Blood Ties

by Sigmund Brouwer

The Watcher undressed slowly, savoring his anticipation. He hung his clothes on hangers. Finally, in a thick robe, he propped pillows against the headboard, lounged on his bed, pressed his remote control, and began flicking buttons.

  On the large-screen television, the kitchen camera in her apartment showed no sign of Kelsie or Taylor. Neither did the bedroom and shower cameras.

  He clicked to the living room camera and smiled. What a beautiful woman!

  She was sitting on the couch, reading a magazine. Taylor was curled beside her asleep. Her blonde hair was neat and brushed. He liked that: It meant she was taking care of herself.

  Life was complete now. He could be with her when he wanted. Or he could content himself in this manner. The Watcher finally had his mate.

  10:11 a.m.

  Clay set his knapsack on the counter and stood for a full count to twenty wondering when the deputy on the other side would look up from his desk.

  “Help ya?” the deputy finally said, the opposite suggested in his

  immediate return of attention to paperwork on his desk.

  Clay read from a sheet on the nearby bulletin board. “‘White male, six feet two inches, slightly graying hair, no distinguishing features or tattoos, considered armed and possibly dangerous.’ Interested?”

  “Huh?” The deputy glanced up again, did a double take in sudden recognition of Clay, and clutched at his holstered revolver.

  “Settle down,” Clay said. “Would I walk in like this if I meant trouble?”

  “Brody!” the deputy hollered, reluctant to take his hand off his holster. “Brody!”

  Sheriff Matt Brody shuffled out of his office down the hall. He walked with a slight limp. Clay would have guessed him to be in his midforties. He wore round wire glasses on a round face just short of chubby. He was of medium height, medium build, his shirt a little tight, showing bulges of belly fat that oozed around his side like mayonnaise spilling from a sandwich.

  “It’s Garner,” the deputy said. “Clay Garner, you know the guy we’re –”

  “Sit, Mac,” Brody said.

  The deputy sat.

  “Good boy,” Brody said. He turned his attention to Clay. “I’d like to know where you’ve been. We’ve been trying to bring you in for questioning, and the fact you stayed away so long doesn’t put you in a good light.”

  “It’s not me,” Clay told Brody. He didn’t want to waste any time. “It’s not Rooster Evans. He’s dead, probably killed the night Frank Evans died.”

  Clay pushed on before Brody could interrupt. “I do know who it is. That’s why I’m here.”

  * * *

  Clay spread the files from his knapsack on Brody’s desk. “These came from Russell Fowler. He had them in storage for years. You can read through the reports, but I’d rather you did it later and take my word on it for now. Fowler kept notes that he did not include in the official investigations on these murders. From the notes, I believe Fowler suspected the same person killed them all but didn’t have enough proof to act. All of them had one thing in common: The dead men were close to Kelsie in the years before we married. The same person who murdered those men now has Kelsie. He is the same person who killed Rooster Evans. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was responsible for Fowler’s death.”

  Clay pointed to some handwritten notes on the sides of the files. “Fowler’s handwriting. You can have it analyzed later, but time is short. Fowler put enough together to show that his suspect had the means, opportunity, and lack of alibi for all the murders. Nowhere, though, has he written a name. It was as if he wanted to gather this material together in case he ever needed to assemble enough proof to prosecute but was guarding against the wrong person finding it first.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean guilt,” Brody said. “Maybe Fowler kept this aside because he knew he had nothing but speculation.”

  Clay unfolded the well-worn piece of paper with his list of names.

  Rooster Evans – neighbor, now missing after death of father

  Berry Burrell – current ranch worker

  Frankie Lopez – current ranch worker

  James McNeill

  Lawson McNeill

  Sonny Cutknife

  Johnny Samson

  Clay Garner

  Clay borrowed a pencil from the top of Brody’s desk.

  “Dead,” he told Brody, and scratched out Rooster’s name. Clay continued. “Rule James and me out.” He penciled out himself and James.

  “Lawson...” Clay paused. It was difficult to think of Lawson dead, and even more difficult to think of Lawson dying in a plane crash. “Lawson was with me when Taylor was kidnapped.” He marked off Lawson’s name.

  “I can’t see it being Burrell or Lopez,” Clay continued, crossing off their names, “They’re still on the ranch. If you’ve got the report Flannigan was trying to fax to me – which I assume you do – you’ll also have his summary. The victims were missing from a wide-ranging area. I don’t think ranch hands have the money or opportunity to leave work long enough to go that far afield that often. And if you check the dates that some of the victims were reported missing – which I did with my former colleague Dennis Flannigan on my way here – you’ll see they were taken during calving season. There’s no way either of those men would be off the ranch then.” Clay crossed off their names.

  “Sonny Cutknife and Johnny Samson. Both worked on the ranch over twenty years ago, and both are no strangers to the hill country. And if you remember the FBI report from Flannigan, whoever did this probably took the women on extended camping trips.”

  “Sonny Cutknife skipped town,” Brody said. “That should tell us plenty, is what you’re probably saying.”

  “Sheriff,” Clay said softly. It got Brody’s attention.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think it’s either man.”

  What had Fowler said in the hospital? I’m not sure it will do you much good. If I'm right, the guilty man is long dead. Which is why I let the investigation die.

  Clay flipped over one of the file folders. He read out loud his own translation of Fowler’s brief note. “At 7:12 a.m. on July 12, 1973, a southbound vehicle had been clocked at eighty-seven miles per hour at mile marker 325 on I-15 near Conrad, Montana.”

  “A speeding ticket?” Brody asked.

  “You’ll notice the reference. K1200598. I asked Flannigan to get a search started. He’s having a difficult time. We’re talking about a twenty-three-year-old speeding ticket buried in some old file cabinet in any one of three or four courthouses on the other side of Montana. He doesn’t have the pull to find out what you might be able to do by calling in some favors.”

  “If the ticket is still there.”

  “If the ticket is still there,” Clay agreed. “Conrad is small-town Montana, not New York. I’m guessing chances are good it’s filed somewhere. At the least, it’s worth the effort.”

  “You want to know who got the ticket.”

  “I believe I already know.” Clay took the list back. He wrote a name beneath the others on the list and folded the paper. “Do what it takes to find out who was issued the ticket. If that name matches the one I wrote, will that be enough to convince you to start a massive manhunt?”

  “Tell me first how you got the name you just wrote.”

  “From a photography supply store,” Clay said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Clay explained the trophy photo and its implications. “I didn’t bother checking against current purchasers,” Clay went on. “I figured the killer would be smart enough now to buy out of town or out of state. But I don’t know if he was that smart back when he started. It didn’t take many calls to find out who was in business twenty-three years ago. Kalispell was even smaller back then. It only had one store where a person could get supplies to develop his own photos. I managed to reach the owner who is now retired and in Florida.”

  “Yeah?” Brody’s voice was filled with skepticism.

  Clay he
ld up the piece of paper. “The name I just wrote? He bought enough developing paper and chemicals and was enthusiastic enough about it as a hobby that the owner still remembers him.”

  * * *

  Sheriff Brody returned to his office twenty minutes later.

  Clay hadn’t enjoyed the wait. While he was sure enough of his own findings, if for some reason the name didn’t match, he’d have an uphill battle trying to convince Brody to start a manhunt.

  “It was a ticket paid late,” Brody said. “Which is probably why it crossed Fowler’s desk back then.”

  Clay unfolded the paper and handed it to Brody, who read the name Clay had written earlier.

  “Yeah,” Brody said without enthusiasm as he read the name Clay had circled. “That’s who I got, too. A dead man. Michael McNeill.”

  “Dead,” Clay replied. “Or missing and presumed dead?”

  11:07 a.m.

  Brody had given Clay the fax confiscated from Johnny Samson’s school and let him use a small office down the hallway. It smelled of greasy food. The imitation woodgrain desktop in front of Clay was scarred with cigarette burns.

  Intent on the pages on the desk, however, Clay was blind to his surroundings. He spent an hour going through the fax from Dennis, looking for any pattern that might point him to Michael McNeill’s whereabouts. It was one thing to know who had taken Kelsie. It was another to guess where. McNeill had remained alive and hidden for years since his faked death. Where was his next lair?

  The type became a blur in front of his tired eyes. None of the faxed information in front of him showed that Michael had ever taken a woman and her child. He wouldn’t break the pattern unless he had a good reason.

  On the other hand – and Clay could not avoid thinking it – if McNeill stayed with the pattern and forced Kelsie to go on a hiking trip into the mountains, just as he’d done with her lookalikes, then Taylor would be in the way. And that meant Taylor was probably –

  No, he told himself angrily. Taylor was alive. There was a break in the pattern. Years had gone by while Michael was safely invisible under a different identity, stalking and murdering women who resembled his sister. Now, he’d actually taken Kelsie. Something had changed the pattern, triggered him to go beyond the serial killing, something that made it necessary to take Taylor and keep him alive. That’s what Clay was going to believe.

  Clay went through the faxed papers yet again. Eighteen pages in total. Dennis had pulled up everything possible from VICAP. There was a complete background on each of the women, including whose bodies had been found and where, and who was still missing.

  None of it told Clay one crucial thing. Why 7

  It was inhuman to think of a brother stalking his own sister for decades. What would posses him to haunt his own sister? Clay wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news to James McNeill.

  Michael McNeill?

  Within a few days, Clay knew, he might understand more. Something in Michael’s past would have led him to choose this type of evil. Clay knew Michael’s mother – Kelsie’s mother, too – had died when they were young. Did that have anything to do with it? Or was it something that might have happened away from the ranch? Had Michael been abused by a schoolteacher, scoutmaster, or even – and Clay hated it whenever he heard – by a preacher or priest, anyone in a position of authority?

  Evil grew from evil. Somewhere in the days to come, they’d find the evil that had brought Michael to the point of desiring his own sister then muting the desire with women who looked like her.

  A psychologist would say Michael killed the women because he hated them for the same reasons he was attracted to them. He’d loathe himself for wanting his sister then loathe the women who represented his sister.

  Clay sagged back into his chair, thinking about Michael and the horrors of his actions. Brody walked into the office.

  “Any progress?” the sheriff asked.

  Clay pointed at the papers. “Nothing beyond what I told you earlier. We need a manhunt. Everything here indicates he’ll have taken her” – Clay winced at the implication Taylor was dead and corrected himself – “taken them into the hills. When I review the missing women and the dates they disappeared, it confirms that this has been his MO for years. Who knows how many other bodies haven’t been found?”

  Brody nodded agreement. “A real animal,” Brody said with disgust.

  “What I’m thinking is we still have time,” Clay said, not responding to Brody’s remark. He didn’t want to think about an animal holding his wife and son. “From where all the other bodies were found, he took them deep into the woods, maybe by horseback. Maybe by foot. Some of the sites might have taken him days to reach.”

  “Are you suggesting an air search?”

  Clay nodded. “Yes. But we need to keep it from the media. If Michael isn’t in the hills, we can’t afford to let him know that we know he’s still alive. If he is in the hills, we can’t be sure he doesn’t have a radio. The last thing we need is to tip him off as we begin looking for him.”

  “I know it’s your wife –” Brody began.

  “Wife and son.” Clay was not going to let anyone talk him into believing his little cowboy was dead.

  “.Wife and son. I understand you want to do everything you can. But even if we find them by an air search, what next? Drop men from the airplane? I mean, by the time anyone gets there on foot, he’ll be long gone.”

  “Air search,” Clay insisted. He knew Brody was right but couldn’t get himself to agree to it. “Parachute the men. If dropping them from the air is what it’s going to take, we have got to do it.”

  As he was speaking, something clicked in Clay’s mind. He dug through the papers in front of him and reread the summaries of two autopsies. “Time of death impossible to determine. Bones weathered and broken, probably due to large scavenger animals local to area –”

  “Dropping them from the air,” Clay repeated. The photo in Kelsie’s office of James, Michael, Lawson, and Rooster flashed into his mind. The four of them were standing in front of the airplane that the three men proudly purchased together. “Michael was – is a pilot. He could have dropped those bodies from the air.”

  Clay smiled grimly at the sheriff. “I need an atlas,” Clay said. “An atlas, a pencil, and a ruler.”

  * * *

  Brody watched over Clay’s shoulder.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Clay said. “Most serial killers cruise the interstates. It gives them great range. But what if Michael extended his range by flying? Not only would it give him a far larger territory and disguise his killing pattern, but it would also allow him to accomplish something that is normally very difficult, dumping the bodies. He does it very simply. On his way home, he drops them from his airplane into rugged mountain country where the bodies might not be found for years, if ever. It’s frightening to think of how many bodies are scattered that will never be found.”

  “I’m with your thinking on this so far,” Brody said.

  “Look.” Clay swiveled the ruler to line up two A’s he had penciled onto a map of the continental United States. “A marks where this woman lived in Salt Lake City. The other A marks where her body was found, directly west of Butte, in the Deerlodge National Forest.”

  Clay drew a line, connecting the two points, then continued the line northward. “If he picked her up in Salt Lake City and dumped her while he was flying, do you think he took a detour home? I don’t. I think it would be such a foolproof method, he wouldn’t waste a couple of hours flying an indirect path home. I think it’s safe to assume this straight line was his flight path.”

  “Clay moved his ruler to a couple of B points on the map. “This victim lived in Seattle. Her body was dumped west and north of Missoula, in the Bitterroot Mountains.”

  Clay slashed another line, from Seattle to where the body had been found, and continued the line farther until it intersected the first line he’d drawn.

  “Let’s move onto someone else.” He s
lid the ruler over two C points he’d earlier marked on the map and drew a third line until it intersected the first two. “Picked her up in Denver. Dumped her in the middle of Yellowstone Park.”

  “Missoula,” Brody said unnecessarily, pointing at the spot where the three lines met. “He’s flying into Missoula. Do we look for him there?”

  “I don’t think so,” Clay said. He consulted his notes. “These three women were all murdered before Michael supposedly died in the whitewater-rafting accident. He probably used Missoula as a base to remain relatively free of questions he might get from people who knew him here in Kalispell. I’m guessing, though, once he was thought to be dead, he’d find a base much farther away. In Missoula, there would be too much chance someone from Kalispell might fly in and see him at that airport.”

  “He could be anywhere in the country then.”

  “Yup. But look where I’ve marked the D’s and E’s.”

  Clay drew a fourth line, connecting San Francisco and a mark in the Sierra Nevadas, northeast of Bakersfield. “This woman was murdered after Michael was presumed dead.”

  He penciled a fifth line. “Same with this woman. Missing from Albuquerque, found in the desert mountains southeast of Kingman.”

  Clay circled the point where both lines met.

  “Here,” he said. “It’s a long shot, but we don’t have much to lose. All it’s going to take is a phone call to the airport there.”

  3:30 p.m.

  “Kelsie, my love.”

  Kelsie almost dropped the plate she was washing at the sink. After close to two days of dread, the unexpected voice hit her like raw voltage.

  Even as her heart began to race, however, she knew the voice did not come from anyone in her living quarters. The voice was slightly distorted, with some echo, and came from a speaker above her. Hidden behind the ceiling vent?