by Gary Ruffin
Beaming, she asked, “How was it? Was it delicious?”
“Unbelievably so,” I said. “And the champagne wasn’t half bad either.”
“Very funny.”
Satisfied I wasn’t having a torrid affair with Cherry, Susan leaned back and relaxed, and we listened to the occasional whoop from the girls. We avoided the heaviness of what was going on around us, and talked about the most mundane things we could think of. But I couldn’t find any peace. Especially since I was wearing my Glock.
Susan said, “It’s a good thing you’re behavin’ yourself as far as Cherry’s concerned.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She stood and said, “It’s a good thing, because—if you did happen to stray, after Penny got through killin’ you, I’d dig you up and kill you again.”
I smiled, and said, “You really do love me, don’tcha?”
“Damn straight I do.”
68
FRIDAY-NIGHT SUPPER AT SUSAN FEAGIN’S TABLE IS ALWAYS SPECIAL, AND this one was no exception. Susan served up one of her classic meals, but for once in my life, my usually wide-open stomach was in a knot. All the ladies knew I eat a lot but they didn’t give me a hard time about it; they realized I felt the pressure of being responsible for their safety. Call it women’s intuition, or maybe better said, women’s sensitivity.
Susan had cooked a mammoth pot roast and several of her legendary side dishes. At least Cherry enjoyed it all, and Susan gained another devoted fan of her culinary skills. After supper, the Feagin girls got out the Scrabble board, and Cherry joined them on the living room floor for a game. After a close match won by Jill, they broke out the Monopoly set and played until Julie was declared the winner, after being jokingly accused of cheating by both of her sisters. Susan and I watched and kibitzed, and I checked the doors and windows at least twenty times. By then, the FBI agents were stationed outside, and I talked to them twice, and in general drove myself nuts. Guarding Cherry was a breeze compared to having to watch out for all the women in my charge that night.
At ten thirty or so, we all sprawled out on the huge sectional and watched a DVD that Joy had recently bought. There wasn’t a word said about watching TV, as everyone knew what a damper that could put on the evening if we happened to see a news flash about Cherry’s situation. I finally began to relax, and stopped pacing and checking and checking and pacing, and sat still to watch the flick.
The film was Cool Hand Luke, one of my all-time favorites. I was a little surprised that the three Feagin girls knew about it, but it turned out that Joy had discovered the charms of Paul Newman a few weeks earlier, and her new crush soon spread to each of her sisters. Susan and Cherry didn’t need to be enlightened or persuaded; they both had a thing for ol’ Paul. It was great to be normal for a while and before long I even felt good enough to sneak off to the kitchen and fix a gigantic pot-roast sandwich with potato chips and pickles on the side. Susan glanced at me when I returned with my foodstuffs, but Paul Newman was onscreen with his shirt off, so she paid me little attention, and for once didn’t give me grief for denying her the chance to feed me.
It was close to 1 A.M. when the movie ended, and I announced that bedtime was nigh, no ifs or ands. Joy, Jill, and Julie went upstairs within a reasonable amount of time with a minimum of bellowing, and I felt very proud of the three young beauties. Not once during the evening had they been anything but cheerful and good-natured. I’m sure they wanted to know how Cherry felt about all the madness surrounding her, but they didn’t ask questions or make nuisances of themselves. I was grateful for that, and I’m sure the fabulous Miss Page was too.
Susan had earlier made the guest room ready for Cherry, and she made up the sectional sofa for me after the girls went upstairs. She gave me a peck and retired to the downstairs bedroom, and the house was finally quiet. Maybe a little too quiet.
Every sound coming from outside made me twitch or jump, and I spent most of the night walking around, looking out windows, or trying to relax on the sofa, all with the lights on. I came up with all kinds of ideas and thoughts: Would someone close to me end up dead after all? What if the killer turned out to be a member of the cast or crew, like I had originally thought? What if Lyndon-Bowen, Cherry’s slick producer, was getting even with her because she repeatedly spurned his slimy advances? And what about the FBI agents outside? Could the killer be an FBI agent, somebody involved with the investigation, or a police officer? Maybe a lady agent—or officer—jealous of Cherry? Everybody was fair game as I worried my way through the long night.
And another question preyed on my mind: Did the killer really believe all this stuff about Baal, or was it just a clever way to throw everyone off the track? Or—was I the killer, and simply too far gone to realize it? Okay, most likely it wasn’t me, but I was running on fumes trying to figure out what was going on.
I finally dozed off around dawn, just like the night I had recently spent on watch at Penny’s cottage. Thankfully, the night passed without incident.
69
AT 10:52 SATURDAY MORNING, AN ANONYMOUS CALLER CONTACTED the Alpharetta Police Department and asked to speak to the person in charge. The slower tempo of a weekend morning at the station in the suburbs of Atlanta was about to change. The caller claimed to have vital information regarding the Computer Killer.
The call was directed to Alpharetta police chief Darren Daniels, who was home riding his lawn mower in his large backyard, trying to get the job done so he could get to Home Depot before lunch. There happened to be a big sale going on that included two items he needed, or at least wanted badly, and he was daydreaming about all the fancy woodworking he would do once he owned the tools in question.
He was jarred back to reality when Carla, his wife of sixteen years, called him to the phone. He resentfully turned off the mower and walked slowly over to the back porch to take the call, frowning all the way. Carla went back inside after handing Darren the phone, not even vaguely curious as to why her man was being summoned on his day off. After sixteen years, she was familiar with the life of a police officer.
Chief Daniels brought the phone up to his ear and snapped, “Yeah.” A strange, whispery voice greeted him, and Daniels covered his bare ear to try and better hear what was being said. It was difficult at first, but he focused and it soon became easier to understand. He listened intently for a few moments, and then said, “Who is this? This better not be some wild goose chase.”
The caller hung up, and Chief Daniels was faced with a decision: whether to take the call seriously. He decided he had no choice but to consider it authentic, and he quickly called the station back to alert them of the call, and to see if the owner could be traced. It was later determined that the caller had used a disposable cell phone, making a trace impossible.
Daydreams of leisurely navigating the aisles of Home Depot vanished suddenly, and Daniels quickly went inside to get his car keys. Moments later, he removed his daughter’s bike from behind his unmarked car in the driveway, and yelled at Carla to get the kids under control. He got in his car and headed for the location the caller had given him, uncomfortable in his dirty tee shirt and ripped shorts, cut grass clinging to his sweaty arms and legs.
He scratched at the itchy grass as he radioed the station and directed two backup cars to meet him at 2512 Flying Scot Way, a short drive from downtown Alpharetta. He knew the general area, but had never actually been on the road in question. A quick mental calculation had him arriving at the scene in less than ten minutes if traffic was not a problem. The roads were clear and the only difficulty he encountered was the sun hitting him in the eyes as he turned on to the main highway. He cursed the fact that he had forgotten his sunglasses, and pulled down the sun visor to block the blinding morning sun.
When he arrived at the location, Daniels pulled off the main thoroughfare on to a private dirt road that led to a secluded cabin, which stood next to a small man-made fishing pond. Stopping on the road after a few yards, he rolled down all the windo
ws, and smelled the rich scent of the woods pouring into the car. He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and surveyed the surroundings.
After a moment, he gently stepped on the accelerator and slowly motored down the old tree-covered road. The tires crunched rocks and twigs on the dirt path, and a squirrel scolded him from a nearby pine. When he was twenty yards from the cabin, he noticed that the front door was slightly open. He stopped the car, turned off the ignition, and waited for backup.
In a matter of minutes, four young male officers arrived in two cars, got out, and proceeded as chief Daniels ordered: two went around back, and two followed the chief, all with guns drawn. What they found once they finally entered the cabin would have been a bigger shock had they not been expecting something out of the ordinary.
Chief Daniels called the station and after a brief discussion, instructed dispatch to contact the FBI and the task force assigned to the Computer Killer case.
70
At TWELVE MINUTES AFTER NOON ON SATURDAY, SPECIAL AGENT JOHN Carver answered his cell, “Carver.”
A colleague and friend, FBI agent Craig Riley, said, “Hey, John. We hit pay dirt. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
“Good news? You can tell a pal.”
“It’s definitely good news. Get out here and see for yourself. I can show you as quick as I can tell you.”
Carver was instructed to report to an address in Alpharetta, which turned out to be a log cabin in a fairly remote section of woods. During the drive, Carver noticed for the first time that the trees had started to fill out, and realized how much the case had consumed his attention.
He was greeted by the local police chief, and escorted to the front room, which was now a bloody crime scene. Carver stuck his head in the door and took in the gruesome sight. He put on shoe covers, entered, and shook hands with a young FBI agent and his partner who were standing inside.
“Is the news as good as I think it is?” he asked.
The larger of the two agents said with a smile, “The news is excellent, sir.”
Carver looked around the cabin and saw a small man of Asian descent lying on his back in the front left corner of the room, a gun in his right hand. The man had been stabbed in the chest, and his white button-down shirt was covered in blood. Carver knew he had been stabbed because a huge hunting knife was imbedded in his chest to the hilt.
Ten feet away, along the left wall, the body of a slender Caucasian man lay facedown on the floor. Dressed in a western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, the body was close to a small table on which sat a computer. A gray cowboy hat sat several feet away, the front brim smeared with what appeared to be blood. More blood pooled under the man on the floor, and his back was a bloody mess. His right hand was out as if reaching for the computer keyboard.
Carver spotted Craig Riley by the back door and called, “See Riley, what’d I say? All week long, I’ve been telling anyone who would listen the killer would turn out to be an Asian male. Yep, that’s what I’ve been saying, an Asian was behind all this.”
Riley walked over, smiled, and whispered loudly, “Uh, John. It’s not the Asian guy. It’s the cowboy type.”
Carver asked, “Isn’t that what I just said? That for the past week I’ve been saying it would turn out to be a cowboy?”
Riley said with a straight face, “It’s all coming back to me, clear as a bell. Now that you mention it, I remember you said you’d stake your career on the fact that the killer was a cowboy type from right here in Atlanta, well over six feet, probably weighed about one eighty-five, was a Caucasian in his late thirties, and was gonna end up being found dead in a cabin in the woods. That’s what I remember, John.”
Carver said, “Kid, you’ve got a big career ahead of you. Mighty big.”
Riley chuckled, and said, “Okay, here’s what we have so far. The crime scene investigators found some hairs that Mr.”—he checked his notes—“Mr. Hideki Nakamura was clutching in his left hand. They figure the hairs will be a match for Mr. William J. Tingle, our Caucasian cowboy corpse. Mr. Tingle left some fine prints on the computer keyboard. He served in the military, so we had his name, rank, and serial number in no time. Kinda nice to catch a few breaks after all those other crime scenes being so clean.”
“They were spotless, all right,” Carver said.
Riley continued, “Looks like Tingle broke in and was setting up his identity on the instant messenger, and Nakamura came home unexpectedly and surprised him.”
“And you know this because?”
“Because all of the other victims were killed or restrained before the messages were sent. At least, that’s the logical explanation for how Tingle was able to send all those other messages without being bothered. It also makes sense if you take into account all the other crime scenes were so uncontaminated. He killed or restrained the victims first, did his messaging, and cleaned up the scene afterward. Here, he left several prints because he thought he was alone and had plenty of time; this place is plenty isolated. And, he knew, or thought, that he would be able to clean up after he finished sending Ms. Page another message. But good ol’ Nakamura caught him in the act, and did our dirty work for us.”
Carver said, “Anybody been to Tingle’s place? You said he’s local, right?”
Riley replied, “Right. As a matter of fact, I’m waiting on a call from Giles—you know him? Jason Giles? I called him a half hour or so earlier and sent him over to Tingle’s place. Not too far from here, just outside Marietta.”
“Good deal,” said Carver. “I don’t know Giles, but I know of ’im. Good reputation.”
“Yep. He’s really on the ball.”
At that moment, special agent Jason Giles and three additional FBI agents—Blaine, Hoffman, and Gupta—arrived at the Tingle home. Several horses could be seen grazing as the two government cars turned in to the long gravel drive that led to the ranch-style house. The agents parked and made their way to the front door. Hoffman and Gupta drew their guns, pointed them at the ground by their sides, and Giles rapped on the front door. Getting no response, he tried the door and found it unlocked. He and Blaine drew their weapons and the four agents cautiously entered. Giles loudly announced, “FBI!” and the men went quickly from room to room, shouting “clear” as they found each one empty. Until Blaine entered the kitchen.
He shouted, and when Giles came into the kitchen, he saw what had made his colleague call out: A small dark-haired woman of about forty lay facedown on the linoleum floor, dressed in a gray maid’s uniform. A large amount of congealed blood pooled around her head and shoulders.
“Five bucks says she’s illegal,” said Blaine.
Giles pulled his cell from his pocket and called his contact with the Atlanta Police Department. “Bert. Giles here. Send the task force and some crime-scene guys out here ASAP. William J. Tingle residence, Marietta, thirty-two twelve something or other. Hell, I don’t know—look it up. W. J. Tingle.”
Agent Hoffman called from another room, “Hey, boss. We got gun cases and knife cases. There’s a gold mine in here.”
Giles and Blaine joined Hoffman to check out the cases, and Giles sent the youngest agent, Gupta, to the home office across the hall to look for evidence. After the men had all donned latex gloves, Gupta worked on the home computer while Blaine and Hoffman worked the gun and knife cases, which, luckily, were unlocked.
Before long, Gupta called from the office, “Got in the PC, boss. I’m all over it.”
“Better him than any of us,” Giles said, referring to the fact that as the youngest among them, Gupta was the man for the job. In fact, Gupta was known throughout the Atlanta branch as the resident computer whiz. His search of the PC turned up nothing more than the usual bookmarks and documents one might find on an adult male’s computer.
Gupta abandoned the office and walked back to the master bedroom. He looked in the closet, then under the bed, and found what everyone was searching for: a laptop and a large briefcase, stashed far up under the head of
the king-sized bed.
After he had been on the laptop for several minutes, Gupta yelled, “Jackpot!” and the other agents joined him. Their excitement grew with each passing minute and each bit of evidence.
Gupta found several websites that involved Baal and human sacrifice, and a document entitled “CP-Virgin” among the personal files. The most electrifying piece of evidence involved Agent Giles and a photo found on the bedside table. The man wearing a cowboy hat in the photo, William J. Tingle, was someone Giles recognized.
After the agents studied the evidence and material found in the bedroom for ten minutes, Giles went out on the porch and called Agent Riley, who was still at Nakamura’s cabin.
Riley and Carver were standing out back of the cabin by the pond taking a cigarette break when Riley’s cell rang. He said, “Riley. Yeah. Tell me, J.G.” He listened for a while, occasionally saying “yes” or “unh-hunh,” then said, “Hold on.” He and Carver tossed their smokes in the pond and walked inside. Riley went over to the kitchen table, sat down, and pulled out his notepad and pen. “Okay, give it to me,” he said.
Carver went over to peer at Nakamura’s corpse, and caught snippets of the conversation, intrigued when he heard Riley say, “No kidding? You know the guy? I’ll be damned.” Riley spoke and listened for several minutes and then said, “Great work. Lemme know when you get more. Thanks, buddy, talk to you later.”
He put away his phone, walked over to Carver, and said, “Giles and his guys are at William Tingle’s place, and they found a briefcase filled with all kinds of stuff about Cherry Page. Newspaper articles, tabloids, pictures of all kinds. Some of the photos had Cherry’s face mutilated, that sort of thing.They also found a laptop, and when they checked its history, all kinds of Baal sites showed up, along with tons of Cherry Page sites as well. This guy has been doing the Baal thing for years, and following Cherry Page for months. They also found a shitload of knives and a huge gun collection. I bet there’s some juicy DNA on some of those knives. Wanna take that bet?”
