They Thought He was Safe

by P. D. Workman

  Some of them had done a little digging and had sidebars on Zachary’s attack by the skinheads and on the fire that had killed John. Once the first one had reported that Zachary had been attacked after leaving The Night Scene, the rest of the articles had reported that he was gay himself, and that was what had sparked his interest in the case. Pat’s and Lorne’s names were also mentioned, reported as being ‘prominent men in the gay community.’

  Zachary felt sick.

  He opened the bedroom door and walked to the kitchen, where Mr. Peterson and Pat sat with their coffee and a newspaper. Zachary could only hope that the story hadn’t made it to the printed news before the deadline.

  But Pat’s ashen face told him that his hope was vain.

  They both looked at him without a word. Without the usual cheery morning smiles.

  “I’m sorry,” Zachary said. “I didn’t talk to anyone. I swear. It wasn’t me.”

  “How did they get this, then?” Mr. Peterson asked.

  Zachary licked his dry lips. He glanced over at the coffee machine. “It must have been Rocky or someone on his staff. They had the recovered files.”

  Mr. Peterson shook his head slowly. “Good grief. I never would have expected Rocky to do something like that. That’s my fault, Zachary. I should never have taken you there.”

  “You had no way of knowing. We just went there to get the camera fixed. They shouldn’t have used it for their own purposes.”

  “No.”

  Pat was still looking at Zachary with wide eyes. “Do you really think this is the work of a serial killer?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spent enough time going through the documents. I don’t even know yet if John was right and they are all missing. Some of these guys could be reading about their own deaths right now and be pretty surprised. I need to go through and verify everything.”

  “I would guess the police will be doing that now. They have more manpower than you do.”

  “They haven’t even opened an investigation into this,” Zachary said. “They just got the information yesterday, and like I said, it has to all be verified before we go jumping to any conclusions. I do think… that it is more than coincidence that ties all of these men together. It looks too much like a pattern. But it’s way too early to tell.”

  “The paper says there is an investigation underway.”

  “I know… but they’re wrong. There are two investigations right now. Jose’s missing persons case and John’s death. I don’t know if any missing persons files were ever opened on any of the other men. But there is no serial murder investigation. There’s no task force, at least not as of five minutes ago. And just in case you’re wondering, I am not gay.”

  Pat cracked a smile at that. “I think I know that. I get your point. They haven’t gotten all of the facts right. This is just so shocking.” He shook his head in dismay. “I had no idea, when we talked to you about Jose, that it would lead to any of this.”

  “How could you? I’m just following the evidence, seeing where it leads. There wasn’t any way to predict it.” Zachary poured himself a cup of coffee. “I guess I’d better hit the books.”

  “Do you need any help?” Mr. Peterson asked. “Reading, collating information, anything?”

  He knew that reading wasn’t Zachary’s strongest suit. But Zachary’s skills had grown and developed as a private investigator, and he had gotten accustomed to reading and managing large amounts of paperwork when he had to.

  “I’ll take my ADHD meds so that I can focus on it, and I’ll start a database or wiki on the computer to tame all the facts. It’s a big job, but I can manage it.”

  “Well, if you need anything, just let me know. You can rest your eyes and I can read some of it to you. I’m not so much good on the computer, but you can bounce ideas off of us. Talk about theories, see what fits.”

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know.” He had worked out how to make his computer read digital documents aloud to him, so he didn’t need Mr. Peterson for that. But he might take him up on brainstorming ideas together.

  “And you need more for breakfast than just coffee.”

  “One piece of toast,” Zachary conceded.

  “You eat the whole thing.”

  “I’ll try.”

  When Zachary walked through the living room to get back to the guest bedroom, he saw unusual activity out the front window and stopped for a closer look. There was an assortment of trucks that didn’t belong there, with satellite dishes on top and people milling about with cameras and boom mikes. Zachary stared at them.

  “I see you’ve noticed our visitors,” Pat observed.

  “How long have they been here?”

  “Since before we got up. That security system of yours woke us up when they got too close to the house, so I chased them back over the property line. They’ve been pretty good since then, but we’re leaving the system armed so we know if they start getting too close again.”

  “Why would they be here?”

  “To interview you.”

  “Or the prominent citizens in the Vermont gay community,” Mr. Peterson added, smiling.

  Zachary rubbed his temples. “Oh, man… I’m so sorry about this.”

  “This isn’t anything you did, Zachary. This is something that we all walked into. It’s part of finding out what happened to Jose. If he was the victim of a predator who has been killing other gay men for the past few years… then this is what we need to do. We can’t back down just because it’s inconvenient.”

  “I should have been more careful, though. I should have made sure that Rocky hadn’t copied anything to his hard drive. Made sure that I logged out and cleared the web browser. I shouldn’t have emailed the files from there at all. I don’t know what I was thinking. Just that the faster I got them to Dougan, the sooner we could start getting some answers.”

  “Zachary, we’re all in this together. Pat and I fully support you on this. Pat asked you to look into it. I took you to the camera shop. None of us could have predicted this outcome, or we might have approached it differently. But you didn’t do anything but follow the evidence. If you’ve found more than the police did, that just shows what a good investigator you are.”

  Zachary remained hyperfocused on John’s papers for most of the morning, pulled out of it once or twice due to the whoops of the security system when the crowd outside got too close to the house. He had his phone turned to airplane mode so he wouldn’t be interrupted by reporters or other curious inquiries. When he took a break, he turned his phone back on to collect his messages. He saw that one of them was from Kenzie and gave her a call back.

  “Oh, so you are deigning to speak to the rest of us common folk?” Kenzie teased when she picked up.

  “Sorry. Had to turn the phone off to get anything done this morning.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I thought your questions about profiling the other days were theoretical. You actually took on a serial killer case?”

  “Well… not intentionally. It was just the disappearance of a friend that Pat asked me to look into. But I guess you know now he wasn’t the only one to disappear.”

  “Me, along with the rest of the country. You made the news in a big way. And the fact that you’ve solved a couple of murders in the last year gives you a bit of credibility.”

  “I’m not the one who leaked it. That was… unintentional. I wasn’t looking for any publicity.”

  “You’ve certainly caused some waves. Phone lines are all lit up looking for comments from officers who have had contact with the great Zachary Goldman on other cases.”

  “No one is going to talk to them, though, right? Just a lot of ‘no comments.’”

  “That’s the official line. I don’t know whether they’ll be able to wring a quote out of anybody anonymously, but there won’t be anything official.” She paused. “And then there are people who know that you and I have been seeing each other for the last year and are now confused by the report that you’re ga
y.”

  Zachary felt himself flush. “You know that’s not true.”

  “Well, it would explain a few things…”

  “Kenzie, I just don’t want to rush things—”

  She was laughing. “After your experience with Bridget, I don’t blame you for not wanting to rush things. But then, I wouldn’t blame you for going off of women, either…”

  “I was at the bar for the investigation. If I’m investigating the disappearance of a gay man, doesn’t it make sense to investigate the places he frequented?”

  She gave another laugh and let him off the hook. “Okay, okay. Really, I wasn’t calling to bust your chops. I just thought I’d check in with you and see how you were doing. So how are you?”

  “I’m okay.” Zachary considered. “I’m not as anxious about the publicity as you would think.”

  “That’s good, but I was more worried about your trip to the hospital. How badly are you hurt?”

  “Bumps and bruises. Nothing broken or ruptured.”

  “Still, you must be pretty sore. How many were there?”

  Zachary thought back. It had all happened so fast. He tried to slow it down in his brain. “Maybe… six. Two guys were holding me, and…”

  Kenzie swore. “You’re lucky you’re still in one piece. How did you manage to get away?”

  “A bystander interrupted them.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “Yeah, it was. Could have been a lot worse.”

  “How are Pat and Lorne handling the publicity? I don’t imagine they were expecting to have a spotlight shined on their lives.”

  “There are reporters camped out outside their house. They’re handling it pretty well, but I hope it doesn’t go on for too long. Another story will break, and the reporters will have to go somewhere else.”

  “Serial killers are good copy. They won’t give up for a while.”

  “Thanks.”

  She chuckled. “Just had to bring a little ray of sunshine into your life. But seriously, you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “And I know you probably aren’t as far along in the investigation as you were hoping to be, but do you have everything you need on serial killers?”

  “I’m going on your advice and trying to match up suspects with opportunity, rather than a psychological profile.”

  “That will give you the most solid information. You can get a behaviorist to try to create a profile for you, but they’re not as accurate as you see on TV. It might help you to focus on a smaller group of suspects, but you wouldn’t be able to rely on it like an alibi.”

  “Motive, means, and opportunity. That’s what I’m going to focus on.”

  “Good. Are there many suspects?”

  Zachary thought of the people he had already talked to. None of them had struck him as serial killers, but wasn’t that what they always said? He was the nicest guy. He was so quiet. Always helpful. And then there were the names he had pulled from the online forums.

  “I don’t really have a handle on it yet. I’ll be looking for connections between the victims. Did they frequent the same places, live in the same area, have mutual friends, that kind of thing?”

  “If this guy has been hunting the same waters for a few years… he’s going to be hard to spot. Or he would have already been discovered.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You should probably just let the police investigate it. They aren’t going to want you getting in the way, and you can’t exactly hide your investigation from the killer now. I wouldn’t want you to be a target.”

  “I’m just reading files right now. And the police haven’t yet opened an investigation, despite what the reporters are saying. They have an investigation open on Jose’s disappearance, and on my informant’s death, nothing on a serial killer. We’re all a bit behind the eight ball. No one was expecting this to go public so soon.”

  “This informant… that’s all a little spooky. He comes to you with this theory, and then he gets murdered within an hour? No one can tell me that’s a coincidence.”

  “I know.” Zachary had been trying not to focus on this issue as he worked his way through John’s papers. He just kept telling himself how much he appreciated the work that John had done and how lucky he had been to find him.

  “You need to be careful, okay? Neo-Nazis and burning cars… you’re taking risks.”

  “I’m at home with Pat and Mr. Peterson. They have a state-of-the art security system. We’re surrounded by reporters eager to get a picture of something they can publish. We couldn’t be much safer.”

  “Okay. Well, you be careful. It’s really the job of the police department, not you, so let them do their thing.”

  “I will,” Zachary agreed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Z

  achary dialed Philippe’s number with the list of possible victims in front of him. Philippe hadn’t been around for long, but he might have known the last few people on John’s list, since the two of them were acquainted. And he might have the names of some of the other men who would know the earlier victims.

  The phone rang immediately through to voicemail. Zachary hung up and looked at his phone.

  There was no reason to jump to the conclusion that something had happened to Philippe. If any of the news articles had linked him to Zachary or Jose, he was probably dealing with calls from reporters and, like Zachary, had either turned his phone to airplane mode or turned it off. Or he had seen Zachary’s number and sent it to voicemail or had blocked it. There was no reason to think that something had happened to the boy.

  He looked up Nando’s number and it also went to voicemail. Chances were, the illegals were spooked. Now that Zachary’s name had shown up in the news, they wanted nothing to do with him. They didn’t want to be caught in any investigation, whether by the police, or Zachary, or news reporters. They knew how to go underground to avoid inquiries.

  Zachary went to talk to Pat, and found him busy in the kitchen making sandwiches.

  “Be ready in a few minutes,” Pat promised.

  Zachary wasn’t hungry, but he knew Pat was right and he should probably eat soon, so he didn’t argue. “I was wondering whether you had talked to your friends.”

  “What friends, Zach?”

  “I asked if I could talk to some of your acquaintances who knew Jose. You said you needed to talk to them first. So I’m wondering whether there’s any way I could talk to them now…?”

  “All of the publicity complicates things. I don’t know how far you’ll be able to get with them. But I’ve got a couple who said yesterday that they would talk to you.”

  Zachary let out his breath, relieved. “Good. And I have some names I wanted you to look at, when you’re not busy…”

  Pat glanced at him. “The names of the missing men?”

  “Uh, yeah. I wondered whether you knew any of the others.”

  “There are different social groups in the community, just like with any population. Jose moved between the music scene and some… riskier places. Most of the people Lorne and I do things with are stable older couples or bachelors. Not young pups who are polyamorous. The newspaper articles blurred the last names of the missing men, but I don’t think I knew any of the others. Not well enough to know anything about their lives, anyway.”

  “I’ll show you the unmasked list, just to be sure. It might trigger something.”

  Pat nodded. “Just don’t get your hopes up. If this guy has avoided discovery, it’s by targeting men who aren’t in committed relationships. Otherwise, their partners would have talked to the police.”

  “Even if they’re illegals?”

  “Hard to say,” Pat admitted, “but I would think some of them would have, considering the number of names on that list.”

  Eric Naylor had agreed to talk to Zachary, but it was obvious he was still leery of the idea. Zachary arrived at his used clothing store at closing time, as Naylor had suggested, and when Naylor got a lo
ok at him, Zachary thought he was going to lock him out. The swelling on Zachary’s face was going down, but the bruises were setting in and the split cheek and lip were still livid. Despite the fact that he looked like a victim rather than a goon, Naylor still looked hesitant about letting him in. Eventually, he steeled himself and opened the door wide for Zachary, then closed it and locked it behind him, turning the sign over to ‘closed.’

  Naylor was an older man, probably in his sixties, slim and neat and expensively dressed. He had long, tapering fingers and a prissy manner.

  “I appreciate you agreeing to see me,” Zachary told him. “I know you probably aren’t too eager to talk about what might have happened to Jose, especially in light of all of the stuff in the news today.”

  “I think, actually, that seeing it in the news made it seem more real. When Pat said that he was afraid something had happened to Jose, I didn’t think it was anything. He could have just gone away without telling anybody. But seeing all of those names… if this really is a serial killer…”

  “We don’t know yet. But we’d like to catch the guy if it is. Before he hurts anyone else.”

  Naylor nodded. He busied himself with tidying up the store as he talked to Zachary, his fingers always moving.

  “Do you recognize the names of anyone else on this list?” Zachary handed him the printed page.

  Naylor’s eyes went over it, working their way down the page. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Sometimes you know someone’s first name and not their last, but I don’t recognize anyone.”

  “Okay, thanks. So you were part of the group that hung out sometimes with Pat and Lorne? And Jose?”

  “Yeah. We like our music,” Naylor made an abbreviated motion in the air, as if he were leading a band. “When there was someone good playing or singing, we made sure we were there.”

  “In mixed groups, or just LGBT venues?”

  “Mostly LGBT. That’s where we can fit in and not have to worry about being harassed. But if there was something we just had to see at a bigger venue, we would.”