He took the paper, scanned the text. “So your guys found the website they use.”
“Yes.” She sat in the closest chair, scooted up to his desk to face him head on. “And they also learned the identity of most of the users, courtesy of their home computers.”
“Most of the users?” He frowned at the confrontational text between the two screen names on the page.
“Yeah. See, the techies explained it to me today. It didn’t take a whole lot of searching online to find those who called themselves the ‘New Fellowship of Macon,’ or NFOM, for short. Then they set about defining the users who had logged on over the past four months, assuming the killer would want to stay aware of the group as he planned—and committed—his murders.”
“I see.”
“It didn’t take a lot of effort to get the Internet Protocol addresses for the computers, but identifying their MAC addresses, the Media Access Control for each individual computer, proved a little more difficult. In fact, one of the computers had its MAC address so encrypted, the guys in Atlanta still haven’t identified the machine’s location. But they will.”
“Which user?” Ed’s tense jaw line said he knew.
“TRUTHLUVR. Our killer. But the guys had no trouble identifying his online nemesis, PROTECT&SRV. The computer is registered to Edward Allen Pierce. Sound familiar?”
“I wasn’t a member of the original Fellowship. I’m not the man you’re after; he is.” He pointed to TRUTHLUVR’s text on the page and let the pad of his first finger thump it. “And the New Fellowship isn’t anything like the old. We’re focused on serving Macon, providing help to charities and promoting a unified glorification to God. That’s it. No ‘power in children’ and no condemnation for marriage outside of the Fellowship body. Those things have changed. It’s a very positive, very private organization, and I’ve been blessed to be a part of it. I don’t want this lunatic ruining what we have.”
“But he is ruining it, whether you like it or not. And he’ll continue to do so, unless we stop him. By keeping your communications with him from the task force, you’re withholding evidence, Captain, any way you look at it.”
“I didn’t want to betray the Fellowship. I couldn’t. Judith and I hadn’t ever gotten into religion before, but we had always felt we wanted something. Our neighbor is a member and introduced us to it. The Fellowship is online now, but we know each other and help to communicate the strong values of the organization throughout the city by supporting charities, formulating neighborhood peacekeeping organizations, you know, the things behind the scene that keep Macon safe, but don’t involve the police force. Let’s face it; cops can only do so much. It’s people who get the job done and give the community the face of peace or violence. But I never realized he was online until this morning. In fact, I planned to tell the task force about the interaction, even if I hadn’t determined when or how.”
“Well, I’m here now.” She pointed to herself. “Tell away. And you can start by explaining who this ‘Tiny Tina’ person is.”
“That’s the thing. I have no idea.”
Angel took the pages from him and read aloud, “TRUTHLUVR: I know who you are, and you can’t stop me.” She peered at Pierce over the top of the paper. “Does he know who you are?”
The captain shook his head. “He thinks he does, but his comments say he doesn’t. I have no idea who he thinks he’s talking to.”
“Well, it’s a cop, and a cop who would know this ‘tiny Tina’ person.”
“I gathered that much, but I’ve never heard of anyone called ‘Tiny Tina’ in Macon, or anywhere else, for that matter. I planned to ask the task force if anyone knew.”
“When you decided to tell the task force of your involvement, you mean?”
“I was going to tell them.”
“He says that he can hurt you again, if you don’t get out of his way. Then he asks if you think Tiny Tina pulled that trigger. And you have no idea who this Tina person is?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Well, someone around here does, and I’d say it’s about high time we find out who that someone is.”
After John received the Captain’s call that there had been a new development in the case, he and Lexie wasted no time returning to the station. He held a large, black umbrella over the two of them as they hurried toward the main entrance, where Etta Green opened the door and urged them inside. Her thick ringlets whipped around her face as she pulled the door closed against the heavy rain. “Well?” She grabbed the umbrella, gave it a good shake to remove the excess water, then plopped it in a plastic stand by the door.
“Well, what?” Though John knew Etta could spot a break in a case as well as the greenest field cop.
“Well, what’s going on down the hall?” She raised her dark penciled brows while she waited for his response. “And don’t you dare say it’s nothing, because I’ve never seen Captain Pierce looking so tense before in my life, and that includes the day one of the guys arrested his nephew for drugs.”
“We don’t know,” Lexie said.
John added, “But we will find out.”
“Do that. And when you find out, tell me.”
“We will.” John led Lexie down the hall toward the conference room. “You sure you’re ready to deal with whatever they’ve found out, after everything you’ve gone through this afternoon?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re sure you’re ready to deal with whatever they’ve found out, after everything you’ve been through this afternoon.”
He smirked. “Is there anything you’re afraid of, Ms. McCain?”
“Yes, there is. But the one thing I’m not afraid of...is facing that fear head on.”
He turned the knob on the conference room door. “Then I’d say we’re ready for anything.” But upon entering, and hearing the name that had haunted him for years, John wondered if he’d spoken too soon.
“So, we need to know who she is.” Angel directed the question to Zed. “This ‘Tiny Tina’ he refers to.”
Zed Naylor and Ed Pierce, the only other task force members in the room, turned toward John and Lexie.
Angel acknowledged their arrival with a brief nod. “We’re discussing an update in our information on the killer. We’ve called and left messages for Sims and Marker to get here too, but we’re not going to wait for the whole task force. This needs our immediate attention.”
“I told you,” Pierce answered, “I haven’t heard that name before today.”
“No.” Zed looked at John as he spoke. “No, you haven’t, but I have. Tucker, you better sit down for this one.”
The room seemed to close in around John as he moved toward Angel and the paper she held. “What is that?”
“It’s a long story, but the meat of it is that Captain Pierce is a member of the ‘New Fellowship,’ which is an off-shoot of the original, but without the outlandish notions. Is that fair enough to say?”
“Fair enough.” Pierce didn’t seem happy.
“And this New Fellowship has a website where members can share news, inspiration and all, as well as chat with each other in online chat rooms.” She lifted several sheets of paper. “This transcript, taken from one of those chat rooms this morning, shows where Captain Pierce talked to someone with the screen name of TRUTHLUVR. It appears this TRUTHLUVR is our killer.”
“We’ve found him?” Lexie whispered.
“No, not yet. The techies are working on it, but he used a public computer at an Internet Café on the south side of Macon this morning, so the trace didn’t do us any good. At previous times, however, he logged on from a computer system encrypted well. The guys at Quantico believe it’s his home system, but it’s going to take a bit of time to break through the encrypted information.” She crossed her arms and looked resolute. “But they’ll get the job done, I have no doubt. However, right now what we need to figure out is who our killer thought he talked to. He believed Pierce, or rather PROTECT&SRV, was someone else.”
&nbs
p; “Protect and serve?” John looked at the captain.
“My screen name. I didn’t think it’d hurt for them to realize they had a cop who believed in the Fellowship.”
“Until today, TRUTHLUVR had never participated in an active chat session, though he had several recorded sessions where he’d logged into various chat rooms on the site,” Angel confirmed.
“He lurked, but we have a lot of lurkers in the Fellowship.” Pierce shrugged. “So we never questioned when he entered the chat room. Lots of folks enter and merely observe.”
Angel huffed out a breath. “Okay, in any case, he started chatting today with Pierce about the previous murders. He stated he followed the Supreme One’s plan. But when Pierce told him his interpretation of the plan was skewed, TRUTHLUVR sent a message of pure venom, blasting the entire New Fellowship as”—she read from the page—“hypocritical whoremongers, and then he ended with a single sentence about this name.”
John’s throat tightened. “Read the sentence.”
“Wait. Agent Jackson needs to know who Tina was, so she can—”
“No,” John said. “Don’t sugarcoat anything for me, Zed. I want to know what he said about that day.”
“What day?” Lexie asked, but John remained firm in his decision to stay quiet until he heard what the killer knew about the day his father died.
“It says,” Angel held the page out as she read, “Stay out of my way, officer, or I may have to hurt you again. Did you really think it was Tiny Tina who pulled that trigger?”
“No way.” Ryan Sims entered the room. “Where did you get that? And what do you think it means?”
“It’s from an online chat session I had this morning,” Pierce informed the last two members of the task force, as Lou Marker took his seat. “A chat with our killer.”
“How did you manage that?” Marker asked. “And why are we just finding out?”
“I—” Pierce started, but Angel intervened.
“We don’t have time for all of that now. What we have to concentrate on is dealing with the situation and determining what this means. You all know more about this Tiny Tina person than I do, and I’d appreciate it if you would clue me in.”
John cleared his throat then spoke with a voice that sounded strong and secure, betraying the fury pulsating through his veins. “She’s the woman who killed my father.”
The entire room fell silent. Angel read the sentence again in little more than a whisper. “Did you really think it was Tiny Tina who pulled that trigger?”
“I never thought she did it. It was too bizarre, but then all of the evidence said that’s what happened.” John’s words were steady but filled with the emotion, with the memory of losing his father. He’d been with Abby and several of their friends at a local drive-in watching the movie An Officer and a Gentleman. He’d been nineteen, and none of the guys their age wanted to go, claiming it too girly, but the females in the group had prevailed. Odd that he remembered what movie played when the cop car pulled into the drive-in and Zed Naylor delivered the news that his father wasn’t coming home. Then again, why wouldn’t he remember the movie’s title? It summed up the man who died that night. An officer and a gentleman...Milton Tucker.
“What happened?” Angel asked. “Or what did the evidence show?”
Zed’s face looked grim. “Want me to tell her?”
“No, I will.” John couldn’t recall sitting down, but he had, and everyone’s attention focused on him at the table. He sensed Lexie’s presence in the next chair. She’d moved closer but hadn’t said a word. No one did. In fact, the room fell silent as he began to speak.
“On July 15th, 1988, like I said, I was at the drive-in with Abby and some of our friends. Dad wasn’t on duty, and Aaron Rainwater called him at home. Aaron and Dad were fishing buddies and Fellowship deacons, so when Aaron called him over saying he and Ernestine, his wife, were having trouble, Dad went. Aaron and Ernestine were known for their heated disagreements, but they always worked things out until that night. Anyway, Dad left me a note saying where he’d gone then drove to their home on his own.
From what the crime scene guys put together, Ernestine shot Aaron, then waited for Dad. When he got there, she fired at him, killing him with a single bullet to the chest, then she turned the gun on herself.” John paused, his throat tense at how vivid the memory replayed in his brain. “It didn’t make sense to anyone. They were always fighting, but Aaron and Ernestine had never taken it that far, never had any weapons involved before. But the evidence showed a triple homicide and suicide case.”
“Tiny Tina?” Angel questioned.
“It was Aaron’s nickname for Ernestine.” He couldn’t believe it. If this guy—TRUTHLUVR—had told the truth, then the same man who killed Abby killed his father. John’s stomach knotted at the realization. He’d always known that Ernestine hadn’t pulled that trigger, had sensed it deep in his gut. The killer had forced Aaron to call his friend over—had Aaron at gunpoint during that call, or worse, had Tina at the end of the gun—then he shot Aaron, Milton Tucker and then Ernestine Rainwater had fallen victim...and accused. John slammed his fist against the table.
“We’ll get him.” Angel’s eyes blazed with certainty. “We’re close, and he’s slipping up. The fact that he posted to an online chat group says he’s got a few chinks in his armor. The fact that he’s talking about previous murders, and providing new information to help us in our investigation, says that those chinks can become gaping holes. We’re going to get him this time.
“We will—” John started, but stopped when Etta Green entered without knocking.
“Barnes just reported in.” Her voice quaked with the eagerness to share her news. “They found another body, not far from where Hannah Sharp and Logan Finley were buried. And they think it’s”—she paused to catch her breath—“Brother Moses.”
He needed to vomit, needed it so much that he could taste the bitter bile working up his throat, but he couldn’t let the impulse have its way. Not now. He had to pull it together and act as interested and as intent as everyone else combing the old gathering grounds.
Why had he put Moses here?
Because that’s where he belonged, in the location where his pulpit used to stand, feet from the altar, and feet from where Hannah Sharp and Logan Finley had been buried. It’d seemed so right back then, so symbolic. Brother Moses had preached a fire and brimstone sermon that said everyone outside of the Fellowship was going to hell and would be punished if they didn’t “see the way and follow the plan.” That sermon had prompted him to stay after the remaining members left the gathering grounds.
He’d decided that Brother Moses deserved to know what a good and faithful servant he’d been and told him in detail about the two sinners that he’d buried beneath the Fellowship’s altar. Then he’d gone on to describe how he’d killed the other women as well and how he believed his plan had come from the Supreme One. He wanted Moses to know that he also believed that the Fellowship needed to show Macon that they meant business and that sinners would pay the price.
He’d expected Brother Moses to praise him, to honor him and bestow upon him a title such as his own. A new name for the most faithful of the entire Fellowship. Nothing as grand as Moses or Supreme One, but something along the line of deacon, perhaps. A deacon at twenty years old; he could handle the notoriety and responsibility of that.
It didn’t happen. Moses said he’d taken God’s vengeance into his own hands and said he wanted to discuss the “revelation,” as he called it, later at his home. But he’d planned an ambush. Moses had called Deacon Tucker, but Milton Tucker was on the job and couldn’t talk about the “unique situation” until later.
It’d taken less than two minutes to decide to kill Brother Moses and send him to his maker. The true Supreme One would understand a necessary means to achieve the appropriate end.
But now, as he watched the crime scene unit excavating Brother Moses’ body from the muddy grave in the midst of a torr
ent of rain, he began to wonder why he had given Moses the courtesy of having his personal cross, an ivory piece trimmed in gold that he always carried and displayed throughout his sermons, on his chest. It’d taken Barnes less than a second to recognize the piece and predict that the body belonged to the Fellowship’s former leader.
He blinked, wiped the rain from his face. No. There was a reason all of this happened. A test to verify his worthiness of the monumental responsibility that had been bestowed upon him by the Supreme One. In order to pass the test, he had to convince this group scanning his personal burial ground that he also wanted to find the killer and make him pay.
Another trickle of bile trudged up his throat. He swallowed it. Yes, he needed to vomit, but he needed something else even more. He needed to play the part of a concerned citizen of the community. And then, he needed to kill.
Lexie focused to read the last line she’d typed on her screen, but the words blurred together and made her head throb in agony. The most important story she’d ever covered, the one that would be seen more than any other since every news station in the south waited to pick it up, and she couldn’t tamp back on her nerves enough to finish the piece.
The lead line of her story screamed at her.
One. More. Day.
Why couldn’t they have caught him before now? And why did she feel so sick? She’d tossed her breakfast at the police station. The task force had reconvened a final time to go over all of the new information. Now it appeared that the Sunrise Killer had murdered Brother Moses and that he, not Ernestine Rainwater, murdered John’s father. The question regarding those two murders was—why? Had Brother Moses and Milton Tucker been on the verge of learning the truth about the killer? Or did they know and threaten to tell the authorities? What had happened way back then?
That was what the task force, particularly John Tucker, wanted most to know. But they couldn’t investigate to learn the answers; they didn’t have time. Angel had directed their primary objective remain the same—pinpoint where the killer would strike next and stop the murder.
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