“Don’t get your boxers in a wad, Jake.”
“Who told you?”
“Who told me what?”
“That I wore boxers.”
“Nobody. It’s just an expression. But you’re changing the subject. Ellen would not have shot me.”
“Were you completely convinced of that while you were kneeling on the concrete?” Jake asked.
“That’s beside the point,” Lucinda argued.
“No, it’s not. Were you?”
“Yes,” she said but would not look him in the eye.
“Liar. If you were that sure, you wouldn’t have kneeled in the first place.”
“Okay. I admit it. I wasn’t positive she wouldn’t shoot me. I didn’t think she’d shoot me but I didn’t want to push my luck.”
“Fine. Then she committed a serious crime. Your life was at risk. End of story.”
“Oh, don’t end of story’ me. You are not my captain, Mr. Special Agent man.”
Jake raised his hands in front of his face as if warding off an attack. “Sorry, sorry, that was out of line. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just arguing a point, not trying to tell you what to do. Friends?” he said with a grin as he stuck out his hand.
“Maybe,” she said as she took his hand in hers and gave it a shake. “Maybe.”
The phone on Ted’s desk rang and Jake reached for it. “Branson’s desk. Lovett speaking.”
He listened for a moment and said, “Branson’s out for the day. Hold on a second. Let me put you on speakerphone. I’ve got Lieutenant Pierce with me here.” Before pressing the button, he turned to Lucinda. “This is my lab calling. They’ve got some results.”
“Okay. We extracted DNA samples for the rope used to hang Michael Agnew. One profile fits the victim. The other profile does not. And we did not get a hit on the database.”
“Damn,” Lucinda said.
“The DNA database is still a work in progress. Even though we didn’t get a hit today, we could get one tomorrow. New profiles are uploaded every day. We’ll put it on the high-priority list to double-check it until we have an identity.” The tech continued, “Lieutenant, we did check the profile against those of your suspects and didn’t get a match there either.”
“So you came up totally blank?” Jake asked.
“Not exactly. Branson got an investigator in Jacksonville, Florida, to forward a DNA profile they found on a crime scene down there. And it was a match. That’s why I wanted to check with Branson to see if he’d dug up anything new.”
“I doubt if we’ll see him today,” Jake said. “But we’ll dig on his computer and see if we can find anything and get back to you if we do.”
They navigated through Ted’s database, amazed at the depth and breadth of the information he’d managed to organize and input in such a short period of time. “I give up,” Jake said. “I’m can’t figure out what stuff is new and what stuff they already have.”
“Maybe we oughta shoot the new database up there and let them sort it out. They’re probably more familiar with Ted’s process than we are.”
“Good idea. I’ll call and get the email address for whoever I need to send it up to.”
Lucinda sat in front of the keyboard, scrolling through the details of the unfolding case. Seven homicides had now been connected to the one at the school district building. Four more were being looked at as possible connections. The inconclusive finding there probably had more to do with sloppy crime-scene work than anything else. Jake was still talking to D.C. when the phone on Lucinda’s desk rang. She walked over and answered, “Pierce.”
“Hello, Lieutenant. This is Sergeant Blocker with the homicide department in Philadelphia. I want to apologize ahead of time if this is a stupid phone call – there are good odds that it is. But I couldn’t get it out of my head without making sure.”
“Fine, Sergeant. What’s on your mind?”
“We had this incident the other day. A 9-1-1 call, that really only required medical assistance, got a bit garbled and prompted dispatch to send out a couple of patrol cars. One team went inside the building. The other team secured the outside perimeter. The guys inside were finding out that there wasn’t an assault in progress, after all. Some guy in the office was having a stroke or heart attack or something. Anyway, the guys outside found a notepad with a weird message written on it. The contents of it struck them as a little hinky so they figured it might be a good idea to look around and see if anything else looked suspicious. They had about given up and were approaching a dumpster to toss the notepad inside as just more litter. But then, they spotted a duffle bag tucked between the wall and the garbage bin. When they opened it up, there were dirty clothes inside. So, they bagged it as evidence and brought it all to me in homicide. They had no idea if it was connected to anything criminal but they didn’t want to risk that it was clothing some perp dumped.
“Anyway, I figured that I just might have gotten lucky and the guys stumbled across something I needed to close an open case so I sent it up to the lab for processing. Before I turned over the notepad, though, I made a copy of the note. I’ve read it over a few times and it just stuck with me.”
Jake had ended his call and stepped over to Lucinda’s desk. He looked at her with raised brows. She raised a finger and mouthed, “Just a minute.”
Sergeant Blocker continued with his story. “So I checked the national crime database for any kind of match on the note’s contents. I entered the phrase “I was left behind” and there you were. I still wasn’t sure if I should call or not but then I noticed another coincidence. The event here occurred at the Family Services Center, a non-profit agency. And, well, I’m not real fond of coincidences. You think I might have anything here? Or am I just wasting your time?”
Lucinda’s heart thudded in her chest and sweat oozed out of her palms. “Can you fax that note to me, right away?”
“Sure can. Hold on,” he said.
Lucinda listened to the murmur of voices as the sergeant talked to someone else in the room with him. “Jake, I’m going to turn this guy over to you when he comes back. They’re processing some dirty clothes that might be connected to our cases.”
When Blocker returned to the phone, he said, “Okay, it’s two pages and it’s on its way.”
“Sergeant, did you say the bag and the dirty clothing are in your lab?” Lucinda asked.
“Sure did.”
“I need to get your lab in communication with the FBI lab. Special Agent Jake Lovett is here. He can give you the contact information.”
“A Feeb? You’re working with a Feeb?”
“He’s not bad for a Feeb, honest,” she said, with a grin in Jake’s direction that caused him to roll his eyes. “He’ll need to get your lab coordinated with his lab in D.C. I’m going to go check on the incoming fax.”
“All right. But you owe me. I don’t like Feebs.”
“Who does, Blocker?” she said with a laugh before handing off the phone and going across the hall to the fax machine. She picked up the first page as it hit the basket. One glimpse at the paper with its block printing and key words and she knew. “It’s our guy,” she shouted across the hall to Jake.
When he joined her by the fax, she handed him a sheet of paper. Lucinda tapped her finger on the machine, waiting for the next page to chug its way through the machine while Jake read the first page.
I WAS LEFT BEHIND.
WAITING FOR THE DAY TO END. FOR THE PEOPLE TO LEAVE. GOODIE TWO SHOES LEFT BEHIND.
BYE-BYE GOODIE TWO SHOES. GOODIE TWO SHOES POINTING HIS TOES TO THE SKY.
ARE YOU A GOODIE TWO SHOES, TOO? SOME COPS ARE.
MAYBE I’LL LEAVE A COP BEHIND NEXT. OR A TEACHER. GOODIE TWO SHOES COME IN MANY SIZES, IN LOTS OF COLORS.
WHO’S NEXT? WHO KNOWS? I’M THINKING
Lucinda pulled out the second page and held it where they could read it together.
THAT MY WORK NEVER BE DONE. THEM THAT LEFT ME BEHIND SHOULD BE SHAKING IN THEIR GOODIE
TWO SHOES. THEY SHOULD KNOW WHO I AM AND OWN THEIR FEAR.
TONIGHT, I’M COMING FOR FREDERICK LEE. HERE’S A NAME FOR YOUR FEAR, GOODIE TWO SHOES.
Across the bottom of the page, a large, blowsy signature: Charles Sinclair Murphy.
Lucinda and Jake looked at each other. “Sure, but is that his real name?” Jake asked.
“I betcha it is,” Lucinda said. “Let’s see what we can find out.” In two minutes, they had enough information to confirm their suspicions. They sent out a mug shot and criminal record of Charles Sinclair Murphy to the dispatcher at the FBI to issue a “Be On the Look Out” alert to law enforcement offices across the country. Now came the part of the investigation that filled them both with dread – the waiting. Waiting for someone, somewhere, to locate their suspect.
Forty-Two
The two investigators got busy learning all they could about Charles Sinclair Murphy. They sat back to back pulling up data on computers. The suspect had a lengthy rap sheet going back to a drunk and disorderly charge when he was eleven years old.
His most recent incarceration had ended with his release on parole four years and a couple of months ago. After that, he seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. There was a warrant out for his arrest in North Carolina for violation of parole.
It appeared as if the medical emergency in Philadelphia had derailed his plans for another victim. Who knew when or where he would strike again. In light of his recent frustration, though, both of them believed it would be soon.
Lucinda and Jake got busy calling around to prisons, jails and jurisdictions that had interfaced with their suspect in the past. Within a couple of hours, they had a wealth of anecdotal information and a pile of documents faxed and emailed for their perusal. The ugliest part of his life story was revealed in reports filed by prison psychologists. One officer summed it all up when he said, “Every time Murphy got a glimpse of life outside of the gutter, someone kicked him in the face and knocked him down in the muck again.”
Murphy’s mother, Cynthia, a bitter and self-destructive woman, dumped him with his grandmother when he was only thirteen months old. Granny Ren had a long history of serious chronic depression, and as a result wasn’t the best surrogate mother in the world but she offered him affection when she could, kept a roof over his head, clothes on his back and food in his stomach. He lived with her until his fifth birthday. Right after Granny Ren sang “Happy Birthday” and Charles blew out the candles on his cake, there was a knock on the door and Cynthia had breezed in with John Langern. Jake and Lucinda studied photographs of them both. Cynthia had a brassy smile, too much make-up and hair like straw. John was a greasy-looking man with slicked-back hair and a crooked, leering smile.
Cynthia announced that she and John were married and now wanted to pick up their son and live like a family. Cynthia and her mother argued over Charles’s fate, but in the end Cynthia left with her son in tow.
For a few years, the little boy lived a vagabond life with his mother and her husband. He’d go to school for a couple of months, then suddenly, when the couple’s current scam went bad, they’d be on the move again. The presence of a young boy was just what they needed to get shelter, food and other necessities from various non-profit agencies and churches along the way until they found a place to set up shop again and start bringing in the ill-gotten cash. Charles would go back to school for a few more months and the furtive pattern of life on the run would start up again.
One morning, Charles awoke and his mother was gone. For days, he kept waiting for her return. He finally had to accept that it was just him and John. At first, nine-year-old Charles was nothing more than the target of John’s physical abuse, taking the blows that used to fall on his mother every time John was drinking. Charles was miserable and lonely, aching for his pathetic excuse of a mother, longing for a return to his grandmother. But when he asked John to take him back to Granny Ren, John backhanded him and laughed when he cried.
Charles didn’t think his life could get any worse but then John decided Charles made an appropriate sexual surrogate for his missing wife. John called Charles “Cynthia” and battered him until he would respond. John raped him roughly and when he’d had his pleasure, he left Charles curled up in a fetal position where the little boy cried himself to sleep.
That was when Charles started sneaking sips from John’s bottle. He developed a great fondness for alcoholic oblivion. He only stopped drinking when he was arrested. Every time he got out of a juvenile facility, a prison or a jail, he’d pick up his habit of drinking and taking drugs to excess. The substance abuse landed him behind bars over and over, until the last time. He went to prison in North Carolina for car theft. There, he learned to read and write during his five years of incarceration. When he walked out a free man, he seemed more self-assured, more confident and definitely craftier.
On parole, he no longer got intoxicated – at least not enough to get in trouble – and he came up clean on his mandated drug tests until the day he simply did not show up.
Now, years later, a menacing note bearing his name had appeared in the parking lot of a non-profit agency and seemed to tie to several homicides. But North Carolina did not have his DNA profile on file to confirm. “So where are you now, Charles Sinclair Murphy?” Lucinda muttered.
“It felt great for a few minutes to know who we were looking for, but now, how can you feel good when you don’t know where to look?” Jake complained.
“Are we sure it’s really him?”
As if on cue, the phone rang. Lucinda answered. It was Sergeant Blocker with additional information. “They found a fingerprint on the duffle bag. We got a hit on AFIS. The owner of the bag is Charles Sinclair Murphy.”
Forty-Three
Lucinda slept fitfully the night after her confrontation with Ellen. She tossed and turned so many times that Chester lost his patience with her and abandoned the bed to sleep on the sofa. In the morning, he meowed incessantly, issuing an incredible range of sounds; some Lucinda didn’t think she’d ever heard from him before. His tone and persistence, though, made his message clear to Lucinda. He was not happy that he’d had to spend the night away from her body heat. She gave him an extra scoop of tuna feast along with her apologies before she left for work.
She picked up Jake at his hotel and just listened as he threw out ideas about the direction of the investigation. The ride was short enough that he didn’t notice her lack of response. She walked into her office feeling drained before she even started working. When she saw Ted sitting at his computer, she wanted to turn tail and run.
When he saw her, Ted jumped to his feet and rushed to her side. “Lucinda, I am so sorry for what happened . . .”
“Don’t apologize to me, Ted,” she said, taking a step back away from him.
He stepped toward her. “Lucinda, I know you are upset and I don’t blame you. I am very sorry.”
“Ted, I am emotionally drained and physically exhausted. I really do not want to discuss this right now.”
“I understand. I just wanted you to know that I am here for you and I am very remorseful about what happened to you.”
“As I said, Ted, you may need to apologize but you don’t need to apologize to me.” Lucinda turned her back to him and sat down in front of her computer busying her fingers on the keyboard.
Jake hadn’t known Lucinda long, but he instinctively knew trouble was brewing. He stood back from both of them, eyes bouncing back and forth.
Ted leaned over her desk. “I think now you can understand why I didn’t think there was any hope for my marriage. Now you know what I was up against.”
Lucinda clenched her jaw and jerked to her feet. Spinning around, she punched an index finger into Ted’s chest. “You still don’t get it, do you? You are a Neanderthal. A cretin. Is it just you or are all men this stupid?” She kept poking him with every pause in her speech. Ted backed up with every poke. Now he was up against his desk. Lucinda flashed her eye in Jake’s direction. He pu
t both palms in the air and shook his head. She almost grinned at him before turning back to Ted. “What do you think I’ve been telling you for months? Did you ever listen to a word I said?”
“I did, but I . . I . . .”
“You just thought it was woman-babble, didn’t you?”
“Uh, well . . .”
“You thought it was meaningless woman-babble.”
“Not exactly . . .”
“Blah, blah, blah, just another woman running her mouth. You should have listened. I told you that woman needed help. I told you she needed you. I told you that she needed help to heal from the loss of her child. And what did you do?”
“I . . . I . . . I . . .”
“You did nothing. You made no allowances for her. You just used anything she did as a reason for you to do nothing. You disgust me.”
“Gee, Lucinda, I didn’t realize that she was this . . .”
“Then why the hell didn’t you listen to me? I told you.”
“Well, sometimes you women just don’t make any sense to us, Lucinda,” Ted said with a nervous laugh and turned to the other man in the room. “Do they, Jake?”
Jake raised both palms in the air again. “Look at me. Not involved. Innocent third party here. Just a bystander.”
Lucinda now turned to Jake. “You could tell him I’m right.”
“Aw, man,” Jake moaned. “Cut me some slack, Lucinda. Even though I know what happened yesterday, I’m still not sure what you two are arguing about. Just pretend I’m Switzerland. Or pretend I’m not here. Or better yet, I’ll leave,” Jake said, making a step toward the door.
“Don’t you dare, Special Agent Lovett! We have work to do,” Lucinda snapped. She turned back to Ted. “And what the hell are you doing here? You have a wife. In jail. She needs you. She needs a lawyer. She needs to get out on bail. And you need to assure her attorney that Ellen’s so-called victim does not want charges brought against her and, in fact, I promise you when Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce takes the stand she will be a crappy witness for the state.”
Punish the Deed (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 19
