Blood List

by Patrick Freivald

  As the group moved off toward the building, Gene stopped at the metal detector and weapons-check. "Hang on a second," he said to Doug. "Lock this tray up," he said, placing the car keys into a dark-gray screening tray, the kind found at any airport security station. Wordlessly, the guard slapped a lid and padlock on the tray, attached a two-part ticket to the lock with a zip-strip, and handed the ticket stub to Gene. Renner reached for the stub. Gene put it in his front pocket.

  Well, that's a good sign, Marty thought.

  After a trip through the metal detector and a thorough pat-down, the guard let Paul through. As they stepped past the security station, Marty muttered under his breath. "We've got you now, asshole." He wasn't quiet enough.

  Without turning, Renner replied, "I'm here because I want to be, Agent Palomini. Your brother and I have an understanding."

  Marty took a menacing step forward, and Paul turned in a defensive stance. Gene jerked up his hand. "STOP IT." He gave his brother a withering look. "This will be hard enough without the two of you at each other's throats."

  "Oh, so we're not supposed to be wringing his fucking neck right now?" Marty said.

  "Doug, Carl, get going. We'll meet you in the conference room." He looked at his brother.

  "What?" Marty said.

  * * *

  January 6th, 6:57 PM PST; Conference Room 4, Front Street FBI Building; San Diego, California.

  In the conference room, Jerri leaned against the wall as Marty and Gene had it out. Gene leaned on the table while Marty sneered in his face. Gene's eye was swollen half-shut, and the EMT had finished re-setting his nose only minutes ago.

  "You're out of your fucking mind!" Marty yelled for the half-dozenth time. "Work with him? With that murdering piece of shit? I won't do it. Fuck you! Fuck him! Fuck this! No!" Spittle flew from Marty's mouth.

  "Marty, calm down, sit down, and listen," Gene said. "That's an order." Jerri smiled. The word "order" transformed Gene from a misguided younger brother into Special Agent in Charge, whether he was holding an ice pack on his face or not.

  Marty leaned back into the wall but kept his mouth shut. He moved to the conference table and pulled out a chair, then eased himself into it. He glanced at Jerri, his blush showing how little he appreciated being humbled in front of her.

  "Carl and Doug will be here in a few minutes," Gene said. "When they get here, after I explain to them what I've been trying to explain to you, you may be part of the discussion if, and only if, you keep your temper in check. Are we clear?"

  "Yeah," Marty said as the raging anger in his eyes faded to a slow burn. "I'm sorry I blew up, bro. I think you're making a big fucking mistake, though."

  "We'll find out, Marty. After we've gotten what intel we can get out of Paul Renner. Do you want some coffee?" Marty shook his head. "Get me some, please, would you?" Marty sneered and opened his mouth to reply, something insubordinate and inappropriate, Jerri was sure, but his face softened as Gene limped on both legs to a chair and sat down. The sneer disappeared, and Marty went to the urn to pour him a cup.

  Doug and Carl arrived as Gene stirred in his half-and-half. "Is Mr. Renner situated?"

  "Yes, sir," Doug said. "The prisoner is in Interrogation One with a non-hostile setup, as ordered, with four guards posted outside." His face was a mask of wrath. "I never thought I'd have to get that son of a bitch a sandwich and coffee, Gene. We should be cracking his other ribs, not bandaging up the ones he's got. What's going on?"

  Gene ignored the question and turned to Carl. "Ear-bead set up?"

  Sam answered over the COM. "Yeah, boss. Let me know when you want him piped in."

  "Good," Gene said, glad the team followed his orders. "Let's get down to business." He told his story.

  Chapter 13

  January 6th, 7:12 PM PST; Conference Room 4, Front Street FBI Building; San Diego, California.

  Gene sat at the head of the conference room table, flanked by Marty and Doug. Carl leaned his good shoulder against the wall, and Jerri stood next to him. Gene felt like they were interrogating him.

  "I agree with Marty," Doug said. "That man should never draw another breath of free air."

  "Or any air," Marty chimed in. "He's a ruthless killer, and this is going to bite us in the ass."

  Doug folded his arms. "I know we cut deals with little fish all the time, but this is a really big fish, Gene. I say we get what information we can out of him by playing nice, then classify him as hostile, squeeze some more info that way, then put him away for good."

  "I talked it over with A.D. Adams, Doug—" Gene began.

  "So fucking what?" Marty interjected. "We lie to perps all the time. You were under duress, and, in case you've forgotten, your new buddy is the goddamn D Street Killer."

  Gene's face turned red. "He's not my buddy, Marty, and he let me go. We can use him to find the man behind the killings. As I was saying, I talked it over with A.D. Adams, and he agreed that this was the right move."

  "Well, fuck him, too, Gene," Marty said. "Can isn't the same as should."

  Doug took over the tag-team. "For Christ's sake, you've been to the crime scenes. You've interviewed the orphans and widows. We can't just let him wander around. We can't."

  "Carl, help us out here," Marty said. "Are you going to work with the ruthless fuck who crippled your arm?"

  Carl looked uncomfortable as all of the room's attention turned his way. "He's not ruthless," he said quietly. "He had the jump on me, Marty. I was holding a submachine gun, and he knew I'd kill him if I saw him coming at me. If I were in his shoes, I would have killed me. And Jerri. Especially Jerri. As far as he knew, she's the first person to ever get a good look at his face, and he let her go. I don't know if it was compassion or what, but I know it wasn't ruthlessness." Carl's face looked pained as he rubbed at his still-damaged arm. "There are plenty of reasons to hate that man. Don't pick sparing my life as yours."

  Marty didn't respond. Doug did.

  "This could just be another way to screw with us, Gene. Taking it to the next level."

  Jerri threw in her two cents. "I agree with Marty and Doug," she said. "At best this guy is a brutal killer. One of his victims was strangled. You've got to be one sick, nasty person to strangle someone. Best case, this guy's a loose cannon that you're putting right in the middle of us. I don't want to be around when he goes off."

  Gene looked to Carl, the only person who said anything close to supporting the boss's case. "What's your opinion, Carl? Cut the deal or bust him?"

  "Bust him," Carl said without hesitation. "He may not be the worst of the worst, and the guy hiring him may be a hundred times more evil that he ever was, but he's got to pay for what he's done. No question, Gene. Bust him. We'll get the other guy some other way."

  "Sam?" Gene asked.

  "Opinions aren't my job, boss."

  Gene swiveled his chair away from the group and looked up to the heavens. If the drop-ceiling tiles had any wisdom to share, they kept it to themselves. Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do. He doubted God granted forgiveness-in-advance, and as he spun back and faced his crew, he knew that they wouldn't be forgiving him either. "I'm keeping the deal."

  He held up a hand to forestall objections even before they spewed from the lips of his team. "I know you don't like it. I know you don't think it's the right thing to do. I have misgivings myself. But unless and until I say otherwise, this team is going to work with Paul Renner to find the mastermind behind the pattern-killings. He didn't have to let me go, much less come here. He'll stick around as long as we've got something he wants."

  "What does he want, Gene?" Doug asked.

  "Well," Gene said, "he says he wants to find the man who tried to kill him, but I'm not sure I believe him. I think it's true as far as it goes, but it's not enough for him to take a risk of this magnitude. There's something else here, and until he gets it, he'll stick around. We need to find it first, then take him down."

  "You can't seriously be thinking about lett
ing him walk around free," Jerri said.

  "He'll be on a short leash, unarmed, with a locator ankle bracelet. When we're done, assuming he's cooperated fully, the deal is that we're letting him walk away." Marty opened his mouth and Gene shot him down with a look. Carl scowled. Doug looked at the floor. Gene continued. "That's not going to happen. We'll take him down when the time is right." Marty gave his brother a satisfied smile. "In the meantime, we'll work with him. This is an order. Understood?"

  Each team member sounded off in the affirmative, but Gene saw not only distaste but distrust.

  He pulled out his boss-voice and gave them orders. "Doug and Jerri, report to Interrogation One for the debrief. Carl, run the recording and the voice analysis. Marty, you're with me behind the glass. Sam, do your thing. Move out."

  Marty lagged behind as the team filed out. Gene let the rest of the team put distance between them. With his limp, it wasn't hard. "Say what you need to, Marty, but don't you dare throw another tantrum."

  Marty ran his tongue along his teeth. He breathed in, held it, then spoke. "I know you're not going to change your mind. But when that sick fucker kills or cripples somebody, you just remember that every last fucking bit of it is your doing. And when this is all said and done, if Paul-fucking-Renner gets away, every new widow and orphan he makes is because of what you're doing today. You're my brother, and you know I love you, but today you just make me sick."

  Gene let Marty shoulder past him on his way out. I know. God help me, I know.

  * * *

  January 6th, 7:22 PM PST; Interrogation Room A, Front Street FBI Building; San Diego, California.

  Jerri waited while Carl finished his work. Doug stood at the door.

  "So if I stay super-calm, I can fool this thing, right?" Paul asked as Carl attached electrodes to his arms and chest.

  "This isn't a polygraph," Carl said. "And besides, even if it was, despite what you see in Steven Seagal movies, you can't fool them. They're highly accurate, and the vast majority of false positives and negatives are a result of user error. I've personally run a number of…." He continued to ramble despite the fact no one seemed to be listening to him.

  I wonder what all that stuff is, Jerri thought. Interrogation One was packed with recording devices and sensors, some sort of medical monitoring device, and Carl's ubiquitous Black Box; a battered black briefcase that contained a variety of devices Jerri didn't think she could pronounce much less understand.

  Carl left and closed the door behind him.

  Gene watched through the glass as Carl exited the interrogation room and stepped into the viewing room. "No video?" Marty asked.

  "Don't need it," Carl responded. "First of all, he won't consent to being video-recorded, and as a non-hostile, we have to respect his wishes." His eyes flicked toward Gene, then back. "Second, you can catch all the visual cues you want through the glass, but if he lies, I'll know it." He flipped open his laptop and scanned the displays.

  The three of them watched Jerri smooth her skirt and sit across from Paul Renner. After a few calculated moments arranging her notepad and pens, she looked up at Paul. "Mr. Renner, this isn't a standard interrogation, as it's at your request. You claim to have information to provide. Please begin."

  Doug Goldman stood near the door. A practiced look of complete boredom as he leaned into the wall typically had even experienced perps assuming he was there for muscle or intimidation. In truth, Doug did provide bulk when necessary, but his keen mind had already begun examining Paul's body language and mannerisms.

  "Seven people," Paul said. "A man hired me to assassinate seven different people. He's hired at least one other person to kill two more. He made efforts to conceal his identity, and I don't think that he knows that I know it was the same guy each time, and there is, as far as I can tell, no rhyme or reason to the targets.

  "I'm going to give you the targets' names." He paused for a drink of water. Unless Renner was stupid, and Gene had no reason to believe he was, he knew full well that once he gave them names they might change their minds and put him away forever.

  Jerri interjected. "How do you know he hired another killer for these other two jobs?"

  "That, I'm not going to tell you. If it makes less paperwork for you, pretend I did them," Renner said. Jerri motioned for him to continue. Behind the glass, Marty sneered. Gene put his finger to his lips and kept watching.

  "And?" she asked.

  "And I need you to use your fancy databases to find the link," Paul said.

  "Mr. Renner," Jerri began with her first scripted question. "Sometimes the insane will pick targets at random. What makes you so sure there's a pattern here?"

  "No one, not even the richest of the filthy stinking rich, spends fifty-thousand dollars a pop killing people at random. There's no such thing as a psychotic who hires out his killings. That means there's a pattern, and I just don't see it. The only thing I know that they all have in common is that they're all over forty."

  Marty, Gene, and Carl shared knowing glances, having plenty of first-hand experience with how difficult it was to find a pattern to Paul's kills. "Let's start with the most recent contract," Jerri's voice came through the glass.

  "The most recent contract, or the most recent completed contract?"

  "Part of the pattern may be the timeline itself, so let's start with the most recent event and move backward." Gene knew that Jerri deliberately avoided words like "murder"' and "killing." Let him use them all he wants, he thought. But there's no sense putting him on the defensive. Not yet, anyway.

  "The last time I was called I turned down the job. It was for a retired guy in Lincoln, Nebraska," Paul began. He fingered one of the electrodes stuck to his chest and frowned at the mirror. "His name is Kevin Parsons."

  Sam broke in through their ear-beads. "Paul, do you know his street address?"

  "271 Hawkes Drive," he said with annoyance, though Gene couldn't tell what annoyed him.

  "One moment," Sam said. After a brief pause, she rattled off information into their ears. "Okay, got him. Kevin Sean Parsons. Born May 17th, 1945…." Her voice trailed off. "A missing persons report was filed on him seven months ago. He never showed up for church. His house was destroyed. Arson. Is Mr. Renner sure he turned that job down?"

  Renner looked even more annoyed. "I'm sure."

  Sam was obviously lost in thought, so Jerri jumped back in. "What date were you contacted for this contract?"

  "This past June. I think the 22nd or 23rd."

  "Do you remember the time of day?"

  "Not really," Paul said. "It's just a text to a cell phone. I don't even check it every day."

  Jerri continued with question after question. Even though they recorded all interrogations, she wrote down every detail in stenographer's shorthand. "The contract that preceded Kevin Parsons involved whom?"

  "Larry Johnson."

  It was as if the temperature had dropped by fifteen degrees. "Here we go," Carl whispered to Marty as Gene looked through the glass.

  "And how did you eliminate Mr. Johnson?" Jerri asked.

  "You know damn well I didn't get him. You interrupted me."

  "But…." Jerri hesitated. "What about the psychotic break?"

  Paul leaned forward, his eyebrows raised. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  Jerri looked at the mirror, then back at Paul. "You're telling me that you didn't kill him while he was in custody?"

  Paul's eyes widened. "No, I didn't even know he was dead. My employer must have found someone else."

  Jerri fiddled with her notes for a moment, then changed the subject. "Very well. Who preceded Larry Johnson?"

  "Jenny Sykes."

  Jenny Sykes wasn't just some victim in a case file. Memories of a charred corpse and scattered body parts still haunted Gene's dreams, as did the text-messaged taunt that erased Jenny Sykes from the earth. Paul Renner had just admitted to first-degree murder. On tape.

  "What date were you contacted for this contract?"
It was a credit to Jerri's professionalism that she sounded exactly the same as when she had asked about Kevin Parsons.

  The debrief took less than forty minutes. At its completion, Sam had starts on dossiers for nine victims; seven, if you didn't count Larry Johnson and Kevin Parsons.

  "What about…?" Jerri paused and leafed through her notebook. "Daniel Burnhardt. He matches the age pattern."

  Paul's brow crinkled with distaste. "That was a CIA job." His voice went flat. "That contract isn't relevant to this investigation."

  Behind the glass, Gene shared a look with Carl. "Why is she bringing up Burnhardt?" His throbbing foot and nose made it difficult to concentrate, and he was afraid he'd missed something.

  Carl shrugged.

  Through the glass, Paul looked angry. "What's your game, Agent Bates?" Doug shifted his weight against the wall to draw Paul's attention.

  "I'm just validating some assumptions, Mr. Renner," she said.

  "Well, I'm not here to validate your assumptions." Doug stepped forward as Paul stood. "You have the information you need. So," he said in a raised voice as he faced the one-way mirror, "Agent Palomini. Time to prove you're a man of your word." Paul walked toward the door and stopped, eye level with Doug's chest. Without lifting his head, he looked up into Doug's eyes and waited.

  "Don't do it, Gene," said Marty.

  "Let him out, Doug," Gene said through the COM. Paul's lack of reaction showed that Sam had turned off his ear-bead. After a blatantly antagonistic size-up, Doug stepped aside.

  A guard opened the door to let Paul out. "Okay, we're done for the day. Everyone check out. We'll see you in the morning. Renner, you're with me. Your security detail will follow us to the hotel."

  Chapter 14