It was tempting to join him—not for any extracurricular activities, but to just enjoy some sleep before the frantic pace tomorrow would be sure to bring. But she felt that she had to find at least a few more potential pieces to the puzzle, even if they were buried in a case from eight years ago.
From a cursory glance, there was nothing to be found. There had been five people killed, all found in storage units. One of the units had contained more than ten thousand dollars’ worth of valuable baseball cards and another had contained a macabre collection of medieval weaponry. Seven people had been questioned in regards to the deaths but none had ever been convicted. The theory the police and the FBI had worked with was that the killer was abducting his victims and then forcing them to open up their storage units. Based on the original reports, it did not appear as if the killer was stealing anything from the units, although it was obviously next to impossible to be certain of this.
From what Mackenzie could see, there were no peculiar items left behind at the scenes. The files contained pictures of the crime scenes and of the five victims, three of the storage units had been in a messy state, having not seen an obsessively organized touch like that of Elizabeth Newcomb.
Two of the crime scene images were strikingly clear. One was from the scene of the second victim, and the other from the fifth victim. Both units had been in a state of what Mackenzie thought of as organized chaos; there were piles of things here and there, but they were thrown together haphazardly.
Looking at the picture from the second crime scene, Mackenzie scoured the background, zooming in as much as she could without causing the screen to go all pixelated. Near the center of the room, on top of three precariously stacked boxes, she thought she saw something of interest. It looked like a pitcher of some kind, perhaps something to put water or lemonade in. It was sitting on what appeared to be a plate of some kind. While there were other random objects sitting out in the open, these appeared to have been placed with care in the very center of the room.
She stared until her eyes started to ache and could still not be certain what she was looking at. Knowing that it might be a long shot, she opened up an empty email to send directly to two agents she knew would act fast and efficiently—two agents whom, she randomly thought, she and Ellington needed to invite to their wedding: Agents Yardley and Harrison.
She attached the files she had received to the email and wrote a quick message: Could either of you look into the files for these cases and see if anyone ended up taking an inventory of what was inside the storage units? Maybe check with the owners of the storage facilities.
Knowing that there was very little left to do, Mackenzie finally allowed herself to go to bed. Because she was so tired and the day came falling down on her in a heap, she was asleep less than two minutes before her head hit the pillow.
Even when the eerie sight of the doll from Elizabeth Newcomb’s storage unit surfaced in her head, she managed to ignore it—for the most part—and drift soundly to sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
Mackenzie wasn’t at all surprised to wake up at 6:30 and find that Agent Harrison had come through. He was practically a research guru and had quickly learned his way around files, folders, and copious amounts of data. His email contained two attachments and a typical to-the-point message.
The two documents attached are inventories taken by the FBI. These are all we have because the families of two of the other victims refused bureau requests to go through their stored belongings. The fifth is missing because the owner of the facility auctioned the contents off three days after the death. Seems like a bastard thing to do, but the victim had no family to come collect her belongings.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything more specific.
Mackenzie opened up the attachment and found a very simplified list prepared in a simple Word document. The first was seven pages long. The second was thirty-six pages long. The longer document was an inventory for a unit belonging to Jade Barker. The name clicked with Mackenzie instantly; she pulled up the crime scene images from the original documents and saw that the messier one had been Jade Barker’s—the same one with the possible plate and pitcher sitting directly in the center of the image.
Mackenzie did a quick search through the document and found the two items listed on page two.
Toy pitcher.
Plastic toy plate.
Behind her, Ellington was getting dressed. As he buttoned up his shirt, he came over to her and looked at the screen. “Damn,” he said. “They came through for you, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did,” she said, pointing at the two items. She then considered something for a moment before asking: “Where exactly is Salem, Oregon?”
“Northern part of the state. I’m not sure where.” He paused, looked at her with amused irritation, and sighed. “You planning on taking a day trip?”
“I think it might be worth it. I’d like to get a look at the sites and maybe speak to some of the family members.”
“We have family members to speak with here,” Ellington pointed out. “Starting with Elizabeth Newcomb’s parents. And honestly, I’d like to have a chat with the policemen that originally went into that storage unit to get a detailed report.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your morning planned out, then.”
“Mac…Salem is like four hours away, I think. No sense in splitting up just so you can be on the road all damn day just to hopefully get a fuzzy idea of what happened out there eight years ago.”
Mackenzie opened up a tab on her laptop and typed in Seattle and Salem, OR. Without looking back to him, she said: “It’s three and a half hours…say three with me driving. If all goes smooth, I’ll be back by dinner.”
“If all goes smooth,” Ellington echoed.
She smiled and stood up. “I love you, too.”
With that, she kissed him and rather wished she had retired to bed a little earlier last night.
***
“Harrison, I need you to find some more information for me.”
There was something about driving and speaking on the phone that exhilarated Mackenzie. Sure, she knew it was frowned upon but in her line of work, she saw it as the ultimate form of multi-tasking.
“And good morning to you, too,” Agent Harrison said from the other end of the phone. “I take it you got my mail?”
“I did. And it was a tremendous help. But I was wondering if you could do some more digging for me.”
She knew he would agree. In the past, he’d have to worry with what McGrath would think. But with Mackenzie’s new role and position directly under McGrath, she knew that Harrison would push her request to the top of his pile.
“What do you need?”
“I’m heading toward Salem, Oregon, right now to get a look at the crime scenes and interview anyone that I can. I’d like for you to see if you can find the names and contact information for any family or close friends of the victims that live in the area.”
“Yeah, I can get on that. How long of a drive are you looking at?”
“About three more hours.”
“You’ll have everything you need before you get there.”
“Thanks, Harrison.”
“So, is this case like some weird sort of pre-honeymoon thing for you two?” he asked.
“Far from it. I guess you could say it’s sort of like foreplay,” she joked.
“Yeah, that’s too much information. Let me get back to work for you. Happy trails, Agent White.”
They ended the call, leaving Mackenzie to stare out at Interstate 5 with nothing but her thoughts. She kept thinking about the image from the storage unit of Jade Barker, dead for about eight years. If the plate and pitcher she had spotted in the image were the same two objects that had been inventoried by the FBI, what did it mean? Sure, it was a thin connection to some weird findings in this new Seattle case, but where did it lead? Even if she left Salem with irrefutable proof that the killer was leaving behind tea party�
��themed trinkets and toys (and yes, she included dolls in a tea party theme), did it really accomplish much of anything?
Sure it does, she thought to herself. It gives us a bizarre path to pursue. It lets us hone in on one specific feature of the crime scenes—a feature that apparently means something special to the killer.
And there was one more thing, too. It would give them a glimpse into just how dangerous and warped this killer could be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
True to his word, Harrison had given Mackenzie all of the information he could find. She had it all by the time she was half an hour away from Salem. The information came in a mixture of texts and emails with attachments. And while there wasn’t much to go on, Mackenzie thought she had more than enough.
She’d also taken some time during her drive to call ahead to the Salem Police Department. She asked if there would be anyone available to speak with her about the storage facility murders from five years ago. After a bit of shocked silence on the other end of the line, she was given the name of Detective Alan Hall.
With all of that information at the ready, Mackenzie started her trip to Salem with a visit to the police station. It appeared to be a run-of-the-mill slow day in the station. The receptionist was wiping down her desk with a cloth while three officers milled around a single desk in the back, chatting about something.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“I’m Special Agent Mackenzie White. I’m supposed to meet with Detective Hall.”
“Oh yes,” the receptionist said. “Let me just get him up here for you.”
The receptionist paged another office in the building through her phone and, after a few moments, said, “Your visitor is here.”
“Thanks,” Mackenzie said after she hung up.
“Sure. Where are you driving in from, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Flew out of DC yesterday, to Seattle.”
The receptionist tried to smile at this, but she was apparently adding things up in her head and deciding that something bad must have happened. Instead of trying to continue with chitchat, she turned back to cleaning her desk.
Before she had scrubbed a handful of times, a plainclothes detective came walking toward the little galley area where the receptionist was cleaning. He seemed a little surprised by the sight of Mackenzie but did his best to hide it. He was an older man, floating somewhere between fifty and fifty-five at Mackenzie’s guess. He wore one of those little driver caps that some men look goofy in, but he pulled it off quite well.
“Agent White?” he asked.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, offering his hand when he stuck it out for a shake. “Nice to meet you, Detective Hall.”
“You may change your mind about that soon enough,” he said. “I’ll level with you: this case haunts me. It damn near made me quit my job. So I’ll help in any way I can, but I’d really rather not dwell on it.”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you mind if we speak in private somewhere?”
“How about in my car?” Hall said. “I’ll tell you what I can on the way out to the first storage complex. It’s about fifteen minutes away.”
“That sounds good,” she said.
Apparently, Hall wasn’t one for formalities. He gave her a curt little nod and started heading for the front door without another word. Mackenzie followed him and started to feel some sort of odd dread creeping up on her.
This case haunts me, he had said.
Based on the look of unease in his eyes as he had turned toward the door, Mackenzie didn’t doubt him one bit.
***
“He’s doing it again, right?”
The question was out of Hall’s mouth before they were even out of the parking lot. He had a look of certainty on his face, as if he had been expecting to hear such news for a very long time now.
“He is,” she answered. “Or so it seems. In Seattle. What makes you sure enough to ask a question like that?”
“The way he went about killing them…just leaving them there to be found or rot…it doesn’t make sense that he’d just stop. I think we got close to getting him, I really do. I think that’s why he stopped when he did. But I’ve always felt that he’d pop up somewhere else and start again.”
“We’ve got two bodies in Seattle so far,” Mackenzie said. “One had been in the storage unit for quite some time. Seven to eight days at least.”
Hall nodded. “A single stab wound to the gut?”
“Yes sir.”
“I always thought he did that so they’d bleed out…die slow, you know? And that’s what gets me about the case. The fourth body…she’d been there for at least three days. The coroner said she had just recently died. Like very recently. If we’d found her a few hours before…”
Hall looked through the windshield with a slate-solid look on his face. She’d seen that look on agents here and there—agents who had gone through some terrible traumatic case and had not quite fully recovered.
“The five cases out here,” Mackenzie said. “I understand that there aren’t many family members that stuck around?”
“That’s one way of putting it. For one of the women, it was just too much for the family. Her brother committed suicide a week later and their father followed suit right after the funerals. The mother moved away somewhere else…last I heard it was somewhere overseas. She got as far away as possible. Two of them didn’t have any family around here in the first place. As for the other two, I believe their families are still around Salem somewhere.”
She let all of this sink in as Hall drove them through the light flow of traffic. Because she had left Seattle just before seven o’clock, it was not yet even noon when Hall pulled his car off of the highway and into a thin two-lane that emptied out into the parking lot of a place called Salem Storage.
She could tell right away that the place was no longer in business. The office building had wooden shutters over its single window and the gate that separated the storage sheds from the parking lot had been sloppily torn down. Hall parked in front of the derelict office and wasted no time in getting out.
“Went out of business about a year after the murders. Two of them occurred here.”
“Do you know which ones?”
“Pamela Evans and Jade Barker.”
She didn’t doubt him when he pulled those names out so quickly. She imagined he knew every detail about the cases inside and out.
“Do you recall which one Jade Barker was discovered in?” she asked.
Hall nodded and started walking forward. He led her down the central aisle that ran between the storage buildings, keeping his eyes straight ahead. He didn’t look spooked but very determined—determined not to let the past reach out and ensnare him. After about thirty seconds of walking, he stopped and pointed to one of the storage sheds on the right.
“That one.”
Mackenzie walked up to it and was surprised to see that there was no lock. She wondered if the place had been more or less ransacked after the business and gone belly-up. She looked back to Hall, as if making sure she was allowed to open it up. All he did was shrug as he stepped forward to join her.
He lifted the door for her. It shrieked on rusted gliders but folded in and up without too much of a problem. As Mackenzie had expected, the place was empty.
“Do you know if Jade Barker’s family ended up getting her things?”
“I believe so. Her family is one of the ones that live nearby. Her parents took Jade’s death incredibly hard. I bet you anything they still have most of her stuff from this little building. In his basement or attic or something.”
Mackenzie stepped inside. It was very musty and moldy inside, thick with the scent of forgotten places and things. She found herself looking in the corners for trinkets left behind. But there was nothing, of course.
Nothing other than a faded stain near the front center. A stain that had once unmistakably been blood.
“You good here?” Hall aske
d. “There’s one other thing I want to show you.”
He turned and headed back for the car before Mackenzie had time to answer. He left her to look down at that stain and imagine the woman who had one lain there, gagged and bound and slowly bleeding out as she slowly started to starve.
A little shiver passed through Mackenzie. She tore her eyes away from the stained floor and quickly followed Hall out, left to close the door by herself.
***
Mackenzie sat in silence, thinking about the kind of person who would kill until nearly caught, then move somewhere else for safety only to start again eight years later. Why the huge span of time? Why go back to the exact same manner of killing?
He’s a creature of habit, she thought. That, plus the potential game of leaving bizarre tea party–themed clues behind will surely lead us to him…right?
Hall drove them from Salem Storage to another storage site. Only, to call this one a storage complex was a stretch. It was an open lot three miles outside of the city limits, tucked away in the middle of a barren field. Mackenzie was confused as she stepped out of the car and followed Hall into the lot.
There were eight storage sheds sitting in the lot, all marked with graffiti of some kind or another. There were punctures in the side of one that she was pretty sure were bullet holes.
“The third victim, Shana Batiste, was found here. As you can see for yourself, this was just some little ramshackle operation run by a guy for extra cash. He was a truck driver who ran this on the side. Had his wife helping. The place was never much, as you can see. Just a quick way for some local shithead to make an extra grand or so a month.”
He led them to one of the units at the far end of the lot. The door was already opened, hanging slightly crooked at the top like a chipped tooth. Hall nodded toward it, making it clear that he had no intention of going inside.
“We don’t know for certain, but we think Shana Batiste might have been his first victim. When she was discovered, she’d been dead for at least three weeks. She was naked and had that cut in her upper stomach. There were bruises all along her back. She’d scratched at the door so much that her fingernails were chipped and bloody. When the coroner took the gag off of her mouth…her tongue…”
Mackenzie White 10-Before He Longs Page 5
