“First, I want to thank all of you for giving up Sunday morning with your families. If circumstances were different, we’d have waited until tomorrow. Agent Shields is with us again today, along with her colleague, Dr. Anne Marie McCall, who will offer her insights once everyone else has reported on their piece of the pie. Any questions?” Beck surveyed the room. There were none.
“Then let’s get started. Duncan, you’re first up.” Beck pointed to the officer who sat halfway down the table to his right.
As Duncan cleared his throat, about to begin, the door opened and Christina Pratt hurried into the room.
“Am I late?” she asked.
“We’re just about to start,” Beck told her.
“Great.” The woman settled into a seat to the left of Mia and took a small notebook and pen from her handbag.
Mia caught Beck’s eye to see if he’d noticed, but he hadn’t appeared to. She made a mental note to call it to his attention. Letting civilians have confidential information made her nervous, whether that civilian was the mayor or the guy who sold you coffee in the morning. When that information was written down, it made her doubly so.
“Do I need to remind you all that what is said here, stays here? Anyone not understand what that means?” His eyes surveyed the room. “Anyone?”
No one spoke up. Mia hoped the mayor understood that that meant her as well.
“We’ll be having a community meeting once I’ve sorted through everything we discuss here today, but I will be the one who decides what information is made public and what we keep close to the vest.” He leaned over the chair, his arms resting on its back. “ Duncan, let’s do it.”
Duncan Alcott’s fingers tapped so lightly on the table that only those seated to either side could hear the sound. He was tall and thin and wore military-style glasses and a crew cut. He’d joined the force under Hal as a patrolman, and had never distinguished himself as either a great cop or an especially poor one. He was pretty much average in every way. There’d been a few flare-ups over the years-like the times he’d been bypassed for a promotion he’d wanted, and about a decade ago there’d been an incident in a bar down in Cambridge-but for the most part, he’d been reliable and trustworthy. Because he had no family in the area, he could be depended on to work holidays and weekends, which made him popular with his fellow officers. He had nearly twenty years in uniform and preferred traffic and night patrols, and Beck was content to let him remain in his comfort zone. Efforts over the years to fit him into any other mold hadn’t been successful anyway. Hal had once described Duncan as “a good soldier,” and Beck found it still fit.
“Um, well, Chief asked me to figure out Holly Sheridan’s itinerary between Colorado and Maryland. What roads she took and that sort of thing.” Duncan cleared his throat again. “The victim left her parents home in Denver on Monday, July second. She filled up her Explorer right outside of Denver, headed onto to Route 70, took it all the way to St. Louis, then dropped down onto 64 into Kentucky, then picked up 79 into West Virginia. Around Morgan-town, she got onto 68, took it as far as 70, took it straight on over to Baltimore.” He looked up at Beck and asked, “Do you want every stop she made? She had an overnight in Columbus, Missouri, and made a number of gas and food stops.”
“Are any of them particularly relevant?”
“Just the last one.”
“Which was?”
“She stopped in Wye Mills.” He glanced at the two FBI agents and added for their clarification, “That’s in Maryland, not far after you come off the Bay Bridge. You probably drove through it on Route 50.”
Mia nodded. She remembered.
“Anyway, the victim stopped for gas at a mini-mart off Route 50, 1:00 A.M. on Thursday, July fifth. Filled up her tank, went inside, got a soda and a snack. Got her on tape,” Duncan said. “Can’t see outside near the pumps, though, so I checked in with the manager, which is how I got a copy of the tape.”
He held it up.
“The manager called in the guy who was working that night, showed him the tape.” Duncan continued his flat recitation. “He did recall the victim, but he-”
“Holly Sheridan,” Beck reminded him. “Let’s use her name once in a while. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. Let’s give her a little dignity.”
“Right.” Duncan reddened. “Anyway, the witness recalled Holly Sheridan coming in that night. She bought a diet Pepsi and a packaged sandwich. She opened the soda and drank it standing there, said she’d been on a long drive and how good it felt to stand and stretch her legs and how happy she was to be back.”
“Did you ask if there was anyone else pumping gas at the time?”
“Yes, but he said there was no one there when she arrived.” Duncan held up the tape. “I noted to him that maybe a minute before she left the store, you could see a flash of headlights reflected in the window, and he said he thought someone did pull in. The manager pulled the receipts for the night and found a cash sale was made about five minutes after the vic-after Holly’s credit-card sale.”
“So the other customer would be on the tape when he came in to pay,” Hal Garrity spoke up. “Let’s see it.”
“Sorry, no. After seeing the tape, the attendant remembered he had walked Holly outside and was standing by the door. The second customer had a ten dollar sale, handed the guy a ten, and didn’t want a receipt.”
“Any description, of the customer or the car?” Beck asked hopefully.
“Said the guy was maybe mid-thirties, medium height and build, had a baseball cap on, didn’t see his hair, didn’t really look at his face. Doesn’t really remember much about him except that he was driving a dark SUV. Didn’t catch the make.”
“Guy works in a gas station and doesn’t notice what someone was driving?” Hal shook his head skeptically.
“He said he too busy watching Holly walk across the parking lot to her car. He said she was wearing some pretty hot shorts.”
“Swell,” Beck muttered. “Well, at least we know she made it to Maryland, and if she ran into someone, or someone followed her, it was close to home.”
He turned to Duncan. “Nice work.”
“Thank you.” Duncan went red again.
“Guess her car still hasn’t turned up,” Beck said.
“No, sir. But this morning I did check again with the state police, just to make sure they know we’re still looking.”
“Great. You keep on that.” Beck turned to Hal. “You were going to show Holly’s face around town.”
The older man nodded. “I did. I made fifty copies of that photo you got from her roommate, and I passed it around. Turns out she’s been just about everywhere. Barbie down at the bookstore said she was in once a week, picked up a mystery or a romance and whatever new food magazine had come in since her last visit. Rocky at the gallery said she’d stopped in the weekend of the art show; there were several works she admired but she didn’t buy any.”
“Either Barbie or Rocky mention if she was with anyone?”
“She was alone the three or four times she stopped in at Barbie’s, and Rocky thinks she came into the gallery alone and left alone.” Hal shook his balding head. “Steffie says she was in for ice cream a couple of times, but doesn’t think she was with anyone. Said she chatted with her a few times, that Holly was pretty outgoing. Said she talked to whoever was in the shop whenever she was there.”
Hal glanced down the table at Beck and added, “And no, she doesn’t remember anyone in particular, just the usual assortment of locals you get at any given time on any hot day.”
Hal passed a photo of Holly around the table. When it reached Christina Pratt, she said, “I’ve seen this girl around. I think it might have been at Steffie’s. Founders Day weekend, after the concert, I think it was.”
“Do you remember who else was around?” Beck asked.
“Only half the town. Including you and your sister.” The mayor took a final look at the photo before passing it across the table to
Lisa Singer. “I remember seeing you there, because my son had his kids that weekend and my five-year-old granddaughter was fascinated by Vanessa’s shoes, and-” She stopped and laughed self-consciously. “Well, suffice it to say, half the town was in line for ice cream at Steffie’s after the concert.” She turned to Lisa Singer. “You were there too, weren’t you? You and Todd and your boys?”
Lisa nodded. “We were, though Todd got a call from someone who’d been in the week before looking at a boat and had to leave.”
“So there you go.” The mayor looked around the table. “It would be easier to make a list of the people who weren’t there. Which means Holly Sheridan was in good company.”
“Maybe not all good,” Beck reminded her. “If that’s where he first saw her, not so good at all.”
“You think he’s from St. Dennis?” Christina Pratt frowned.
“I do,” Beck nodded. “I can’t think of another reason for him to have left the body of a girl who was living here in the back of my car. But maybe our profiler will have some thoughts on that, and we’ll get into that later, once we’ve finished this discussion.”
“If he’s from St. Dennis, then chances are we all know him.” The mayor looked around the room. “You have his voice on tape. Why didn’t someone recognize it?”
“He used a device that distorted the sound.” Beck turned to Lisa. “You’re on.”
“Chief asked me to talk to Holly’s coworkers, see if I could find out more about her social life.” She thumbed through some notes. “Seems she didn’t really have one, at least not this summer. This girl was all work, almost all the time. Took some time to rest up between shifts, but that’s about it. According to Dan Sinclair, she was determined to learn as much about running a B and B as she could.”
“Any of the guys working at Sinclair’s seem interested?” Beck asked.
“Not really.” She shook her head. “Everyone seemed to like her, but no one seemed to be overly interested. Keep in mind that Dan Sinclair only hires interns who are really into the whole B and B thing. He only hires seniors or grad students, and interviews them all pretty carefully. The University of Delaware faculty recommends students who are serious about learning the business, and most return every year until their graduate work is completed.”
“Talk about training the competition,” someone commented.
“Apparently, Sinclair’s been doing it for years,” Lisa replied.
“Is there a boyfriend?” Beck asked.
Lisa nodded. “Eric Johnson. He was at the wedding, flew out of Denver on Sunday night to Montana, where he’s doing some sort of internship with the forest service.”
She glanced up at Beck and added, “I checked. He arrived on time Monday morning. He was there all week.”
Lisa turned a page in the folder and continued. “Holly’s parents are having her dental records sent out here ASAP-the mother’s sister is the family dentist, so there’s no problem getting those. They’re going to express them, so I expect to see them by ten-thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll take them right over to Dr. Reilly when they arrive. The sooner we can make a positive ID, the better.”
“Did anyone mention if Holly had a tattoo?” Mia asked.
“Actually, yes. One of her coworkers did. She had a Claddagh on the upper part of her right arm.” Lisa nodded.
“In green ink?”
“Traditional color for the Irish symbol, yes.” Lisa stared at Mia. “Why do you ask?”
“The victim found in Chief Beck’s car had a tattoo in that very place,” Mia told her. “The design wasn’t clear due to the decomposition of the body, but the ink was clearly green.”
“So there’s not much of a question…” Hal stated the obvious.
“None in my mind,” Beck replied.
“Holly hasn’t been identified as a victim to the media as yet, right?” Mia asked.
“Right. Even though I’ve been ninety-nine percent certain all along that it’s her, I hate to release information that hasn’t been positively confirmed. We sent some of Holly’s hair from her brush to the FBI lab along with hair from the victim to make sure the DNA profiles match, but I’m sure it’s her.”
“When are you going to make that public, Beck?” Mayor Pratt asked.
“As soon as the dental records are received and the match is confirmed,” he told her. He turned to Lisa. “Have warrants been requested for the computers and cell phone records of the three known victims?”
“Yes, but we couldn’t get to Judge McIlvain to sign them until Friday night. We called the cell companies yesterday, and faxed over his warrants, but we probably won’t have the records in our hands until tomorrow morning. Holly Sheridan’s laptop was in her car, which we have yet to find, but I’ve asked the Ballard and Cameron PDs to pick up the computers from the Preston and Kenneher homes. The parents didn’t demand warrants; they’re eager to do whatever they can to help. If I don’t have a response by noon, I’ll follow up again.”
“Do we know if anyone else is missing?” Mayor Pratt asked. “I mean, if this guy is from St. Dennis-and I’m still not buying that he is-would he just have started doing this out of the blue? Wouldn’t there have been other women missing before these three?”
“I think those are good questions for our profiler.” Beck turned to Annie. “Want to take it from here?”
“As your chief has noted, my name is Anne Marie McCall. I’m a psychologist, I’m a supervisory special agent, and I work primarily with agents assigned to a specific unit within the Bureau.” Annie stood. “For starters, I don’t believe these are your offender’s first kills. The manner is way too sophisticated for an amateur. He’s definitely not new at this game. He’s played before. We just need to find out where, and when, and I believe Agent Shields has something on that. Mia?”
“Yes. There’s nothing for the past year, but back in 2001, a young woman on vacation in Dewey Beach went missing. Kim Bradley, twenty-one years old, from Penns Grove, New Jersey, a new graduate of Salisbury University, rented a beach house with a few of her sorority sisters. A group of them went to a club in Rehoboth”-Mia paused to refer to her notes-“a place called the Elephant Room. When it was time to leave, she was nowhere to be found. She stumbled into the house around six the next morning, bruised and hysterical. Said she’d met a guy in the bar, they went outside for some fresh air, he forced her into his car at knifepoint and raped her.”
Beck turned to Lisa. “Find out who the officer in charge of that investigation was and talk to him, get everything he’s got. And find out where the rental property was and who they rented from.”
His attention returned to Mia. “What else do you have?”
“Two rape-abductions in that same area, June and September of the previous year, both college girls. Pretty much the same story. Met a guy in a club, stepped outside, then bam! I’ve requested copies of the files, and will have someone from our field offices follow up and interview the victims. One is in Columbus, Ohio, the other is in Boston. Those were the only local missing persons we found, but there’s always the possibility that he lived elsewhere at some point, and may have been active there. There are thousands of missing persons reported every year. There’s no way we could narrow the field.”
“I’m assuming you also ran a check nationally for cases with similar MOs?” he asked.
Mia nodded. “There have been many rape-abduction-murder cases where the victim was held for a period of time, but none where the vics have been suffocated as these women have been. While I think there’s a really good chance that what we’re seeing is an escalation over his previous activity where he abducted and raped but did not kill-as Dr. McCall said, this guy’s no beginner-it’s impossible to sort out all of the rape-abduction cases over the past five to ten years just by looking at the data reports. The victims I mentioned earlier were all college girls, all from out of state, and all the abductions occurred in beach areas. None were held beyond the actual rape, none mentioned being restra
ined. I understand that the area from Dewey Beach in Delaware down through Ocean City, Maryland, is very popular with young people.” She paused, then added, “There’s no way of telling how many others there might have been over the years. Rape victims don’t always report the crime, and girls of this age under these circumstances are often reluctant to call the police.”
“Because sometimes it’s a matter of the girls picking up a guy in one of the clubs and getting more than they bargained for,” Lisa said. “They’re embarrassed to admit they made such an error in judgment.”
“Exactly. They think maybe they set themselves up for it, going off with someone they didn’t know, so they’re reluctant to complain to the police.” Mia nodded. “I will request that as many of these women as possible be tracked down and interviewed to see if we have a pattern in the MO and to see if we have physical descriptions of the subject that match up, but that’s going to take some time.”
Beck ran a hand wearily over his face and nodded to Annie to go on with her presentation.
“I’ve had an opportunity to study the files on the three women and while I can’t pretend to have all the answers, I can share some insights based on my twelve years experience doing this sort of thing.” She leaned against the far wall, her hands in the pockets of her skirt. The petite blond woman, always immaculately dressed and professional, began to weave her words into a compelling narrative. Everyone in the room hung on her every word.
“For starters, the man you’re looking for has massive control issues as far as women are concerned.”
The mayor snorted.
Annie appeared amused. “You had something you wished to say, Mayor Pratt?”
“The guy ties women up and keeps them tied up, then rapes them, and when he’s done with them, he wraps them in plastic and suffocates them. It doesn’t take an FBI profiler to figure out that he likes to be in control. And I’ll bet you’re going to say those issues stem from his relationship with his mother.”
Still smiling, Annie nodded. “Oh, there’s a good chance they do. This is a man who reflects pretty much what we see in most of our serial killers. His approach may differ, his MO may be different, but scratch the surface and you’ll find he and Ted Bundy are brothers under the skin. He really doesn’t like women very much.”
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