(2011) The Gift of Death

by Sam Ripley

  As I said the information is here for you to do with it what you will. I hope it might help you gain some respite from your sufferings. God bless you.

  Yours,

  A well-wisher.

  Information on the killer of Sara-Jane Gable

  Name: Carl Reckard

  Age: 36

  Address: 20941 Itasca St, Chatsworth, 91311, LA.

  Appearance: Dark hair, thinning. Brown/black eyes. Square-jaw. High forehead. Photograph attached

  He re-read the letter, pressed the print button on the keyboard and waited for the paper to spool of the printer. He clipped the photograph to the sheet, sealed it and addressed the envelope to Joe and Susan Gable. He then made himself a fresh carrot and apple juice, adding a few sprigs of celery for an additional spot of internal cleansing, and then drafted the other letters. There was one to Paul Taylor, the boyfriend of Alison Lowrie, the girl found on the dunes near Guerrero Negro. And one to Jackson Weeks, the man whose tongue had been ripped from his mouth who was now living in some hostel for the homeless. He didn’t know whether Weeks could read or not and so he kept that one short and to the point. There was no point getting all philosophical with him.

  He didn’t know what response he might have. Maybe nothing would happen. But it was worth a try. What was the phrase? Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  He had always been looking for a suitable disciple and now, perhaps, he might find one.

  He’d almost forgotten. There was one more thing to be done. An email to Cynthia Ross. He created an untraceable email address, and sent her the same details regarding Carl Reckard. He was looking forward to seeing whether her curiosity would be rewarded. He sincerely hoped so.

  52

  ‘So what have we got?’ asked Harper.

  ‘I’ve got the report on Ryan’s death,’ said Lansing. ‘According to this, he drove his pick-up over the edge of the cliffs near Moreno Valley and Banning. Fell down into the badlands below. Must have gone up like a fireball as the body was burnt beyond recognition.’

  ‘Were there any witnesses?’

  Lansing scrolled down the screen of his computer.

  ‘No, doesn’t seem like it,’ he said. ‘Oh – just a couple of 911 calls from local residents who said they heard an explosion or saw smoke.’

  ‘So there was no-one who actually saw Ryan get in that car and drive over the edge?’

  ‘No, no there wasn’t.’

  ‘And what about reports of men missing.’

  ‘I’m sending you the list of names now based on data from the North American Missing Persons Network,’ said Lansing. ‘I presume you want national and not just state?’

  ‘Yeah, the whole lot, if you can.’

  Harper opened the file on his computer. First of all he scrolled through the names of men who had reported missing between April and June of 2004. There was Robert Monroe Collins, missing since April 4 from Temphis, Tennessee. There was David Milton Crawley III missing since April 5 from Marianna, Florida. Robert C. Heissenberger missing since April 8 from Las Vegas, Nevada. Randy Garcia, missing since April 11 from Salt Lake City, Utah. And so the list went on. A record of absences. A litany of erased lives.

  Harper examined each of the files, scanning the biographies for anything that would link them to either Robert or Ryan Gleason. Nothing. Then he checked the July to September file. There was Vernon Bernard Whicker, missing since July 1 from Bakesfield, California. Rodney Allen McIntyre, missing since July 3 from Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Christopher Hansen missing since July 4 from Martin, Allegan County, Michigan. Each of the vanished had a story to tell – family problems such as violence or sexual molestation, mental health issues, drugs and alcohol abuse, terminal illness. He knew that the majority of the missing were probably already dead. But without a body to grieve over many families were left in a state of not knowing, a limbo that ate away at the soul.

  He tried to think himself into the mindset of a man who wanted to disappear. What would he do? The most obvious thing would be to fake his own death. Ryan Gleason could have set the whole thing up. Taken his truck up to the deserted stretch of road and set fire to it before driving it over the cliff. But if the body found in the car was not Ryan’s then whose was it? Ryan could have taken over the identity of any one of the hundreds of men who are reported missing each year. But which one?

  He sent an email to Lansing, Curtis, and Holt asking them to divide the list between them. There was no other option than simple, old-fashioned detective work. Sure, it was plodding, it was boring. Sometimes it didn’t even offer up any clues whatsoever. It was one of those aspects of his job that hadn’t yet been taken over by the technical department. There was no computer program that could do this.

  A split second later he got a call from Holt.

  ‘You mean we’ve got to ring every single family member and interview them?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘But that could take weeks - months even.’

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry. And I’m going to work on a section of the list myself. If we all share the burden it shouldn’t take that long.’

  ‘But –‘

  And he thought that Helen wanted to keep herself busy.

  ‘No buts – it’s the only way. The only thing we’ve got to go on.’

  ‘But what if we draw a blank?’

  ‘Then we draw a blank – and move on to the next thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Holt,’ he snapped. ‘Just get on with your job.’ Immediately he felt guilty and so softened his voice. ‘Have you managed to get hold of Roberta Gleason?’

  ‘She’s here and ready for questioning.’

  ‘Great. I’ll go and talk to her now.’

  Harper’s phone rang. It was from the duty desk downstairs. They had just taken a call from a Paul Taylor – the boyfriend of Alison Lowrie, the girl whose fingertips had been cut off and sent to Cassie Veringer - who had wanted to speak to Harper.

  ‘What about?’ he asked.

  ‘Something relating to the investigation into the murder of Alison Lowrie.’

  ‘Did he leave a number?’

  ‘Yeah, a cell – 619 312 8876.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, cutting the line and immediately dialling again.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice was soft, sad.

  Harper put the call on loud speaker so his team could hear.

  ‘Hello – it’s Detective Josh Harper here. I believe you rang and left a message for me today. You said you had something relating to the murder of Alison Lowrie?’

  Taylor cleared his throat, as if he were trying to choke back tears.

  ‘Yeah – I’ve received a letter. Thought it was a prank at first, y’know. But –‘

  ‘What does the letter say?’

  ‘It – it gives the name of Alison’s killer. The sender – it was signed from a well-wisher – wanted me to enact some sort of revenge. God it was tempting – he even gave me an address and photograph – but, I just thought –‘

  ‘Do you have the letter in front of you?’

  ‘Yes, yes sir, I do.’

  ‘Can you give me name and any other relevant details.’

  ‘Sure – but you don’t think it’s some kind of hoax?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, clearing his throat once more. ‘It says the name of Alison’s killer was – was Carl Reckard, and his address is 20941 Itasca St, Chatsworth, 91311, LA.. It describes him being 36 years old, with thinning, dark hair and –‘

  Harper knew what was coming next.

  ‘And with a high forehead and square jaw.’

  It was Ryan Gleason. But what was he playing at? Did he want to get caught?

  ‘We’ll need to test the letter for forensics. Have you touched it?’

  ‘Well yes, I didn’t think –‘

  ‘Please don’t handle it any more. It may offer some valuable clu
es. Where are you?’

  ‘In Guerrero Negro, Baja.’

  ‘Great – stay there and I’ll get someone over within the next couple of hours.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And thanks for getting in touch with me. I know some guys would have wanted to take the law into their own hands and –‘

  ‘Well, yeah. I did think about it – for a minute or so before turning chicken. Guess I’m too much of a coward.’

  ‘Not at all, Paul. Not at all.’

  As Harper cut the line a new sense of urgency filled the investigations room. It could be nothing – like Taylor said, nothing more than a cruel hoax – but Harper sensed that this was the one clue they had been waiting for. He still didn’t understand what the fuck was going on. The truth seemed to hover like a black shadow at the edge of his brain. Each time he tried to bring the dark shape closer it disappeared, leaving him with an all-consuming sense of dread. Soon he would have to face the blackness, he knew, but would he have the courage to acknowledge it?

  The voice of Curtis broke his train of thought.

  ‘Okay, this is what we’ve got on Carl Reckard,’ she said, standing up from her computer. ‘Born 1971 in Kansas. Mother died when he was seven. Grew up with his father on a farm outside of Russell, in the northwest. Seems to have suffered from mental health problems as an adolescent. Ran away from home at the age of 15, but father never reported him as missing. Lived at various addresses in the Los Angeles area, where he was being treated for paranoid schizophrenia. Last known address is Irondale Avenue, Chatsworth – which is, wait for this – just around the block from the address mentioned in Taylor’s letter.’

  ‘Okay – check them out. Two cars. I want both places searched at the same time. And Lansing - get on to Reckard senior, see if he’s had any contact with his son.’

  ‘And what should we do about Roberta?’ asked Holt.

  Fuck. He had forgotten about her.

  ‘Ask her to wait. Tell her it’s for her own good.’

  ‘And if she wants to leave?’

  ‘Stop her. It’s not safe for her to go back home now.’

  53

  She had just met a friend downtown for a drink and was on her way back to her apartment when her Blackberry vibrated. She tapped the screen. She had three new emails. Probably something really dull from a public relations company or, even worse, a reader. God, she hated it when the general public got in contact asking her to follow up a story. Often she was sent useless bits of gossip from malicious neighbours motivated by petty squabbles over land disputes, tree felling or illicit love affairs. Usually, if she didn’t recognise the sender’s name, she would delete it straight away. She consigned the first two messages to her trash, but there was something about the third one that immediately forced her to take notice. ‘Information regarding the killer of Sara-Jane Gable,’ it read. She had trained herself not to get her hopes up, not to get too excited, but this sounded interesting.

  She clicked on the email, its contents stopping her in her tracks. If what she had been sent was true then it could lead to the scoop of her career. Signed from a well-wisher, the email provided her with the name and address of the Sara-Jane’s murderer. Most likely he was the same man who had sent the fingertips to Cassie Veringer, the tongue to Jordan Weislander and the eyes to Dale Hoban.

  Buoyed up by two vodka martinis, she ran to the lot where her car was parked. She took out her laptop and searched for the name Carl Reckard. Nothing came up of any relevance. She tried again using LexisNexis. Again nothing. Who was this guy? She did another search for the address. Nada. What about the white pages? The number wasn’t listed. There was only one sure way to find out whether the tip-off was real. It was dangerous, for sure. But this kind of story was worth the risk.

  She tapped in the address into her GPS and set off from downtown towards Chatsworth. This could be it, she thought. Her chance to show her bosses what she was made of. She had wowed them in the past, for sure, but she had never covered anything like this. This kind of story was big. This was the Pulitzer prize. What was it that bitch Kate Cramer had said? That she had made up that story about her mother. That nobody would ever love her. Well, after reading this particular piece all the world would stand up and take notice of her. And surely that kind of attention was just as good as love.

  As she drove, she thought about calling the out of hours LAPD media office to see if the cops were on to the story. But she knew those fuckers. They wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny it. And, if the police had not already been tipped off, they would certainly get to the address in Chatsworth quicker than she could. If that was the case, by the time she arrived they would already have cordoned off the house and she would have lost the exclusive. No, in order to make this happen she would have to work alone.

  By the time she had reached Chatsworth she felt alive with adrenaline. No matter what anyone said, there was nothing like chasing a story. It was something people like Cramer just didn’t understand. And what was wrong with that woman anyway? She had chosen to throw away what sounded like a really cool job piecing together dead people’s faces to work as a photographer. And not even a press photographer. She was some kind of ‘artist’ now. Yeah, right. In her book that was just another word for failure.

  The GPS guided her through a network of dark streets until she came to Itasca. She slowed down as she approached number 20941. The house looked shabby, run-down, neglected, but it didn’t look particularly sinister. But how was the home of a killer supposed to appear? Like something from a horror film? No, she had enough experience of human nature to know that it was often the most respectable of facades that concealed the most extreme forms of evil.

  She got out of the car and looked up and down the street. Great. There were no cops. She was going to be the first.

  She grabbed the rape alarm from her purse and dropped it into her jacket pocket. If there was any hint of trouble she would not hesitate to use it; she was certain out here in the valley the neighbours would call the cops. From her trunk she took out a can of pepper spray. A last resort in case things got messy.

  She took a deep breath and walked up to the car port. There was no bell, so she hammered on the door. Nothing. She pressed her ear to the metal. Was that the faint sound of rock music coming from inside or was she imagining it? She knocked once more, but again there was no response.

  Maybe there was a door or yard around the back. She took out her mobile, using its light to guide her through the darkness. Through the pocket of her jacket she felt the outline of the rape alarm. In her purse was the pepper spray. She would be fine. She was safe. Jesus, this was child’s play compared to what some of those female war correspondents had put themselves through. What was her name? Martha something? She couldn’t remember. But she was sure she would have done this with her eyes closed.

  As she moved around the back of the house she spotted a door slightly ajar, a chink of light seeping out from the interior. She stepped towards it and gave it a slight push.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, softly.

  There was no answer. But she could hear some heavy rock from somewhere inside.