by Gary Starta
Shenk seized the opportunity to turn the tables on his sick interrogator. The seventeen-year-old grabbed the poker away from Jones as if he were taking a toy away from a toddler.
The first thrust of the hot iron sent Jones sprawling to the floor. He squealed like a pig on a slaughter day. Writhing on his back, Jones pleaded for mercy. But Shenk would give no quarter.
Repeated stabs into Jones’ midsection splayed blood all over Shenk and the sofa behind him. Shenk felt like he had stepped outside his body. He watched himself send the big man into neverland. He continued to hover, watching Jones’ life force exit. In this same instant, Shenk’s crystal pendant cast a beam of light onto Jones’ chest. The light did not resuscitate Jones; it simply branded his still warm flesh. Charlie Jones would die sporting an arrow-shaped tattoo over his heart.
The pig had been poked, and Shenk had been stoked.
Chapter 2
Special Agent Deondra Rivers reminded FBI Assistant Director Andrew Dudek of the actress Halle Berry. Holding Rivers’ file picture in one hand, Dudek brought his mug of coffee up to his lips with the other. The assistant director hesitated before sipping the steaming Columbian brew. But it wasn’t the temperature of the beverage that gave him pause. “The resemblance is stunning,” Dudek chuckled softly to himself. “She’s a dead ringer for Berry.”
Dudek realized his personal commentaries about Deondra Rivers weren’t going to win him any points with FBI Director Connah Hainsworth. “Oh well, screw him,” Dudek almost blurted aloud to the four oak-paneled walls of his Washington DC office. Hainsworth had been on Dudek’s back all week about the importance of moving Rivers up from the Pittsburgh field office to bureau headquarters. The director did not hesitate to allude to the underlying meaning of Rivers’ promotion. “We need a bright, young agent to fill the shoes of Special Agent Diggs,” Hainsworth told Dudek via e-mail.
“Why does Hainsworth have it out for Caitlin? Caitlin Diggs has already given the bureau fifteen outstanding years of service. She’s on a leave of absence, so what? She’s not the first agent to take some time off to clear her head.”
The running dialog in Dudek’s head would have spoken volumes to a psychiatrist. Andrew had not only referred to the veteran agent by first name, but also hinted that he was battling a guilty conscience. He himself had planted the idea of a leave in Caitlin’s head.
Something else nagged at him and sent a chill into both his spirit and his beverage. He had kept a secret from Caitlin, a woman whom he considered a top-notch special agent as well as a close and personal friend. He went to a bathroom adjacent to his office and flushed the rest of his coffee into the sink—a symbolic gesture. He desperately needed to clear his head of all thoughts about Diggs and the past. Holding his arms out like chicken wings, Dudek arched his back and let out a sigh.
He reentered his office just in time to hear the intercom buzz. His secretary announced Rivers was in the waiting area. He straightened his tie and requested the secretary to show Rivers in immediately.
The twenty-six-year-old special agent stepped into the room exuding confidence and professionalism. Extending her hand to Dudek, she told him what a pleasure it was to meet him. All Dudek could do was proffer a boyish grin and a slight stammer. “Ahhh…likewise, Special Agent Rivers. Please take a seat.”
She was dressed in a forest green blazer with her hair tied back. Dudek had to catch himself from calling her “Agent Berry.”
“Sir, if you want to tell me how much I look like Halle Berry, please go right ahead. Everybody else does.”
“At least we have that out of the way,” Dudek replied in a lame attempt to redirect the conversation. Andrew took his seat after Rivers and proceeded to launch into a monologue. He sounded like he was reading from a press release. “The bureau is proud to welcome you to DC. We feel you will be making a very positive contribution to our investigative team. Your unique approach to profiling will provide the bureau with a greater understanding of the criminal mind.”
“I am flattered, sir. I will do my best to live up to your expectations.”
“I am sure you will, Agent Rivers. You will be working with veteran Special Agent Caitlin Diggs who is returning to the bureau after a short leave of absence.”
If Rivers had ears like a dog, they would have pricked up. She did not fail to catch a tone of uncertainty in the assistant director’s voice. She also found it peculiar that his cheeks were flush red despite the freezing cold blast from the air conditioning duct.
Rivers paid very close attention to Dudek’s body language. Visual cues had allowed her to correctly deduce Dudek had been preoccupied with her appearance just moments before. Rivers prided herself on making these kinds of on-the-spot evaluations with suspects. She never imagined she would have to employ these skills with her superiors, yet here she was doing it on day one. One move by the assistant director had sabotaged his otherwise calm demeanor—he had scratched his fingernails against his cheek when he recited Agent Diggs’ name. This nervous gesture caused Rivers to silently wonder what Dudek was really thinking. And why was Diggs on leave in the first place?
Rivers did not feel at liberty to start an inquisition, so she patiently sat in her seat with her hands folded across her lap.
The assistant director had turned his attention to an open manila folder on his desk. Dudek flipped through several pages, which detailed the agent’s work history. He nodded his head intermittently as if he was conversing with the folder. Dudek told Rivers he was quite pleased with her arrest record as well as her use of biochemistry in criminal profiling. Dudek closed the folder abruptly and rose from his black leather chair, anxious to end the meeting before Rivers had a chance to ask any questions about her new partner.
“I’m sure you’ll make a great addition to our team, Agent Rivers. Why don’t you spend the remainder of the weekend settling into your new apartment? I will contact you as soon as I have a case for you.”
Rivers leapt up from her chair with a puzzled look on her face. “Sir, does this mean Agent Diggs will be returning to work?”
“Yes it does. Now if you’d like a tour of our building, I can arrange that for you.” He pressed the intercom button on his phone and asked the secretary to show Rivers out.
“That won’t be necessary, sir. Thanks again for the promotion.” Rivers turned to go. She sensed Dudek’s curtness had been intentional. She surmised that it had to with Diggs. Rivers’ physical survival in the job would depend upon the mental competence of her partner. As she walked out of the office, she wondered if this Caitlin Diggs would have her back when push came to shove.
The door closed behind Rivers with a heavy thud. She left the assistant director’s office with a little less self-assurance than she had walked in with.
The internal dialog began to churn in Dudek’s head again. He hated to be short with the new agent, but Hainsworth had implicitly ordered him not to provide an account of how Diggs’ last partner died. For that matter, Hainsworth didn’t even want Rivers to be partnered with Diggs.
But Dudek had gone to bat for Caitlin, arguing the bureau couldn’t afford to lose someone like Agent Diggs. Hainsworth acquiesced, but it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart. “Just make sure Agent Diggs’ future performance continues to be exemplary because your job is on the line if it isn’t.”
One ounce of doubt was all Hainsworth needed to turn tail on his most loyal employees. The only two things that mattered to Hainsworth were results and the public opinion of the bureau itself. Hainsworth’s doubt now cast shadows into Dudek’s mind as well. He would go home and experience another sleepless night, wondering if Diggs would fully recover from the death of her former partner Geoffrey McAllister.
Chapter 3
Caitlin Diggs had been taken hostage by a dream. In the dream, a wire had compromised FBI Special Agent Geoffrey McAllister’s true identity. He had worn the undercover device to apprehend two members of a terrorist cell. Acting on a tip from Homeland Security,
McAllister introduced himself as a weapons smuggler and a friend of the people of Kuwait. McAllister offered the suspects the promise of automatic rifles in exchange for money.
At Hainsworth’s suggestion, McAllister arranged a meeting with the men on Florida’s southeast coastline. The FBI could only fill in the blanks as to what transpired next, but the sting could not have ended any worse—especially for Caitlin.
Caitlin’s dream placed her right alongside her partner. She was in a Dade County warehouse and somehow knew all the details of the sting without ever being briefed. The two suspects apparently did not detect her presence. Neither of them even glanced in her direction.
Diggs suspected the potential buyers were suspicious about the meeting from the beginning. How did McAllister fail to see this?
“Geoff, abort the mission.” Diggs repeated this phrase several times right in front of the suspected terrorists. They glanced around the room with eyes full of suspicion, but they could not tell where this voice was coming from. McAllister continued to act as if nothing was wrong. Diggs reached for Geoffrey’s arm to try to shake some sense into him, her hand glided through his body as if he was an apparition.
“We have the money for you right now,” one man said.
“So where’s the weapons?” the other man asked, clearly annoyed.
Agent McAllister dug his hand into his jacket to retrieve his semiautomatic pistol.
He fumbled for the gun, allowing the men to see a wire protruding from his shirt. The men were all over McAllister like flies on honey. Diggs was forced to watch the two men kick and beat her partner into a bloody pulp.
The dream ended, but the living nightmare would continue.
Like her peers, Caitlin Diggs really had no idea what went down on that hot day in Miami. But her subconscious desperately wanted to fill in the blanks. So dreams filled her sleep nearly every single night. And although the details of the dreams may have been fudged by Caitlin’s inquisitive subconscious, the endings were not. Geoffrey McAllister’s severely beaten body had indeed been discovered in a Florida dumpster just like in her dreams.
The FBI surveillance team on standby in a nearby van could not intervene quickly enough to prevent McAllister’s death or apprehend his killers. Consequently, investigators were left to wonder exactly how the suspects identified McAllister as a federal agent. Diggs had been left to wonder this as well.
It was an understatement to say Diggs was having a hard time putting McAllister’s execution out of her mind. As an investigator trained to follow through on a case, a loose end was not acceptable. Especially when that loose end cost you your partner and more importantly—a new love interest.
Caitlin lost count of how many versions of these dreams she had been forced to endure in the last five weeks. A leave of absence did not alter this fact. She realized she would be haunted by Geoffrey’s death whether she was working or whether she was visiting her sister in Anaheim, California.
Caitlin secretly hoped A.D. Dudek would interrupt her respite, demanding her re-instatement. So far that call had not come.
Walks along the shores of Long Beach did little to calm her frayed nerves. No matter how serene the setting, the culmination of nightfall would result in disturbed sleep and night sweats.
To make matters worse, Caitlin’s younger sister, Tara, was not exactly a port in the storm. The twenty-six-year-old had no clue what “stability” or “career path” meant.
The only things dependable about Tara were her frequent cries for help. Caitlin would be the first to admit she herself had no handle on relationships, but at least she had a career—a purpose in life. Tara lacked both. The younger sibling never committed to relationships and rarely had a regular income. The latter resulted in Tara’s constant appeals to Caitlin for what she called “loans.”
“All I need is a startup loan, Sis,” Tara would say. She would hit up Caitlin for these “startup loans” every one or two months. To date, Diggs had never seen a penny from any of Tara’s surefire business ventures. For Caitlin, Tara’s “sure things” always translated into “sure failures” for her bankbook. Tara seemed none the worse for wear no matter how much of her sister’s money she threw down the drain.
“See Sis, I can bounce back from failure. Those who never try, can never fail,” she would preach to Caitlin’s conscience each time the elder sibling attempted to deny her a loan.
Sisterhood wasn’t the only reason Caitlin was willing to suffer the consequences of Tara’s schemes—Tara provided a buffer between Caitlin and their parents. Diggs purposely chose to spend her vacation time with Tara in Orange County rather than with their parents in San Francisco. The Bay Area was a very volatile region for Caitlin, not because of its geographical fault lines, but because of her parents’ insistence that she retire from police work altogether.
“How can you consider going back to the job that resulted in the death of your future husband?” her mother would plead via cell phone.
Caitlin cringed when her mother made assumptions, especially in the romance department. Clara Diggs had been confident that Geoffrey McAllister would have been her daughter’s future husband. The thirty-seven-year-old agent had not come close to marriage with any of her past boyfriends. What made her relationship with Geoffrey any different? Maybe it was because Caitlin could never entirely refute her mother’s premonition. With Geoffrey dead, Caitlin could never say for certain whether their affair would have taken them down the aisle.
Tara interrupted Caitlin’s argument with her conscience. She needed another startup loan. Her plan: to engrave inspirational messages onto ceramic ashtrays.
Chapter 4
“Did your father ever receive any threats against his life?”
The question came from Suzie Cheng, host of the cable television news show, American Murders. The news anchor pounced at the opportunity to interview the daughter of Charlie Jones, the Oklahoma man who had been brutally killed with a fireplace poker two days ago. Cheng told her audience she was helping America capture a sadistic killer, but her conscience knew better—she was really helping herself to a large share of Neilson ratings.
Anna Beth Jones mulled Cheng’s question over and over in her mind even though Elk City detectives had posed this question several times during the last forty-eight hours. Anna Beth was the brown-haired girl in the picture who wore the lime green sweater and a sour expression. The girl’s attire seemed to be the only thing that had been altered from the photo. Today she sported an orange blouse, but her expression remained dour and indifferent just like the photo.
Police had interviewed Anna Beth at the crime scene. Her father lay dead on the floor of the next room and not once did Anna Beth ask to see him. The investigators would soon learn the daughter was not really interested in the welfare of her family.
Suzie Cheng’s interest in interviewing Anna Beth was also roundabout. The news anchor remained indifferent as to whether or not Jones’ daughter mourned her father’s passing. Suzie was interested in the story because the phrase serial killer had entered into the equation. And the longer a serial killer was in the news, the better the ratings.
At the crime scene, one of the investigators had allowed a Tulsa Current reporter to overhear how Charlie Jones had been found with a brand mark on his chest. Someone at a news desk got the bright idea to label the perpetrator as the “Arrowhead Killer.”
Cheng had a keen sense for this kind of news. A kind of news many would describe as tabloid journalism. The conscience minded would not tune into this type of broadcast. Fortunately for Cheng, they were in the minority. Suzie Cheng achieved the highest cable ratings ever when she invited a mother and her triplets to talk about their murdered father. So what if Cheng exploited a grieving family? They were being paid for their time.
Cheng would not change her tact in the handling of this latest murder. She wore a gray suit on air to show she sympathized for the victim. However, Cheng’s engineer Jim Braxton knew her true agenda only too well.
He was aware of her lust for money and teased Suzie about her fashion sense. The gray, somber-looking suit could not deceive him.
Ever the one to ignore her detractors, Cheng advised her production team to continuously scroll the following across the screen: “America Hunts for the Arrowhead Killer.” She explained to Jim that the message would really give the program the immediacy it needs. Jim grumbled.
But Cheng had an easy answer for Jim or anyone else who despised her tactics. The one-line bumper sticker that adorned her gold BMW said it all: “You can’t let shame get in the way of fame.”
True to her form, Cheng also suggested the interview be conducted on a split screen. This allowed her to show viewers her “deep concern” for Anna Beth. She had practiced looking compassionate in the mirror the night before. She glanced at herself in a studio monitor and admired how her rehearsal had paid off. She even had herself believing she gave a damn about Charlie Jones.
On the flip side, Anna Beth Jones didn’t really care if Cheng, or anyone for that matter, mourned her father’s death. She had only traveled to visit her father to collect $1,700. Her father was holding the money so she wouldn’t blow it on clothes. Despite his drunkenness, Charlie wanted his daughter to continue her education. Yet, even if her father held the money for another ten years, Anna Beth would have probably never enrolled in school. Anna Beth believed she should use the money to take a well-earned vacation. After all, she had dealt with years of Charlie’s verbal abuse. That abuse sent Charlie’s wife, Jo Ann, scurrying into the night some years ago. Charlie never heard from her again. City detectives were hot to charge Anna Beth or her mother with Charlie’s murder, but eventually they concluded that neither woman possessed the upper torso strength to pull off such a vicious stabbing.
Anna Beth’s thoughts had returned to the crime scene, and after nearly two minutes of dead silence on live television, Anna Beth finally uttered a response to Cheng. Cheng explained to her viewers how the girl must be tongue-tied after such an experience, but then Cheng cast some sidelong glances at Anna Beth, silently reminding her that she had been reimbursed $1,700 in exchange for the interview. Anna Beth realized she owed the host an answer, so she gave one. Unfortunately for the viewers, it was a lie.
