Stranger in the Room

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “Can I think it over?” I wasn’t ready to light a fire under this bridge. Not just yet. I wanted to see what it felt like to be on Roberts’s good side for a change.

  31

  The good news is: Even stalkers can’t stalk twenty-four hours a day. It’s how he’d lost track of Miki. He had a job. He had to buy groceries. He had other responsibilities. Maybe he had to walk his dog. It was a comforting thought. Not comforting enough. I had the hotel valet get me a cab rather than use the Neon. Then I checked for a tail out the back window compulsively.

  The driver waited while I ran into my office and collected Neil’s things, then dropped me off at the hospital. Neil was having a bad morning. Lots of pain. Lots of pain meds. He was in and out, seemed barely aware of me there. I tucked his phone and iPad under the blanket next to him and pushed his laptop under his pillow. At the front exit, I hailed another cab.

  “Where to?” The driver was dark-skinned. Indian, perhaps.

  “City Hall East,” I answered, and glanced instinctively at the driver’s ID clipped to the visor. There was a pink ribbon hanging off the rearview mirror, tied in a droopy bow.

  The driver watched me in the mirror. What he could not see was my hand coming to rest on my Glock. “Today is my birthday,” he told me. “My daughter made lunch for me this morning and put a ribbon on it. I’m a sentimental man. You have kids?”

  “No.” I studied him. He was too small and fine-boned for the man who’d left a size-thirteen shoe print at the Delgado scene. I relaxed a little, but didn’t take my hand off my gun. My eyes went back to the bow. Ribbons, wrapping paper, presents, birthdays, baby showers, Christmas.

  “Ma’am?” We’d stopped. “I’m sorry to say the garage is too busy. I’ll have to drop you in front.”

  The businesses and other city offices that had used the City Hall building for years had stuffed the garage with moving trucks. Rauser had mentioned the neighbors were moving out. Major Crimes would be the last to go. There was talk of shiny new offices off Peachtree. I paid the driver and got out on Ponce de Leon. Detective Bevins was in her cube when I got upstairs to Homicide.

  “The lieu wants me to make sure you have access to what you need,” she told me, smiling. “Want some coffee? I’m headed that way.”

  “Absolutely.” I nodded. “I take it black.”

  “That’s easy. By the way, the lieutenant’s in interview room one with the burger guy.”

  “We have video?” I asked.

  “Pick a monitor.”

  I turned on the monitor in the empty cube I’d used before and pressed the appropriate button for the interview room I wanted, plugged in earphones. Bob Crammer was sitting across a table from Brit Williams, Ken Lang, and Rauser. Rauser had rolled up his shirtsleeves. It was probably hot as hell in there. He liked to cut the air to his interview rooms just so no one got too comfortable. Crammer had his arms folded over his chest and the metal chair tilted back on two legs.

  “He turned surly once he figured he was a person of interest,” Bevins said, and put a coffee mug in front of me. It had a Starbucks logo. Fivebucks, Rauser always called it.

  “What? No confession?” I took a sip from the mug and shuddered. “They get anything out of him?”

  “Not much once he realized he wasn’t here to look at pictures. Lang’s in there for a cheek swab. I think Crammer’s going to lawyer up. He’s got that look.”

  Bevins was right. Crammer refused to answer more questions, and he refused the cheek swab. They had to let him walk.

  “Do you have time to search some archives?” I asked Bevins.

  “Sure. What you got?”

  “I’m looking for anything involving a living child found at a crime scene or a child pulled from a severely abusive situation. Time frame twenty to twenty-five years ago. I’ll start the same process with news reports online.”

  “Log-in passwords change every day. I’ll get you logged in. I don’t know what you got in your case”—she nodded at the laptop case I’d come in with on my shoulder—“but this new system they gave us can really fly.”

  “Great. I’ll use it. Thanks.”

  I felt eyes on me and turned in my chair. Bob Crammer stood, watching me. He’d just left the interview room. He paused, then left. Ken Lang, Rauser, and Brit Williams came out. “What do you think, Lieutenant?” Bevins asked.

  “I want to stay all over this guy until we can either bring him in or exclude him,” Rauser said. “Street, the tip lines are ringing. Lot of folks responding to your profile. Williams, get someone on Crammer. And let’s have Balaki and Thomas work tips. Bevins, you on something?”

  “I’m running with an idea,” I said. “I could use Detective Bevins.”

  Rauser nodded. “We’ll let you have her as long as we can.”

  Bevins and I worked for the next ninety minutes. She cruised archived police files. I looked at quarter-century-old headlines that had been converted from microfilm to online archives. APD’s system had access to everything I needed. No logging in to databases to find information. This was never an issue for Neil. Passwords, log-in info, none of it seemed to trip him up. We do subscribe to software programs that allow me access to some databases, but without Neil’s code-cracking brain and expert navigation skills, it was still a painstaking process.

  I’d typed in keywords murder, murder-suicide, double homicide, homicide, child found at crime scene, child at murder scene, neglected child, abused child, killings at Christmas, murder at parties. I ended all the queries with 1980–1990. The volume of information was overwhelming. I sorted through the slush with dying hopes until one of the articles stopped me in my tracks.

  Police: Murder-Suicide at Child’s Birthday Party

  My heart rate accelerated.

  A man and a woman were found dead in an Atlanta home Saturday afternoon, according to the Atlanta Police Department. Police said it was a murder-suicide.

  Emma and Jackson Richards were found in a single-family dwelling on Moreland Avenue. The couple were married but had divorced, said Atlanta police spokesman Evan Bell.

  Emma Richards previously filed a family violence complaint against her ex-husband in April 1980. It resulted in a temporary restraining order.

  Emma Richards was last seen greeting guests at a children’s birthday party outside her home at noon. According to witnesses, her estranged ex-husband, Jackson Richards, entered the premises at approximately 1:45 p.m. and shot and killed Emma Richards, then shot and killed himself.

  When police arrived, the couple’s eight-year-old son, Jesse Owen Richards, who had witnessed the murder-suicide, was outside under the supervision of adult guests and neighbors. Six children and three adults were present during the shooting. The dead couple’s child was taken away from the scene by child protective services. Police later located the grandparents, who will assume custody.

  A witness at the party said the party was well under way and the gifts were being opened when Jackson Richards walked in the front door and drew a gun. “It happened so fast,” the witness, the mother of an eight-year-old classmate of Jesse Owen Richards, sobbed. “No one had time to move. He just shot her. Then he put the gun to his temple.”

  I read through the story again. “Gotcha,” I whispered. “Hey, Bevins, can you run May third, 1980? Jackson and Emma Richards.”

  Bevins typed in some information. “It’s in Records. A hard file. Closed. A murder-suicide. Hasn’t been put in digital yet.”

  “Can you get it?”

  “Sure. You think our guy’s in there?”

  I felt a rush coming up from my toes. Every investigator gets one when they know they’re close, a little flutter, a slightly elevated heart rate, a split-second blast of chemicals. “It’s him,” I said.

  32

  We used the big conference table in the War Room and spread out the case file. The scene photos showed Emma Richards with a dark, wet pool under her skull. She lay only feet away from where her husband, Jackson Richards, had c
ollapsed. He’d shot her, shoved her body aside, then shot himself. I studied the photos. The table was littered with paper plates and the remains of a white birthday cake with blue icing, melted ice cream in little pools on plates, paper cups. Nine chairs. Four of them matched the oak veneer table, five of them appeared to have come from other parts of the house. At the far end of the table, the plastic forks, paper plates, the tablecloth, and the presents were spattered with a fine spray. Emma’s eight-year-old son would have been sitting on that end at the head of the table where the presents were clustered. He must have been covered with his mother’s blood. I thought about that night at Miki’s house when Lang turned on his UV and blue stains appeared on Donald Kelly. I picked up another photo of Emma Richards and finally understood.

  “It’s tear fluid,” I told them. “And probably semen.” Rauser, Balaki, Williams, and Bevins gaped at me as if I’d just pulled up in a hovercraft and declared myself a Vulcan. “The mystery fluid,” I explained. “Tears and semen.”

  “You saying he’s crying and whacking off at the scenes?” Williams asked. Silence had settled over the room.

  I nodded. “It’s the only time he can cry. It’s not about remorse. It’s a release. And masturbating gives him back control. It’s not necessarily sexual. It’s about power over his victim. And his lack of power in life.” I pushed the photo of Emma Richards to the center of the table. One arm was straight out from her body, palm up. She’d been holding a blue ribbon when she fell. “This is why he’s leaving ribbons and balloons and wrapping paper.”

  “Look at that,” Rauser said. He’d turned a little pale. “In the mother’s hand. All over the table. Little hand-tied ribbons everywhere. And presents.”

  “And red balloons,” Williams said.

  “Miki said something to me about how it felt like he wanted to ruin everything just when she was piecing her life together. I don’t think she’s far off. I think the killer’s selection process is somehow connected to transitions. To life changes. Every one of these victims was on the cusp of something. Fatu Doe was recovering, clean, getting strong. Miki’s not cutting herself. She’s not depressed. She received a very public award nomination. She’s moving forward.”

  “Troy Delgado was a superstar. He was gonna have a contract before he finished high school.” Balaki was still staring at the picture of Emma Richards.

  “He was moving on,” Williams said. “Leaving. Everyone leaves the killer behind.”

  “The old man. Kelly,” Bevins added. “He was sick. Not expected to live much longer. Dementia and lymphoma. He was transitioning too.”

  “Okay.” Rauser pushed back his chair. “Let’s get to work, see if this is our guy. Balaki, get on the hospital records. Jesse Owen Richards shows up at any of the institutions we have down for Miki, cross-check the dates. Bevins, find out where Richards is now. And get a recent photo. We gotta connect him to the Doe girl, Kelly, and Delgado. Get everything. Credit cards. Bank accounts. We want to know where he eats, lives, walks his dog, who he sleeps with. And take another look at the personnel out there at the ballpark.”

  You could feel the energy in the room take off. My heart was hammering. Rauser’s phone jingled as we all moved back to the Homicide room. He answered, plugged his free ear with a finger, and wheeled away. He was biting his bottom lip when he came back. “GBI lab,” he told us. “Full reports have been emailed, but you were right, Keye. It’s tear fluid and semen. The tears didn’t come from the vics. Williams, get that report downloaded. Run the sequence through CODIS.”

  Ten million or so offender DNA profiles had been logged into the CODIS system. It was not a hundred percent for positive hits even when an offender’s DNA was actually in the system. But technology and software were constantly improving, and more and more law enforcement agencies were taking the time to log in offender profiles. As a result, the system had become increasingly effective.

  Rauser pulled pages of reports Williams had printed off the printer and handed them to me. I scanned the details as fast as I could. “They amplified the samples from the clothing using PCR. DNA is confirming your witness statements. The offender is male. It’s likely he’s also white. It’s possible his eyes and hair are brown.”

  “But it’s not certain?” Williams asked.

  “Gender is definite. They’ve identified the XY,” I said. “Race has certain ID markers. The probability is he’s Caucasian. But we’ve confirmed that with witness statements already. Eye and hair color are less certain.”

  “Got a hit on CODIS,” Williams announced. “Matches the sequence in the samples Stone Mountain PD submitted from offender skin samples under Fatu Doe’s nails.”

  “Okay, now we’ve got a physical link for all three victims,” Rauser said, and smiled. “DA’s gonna wanna kiss my face. Balaki, you get anything on the hospital records?”

  “Affirmative,” Balaki answered. “Four instances in two hospitals where Jesse Owen Richards and Miki Ashton were both on the inpatient register.”

  “Okay, that’s it right there. Richards is our guy. Let’s track him down.”

  “Got the last driver’s-license photo on record,” Bevins said. “It’s six years old, though. He hasn’t renewed. I don’t see any vehicle registrations in his name either. I’ll put it up.” We all looked up at the big screen. A white, overweight man with a thick neck, a jowly face, and brown eyes and hair looked back. “Six-three,” Bevins told us. “Three-twenty.”

  “He could have lost the weight in six years,” Balaki pointed out.

  “Miki said he was a big guy, soft. She saw his stomach under his shirt,” I said.

  “Where is he now?” Rauser wanted to know.

  “Missing,” Williams said, and the energy in the room took a dive. “A missing-persons report was filed three years ago by the grandparents, Fred and Melinda Etheridge.”

  “Find out where they are and stake ’em out. Front and back. I don’t want anyone slipping out the back door. This feels a little too convenient. Once we’re set up, Keye and I will go in and have a chat with the grandparents.”

  “No work records for him. Nothing,” Williams said. “He never resurfaced.”

  “Oh yes he did,” Rauser said. “And he started killing people.”

  “How about bank records?” I asked.

  “Bank account was closed,” Bevins said. “A week before the missing persons was filed. Two hundred and thirty bucks.”

  “So, he knew he was going to disappear,” I said.

  “Looked suspicious then too,” Bevins said. “He was an adult with a history of mental illness, and he’d emptied his bank account. Notations from the detectives indicate their conclusion was he left of his own free will.”

  I spotted a package of cookies in cellophane on Balaki’s desk and picked them up. “Blood-sugar emergency,” I said. My nerves were running laps and I couldn’t remember if I’d eaten. Hey, don’t judge. Vodka would have been nice, but cookies was what I had.

  “Go for it,” Balaki said.

  I ripped the package open. The cookies were hard and stale. I popped one in my mouth. My phone lit up, a 205 area code. I hooked on my earpiece.

  “Hel-woo,” I said, which is what you get when you answer your phone with a mouthful of old, dry chocolate-chip cookies. Balaki snickered.

  “This is DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Is this Keye Street?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have Miki Ashton here under observation.”

  “What happened?” Rauser must have heard something in my voice. He looked up at me with concern. “Is she okay?” I thought of the devastation the storm had wrought.

  “I’ll let her tell you.”

  “Keye, I’m fine. It’s my leg. And I lost my new fucking phone.”

  “What happened? Is it bad?”

  “Broken in a couple of places. I’m out of commission for a while.”

  “Oh no, Miki. I’m so sorry.” I mouthed to Rauser that Miki had broken a leg.r />
  “It got totally crazy here,” Miki told me. “Looks like there was a war. Seriously. I was in Beirut after a bombing and there was less infrastructure damage and fewer people hurt. I’ve already uploaded the pics to the magazine. They’re stunning, Keye. What happened here, it’s beyond description. Biggest tornado I’ve ever seen, stayed down for about three miles. We were right behind it. We came through this neighborhood that was just leveled in about two minutes. All you could hear was crying and screaming. It was horrible. Except one house was standing all alone. The roof was sheared off, but the rest of it looked strangely perfect and beautiful among the rubble. I heard a woman calling for help. I went in and found her, then one of the walls came down.” Miki asked me to hang on, and I heard her being a brat to the nurse. “Can I please get some painkillers over here? Do you have any idea how fucking bad this hurts?” Then back to me in a different tone entirely, “I have a friend from Birmingham getting me to the airport when I’m released in a couple of hours. Will you pick me up at Hartsfield-Jackson?”

  “Of course,” I said, and took down her flight info. “Miki, what about the woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “The injured woman in the house.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, right. She’s fine. She had a bathtub on top of her. They got her out. I think she’s down the hall. Keye, they’re saying maybe a couple hundred people died. I’ve covered some bad shit, but this is right up there.”

  I heard stress in her voice. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the creepy phone call or the threats to her or the shots at me or that Neil had been hurt. Not yet. “Miki, does the name Jesse Richards sound familiar?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you about it when I pick you up.”

  33

  We stood in front of a sandy brick home with a second-story clapboard addition. Rauser knocked on the door, a cop knock, too firm, too official. I knew he had detectives on the street already. I’d spotted the car, another Crown Vic, with a driver and passenger two doors up. He’d wanted them front and back, but the house backed up to the golf course. I wondered how they’d decided to handle that.