Cold Malice

by Toni Anderson

  Dammit.

  “What you got there?” asked Walsh, nodding toward the heavy, plastic bag.

  Mac grinned evilly. “My notes from the Pioneer investigation. I want you and Carter to go through them looking for anything you can find on Hines’s manifesto. He also called it the “Pioneers’ Pathway” and the “Road To Revolution” depending on who he was talking to and how much liquor he’d drunk.” Mac searched his drawer for the tablet he used to take notes on. “From memory, Hines said they’d do a series of symbolic murders allowing their enemies to be marked and their ‘army’ to be put on notice for the upcoming war. After the murders, he called upon his followers to bomb either the White House or Capitol Hill—the target varied depending on whatever stuck in Hines’s craw that day. I’ve urged increased security and vigilance at all potential sites.” The callous disregard for human life, the law and the Constitution this country was based upon had always chilled him. The idea some of his fellow Americans might want to follow this bullshit agenda made him want to hit something, preferably something that was capable of hitting back.

  Walsh took the notebooks from him. “Great. Can’t wait to try and decipher your scrawl.” Mac’s handwriting wasn’t pretty. “I’m not going to find a book of love poetry in this lot, am I?”

  Mac leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more ugly and—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Walsh snorted.

  “I wonder what would have pissed off the Pioneers more,” Mac said wryly. “Me being an undercover cop or the fact I could quote Shakespeare. Pretty sure they’d have shot me either way.”

  “I still can’t believe I didn’t know you worked undercover on that case. Did it seriously suck?”

  Mac thought back to the year spent at the compound. “That’s the scariest thing, sometimes it didn’t suck. Sometimes it felt good to be part of a close community that seemed to care about each other. And then the hatred would spew out of nowhere, against blacks, Jews, abortionists—basically anyone who didn’t look and act and think like they did. One minute they’d be offering you freshly baked rolls dripping with homemade butter, next they’d be hissing about how ZOG were taking over the world and needed to be stopped.”

  Walsh grimaced.

  “It was like living in Satan’s version of Little House on the Prairie.”

  “You did good work, Mac,” Walsh told him.

  “Clearly not good enough.” Mac sighed and leaned back in his chair, wondering what the hell he could have done different. “I need to call the marshals for an update.”

  “Still no sign of Eddie?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. I’m personally hoping he became a Popsicle somewhere in Idaho. You track down the girlfriend from before he was incarcerated?”

  Walsh nodded. “I think so. Woman named Brandy Jordan visited him regularly during the first year he was inside. She visited a few more times over the years but much less frequently. I sent a lead to the resident agency in Coeur d’Alene to check out her last known address pulled from the DMV.”

  “I want her brought in for questioning and I want to talk to the agent doing the questioning. She might know where Eddie is or who his friends are.”

  “You sure Eddie’s sister isn’t hiding anything?” Walsh was watching him guardedly.

  Mac held the man’s stare, understanding what the guy was really asking. “She didn’t help him escape, Dylan. He almost broke her neck when he grabbed her yesterday.”

  “That could have been a setup.”

  “Maybe if there’d been any love lost between them as kids, but there wasn’t. The two older brothers were sexually assaulting the older girl and I witnessed Tess running out of the barn when Walt tried to do the same to her. Tess hated them both. They were both swine—and that’s an insult to pigs.”

  “We a hundred percent certain Walt is dead?” Dylan Walsh asked.

  “Unless the guy at the morgue lied.” Mac pulled a face.

  Walsh still didn’t look convinced about Tess’s innocence. The worst thing was Mac wouldn’t have been either, but he’d been there. He’d lived it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ten minutes later Mac sat at the front of the room and scanned the crowd to see who was still missing. A couple of the analysts who worked fixed shifts. Ross, Atherton and Dunbar. Yesterday they’d started talking to the families about threats the victims had received and today they were chasing down more leads.

  Mac started with Elijah Carter who sat on his left with the hate crimes duo. “Any connection between vics?”

  “We have some basic crossover, like they all subscribed to the Washington Post online, shared the same cell service provider and occasionally shopped for groceries in some of the same stores, used the same metro line, etc., but nothing startling considering they all lived on the northwest side of the city. No indications they were ever in the same place at the same time. No record of any communication between them, but I’m still looking at their social media posts and credit card histories to see if they attended any of the same events. Ms. Shiraz was all over blogs and social media with her personal opinion, the others barely had Facebook profiles—except the judge’s wife. She posted a lot of pictures of their grandkids.” Carter scratched between his eyes, making the hate crimes lady lean away from him like he was contagious. “I started to add Trettorri into the mix and I’m coming up with the same kind of general things. I’m going to look for other commonalities next, determine if they were friends with any of the same people. I have a couple of analysts working on it.”

  Ross, Atherton and Dunbar entered the room with a muted apology for being late. The female detective was wearing skintight leather pants today and Agent Ross had trouble keeping his eyes off her ass. Nice to see Mac wasn’t the only one with women issues.

  His ex. Not Tess, he assured himself. He was going to have to deal with Heather as soon as he had an hour to himself. She was beginning to piss him off and interfere with his job. Tess, he was just going to have to let go. It wasn’t like he hadn’t walked away before.

  Yeah, when she was ten.

  Asshole.

  Hell, he was really starting to hate himself when it came to his dealings with Tess Fallon.

  “What did you find out?” he asked the latecomers.

  Dunbar took the lead which seemed to annoy her colleagues but she grinned at Ross while she did it. Mac suspected they were both competitive individuals and that worked as long as they got results. “The rabbi and DJ both reported some threats to the police and the FBI. About a year ago someone painted a swastika on the synagogue where the rabbi worked and he filed a report. Sonja Shiraz had literally thousands of vicious emails and hand-mailed letters all promising to do vile things to her for switching sides. The judge never reported any threats and I spoke to some of his colleagues on the Federal Circuit and they weren’t aware of the Thomases having any issues with haters. He was a well-liked, well-respected guy who didn’t suffer fools. Then we spoke to Trettorri’s husband.”

  Ross crossed his arms and seemed resigned to playing second string to Annabel Dunbar’s fiddle.

  “The husband promised to have an aide locate all their hate mail and deliver it to us ASAP.” She stuck her hands on her hips. “Way he spoke suggested they had lots of it, but the congressman kept it at work so as to not sully—his word, not mine—their home. That’s all we have so far.” She gave an exaggerated shrug and went and leaned against the wall off to one side. Aside from the tight pants and hot bod she reminded Mac a lot of himself. Hungry to prove herself. Confident she could do the job. Determined never to show weakness. It hadn’t taken her long to settle into SIOC. Mac figured give it a week and she’d be ready to take over.

  “Miki?” Mac prompted Agent Makimi.

  The agent delicately rubbed her brow. Only a fool would underestimate the woman or the agent. “I searched ViCAP for similar crimes.” Her cheeks bunched as she pressed her lips together. “Lots
of potential connections, but nothing solid. None using the same weapon Agent Harm identified, which would have been flagged by NIBIN.”

  “How similar are the crimes?” Mac asked.

  “Potential hate targets as determined by race, religion or sexuality. Shot in quiet locations with no real fanfare. No witnesses. The casings weren’t always picked up, but there were a couple of incidents where the brass was removed. One double homicide suggests the killer did not want any witnesses. Looks as if a young guy stumbled upon the shooting of an Arab male and got a bullet in the head for his trouble.”

  “Any vics in DC?”

  She smiled. “That would be too easy. Memphis. Phoenix. Seattle. New Haven.”

  “Check with the local FBI or police stations. Find out if they can tell you anything about the crimes that might provide linkage. Any clue, specifically DNA or witness statements not listed on ViCAP.”

  “It’s unusual to have a lone offender who doesn’t want to revel in the glory of what they’ve done,” the hate crimes lady said.

  Mac agreed. “Usually they are so vainglorious they turn themselves in if the police don’t catch them fast enough, but this killer doesn’t look like he or she is going to stop. They’re on a mission.” He locked eyes with the woman, for once not in dispute. “Any other hate groups pop up on the radar?”

  She and her partner exchanged a look. “Everything is pointing to this being related to David Hines’s Pioneers group formerly out of Kodiak Compound, Idaho. We are looking deeper at people who were there or suspected of being affiliated or sympathetic to them.”

  “Could someone be deliberately misleading us to make us think it’s the Pioneers?” Mac asked. And he’d be lying if he wasn’t hoping he could spare Tess the scrutiny this would get her when the press made the connection, which would be any minute now.

  Hate crimes lady smiled. “You’re the one who was at the compound yesterday with David Hines’s daughter. What do you think?”

  That reminded him. He dug in his jacket pocket, tossed Walsh the recording from the meeting between Tess and Eddie. “Tess Fallon hadn’t visited her brother in twenty years but agreed to talk to him and wear a wire once I informed her that her sister, Ellie, was four months pregnant at the time of her death.” So what if he was being a little ambiguous about the timeline to make Tess look better? Tess was not the killer. “The pregnancy meant someone in the compound was having sex with Ellie Hines.”

  “Duh,” said Walsh.

  “And,” he sent a quelling look to the peanut gallery, “as she was David Hines’s daughter, and the Pioneers revered the guy and were even more terrified of his wife, I was pretty sure back then that Ellie was a victim of incest. I asked the ME to run tests during the autopsy and they confirmed a sibling fathered Ellie’s baby. That information was never released to the media or the courts. DA didn’t press charges. Walt was dead. Eddie was already doing a long stretch.”

  “The younger sister didn’t know the older one was being sexually abused?” Hate crimes guy pushed.

  Mac remembered the pain he’d seen in Tess’s eyes when she’d figured it out. “No, she didn’t. Eddie went for her at the end of visiting. She was lucky to escape relatively unscathed.” His mouth went dry again at the reminder of how close she’d come to dying.

  “You sure she’s not playing you, boss?” Walsh said.

  Mac forced a shrug. Knew if Walsh voiced it, others must be thinking it. “I’m just telling you what I know from my undercover days at the compound and what I saw at the prison yesterday. I believe her, but we’ll do this by the book. I want someone investigating her activities so everything is on record. You,” he pointed at Walsh because he trusted the guy. Tess would hate him if she knew. He thought of the books on her ereader. Her desire for privacy. “Listen to that recording of the prison interview carefully. I’m pretty sure there are clues on it, but I got distracted when Eddie attacked her. Also,” he pointed to Carter. “Tess thinks both Eddie and her father had a girlfriend. Eddie’s girlfriend was a girl called Brandy who I suspect he’s been in touch with. Agents from Coeur d’Alene are trying to track her down. I want you and Walsh going through my old case notes for possible suspect names. Also search for clues regarding any potential females in David Hines’s life.”

  “You think our killer could be a woman?” Carter asked.

  “Why not?” Agent Makimi said angrily. “Any idiot can fire a handgun.”

  Miki was a firm believer in equality.

  “That’s cold,” Carter responded, not dropping her gaze.

  “It’s cold no matter who pulls the trigger,” Mac agreed.

  Mac thought back to Tess’s meeting with Eddie and what she might have said to the guy that had given her away. “Listen to the interview. Tell me what you think. And see how the marshals are doing catching that asshole.” Mac remembered something else. “Eddie suggested he was nailing one of the prison guards during his chat with Tess, but that might have been bravado. Make sure you give that info to the marshals, too. He also threatened to track Tess down and kill her.” His gut clenched at the exact phrasing. “Probably jailhouse bragging, but you never know with psychopaths, especially stupid ones.” Especially when they then escaped from prison.

  Walsh made a note of it. “Want protection on her?”

  Mac nodded. “Get a patrol car on her street.” He wanted Tess safe and although he didn’t believe Eddie would make it this far he couldn’t afford to discount the danger she faced. Tess would hate the extra attention a security detail would bring her, but she probably already hated him anyway. So be it.

  “For the record, I don’t think Tess Fallon is involved in the murders but she is connected somehow. We appear to have a conspiracy going with the involvement of Henry Jessop and links to the Pioneers. Computer consultant at BAU examined Tess’s online activity and didn’t find anything suspicious. Same consultant put some wunderkind on identifying the users of the One-Drop-2-Many chatroom on the dark web.”

  Hernandez dropped her pen on her notepad with a flourish. “Impossible.”

  Mac allowed himself a small smile. “Apparently, the kid is a genius and we have nothing to lose by giving it a go. I want someone here doing in-depth background on the younger brother, Cole. Tess claims he doesn’t know who his parents are, but someone else might have told him without her knowledge. Atherton.” The agent looked up from perusing his notes. “You go interview his college professors. I want warrants for his phones, email and all internet activity. Let’s keep it on the down low. These people deserve to be treated with respect until we find evidence that suggests they are involved. Cole was just an infant at the time of his parents’ death, but Tess definitely suffered enough when she was growing up.” He forced the image of her running out of that damn barn from his mind. His knuckles throbbed in memory. Walt hadn’t accepted his education lightly. Mac had enjoyed every fucking moment of teaching the guy to keep his hands off his own kid sister.

  “Next. Henry Jessop. Who’s working on him?”

  A row of hands went up. An agent confirmed the calls to the burner Parker had mentioned. “I want you tracking the purchase of those two cell phones and figure out if the same buyer bought more. Maybe we can track SIM cards. Where, when, who and how did they pay for them, these people must have messed up somehow.”

  Right now, they were making law enforcement run in circles pecking at crumbs.

  The agents provided more background on Jessop, but the guy had never been in trouble with the law and unlike most antigovernment types always paid his taxes on time.

  “What about his family?” Mac asked.

  Hernandez answered. “Wife died five years ago. Daughter was killed in a car accident almost twenty years ago.”

  Mac frowned and shook his head. “Jessop made it sound like she was alive and well. What about the grandson?”

  She blinked. “What grandson?”

  Mac paced. This didn’t add up. “At dinner last night, he mentioned a daughter wh
o lived out east. He had a photograph stuck to his fridge of a little boy holding a woman’s hand.”

  “Maybe their deaths pushed him over the edge into delusion?” the analyst suggested.

  Mac frowned. “It’s possible he lost his mind. He did set fire to his house twenty minutes after serving the best beef stew I’ve ever tasted.” He smoothed his tie as he pictured the inside of that house and all the things bothering him. “The downstairs bedroom, where I found the computer belonged to a teen. I’d say a male from the color scheme and bedding. I saw razors in the bathroom and Jessop had a beard older and uglier than I am.”

  “Could the razors have belonged to the wife when she was alive?”

  “Nah, they were guy razors.”

  “Not wimpy girl razors,” Miki grouched under her breath.

  He hid his grin. Making Makimi mad was one of the many things he liked about working with her. The woman had come over from Japan as a child and totally embraced the feminist movement.

  “Exactly. Now I’m not saying male razors are better than female razors, they’re just different.”

  She leveled him with a glare.

  “It’s hinky.” He pointed a finger at Hernandez. “I want you digging deeper into Jessop’s background, much deeper. Check local school enrollment, ask the local cops and Feds for information. Ask if the agent out of Pocatello will interview the ranch hands about the rest of Jessop’s family members. Find out what the Feds managed to salvage from the house after the fire. I don’t believe his daughter and grandson died twenty years ago. They could be involved in these murders. I want them found.”

  “What made you go to the compound?” hate crimes guy asked.

  “I was literally driving within ten miles of the place and figured it couldn’t hurt. I assumed it would have been torn down. Some of the buildings were gone, but the main cabin and barn are still there. Jessop told us he’d fixed up the cabin and rented it out—without the owner’s permission. Jessop said he hoped Eddie would move in after he was released.” Which would now be a long time coming, assuming they ever recaptured the guy.