Rainey with a Chance of Hale (A Rainey Bell Thriller Book 6)

by R. E. Bradshaw

  “That the whore ran off with another man. That’s what they told anyone that asked. Joshua moved to North Dakota and I was left with OB and Letha.”

  “Do you really think she ran away?”

  “When I was young, I believed it. As I aged, I thought OB or Joshua killed her. I only found out recently that neither of those things happened. My mother was a patient at Central Regional Psychiatric Hospital here in Butner, about a mile and a half from where I’m sitting, from 1987 to 1997.”

  “How did you find that information?”

  “Vanessa Wilhelm. She spent some time digging up info on my family. She found an old neighbor in a nursing home. He told her he found my mother wandering naked on his property and called the police. They took her to the hospital, and he never saw or heard of her again. I sent a request for her records, but they only told me admission and release dates. Vanessa thought my mother must have changed her name because after her release she vanished.”

  Rainey dug further. “What about her mother? We know OB was her father. Who was her mother? Do you know?”

  “Since I was forbidden to talk about Naomi, I never asked where she came from, but I have wondered who her mother was. She’s probably dead, because I would have seen her around, don’t you think? It had to be someone OB controlled and he never let anyone go once he had them. Did you know my mother was just twelve years old when I was born, thirteen when she married Joshua? She disappeared. Why couldn’t her mother have disappeared the same way?”

  “It’s no wonder your mother needed psychiatric care. It appears you all did, except for Gee. He hasn’t been in any trouble with the law, has he?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Chance answered.

  “Is he OB’s son too?”

  “Well, I guess he could be. Jean Berry wasn’t just his office manager. But, Gee doesn’t look like the rest of us. We’re all blond-haired and blue-eyed. Gee has his mother’s red hair, and his eyes are hazel. OB wouldn’t beat on Gee like he did us, either. Jean wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Jean stood up to OB?”

  “Yeah, over Gee anyway. Maybe it’s because he was born with a clef pallet and was kind of sickly. Gee didn’t talk well or much and had lots of operations when he was a kid. He stayed quiet, even after they fixed him up. There was just that little scar on his lip, but I think the internal scars took a lot longer to heal. He’s okay now. You only hear the lisp really well when he’s excited. He had a mustache and beard the last time I saw him. You can’t even see the scar. He turned out to be the best of us all. That’s why I don’t think he’s kin to us. He’s too good.”

  Rainey shook her head. “Wow. That’s one messed up family you got there, Chance.”

  “You have no idea how fucked up that old man was. Once, when I was nine or ten, Robby and I found a trunk Joshua had stored up in the loft of the big truck garage. It was full of old sadistic bondage magazines. Some had Nazi women torturing men on the covers. Others were a lot worse, with pictures of women being tortured in every way imaginable. It was horrible. I can still remember those pictures clearly. Robby thought it was cool. He even got a boner looking at that shit.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  Chance hesitated before he answered. “Well, I mean there were naked women. So yeah, I got a little excited, but Robby was really into it.”

  He apparently wanted to move away from the topic of his own arousal and quickly began to describe what happened next.

  “Anyway, while we were up in the loft, the door opened downstairs and in walks OB and one of the drivers. OB leased his trucks to drivers and took a percentage of profit from each load. This particular driver had shorted OB on a load payment. OB took his truck. He came that day with his wife to ask forgiveness and to get his truck back. I guess he thought OB wouldn’t beat his ass if he had his wife there. Bad move.”

  “Did he beat him in front of her?”

  “No, worse. OB told the guy he could have the truck back, but the wife had to work off the debt. The guy was in his twenties I think, and his wife was young and beautiful. OB laid her across the hood of a car in the garage and raped her right in front of her husband. When the guy changed his mind and tried to stop him, OB cracked him on the head with his ankus and finished what he started. When he was done, he handed the woman the keys to the truck and walked out, like it was just another day at the office.”

  “Did you and Robby tell anyone what you saw?”

  “No. I told you it was OB’s rules that mattered, not morality. Besides, I freaked out because when I turned around Robby was jacking off. He got off on that, just like the magazines. That’s why I always thought Robby was the one killing those women. In fact, I was sure it was him. I know he knew one of those girls they found in the pond in North Dakota.”

  Rainey stood and walked to the desk where the files were. “Which one?”

  “Adeline Tuttle. When I saw her picture in the news articles after she was found, I knew I had seen her with Robby.”

  Rainey picked up the four manila file folders and came back to sit with Chance.

  She asked him, “Why didn’t you tell anyone what you knew, instead of letting people think it was you?”

  “Robby always got away with everything. I thought if I told what I knew, I’d end up being blamed anyway. Plus, Robby was the only family member that treated me decent. I was fourteen and not exactly thinking clearly.”

  “Does any fourteen-year-old think clearly?”

  Rainey took note of the growing tension in Chance’s jaw muscles as he continued his tale of growing up in the Hale household.

  “Growing up in that environment, I was really messed up. I was already an alcoholic by thirteen. I smoked a lot of pot. I took any kind of drug I could find without a thought of what it could do. I didn’t care about living or dying. I just went numb, kept my head down, and buried the pain deep. The only time I was sober was when I worked on the trucks. OB had me in the shop with him almost all the time. After sixth grade, I didn’t really go to school much—just enough to keep the law off OB for not sending me.”

  Rainey steered the conversation back to the files in her hand. “Let’s get back to Adeline Tuttle. Where did you see Robby with her?”

  “In the supply truck, we used to haul gear to North Dakota. We stopped in Greensboro to get some food. She had the hood up on her car, and Robby asked if he could help her.”

  “Was Robby a mechanic too?”

  “No way. Robby wouldn’t know a head gasket from a spark plug. He drove trucks. He didn’t work on them.”

  Rainey knew the case history from memory. She didn’t have to refer to the file for the details, but she checked to see if Chance’s files held what she already knew. After a quick review of the file’s contents, she continued.

  “Are you using the information in this file to conjure a story that conveniently blames a man that can’t defend himself?”

  Chance sighed. “I’m never going to win with you.”

  “Come on, Chance. You have to see this through my eyes. Witnesses said they saw a young man with long blond hair leaning under Adeline’s car hood and talking to her in the parking lot of the restaurant. You are blond. You are the mechanic. Wouldn’t it be more plausible that it was you they saw?”

  “Yes, it would, if several witnesses hadn’t also commented on the other blond young man throwing up behind the truck. That was me. I had a stomach virus, but I went with Robby on the supply run just to get away from home. After I got sick, I crawled back in the truck and went to sleep. When I woke up, Robby was pulling back on the highway. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw her picture in the paper.”

  Rainey sat back against the chair. She had almost been lulled into pity for Chance, but then he let a self-satisfied expression flicker on and then retreat from his face. He was good at hiding his true nature. She had to give him that. Rainey’s upper lip curled into a sneer before she hid it in a slight smile. She saw him see it. His duping delight fla
shed in a brief grin, but long enough for Rainey to see this psychopathic tell. Chance was right about being able to check off the serial killer survey boxes with him, including his convenient way of explaining away all the clues that pointed to him.

  “Chance, as far as I can tell, you have an excuse for everything. Poor little boy. His mommy left him. His daddy, well, I mean that’s just a total fucking mess. Somehow you had the dumb luck to be brought into the world by a family of killers and rapists. Is that it? Look at you, all educated now, clean and sober. No way you’re guilty of anything other than the crime for which you’ve done your time. You’re just an innocent soul who, despite your name, never had a chance. Is that what you want me to think?”

  Danny walked through the door at that exact moment. Rainey heard him, but she did not lose focus on Chance. Her flat response caused Chance’s expression to melt into the cold gaze she encountered on the floor of that kitchen all those years ago, before he quickly resumed his innocuous visage.

  Rainey’s father, Billy Bell, gave her much instruction on reading people and their intentions. The piece of advice she had used the most in her law enforcement career involved what he called “the check.” Billy chased bail jumpers. He made life-saving decisions in the blink of an eye.

  “They pluck the strings of a sad ballad, sing you a tune of woe and misery,” Billy would say, “and some of it might even be true. Hell, it could all be true, but what motivates the telling is more important than the story. And if the perp is checking to see if he’s believable, my instinct says whatever truth he is telling is covering up a lie.”

  Rainey knew she was right about Chance. Now, she had to prove it.

  “Is everything okay in here?” Danny asked.

  Rainey turned to him and saw he was holding a file folder in one hand.

  She answered his question, “Yep, just peachy,” and then asked, “Did you get Brooks all set up?”

  “She’s hooked into the facility’s system. I spoke with Detective Robertson myself. She headed into her office to pull the Gaskill file and send the DNA report to our lab. The Orange County Sherriff’s Department is emailing the files on the Hale house explosion to your business address.” He shifted his eyes to Chance. “And fortunately the State Bureau of Investigation already has a warrant for Wilhelm’s web activity. Their investigator is in touch with Brooks. If there is anything, anything at all, she will find it.”

  Rainey joined Danny in glaring at Chance. “Good. We’ll know soon enough where that picture came from. Since the Gaskill case DNA has already been processed, the comparison is just a matter of entering the data. Technology is a beautiful thing.”

  She paused just long enough to notice the change in prominence of Chance’s temple vein, as it throbbed against his skin.

  “Now, where were we? Oh yeah, Chance here was giving up his cousin-slash-half-brother in connection with one of the frozen pond victims in North Dakota, complete with a convenient excuse for his not being involved.”

  Rainey held out the Tuttle file to Danny as he moved to sit in the chair next to her. He exchanged the folder he carried for the one Rainey was holding out to him and began to speak, giving her time to look inside what appeared to be an empty file. She found a single page of copy paper with a hand-written note.

  “Katie fine. Has her phone now. Going out to an early dinner and a movie with Ann and Cathleen. She is aware of the threat and at DEFCON 4. Will be home around 9 pm.”

  Under the neatly printed information, Danny had written in larger print within quotation marks, “Don’t overreact.” Beneath the quote, he had written, “Her words,” and underlined it three times. At the bottom of the page, Danny had written, “I have interesting notes from Sheila.”

  Rainey didn’t have much time to wonder why Danny hadn’t come to get her to speak with Katie personally. Knowing her wife, how he delivered the message probably was not Danny’s choice. Katie did not believe in worrying about things before she really needed to be concerned. With the “aware of the threat” line, Katie had acknowledged an increased intelligence watch and strengthened security measures. After six years of risk assessment and actual near death experiences, Katie had developed her own way of dealing with being Rainey Bell’s wife.

  Rainey looked up when she heard Danny ask Chance, “How old were you in June of 1996, fourteen?”

  “Yes. That is correct.”

  Rainey noted Chance had regained his polite and cooperative demeanor.

  Danny gave the Tuttle file back to Rainey and pulled his notepad from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. He flipped it open and asked, “You went to live in North Dakota when you were fourteen, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I started school there in the Fall of 1996.”

  “And why was that?”

  Chance stalled. “I’m sorry. What are you asking?”

  “Why did you leave North Carolina? If OB was as controlling as you’ve said, why did he let you go?”

  One of the first things drilled into BAU agents was to never ask a question without knowing the actual answer. Rainey was anxious to know what that answer could be, but first, they had to hear Chance’s version.

  “They needed a mechanic on call at the north garage pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I was really cheap labor. They paid me just enough to keep a full supply of Canadian weed and booze on hand. Joshua was on the road most of the time. An unsupervised fourteen-year-old, what could go wrong?”

  Chance chuckled at his witty comment, while his eyes searched the faces of his interrogators for clues they believed his version of events.

  Danny obviously did not. He pressed on. “Adeline Tuttle disappeared on Friday, June 7, 1996. You were questioned on Thursday, June 6th, in the sexual assault of a thirteen-year-old female on the previous Saturday, June 1st. Care to talk about that?”

  Chance reacted with surprise. “Wow. You guys are good. I was never charged with that assault and, as far as I know, the girl said she was too drunk to remember which one of a dozen boys at that party assaulted her. I learned later that she and her parents moved away. End of story.”

  “So, OB didn’t pay the family to go away. Are you saying that part of what I’m being told isn’t true?”

  Chance was interested now. He leaned forward slightly, trying to sneak a glimpse at Danny’s notes. Unsuccessful in the attempt, he answered, “Not to my knowledge. There was no reason to pay them off. She was wasted and got in over her head with some older boys. She couldn’t remember what happened.”

  Rainey drew Chance’s attention with her question. “You sound as if you know what happened.”

  “I just know what Robby told me. I was wasted and passed out in the back of his truck. He said some of the guys had sex with her and she was more than willing. I’m not making any judgments. That’s just what he said.”

  Danny read from his notepad, “Emily Dawson. Her name was Emily Dawson.” He glared at Chance long enough to make it clear how he felt about his arrogant attitude. “Emily tested positive for sedatives and near-lethal blood alcohol concentration levels after her parents found her the next morning in their backyard. She required stitches to repair tearing.” He glared at Chance again. “Do you think that sounds consensual?”

  Chance first defended himself, “Hey, it wasn’t me,” and then seemed to realize he needed to show empathy. “Of course it wasn’t consensual. I’m sorry that happened to her.” He was doing well, mimicking concern, but just had to add, “But I didn’t really know her.”

  Rainey flipped open another file out of the stack she held on her lap. She began a series of rapid-fire questions.

  “Did you go back to North Carolina for Christmas in 1996? It would have been your first holiday after moving to live with Joshua.”

  “Yes. Robby drove the supply truck up, and I caught a ride down to pick up that ’51 Chevy I was restoring. Joshua came down, and we hauled it back to North Dakota on a flatbed trailer behind his rig.”

  “I don’t
suppose you remember the dates you were traveling,” Rainey said with a smirk.

  “No, but I know the dates you are interested in.”

  “And those would be?”

  “On Saturday, December 21, 1996, Madison Parker, age fifteen, disappeared from Burke, Wisconsin and was found in Sinclair Lewis Park in Minnesota thirteen days later.”

  Chance rattled off the specifics from memory, proving his obsession with the files and the information they contained. He also could not resist giving himself an out.

  “I can tell you that the window of opportunity was there for at least three of OB Hale’s sons to have abducted and murdered Madison. This is also true for Sharon Long, age sixteen, who went missing from the same Sinclair Lewis Park on July 3, 1997. We met up in Carolina for the Fourth of July.”

  “You left one out,” Rainey said, “The one found in the pond with Adeline Tuttle.”

  “Ah, yes, Inge Ruth Abrahamsen, age sixteen, disappeared from Minneapolis, March 14, 1997. I looked it up. I was out of school for a break, not that it mattered much. I barely went. I did go back and forth on the supply truck with Robby quite often. I can’t say for sure if it was that weekend or not.”

  “Did the supply truck run the route frequently?”

  “Yeah, pretty much once a week. Robby started running parts as soon he turned sixteen. When you have refrigerated trucks and freezer rigs, there is always something to fix.”

  Danny couldn’t believe how tightly this case fit Chance Hale. He asked, “Your family ran a fleet of refrigerator rigs?”

  “Yeah, we hauled frozen goods as a specialty. OB’s motto was ‘Ride cold as Hale.’ He had it painted on the back doors of our rigs.”

  Danny shook his head and chuckled. He turned to Rainey and said, “You were right. This guy is either the most unlucky man in the world, or he’s a serial murderer born into the perfect storm.”

  “It’s all circumstantial,” Chance cried out. Frustrated, he slapped his hands on his thighs.

  Rainey recited, “Circumstantial evidence relies on logic to reach an assumption of fact—like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime that can be explained away easily. But the same fingerprint at five similar crime scenes can logically lead to an assumption of linkage.”