Facing Evil

by Kylie Brant

  Her exit was coming up. Switching lanes in preparation, she said, “You’re going somewhere with this. Let’s hear it.”

  “My point is that stalking Webster didn’t start a month ago. All Baxter’s moves occurred post-Vance being locked up.”

  She still didn’t get it. “So? Sophia mentioned a trigger. Her son’s death.”

  “Maybe. But I was reading the updated case bulletin that Cam put out this afternoon while you were busy with Carlson.” He clutched the armrest as she zoomed off the exit. Jenna grinned. To his credit, Beckett didn’t make a crack about it. “They found a second motel where she’s registered, by the way.” He smiled when she arrowed a surprised look at him. “Check your email. Different name, different credit card number. Issue date on the first card was six months ago.”

  Jenna was connecting the dots. “So it was applied for well before Vance’s capture.”

  If he noticed that she was speeding, he had the grace not to mention it. “Two motels, so far. At least two different cards. The warrant on the first card went through. Valid cards, false identity. Everything matches a real Greta Talbot living in Chattanooga except for the mailing address and phone number. That Greta said she’d been in Des Moines just last year and had her purse stolen.”

  Slick, Jenna thought as she passed a white cargo van filled with teenagers. She’d worked a fraud case just last year, and it had been an eye-opener. For a couple hundred bucks you could buy a machine that would read the personal information off the magnetic strip on the back of a card. Plug it into a computer, and the info showed up on the screen. Use that information to fill out some credit card applications and very soon one had valid cards in hand. No worry about the lost or stolen cards being deactivated.

  Of course the crooks ran up the bill to its max before discarding it.

  “That took weeks of planning. Months probably.”

  “Who knows?” Beckett adjusted his seat back slightly. “Maybe that was part of their gig, in addition to kidnapping wealthy women and draining their bank accounts. The point is…they had the cards. Maybe as part of their scam. Or…”

  “…or maybe they had a contingency plan.”

  “Exactly.” Beckett took off his sunglasses to clean them, sending his profile into sharp Adonis-like relief. “So me, I’m questioning the timeline. Three weeks. Baxter’s been pretty busy with details, but you know what else takes time? Planning. How is she going to get at Webster? At Traer? Sophia? What are the options and pros and cons of each? Revenge might be part of it. But when you add up everything that had to be put in place in a short amount of time, some of it was planned ahead of time.”

  “Great. Now we just have to figure out which is which.”

  “There’s more.” Beckett’s face was grim. “Those leads from the tip line I helped check out? Most of them went nowhere. Except for maybe one. Remember when Vickie Baxter was posing as Gladys Stewart’s relative?”

  Jenna remembered. Baxter had killed the elderly woman and then managed to convince everyone Stewart was in a nursing home while Baxter collected the rent payments for the elderly woman’s farm. “Hard to forget.”

  “Talked just this morning to a guy who worked a grain elevator in Fraser. He claims Baxter visited the co-op and talked to him about purchasing ammonium nitrate.”

  Jenna stilled. “That’s the stuff they used in the Oklahoma City bombing.”

  “It is. It’s also a fairly common farm fertilizer. At least it was. It’s very heavily regulated these days. Some places don’t even sell it anymore. He told her their co-op didn’t, and that was the end of it.” His cell pinged. Beckett took it out to read the incoming text, and then pocketed it again.

  “You don’t think…when was this?”

  “The guy couldn’t be exactly sure of the day, but he does remember that it was the same day he saw the first news release about the bodies being found on top of burial vaults in rural cemeteries. He admits he should have reported Baxter’s inquiry to his boss, since he didn’t know the woman. But it went clear out of his head because he was watching that newscast.”

  Her fingers clenched on the steering wheel as she absorbed the implications. “Another item for the timeline. But there is nothing in Vance’s or Baxter’s backgrounds that indicated either of them has any familiarity with explosives.”

  Beckett’s face was unsmiling. “Again, timeline. Up until that point they operated in the dark. No one had ever linked those victims’ disappearances until Cam caught this case.”

  “So they were spooked enough to start making some plans in case we got too close.” Suddenly chilled, Jenna reached over to turn down the air conditioning. “Guess we should count ourselves lucky that Vance didn’t manage to booby trap that barn he kept his victims in. Or his house.” Members of the task force had entered both.

  “Yeah.” His voice brooding, Beckett turned to the window. “So I’m full circle on this, back to the evidence of their planning.” He turned his head to look at Jenna again. “Baxter’s the one still left, and she’s gone after a lot of people so far.”

  A vise tightened in her chest. She could have finished the thought in tandem with Beckett. “It makes you wonder what she has in store for Cam.”

  * * * *

  It had been a long time since Franklin Paulsen had prayed, but he was doing so now, head bowed and hands clasped tightly in his lap. Ever since he’d gotten the call from the nursing home about Mother being rushed to the ER, he’d been calling on every deity he could think of.

  None of them were answering.

  She’d been unconscious when the nursing home had called 911, and enough time had passed for them to perform surgery, had that been necessary. He’d been assured her condition had been stabilized, but no one had yet explained what that condition was, or what had caused it.

  There was a nagging fear in the back of his mind that he didn’t want to listen to. She’d been eighty-four on her last birthday. Old people had health issues. It didn’t have anything to do with him.

  It couldn’t.

  “Mr. Paulsen?” He looked up when his name was called, and then rose to approach the nurse standing near the desk. “The doctor is ready to talk to you now.”

  She led him to a tiny room off the waiting room, where he stood for a couple minutes until a woman wearing a lab coat and stethoscope over neon green scrubs entered.

  “I’m Dr. Sisson.” Her handshake was firm. “I want to assure you that your mother is going to be all right. But she did give us a scare.”

  “What happened? What was wrong with her? Was it her heart again?” As an attorney he was a man used to finding answers. Or having someone find them for him.

  “No, not her heart. Let’s sit down.” The doctor gave him a faint smile as she sank into one of the seats. “It’s been a long day. Your mother’s lab results verified my suspicions about her condition. She became dangerously hypoglycemic. How long has she been diabetic?”

  Relief warred with confusion. “Diabetic? She doesn’t have diabetes.” He shook his head impatiently when the woman opened her mouth to speak again. “I know my mother’s health history like the back of my hand. I’ll give you the number of her regular doctor. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

  The woman frowned. “Her blood sugar numbers, coupled with what looks like a fresh injection site…”

  “The only medication Mother takes is for osteoporosis and her heart,” he said firmly. Now that the crisis was over Franklin was anxious to get to Mother’s side. He would make her regular internist visited her tomorrow. “No shots. Which is a good thing, since she detests shots.”

  Her voice troubled, the doctor said, “Mr. Paulsen, I can’t think of anything else that would have sent your mother’s numbers that low, that fast. And there definitely is a puncture area in her arm. I think we need to do a bit more investigating.”

  He stilled. And the tiny little fear that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge grew. “What are you suggesting?”

  �
��Medication mix ups happen far more often than we’d like to think.” Her tone was careful. “I would suggest that you start by speaking to your mother’s caretakers about possible answers for your mother’s episode today.”

  There was more, but Franklin didn’t hear it. Guilt spiked through him. Because he knew that the answers he needed to get from the new nursing home had nothing to do with medication mix-ups.

  And everything to do with who had been allowed in his mother’s room.

  Fingers trembling, he took his cell out. Keyed in a number he’d promised himself he would never call.

  “Frankie. Tell me, how is dear ol’ ma feeling?”

  Just the sound of ‘Vanecia Mason’s’ voice was enough to have him quaking. “You’re a demon. You have no soul.”

  “And you’re an idiot for needing proof of that. Make no mistake, Frankie, it was you that almost got your mother killed. Are you calling to tell me that I’m going to need to make another trip? Because next time you’ll be calling from the funeral home.”

  “Tomorrow morning.” He’d give the damn capsules to Vance and hope to God the man was planning a suicide. “First thing, I promise.”

  “Hope I can trust you to keep your promises, Frankie.” The woman’s voice was menacing. “Because I’ve already shown that I keep mine.”

  * * * *

  When Vickie Baxter disconnected, she made two calls. A male answered each time and to both she said only a single word. “Tomorrow.”

  Chapter 7

  Cam’s office had taken on the appearance of a war room. Two huge maps hung on the wall, each punctuated with a multi-colored array of pins. Another wall was covered with white paper, a timeline of sorts filled with the details of all the homicides since the case started, short profiles on the trio of killers and item points for the confirmed sightings. Included was the information Beckett and Jenna had discovered today.

  Two laptops sat atop a table pushed against one wall running the surveillance feed from the two motel rooms Baxter had booked under false identities. A fax machine sat next to them. Another table held folders and notebooks filled with computer printouts of every detail of the investigation so far.

  The effect was overwhelming, Sophia decided, even as well-versed as she was in the case. But for Cam it seemed to represent pieces to the same puzzle. One of those five thousand piece ones where all the pieces were nearly the same color. The most difficult part about the investigation wasn’t a lack of leads, she mused, but deciding which new piece of information was relevant and how.

  Jenna was manning the feed at the computer while tracking down the real Maxine LaCoste, the name on the credit card Baxter had used at the second motel where they’d discovered her registered. Sophia and Cam had been on scene at the Comfort Motel until he had to head back for meetings with SAC Gonzalez and Major Crimes Unit Assistant Director Miller. Interspersed with those briefings he was on his cell with motel managers and credit card companies, while directing the agents still checking for more motel registrations.

  One thing she’d never be able to accuse him of was an inability to multi-task.

  He strode back into his office now carrying three bottles of water, and handed each of them one. Twisting off the cap of the third, he took a long swallow before lowering it ask, “Come up with anything of interest?”

  “Zilch on the motel surveillance.” Jenna looked up from her laptop. “I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Greta Talbot and Maxine LaCoste knew each other, and neither could identify the photo I sent of Baxter. What they did have in common was they’d both visited Iowa in the last eighteen months and had their purses stolen.”

  He slanted Sophia a glance. “Neither of the names popped for you?”

  She shook her head. She’d been focusing on Baxter’s classmates during the time she spent with the Coates family. It hadn’t been difficult to find contact information for most of them. The district’s webpage had a page for alumni, she supposed to make it easier to plan for reunions.

  “I haven’t gotten a response yet to many of the email inquiries I sent, but most of the ones I talked to remember Vickie. Some of them not fondly. All say they haven’t seen her or heard from her since she left school.”

  It had taken far longer to track down those who Karen Denholt had mentioned. Cal Patten, Reverend Minskal and Bobby Denholt. But her efforts were in vain. All had denied having contact with Baxter. “I made a call to both of the Coates children again. Left messages.” Messages she doubted very much they’d answer. She wondered for the first time if their reticence had less to do with unresolved grief and more to do with fear of Baxter. They had, after all lived with Vickie for a time. They might know all too intimately what she was capable of.

  “I’ve sent a memo out to state patrol with both aliases.” Cam took one more swig of the bottle and went to his desk, sat down at his computer to check his email. “Both motels where she registered require photo ID in addition to a credit card. It goes to figure she has driver’s licenses in every false identity she’s assumed. Likely a passport, too.”

  “Then you can contact places in the area where passports are issued,” Sophia suggested. Then stopped when she saw Jenna shaking her head.

  Cam was engrossed in something on his computer screen. “Good thought, but the IDs will be fake. Licenses and passports.”

  Jenna put in, “We helped bust a ring in Chicago two years ago that was supplying fake Iowa licenses to college students. I mean, flooding the campuses. It was getting to be a real problem.”

  “Let me guess,” Sophia put in drolly. “Students weren’t purchasing them so they could vote.”

  “ID means alcohol purchasing power. We shut that ring down, but you can bet some other enterprising outfit has sprung up to take its place.”

  “For the right price, fake IDs and passports can be had online. Some pretty good forgeries. Totally anonymous.” Cam’s voice broke off and he peered more closely at the computer. “Here it is.”

  “Here what is?” Jenna got up from her seat to cross to his desk. Sophia joined her.

  “Maybe Vickie Baxter’s first mistake.” He hit a command and a moment later the printer started whirring. Another moment and it spit out several sheets of paper.

  “The credit card in the name of Greta Talbot was only opened four months ago. No purchases made with it. But Maxine LaCoste…that account was opened last year. And there’s a transaction history on it.”

  Jenna strode to the copier and snatched the copied sheets from it. Sophia bent slightly to read over Cam’s shoulder. “This seems careless,” she murmured. “She’s never careless.”

  “Not really.” There was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice. “What’s the point of having the false cards if you can’t use them instead of wasting cash? See here…she racked up a couple thousand in expenses eight months ago and made minimal payments online to satisfy the requirements.”

  “Online?” Jenna was shuffling the papers back to the top sheet with account information on it. “We can get cyber crimes on it. Maybe we can get an IP address.”

  “Call Campbell. He’ll let you know what’s involved in the process.” The tall lanky cyber crime agent was a genius with all things technology-related. Cam scrolled back to recent transactions and Sophia saw immediately what had elicited his excitement. “Phil’s Pawn and Jewelry. Not exactly a name guaranteeing quality.”

  “Not everyone has your sensibilities.” He was already rising and heading toward Jenna, who handed him the copies. “You can make another copy to show to cyber crimes.” Cam paused at the doorway, turned back to cock an eyebrow at Sophia. “You’re with me on this one.”

  “I am?” She collected her purse and joined him. “I don’t know anything about pawnshops.”