by Paris Morgan
“That area where Martha is sitting has the phone cubicles, so it cuts down on the extra noise that we techies have out here. We don’t use regular phones, and so they saved the expense when they set up the room with an area for making calls separate from all the analysts.”
“Hmm, I wouldn’t have thought about that because we all have desk phones. But then again, our desk areas have been there for about fifty years.” I picked up the stack of papers and started toward the phones.
“Martha already has her own list that’s about the same size as yours.” Kevin grinned. “Isn’t the saying ‘everything’s bigger in Texas’? Well, the list grows when you add the rest of the United States into it.”
“That would make our list the size of a phone book,” I grumbled.
“I’m not sure how big that is, but it’s only about three thousand listings.” Kevin shrugged, and I realized that I was about ten years older than him. He’d never had a stack of old phone books sitting around his grandparent’s house.
“Then I’d better get to it.”
***
Four hours later, I had to get up and stretch. I wasn’t used to sitting still for so many hours at a time. I looked around and noticed that most of the room was empty.
A quick glance at my watch confirmed it was almost 1 p.m. Everyone was at lunch. I hadn’t seen the cafeteria, but knew it was somewhere in the building.
I found Agent Watson in my wanderings.
“Headed to or away from lunch?” he questioned casually.
“To lunch, if I can find out where they’re hiding the food.”
“I’m just headed that way myself. Why don’t you join me and we can discuss where things are.” He started out in the direction I’d been headed, but took a few twists that would have left me starved and hunting for food until dinner time.
“How are you settling into things? They’re a bit different than what you’re used to, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, I’m a bit confused why we had so many people working on the case out in California, but this one, no one seems to be in a hurry. Where are the extra teams of people all trying to find the killer?” I got into the line as I waited for his answer.
He concentrated on lunch and paid for both of our meals before leading me over to a booth.
“You remember how things were with Agent Perez?”
I nodded.
“That’s the way most of the FBI is run. I happen to do things a little differently, which is why I get into more trouble with the bosses.”
“That doesn’t explain why our task force is small, and there doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency.”
“First, until yesterday, we weren’t sure that a crime had been committed. There weren’t missing people, or a countdown clock that would be considered worth the extra hours.” He raised a hand in defense. “Not my idea, but that’s how it works sometimes.”
“I’ve dealt with bosses that make some cases really difficult, or cater to the city officials, but you’re the FBI. Don’t you have a little more clout?”
He took a deep breath. “I wish that was the case. On TV, you see all these people working on one case, but we just don’t have the manpower for that. It’s horrible to say it out loud, but there aren’t any dead women, or threats to national security yet so it’s low priority.”
“Wow! I can’t believe it. I mean, I work in law enforcement and understand that you have to manage resources, but this is beyond that.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“We have people working on it, but they’re working on other things too. I’m only on loan here since this is your home base. Given that our killers have been spread throughout the country, at the moment, it’s a central location. When we go on-site, I’ll have a team that’ll go with us to work with the local agents.
“Right now, it’s a waiting game to see which way this killer is going to jump. I hate to move all of my manpower to Minnesota only to have the killer strike next door in Montana or Wisconsin. I don’t like that we have four dead, but you know as well as I do that we had no idea what the Taurus killer had planned.”
“I can see that. And honestly, that’s what we did for the past month, but I was hoping for a miracle when the FBI got involved.” I gave a small chuckle. “Thanks for taking away my dreams and showing me the man behind the curtain.”
“I think I can safely say that I didn’t kill your illusions. We have a good chance at catching this lady before it gets very far, but we have to have something to go on. I hate that more lives are going to be extinguished, but it’s like a chess game. You have to feel out your opponent to know how they’re going to move.”
“At least we got some of that out of the way for you.”
“Do you know if Leslie got cleared by the doctor?” Agent Watson waved for someone from behind me over to join us.
Agent Dalca appeared at my elbow with a tray. “Can I join you?”
“Sure. We were just discussing things about the case.” I scooted over to make room. I wanted to be nice, but I was just as leery of him as I was of Flora.
“Leslie texted that she can come to work, but no guns or chasing criminals by herself yet. She’s having lunch with Flora, the lady that’s helped us on the past few cases.”
“Ah, yes, the psychic.” Agent Dalca nodded. “I would like to meet her at some point if she would agree to it.”
“As long as you don’t use her as a lab rat, then I might be able to make it happen.” I suddenly felt protective of her. I wasn’t sure about her ‘gift’, but I didn’t want anyone to make fun of her or hurt her in any way.
Agent Watson replied with, “The fact that she’s been able to help you, even from great distances, leads me to believe one of two things. One, she’s the real deal and has had premonitions about things. Two, she’s connected to the killer.”
“That’s the way I’d felt at first, but she is really nice. I can’t see her hurting a fly, honestly. She has that naturalistic vibe and is all about the environment. I know that she went to connect with her family on her mom’s side that she recently found out about. Her alibis were solid for the first murders and we found the killers, so I don’t think she has anything to do with it.”
Once I’d said it out loud, I realized that in both cases, she could have been the person behind it. Leslie had seen a man, but could that have been to throw us off?
I tried to focus on their conversation, but couldn’t get the thought out of my mind.
“One thing we were discussing last night was, how are these killers of the month being trained and picked out?”
“That’s something we haven’t really thought out yet. He must be recruiting them somehow. I know there’s a dark web out there, but it’s not exactly a Killers-Are-Us. He has to do some research on these people and get them to do what he wants them to do,” Agent Watson agreed.
“He has to be holding something over them, possibly blackmailing them.”
“That may be the case for a few of them, but the Aries killer had a lot of bodies under his belt before he started working for the Zodiac Master. He enjoyed what he did, and it didn’t take much for him to jump on board. It was exactly what he’d been doing except he had to target a certain date of birth,” I explained, finishing my lunch.
“The profiler would tend to agree with you. The Aquarius and Pisces killers were more about revenge, while the Aries killer was motivated by the thrill of finding his prey. We don’t have enough for a pattern on this one, but death by water rafting isn’t exactly a revengeful type of death,” Agent Dalca emphasized.
“What have you been working on all morning?”
“Last night we realized that our suspect had to have had training. Not only in how to stay alive while the victims didn’t, but to be hired as a guide in the first place. We’ve been calling training centers around the state of Minnesota first, and then we’ll expand to other states. The records aren’t online, so it has to be done with a phone call. Most don’t keep records for
more than a year or two, but we have a couple of possible names to work with against Kevin’s list of aliases.”
“You guys must have been really busy last night.” Agent Dalca sounded impressed.
“Well, Leslie’s been wanting to be involved, so we sat around picking each other’s brain. We had Karen’s input too, which is why we thought about the training and skill required to survive a whitewater crash like that.”
“Very perceptive. We hadn’t gone in that direction, but it makes sense. It’s why I insisted that you both be included on this case, even though Agent Perez was completely against it.”
“Those two clashed really badly,” I explained to Agent Dalca.
“I’ll put a few ideas together and see if we can get our analyst searching for ways to hire people like our killers. We need to add that portion to the profile, and it could be another thread to pull on that will lead us to the killer.” Agent Watson got up, signaling that our lunch meeting was over.
I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that we might not be looking for a man masterminding this at all. Serial killers of this caliber were normally men, but in some rare cases, women were known to indulge in the dark side as well. I just hoped that Flora wasn’t one of those, and that my instincts about her were correct. Only time would tell, though.
***
The ringing of the phone brought me out of my dream with a start. Shea was wrapped around me and released her arms from my chest as I fumbled for the phone on the nightstand.
“Hello,” I groggily muttered, wishing this wasn’t something that happened all the time. Shea was used to it because she rolled over and was snoring again before the caller could say anything.
“Detective Fox, I need you to grab your gear and meet us at the airport. She struck again in Sandstone, and we’re going to be there when the sun comes up to follow her trail.”
“Yes, sir. What about Leslie?”
“We’re going to have her come, but she’ll only be there in a consultant capacity. She can’t go out into the field until she can handle a gun.”
“At least she’ll be there at the scene.” I sat up, swinging my feet over the side of the bed.
“Exactly. I’m texting you instructions now. The plane leaves in less than two hours. Show your badge at the TSA check-in and they’ll send you to the front of the line. See you on the plane.” He hung up, not needing a response.
Wide awake from the adrenaline coursing through my veins, it was time to try and catch this killer.
Instead of waking Shea, I wrote a note and placed it on the front of the fridge where we left messages.
“Hey, babe. Headed up to Minnesota for the case. I’ll let you know when we land safely. Love you, and don’t worry.”
My bag and suitcase were sitting by the door, ready. I placed my gun case in the bag and pulled the door shut behind me. The alarm beeped as I left, rearming as I walked to my car to take me to the airport.
***
The sun was just beginning to peek through the clouds as the wheels touched the ground at the Duluth International Airport. I couldn’t help but be jealous that Leslie and her sister Karen were both sound asleep until the wheels hit moments ago. For some reason, flying just made me nervous, even though I’d tried to relax knowing that we would be hitting the ground running.
The day before, another accident had happened in the Sandstone area at one of the rapids. A tour group had been booked, but when they didn’t return on time, a search was made where they found the empty boat.
Agent Watson had sent out a memo to local law enforcement about anyone taking out groups where they didn’t return were to be reported to his office immediately.
This had happened yesterday sometime, and the search teams had located the boat and two bodies, but were still conducting a thorough search for more survivors. Once everyone was off the plane and transported to the working headquarters, we would be briefed by the local teams.
We all stowed our gear in a van and piled into several vehicles for the hour trip out to the scene of the crime.
I had to give it to Agent Watson, he’d thought things through and had hot coffee with some breakfast served on the ride so that we were fueled up and ready to get started when we arrived.
“Attention, please.” He held up a hand at the set of tents that had been hastily setup outside the tour station with canoes and rafts stored outside. “We’re here to aid the local police and sheriff’s office in finding these guys. They told me there were six men on this trip from a New York company. Their original guide was found tied up and gagged. He’d been drugged by a woman. He’s been taken to the hospital for testing, but she met him down by the river as he was getting ready for their trip down stream. The hospital says he’ll be fine.”
Agent Dalca stepped up and took over. “While we’re dealing with a killer, this person is only after those with a specific birthday. Otherwise, the guide would have been killed instead of drugged. Any person that is willing to kill someone is dangerous, but as long as we don’t back them into a corner, the risk of them attacking anyone from the search party is negligible. Please be careful.”
A list was read off and teams were assigned. Agent Johnson, Leslie, Karen, and I weren’t given any specific instructions.
I walked over as the teams were splitting up. “Agent Watson, what do you want the four of us doing while they search the woods?”
“You’re going to go over to the local hospital and question the guide for details that he remembers about the booking and anything else he knows about the person who did this to him.” He handed me a set of keys. “Report back with what you find out, please.”
“Yes, sir.” While it wasn’t what I’d expected, this was better than not being able to help at all. “Why send Agent Johnson with us?”
“He can use his computer to help render a description of the suspect, and hopefully we can get an all-points bulletin out.”
“That guy has got some mad skills when it comes to a computer, so it makes sense.” I muttered.
We had all retrieved our firearms when we’d landed, so we were locked and ready to pick up the trail of this woman.
There was a guard at his door, but the lack of police presence bothered me. This was a small-town hospital, and since his injuries weren’t life-threatening, they’d sent him here to be looked over.
After showing our IDs to the guard, he let us into the room where the guide was sitting up on the bed.
“More cops? Isn’t it bad enough that this happened to me? Now, I’ve got to go over the same thing again and again.” He let out long sigh, expressing his displeasure.
“We’re not cops, we’re working with the FBI.” I pointed to Agent Johnson who looked startled, but flashed his badge at the guy.
“Well, I guess it can’t hurt.” He slid back onto the bed without offering for us to sit down.
“It was a normal day at work. I’d gotten there about ten in the morning for the first guide session, but they canceled, and John was sick so I offered to take his group out if he’d watch the office instead. We keep our rafts and boats down by the rapids after they’ve been inspected from their last trip. I went to do a last check when I felt a prick at the back of my neck. I swatted at it, but found myself staring up at the sky.”
“Did you see anything that might help us identify who the woman was?” I prompted.
“How did you know it was a woman?” He looked up. “Oh, right. FBI, you know everything. Anyway, she was about five three or five, because her head came up to the rack which is about that tall. She had blonde hair pulled up into a cap. I’ve seen her around before, but don’t know who she is exactly.”
“So you’ve seen her around before?”
“I think so. Maybe on a trip a few weeks ago. She asked if we were hiring, but it’s a family owned business, so if something happens we fill in for each other or close it down.” He took a sip of water from the table next to the bed. “My body wouldn’t move so she drug me
into the trees and tied up my hands. She even put leaves over me to hide me from the trip group. I could hear her greeting the group and introducing herself as Dana Arella. I think I passed out after that, because when I opened my eyes, I could move slightly and it was dark.”
“What time was the group supposed to take their trip?” I glanced at the others, but they were letting me take the lead for some reason.
“About two in the afternoon. It gets dark up here at about five thirty or six in the evening due to the terrain and trees which block out most of the light. I think I finally called the sheriff at about eight. It took a while before I could get moving, and then I had to walk the mile and a half to the shop.”
“Have the tests on the drugs in your system come back yet? Are you okay?”
“Not yet on the tests, and the doctor says once it’s completely out of my system, I’ll be fine.” He held up the water. “I’m supposed to hydrate to help flush it out.”
I took out my card and handed it to him. “You’ve been a great help. If you think of anything else we need to know, we’ll be in the area for a few days.”
As we left the room, I tried to figure out why the others had been quiet.
“Something wrong?” I looked at them curiously. “I’ve never heard you be that quiet before.”
“I’m not officially on regular duty, and questioning suspects isn’t exactly a desk job. I listened. If you hadn’t figured out the right questions, I would have spoken up.” She grinned mischievously.
Karen held up her hands. “I’m just here to keep her safe. I have no jurisdiction. Plus, it’s fun to see someone else under the microscope.”
Agent Johnson was quiet.
“Kevin?” I questioned.
“What? I wasn’t supposed to ask questions, was I? I’m just normally an observer.”
“Nope, I wasn’t expecting anything. Can you do something with the information that he gave us?”
