Dying Games (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 6)

by Steve Robinson

  Then Tayte will really know what it is to suffer, he thought. And only then will I kill him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tayte’s hands were shaking as he turned the key in the lock and entered the safe house apartment. Mavro was at his heel, her face lined with concern and curiosity as to why Tayte was so upset about the Genie’s latest victim.

  ‘Sit yourself down on the couch before you fall down,’ she said as they crossed the living room. ‘I’ll let Reese know we have another clue while I fix us that coffee, or would you like something stronger?’

  Tayte continued to wander across the living room without answering her.

  ‘Hey, JT! Coffee, or something stronger?’

  Tayte snapped around, as if he’d only just realised Mavro was there. ‘Coffee, strong. Thanks.’

  He sat down, and while Mavro was in the kitchen he looked at his phone again, staring at the image of the woman Westlake had just sent him, his mind firmly back in the late 1990s when he’d first met her. Apart from the obvious fear in her eyes and the terrified expression on her face, he didn’t think she’d changed all that much since then. Her mid-brown hair was perhaps a little shorter than he remembered, and she was older, of course, but there was no mistaking who she was. Beneath her image were a few words from the man who had abducted her. Tayte read them again, turning them over in his mind.

  At noon tomorrow she’ll be dead. You have all the clues you need.

  ‘All the clues I need?’ he mumbled to himself, screwing his face up as he wondered what this latest cryptic message meant. All Westlake had sent him was the image and the amount of time he had to save her.

  Mavro came back with their coffees. ‘You really don’t look so good,’ she said, interrupting Tayte’s thoughts. She set their drinks down on the low table between them and sat in the armchair opposite. ‘So who is she? I can see she means something to you.’

  ‘She does,’ Tayte said, still sitting bolt upright on the edge of his seat, partly lost to his memories. He wondered whether the Genie knew as much. ‘At least, she used to mean something to me. Her name’s Lauren Emerson. She came to see me one summer, about fifteen years ago, when she was researching her family tree. She’d hit a genealogical brick wall with one family line in particular, around the time of the Civil War, and she wanted my help.’

  ‘And through that you became close?’ Mavro asked, sipping her coffee.

  Tayte leaned in and collected his mug from the table. He sat back with it and tried to relax. ‘Not in any regular sense, but I became very fond of her.’

  ‘And was she fond of you?’

  ‘I think so, but she was the shy type, and I was too afraid she’d say no if I tried to take our friendship any further. I didn’t want to lose what we already had.’

  ‘So, you’re still good friends, is that it? Is that why you’re so cut up?’

  Tayte shook his head. ‘No, there was this other guy. He was far more confident with relationships than I ever was. To cut a long story short, he swept her away and told me never to see her again. I cared for her very much. I kicked myself for a long time afterwards for not having told her how I felt about her.’

  ‘That’s too bad,’ Mavro said. ‘Can I take another look at the message?’

  Tayte handed his phone to her.

  ‘You have all the clues you need,’ she read out. ‘What do you suppose he means by that?’

  ‘I can only imagine that Lauren herself must be the clue. Everything we need in order to find her in time must stem from her.’

  ‘Her assignment file?’

  Tayte nodded. ‘Perhaps.’ He drained his coffee and got up. ‘I’ll go and see if it’s still there.’

  In the room where all Tayte’s files had been stored, he opened the corresponding cabinet and began to flick through the files, wondering as he did so what further clue Lauren Emerson’s file might contain and how he would recognise it at such when he saw it. He was pleased to see the file was there, which gave him hope. He pulled it out and returned to the living room to look at it with Mavro.

  ‘That’s a good start,’ she said as Tayte sat down. ‘I’d half expected it to be missing.’

  ‘I kind of was myself at first, but then I figured this had to be what Westlake meant us to look at when he said we had all the clues we needed.’

  He sat forward with the folder and set it down on the table. Emerson’s file was thick with records, dating back to the time of the United States’ Founding Fathers, and Tayte recalled that because of his affection for her, he’d gone way beyond helping her to break down the brick wall she’d originally come to see him about. He’d broken through it and kept on going, in part trying to impress her, but mostly as a less transparent reason to keep seeing her because he liked her company.

  ‘It could take a while to work out what we’re supposed to find in here,’ he said, riffling through the records.

  ‘We’ve got less than twenty-four hours,’ Mavro reminded him. She got up, collecting his coffee mug as she rose. ‘I’ll keep the coffee coming. I’m not sure I’d know what to look for.’

  Tayte wasn’t sure he did, either. Did Westlake really expect him to go through every record he had on Lauren Emerson’s family history? Without having at least some idea of what he was looking for, surely there was too much data. He had copies of all the records Emerson had researched before she came to him and everything else he’d found with her since. All he needed was a way in to this latest genealogical puzzle and, as before, he figured it would have to be fairly obvious to him once he saw it.

  The file index was sitting on top of the records, an overview of the family tree containing all the names and key dates. He smiled to himself when he opened the folded sheet of paper and looked at all those names. In his desire to impress, he’d been so thorough that he hadn’t missed a single thing since the early 1800s. He was about to close the sheet of paper again when he saw something that made him sit up. Amidst the sea of names and dates was a lone question mark. Clearly he had missed something, or had hit a brick wall himself.

  When Mavro came back into the room and set a fresh mug of coffee down in front of him, Tayte scratched at his temple and said, ‘I think I might have found it.’

  ‘You have? That was fast.’

  Tayte took a sip of coffee and nodded. He offered up the index. ‘Whatever we’re looking for has to stand out in some way, right?’

  ‘It would have to, or how else would we know?’

  ‘Exactly. Well here, among all this completed data, is just one piece that’s missing. It’s a date of death for someone called Benjamin Kirkland, which fits with the Genie’s game plan. So far all these puzzles have pointed to someone’s death record, so that from it we could go on to identify how and where the next victim was going to die.’

  Tayte thought back and tried to recall the reason he’d put a question mark against this man’s record of death. Clearly he hadn’t been able to find one. He hated leaving his research incomplete like that, and he really wouldn’t have wanted to leave Lauren Emerson’s family tree incomplete if he could help it. He remembered then that it was because of the other man in Lauren’s life. Benjamin Kirkland’s death record was something he’d intended to go back to, but he never had the opportunity, or rather the desire, after Lauren had told him she could no longer see him.

  ‘So we just have to fill in the blank?’ Mavro said, interrupting Tayte’s thoughts.

  Tayte nodded. It sounded simple, but he doubted it would be because he already knew that this particular family history mystery had stumped him before. He flicked through the records and found a copy of Benjamin Kirkland’s marriage to Dorothy Valentine, dated 1907. That was the only vital record he’d been able to find, and he tried to recall why he’d previously been unable to locate any information about his birth or death. He came to another record, a copy of a newspaper report from the Washington Times dated Thursday, May 5, 1910. Seeing the headline again brought everything flooding back.
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br />   ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Benjamin Kirkland’s wife reported him missing. It made the newspapers.’ He held the printout up so Mavro could take a closer look. ‘He left for work one morning and never came home again.’

  ‘And he was never found? Not even his body?’

  Tayte shook his head. ‘I searched long and hard for a record of his death. I couldn’t find a thing. I also checked the ships’ passenger lists for that time, thinking he might simply have run away for whatever reason. There was nothing. If Kirkland died in 1910 and his body was found, he must have died in some way that left him unidentifiable. As things stand, he appears to have just vanished.’

  ‘So how on earth are we supposed to find out where he died?’

  ‘That’s a very good question, Tayte said, sitting back with his thoughts. ‘Right now, I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure—Lauren Emerson’s life depends on us finding the answer.’

  After calling SAC Reese again, this time to update him on their progress, Mavro came into the kitchen and joined Tayte at the table by the window where he’d laid out the key records from Lauren Emerson’s family history file. He had his notepad and pencil at the ready, and he’d put on a fresh pot of coffee to help keep them going. It was now after three in the afternoon and he was conscious of the time in case there were any records he needed to see before the record office closed for the day—not that he imagined it would be too difficult to get someone back there under the circumstances.

  ‘You make better coffee than I do,’ Mavro said, holding on to her cup as she breathed in the aroma.

  ‘It’s the same stuff. I just put extra in. Gives it a little more bite.’

  Tayte picked up the copy of the newspaper report and studied it again, focusing on the salient points as he saw them. ‘It says in this report that Benjamin Kirkland’s wife reported him missing “on Monday last” which was the day after he celebrated his fortieth birthday. It says he left for work wearing his company uniform, as he usually did, and that was the last she saw of him. It also states that she said he worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as an engineer. They’re one of the oldest railroad companies in the country and, if memory serves, they opened a branch in DC sometime in the 1830s. However, to add further to the mystery, the report goes on to say that when the police enquired with the railroad company, they were told there was no record of a Benjamin Kirkland on their payroll.’

  ‘The plot thickens,’ Mavro said. ‘I can see why you left it there. Does it say whether the police were able to draw any conclusions?’

  ‘No, it seems they left it there, too. At least, I couldn’t find any further reports or I’d have them here in my file. Maybe they gave up the search for Kirkland too easily.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like they had anything much to go on. Neither, it seems, do we.’

  ‘That’s not quite true,’ Tayte said, scribbling into his notepad. ‘And we have to remember that the person who set this latest puzzle for us must have found the answers. In that case, so can we. We just have to look in the right places.’ He finished writing his notes and looked at Mavro again. ‘As I see it, there are two main possibilities. Benjamin Kirkland could have lied to his wife about where he worked. Maybe he’d lost his job and didn’t want her to know, so he maintained the illusion that he had a job, when he was really out looking for work.’

  ‘In a B&O Railroad engineer’s uniform? I guess he could have obtained one from somewhere.’

  ‘It would certainly compound the lie,’ Tayte offered, ‘but it seems a little unnecessary to me. He could have made up just about any job and gone out in his Sunday suit.’

  ‘So what’s the other possibility?’

  ‘The other possibility, and I believe this is the stronger of the two, is that this man did work for the railroad company, but under another name—his real name. The fact that I couldn’t find a record of birth for him fits with this idea, and the lack of a death record corroborates the theory. Whether the police gave up the search too soon or not, back then it’s unlikely they would have taken much interest in his vital records, but then, they weren’t looking at the case with a genealogical eye.’

  ‘So why did Kirkland lie about who he really was?’

  ‘That’s the golden question. If we can answer that and discover his real name, we’ll have all the answers we’re looking for.’

  Mavro laughed to herself. ‘You make it sound easy. How do you propose we do that?’

  ‘Let’s think about it for a moment,’ Tayte said, rubbing his chin. ‘The only connections we have to this man are his wife and their children—of whom my client, Lauren Emerson, is a descendant—and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The railroad company would appear to be our best way forward if we’re to assume for now that he did work for them, albeit under his real name.’

  ‘So we somehow have to find a match to the real employee, like comparing photos?’

  ‘That kind of thing, yes, only we don’t have a photograph of Benjamin Kirkland to compare with, and I doubt there are many photographic records of the railroad company’s employees from that time.’

  Tayte paused and drew a deep breath, wondering in what other ways they might be able to match Kirkland with another of the railroad engineers. Several quiet seconds passed until his eyes fell on the copy of the newspaper report again.

  ‘Of course!’ he said, sitting up with a jolt that startled Mavro. He had a wide smile on his face as he picked up the photocopy and tapped it. ‘Kirkland’s birthday,’ he added. ‘Or more specifically, his date of birth.’ He read out the date at the top of the newspaper page. ‘Thursday, May 5, 1910. The report stated that Kirkland was reported missing on the Monday of that week, the day after he turned forty.’

  ‘So he was born on Sunday, May 1st, 1870,’ Mavro said, taking no time to work it out.

  Tayte threw her a smile. ‘You’re sharp.’

  ‘I’m just glad to be of some use. What can we do with Kirkland’s date of birth?’

  ‘Plenty. What are the odds of there being another engineer working out of the DC branch of the B&O Railroad with the same date of birth as our Benjamin Kirkland?’

  ‘Slim to none.’

  ‘Exactly. And there can’t have been many employees whose service terminated on the day Kirkland went missing. We can use that information, too. We just need to take a look at the B&O Railroad’s employee records.’

  ‘We can do that?’

  ‘Sure we can, to a point. The B&O no longer exists as a company. Their network became a part of CSX Transportation in the 1970s. From then on the company records are private. I’ve had many assignments over the years that have led to railroad workers in one family branch or another. I know that records for this particular company prior to the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 were destroyed in the blaze, but that’s okay because we’re only interested in 1910. The US Railroad Retirement Board records have proven useful in the past, but they hold no records prior to 1937. There is, however, a collection at the Hays T. Watkins Research Library at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. They have thousands of records from the payroll department, and although they contain very little personal information, I believe that employees’ dates of birth are recorded.’

  ‘Are the records online?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. We’d have to go there.’

  Mavro glanced at her watch. ‘Will they be open? It’s almost four and it’s about an hour to Baltimore if the roads are clear. At this time of day, we’ll likely hit commuter traffic. It could take a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure the museum closes at four,’ Tayte said. He began to gather up the records. ‘We’d better give them a call, and you’ll have to play your government-agency-on-life-or-death-business card to get someone to stay back and help us.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum was located on West Pratt Street, Baltimore, in the city’s Southwest neighbourhood. Tayte and Mavro arrived at what was widely regarde
d as the ‘birthplace of American railroading’ a little after half past five, having taken the I-95 up through Maryland along with the commuters heading home for the evening. Before they left DC, Mavro had arranged for an archive assistant called Warren Guthrie to stay on and help with their investigation. As they pulled into the otherwise empty public parking area close to the building and got out of the car, they were met enthusiastically by a man in loose-fitting blue jeans, boots, and a white B&O Railroad Museum T-shirt that had a picture of an old Civil War–era steam locomotive on the front. His hair was long and grey, and it was difficult to determine his age, but Tayte thought he was in his mid- to late fifties.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ the man said as he pumped Mavro’s hand, and then Tayte’s.

  ‘We’re here to see Warren Guthrie,’ Mavro said. ‘We’re with the FBI.’

  ‘That’s me. I’m Guthrie. I know who you folks are—been looking out for you.’

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to stay late,’ Tayte said. ‘We really appreciate it.’

  ‘Happy to help,’ Guthrie said, pulling at his wiry handlebar moustache, which was straight out of the Old West. ‘Care to follow me?’

  Guthrie led them into the main building, part of an annexe that had been built and extended over the years alongside the roundhouse that was now home to several of the museum’s historic locomotives and passenger cars. He took them up a flight of stairs to the second floor, then in through a red-framed set of double doors that had the words ‘Hays T. Watkins Research Library’ on a silver sign above it. Once inside, they were invited to sit down at a table upon which were several microform readers.

  ‘So, you’re trying to identify a fella who used to work for the B&O Railroad,’ Guthrie said. ‘Is that correct?’