by Paris Morgan
“We wouldn’t want that. These are all questions about you that honestly have little to no bearing on Gavin’s case.”
“Then get down to business. I get paid by the hour.” He still appeared to be calm with no idea of why he was here.
“So, let’s begin with your name. Is Henry James your legal name that you were born with?”
He frowned, confused by the question. “I’m Henry James. That’s all I’ve ever gone by. I don’t understand…?”
“Have you ever seen this woman?” Adam held up a photo we’d copied from the internet of his mother.
“No. What does she have to do with this case?”
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?” I questioned. “Sorry, I have a new baby at home, and I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep if I don’t get some caffeine into my system.”
“I suppose so.” He gestured as if it wasn’t a big deal.
“Adam, you want some?”
“Sure.” He turned his focus back to Henry. “While he’s doing that, I’m just going to ask a few basic questions to establish a timeline of your normal activities,” Adam began as I left the room.
I had wanted to get his DNA on a cup so we could run it against the few pieces we’d gotten from the Zodiac Master’s childhood home and his mother. Any good criminal lawyer would be paying attention and know what we were doing if I’d offered it first thing. As it was, having a baby came in handy.
When I returned with three coffees, Henry was upset.
“Are you accusing me of murder? Is there some crime that you think I’m capable of? Do you even have probable cause?” he shouted.
“Whoa, there. Calm down for just a minute. We have a lot of cases right now, and we just need to make sure that all of our timelines are adding up. Yes, Agent Watson got involved in something horrible, but we’re just trying to make sure that the information we’ve received adds up.”
“Hmph,” he grunted before taking a sip of coffee. “I just don’t like the implications of being associated with any of the things that have been happening lately.”
“We completely understand that,” I sympathized. “We just have to do our jobs.”
After another twenty minutes of random questions, I couldn’t think of anything else.
“Well, that about does it for now.” I stood and leaned forward to shake his hand. “I really appreciate you taking the time to work with us on this. Every little bit helps.”
“What about Mr. Watson? Is he being released to go home?”
“Yes, sir. There was some confusion with that. We just needed you to come in and he got the call as well. We’ve apologized to him.”
“It’s about time. Next time you call me in here, you’d better have some evidence on either one of us that requires a warrant or I’ll sue you for lost wages,” he huffed indignantly.
“Again, we apologize. Thank you for helping us get a few things straight.”
He left, and Adam grinned as he picked up the coffee cup. “I’ll get this to the lab for comparison right away. Great job keeping him happy.”
“I have all of my baby energy stored up, but you’ll have to let me go home and get a charge if I’m going to deal with more unhappy suspects.”
Adam laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
Chapter 8
Leslie
I hadn’t been on an investigation by myself since I’d started. This was a test, but at the same time, it was Adam’s way of letting me know that I was ready.
I was ready to run a team, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see the crime scenes that the Zodiac Master had left for us this month.
When I’d been promoted to detective and showed up that first day, I had no idea that the amount of bodies and crime scenes I’d see would be more than most detectives saw in their entire careers.
Although there was nothing about this that was good, I could say that the Zodiac Master had upped my detective training. So many cases and the constant workload were going to make going back to being a PD detective seem like a breeze.
Most of the new agents that were with me had managed to get caught up by the time we landed.
“I’ll field questions when we get to the hotel at dinner.”
Agent March wrinkled her nose at the comment, but refrained from saying anything.
While I wanted to jump right into the case and would have gone to see the police task force immediately, I needed to make sure that my new teams were up to speed.
My question and answer session was a little unnerving because Gina wasn’t about to give me a free pass on anything we’d done in the past.
“I hate to be the person to discount all of your previous work, but what makes you think this guy, the Zodiac Master, is behind these killings?”
“For starters, the killers we have captured have all mentioned being hired or recruited by someone. He’s made it plain through many different ways that he’s doing this to see if we can keep up with him. Also, it’s kind of coincidence that we’ve had ten different murderers that are killing people with the same Zodiac sign. Highly improbable that we’ve have that many serial killers with the same goals if someone wasn’t using them to accomplish a bigger goal.”
Gina chewed the end of her pen for a second before her hand shot up in the air again.
“Yes?” I was already dreading whatever she came up with.
“From the reports, it appears that the Zodiac Master is obsessed with you. Do you honestly have no idea why? What made you his focus?”
“We’ve sat around and discussed it many times, but in my past, I haven’t had any big run-ins with anyone. There’s nothing that I, or the others, have been able to identify as the reason for him taking such an active interest in my life. Believe me, I wish we did.”
“Could he have old cases where he’s tried out these methods before and is just doing them on a larger scale?” she inquired.
“We’ve checked, but not all crimes are reported in the same way. From what’s in the database, there aren’t any that fit these crimes. Somewhere he could have practiced and they might not have categorized it in a way the system would recognize.” I was beginning to get frustrated.
“Is it possible that he committed them so far apart that it wouldn’t look like a pattern? You said he’s in his mid-thirties to forties, so he’s had at least twenty plus years to cover his tracks and no one would ever think to connect them.”
I nodded. “That would be such a huge job, and even with a software program that would be able to look for similar crimes, most of the files like that aren’t in the system. Each department hasn’t necessarily gone back and put those in for us to track. The past ten years, as departments have gone more modern with technology, they’ve put in current cases, but not their backlogs. There are still smaller towns that are just now going online, which may not have reported these kinds of crimes because it was only one instead of a string of crimes that we could look into.”
“So what you’re saying is that because the world isn’t technologically advanced, this guy may have been killing for years and we didn’t know it?”
“Yes. I’d love to say that every rock has been turned, but there’s just so much information out there. He’s proven over the course of the past ten months that he’s willing to go to any state for his killing sprees. We haven’t determined a home base, but think that he may have ties to the Dallas–Ft. Worth area since the Urban Energy Headquarters is there, and his father is the head of the corporation.
“Agent March, since you have such a good grasp of this subject, why don’t you coordinate with the cybercrimes team Mac and Barbie are setting up? Mac can write a program to look for those kinds of crimes, and see if we get a hit from earlier when he might have just been getting started,” I suggested, hoping it would keep her occupied.
“Anything else before we call it a night?” When she, nor anyone else raised their hands, I decided to call it a night. “All right, then. Go
over the new stuff we got from the state police so we’ll be ready to help them in the morning. I’m going to split us into teams, and that way we can check out three crime scenes at a time. If you notice anything unusual, please take a picture or make a note of it so that I can come back to it later.
“Oh, and word of caution. If you haven’t been to a lot of crime scenes yet, then I suggest not eating breakfast before we go. These are going to be some of his worst.”
They filed out without saying anything, but I knew that Agent March was just trying to think of more questions for me.
***
Heading up to my room alone, I started thinking about her questions. What if we’d missed something from a couple of old cases? I was sure that Mac could put something together, but I was going to give Galen a call and see if anything popped up from his time with the cold case squad.
“Galen, how’s it going up there? Any snow yet?”
“Yep. We already have about an eight-inch drift piling up. Lex is adjusting pretty good. Thankfully, he lived somewhere that had lots of snow, so he’s not having to deal with those kinds of changes.”
“We’ve still got heat here in Texas. Supposedly, there’s a front coming in and we’re going to drop a whole fourteen degrees.”
He chuckled. “What’s that make it, a nice eighty-five in the shade?”
“Don’t you know it. We won’t get any really cold weather until about the middle of December or early January. If we ever get some time off, we might have to come up there just so we can wear our winter clothes for a change.”
“I’d love to have all of you. Shea and Ryan’s baby might not be ready to play in the snow yet, but everyone else could go skiing over at the resort area,” Galen offered. “Any luck on finding out who’s doing the killings in Georgia?”
“No, and that’s kind of what I’m calling about. I need your help. One of the new agents that got assigned to me brought up the fact that he might have practiced this before. While I know that we’ve kind of exhausted the database for a string of murders, I was wondering if we should look for single instances that fit his profile?”
“That’s an interesting thought. It would take a lot more work to find that because of the lack of paperwork in the system. Let me look into a few things. He might have made the papers even if he didn’t make it into the database.”
I brightened. “Newspapers. Surely, if he’s been doing this for over twenty years, something would pop with all the unusual murders he’s planned.”
“Let me check and call you back. I can narrow it down to a certain time frame and send out a feeler to some of the smaller departments asking for their help.”
“Oh, that would be a godsend. Anything that alerts us to where he might have been over the past twenty years or what might have triggered the start of this series of murders.” I sighed in relief.
“I have contacts, and they’ll do better with a phone call than a mass email. Most of the police departments in rural areas tend to talk to each other, but don’t like it when the feds come into their turf.”
“I’ve definitely seen that. I wish we could have a complete database, but we know that is never going to happen,” I remarked sadly.
“If wishes were money, then I’d have a lot more of it.” Galen laughed. “Until then, I’ll be working on real facts that will help your case.”
“Thanks. Just watch your back. We know how he likes to play around with those we love.”
“Got it. Get some sleep.”
“Long day tomorrow. It’s my first time doing this by myself. I’m just working on not screwing it up.” My nerves were already shot and we’d just gotten to town.
“Hey, you’ve been doing just fine. Check out the cases and give them your thoughts on what’s going on. You’re going to have a lot more help from the police than if you were doing it on your own.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that they’re more willing to work with the FBI when the mayor or governor are breathing down their necks.”
“That’s politics for you.”
“Okay, I’ve taken up enough of your evening with my nerves. I’m just going to pace the room and see what else the reporters come up with that we may have missed.”
“Night, Leslie.” The line disconnected and I sat there alone.
Anyone I would have been willing to talk to was already busy with the case. That was when I remembered that Jerome might be available and I needed to ask his opinion on the best way to look stuff up from the newspapers.
I dialed his number and hoped that I wasn’t interrupting anything important because I was an hour ahead of him.
“Hey, gorgeous. What’s up?”
“Oh, I had a few minutes and ran across something that you might be able to help me with.” Fingers crossed that he would have an idea on where to start.
“Sure, if I can.”
“How can I look through old papers to find past crimes?”
“Depends on how far in the past you’re going to go,” he responded.
“Um, about twenty years or so. I’m looking for a connection to when the Zodiac Master might have started exploring his art of killing. It might have been done in single instances and no one would have put it together because they were random.”
“In that case, you could do a search, but I have access to the newspapers’ databases. While not all of them have gone modern, most have been online for the past twenty or thirty years. If these were sensational murders, they would have been reported at some point.”
“See, that’s what I’m hoping. Police departments don’t have all those cases online, but a newspaper might. Is there any chance you could run through some and get me a list of some kind?”
“Well, it’s a lot, but I guess I would need to focus more on the types of murders you’re looking for.”
I thought for a minute. “I know that he’s been using men and women, but let’s focus on women victims since he’s a guy. I think that he wanted to get his hands dirty, more of a hands-on kind of thing.”
“Okay, but there are others that have done the same kind of murders in the past twenty years. He’s not coming up with anything that’s new, just putting his own spin on it.”
“Yeah, I’d agree with that. It will be interesting to see if we can find the one thing that he focused on. I mean, it might be more about the actual murders and not how he accomplished them, but I’m going to bet that he really got into it.”
“Sounds like you’re connecting with him and starting to figure him out just a little bit,” he commented, with a little pride in his voice.
“Hopefully not connecting, more like anticipating what he’ll come up with next.” I shuddered at the thought of being associated with someone so devious.
“Let’s take out guns, ropes, and nunchucks. Oh, and I don’t see him killing with a chainsaw either.”
“What does that leave me with?”
“Knives? Poison would be something I could see him working with, and let’s see…drowning would be another. Archery seems like a lot of work, and while our guy likes to hunt people, I don’t really see him as a rural hunter. He’s more of a city guy.”
“Wow! You’re starting to sound like a profiler from the FBI.”
“Maybe it’s just rubbing off on me since I’ve been hanging around them so much the past few months. Also, check for women that were runaways or didn’t have much family. He’s been targeting single people, which tells me that at some point, he had a run-in with a family and it went wrong.”
“All right, then, I’ve got your list. When do you need this by?”
“Yesterday?” It was the truth.
“Yikes! I don’t think I can work that kind of magic, but I’ll see what I can get you as quickly as possible.”
“Thanks, Jerome. I really appreciate it.”
“Hey, anything for you. I’ll let you know when I come up with something. Do you want me to email it to you?”
“Yeah, that would be the fastest
way to get it to me.”
“Got it. I’ll get started, but you’re going to owe me dinner.”
“Absolutely. You help me catch this guy, and I’ll buy you dinner for a month,” I promised.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Figured you would. Okay, gotta go. Night.” I hung up and pulled out my laptop. I couldn’t wait to look up family murders, or where someone had walked in and found the killer in their home.
Murders with a witness were less likely to happen, and more likely to make the front page. Hopefully, I could find a couple and interview them to see if there was anything that could point me in the right direction.
While I’d asked him to help me out, I wasn’t going to lay all my cards on the table. We’d been bitten in the ass one too many times over the past year, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
***
The next morning, we all met with the Governor’s people, but I wanted to get back to what I’d found the night before.
Almost seventeen years ago, a young woman had gone home alone and was brutally murdered. Her family had surprised her, only to have the killer run out the back door. She was too far gone for them to save, but it had made the headlines for a couple of weeks until the evidence and possible suspects turned up nothing.
This was in California, and I hoped that I could fit in a trip to question the family. Until then, I had to find out what information the task force had managed to uncover.
“Hello, there. I’m Robert Williams. We’re here to help you with whatever you need,” he started by way of introduction.
“Great. Each member of our team can partner with someone from yours. I’d like to concentrate on checking with hotels near where each of the murders occurred.”
“We’ve been canvasing the area, but if you’re thinking that this is someone from the outside, I’m willing to be that you’re correct.”
“Let’s get to it, then.” I had a feeling that our person wasn’t local, and had to have spent the night somewhere.
