Closer Than You Think

by Karen Rose

  ‘Okay, so the rest of you give me something that’ll keep the brass from breathing down our necks and make the press go away.’

  Deacon shook his head. ‘You’re not going to make the press go away, Lynda. This case is going to draw media from all over the country before we’re done.’ With mounting dread he remembered the constant barrage of questions in West Virginia, the photographers with their long-range zooms. ‘It’ll be a madhouse. You need to prepare yourself for that. All of us do.’

  Isenberg sighed. ‘I know. At least we’ll have good news to go with whatever bad you’re about to tell me. The hospital says that the bellman at Faith’s hotel will make a full recovery.’

  Deacon’s shoulders relaxed a hair. That would give Faith some small measure of comfort. ‘That is good news. I didn’t think he’d make it.’

  ‘So where are we?’ Isenberg asked. ‘Please say we’re still at ten bodies.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tanaka said. ‘But that could change. Novak’s archeologist arrived, so we’ll soon start looking outside. The officer managing security sent me a picture so that I could verify her ID.’ Tanaka turned his phone so that they could see the photo of a blonde wearing an ancient army jacket. ‘I wasn’t expecting Dr Johannsen herself.’

  ‘Neither was I,’ Deacon said. ‘All she said was that she’d find us someone good.’

  Tanaka’s smile was weary. ‘She’s the best out there, so I’d say she kept her promise.’

  ‘Who is Johannsen?’ Isenberg asked.

  ‘She’s the archeologist I worked with in West Virginia.’

  ‘Ah. She mapped out all the graves,’ Isenberg said.

  ‘She’s one of the world’s leading experts in ground-penetrating radar,’ Tanaka added. ‘She assists forensic teams and disaster recovery efforts all over the world. If she doesn’t find anything, we can safely say we’ve found all the bodies.’

  ‘From your mouth to God’s ears,’ Isenberg muttered. ‘So what do know about the ten?’

  ‘All blonde, all about the same age,’ Deacon said. ‘All autopsied and embalmed, internal organs removed. I got a status update from Carrie Washington just before you came in. She ID’d one more of the women, so we’re up to three ID’d. Another college student, who disappeared from Ohio State three years ago. Assuming Corinne Longstreet was his intended victim, we can add the common link of college attendance or recently graduated when they were abducted.’

  ‘Any commonalities in college majors?’ Isenberg asked.

  ‘No. Corinne is an art major. Roxanne Dupree studied interior design and Susan Simpson had her BA in criminal justice. The most recent ID, Wendy Franklin, was a chemistry major. The outliers in terms of both coloring and age appear to be Arianna and Roza, the girl who helped Arianna escape – both are dark and younger. I checked the missing children database for girls named Roza, but the only matches were either too old, too young or the wrong race. When Arianna is able, we’ll get a sketch artist with her.’

  Adam let himself in to the room, closing the door behind him. ‘We got a hit on the white van. It was called in by the first responders.’

  Isenberg’s eyes narrowed. ‘Responders to what?’

  ‘GSW,’ Adam said. ‘Attempted homicide.’

  Everyone perked up. ‘The victim survived?’ Bishop asked.

  ‘Barely. The van was found in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour grocery store off of Red Bank Road. The victim had been shot in the head and rolled underneath the van. A shopper noticed a hand sticking out from under the vehicle. It appears the victim may have pulled herself a few feet, but lost consciousness. The first responders recognized the white van from the BOLO, so they called us immediately. The officer on duty said there was an exit wound, so they’ve secured the scene and cordoned off the area, looking for the slug. Vince, can you send a forensic team?’

  ‘The team that processed the original scene where Arianna was found has had time to rest. I’ll send them.’ Tanaka tapped out a quick text. ‘They’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  ‘The victim had no ID on her person,’ Adam went on. ‘Her purse wasn’t in plain view. The van’s plates had been changed from the Tennessee plates it had in the hotel’s video to an Ohio set reported stolen five years ago. They were on a car that had broken down on the side of the road. Whoever took the plates left the car alone. That’s why it took so long to find the van. We were looking for Tennessee plates. He’s not as stupid as we’d hoped.’

  ‘But he made a mistake,’ Deacon said. ‘He left a potential witness alive.’

  ‘What about the location?’ Bishop asked. ‘Red Bank Road is out east, not far from Lunken Airport, which isn’t far from Mount Carmel. He passed several places where he might have ditched the van before he got to Red Bank. Maybe it’s an area he’s familiar with? Comfortable with?’

  Isenberg nodded. ‘Maybe close to home. Or maybe chosen to make us think he was close to home. Suspects?’

  ‘Maguire and Sons,’ Bishop said. ‘Whoever they really are. Their office is in Mount Carmel, not far from Red Bank. Twice a year they inspect the O’Bannion house, top to bottom. The way it was supposed to work was that the grandson of the O’Bannion family attorney – Herbert Henson the Third – would meet them at the house with the key and wait as they did their inspection and maintenance. However, a witness says that Henson the Third, wearing golf clothes, just dropped the key off at Maguire’s Mount Carmel office. The business is legit from a paperwork standpoint, but their office is abandoned. Crandall says their mail is being forwarded to a mailbox store in Forest Park.’

  ‘That’s a fair distance from Mount Carmel,’ Tanaka said. ‘Inconvenient for mail pickup.’

  ‘Unless it’s close to something that is convenient,’ Bishop said. ‘Crandall’s getting the store’s security tapes so we can see who’s collecting the mail. My bet is that it’ll be the same woman who took the house key from Henson the Third. I’ve put in a request for a sketch artist to get a description of the woman from the witness. When we’re done here, we’ll interview Jeremy O’Bannion. He’s a surgeon, so that fits with the way the victims were autopsied, their organs removed. And so far two family members have mentioned his predilection for young women.’

  ‘The ten victims weren’t minors,’ Isenberg said. ‘They were all college age or older.’

  ‘We know,’ Deacon said. ‘That’s why we want to interview Jeremy at work. He might like younger girls, but he’s a med school professor with access to college-aged women. I want to watch him among them. He’s publicly gay but was married to an older woman, so his image could be a smokescreen. I hope we can find something during a voluntary interview that’ll be enough to get a warrant to search his home.’

  ‘So he’s on our list of suspects?’ Isenberg asked.

  ‘Definitely a person of interest,’ Deacon said. ‘Jeremy doesn’t meet the physical description of the gunman from the hotel last night, but that could have been Combs.’

  ‘Who is still on our list because a) he’s trying to kill Faith,’ Isenberg said, ‘and b) we have a ballistics match on the gun he used last night at both the O’Bannion house and on the dead hotel guest with the gun used to kill Gordon Shue in Miami.’

  ‘Yes,’ Deacon confirmed. ‘But the gunman from the hotel last night also could have been Jeremy’s stepson, Stone O’Bannion.’

  ‘Since when?’ Bishop asked in surprise.

  ‘Since ten minutes before you got here, when I received a report from the agent who’s been watching Jeremy’s estate. I forwarded the email to you as soon as I got it. Jeremy didn’t leave his house last night, but his stepson did. Stone O’Bannion left at 11 P.M. and returned at 4.15 this morning.’

  ‘Gives him the perfect window to shoot you at the hotel,’ Bishop said, ‘then steal a van from the store parking lot on Red Bank Road and make it back to Jeremy’s house.’

  ‘Exactly. Add to it that Stone is former army. Served two tours in the Gulf. Crack shot. Does a lot of hunting. I pulled
this photo – his height, weight and build are the same as that of Peter Combs, which is the same as that of the gunman from the hotel last night and the man who climbed through Faith’s bedroom window two weeks ago in Florida.’

  Isenberg studied the photo. ‘What does Faith have to say about him?’

  ‘She only met him once, when they were kids. Jeremy’s side of the family is estranged. He has one biological daughter and two adopted sons. None of them were included in either of the elder O’Bannions’ wills. Could be hard feelings.’

  ‘When did Stone finish his last tour overseas?’ Tanaka asked.

  ‘Five years ago,’ Deacon said, ‘so he would have been stateside during the time frame of the abductions that we’ve identified so far.’

  Tanaka shook his head. ‘But with two tours in the Gulf he may have been out of the country when the O’Bannion basement windows were covered up.’

  Deacon sighed, frustrated that he’d missed that. I need to sleep. ‘You’re right. No one person’s a perfect match to all the evidence. But Stone is still one we need to watch. Google says he’s a reporter now, freelance. His work’s been published in Newsweek and Time, but also in Hot Shots – an article on sights for long-range shooting. I ran a background on him right after I received the surveillance report. Stone’s got no arrest record, but he does have a number of registered weapons, including a nine mil he reported stolen after his return from the Gulf.’

  ‘Convenient,’ Isenberg said. ‘Report it stolen, then use it to kill . . . how many?’

  ‘Faith’s old boss in Florida,’ Deacon said, ‘and here in Ohio there was the Earl Power tech, the locksmith, the occupant of the hotel room. That’s four. We have a missing slug that hit the woman found under his van. Plus I assume the bullet we found near the path at King’s College was a ballistics match.’

  ‘It was,’ Tanaka confirmed.

  ‘So he also used it to abduct Arianna,’ Deacon said. ‘Of course, we don’t know if the nine mil involved in all those crimes is the one Stone reported stolen.’

  ‘Bring him in anyway,’ Isenberg said. ‘We need to have a chat with the man.’

  ‘Bishop and I were going to visit Jeremy next,’ Deacon said. ‘But after that, we need to crash for a little while. We’re running on fumes.’

  ‘I got a decent nap between the morgue and interviewing Arianna,’ Bishop said. ‘I’ll drive to Jeremy’s and you can sleep.’

  ‘I’ll take you up on it,’ Deacon said, ‘but we need more support – more agents and detectives. I can request support from SAC Zimmerman if CPD’s resources are being stretched too thin.’ Deacon was part of Isenberg’s task force, but Special Agent in Charge Zimmerman, the head of the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office, was his official boss. ‘We need someone to pick up and interview Stone and to track down Henson the Third, who hasn’t contacted us yet. Maguire is still an unknown, if he’s even a real person. We could use at least three more detectives or agents.’

  ‘I’ll contact Zimmerman,’ Isenberg said. ‘We’ll get more bodies. If you’re too tired to interview Jeremy, I can send someone else.’

  Deacon shook his head. ‘No, he’s a key person of interest and we’re the lead investigators. We’ll interview him. Then we’ll hand off to whoever’s second shift and get some sleep.’

  ‘I have a question,’ Adam said. ‘Did any of the victims found under the floor have GSWs?’

  ‘Just the cop,’ Bishop said. ‘But the wound had healed before he killed her. Why?’

  ‘Because what I can’t figure is why he keeps using the same gun,’ Adam said. ‘He’s got to know we can compare ballistics.’

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t care,’ Deacon said. ‘He may be that arrogant. Or he may have figured that he’d have killed Faith by now and we’d never connect the dots. Have we found any usable fingerprints in the basement?’

  Tanaka shook his head. ‘Surprisingly few. Every surface has been cleaned – walls, doors, the autopsy table, all of it. We found several partial prints on the cot, but only one yielded anything through AFIS – those of his most recent victim, Roxanne Dupree.’

  ‘The student at Miami University,’ Isenberg said. ‘Any word on why he picked her?’

  ‘I asked Detective Vega to check her out,’ Bishop said. ‘She said she’d get back with us.’

  Isenberg checked her notes. ‘She was going to talk with Combs’s girlfriend, too. Did she?’

  Bishop grimaced. ‘The girlfriend and her attorney are playing games with the DA, trying to make a deal on the possession charge. Vega thinks they’ll have something tomorrow.’

  Isenberg’s eyes narrowed. ‘Their DA understands what we’re dealing with, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Bishop said soberly. ‘Don’t forget, they have three homicides too – Gordon Shue, and the mother and son killed in Faith’s old car. They’ve managed to keep the link between their homicides and ours on the QT, but it’s just a matter of time before a reporter connects our Faith with the Faith that was holding Gordon Shue’s shirt when his brains got splattered all over her.’

  ‘Who’s Vega’s CO?’ Isenberg asked. ‘I’ll give him a call to make sure we’re coordinating information before I go in front of the press.’

  ‘Lieutenant Neil Davies,’ Bishop said. ‘Vega trusts him. So far, I trust her.’

  ‘Good.’ Isenberg turned to Tanaka. ‘Vince, run me through everything you’ve found in that basement that isn’t a body. Quickly. I’m due upstairs in ten minutes.’

  ‘Latent pulled three distinct sets of prints that don’t match any of the bodies. One belongs to Arianna Escobar. The second belongs to a child or an adult with very small hands. The last is a single print and very faint. None of the prints match Peter Combs’s. The child’s prints don’t match any in the Missing Children database.’

  ‘Can you estimate an age from the print?’ Deacon asked.

  Tanaka shrugged. ‘Pre-pubescent? Maybe? It’s hard to say.’

  ‘In the whole basement you only found three sets of prints? Really?’ Isenberg pressed.

  ‘The walls and floors were exceptionally clean, Lynda,’ Tanaka said. ‘The room with the autopsy table had been hosed down with bleach. The child’s prints were found everywhere. She was evidently allowed freedom in the basement. Everywhere but the handle of the door at the top of the stairs, where we found Arianna Escobar’s prints.’

  ‘When she escaped,’ Deacon murmured. ‘Where did you find the faint print?’

  ‘In the little dug-out room,’ Tanaka said. ‘It was on the hairbrush we found in the box on the pallet. Everything else in the room had only the girl’s prints.’

  ‘The brush could have belonged to one of the other victims,’ Bishop said.

  ‘God, I hope not,’ Tanaka said fervently. ‘Because if so, we’d have more than ten victims, because that print doesn’t match any of the bodies we’ve found. I’m hoping the girl had it with her when she was abducted. In the brush were hairs belonging to two different people. One hair is short and dark, the other long and blond. We’ll run DNA on both and let you know.’ He glanced at his notes. ‘The blanket found in the dug-out room is a generic camp blanket. It could have been bought anywhere, but it’s been down there a while.’

  ‘What’s a while?’ Isenberg asked. ‘How long has the girl been there? Weeks, months?’

  ‘The blanket could have been down there for years. I can’t say how long the girl’s been there. We found a number of cameras inside and outside of the house. Unfortunately, they recorded to a DVR which had been removed.’

  ‘Damn,’ Deacon muttered. ‘That was too good a lead to pan out.’

  Tanaka shrugged. ‘Sorry. The only other thing I have is a summary from Agent Taylor’s forensic team. The shooter didn’t leave anything behind in the hotel room. Oh, and the new crime scene at the grocery store, of course. We’ll have the van towed to the garage and go over every square inch ASAP.’

  ‘Good work, Vince,’ Isenberg said with a nod. ‘Anyt
hing else I need to know?’

  Deacon’s phone buzzed with an incoming email. ‘It’s from Faith – the list of places she parked her Jeep since she bought it Saturday morning. At some point this guy stuck her with another tracking device.’

  ‘I’ll check it out,’ Adam offered. ‘Send me the list.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Deacon said, wondering if Adam was being truly helpful or trying to find another reason to suspect Faith. He’d accept her if he knew how she’d worked with that Miami PD Sex Crimes detective to put offenders back in prison. Perhaps, but whether he should be told wasn’t Deacon’s decision to make. It was Faith’s.

  ‘What about Combs?’ Isenberg asked. ‘Has our BOLO turned up anything?’

  ‘No,’ Deacon said, frustrated. ‘It’s like Vega said – he’s dropped off the earth. Crandall ran a check for credit card and bank activity, but Combs truly has gone off the grid. The gunman last night met his physical description, but none of the tapes show his face, so we can’t even be sure it was Combs. He might not be involved at all. It might have been Stone. Or whoever is posing as Maguire and Sons. Or it might be someone we don’t know about yet.’

  ‘If Combs is involved, it hasn’t been for long,’ Bishop said. ‘He’s only been out of prison about a year. Gordon Shue was shot a month ago, so Combs can be a suspect for his murder, but at least some of the victims in the basement went missing while Combs was serving his sentence. It’s possible that he was contacted by the killer of those ten women when he was in prison. I asked Vega to check on his visitors and jailhouse buddies and to pump the girlfriend for information about anyone he met in the last few months. We’re not without leads, Lynda.’

  ‘What about this newest victim?’ Deacon asked. ‘The one at the grocery store? He shot the woman presumably for her vehicle. Since her purse wasn’t found with her, we can only assume he kept it. He’d have her keys and her address from her license. He could be hiding out there – maybe with two live victims.’

  Isenberg gave him a long look. ‘You really think Corinne is still alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘Until we know otherwise, I have to. And even if he has killed her, there’s still the girl. Arianna believes he’ll kill the girl for helping her escape, but until we understand more about the relationship between them, we can’t know what he intends to do. We need to find out where our main suspects’ hidey-holes are – Jeremy, Stone, Combs, Henson the Third, Maguire.’