of water and tossed the empty bottle into the garbage bag. Next, he walked over to Richardson. She was now awake. Her long thin arms were tied tightly behind the back of the chair with rope and her legs duct taped to the front legs of the chair. Sitting two feet to her left was a small TV tray. On the tray sat a laptop.

  The killer took a metal folding chair and placed it opposite of Richardson who was still dressed only in her little slinky black teddy she’d been wearing, waiting for her night with Weiss. The teddy was now dirty, sweaty and torn. The Reaper leaned down and looked into Mychal’s terrified eyes. Eyes that feared her life was about to end. He reached up with his right hand and viciously ripped away the piece of duct tape covering her mouth and slapped her hard, knocking her over to t
he floor.

  Richardson whimpered and shook as he lifted the chair off the floor and set it back down on its four legs.

  He then slowly took a seat opposite her on the other side of the TV tray. He reached around and pushed the play button for the video on the laptop.

  “Do you recognize her, Mychal?”

  Richardson nodded weakly.

  Rebecca Randall appeared on the screen, bound to the chair, sitting under a single solitary bright light, tears streaming down her face, her mascara caked on her face, her white blouse ripped open and soiled. She wore no pants, socks or shoes and she shivered. “She looks a lot like you do right now,” he pointed out grimly.

  Richardson looked away and closed her eyes.

  He stopped the video and then reached across and slapped her crisply. “Look at the monitor. Look at it!”

  Mychal slowly turned her head back to the laptop.

  He pushed play again.

  “State your name?” the Reaper’s deep voice asked forcefully from off-screen.

  “Re… Re … Rebecca. Rebecca Ra.. Ra… Randall.”

  “What is your age?”

  “Twenty-five years old.”

  “Were you a good friend of Rena Johnson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you her best friend?”

  “Y … y … yes.”

  “What happened to Rena on August 17th five years ago?”

  “She was killed.”

  “No!” the Reaper’s voice barked. “She was murdered!”

  “It was an …an … accident,” Rebecca answered weakly through her tears. “It was … an accident. I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “I’m so … sorry,” Rebecca’s voice trailed away.

  There was a thirty-second pause, where the questions stopped and Randall cried.

  “What happened?” the voice stated calmly. “I need all of the details. Start from the beginning.”

  The interrogation played for twenty minutes. Every so often he would have to bark at Richardson to get her to watch. Twice more he slapped her with his right hand, the second time so viciously, her chair tipped over again and she crashed to the floor. “You will Watch!” he barked as he stood over her.