Whispers of the Dead_A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

  “One is easier to control than two,” Jimmy says.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what’s the question?”

  I curl my index finger at him a couple of times in a come-hither motion and lead him back to the entry. “Why’d the alarm go off?” I say, pointing at the security system control panel.

  That stumps him. “They had a panic button?”

  “If they had a panic button they would have pushed it as soon as Isaiah entered the bedroom, before he had them under control.”

  “How do you know they didn’t?”

  “You said it yourself. The neighbor heard the alarm go off and immediately got up and came out to his front porch, arriving just in time to see Isaiah marching Paul and Elizabeth out to the car. He said it was maybe fifteen seconds.”

  Jimmy suddenly understands. “If the Andersons had a panic button, they would have tripped the alarm as soon as Isaiah appeared in their bedroom, but that doesn’t play into the neighbor’s timeline. It probably took two or three minutes for Isaiah to bind and gag them, especially if he was forcing one of them to bind the other at gunpoint. Then there’s the time it took to get them to their feet, herd them through the house, and out the front door.” He nods. “That’s a lot more than fifteen seconds. Isaiah set off the alarm on purpose.”

  “He wanted the neighbors to hear it,” I say. “He wanted them to come to their windows and their porches. He wanted them to see.”

  “Exposing himself like that—it doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if this is his endgame.”

  “Meaning what? Kill Paul Anderson while his wife looks on?”

  I shake my head. “Worse, I think.”

  * * *

  Jimmy and I plant ourselves just outside the front door of the residence, waiting for word that the Albuquerque police located the red Mercury Milan and rescued the Andersons from the trunk.

  Fifteen minutes pass, and that scenario becomes unlikely.

  Next, we wait for word that the New Mexico state police have stopped the car along I-25 south of Albuquerque, freeing the victims and taking Isaiah into custody.

  Thirty minutes pass, and still we wait.

  We wait for word—word of any kind, good or bad, but forty-five minutes pass and silence is our only company. With increasing frequency, I glance at the black dial on my Movado watch as Jimmy strums his fingers anxiously on the front railing.

  At three minutes past seven, a murmur runs through the gathered law enforcement both inside and outside the residence. It’s sparked by a single radio transmission, and words that change everything in an instant.

  The red Mercury Milan, the suspect vehicle everyone has been looking for, was just located a half mile from the Anderson residence parked in the driveway of a random house—as if it belonged there.

  The realization hits hard: he switched cars.

  It was all a diversion.

  Isaiah must have figured out there was extra patrol in the neighborhood, so he ladled out his own brand of disinformation in the form of a witness, a license plate number, and a suspect vehicle.

  Responding units would have been so focused on finding a red car—any red car—that after dumping the Milan he could have driven right by them without a second glance.

  Any illusion of intercepting Isaiah before he reaches Deming just popped like soap bubbles on a breeze, and that’s assuming Deming is even his destination. Right now we have nothing else to go on, so Jimmy and I jog to the car and speed to the airport.

  “Driving time is about three and a half hours,” I tell Jimmy. “That’ll put him there about eight.”

  “What’s our flight time?”

  “If we take off immediately and push Betsy hard, we can be there in thirty or forty minutes. Les and Marty are standing by with the engines running.” Buildings and bushes flick by my window at eighty miles an hour as a marked unit clears the way for us with lights and siren.

  “We don’t know how long he keeps them alive,” Jimmy says absently, searching for hope. “Maybe he toys with them for a while first; letting them imagine what’s coming. If so, that buys us time.”

  “Webster’s not a sadist,” I remind him. “I don’t imagine him toying with any of them; he just dishes out his own version of justice. Anderson will be dead within a few hours. If we’re lucky, he’ll spare the wife.”

  I let the words settle a moment, and then voice another concern. “Without an address in Deming, how are we supposed to find him?”

  Jimmy fishes in his pocket for his phone. “It’s time to wake Diane.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Over New Mexico—September 15, 7:44 A.M.

  The only drawback to flying around the country in a Gulfstream G100 is that not all airports have a runway long enough to accommodate her. Landing isn’t the issue, it’s taking off again. Betsy requires just 2,500 feet for a clean landing, but 8,395 feet to take off at sea level.

  The longest runway at Deming Municipal Airport is 8,018 feet, plus the elevation is 4,314 feet, so that bumps our takeoff distance out to almost 8,700 feet. The next closest suitable airport would be El Paso, but that’s just not acceptable.

  Paul and Elizabeth don’t have that kind of time.

  We’re already on descent to Deming Municipal when Les runs through the numbers one last time and decides to risk it. Marty looks around and gives us an okay sign and assures us that the published takeoff distances “are just suggestions anyway.”

  Now I’m genuinely concerned.

  * * *

  Les wastes no time putting the plane on the ground, and immediately parks next to a white unmarked Crown Victoria sitting at the end of the runway with its lights flashing. Detective Sergeant Pete Villanueva introduces himself, and we pile into the Crown Vic.

  During the short flight, Diane managed to find us a local liaison, get us a ride, and have a search run through local records. Not bad for a grandma in her bathrobe and pink pig slippers.

  Jimmy rides shotgun, and I’m in the narrow backseat of the Crown Vic with a thick Plexiglas partition between me and the front seat. One of the sliding panels on the barrier is open, so I lean forward to listen.

  “Nothing in locals,” Pete says. “Honestly, I’ve never heard of the guy, or anyone like him. Are you sure he’s in Deming?”

  “That’s the word from his sister,” Jimmy says. “Only problem is she’s never been to his house; he’s never even given her the address.”

  “So how are we supposed to find this guy? Do you know what he drives, at least?”

  “No. Not a clue. It’s probably not registered in his name anyway.”

  I can tell the detective is growing frustrated. His hands keep clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel as we roll down the road at seventy miles an hour—a whole lot of hurry to nowhere.

  “Swing by the post office,” I say.

  “What?” Jimmy’s tone is overly abrupt.

  “To rent a post office box in the United States,” I explain, “you need to provide proof of your residence, like a rental agreement or utility bill. So if we want to find Isaiah’s physical address, all we need is his box number.”

  Jimmy hesitates. “We have that.”

  “We have that,” I parrot.

  We reach the Deming Post Office a few minutes before eight, but a half hour before the government facility is due to open. A single car graces the parking lot, which must belong to an employee—or so we tell ourselves. Jimmy and I take turns pounding on the door and calling out, “FBI,” but there’s no response from within.

  It takes a full three minutes of door-bruising before a figure appears in the distant hall and makes her way toward us, growing larger with each step until she fills the window.

  “We don’t open for another”—she squints at her wristwatch—“twenty-eight minutes,” she says, then turns and starts to walk away.

  Jimmy and Detective Villanueva pounce on the door, shouting and pressing badges to the glass. That gets
the woman’s attention and she returns, gives a disapproving stare, and then reluctantly fishes out a key from the lanyard around her neck. She unlocks the door, but only opens it wide enough for her face to peer out.

  “Like I said, we’re not open yet.” She’s at least six feet tall and half as wide, and her lips are pinched in the disapproving manner of a shushing librarian as she stares through her bifocals and down her nose at us.

  Jimmy glances at the name on her access badge. “This is an emergency, Ms. Henshaw. I’m Special Agent James Donovan with the FBI, and this is Detective Sergeant Pete Villanueva with Deming PD. We need the physical address associated with one of your post office boxes, and it’s urgent.”

  “Of course it is. It’s always urgent,” Ms. Henshaw says. “You have a warrant?”

  “We don’t, but—”

  “Well, I’m the postmaster here, and I’d have to look it up, but I’m pretty sure we need a warrant to give out that type of information.”

  “Ma’am, I assure you there’s no time for that. Exigent circumstances exist when someone is in imminent danger, and that negates the need for a warrant. This is well established in criminal procedure law, so, for example, if I hear screaming coming from this building and believe someone is being harmed, I could make entry without a warrant, even if I had to kick the door in, understand?”

  The words fly at the postmaster so fast she takes two steps backward. She looks at Sergeant Villanueva, confused.

  “That’s exactly correct, ma’am,” Pete says with a nod.

  “This is an exigent circumstance,” Jimmy continues, “and lives are in imminent danger, so I must insist: I need that address information, and I need it now.” The postmaster stares at him, mouth hanging open. “Please,” Jimmy adds, forcing a smile.

  That seems to break through to Ms. Henshaw, and she swings the door wide, saying, “This way.” She shuffles deep into the building and down a hall, her steps urgent, either because she truly gets it or because Jimmy scared her. I’m not sure which.

  “Box number?”

  “Six-six-seven-seven,” Jimmy replies, reading from the scrap of paper that Lisa gave him during our visit to Nob Hill two days ago.

  It only takes Ms. Henshaw a moment.

  “Paul Webster,” she says, and then provides an address on Relay Road.

  Paul Webster.

  “He used his middle name,” Jimmy and I say together.

  “Relay Road; that’s about ten miles outside of town off the 418,” Pete says.

  We leave the postmaster without so much as a thank-you or good-bye. Rushing down the hall, we burst through the front door of the post office and practically bolt for the patrol car.

  “Do you have a SWAT team?” Jimmy asks as he reaches the passenger door.

  “We have seven members of our Special Response Team standing by,” the sergeant replies, “plus two negotiators. Relay Road is outside the city limits, which means we don’t have jurisdiction, so I need to run this by the Luna County Sheriff’s Office. All our guys are cross-commissioned by the county, but we don’t operate outside the city without notifying them.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Pete tosses a ring of keys to Jimmy. “You better drive,” he says. “I’ve got some calls to make.” Before pulling out of the parking lot, Jimmy punches the address into the dash-mounted GPS.

  The yellow track on the map heads west.

  Pete’s first call is to the sergeant in charge of the Special Response Team, updating him on the situation and location. Typically, a threat assessment is conducted before an SRT or SWAT team is activated. If the incident scores high enough, the activation proceeds. A serial killer is enough to spike the assessment numbers, but the imminent risk to Paul Anderson and his wife eliminates the scoring altogether.

  As Jimmy steers the patrol car out of the city and westbound on I-10, we pass a sign warning of possible dust storms, and then the speed limit kicks up to seventy-five and we find ourselves racing out into a world described in two words: flat and dry.

  There are breaks in the otherwise level horizon—small hills bumped up against the distant sky—but they’re as infrequent as teeth in an old vagrant’s mouth.

  Pete’s next call is to the Luna County Sheriff’s Office. He ends up on hold a minute, and then the call is forwarded directly to the sheriff. After explaining the situation and discussing options, he disconnects the call.

  “The sheriff is going to send a couple SWAT-trained deputies to augment. I told him we’ll be staging a mile east of the residence.” The sergeant glances at the time on his phone. “It’s going to take them about twenty minutes.” He hesitates before asking, “How much time do we have?”

  Jimmy’s voice is low, hard. “He’s already there. We’re out of time.”

  * * *

  The staging area is concealed behind an abandoned barn a quarter mile off I-10. Standing at the southeast corner of the barn looking west, I see Isaiah’s place in the distance. The residence is a single-wide trailer, but it’s nestled in the center of forty acres with numerous outbuildings, including an old Quonset hut that’s in considerably better condition than any of the other buildings, most of which appear on the verge of falling over.

  Approaching is going to be a problem.

  A gully in the terrain, possibly from an ancient river or the washout from a flash flood, will get us partway there, but after that we’ll have to leapfrog forward using the limited vegetation as cover.

  Jimmy’s just finishing a call to Tony in El Paso when I pull him off to the side. “I need to get in closer and take a look,” I insist. He opens his mouth, most likely to say no, but I cut him off. “For all we know, this could be a bogus address, and we don’t have the time to wait for verification. Just get me close enough to see Isaiah’s shine, and then we can hunker down until the cavalry rides in.”

  “You remember what happened the last time you needed to take a closer look?” Jimmy says impatiently. The ghost echo of a shotgun blast rings in my head as the image of Arthur Zell—the Sad Face Killer—wavers in my mind.

  “This is different.”

  “Why? Because you think Isaiah won’t shoot you?”

  I shake my head. “No, I know better than that, but this is also about Paul and Elizabeth. If I can get close enough I can tell if they’re here, and maybe which building they’re being held in.”

  Jimmy studies me as he works it through. “This is a bad idea,” he says after a moment. “If we do this, you stay behind me and follow my lead.”

  “Behind you.” I nod. “Follow your lead. Got it.”

  Sergeant Villanueva is less than pleased with the idea. “Backup is fifteen minutes out,” he says. “If something goes sideways…”

  “It won’t,” Jimmy says with false bravado. “This is what we do.”

  As we make for the dip in the terrain, Pete suddenly calls after us. “Hold up a sec.” He pops the trunk to his patrol car and digs through several bags. Like most cops, his trunk is filled to capacity with every manner of support gear and equipment. He even has a built-in gun vault for his AR-15, but it’s not the assault weapon he’s looking for.

  When he emerges from the depths of the trunk, he has a small black bag in his left hand and a pair of tactical binoculars in his right. He hands the binoculars to Jimmy, saying, “For far away,” and then hands him the black bag and says, “for up close.”

  Jimmy peeks into the bag and gives Pete a grin. “I don’t think we’ll get that close.”

  “Just in case,” the sergeant replies.

  * * *

  The gully no longer resembles a dried-up riverbed, if ever it was one. It’s now just a scar on the earth, a low impression carved out in the distant past by water and gravity, or perhaps just wind and time.

  It was made for this moment … and we use it to our advantage.

  The first half mile is easy, and we do most of it at a half run, but then the gully abruptly ends. Emerging slowly into the open, we huddle behind a s
mall desert tree, dangerously exposed.

  With the binoculars pressed to his eyes, Jimmy scans the trailer and outbuildings for almost a full minute before handing them to me. “No sign of Isaiah,” he says. “I see five cars, but only one that looks drivable. The porchlight at the trailer is on, same with the light above the door to the Quonset hut.”

  Scanning the compound, my view is different from Jimmy’s. I still see the trailer, the cars, the scattered outbuildings, the Quonset hut, and several disconnected stretches of fence lying about in various stages of disrepair. But because the lenses on the binoculars are regular glass, not lead crystal, I also see shine everywhere I look.

  Some of it is ice-blue.

  “This is it,” I say. Turning the binoculars on the blue Dodge Intrepid parked outside the trailer, I add, “The Andersons are here. Their shine is on the trunk.”

  “Is it pulsing?”

  “Yeah, they’re alive, at least for the moment.”

  “Can you tell where he took them?”

  “I can’t see the ground that well from here. I need to get closer.”

  Jimmy looks back toward the staging area behind the barn, then at Isaiah’s compound and its many outbuildings. Retrieving his cell phone, he sends a text to Pete: Suspect and victim likely on scene. Moving closer. After hitting Send, he says, “Okay. Follow me and keep close.”

  We advance from cover to cover, and soon find ourselves on the east side of Isaiah’s trailer. Jimmy peeks through the window above our heads, but the room is empty. We come around the front of the trailer to keep it between us and the nearest outbuildings, then Jimmy has me wait at the corner while he checks each window.

  Nothing.

  Satisfied that the trailer is empty, he waves me forward. As I draw near, I’m immediately struck by the layers of blue shine filling the gap between the trailer and the Quonset hut. Then I see Paul Anderson’s shine, and beside him the distinct dirty tan belonging to his wife; the same dirty tan that was so prominent in their bedroom, their bathroom, their house. It all goes just one direction: into the Quonset hut.