THE CONTROLLER-Obsession

by Jerry Bruce

  They walked slowly up the staircase, pausing momentarily on the landing. Parker glanced around and determined that the master suite was more than likely to the left, judging by the decorative double doors at the end of the hall, and moved in that direction, the chief in tow.

  They could see the glow of light emanating from the still lit nightstand lamps, and after quickly glancing around the suite and not seeing anything of interest, started toward the archway which led to a room being used as a retreat or reading room. Once again nothing drew their attention so they turned toward the area in which the bathroom and closet could be found. The closet was to their right and before the main body of the bathroom so they focused their attention there first. Opening the closet doors they couldn’t help but glance upwards as the motion sensors turned on the lights. They were not prepared for what they saw next.

  Suspecting that something was afoul and seeing such a bloody scene were two different things. Chief Franks couldn’t help himself and ran to the toilet where he vomited up his breakfast. Parker took no note of the chief—just the scene that lay before him. He didn’t carefully back up and move out of the closet doorway until his eyes registered what lay before him. He first made note of the massive amount of blood that had been splattered about. He thought to himself that he had never seen this much blood at a crime scene. Surely every ounce of this poor woman’s blood had evacuated her body, he thought to himself. Still more upsetting was seeing Veronica Sinclair’s twisted body, her head resting at about a forty-five degree angle to her shoulders, almost completely severed. Then he noticed something that made the hair on his neck stand up—a bloody ‘C’ carved into her forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Back at the local police station, Lieutenant Parker convinced the chief that it would be best if he had his team of crime scene investigators handle the Veronica Sinclair murder scene. When pressed, he told the chief about the similarities between the murder of Veronica and another case he was working on, but that he couldn’t go into any more detail.

  Parker was convinced that whoever killed Randall Sinclair must be the same killer that murdered Veronica Sinclair. A professional hired to kill everyone in the Sinclair family? Family. Parker was thinking to himself trying to put some pieces together; then asked as casually as he could, “Don’t the Sinclair’s also have a daughter?”

  “Yeah, they do, her name is Jessica, Joanne … something like that.” One of the younger officers responded to his query.

  Another officer chimed in “No, it’s Jennifer.”

  “Chief Franks, I think I need to talk to Jennifer Sinclair right away. Can I use your computer to see if I can locate the daughter?”

  “Of course, help yourself and if you need any help, just ask.”

  As he started his computer searching, Parker whispered to himself, “I just hope we’re not going to be too late.”

  * * *

  Blocker had been through every old microfiche, every database and every hardcopy at all the news sources where he was given access and still couldn’t come up with a link to Wilkins. How can you have a clone and still remain anonymous? That was the question that kept nagging at Blocker. Somebody, somewhere, had to know this man.

  “Think, Ralph; think, think, think.” That was all he could say to himself as motivation to press on. “There’s something I’m missing, something I should have thought about and haven’t, but what?”

  Several hours later, as Ralph kept looking through the database, and was about ready to give up the search, a story totally unrelated to Wilkins grabbed his attention. It wasn’t so much the story as the photograph that hit him between the eyes. “Of course, I should have thought of that before!

  * * *

  Parker’s cell phone rang about an hour after he called his captain requesting that a squad car be sent to check up on Jennifer Sinclair.

  “Hello.”

  “Parker, I just asked the CSI team to send some of their people to Jennifer Sinclair’s apartment.”

  “Oh no, not her too?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  His worst fears had just been confirmed. He had mixed emotions. Having not been able to protect Jennifer from the same fate as her brother and mother was horrible. But he was also dejected about missing out on the opportunity to stake out her apartment and hopefully catch the murderer.

  “Was the same message left?”

  “Yes. Whoever did the first two must have done this one also. I’ve stationed an officer outside her apartment to seal the crime scene. We need to have the same CSI resources working this case as well as the other two; I want the continuity. Maybe they will be able to piece together clues from all three murders and get us something to work from.”

  “I agree, sir. I’ll get over to the Sinclair estate and talk to the team leader to see what we can arrange.”

  “Oh, by the way Parker, I have someone working on tracking down relatives of the victims. We are going to have to notify family members soon, before the press picks up on the story. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this under wraps. It might be best for you to come back here. When we do release a statement, I’m going to want you to do most of the talking.”

  “I’ll contact the CSI team and then head back.”

  “Good, and tell the locals to keep a lid on this.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Parker turned to Chief Franks. “Chief, I guess you’ve deduced from my conversation that Jennifer Sinclair has also been murdered.” Reactions from the chief and his men caused Parker to pause. “I may as well tell you the rest. Randall Sinclair, the son, has also been murdered. Once again Parker had to pause as the officers gasped; we’re currently thinking that the same killer did all three crimes. It’s even more important now that we keep this whole ordeal quiet. We don’t want the media picking up on this and blaring it out over the air waves before we can reach any remaining family.”

  “Of course. I assure you that if there’s a leak, it won’t come from this office.” With that he turned to face his men with a stern look.

  “Thank you chief; thank you all for your cooperation.”

  The young officer looked at Parker and with tearful eyes choked out the words, “The Sinclairs were well loved around here … catch the bastard.”

  * * *

  Blocker’s cell phone couldn’t get a strong enough signal from inside so he rushed out to his car to make the call.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blocker here. Listen, something just dawned on me. Do you guys have any photos of Timothy Wilkins?”

  “Sure, we have a whole file drawer full. We watched him for a long time before we bagged him. We even have some … oh my God. How could we have screwed up so badly? We have his fingerprints! We made the capture team take close up photos and get his fingerprints before they started their interrogation. They forwarded them to the CIA director.”

  “Do you know if he had the photos and prints cross-referenced?”

  “No, I don’t know for certain, but I can sure find out in a hurry.”

  “Get on that because I have come up blank on my side. I can’t think of anything else I can do.”

  “Hopefully Director Thornton will be of help.”

  * * *

  Parker had his hands full trying to stay awake as he drove back to his headquarters. He hadn’t slept since Randall Sinclair’s murder was discovered the previous evening. Here it was, almost twenty-four hours later, and the only thing keeping him going was adrenaline and lots of coffee. Seeing the signs for a coffee shop and gas station, he pulled off the highway. He needed to gas up his car and grab some more coffee anyway so maybe a good dinner might help his spirits.

  Over dinner he kept running through the facts, over and over again, trying to make sense of why someone would pay a pro to murder the immediate family of a dead man. What kind of sick mind would do such a thing? It had to be mental derangement at play here, what other motive could there possi
bly be? What was to be gained by committing these murders? He went through a mental checklist of murder motives ruling them out one by one. The only possible scenario that fit was revenge. But revenge against a dead man made no sense. Revenge was only effective if the person was in a position to suffer.

  Parker was planning to visit the Jennifer Sinclair crime scene, but as he drew closer to town, decided there was nothing for him to gain by doing so. He would just be in the way. Instead he phoned his captain to check in and get permission to head home for a few hours rest. A hot shower was what he wanted most, that and some sleep.

  * * *

  Parker was at police headquarters first thing in the morning. He wasn’t totally refreshed but did feel one hundred percent better.

  A few minutes after Parker arrived, the CSI team leader called to see if he was in so he could come up and go over the evidence. Parker told him to come over as soon as possible. In the meantime, Parker waited for his superior, Captain Phil Forrester to arrive. Parker got up and approached the captain when he walked into the squad room fifteen minutes later.

  “CSI is coming up to brief us, should be here soon.”

  “Good. I am also expecting to hear from the coroner’s office. I asked them to work all night if necessary to get us whatever they could. I expect to contact any surviving family members later this morning and then this afternoon we will have a press briefing. Grab your notes and come into my office and let’s go over what we know and where we stand.”

  As Parker was returning to the captain’s office after retrieving his file, the CSI investigator came in. Parker headed him off and steered him to the captain’s office.

  “Captain, this is CSI investigator Brian Williamson; Captain Forrester.”

  “Have a seat, men. I’m glad you’ve come by to update us, Williamson. We’re at the point where we can no longer keep these murders a secret.”

  “You will have my full report by noon, captain. I just wanted to give you a verbal summary.”

  “Do you have anything that can lead us to the assassin?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. Whoever did this didn’t leave us a single clue. What has me puzzled though is the different methods used. Usually a guy like this will stick to one kind of weapon. What we have here are three different scenarios and two different weapons—a gun and a knife.

  “Wait a minute. You just said two weapons. What weapon was used to kill Jennifer Sinclair?” Parker was confused.

  “Hands. Technically a weapon, I suppose. We need the coroner’s report to be certain, but it looked like the only weapon used was the killer’s hands.”

  “Hands?”

  “Yeah. Jennifer Sinclair’s neck was broken. Probably by a forceful twisting of the head.”

  “Getting back to what I was saying, the only commonalities are the victims’ relationship and the defacing on the foreheads. Other than that, I would swear we are dealing with more than one killer.”

  “I hope you’re wrong about that.” Parker couldn’t see how they were going to find one killer let alone two.

  There was a quiet pause as each man considered what to say next. Suddenly they were startled by the ring of the captain’s phone. Forrester noted that the caller ID was the coroner’s office.

  “This is Forrester … yes, hello doctor. You have a preliminary report for me?”

  There was a long silence on the captain’s end of the conversation before he finally spoke. “I see. I’ll expect your final report tomorrow. Thank you for calling doctor.”

  “Well, Williamson, you were partly right. There wasn’t a sole assassin, or even two, there were three. Turns out that all three victims were killed within about a one-hour time frame, as near as the coroner can tell. Even if it’s more like two or three hours, the result is still the same. No one person could have done all three murders in such a short time span. There was too much distance between the victims. One person, or even two, couldn’t have been in three places at once.”

  “I guess this puts an answer to your suspicions, Williamson.” Parker had a look of resolve on his face; he was going to find out who was behind these killings even if it meant putting his own life on the line.

  “Okay. We know now that we have three assassins. Williamson, go over your notes again, and again, there has to be something that can be of help to us. Parker, I want you to check with records division, officer Manheim, he was looking into other family members. We need to contact them with the news—not just to notify them, but to alert them to the possibility that they may be in danger.”

  “I really don’t think they are, captain. More than likely we would have heard something by now if other family members had been killed. I think this is a revenge killing aimed directly at the immediate family of Richard Sinclair. Why, I don’t know, but it’s the only motive I can come up with to explain all this. I’ll definitely handle this as though the rest of the family is in danger, but I find it hard to believe they would be. Otherwise, I think they would already be dead.”

  “I hope you’re right, Parker.

  * * *

  “Director Thornton, Adam Broderick is on the line and would like a word with you.”

  “Thank you, I’ll take the call.”

  “Hello, Adam, what can I do for you?”

  “Director, did you by any chance run cross-checks on Timothy Wilkins photos and fingerprints?”

  “You know, I don’t recall seeing any report on that. I can’t believe we screwed up like that. Must have been the pressure we were under to try to break the man. Let me check, and if we didn’t I’ll see that it’s done immediately. I’ll contact you as soon as I have any information.”

  “Thank you, director.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Jonathan and Marion Radliff could not understand why, after so many years of marriage to Richard, their daughter Veronica would be getting a divorce. Then after bearing witness to her anguish at the news of Richard’s abduction, it was even more obvious that Veronica was as much in love with Richard as ever. They refused to believe anything other than that Richard would return and that he and Veronica would reunite. But word of Richard’s assassination extinguished that flame of hope and put them into a state of depression such as they had never before experienced. Richard filled the void of the son they always wanted but never had.

  With the news they had just been given by Captain Forrester, the Radliffs must have wondered what they could have done to cause such wrath from God. What had they done that deserved losing a child and two grand children in such a senseless way? Dazed as they were, they knew it was imperative that they notify Richard’s parents and their other daughters. Putting aside their grief, they decided it was best if Marion told her daughters while Jonathan would notify the Sinclairs. The captain had offered to talk to Richard’s parents, but Jonathan insisted that no matter how unsavory the task, it should come from someone close to the family. Jonathan did agree to have the Sinclairs call the captain so that he could be certain that they had been notified. Jonathan retired to his office and after regaining his composure, he took to the unwelcome task of calling the Sinclairs.

  * * *

  The press conference was scheduled for three p.m. in the police headquarters meeting room. All the major wire services and local media were notified that there would be a major announcement and sent camera crews.

  As police Commissioner Warren Andrews delivered his news of a series of multiple murders in a methodical and reverent tone, gasps could be heard as each victim’s identity was given. The commissioner took no questions, instead handing over the podium to Forrester, who in turn expressed his sympathies to the families and then introduced Parker.

  Lieutenant Parker fielded the seemingly endless barrage of questions with poise and sensitivity. He had told himself repeatedly beforehand that the victims were not just his; they belonged to the entire world. They were known to millions of people. The Sinclair children had grown up under the watchful eyes of the public. He wasn’t just t
alking to the cameras and reporters; he was talking to millions of concerned people, many of whom felt that these were members of their own families.

  Parker didn’t go into any of the details of the murders, lest he give away any specifics that could lend credence to some of the loonies who confess to crimes they didn’t commit. That was a phenomenon that escaped Parker; such mentality he could not relate to at all.

  The reporters weren’t the least bit content to be getting so few facts and kept pressing the issue. Parker stood firm and revealed nothing. Finally they gave up and the conference was brought to a merciful end.

  One of the reporters present was none other than Ralph Blocker. He was hoping that Richard wasn’t watching TV and missed seeing this coverage. Blocker could only think of wrapping up his timeslot and getting home to console Richard.

  * * *

  In an instant, after entering the apartment, Ralph knew that Richard was aware of the murders. He immediately heard the sound of Richard’s sobbing before actually seeing Richard sitting on the sofa.

  Without even pausing to take off his coat, Ralph sat down next to Richard and put his arm around Richard’s shoulders.

  “I can’t begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now, Richard. I know there’s nothing I can say that will help. Christine and Adam are on the way over; they both called me as soon as the news coverage ended.”

  “I’m sure they are suffering almost as much as me. They both watched the kids growing up and formed their own attachments.”

  Ralph noticed the tall scotch and water that Richard had obviously already consumed most of and asked, “Have you had anything to eat today?”

  Receiving a negative shake of the head and an, “I don’t think I could keep anything down,” caused Ralph to get up and head toward the kitchen. “I’m going to make you something anyway and you’re going to eat it. I’m not going to have you sitting there drowning yourself in scotch—at least not on an empty stomach.”