Tori smiled and shook her head. “Meghan Hayes. That was a good catch, Will, a very good catch.”
“She sure was,” Braddock replied as he took a sip of his wine. “How about you, ever married?”
Tori shook her head, “No. Not even close.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No,” she answered with a quick headshake.
“Sorry,” Braddock replied sheepishly, “it’s really none of my business.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Maybe I just haven’t met my fashion designer at a keg party yet.”
“Hah!” Braddock laughed out loud. Then, on a dime he turned serious. “Now look, I know you stayed because you want to talk the case.”
“I never said that.”
“Please, I’m a detective. I’ve applied my detecting skills and have observed that it’s written all over your face. So, let’s just dispense with the bullshit and talk a little shop. Who is our killer?”
Finally, Tori thought, they were going to go in a direction she wanted to go. “We need a profile,” Tori answered. “But I think at a minimum we’re talking about…”
They talked for an hour. Braddock after a while typed notes of their discussion into his phone. They assumed they were dealing with a male and given the demographics of this part of the state, most likely Caucasian. If it was the same man, in a twenty-year period he must have been someone who Jessie Hunter would have known and at least trusted enough to perhaps get into a car with. The same was true with Genevieve Lash. “It has to be someone who’s lived here for longer than twenty years,” Tori suggested. “Someone between the ages of maybe forty, maybe a touch younger, and fifty to fifty-five.”
“We can assemble a list of people but there’s one very problematic thing to think about.”
“Summer.”
“Exactly. This is another reason why I’d hoped to get onto our guy by investigating Lash and her background. Manchester is smack in the middle of vacation land. Think about it, when you grew up here the town was less than half the size it is now. Plus, both disappearances happened in the summer when, as you know, the population up here swells exponentially with cabin dwellers and vacationers. And we’re not just talking Manchester. The other towns in the county, like Holmestrand, Crosslake, Pequot Lakes, Pine River, Crosby, Deerwood and so on have all grown, although not necessarily to the same degree. The lakes are now all fully developed with cabins, if not homes. Plus, I’m just talking Shepard County. We should think about Cass, Aitken, Hubbard, Morrison, Itasca and Lake Counties at a minimum if we’re thinking our killer is in some way local.”
Tori nodded. “I see the issue, especially if we’re thinking male, most likely white, age forty to maybe fifty-five or sixty. That could describe about eighty percent of the men in northern Minnesota.”
“That’s right. The suspect pool is massive. We’ll need to find a way to whittle that down.”
“That’s why we need another…potential data point.”
“Such as?” Braddock asked.
“Other victims.”
Braddock sighed and closed his eyes, “I was so afraid you were going to say that.”
“I don’t think our guy took Jessie and then waited another twenty years and took Genevieve Lash,” Tori answered before taking a sip of her wine. “I think there is a good chance he was operating in between.”
“I don’t think it was here if he was,” Braddock replied.
“No,” Tori answered in agreement. “I think it would be beyond here, perhaps way beyond here.”
“So, we’re looking for more victims. Great,” Braddock groaned.
“I just think it’s possible,” Tori answered. “And I have someone who can help us with that search.”
“FBI?”
“I don’t have a lot of close friends, Will. But the ones I do have are Bureau and loyal. I have someone in mind. I can have her do some research on other potential victims to see if there are any similar ones. Jessie and Lash give us a workable victim profile. Attractive, younger women, age range of seventeen to twenty-seven, abducted or missing over the past twenty years. At least for now we limit the search to the Midwest and see what turns up.”
“You know, he could have started before the disappearance of your sister.”
“I doubt it,” Tori answered.
“Why?”
“That newspaper article. That’s what I keep coming back to. Why make the point of delivering that to me after all these years?” Tori asked rhetorically. “Because he was making a point. It all started with my sister.”
“And it ends with you?” Braddock finished ominously. “I sure don’t like the sound of that.”
“I’m touched,” Tori replied lightly, looking over to Braddock.
Braddock turned in his chair to face her. “Don’t be flippant. If the goal was to draw you close, well, here you are. And if he’s good enough to have gotten your sister, gotten Lash, Katy and maybe others, he can get the drop on you.”
“I’m not like the others. I carry a gun.”
“Maybe,” Braddock replied. “But he has one very big advantage on you.”
“What’s that?”
“He knows you, but you don’t know him. You may not see him coming,” Braddock warned.
Tori peered over to Braddock and thought, sometimes people surprise you.
Braddock must have caught the expression on her face, “What?”
“I kind of thought you might be throwing in the towel today.”
“Oh, hell no,” Braddock answered quickly, dismissively shaking his head. “No way. I just needed a night off to relax and get away from it. I try not to get obsessed by work, by a case. It’s a job. To be good at it requires a certain…detachment. I leave it at the office and I don’t bring it home to Quinn. That’s my rule.”
“I’m not wired the same,” Tori answered. “I can’t let it go, and especially…”
“This one. You need closure, that I understand.”
Tori closed her eyes for a moment and then slowly nodded. “I’m afraid of what happens if I don’t get it,” she answered darkly. “For twenty years, I’ve used every trick in the book to distract my mind from reliving what happened to Jessie, from thinking about the disappearance and what it did to my father. I’ve suppressed it with work, with exercise, with shopping, the distractions of New York City, anything to not think about it. But now? I get that article, now I’m here. If we don’t solve this thing, I worry if I’ll ever be able to let it go, to ever be at peace.”
“It defines you.”
Tori nodded. “Not only that, it drives me, it compels me to do whatever I can to prevent other families from having to experience what I did.” She shook her head. “And now here I am, back in Manchester chasing it. I’m actually investigating it, here where it all happened and…” her voice went soft, “flailing away at it.”
Braddock sat back in his chair for a quiet moment. “When it came to the light bulb Thomas Edison once said, I haven’t failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that it won’t work.”
“Meaning?”
“You may think you’re flailing, but you’re not. We’ve just found the ways that don’t work. But we’re not done trying yet. Just now we’ve come up with a couple of more ways to dig into this.”
“My God, you sound almost optimistic,” Tori stated approvingly.
“This case is far from over,” Braddock answered and then his mood darkened. “And someone sent you that newspaper article like they’re playing some game. Well, I’m one competitive motherfucker and I don’t like to lose.”
“Me neither.”
“Then the guy is in for one hell of a fight, Tori.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Tori’s phone rang. She looked down at the screen. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” She stood up and walked away from Braddock down the shoreline for some privacy and answered the call from Special Agent in Charge, Richard Graff. “Hello, sir.”
“I need you in Des Moin
es as soon as possible.”
“Sir? Des Moines?”
“A two-year-old was kidnapped right out of her home in West Des Moines. The Omaha office is on the scene. A call was made for an agent from the CARD Team and you’re already out there.”
“But sir, my case here…”
“Tori, you have no case there. You were never assigned to that case and in my discussions with Sheriff Lund a half-hour ago, the case is pretty much dead in the water.”
“Sir, it’s not dead. In fact, we…”
“Special Agent Hunter, this isn’t a topic that is up for debate. I’ve just assigned you to a case. There is a missing two-year-old girl and the clock is ticking. You will proceed with great haste to West Des Moines. I expect you there first thing in the morning. Do I make myself clear?”
Tori sighed, “Yes, sir.”
Joanie reached him, stirred the hunger in him as he observed her these past weeks.
She was educated but adventurous and flirty. Joanie was shorter, just a shade over five-feet tall, with rosy pale cheeks and a body full of inviting curves. She walked with a snappy sway of her hips and featured round breasts that she displayed in her clothing choices, albeit in an understated South Dakotan kind of way. There wasn’t a lot of cleavage, but her tight tops left little to the imagination. The skirts weren’t short, but they hugged her hips quite nicely. All of that raised that urge inside of him, stirred that hunger and need.
And the parking lot was empty, and his car was parked next to hers.
“Oh my God! Are you kidding me?” Joanie Wells exclaimed angrily. Her new Jetta sported a deep and long gashing scratch running the entire driver’s side of her car, from the front fender and across both doors to the rear fender.
“What happened?” he asked, approaching quickly. “Is everything okay?”
Joanie turned. “Oh, hey. Would you look at what someone did to my car,” she replied, and turned her back to him. “Someone keyed…”
He jabbed the stun gun into her left side and she immediately went down to the ground.
He pulled a leather sap out of his pocket and struck her twice at the right base of her skull, further disabling her.
With his key fob, he popped the trunk for his car. He quickly picked her up and stuffed her into the trunk. Joanie stirred and moaned. He jabbed her with the stun gun again, holding it for an extra second or two. Next, he put white plastic handcuffs around first her wrists and then her ankles, cinching them both tight. Finally, he ripped off a piece of gray duct tape and put it over her mouth.
The whole takedown took less than a minute.
He hauled her over his shoulder down the steps into the bunker. He dropped her down onto the stool, letting her sit facing him.
He ripped the tape away from her mouth.
“What are you doing to me…”
He slapped her with the back of his hand, stunning her before he reached for the collar on her blouse and yanked it down, ripping it open. Next, he reached for a long knife. He stepped to her, took the knife, slipped the tip between her two breasts and cut open her bra, freeing her breasts.
“Oh my God,” she wailed. “Someone help me! Somebody please help me!”
He turned her around and pushed her down onto the desk. Leaning down, he loosened the nylon cuffs around her ankles just a bit, allowing her legs to separate before he ripped down her skirt and underwear and cut them away.
“No! Please no!”
He finished dressing, zipping up his jeans and then pulling on his t-shirt.
Joanie was sitting on the stool, mostly naked, only her ripped blouse still hanging in tatters on her body. Her skirt, underwear and bra all laid on the floor in front of her. Her hands were still bound behind her and her ankles were re-cinched tight now that he’d finished ravaging her, feeling fully satisfied.
As if the past hours hadn’t been bad enough for her, Joanie had now clearly deduced what her immediate future held. Yet that didn’t stop the pleading. “Please, just please let me go,” she begged. “You got what you wanted. I won’t say a word to anyone, I promise.”
“Come now, Joanie, you must certainly understand what comes next.” He said as he stood up from the stool, eyeing her intently, taking a step toward her.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Joanie wailed. “Someone help me! Please, somebody help me!”
He laughed wickedly before taking the long and jagged knife back out of its sheath, which he then tossed casually away with his left hand, “Joanie, nobody can hear you here. Nobody.”
“Stay away from me! Stay away! No! No! Nooooooo!”
CHAPTER 14
“TRAGEDY RARELY IS.”
T ori’s last words to Braddock were, “Whatever you do, don’t stop. I will be back.” She thought back to those words as she peered out the plane window, sailing over the vast green-hued checkerboard of northern Iowa’s farm fields. With a heavy sigh she turned her gaze back to her laptop. It was time to focus on the task at hand.
Two-year old Ava Taylor was kidnapped out of her West Des Moines home yesterday afternoon. Ava’s mom, Erica, put Ava down for a nap around two p.m. in her Pack-n-Play and then laid down herself for a nap in the upstairs master bedroom. When Erica awoke at four, she went down into the living room and Eva was gone. Erica reported she hadn’t heard a thing while napping. The father, Jake Taylor, was out of town on a business trip.
In the file there were pictures of the house, an upscale and expansive executive beige stucco two-story on a heavily treed lot in a neighborhood of similar-sized houses. Interior photos were included, centered on the living room and the portable crib. There were no signs of forced entry, yet the mother indicated that the doors were locked. An initial canvass of the other homes in the neighborhood failed to turn up anything useful as most homes contained two income families, including the house directly to the south. To the north a neighbor was home, but he was working in his home office on the opposite side of the house and hadn’t seen or heard anything.
The early theory of the investigators on scene was that the abductor or abductors approached the house from the rear, making their way through the dense woods behind the house. A brief call from the kidnappers stating they had Ava and that they would be in touch triggered FBI involvement, and ultimately the call for Tori. That follow-up call had not yet been received.
The West Des Moines Police and Iowa Department of Public Safety were on the scene and conducting the investigation on the ground. Agents from the Omaha Field Office of the FBI were also on scene and that was who Tori was to liaison with.
After landing, she walked briskly through the concourse toward baggage claim. As she did, she placed a call to Tracy Sheets in the New York Field Office. Tracy was one of her good friends. She was also a research genius.
“How’s Des Moines?” Tracy asked cheerily. Tracy was one of those people who was always upbeat, something Tori often wasn’t but deep down inside really wished she could be.
“I’m about to find out. How’s your workload?”
“The usual,” Tracy answered, knowing that question always led to a put whatever you’re doing aside request. “What do you need?”
“It’s not going to be about Des Moines,” Tori answered with a grunt as she lifted her travel bag from the luggage carousel.
“Ah, I see. Would this have anything at all to do with my jurisdiction here in the New York Field Office?”
“Umm, probably not,” Tori answered as she started weaving her way through the crowd to the sliding doors out of the terminal to the arrivals lane. “This falls more in the seriously solid favor for a friend category.”
She could almost hear Tracy smile on the other end. “Intriguing. What do you need?”
Tori stopped walking and explained what she was looking for as it related to her sister’s case.
“And how wide do you want this search to be?”
“At a minimum, Minnesota and the surrounding states, but use your discretion.” Tori replied a
s she reached for the door handle for the passenger seat of the waiting FBI car. “I’ll be in touch.”
Braddock took his morning swim extra early so that he could let his mother-in-law into the house to look after Quinn until he awoke. He was in the office by 6:00 a.m. with a purpose.
After Tori abruptly left he went to bed, but sleep proved difficult to come by. Instead, as he watched the ceiling fan spin, he thought about the profile of their killer he and Tori discussed. The profile was a local male, aged thirty-seven to sixty-five, likely Caucasian and someone both Jessie Hunter and Genevieve Lash would have, if not known, at least trusted. That profile required a list of people and an easy way to search and cross-reference. Solving this problem quickly required the assistance of one highly effective staffer and a state agency.
That was still on his mind when he heard rustling outside his office. “Sheila?”
“You rang?” his assistant replied pleasantly, coming into his office with a cup of coffee in her hand, plus one for him.
Sheila worked in the sheriff’s office when he’d arrived five years ago. When he first met her, she gave off an air of being a Chatty Kathy perfectly content to answer calls, take messages, run a little interference, order office supplies, fetch coffee and do it pleasantly and efficiently while engaging in idle small-town gossip about the office. And she did all those things—quite effectively. But as was often the case, looks were deceiving. Sheila possessed a paralegal degree from Manchester State and Braddock quickly learned that she was resourceful, technically proficient, and an excellent researcher with an eye for detail who, despite her gabby persona, also knew how to be discreet and keep a secret.
“What can I do for you?”
“Research. You’ll need to coordinate with the BCA to corral the data and here is the agent to call to get that started.” He handed her a business card. “And, most importantly, I need you to keep this very quiet. Don’t discuss it with anyone, even Cal. If for some reason he asks what you’re doing, tell him to come see me and I’ll explain it, okay?”
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