by Alton Gansky
England nodded at Carmen, who stood, glad to be out of the chair. Unfortunately, standing at the podium was even less comfortable. She cleared her throat. “On Thursday, March 28, the body of a single, white male was discovered in Balboa Park near the botanical center. He was a student at the San Diego Theological Seminary. The next day, Friday, March 29, a second body was discovered in the College area north of Interstate 8. During the week that followed, we found a third victim in Lake Murray. That victim and the first knew each other and were friends. They had been seen together that evening.”
She took a moment to breathe, then continued. “Two other victims have been found this week, one at an abandoned military barracks facility near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Today another victim was found at Crown Point Park. As in the three previous cases, the men were severely beaten before they died.”
“Can you give us those locations again?” The woman who asked the question looked as if she should be in high school.
“At the end of the conference you will receive a fact sheet with all the details we can release at this time.”
A man who looked close to retirement age and projected the same short-timers attitude asked, “That’s five bodies in two weeks? Isn’t that a lot?”
“It is for San Diego. Most cities this size have that as an average.”
The man persisted. “You think they’re all related?”
“Yes.” Carmen spoke with an ease she didn’t feel. “We have several reasons to believe that there is one culprit.”
“Such as?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that. This is an ongoing investigation, and we must be careful to build our case in a manner that doesn’t help the perpetrator. I can tell you the deaths were violent and, in all but one case, occurred someplace other than where the bodies were found.”
A female reporter waved her hand. Most were content to simply raise theirs. Carmen called on the woman.
“You mean the killer is transporting the bodies from one place to another?”
Wasn’t that obvious from what she just said? “Yes.”
“How?”
“That’s a detail I can’t discuss at this time.”
“Can’t or won’t?” The woman looked like she had just been left at the altar.
“The result is the same, ma’am.”
Carmen took questions for ten minutes before moving along to the appeal Chief England asked her to make. “We are calling for the help of the citizens of San Diego and are asking for two things.” She looked at the video cameras. “We ask everyone to remain calm but to be on the alert for unusual behavior by a stranger or neighbor. We believe the perpetrator to be a large man. We also ask that if you were in Balboa Park late on the night of March 28 and saw anything unusual, then please contact SDPD. Also if you live in the College Avenue area north of SDSU, or if you live around Lake Murray, Crown Point, or any of the other places we mentioned and have a video security system that might have recorded activity outside your house, then please review recordings for the last two weeks and let us know if your system captured something that might be useful to us.” She doubted anyone had a system that kept two weeks’ worth of video, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Carmen thanked the reporters and stepped aside for Chief England to continue. He talked for another ten minutes. Carmen couldn’t remember any of it.
He sat in a dimly lit room, drinking beer after beer. It helped keep the voices quiet, and he needed a bit of diversion. His body hurt, his muscles complained about all they had been asked to do. No matter. Pain was a friend, and he had to give it its due.
On a small table sat a cheap, flat-screen television. He was limited to over-the-air channels, but that didn’t matter. He had his work to keep him busy, and there was plenty of that. He drew long and deep on the beer, belched, and watched the news. He was getting their attention. Finally. He leaned forward, hanging on every word of the newscast. It was what he expected. Little information. Just a dog-and-pony show. Then the detective stepped to the lectern. What had the chief of police called her? Rainmondi.
Rainmondi?
It couldn’t be. He moved closer. Yes, yes. He could see it now. A lot of years had passed, but he could see the resemblance. So, Shelly’s big sister grew up to be a cop. A homicide detective at that.
He laughed.
“Adequate. Satisfactory.”
The voices were pleased. A good thing. When he left that note in the minivan they had been unhappy, and if they weren’t happy, no one was happy. Especially him. They wouldn’t let him sleep for two days and made him vomit every time he took a sip of beer. Unfair. A man like him needed his beer.
“Rainmondi.”
The name tickled his tongue. “Rainmondi. Raaaaaiiiinmondi. Man I enjoyed your sister. A memorable night. Pity she didn’t see things my way.” He chuckled. There was something about the first kill. The power of it. The joy of it. The sense that he could do whatever he wanted to anyone. He was a god. The voices told him so. They told him time and time again.
“This is going to be interesting.”
He emptied the bottle and set it next to the five other empties near his chair.
“Very, very interesting.”
He laughed. Loud. Long. Manic. He laughed until he could barely breathe. “Shelly’s sister. This . . . is . . . rich.”
In his joy, he felt the urge to kill something.
28
Carmen was getting paranoid. Every time a phone rang, she imagined the grizzly remains of another victim had been found somewhere in San Diego. Saturday night turned into Sunday, and Carmen accumulated almost six hours of sleep before her mind kicked into high gear. This time there were no gruesome dreams of her sister. Hers had been the dream of the dead: imageless.
She was thankful for that.
There was no day off for her. She couldn’t justify sitting home, watching television, when a man who had long ago left sanity behind was stalking another victim. Of course, she had no idea if the killer were doing that, but her gut said it was true. The message hadn’t been completed. At least she assumed it hadn’t. Since she had no idea what the message was, she could be wrong.
Doubtful.
She settled at her desk for a few moments, read e-mail, then reviewed a few written reports by those screening the “cranks,” emotionally needy people who confessed to anything that would garner attention. Her favorite was an eighty-eight-year-old woman from Spring Valley who told Hector she had committed the crimes. The image of the senior citizen hoisting an adult male up by his wrists, then pounding him with such force that bones broke, almost made her smile.
Almost.
The news conference ran on the evening and late-night local news. She had heard that CNN and Fox picked it up. There were several calls from reporters and producers wanting interviews and more information. She had no stomach for that. Let Captain Simmons take those. She could either spend her day quenching the curiosity of the media or trying to solve a string of murders. There was no contest.
Bud strolled in five minutes after Carmen.
“You’re looking good this morning,” he said as he removed his blue blazer. He wore a white business shirt but no tie. He had made it clear over the years that he hated ties. He kept a clip-on in his desk for emergencies.
“Sure I do. My mirror must be lying to me. The woman I saw this morning looked like a cross between a vampire and a zombie.”
“A vampire-zombie. I like that. They suck the brains out of their victim. It’d make a great movie.” He sat at his desk and leaned back in his chair. The chair protested the action with a loud squeak.
“No, it wouldn’t.” She rubbed her face, glad she wore no makeup to be smudged, and raised her arms. “I vant to suck your skull.” She shook her head. “Dumb.”
They
shared a smile, but the humor gave way to the gravity of their task.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Bud, I’ve asked you not to do that.”
“I know, but it happens when I drink too much coffee. So last night I started wondering if we should be asking what we’re missing. I mean, we know what we have, but what’s missing?”
“Besides a suspect, a witness, a bit of video surveillance, a weapon, the location or locations of the murders?”
“Exactly, but there’s more.” He leaned forward and the chair seemed relieved. “We have five victims, all male, young to middle age, two Christians, one Jew, and two guys with no religious connections.”
Hector had learned the name of the last victim: Max Mulvaney, a teacher at a local traffic school. Hector discovered the man had no family and few friends. He had an apartment in Ocean Beach.
“Go on,” Carmen said.
“We have no idea how the abductions took place. We’ve identified cause of death, but other than the evidence that a Taser-like gun was used on Lindsey, we got nuthin’. Nor do we have their cell phones. We have Lindsey’s VW and what’s left of Cohen’s Lexus. The techs found nothing on any of the computers we brought in. Cell phone calls are the kind we would expect from the victims. None of our vics has a record, so it looks like the killer knows enough about his victims to select those who wouldn’t be in the system.”
“Except we identified Mulvaney by his fingerprints.”
“True, but only because he had been in the military and we searched that database. He’s not in the criminal system. All squeaky clean. It’s like he’s looking for . . . sinless people.”
“I doubt they’re sinless.”
“You know what I mean. Not one of them has ever been in the system. Anyway, we need to figure out how this guy is selecting his victims.”
“How?” Carmen appreciated the point, but it also bothered her. It was just more proof that their adversary might be smarter than all of them combined.
“I have no idea.” The confession seemed to take a little air out of her partner. “The more I think about this, the less sense it makes.” He rubbed his freshly shaved face. “What is the motive? Why do this? Does he have means? Clearly. He kills with his hands—”
“Wilton was shot in the head.”
Bud nodded. “I know, and it was you that said he was killed because he was in the way of the other murder.”
“Well, I didn’t say it like that.”
Bud pressed his lips into a line. “Bear with me, Carmen. I’m not trying to quote you, but we all agree that Wilton was an obstacle, not the target. Now back to my point. Lindsey didn’t have much money. Cohen had more, but the cash was still in the man’s wallet. The killer didn’t even try to make it look like a robbery. Why? Because of the time spent killing the vics. No robber would do that. Shoot and grab, sure, but not torture, kill, and transport the body. No armed robber would do that. He’s got the means, he creates his own opportunity by studying his vics and planning the killings, but his motive is missing. Why do this?”
“The guy’s wacko.” Carmen had wondered the same thing. Hearing it from Bud confirmed her thinking.
“No doubt about that. Nothing more scary than a genius nut job. Still, why? We learn that, and we’ll be halfway home instead of standing at the starting line tying our shoes.”
Carmen agreed. The case was eating away at Bud as much as it was at her. She started to speak when she saw a familiar form at the entrance to the homicide wing.
“What’s he doing here?” Carmen motioned Dr. Ellis Poe into the room.
Ellis’s eyes burned from lack of sleep. He had spent the night on the Blushing Bride trying to rest, but not even the gentle rocking of the craft could lull him into slumber. Instead he stared at the ceiling of the small cabin. Every sound seemed amplified, as if someone had turned the world’s volume up.
He tried praying but couldn’t. Truth was, he hadn’t been able to pray properly for days, the last few days being the worst. Twice he had risen and tried to read his Bible, the one thing that had been his joy and strength since giving his life to Christ in 1985. The practice had seen him through every difficult time. Prayer and Bible study got him through the death of his parents when he was just twenty-five. Last night, that warmth of spiritual focus went cold. He could not string enough words together to pray and couldn’t focus long enough to read his favorite New Testament book—Colossians.
At 10:00 p.m. his neck began to hurt. At midnight, his stomach soured. At 2:00 a.m., his mind began to spin like a tornado, ripping up every fragment of self-esteem and confidence he had, sending them crashing into the inside of his skull. At 3:30, his stomach turned on him. And at 4:00 he began to weep again—alone in the small cabin.
On Monday he was due to start teaching. He had never missed the opening of a semester and seldom took a sick day. He had to be there. The thought made him feel worse. He began to sweat and his breathing grew shallow. For long, fearful moments he thought he was having a heart attack, but he felt no pain. He replaced the fear of a coronary with the terror of insanity. Maybe he was losing his mind, but that hypothesis died shortly after it sprang up.
At five that Sunday morning he knew what he must do, if only to save his life. God was squeezing his heart and wouldn’t let go until Ellis did what was being demanded.
“Yes, Lord.”
That prayer was heard, and peace filled his empty soul.
Now, standing at a doorway leading to the homicide division, a new set of anxieties flooded his being. No matter. He had come to confess, and confess he would, even if the stress of it killed him on the spot.
Detective Carmen Rainmondi waved him in. He smiled, but it felt unnatural. No doubt he looked like a clown. A guilty clown.
Carmen stood. “Dr. Poe, this is unexpected.”
“Yes, I-I’m sorry.” Great. Stuttering. No way to begin a conversation.
“You remember my partner, Detective Bud Tock.” She motioned to him.
“Of course. My office, then in Coronado.” He struggled with complete sentences.
“Are you feeling okay? You look pale.”
He summoned a smile. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“I hear that,” Bud said. “Not much sleeping going around here, either.”
“What can I do for you, Dr. Poe?” Carmen’s eyes narrowed. She suspected something.
“Well, um, I’ve been thinking about our conversation . . . you know . . . the one after the funeral—”
“I remember. I was there.”
He chuckled, but it sounded plastic. “Of course, otherwise it wouldn’t be a conversation. To converse means to . . . Never mind. Detective Rainmondi, may I speak to you in private?”
Carmen and Bud exchanged glances. Ellis felt certain they were thinking he had lost his mind. Both ran their gaze over him, no doubt looking for a weapon. Made sense. Police work had to make people paranoid.
“Sure. Let’s go to a side room. I was going to work in there anyway.” She turned her attention to Bud. “Where’s Hector?”
“He’s sitting in on the Mulvaney autopsy. Said he had questions for the ME.”
Carmen nodded. “Heywood?”
“A couple of private security videos came in after the press conference. He’s checking those out. He said that based on the addresses, he doubted they were valid but he needed to apply due diligence.”
“Okay. I want us to meet when everyone gets back. You got stuff to do?”
Bud laughed. “Funny girl. Yeah, I got a few thousand things to do. You go have your chat.”
“This way, Dr. Poe.” Carmen led them from the room.
29
Carmen twisted the doorknob and entered what she had come to think of as the “case room.” A lot of work was
done at her desk and in the field, but this was the place where the jigsaw puzzle was worked.
“We can talk here.” She left the door open for Ellis.
“I appreciate this.”
Poe didn’t sound appreciative. He sounded . . . scared.
She stepped to the head of the table and sat, motioning for her visitor to sit to her left. As he rounded the table and lowered himself into the conference room chair, he reminded Carmen of a slowly deflating balloon. His face was pale and moist. His hands fidgeted, and he was having trouble looking her in the eye. He had always seemed a little shy, withdrawn, and easily intimidated. Still, he had always answered her questions without hesitation. Now he looked like a man sitting on a hot stove.
“Okay, Dr. Poe. I’m kinda busy. What can I do for you?”
He looked at the table, then at his hand. “You remember when you came to my office. I mean, after the funeral. You know, at the seminary.”
What had happened to the professor? “Yeah, I already said I remember. It wasn’t all that long ago.”
“Well, I know that. I mean . . .” He sighed. “I know you have a lot on your plate.” He glanced at her, but only a glance. “These horrible murders. I-I don’t know how you do it. I mean . . .” He looked up to the wall Carmen had attached photos and fact cards to.
He stopped talking.
For a moment, she thought he had stopped breathing.
“Is . . . that . . .” She saw him looking at the photos to the left of the time line—the place where the photos of his student had been mounted. One of the photos showed the damaged skin made by the dough docker.
Carmen, you’re an idiot. You shouldn’t have brought the poor man in here. “Yes. That’s Doug Lindsey.” She stood. “Let me find another room. I wasn’t thinking when I brought you here. I’ve spent so much time in here and . . . Doesn’t matter. Come on, I’ll find a better place for us.”
“Wait.” He rose and walked to the wall and studied Lindsey’s set of photos. He then looked down the line. “Five murders?”
