by Terri Reid
“We’ve had officers check abandoned homes and even apartment buildings,” Bradley replied. “But I hadn’t thought about renting a place.”
“Is there a central database of rental units in your town?” Peter asked.
Mary shook her head. “No, there’s the local paper and there’s also online sites.”
“We should compile a list of all of the places that were for rent last month and now have a renter,” Tracey said, reaching into her briefcase for her laptop. “I can start working online.”
“Aye, I’ll join you,” Ian said. “I’ve my laptop on the coffee table.”
“I’ll go down to the paper…” Mary started.
Bradley put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll call one of my officers to pick up old copies of the paper,” he said. “And they can bring them to you.”
“You should also check recent obituaries,” Peter suggested.
“What? Why?” Bradley asked.
“Well, if our Mr. Copper is as deadly as you claim,” he said. “He wouldn’t have wanted to leave any loose ends.”
Chapter Forty
Sean pushed away from his desk and walked over to the window of his office that overlooked downtown Chicago. He laid his forehead against the cold glass panel and stared, unseeing, into the distance. He was out there, somewhere, plotting his next kill. Stalking his next victim. He closed his eyes and sent up a silent prayer. I can’t do this on my own, he prayed, I need your help. Please, I need to stop this demon.
Placing his hand on the casing around the window, he opened his eyes and looked out again, this time seeing the city below. He loved this city. He loved the noise, he loved the neighborhoods, and he loved the melting pot culture that allowed a Swedish bakery to be next door to a Japanese sushi place that was next door to a Middle Eastern restaurant. This was his city, dammit, and no one was going to get away with killing the people he was responsible for.
Pushing away from the window, he went back to his desk and picked up the file that was getting thicker as the days wore on. He flipped open the cover and pulled out the stack of crime scene photos Maria had taken. There had to be something there he’d missed. He fanned the photos out over his desk, creating a horrific collage of death, and bent over them, trying to find something...anything.
Maria Draper looked up from her paperwork before she knocked on the doorjamb that led into Sean’s office and her hand froze mid-air. Through the open door she studied him as he stared down at the photos on his desk. She knew what he was seeing; she had nightmares about them. Usually, when she took photos of a death scene, the lens of the camera would distance her from the remains on the ground. But not this time. This time she had been pulled in by the brutality and senselessness of each death. No money was taken, no jewelry was missing, laptops, smart phone and expensive watches were all within a few feet of the murdered victim. There was no reason for the deaths…except enjoyment. And that’s what chilled her heart.
Sean looks tired, she thought and wondered if he too were experiencing nightmares over this case. She had always admired him. He was tough, but fair, he was hard-working, but could relax with the rest of them when the time was right. And he was devoted. Devoted to his family, devoted to his job and devoted to his city.
He finally looked up and saw her. His smile was weary. “Maria, tell me you’ve solved the case for me,” he said. “Then I’ll retire and give you my job.”
She smiled back and shook her head. “No thanks,” she replied. “I’ll keep working with the dead bodies; you can have the live ones. But I did find something that might be useful.”
“Anything,” Sean said, standing up and stretching, “Because I’ve got nothing here.”
Moving into his office, she found a small clear spot on his desk and placed a photo on it. “I found this,” she said.
Sean bent down again and studied the photo. “You found mold?” he finally asked, looking at the magnified picture of white and green dots.
“No, I found Blarneya hibernica,” she replied. “I found trace amounts on the clothes of all of the victims.”
“All of them?” he asked. “So this is no coincidence.”
She shook her head. “No, this isn’t a coincidence; the killer must have been carrying it somehow and it brushed off on his victims.”
Sean nodded his head, a smile growing on his face as he picked up the photo and studied it. “This is excellent,” he said, with a deep sigh of relief. “Really excellent. We are finally getting a break on this case. So, where does this…Blarneya stuff grow?”
Her silence caused him to lower the photo and turn in her direction. “Maria,” he said slowly. “Where does this grow?”
“Well that’s the only weird thing about it,” she said.
“What’s weird,” he asked, his smile disappearing and an intuitive feeling of dread filling his heart.
“It’s only found in one area of the world,” she said hesitantly. “The old woodlands of Ireland.”
Chapter Forty-one
“Well, that’s the tenth call I’ve made about online rentals,” Tracey said. “And I’ve had no luck so far. How about you?”
Ian shook his head. “Nothing so far,” he said. “And I’m amazed at how many of these adverts are just bait and switch deals. They don’t have an apartment for rent; they want to sell you a house.”
Mary looked up from the paper she was reading, a pencil in her mouth, and shook her head. “Nothing,” she mumbled before returning back to the stack in front of her.
She slipped the pencil from her mouth and made a note on the legal pad in front of her. “What we need is a profiler so we can narrow down the area he would be interested in,” she said. “He could be in any of the small towns in the area, or even as far away as Rockford. We are searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“I did some profiling work once,” Peter said. “And I was actually quite good at it.”
Mary discreetly rolled her eyes and sighed softly.
“Okay Peter,” Ian said. “Give it a go.”
“What? What did Peter say?” Tracey asked.
“He’s done a bit of profiling,” Ian said, “so he’s going to see if he can figure out where Copper would have rented.”
Tracey stood up and grabbed her purse. “While you two talk with Peter, I’m going to run out and get us all some lunch,” she said. “I’ll pick up sandwiches at the deli in the mall. Okay?”
“Sounds great,” Mary said. “Thank you.”
“Aye, a corned beef sandwich would hit the spot,” Ian said.
“Mary?” Tracey asked.
“Turkey,” Mary replied.
“Got it. I’ll be back soon.”
“She didn’t ask me,” Peter complained. “I would have liked a ham on rye.”
“You keep forgetting you’re dead,” Ian said. “A sandwich wouldn’t do you much good.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he replied. “I do keep forgetting. But a ham on rye still sounds delicious.”
“Peter,” Mary said impatiently. “Profiling…”
“Ah, yes, back to profiling. We know he bought a disguise, so he does realize that people are looking for him. So, I don’t think he’d rent in a small town because too many people would notice the new person in town, especially law enforcement. He’d want a bigger town, so he could hide.”
“That makes sense,” Mary agreed. “So, we have Freeport, Rockford and, even Monroe, Wisconsin, as possiblities.”
Peter shook his head. “No you really don’t.”
“Why not?” Ian asked.
“This perp is obsessed with Mary,” he said. “He wouldn’t want to be that far away from her. He’s here in Freeport. He’s as close as he can be without being caught.”
Ian nodded. “Actually, that makes sense too,” he said, pulling out a street map. “So let’s assume Freeport.”
“But that’s still a lot of area to cover,” Mary said.
Peter shook his head and leaned over th
e map. “Now we need to narrow down the neighborhoods he’d most likely choose to inhabit,” he said. “We’re looking for a neighborhood that is middle to lower middle class, blue collar and although it can be mixed racially, it would be predominantly white. It also should have a mixture of ages, both the young and the elderly.”
“Okay, wait, you’ve got to explain this,” Mary said.
“Lower to middle-class demographics historically don’t spend extra money on reading newspapers. They get their news from television or, now, on the Internet,” he said. “They have more urgent uses for their money. So…”
“So they wouldn’t have read about the case in the papers and wouldn’t be seeing his picture,” Mary said.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “And, although he was on the local news, it was a 60 second sound bite and it’s no longer news. People aren’t really going to remember his face from the local news.”
“Why blue collar?” Ian asked.
“Because of shift work,” Peter explained. “You have people coming and going at all hours of the day and night and no one notices.”
“And predominantly white because he is white and no one is going to notice an old white guy walking down the street,” Mary surmised.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “And the mixture of ages is the same thing. It needs to be a neighborhood where an older man fits in. I’d also be looking at houses that have not been cared for as well as they should.”
“Okay, you’ve got me on that one,” Ian said. “Why is that important?”
“Because when you take time to care for your lawn and around the outside of your home, you spend time outside your home. When the outside is a mess, you tend to stay inside with the shades drawn,” Peter said. “Exactly what he’d want.”
Mary sat back in her chair. “I have to admit, I had my doubts, but this all makes sense.”
Ian turned the map towards Mary. “So, where do you think we ought to be looking?” Ian asked.
Mary picked up a yellow highlighter and marked parts of the east end of town. “There are some areas over here that fit the description pretty well,” she said. “And then there are blocks here and there that would also work.”
“Okay, let’s make a list of all the rentals in these areas and the contact names,” Ian suggested. “Then we can split them up and make calls.”
“This will be so much easier,” Mary said, looking over at Peter. “You’re brilliant.”
Bradley entered the house. “Who’s brilliant?” he asked.
Ian looked up from the list he was already compiling. “Peter just helped us narrow down neighborhoods where Copper might be renting,” he said. “We’re putting a list together now.”
Walking over to Ian, he looked over his shoulder. “A ghost and a mystery writer came up with a theory and you’re just going to follow it?” he asked skeptically. “You can’t come up with a more qualified concept than that?”
“How dare he?” Peter exclaimed. “I’ll have him know that I worked for an alphabet agency.”
“He says he worked for an alphabet agency,” Mary repeated. “And he’s done profiling in the past.”
Bradley folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah, which agency?”
Peter turned to Mary. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
Mary bit her lower lip and sighed. “He said he can’t tell you because he is sworn to secrecy,” she said.
Chuckling, Bradley shook his head. “Yeah, and if he tells us, what are they going to do? Kill him?”
He walked over next to her and whispered in her ear. “I personally think the guy’s a fraud.”
“I don’t know, Bradley,” she said. “Actually, some of his ideas made a lot of sense. He seemed to have a good grasp of the demographic profile Copper would be seeking.”
“Well, okay, I don’t believe any of it,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “But I’m willing to try anything. What do you want me to do?”
Ian lifted his list. “I was planning on dividing up the list and making calls,” he said. “But I’ve got a couple addresses on top that don’t have phone numbers, the ads say they just want you to stop by and see them.”
Bradley reached over for the list and studied it. Two lines down was an address with the owner’s name listed as W. Rupp. He wondered if the person might be related to Clarissa’s Mr. Rupp. “I can take care of these,” he said, reading down the list and then tearing the top names from the page.
“Thanks,” Ian said. “Let us know what you find.”
Turning, he gave Mary a quick kiss and started for the door.
“Be safe out there,” she called.
He turned and winked. “I always am.”
Chapter Forty-two
Bradley pulled the cruiser up in front of the dilapidated home and shook his head. How in the world could anyone live in that? He checked the address on the list Ian had given him. Yes, this was it, he thought. Dead or not, Rupp is a slumlord. There is no way Copper is staying in a place like this. He’d be worried it would fall on top of him. What the hell were they thinking listening to that naked ghost?
Exiting the cruiser, he noticed a late model sedan with Iowa license plates. If someone had been renting here for a month, they should have had those plates changed. He leaned back into the cruiser and placed a call to Dorothy.
“Hey, Dorothy, it’s Bradley,” he said. “I’ve got some tags from Iowa I’d like you to run for me. It’s nothing crucial, just need to find out who they’re registered to.”
He waited for a moment and then gave her the plate numbers. He settled back in the seat and, while he waited, heard Dorothy swear at her computer. Chuckling softly, he picked up the radio again. “Hey, listen Dorothy, I’m just going to go on up and check something out, I should be back to the car within fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully the computer will cooperate by then.”
He stepped back out of the car, shaking his head and smiling. Dorothy didn’t have a lot of patience for technology. He almost felt sorry for the computer.
Placing his hat on his head, he walked up the broken sidewalk to the front of the house. Plywood covered the door’s window and sidelights, and the doorbell was suspended by a frayed electrical wire several inches in front of the doorframe. Bradley opted to knock. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone in there? This is the Freeport Police.”
Receiving no response, he tried the door to see if it was unlocked, but it held tight. Without a warrant he knew he couldn’t justify kicking the door down, so decided to try the back door. As he made his way around debris and used appliances to the back of the house, he saw that all of the windows at ground level were covered in plywood.
Reaching the back of the house, he discovered that the porch had collapsed and was lying four feet below the back door in a pile of splintered wood, nails and garbage. The roof of the porch was hanging precariously above him from a two by four nailed into the house.
He looked up at the roof and over to the door three feet in front of him. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said softly.
Continuing his exploration of the house, he continued past the porch and found a rusted storm cellar door angling up from the ground into the side of the house. “Well, this is as good an entrance as any,” he said, pulling leather gloves out of his coat pocket and slipping them on before he grabbed the rusty handle and pulled.
Dirt, leaves and pieces of chipped paint slid down the front of the door as Bradley opened it and laid it to the side. Several startled mice dashed across the basement floor and hid themselves in openings in the old limestone walls. Bradley brushed a massive spider web out of his way before flicking on his flashlight and stepping down the three wobbly steps into the basement. “Hello, is anyone here?” he called out. “Freeport Police. I just want to talk to you.”
Stepping inside the basement, he shone his flashlight slowly around the perimeter of the room. Stacks of boxes, old furniture and an ancient furnace that still seemed to be runnin
g, filled the room. As he neared the furnace, he caught a whiff of an odor that turned his stomach. It was an odor that, once you encountered, you never forgot. Rotting flesh.
He turned in the direction of the smell and spied the old freezer in the corner of the basement, its lid rusty and covered with years of grime. Holding his breath, he slowly reached for the lid. A sharp hissing sound was discharged from the freezer when he lifted the top. He stepped closer and shone the flashlight inside. “Mr. Rupp, I presume,” he said softly.
“How astute of you Bradley,” Copper said from behind him and Bradley heard the unmistakable click of a gun being cocked. “But then you always were too smart for your own good.”
Chapter Forty-three
“Run Mary!” Bradley shouted.
“What?” Copper exclaimed, turning his focus away from Bradley for a moment.
That was all Bradley needed. He grabbed the top of a wooden chair next to the freezer and swung it around with all his might. It flew across the room, crashed into Copper and sent him reeling back into a stack of boxes.
Bradley dropped down and reached for his own gun, but his hand slipped on the grip. He shook his head and tried again, but he seemed to be working through a thick fog. He could hear Copper’s laughter in the distance. Desperately, he fought through and pulled out his gun, aiming it in Copper’s direction.
“Come on Bradley,” he heard Copper call. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Never mix nitrous oxide with guns. It’s far too dangerous.”
Shaking his head to clear it, Bradley tried to focus on Copper’s voice. His hands shook as he pointed the gun to the opposite corner of the room.
“Don’t worry Bradley,” Copper called. “I won’t be coming to your side of the basement until the rest of the gas has dissipated. I booby-trapped that freezer with enough gas to knock out a horse; it’s only a matter of time.”
Bradley realized the hiss he heard when he opened the lid was the gas being released.
“I couldn’t let anyone discover Rupp’s body and be able to leave, now could I?” Copper asked, chuckling. “Although I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would actually snare the one thing that is going to bring Mary running to me.”
