by Blake Pierce
Mackenzie was most drawn to the fact that he had thought to have sex on a condemned bridge. Was it maybe in an attempt to overcome this fear? If so, it was very much like one of the pictures she and Gates had painted of her suspected killer just moments ago.
Gates entered the room behind her just as she reached the black-and-white photos in the back of the folder.
“Ah, that would be Tyler Black,” Gates said.
Mackenzie was looking at the first picture as Gates reclaimed his seat behind the desk. It was a black-and-white photograph of a seemingly random building. The camera was angled up in order to capture the entire building. It was about five stories tall but was otherwise quite plain.
“What are these pictures of?” Mackenzie asked.
“Tyler had an interest in photography,” Gates explained. “He did basic portraits, still life, that sort of thing. So one day I recommended that he start taking pictures of some of the high places that scared him. We talked it out and I thought it might help to overcome his fears if he could see the places he was scared of from a different perspective. To view them as a focal point of his art rather than a focal point of his fear.”
“And did it work?” Mackenzie asked.
“It seemed to for a while but he stopped coming to see me right in the middle of it all. He called me one day and said he was doing much better. When I asked him to elaborate, I didn’t get much.”
Mackenzie nodded, impressed with Gates’s approach. Seeing these high sights in a new way through the lens of photography was rather genius. She looked through the rest of the pictures, one of which was a shot of an old ironworks warehouse with a very tall exhaust tower in the rear. It was a fantastic picture, showing that Tyler Black had quite the eye for this sort of thing.
But it wasn’t until she got to the fifth picture that the photographs really grabbed her attention.
“Mr. Gates…did you know this was in here?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Mackenzie took one of the black-and-white photos out of the folder and slid it across the desk.
“I…I didn’t even remember this one,” Gates said, looking from the picture and then to Mackenzie. “Is this…?”
Mackenzie nodded, looking down at the picture as well.
“Yeah. It’s the Miller Moon Bridge.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
While the discovery of Tyler Black’s photo was a strong lead, Mackenzie did not feel that it was strong enough to warrant a call to the Herndon Police Department. Instead, she called Agent Harrison up in DC and asked for an information request. Five minutes later, she had Tyler Black’s address as well as the address for his place of employment.
Since it was just after lunch time on a Thursday afternoon, Mackenzie took a gamble and decided to visit Tyler’s place of employment—a construction company where he worked in the cabinet department. It was located in downtown Herndon, a nice office space that looked more like an upscale design firm than a construction company.
There were a few people behind desks, and one woman speaking very angrily on the phone. When the woman saw Mackenzie enter, she held up a finger, asking her to wait. Mackenzie did so, listening to the woman complaining for thirty seconds or so on the phone before finally hanging up and giving Mackenzie her attention.
“What can I do for you today?” the woman asked.
“I’m looking for Tyler Black,” Mackenzie said.
The woman gave a chuckle and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, aren’t we all?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Mackenzie said, doing her best to keep her cool.
“What I mean is Tyler quit earlier this week. Right in the middle of the day, he just told us to go fuck ourselves and stormed off. No one here has heard from him since.”
“Did he not give any reason?”
“Nope. He did seem sort of unlike himself, though.” The woman then eyed Mackenzie suspiciously. “Why are you asking?”
“I’m with the FBI,” she said, pulling her badge and showing it to her. She had intended to keep it low key but the fact that her one solid lead had quit his job around the same time the body of Malory Thomas had been found was a little too strong to be overlooked.
“Oh,” the woman said, dropping her attitude right away.
“So before he stormed out, was there anything at all about Tyler Black that alarmed you?” Mackenzie asked. “Anything that might have seemed out of the ordinary?”
“No, and that’s the weird thing. Tyler was awesome. A great guy, a cute guy if I’m being honest. One of those men that always wanted to help people. Went out of his way to help sometimes. So yeah…when he walked out on Monday, it was a huge surprise.”
“And you have no idea why he had the sudden change of attitude?”
“No. If you’re looking for him, though, I can give you his address.”
“No thank you,” she said. “I’ve got it. Thanks for your time.”
She turned away and made it only two steps back toward the door when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw that it was Harrison calling.
“What’s up, Harrison?”
“You aren’t going to believe this,” Harrison said. “But after I got the addresses for Tyler Black, I went ahead and ran a full report request just in case. Turns out, he’s not in Herndon.”
“Yeah, I just found that out. So where the hell is he?”
“He’s in jail in Baltimore County, Maryland. He’s a new resident…just booked this morning.”
“For what?”
“This is the smoking gun,” Harrison said. “He was standing on the edge of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.”
The timeline to all of this is eerie, she thought. If he was booked this morning, that gave him plenty of time to drive from Kingsville, Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland.
As much as Mackenzie hated jumping to conclusions, this one was adding up to be a home run.
“Has he been processed yet?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I can call and see.”
“Do it. And no matter what the outcome, I need you to let McGrath in on this. I want Tyler Black in DC by the end of the day.”
“You think he’s the guy?”
She had to bite back a yes, not wanting to sound too certain. So instead, she answered with a much safer “We’ll see.”
***
The rest of the day seemed to lag on. Two hours after leaving Herndon, Mackenzie was back in her office in DC. She knew without a doubt that even if Tyler Black turned out to be the killer, she’d likely end up in Kingsville again. She was fine with that but still found herself trying to put the brakes on her certainty that this was the end of the case—that Tyler Black was the murderer.
When 4:15 arrived, Black was still in transit—half an hour later than had been estimated by the Baltimore County Sheriff’s Department. That was fine with Mackenzie, though. She etched out a timeline of events in Kingsville on her dry erase board and then, beneath that, a timeline of events in Tyler Black’s life along that same time frame. She had gotten bits and pieces of Black’s story over the phone during the last few hours, and while she certainly didn’t know all of the ins and outs, she knew enough to fill a timeline of the last five days.
And so far, it was not looking good for Mr. Tyler Black.
As she studied her timelines and went back through the files she had accumulated in Kingsville, Harrison poked his head in her open doorway. “He’s here,” he said. “They’ll have him in an interrogation room within five minutes.”
She nodded her appreciation as she took one more moment to look back through her files. She had never been one to make a suspect wait; she always thought the whole let’s make ’em sweat it out was a bullshit tactic to make agents feel more in control of a situation than they actually were.
It was a sentiment that Ellington agreed with. And knowing that he’d be in just as big of a hurry as she was to start talking to Black made her
miss him. But it was more than just pining for him and wishing that he was there with her. It came down to a comfort and familiarity that she had apparently been taking advantage of. They worked well together—both at work and at home—and it felt odd to not have him there with her as she left her office and headed downstairs to the interrogation rooms.
She found Harrington speaking with McGrath. Agent Yardley was there with them as well but she was speaking rapidly to someone on the phone at the other end of the hallway. There were two policemen from Baltimore County taking their leave, headed for the front office where they’d likely have to just sit and wait while the fate of their prisoner was decided.
“He just sat down in there,” McGrath said as Mackenzie joined them.
“What sort of a mood is he in?” Mackenzie asked.
“The officers that brought him in say he’s more scared than anything,” Harrison said. “Maybe a little confused. But not at all volatile.”
Mackenzie said nothing else. She collected her thoughts for a moment and then stepped inside. As always, the first thing she felt when entering an interrogation room was the camera in the far right corner, watching everything she did and recording everything she said. She then felt the eyes of the man sitting at the table, watching her closely as she stepped forward.
She sat down opposite him, not quite sure where to start. If he was the killer and was being motivated in some way by fear, she was sure she could get a confession out of him rather easily. But she also knew she had to remain as nonconfrontational as possible in order to get there.
“They tell me you were standing on the edge of the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Mackenzie said. “What were you doing there?”
“Just sort of looking out over the water,” he said. His voice gave away his fear. He was very scared—whether because he had been caught or because of guilt, she didn’t know.
“And standing on the edge is the only way to do it?” she asked. “Seems sort of dangerous. Especially for a man who’s sought counseling for his fear of heights.”
A flicker of surprise showed in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a resigned embarrassment. “How’d you know?”
“I spoke with Oswald Gates earlier today,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. And with that, she could see the cogs starting to turn in Black’s head as he continued to try to figure out why he had been detained.
“I found the pictures you had taken pretty interesting,” Mackenzie said. “Gates told me why you took them—trying to use photography as a way to sidestep your fears. Do you think it worked?”
“I thought it had,” he said. “But…I don’t know. There were days where I’d wake up with the fear all over again and it was worse than before. But…look…I’m confused as hell. I suppose I understand being arrested for stepping over to the side of the bridge and partially blocking traffic with my car. But…isn’t this a bit much for such an offense?”
“What were you doing on the edge of the bridge?” Mackenzie asked. “Don’t bullshit me. Just tell me like it is.”
“Thinking about jumping,” he said without any hesitation. “I’m tired of these fears, you know? It’s not just heights. I get panic attacks in crowds…bad ones that make me feel like I have to puke. Some days it all just piles up together and it’s a miserable feeling.”
“Weren’t you scared to be out there then, if you were scared of the height?”
“Yeah, I was terrified. But I figured if I could find the balls to jump then it’s basically a big fuck you to the fear, you know?”
In the back of her mind, the certainty she’d had that Tyler Black was the killer slowly started to crumble. The killer was at least three victims in at this point—maybe more if the trail of bodies extended back farther than the past week. For someone with that sort of motivation, the thought of ending their own lives in the midst of their carnage was highly unlikely.
“When I met with Mr. Gates, I took a look through some of his files. I saw the pictures you took. One of them, I found very interesting. You see, I’ve spent the last several days in the little town of Kingsville, Virginia.”
Black nodded. “That’s where the Miller Moon Bridge is located. One of my pictures.”
“That’s right,” Mackenzie said. “Can I ask why that particular bridge was of interest to you?”
“When I started trying to get over my fear of heights, I did some Googling. Looking for nearby bridges that weren’t all that high—the more isolated and off the beaten path the better. I thought maybe I could ease myself into getting out of that fear by walking out over some of these lower bridges out in the middle of nowhere. Miller Moon Bridge came up. Cute little bridge, off in a really quiet place.”
“It’s also been the scene of two deaths in the course of the last five days,” Mackenzie said.
She watched his face intently. She’d just pulled a pretty heavy trigger, solely to see his reaction, It was this reaction, she knew, that would help her identify whether or not he was guilty. And what she saw there was total surprise and a bit of shock.
“Suicides?” he asked.
She nodded. “At least, that’s what they looked like. Digging a little deeper, it looks like they were murders.”
The cogs in Black’s head seemed to come to a screeching halt at this. “Is…is that why I’m here?”
“A trail of anecdotal evidence did lead us to you, yes. After speaking to a woman at your job and finding out that you left abruptly earlier this week right around the times the murders started made it look very bad. What was the episode at work about?”
“I stopped taking my anxiety meds. They made me hyper and dizzy, especially when we were busy at work. I was behind on deadlines, the fears were starting to creep back up, and I just snapped. It was the first of several things to happen that led me to the edge of the bridge today.”
His expressions and lack of defensiveness had already made Mackenzie feel that he was not the killer. Still, there was protocol to be followed and loose ends to tie up.
“Where did you go when you left work that day?” she asked.
“I went back to my apartment. Took a nap, had a few beers.”
“And how did you end up in Baltimore?”
“I’d been across the Francis Scott Key Bridge a few times before. It was familiar…bigger than anything else I’d tried using to overcome my fears, but…I don’t know. I think even before I left Herndon for Baltimore I was thinking about jumping.”
“Where did you stay in Baltimore these last few days?”
“A Holiday Inn.”
“Do you have receipts? Any proof that you stayed around Baltimore these last few days?”
“I paid with a credit card so I can get receipts. And the only proof I have that I was in town the whole day are transactions I made. Lunch, taking in a movie, that sort of thing.”
And that’s the end of this lead, Mackenzie thought, relaxing back into her seat. “Thanks so much for your time, Mr. Black,” she said as she got to her feet and headed for the door. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”
She was out of the door and standing next to Harrison and McGrath before Black could respond. She felt foolish—maybe even a little lazy for having assumed that Tyler Black had been the answer to all of the questions she’d been accumulating since her first visit to Kingsville.
“He’s not our guy,” she said. “Some simple credit card traces over the last two or three days should prove it.”
“He claims he was in Baltimore the whole time?” McGrath said.
“For at least the last two days. Which takes him completely out of Maureen Hanks’s death and probably Kenny Skinner’s, too.”
“So where’s that leave us?” McGrath said.
“Square one?” Harrison asked.
“Not quite square one,” Mackenzie said. “But with all due respect, I just need to stay in Kingsville until this is done. Three deaths in the course of a week probably means the killer is there. My time is being wasted
going back and forth.”
She nearly added: And without my partner, it’s a little more grueling than usual. But she kept her cool, swallowing the comment down.
“That’s fine with me,” McGrath said. “Just keep me posted on the phone. If you need any resources, keep calling Harrison. If you need a partner on this, I can also send him or Yardley.”
“I appreciate that, but I think I’m good for now.”
She was aware that she was sounding overconfident but the last thing she needed right now was a substitute partner. She’d do nothing but compare them to Ellington; she’d been forced into that position before and while it had worked out in the end, it had honestly been more trouble than it had been worth.
And speaking of trouble, she supposed she needed to make one last stop in DC before she headed back to Kingsville for the long haul. She needed to speak with Ellington and even then, as she made her way back to her office, she had no idea how the conversation would go or even where it needed to start.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
She heard the shower running when she entered her apartment. She also saw Ellington’s gym bag at the front door, meaning that he had just gotten back from working out. She was glad to see that he was still staying active rather than moping around the apartment, wallowing in his bad fortune.
She let him enjoy his shower without bothering him. While she waited, she went into the bedroom and fired up her laptop. She had sent the case files from her phone to her personal folders on the FBI directory. She pulled them up, scrolling through them for anything she might have missed. Each case—Malory Thomas, Kenny Skinner, and Maureen Hanks—was cut and dry. The only thing that kept jumping out to her was the change in scenery. Of course, it made sense that the killer would change locations once the police had the Miller Moon Bridge under surveillance. It made her wonder if maybe they needed to call in the State PD to have eyes on any tall structure out in Kingsville. There weren’t many, but they were numerous enough to the point that it would totally deplete Sheriff Tate’s force if they went that route.
