Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 2

by J. T. Ellison

  “Entirely possible. We’re working with air right now.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll personally have them send the results from the DNA run to the FBI. I assume Baldwin is on the case?”

  “Actually no, but his team is. You’ve talked to Pietra Dunmore before, right?”

  “Yeah, I remember her. Good girl. I’ll send it to her, with a rush.”

  “God, Emily, what can I do to steal you away from New York’s finest?”

  “Grow a few hundred skyscrapers. Looking at all that blue sky down there makes me nervous.”

  They shared a laugh, and Callahan promised to keep looking into the situation.

  Taylor hung up and turned on her blinker. Forensic Medical was on her left. It was time to get to the truth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Preston Pylant was having a very bad day. He’d stopped at McDonald’s—nasty screaming kiddies covered in ice cream; who gives their kids ice cream in the dead of winter?—and had been waylaid by a bunch of cops as he came out of the bathroom. They hadn’t even let him finish drying his hands. Maybe they liked that sort of thing, the filthy bastards. Liked the dirty hands, knowing what he’d just done in the bathroom. Now they had him in a small, cold room with paneling on the walls. Who used paneling in decoration anymore? The gays did, they loved their paneling.

  The angel had an opinion, of course. He always did.

  Shoot them, homey. Shoot them all. Tell them how you feel about being locked up in this pissant room. Good idea.

  “You can’t tell me what to do. What do you think this is?” He was yelling, but he couldn’t help it. After an hour, they’d tied him down. He didn’t like to be tied down. The angel really didn’t like to be tied down. They’d done that once to them, in the hospital. The padded sleeves held him straight and flat, no amount of wriggling or fighting would loosen them. The angel would harp on him, all fucking day long: a little left there, homey, no, more to the right, you’re a stupid fucking idiot, homey.

  He didn’t want to go back to the hospital. He wanted to go to jail. Death row. That was the goal here. Not the hospital. Anything but the hospital.

  The angel was screaming, a long, low build that ended like nails on a chalkboard. He knew what that meant. He really needed to take his pill. Why wouldn’t they let him take his pill?

  A cigarette. That would work. A cigarette always calmed him down.

  The man in the stupid hat was talking again. It looked like a toboggan. He’d had a toboggan once. Used it to slide down the street in front of his house in Queens.

  “Sir, you need to calm down. We have a long day ahead of us.”

  “The dog made me do it.”

  “I’m sure he did, Preston. Why don’t you tell me all about it.”

  “It’s just a game.” The angel chimed in at volume, Just a game. Just a game. Just a game.

  “Shut up, angel. See, sir, you don’t understand. We’re the apprentices. You know, like that rich dude in New York. With the show. And the hair. He tells us who to kill and how to do it, and we follow his instructions.”

  “Who is he?” the man asked. His name tag said Sergeant Green.

  Preston laughed. Soylent Green. He’d been captured by Soylent Green! Angel, check this shit out.

  “Who is the man who hired you, Preston?”

  “Duh, it’s Troy. If you don’t know that, you’re really far behind.”

  “Troy who, Preston?”

  Paneling. Who used paneling these days? “Preston?”

  “Troy Land. Like Babes in Toyland. You know? He picked them from that blog, he made us read it so we’d get an idea of what they were like before we killed them. He called it studying the victimology. Can I go now?”

  “No, Preston. You need to stay with me. You need to tell me everything you know.”

  “All I know is the dog made me do it. There’s a million dollars at stake if we win. If we kill all our targets, we get a shitload of dough, and get to watch. We all like to watch. You know?”

  Homey. Ask about the target.

  Good idea, angel.

  Preston said, “Hey, do you know Taylor Jackson? Could you introduce me?”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Taylor felt a weight release from her chest when she pulled into the parking lot. This was all just another false alarm.

  Sam’s car was parked in her slot. A silver BMW 330ci, the very car Baldwin drove. He’d taken one ride in Sam’s backseat and decided then and there to get one for himself. When they were parked in the driveway side by side, Sam’s titanium silver and Baldwin’s titanium gray glinting in the sunlight, Taylor always teased them about their expensive tastes. “The neighbors are going to think we’re putting on airs,” she’d told them, more than once.

  She was more than happy driving her truck. Practical. That was her.

  Sam must have simply let her phone die. Taylor herself had done it herself the other day. All this worry, the tension; she was just on edge, seeing ghosts everywhere. Typical of Copeland, too, to send her off in a rush. He wanted her to react, not to think things through. This was all a game to him, one that took lives to satisfy his sick sense of humor.

  She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Mitchell’s men were in place, then entered the building and went straight to Kris. The bubbly blonde was chatting on the phone, obviously on a personal call. She had a smile on her face a mile wide, her finger twirling a lock of hair at her shoulder. Taylor tamped down her annoyance. It was before hours, there was no reason Kris shouldn’t be on the phone with a personal call.

  When she saw Taylor approaching, she murmured something, and placed the phone to her chest to block the conversation from whomever she was speaking to.

  “Morning, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Sam.”

  “She’s long gone, I’m afraid. She scooted out of here before I made it in this morning. I had some reports to finish, so instead of staying late last night I decided to come in early today and get them done. Did you try calling her?”

  “She’s not answering her phone. Kris, you’re sure she’s not here? Her car is out front.”

  Kris’s forehead creased. “Yeah, I’m sure. She was having trouble with the car last night. She was going to run out for dinner at 10:00 or so and it wouldn’t start. She probably had Simon pick her up. I’m glad you mentioned it. I should call a tow truck for her. She didn’t leave a message about it but I know what shop they use.”

  Taylor’s heart returned to her throat.

  “Kris, hang up the phone.”

  Kris didn’t hesitate—the look on Taylor’s face must have been enough. She set the phone in its cradle without saying goodbye.

  “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”

  “We don’t know where Sam is. Have you been in her office, or through the whole building yet this morning?”

  She came out from around the desk with her badge out. “No, but let’s go look. My God, I hope nothing’s happened to her. Did you call Simon?”

  Kris crossed the lobby and swiped her key card through the access slot. It unlocked and she yanked open the door to the executive offices. Taylor followed close on her heels. They jogged down the hallway to Sam’s office. The door was cracked. Taylor pushed it open. Empty.

  “I talked to Simon. He doesn’t know either, but don’t get in touch with him just yet. He said Sam had the overnight shift, then a doctor’s appointment,” Taylor said.

  “Yeah, her first big checkup. They were going to do an ultrasound this morning.”

  Oh, my God. Sam. She took a deep breath. Stay calm. You’re going to find her. She’s going to be okay.

  Taylor made a mess of Sam’s desk looking for her datebook. “Where’s her schedule? I can’t find her Day Runner.”

  “It’s online now. We’re trying to go paperless. She wanted to set an example.”

  “I assume it’s on her computer?”

  Kris nodded.

  “Pull it up. I need to
look at it. Then you go to the autopsy suite, check with whoever’s down there now.”

  Kris sat at Sam’s desk, trying to type. Her hands were shaking, little wispy breaths leaking out of her mouth. She was closing in on a panic attack. Taylor finally reached over her shoulder and grabbed her hands.

  “Listen, relax. Breathe. We’re going to find her. She’s going to be just fine. I promise.”

  There were tears in Kris’s voice. “I hope so. She’s the best. Lieutenant, I’m sorry, this is taking forever. She shut her computer down last night. She never does that. We always put them in sleep mode, password protected, of course. But she’s turned her whole damn system—”

  “Shoot, Kris. Stop. Stop typing. Don’t touch anything. Back out of here, shut and lock Sam’s office and access the schedule from your computer.”

  Kris listened, stood quickly and turned to Taylor. “What’s the matter?”

  “You said Sam never turns off her computer.”

  “No, never. It uses less energy to keep them in sleep mode, it’s a part of our green initiative.”

  “In case we need to dust for prints or Hemascein the area for DNA, we need to keep it as undisturbed as possible.”

  “Oh, God,” Kris sobbed.

  Taylor took the girl by the shoulders. “Kris, I need you. You have to keep it together for me. Go back to your desk, bring up Sam’s calendar. If there’s anything else you think of that might be relevant, tell me. Who she was with last night, too. I need a list of everyone who was on shift, okay? Can you do that for me?”

  Kris swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Good. I’m going to head over to the autopsy suite myself and have a quick look around, make sure she isn’t over there lost in a case. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  More time, leaking away.

  Taylor watched Kris head back through the door to the lobby and her desk. She swiped her own key card to enter the autopsy suite. It was eerily silent. The sun shone through the skylights, making the metal accoutrements along the table glow in the early morning light. There was no one there. No one alive, that is.

  Panic struck her. She closed her eyes for a moment, braced herself, then slowly walked into the hall, to the stainless-steel door that housed the body cooler. Bodies were kept systematically stored, laid out on the wheeled tables that were used for autopsies, in their body bags. If things got crowded, they could be stacked vertically.

  The door opened with a hiss, refrigerated air spilling into the corridor. A row of about ten bodies greeted her, all nestled in their black casings like caterpillars preparing to shed their chrysalis, their souls hardening into afterlife’s wings. A slow day.

  She tore through them, ripping open the bags, breaking a zipper on the third, glancing at faces, seeing nothing while she desperately searched the chilled bodies for her best friend.

  The end of the row now, the last bag. She took three deep breaths, then firmly grabbed the zipper and pulled.

  A man. It was a man.

  Relief overwhelmed her.

  She’d never been so happy to see a dead man before.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Baldwin paced his office nervously, waiting for Kevin to return his call. He hated agreeing to split from Taylor. He didn’t like letting her out of his sight right now, not with this maniac so close. He glanced out the window; the bright morning sun disappeared behind a gray cloud that looked ominous. He could smell snow when he’d crossed the parking lot half an hour before. Just what they needed, a storm on top of this mess.

  The idea that Taylor had about the list of figures on the CD was proving to be quite fortuitous. A quick search through the databases showed that the numbers the Pretender had sent them were in fact license plates, and all three plates were registered to car rental companies. Kevin was searching through each database with the appropriate agencies, trying to find out where the cars were.

  It had been over twenty minutes. What was taking so long?

  Baldwin glanced at his phone again, willing it to ring.

  Nothing.

  He sat at his desk and opened his laptop. Surfed through his news sites. Felt his stomach drop.

  Son of a bitch.

  The story was everywhere. Headlines screamed:

  Serial Killers on the Loose

  The Country Is Under Attack

  Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

  Don’t Talk to Strangers

  Resurgence of Old Killers Stuns the Nation

  He clicked on the last link, just to see what he could glean. Sometimes, the news outlets did him a favor when they picked up on a murder. This time, he didn’t think that would be the case.

  The story was as sensational as he feared, with frighteningly accurate information.

  Anonymous true-crime blogger Felon E has become a victim. Fans who comment on the widely read blog are under attack by the very killers Felon E purports to bring down. Police are keeping the story hush-hush, but sources close to the investigation say the FBI are now involved in the case. Since Monday, at least thirteen people have been killed across the country.

  The investigation is centered out of Nashville, Tennessee, being run by a Homicide lieutenant named Taylor Jackson. It has become clear that the Felon E blog is headquartered in Nashville, and the owner of the site is in police custody at this time. There is no word as to whether Felon E is a suspect or is being held legally responsible for the commenters’ deaths. These are issues for the new age of online reporting, and the eventual litigation surrounding this case may decide how many websites will use nonprofessional citizen journalists to populate their news sites. According to the Felon E blog, California, New York and Boston were the first states hit by these elusive copycat serial killers, who imitated the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam and the Boston Strangler, respectively. The first murder happened on Monday. Independent confirmation has come in that the Zodiac has also committed murders in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Denver, Colorado. Letters were mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Las Vegas Sun, and The Denver Post, all claiming responsibility for the murders of five people in total: Vivi Waters, 18, and Ike Sharp, 19, shot to death in a lovers’ lane outside of San Francisco; Colin and Sherry Barker, both 35, stabbed to death in their Las Vegas home; and Halley Marshall, 20, who answered an ad on the popular classifieds site Craigslist for a pair of Rollerblades and was shot to death behind Cherry Creek Reservoir.

  We have also confirmed that June Earhart, 34, was killed in Boston in a very specific manner indicating the presence of a copycat of the Boston Strangler. A source who asked not to be named told this reporter that the victim’s scarf had been tied in a bow around her neck, though independent confirmation is yet to be achieved. There was a second murder in this style less than twenty-four hours ago in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a stockbroker named Frances Schwartz, 31, and another strangulation was recently reported in Indianapolis, Indiana, Mary Jane Solomon, 28.

  The FBI are looking into the cases, and people across the country are rushing to buy new locks, guns and other items to increase their homes’ and loved ones’ safety.

  The Son of Sam copycat has proved more elusive, his trail not as defined as his compatriots. After murdering Barry Teterboro, 41, and Martin Bass, 50, in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park, he moved to Washington, D.C., where his victims, Joseph Conley, 43, and Nicholas Anche, 40, were found shot to death in the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove. There have been no new murders attributed to Son of Sam’s copycat for over a day.

  These killers must be stopped, but speculation abounds as to the individual motives and overall scheme of the situation.

  The article went on, but that was all Baldwin could take.

  He closed the browser and ran his hands through his hair. Gotcha journalism, run with half truths and outright lies be damned, whoever had written that story had a source inside the investigation. At least the story hadn’t made a connection to the Pretender. They had managed to keep his involvement relatively private. Fox a
lready had the bones for that part of the story. Since Taylor had been openly named as leading the investigation, it would only be a matter of time before the rest jumped on board. They were out of time.

  He couldn’t sit here waiting anymore. He needed to do something. He wasn’t used to being on the outside of a case, looking in. Being suspended was making this difficult. Difficult, but not impossible.

  He opened his phone and called Salt, who answered on the first ring.

  “Good timing, I was about to call you.”

  “Tell me you have some good news.”

  “I do. The cars were rented at the same time, online, using a single credit card, which traces back to Nashville, though to a P.O. Box, not a physical address.”

  “Probably counterfeit then, an assumed identity. What name was used?”

  “Troy Land. It’s bogus, I can’t find anything that matches up. I can’t imagine him using his own name. Just in case, I’ve started a couple of searches. Though if he’s sending you the plates of the cars, he’s hardly trying to hide himself.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I assume the ID is fake. What about the names of the drivers?”

  “I’m almost there. They said they’d be happy to give me the information, chock-full of specifics, as soon as I provided them with a warrant. We’re getting the paper now but you know how long that takes. So in the meantime, I’m taking a small peek into the daily database, see who signed for the individual cars. This company has moved to electronic signatures. Assuming they’re legible, we’ll at least have something to work with.”

  “Excellent. What else?”

  “Confirmations of murders in Philadelphia and Indianapolis that are attributable to the signature of the Boston Strangler copycat. He’s using UPS delivery trucks, and stealing the drivers’ uniforms to make deliveries. Who doesn’t answer the door for a parcel? Three UPS drivers have been found dead so far. There’s been a media explosion, too, in case you didn’t have your television or computer on.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. Hard to avoid, considering the victims are being targeted through a popular online site. The minute that hit Twitter, we were sunk.”