Next Girl On The List - A serial killer thriller (McRyan Mystery Series Book)

by Roger Stelljes

  “So how does he find them?” Mac asked. He thought he knew the answer but wanted Ridge’s take. Author or not, Ridge had ten years of hunting Rubens and Mac had two days. His perspective, while annoying, wasn’t without merit.

  “He scouts, follows and gets to know them long before he ever meets them. If I had to guess, he’s been in DC a year if not more and he’s spent that time scouting. I think women who fit his criteria are found at bookstores, museums, art galleries and even pet stores. Lots of these women have pets, usually cats, although I think two of them had birds.”

  “Hmpf,” Mac snorted. “I hadn’t noticed the pet angle yet, that’s a new piece. But not dogs though. Dogs make noise and they’ll fight back.”

  “But cats don’t and they won’t attack someone attacking their owner. They’ll hide,” Ridge answered. “But if you look at your victims, I bet half of them had cats. I wondered if maybe he met them at pet stores or something. Not sure if anyone has looked into that.”

  “Odd place to meet people,” Wire suggested.

  “He may not meet them there,” Mac answered.

  “That’s right, he just identifies them there,” Ridge added. “At least that’s one thought I have.”

  “We’ll pay some attention to pet stores as we go back into the financials on these women,” Mac noted.

  “Yeah, that might help,” Ridge answered. “In general pet stores, museums, bookstores, whatever, I think he identifies the women at these kinds of places months before he actually starts pursuing them. He follows and researches them so that when he does approach, he gives himself the best chance of success.”

  “Because he needs to find at least four that fit his criteria. Four that he then has to get close to,” Wire followed.

  “Yes, close, but not too close. He has to get close yet keep some distance.”

  “Because he has to juggle four of them,” Wire stated, taking a drink of her beer. “Mac and I were just talking about that.”

  “Exactly,” Ridge answered with a big smile and looked to Mac. “I remember one time when I had three women on the line and…” he started but then drew a raised eyebrow look from Wire. “A story for another time, maybe. In any event, he wants to get close to these women, but not so close that it turns into a full on relationship. There would be evidence of that left behind, and to my knowledge, the investigators have never found a useful name anywhere identifying a man in these women’s lives.”

  “So he slowly gets friendly and they slowly become interested. He’s wooing them but it’s not a full-on relationship per se,” Mac followed the line of thinking.

  “Yeah,” Ridge answered. “I’d be surprised if he’s ever slept with any of the victims. I think the autopsies have tried to determine that and to my knowledge, there has never been evidence of sex, at least as part of the murders. Now, a date or two before he kills them?” The author shrugged. “He’s a guy. Who knows, if she’s offering, he might be accepting.”

  Mac nodded and looked at his watch and then to Wire. “We should get going here in a minute. But if you’ll excuse me first.” The two of them watched as Mac headed back to the restroom.

  “He’s not the trusting type, is he?” Ridge stated. “I mean, he talked a little there.”

  “He loathes… no, that’s the wrong word. Let’s just say he has a very healthy skepticism of and not much trust in the media,” Wire replied.

  Ridge turned towards her. “You seem a little less skeptical.”

  “Only a little,” Wire enigmatically smiled in reply.

  The author slipped a business card out of the pocket of his suit coat. “Well then, Special Agent Wire, perhaps if you’d like to grab a drink without Captain Skeptical around.”

  “I don’t know,” Wire started, but she did take the card.

  “The case, it’s hectic, I know,” Ridge answered with a smile. “Trust me, I know. But I’m going to be hanging around. I find the matchup between you two and Rubens far too interesting to miss. On top of that, I like to commiserate and I love and totally respect off the record talk, not to mention local microbrews. So if you need a break, give me a call.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Mac came back to the table, everyone said goodnight and Mac and Wire started the walk back.

  Two blocks from the bar Mac blurted, “So, did you give him your number?”

  “No,” Wire smiled. “I don’t give out my digits nearly that easy, so he gave me his.” She held up the business card.

  “Just be careful,” Mac counseled. “He’s looking for another book out of this and …”

  “And what?”

  “He’s a player and you’re not unattractive. You do the math.”

  “Aren’t you getting married to a woman that arose out of mixing business and pleasure?”

  “Yes, but that’s different.”

  “How exactly?” Wire stopped, hands on hips, staring him down.

  “Sally and I were on the same side.”

  “Ridge is not the enemy.”

  “He’s sure as hell not an ally,” Mac retorted as his cell phone rang.

  They both instinctively stopped and checked their watches. There was only a number on the screen, no name. “I wonder,” Mac muttered and then answered, “McRyan.”

  “Maaaaacccc,” the masked voice greeted. “How is it going? Are you wilting under the strain?”

  Mac quickly looked around and saw they were alone on the sidewalk, two blocks from the field office. He put it on speaker. “I’m fine, really. I’m getting into the case and learning about all of your fucked-up behavior.”

  “Do you talk to your mom with that mouth, Mac?”

  “No, I only talk this way to murderous assholes.”

  “Asshole—so crude a term and one that I’d warn you I don’t like hearing.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Mac replied derisively but checked his watch. This call was being traced.

  “Mac, don’t ruin our relationship. Keep that talk up and I’ll call your partner instead.”

  “I’d be delighted to hear from you,” Wire blurted. “Although, fair warning, I can be a lot saltier than him.”

  “Your partner must be rubbing off on you then,” Rubens replied. “Is that all he’s doing with you, by the way? You two make such a lovely couple.”

  “He wishes,” Dara answered, checking her own watch.

  “Ouch,” Mac mouthed back.

  “Well, I just wanted to check in with you two now that we’re under twenty-four hours from my next work of art. Happy hunting.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Mac pleaded. “Hold on. I want to ask a question.”

  “Mac, Mac, Mac, I’m not going to stay on the line. I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

  “Why Rubens?” Mac asked. “What is so great about Peter Paul Rubens? That’s what I want to know. I mean, he had talent but—”

  “Mac. That’s a very interesting question. Maybe another time. Good night and good luck.”

  The line went dead.

  They both took off at a sprint for the field office. Less than a minute later, breathing heavily, they were ducking back into the same side door from which they escaped. As they burst inside, Galloway and Delmonico were walking quickly toward them.

  “Where?” Mac asked, still panting.

  “He was northeast of the city, up north in College Park in the area of the University of Maryland. We’re flooding the area but…”

  “Don’t hold our breath,” Mac answered, shaking his head.

  “We don’t know what to look for beyond probably a white male and even that’s a guess. Plus, we couldn’t really get a fix on him in that short a period of time from the burner phone. You know the area. Well populated, lots of streets and traffic. But we have roadblocks going up, we’re searching vehicles, you never know.”

  • • •

  Did he stay on the phone too long with McRyan? Did that last question on Rubens allow the FBI to get a fix on him?
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br />   Rubens had been waiting ten minutes in the line of cars, the police lights ahead, stopping vehicles, checking identification, shining flashlights inside. He was startled by the comprehensive nature of the search. Could they possibly know what they were looking for? They were taking their time with each vehicle, opening hatchbacks, popping trunks and were unconcerned about how long it was taking. He could feel his hands starting to sweat as he gripped the steering wheel and his heart was beginning to race.

  Eventually, it was his turn as he pulled slowly forward and powered down the driver side window. “Good evening, officer.”

  “Good evening, sir,” the uniformed officer replied as his partner walked around to the passenger side of the car, scanning the interior of the vehicle with his flashlight. “Can I see your driver’s license and registration, please?”

  “Yes, sir.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his money clip, took out his license and handed it to the officer.

  “Mr. Miller, I show your address as down in DC. What brings you up to College Park this evening?”

  “I was at an art exhibition at the college,” Rubens replied truthfully. He had in fact been through an exhibition and took in a presentation.

  “Do you have a ticket stub from the event?” the officer asked.

  “Yes, yes, I do.” Rubens reached inside his pocket and pulled out the stub and handed it to the officer. “Why are you stopping vehicles?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” the officer replied, looking at the ticket stub while the other officer continued to scan the interior of the vehicle with his flashlight. “Do you have a cell phone, sir?”

  “I do,” Rubens replied as he reached for the iPhone resting in the cup holder and held it up.

  “If you don’t mind, please show me your recent calls.”

  “Yes, sir.” He did as instructed.

  The officer quickly examined the phone’s screen and then handed it back. “Please pop your trunk.”

  “Yes, officer,” he replied as he reached down to the left of his seat for the latch. The trunk popped open. He looked up into the rearview mirror to see the stream of light from the flashlight scanning the trunk, which the patrol officer’s partner would find to be empty.

  “It’s clear,” the partner confirmed.

  “Okay,” the officer replied and looked down into the car. “Very well, sir, thank you for your cooperation. You can go. Enjoy your evening.”

  “Thank you.”

  As he pulled away, Rubens took a look in the rearview mirror and exhaled a small sigh of relief.

  • • •

  Two hours later, the search was over.

  “Nothing. Sorry, Mac,” Galloway reported glumly, Delmonico at his side. The two of them both looked exhausted.

  “We did what we could with what we had, which was really nothing,” Mac replied with a tinge of bitterness. “There’s nothing more to be done tonight. Go home. Both of you go home and get some sleep.”

  “But …” Delmonico started.

  “But nothing,” Mac answered. “Come in first thing in the morning, fresh. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

  Neither of them protested further. They both turned and left.

  Mac walked to the whiteboard and grabbed a black marker.

  “What are you thinking?” Wire asked.

  “I’m thinking I’m going to go home as well,” Mac answered but he wrote a question on the whiteboard that he hadn’t seen answered anywhere. Why Peter Paul Rubens?

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I don’t feel helpless.”

  Mac awoke at 5:30 with Sally and acted as if it was a normal morning. He got up and made them a breakfast of poached eggs, adding some sliced fruit, coffee and wheat toast. It was a healthy breakfast, both of them trying to stay fit and trim for the wedding. Besides eating healthy, Sally kept trim with yoga every day over her lunch hour. Mac did it with running and going to the club three days a week.

  Per usual, she was down to the kitchen and ready by six.

  “Do you think you have any chance of stopping him today?”

  “You never know,” he answered. “But I’m realistic. I think this thing has to play out longer for us to have a chance.”

  “Is everyone else on board with that?”

  “Those that matter understand what I’m thinking.”

  She quickly devoured her breakfast and coffee, kissed him twice as she always did and was out the door to the White House, where she liked to be before 7:00 A.M. each morning.

  To keep it normal, he followed her right out the back door and went for a short run, three miles; a quick, fast, hard loop through Georgetown, right under twenty minutes. It was just enough to break a good sweat, get his heart rate up, the blood flowing and his mind working. After a quick shower, he dressed in faded blue jeans, a gold University of Minnesota t-shirt and black quarter zip sweater and a pair of all black Nikes. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and was out the door. He stopped at Starbucks for a large coffee of his own plus a coffee traveler and cups, along with croissants for the patrol unit that was stationed in front of Lisa White’s townhouse. Ten minutes later, shortly before 8:00 A.M., he cut the seal on the door of the crime scene.

  Inside he shut the door softly and took in the emptiness.

  Everything was still in the townhouse, the books, the pictures and the furniture; it was still completely filled with its overwhelming assortment of material possessions. Yet the townhouse was also filled with something else. He’d felt it before, the quiet, sad pallor that overtakes a home where a murder took place. It was as if the soul of the dead haunted the space, waiting to see if there would be justice, if anyone would care enough to find the truth. Having been in many of these homes over the years, they all had a form of that eeriness of the spirit of the victim, not quite ready to leave.

  What he’d also found over the years is that the spirit of the house would speak to you.

  He hoped that might be the case today.

  Mac dropped his backpack into the light blue plaid chair in the corner of the living room, kept his tall coffee in his right hand and proceeded to slowly and methodically stroll through the house, soaking in the entirety of the home. He started upstairs in the master bedroom, then the guest room and bathrooms, just getting a better feel for Lisa White and how she organized and viewed her life. As on the main level, the walls of the upper level of the townhouse were filled with photos of all sizes and frame types. Some photos were black and white, others color. Interspersed were paintings from artists as well as some of White’s own renderings. She was big into painting flowers and he imagined she spent many hours in the back of her home, sitting amongst her gardens, cultivating the subjects of her future images.

  The arrangements of the photos and artwork were not what he would have done from a decorating standpoint. He snorted a small laugh. Mac possessed the Norm Peterson-like gene for taste and decorating, something he really enjoyed doing and was extremely reluctant for others to know about. It just seemed a cop, former college hockey player and all around guy’s guy would not be the type to get worked up about paint color, fabric swatches and window treatments. But after he completed the construction portion of remodeling a room, he enjoyed designing what it would then look like in the end.

  “If you ever want to stop carrying a gun, there will be women all over town that would hire you in a second to decorate their homes,” Sally said in wonder years ago after he remodeled their home in St. Paul.

  He even offered up some tips recently to a few of her work friends at the White House, people far away from Minnesota. “As long as you don’t tell your husband,” he said to Courtney Sanchez, who was an assistant to Judge Dixon. “I’ll help, but not a word, NOT A WORD to Dan.”

  With that discerning eye, he marveled at how Lisa White had organized the hundreds of photos, posters, portraits that adorned and filled every wall of the townhouse. And she had plenty in reserve. In the spare bedroom were more framed posters, painting
s and pictures stacked against the walls and stored inside the closet. The sheer volume of it all was rather amazing. Yet despite the mess and the mass, he did detect a method to her madness. On the walls, the pictures, the paintings, the prints were in lined, almost boxy formations. Lisa liked straight lines, which allowed her to maximize the usage of space. She also liked to arrange smaller pictures and photos around singular larger prints, paintings and posters. It wasn’t a completely universal approach but it happened often enough that she clearly liked the look.

  He spent a good hour sipping from his coffee and just wandering around, taking it all in before he eventually made his way back to the living room and his backpack. He sat down on the floor, crossed his legs and fired up his laptop.

  • • •

  Wire sat in one of the soft, comfortable chairs of the conference room and stared at the whiteboards. She’d watched Mac do it a number of times and seen it trigger things in his mind. Besides, she was really waiting on him, ready to do anything he needed were he to find something of interest at Lisa White’s.

  The ongoing investigation of White’s financials from the past several months continued to yield more surveillance footage from stores and museums. Wire, among others, was reviewing it all on the long shot hope that a man would appear onscreen with her and then somehow they could identify the man as Rubens. Of course, to identify him they needed some other variable, some sort of cross reference. Just one image of a man on a surveillance video wouldn’t be enough. That was the project she was keeping herself busy with when there was a knock on the door.

  “Mind some company?” April Greene asked.

  “Not at all,” Dara answered and then continued to roll through the surveillance video.

  “Where is your partner?” Greene asked.

  Wire explained.

  “The Walker approach. It’s worth a shot.”

  “On his own, in the quiet, Mac can sometimes see things that others don’t,” Wire added. “He says it’s all part of figuring out Rubens.”

  They both sat down and watched the surveillance video footage, the snippets of film of White. The techs who put it together didn’t think there was much there but a second look was in order. The footage was of Lisa White at various stores, museums and venues for which there was a record, financial or otherwise, of her presence, and video footage. There was footage from gas stations, grocery stores, two museums, a variety of paint supply stores and seven different bookstores in the most recent compilation. It was the book and paint stores that drew most of their attention, under the theory that it was those places where she tended to linger and walk the aisles, where perhaps she could have crossed paths with Rubens. However, after two hours, Dara and Greene had made it through all of the surveillance tape and never saw White approached by a male. With a frustrated sigh, she moaned, “God, I hate sitting around waiting for the next shoe to drop.”