Black Bird

by Greg Enslen

  Tony Drayton came to a Homicide report filed yesterday at around 3:30 and frowned. Odd, the 8 to 4 guy yesterday should have read this and forwarded it on to the right people - it was the oldest message in the list, right down there at the bottom. Tony double-clicked on it to bring the message up in its own little window.

  “Homicide: From Florida State office, Tallahassee. Case Agent Sims reported recovery from coma of Sally Townsend, victim of AH, in local hospital TALLAHASSEE COUNTY GENERAL. Subject is sole witness to H of State Police Officer Daniels, Tyrel (D) on September 10. Subject woke briefly and said ‘Going to Liberty’. Bulletin Board GeoSearch showed town of Liberty, Virginia with recent H on September 18. CA Sims felt there might be some kind of connection. Reference numbers 1853457, 1958439, and 5464325.”

  Tony read the report and wondered what it meant. It was the last report he needed to review and he could afford to linger on it. He’d remembered reading in the Daily Bulletin a couple weeks back about that cop killing and the AH or Attempted Homicide of the college girl they’d found at the scene, and Tony was pleased to hear the girl had recovered. But what did this part about ‘Going to Liberty’ mean? Case Agent Sims had evidently found it curious enough to do a GeoSearch and locate the town, and then had gone on to pull up the town’s criminal records from the FBI main database. An unsolved homicide in the same location from only a few days ago was interesting.

  The first thing he needed to do was to see if anyone else was already working on this before sending it up for investigation.

  Tony minimized the Inbox program and pulled up another from the main screen of icons. This program worked with some very confidential information, and he had to input his name and several passwords before he could access the system.

  He was in a portion of the FBI’s mainframe that charted and tracked every ongoing investigation and agent assignment. The locations of many of the agency’s people was strictly confidential, and that called for a very high level of electronic security. One of the nightmares of the techs down in the Computer Room in the basement was that a hacker would somehow find a way inside this or one of a hundred other confidential files, and that was why the massive encrypted passwording system had been implemented.

  He entered the location name of “Liberty” and punched ENTER. If anyone, field agents or analysts, was investigating something in any place with that name, it would come up, unless the investigation was of a higher security level than Tony had access to - he was cleared pretty high up, but not all the way. If that were the case, someone would recognize the name higher up the chain and pass the information along to the right people.

  After a few seconds, a message came up.

  Liberty Search Results

  September 23 - Agent Julie Noble (working in Analyst capacity) to complete routine interview with Jenkins, Norma in relation to H of Lisa Stevens (5464325) of September 18. Interview to occur in Liberty, Virginia, at subject’s residence and convenience. Contact Mike Wallace at x4523

  Someone, an agent Tony had never heard of, had gone down yesterday to question someone in their local homicide case, the same day the message had come in. Did that mean she’d been sent out because of the message, or was she already gone when it came in? The 8-4 guy yesterday might’ve forwarded the message and forgotten to delete it, which made the most sense, but Tony had to check it out.

  He reached for his phone, trying the FBI HQ extension first and getting no answer. He listened through the message, which gave Tony the man’s home phone number, which he dialed next.

  “Hello?”

  “Good Morning. I’m looking for Mr. Wallace. This is Tony at the Situation Desk.”

  “I’m Mike Wallace.”

  “Good morning, sir. Sorry to bother you at home, but I have a report here that you might’ve already heard, and I need to confirm.”

  There was a pause on the other end, like he was reaching was paper and pen. “Okay, shoot.”

  Tony read him the contents of the message from the Inbox, but he couldn’t help but hear the sudden intake of breath from the man on the other end of the phone. After Tony was done, he waited for a response, but it was a long time in coming.

  “And you say this came in yesterday afternoon?”

  Tony nodded, a force of habit even though he knew the guy couldn’t see him. “Yes, sir. Just before 4:00 p.m.”

  “So why am I just getting it now? I was there until 6 last night.”

  Tony swallowed.

  “Well, evidently the people working yesterday didn’t think it was that important.”

  Mike Wallace made a disgusted sound that Tony could easily hear. “Well, I’d hate to see what they thought was important. Okay, I sent the agent out to do a routine interview, but now it appears that the situation might be more serious than that. Can you send me a copy of your Inbox entry and the number of that agent in Florida? And when this is all finished I’ll have a word with your supervisor about getting better people down there to work with you. Good job - this could be very important.”

  Tony thanked him and hung up, eager to send him the e-mail and be done with it. The man had sounded very upset that the message had not been delivered sooner, and Tony wanted to get it to him as fast as possible.

  Mike Wallace, cursing under his breath, booted up his home computer and logged onto the secure FBI E-mail net, reading the message and shaking his head.

  It could all mean nothing, but the words ‘Liberty’ was starting to pop up more and more, and it was starting to worry him. Julie Noble and her crazy theory that all of those murders could be connected had intrigued him, but he’d felt that it wouldn’t go anywhere. But she’d been excited about her findings and eager to interview the Jenkins woman about her involvement in the original case, and he’d felt that it couldn’t hurt - the worst thing she could do would be to improve her interviewing skills and maybe turn up some information that would destroy her flimsy theory. And it would give her a little taste of fieldwork, something the newbies were always itching for – even it was routine, at least they were out there doing something instead of riding a desk.

  But this message from Florida threw things into a whole new light. Assuming this guy was still out there, it was conceivable that he could’ve killed that cop in Florida - there had been some mention of mutilation of the corpse and even missing pieces, which fit Julie’s pattern. And the girl found half-dead at the scene, she’d spent several days in the killer’s company. What if Julie’s guy had mentioned the name of the town where he was headed, and what if the girl had picked up on it? Why else would her first words out of coma be the name of a tiny town she’d presumably never heard of? The connections were starting to look more and more possible.

  Then there was the kid in South Carolina, the one with the missing leg. It was a straight shot up the I-95, and that would be on his way to Liberty.

  And if Julie’s guy had returned to Liberty, then Julie was in trouble. She was a rookie, newly trained and not even close to being ready to deal with this kind of maniac, someone who had eluded the best and brightest policemen across the country.

  Mike Wallace had some phone calls to make. Most of the people would be at home, but it didn’t matter.

  Julie slept in and showered, happy to have made it in last night to a warm room, even it was only a Motel 6. Last night’s drive into town had been hazardous, and she had congratulated herself a hundred times for deciding to come down Friday night instead of waiting until Saturday morning - the way things were going last night, she didn’t think she could’ve made it. The waters had been rising pretty fast, and it wouldn’t have surprised her to hear that there was flooding along parts of the roads she had driven last night.

  She ate a quick breakfast at the Denny’s across the street from the Motel and headed over to Norma Jenkin’s house. It was only a few miles across town to her home, but the rain was so heavy, it still took her almost a half hour.

  The house was a small one, and the woman who answered the d
oor was small, too - to Julie, Norma Jenkins looked like she needed about two weeks off from life. Her shoulders were hunched and her hands seemed always to be touching her stomach, or brushing against it somehow, as if she were unconsciously protecting it, like a pregnant woman might. The strange crookedness of her nose detracted from what might’ve otherwise been a pretty face. She invited Julie in, after asking to see her identification, and went off to make some tea, and Julie got the impression that Norma Jenkins was very nervous about talking to her.

  Julie could hear her bustling around in the kitchen, working up the boiling water and clinking cups together.

  “Sugar?” Norma asked from the other room.

  “Please.” Julie opened her imitation leather briefcase and started laying out her reports and maps, and when Norma brought in the tea and sat down, she took her tea and sipped at it. “Mmm, that’s good. And it hits the spot,” Julie said, nodding out the window.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty bad out there.”

  Julie waited, but it didn’t look like Norma was comfortable enough to just start making conversation, so she dove right into it.

  “Well, I came down here from D.C. to talk to you about what happened here this week, but I’m also curious about what happened back in 1978. You are one of the few remaining people who I can talk to about this, and I was just wondering if you can give me any more information about the killer than what’s in these files,” she said, sweeping her hand over the files she’d spread out on Norma’s coffee table.

  Norma looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she leaned forward to pour herself another cup of tea. Julie noticed that her hand was shaking as she poured.

  “Miss Jenkins, I can assure you that I’m not dredging up all of this out of pure curiosity. I’ve been studying the files on your town’s past, and I think I might have found a connection between him and a series of murders out west.”

  Julie set her cup down and handed Norma one of the color maps of the Black Diamond Killer’s murderous handiwork.

  Norma looked at Julie for a long moment before looking down at the map but didn’t seem to concentrate on it, and after a second she looked up at Julie with a confused look on her face.

  Julie took the map from her hands and began pointing at it. “These colored dots represent a series of murders in the Seattle Washington area in the early 1980’s. The killer was known as the Black Diamond Killer, and many agencies and officers spent a lot of time and money trying to catch him, but they never did. And I think that your Jasper Fines was the same person responsible for these killings in Seattle, and many others across the nation.”

  Julie noticed that Norma seemed to shiver when she’d said his name, but now she studied the map with renewed interest. “And these colors, they’re the years?” Norma asked, indicating the legend at the bottom. Her voice was shaky.

  “Right.”

  Norma studied it longer, then handed it back. “What's the connection?”

  “Well, I know that as a member of the original investigative unit for the homicides here, you knew that the bodies of the victims were found to be missing...parts of their bodies. Is that right?”

  Norma nodded, a hand drifting unconsciously to her midsection. Julie wondered if she even noticed it, the way her hands went to the source of her pain.

  “Well, the Black Diamond Killer followed the same m.o. as your Jasp...as your Killer did. There were parts of each of those victims missing, also. I think that he might be a special type of serial killer, the kind we call a ‘collector’.”

  Norma nodded. “Because he takes part of his victims."

  “Right. The FBI has just purchased a powerful new computer system, and I was assigned to use it to search for something to test its abilities. I had just read about ‘collectors’, and began a search of unsolved nationwide murders where the bodies were found but were missing some small part. After several days of trial and error, I got the computer to sort out the cases that couldn’t have been committed by the same person, and that’s what brought me here. The Killer here in Liberty could be the same person as the one in Seattle and St. Louis and a dozen other places across the country. If so, he could be the most prolific, and most successful, serial killer ever.”

  Julie wasn’t sure exactly what kind of response she had expected, but what came next she had not been prepared for at all. After Julie finished telling her about what she’d been doing for the past two weeks, Norma broke out into tears, crying loudly and hitching her shoulders before getting up and heading off into the back of the house.

  A few moments later she heard what sounded like the sounds of someone throwing up.

  Julie and Norma talked for two hours, each telling the other about their experiences and intuitions about the case of Jasper Fines. Julie learned some information that had not be included in the original files, but none of it changed her opinion about the identity of the Killer. She had learned from Norma that Sheriff Beaumont had been a very smart man and obviously one Norma had respected, from the way she talked about him. Norma had, with difficulty, gone through the whole story again, especially the last night out there on I-95, and when she’d told Julie about holding Beaumont’s head in her lap as she watched the red lights of the Killer’s car as he drove away, Julie started to understand why the woman was so upset - she’d obviously grown to love the man, and then he’d died there in her arms. She’d laid there and done nothing, she told Julie, as that man had shot Beaumont in the face, and the guilt had wracked her body every day since.

  And Julie thought she might’ve heard something else. Ever since Julie had told her that the Killer might’ve gone on to kill many more people, Norma had been even quieter. If she had been feeling guilty before, this news would kill her. Being in some way responsible for the death of hundreds of people was not an easy thing to learn about - if any of it was true.

  Julie told Norma about the string of unsolved murders she had uncovered that seemed to follow the same m.o., and Norma looked at the reports as Julie had explained what all the information meant. Norma had nodded and asked intelligent, insightful questions, after her initial reaction to the news had faded, and between the two of them there seemed to be a connection. Julie could see the ex-policeman in Norma Jenkins’ eyes as she pored over the reports and pointed out interesting ‘coincidences’.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked Norma after their conversation had slowed.

  She was slow to respond, still staring at the reports. Julie could not imagine how the woman might feel, especially if this all turned out to be true. If she had killed Jasper Fines that night so long ago, how many people would still be alive? “Well, you make a good argument that the same psycho has been traveling the country for decades, chopping up people, but I’ve got one more question - if he’s never been caught, where is he now?”

  Julie looked at Norma carefully, and saw that in her mind Norma already felt she knew the answer to her question. They’d avoided all of this in their earlier conversation, discussing only the historical facts of the different cases. Julie had a couple of ideas, but nothing solid, and she told Norma the same.

  “What ideas?” Norma asked, a little mischievously.

  “Well,” Julie stammered, “he could’ve been picked up on a lesser charge and be doing time, or he might have died of natural causes or been killed. They say that people who live in a violent world have a better chance of dying in a violent way.”

  “Or...?”

  Julie looked at her. “Well, I dunno. If he’s not in jail or dead, then I guess it’s conceivable that he could still be out there...”

  She stopped when she saw Norma nodding her head, but put up her hands. “No, I know what you’re thinking, and it’s crazy. You’ve had a murder here, but thinking he’s involved is two steps past crazy. I mean, why would he come back here, after all these years?”

  Norma excused herself for a moment and left the room, and when she came back she was holding an old brown folder and a si
ngle piece of paper. She sat down and handed the old file to Julie, who took it gingerly and looked at it. “That is Beaumont’s original case file, and I’ve spent the past couple of days reading it. There are a lot of similarities to what’s going on right here, right now, in Liberty.”

  Julie carefully flipped through it. She had seen computerized scans of all of these pages on her computer screen back in D.C., but these looked like the originals - or maybe they were copies and the originals were in the case file stored somewhere by the local police department. Either way, as far as she could tell from glancing at each page, it contained no new information except for a few handwritten notes, which she read with interest.

  But there were strange stains on some of the pages.

  “What are these stains?”

  Norma shook her head. “I’m not sure, but to me it looks a lot like blood. And what you said earlier wasn’t right. Not A murder, THREE murders.”

  Julie leaned forward, setting the file on her table along with the rest of the paperwork. “What?”

  “Lisa Stevens was killed on Sunday night and found on Tuesday morning. On Monday night, two other people died, and the talk around town and on the police force is Homicide, even though the deaths are still being officially listed as accidental. Do you know who they were, or how they died?”

  Julie shook her head, confused. She hadn’t heard anything on the news or in the papers about any other deaths in Liberty. It was starting to get dangerous in this little town.

  Norma was shaking her head too. “I didn’t think so. The bodies of Abe Foreman and Gloria Thatcher were found on Tuesday night at her home when he failed to join friends of his for a regular dinner engagement. Now, Gloria Thatcher was Beaumont’s sister-in-law, and when Grace Beaumont died in childbirth, Gloria raised Beaumont’s son, David.”