“Sure, Lou.”
Tetrault was already standing in front of his desk when Mann slammed the door to his office. He took a deep breath to calm himself and leaned against the front of the desk.
“Do you read the updates?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What makes the Yeck killing different from the rest?”
“Overall? The lack of planning.”
“Very good. And, when did the killer approach Haynes for the pictures?”
“After the Yeck killing,” Tetrault said slowly.
“Logically speaking, how would the killer get reductions made of pictures he does not have?”
“Sorry, Lou. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Some habits are hard to break. Go and get some sandwiches. When you get back, get real busy. I don’t want to see you much for the rest of the afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
*
Greer’s face said it all.
“OK, this is not good news, right?” Mann said to Greer.
“Nope. We did find the receipt. Bloody bookkeeping is a mess but we found a receipt that matches what Mr. Haynes said he gave him,” Greer said, holding up a sheet of paper and reading off it. “Twenty-three reductions of 8x10 photos. Cash and the same address as what he gave Haynes.”
“Damn it,” Mann swore. “I really had hopes for this one.”
Mann sat quietly for a moment and finally pushed away from his desk.
“I need a Pepsi and then I want everyone in the evidence room.”
Mann walked to the fridge and grabbed a Pepsi, realized it was still warm and dug around until he found a cold one. He popped the top and stood drinking it while he thought about his next step. He watched Deputy Inspector Livermore shaking hands with a tall, lanky man in a three piece suit.
As the man left the warehouse, Livermore came over to Mann. “That was Dr. Arthur Baskin. He’s in private practice but consults with the Donway Institute of Abnormal Psychology."
Baskin has stopped at the outer doorway and was looking back into the warehouse. Mann sized up the doctor. Clean shaven with short, wavy hair, Mann didn’t think he looked like a shrink specializing in abnormal psychology. Mann always thought that those doctors should look slightly scattered, rumpled. More disturbed and confused by what they saw and heard from their patients. “What’s he after?”
“He just got back from an extended tour of Europe. Lecturing about our American serial killers. He offered any help he could give.”
“Keep his number,” Mann said. “We might just need him.”
Taking another drink, he realized the can was already empty. He tossed it in the recycle bin and took another can from the fridge as he briefed Livermore on the latest failure.
*
Mann walked to the front of the room and picked up a marker on the way. He stood in front of the large board at the front and blinked from the bright light of the projector. He looked at the detectives in front of him, noting that a few of the faces he expected to see weren’t there. Degget, Kydd and Blaak were all missing but he saw the same look of disappointment on the rest of the faces. Greer’s discovery of the bogus address had circulated around the room and everyone knew they were back to square one.
Well, not exactly square one, Mann thought.
Mann took the cap off the pen and turned toward the board.
“Lieutenant!” yelled someone at the back.
“Yes?” Mann asked, looking at the kid in the back. He had long hair pulled back in a pony tail, a beard and was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with “Humans Suck” written across it.
“Uh, sir, that’s the new Smart Board we just installed. You don’t use those markers. Just use that pen there,” he said, pointing to the tray at the bottom of the big white board.
Mann capped the pen and tossed it on a table. Picking up the black pen, he looked at the piece of plastic. It was a toy marker.
“Just pretend it’s a marker, sir. It works the same.”
Mann started writing and was amazed when the words seemed to appear on the screen. He wrote WHAT WE KNOW across the top.
“You’ve all seen the pictures that Mr. Haynes brought in. We all know we have our guy. At least, we know he is using these pictures to find his victims. But our efforts to trace him through the pictures haven’t panned out. What we need is just one solid piece of this puzzle.”
“And I think we have it, LT,” Blaak said from the back of the room. “We got the year book!”
Blaak brought the book up to Mann who quickly opened it and began flipping through. He walked over to one of the boards with the pictures from Haynes. It only took him a moment to see that they did indeed have the correct book. All the other detectives and uniformed officers began to crowd around to see the book.
“Lieutenant?”
Mann looked over at the guy in the black T-shirt.
“Lieutenant, if you give me the book, I can put it up on the screen for you.”
Mann looked doubtful but handed the book over to the young kid who walked across the room to a table. He laid the book under a device that looked like a desk lamp. Suddenly, the screen was filled with the image of the year book. The picture had barely focused when the kid pulled the book out from under the desk lamp, which Mann now realized was some sort of projector. “Wait, put that back up, that was perfect.”
“Just give me a second, sir,” the tech said patiently.
Page after page appeared and disappeared on the screen. In about 3 minutes, the tech shut the book and walked up to the screen. Using just his finger, he started to pull files up on the screen like a regular computer.
“We already digitized all the evidence,” he said, as the pictures from Hayes were lined up along the top of the screen. The tech ignored his audience and began working on the yearbook. Nobody interrupted him, all too fascinated watching him manipulate the images. In less than five minutes, he had isolated and blown up each matching image from the year book.
“This is definitely the book that he used,” the tech said. “You know anything about your killer?”
“I think we can assume he is a student, rather than a teacher,” Mann said. The others in the room murmured their assent. “My guess is he is a member of the same class.”
Again, the tech manipulated the images. On the screen, a five by six grid appeared. Pictures popped into the grid, filling all but two boxes. Each picture had a name beneath the image.
“There you go,” the tech said. “If he was in that class, and not one of the aged photos, one of those guys is your killer.”
Mann walked up to the screen and looked at each image, reading off the names. “All right,” he said, slapping the tech on the shoulder. “I want everybody to take a name and start checking them out. Find out where they are now, who’s still in the city. It has been what twenty-five years? Run them all down and do it now.”
As everyone started forward, a voice cut through the general chaos.
“We can narrow that list down for you.”
As one, everyone in the room turned to face the doorway. Degget and Kydd stood just inside the room, both wearing huge grins.
“What do you have?” Mann asked. “How many names can you eliminate?”
Degget strutted forward. “Just guessing, but I would say all but one.”
This announcement was greeted with silence and then everyone started talking. By the time Degget and Kydd were at the front of the room, Mann got some order and the others in the room were drifting back to chairs or perching on the edge of tables.
“What have you got?” Mann asked.
“Preston Peterson,” Degget said.
Mann looked back at the list and scanned through the names. He scanned through a second and third time but with only twenty-eight names, all in alphabetical order, it wasn’t too hard to see it wasn’t there.
“No Preston Peterson,” Mann reported.
“No way!” Kydd exclaimed.
There was silence
in the room and Mann looked at Degget. “What she said.”
“He isn’t there.”
“He has to be there,” Kydd said. “We have been all over him today and he fits.”
“Who is Preston Peterson?” Livermore asked.
“The god damned, psycho Southside Slasher!” Kydd said.
“Relax, Shane,” Mann said. “The rest of you guys, get on the phones and track these other guys down.”
Mann motioned Degget and Kydd over to a table with Livermore. “Why this Peterson?”
“OK, I do a lot of shit on eBay,” Degget said. Seeing Mann’s puzzled look, he elaborated. “You know eBay, Mann? The auction thing on the Internet?”
“Ya, sure.”
“OK, so we tried to track the flute with stores in and around the city, right? No luck because it hadn’t been bought in the city. I was sitting on eBay one night and realized that was likely where the guy got the damn flute. It was perfect. So I started contacting some sellers. Some of them didn’t want anything to do with me but a couple answered me. One guy gave me a name. It was delivered about three days before the Hart kill.”
“I assume you have more than that,” Mann said.
“This time, he used his own name and address. Harder to spoof things with eBay but he probably thought he was safe anyway. We checked him out today,” Kydd said. “Went through DMV and the age was about right.”
“We also found out that he works for Jackson Catering,” Degget said.
“David Jackson’s company,” Livermore said. “He’s a big donor to the Mayor’s opponent.”
“Not surprised you know the company,” Degget said. “They have vending machines in most of the places in the city, including the hospital, the University and they even have some machines down in the warehouse where Dale Lewery’s rather slimmed down corpse was found.”
“They are also bonded,” Kydd added. “That would explain why he was worried about prints. He is in the system for his background check with us!”
“And,” Degget said, “he lives a mere three blocks from the Fillup where Gabel’s body was found and four blocks from Jake’s Tavern.”
“Damn it. He does sound pretty good for it,” Mann agreed. He glanced up at the board but the pictures were gone. The detectives had their assignments and the tech guy was fiddling with the screen again. Mann turned back to Degget and Kydd. “OK, stay on him and see where it might lead. Maybe….”
“Lieutenant!”
Mann turned back to the kid with the ponytail.
“Lieutenant, he didn’t have his picture taken,” the tech shouted.
“I know,” Mann said. “We are still going to investigate him.”
“No, I mean, he didn’t get his picture taken that day.”
The tech ran his finger in a circle on the board and the screen magnified and filled with the words:
ABSENT: Preston Peterson
*
Mann looked up at the clock. Four forty. The surveillance team was in place. It was just a matter of time. They had already sent a pizza to his apartment but there was no answer. Same with the phone call – voice mail. Mann was worried but it was early. He might be on his way home from work.
“The surveillance should be reporting in soon,” Livermore said, quietly. “I want this tight.”
“When he gets back, we’ll cover him, don’t worry. Are you sure you don’t want to take him?”
“The Mayor doesn’t,” Flem said. “And neither does the Commissioner. We are in strict watch and learn mode.”
Mann nodded. He had seen Flem on his little cell phone just after Degget burst into the warehouse with the news. Damn Mayor running the investigation was bullshit. First, they are falling over themselves to arrest an innocent man. Then, they can’t distance themselves enough when they have something solid. If this Preston kills again while he was under investigation, there will be hell to pay. At least Drabick’s name had never been connected to the Slasher case in the press.
“We should move on him,” Mann said.
“The consensus,” Flem said, “is that we don’t have enough. Detective Degget should have matched a serial number or something on the flute. You need something to actually tie this Peterson to the crime scene. Mr. Haynes may recognize him but none of the pictures were left at the crime scenes. We have been ordered to find him and bottle him up until we have something solid. We want an air-tight case against this psycho. I want pressure on him so that I can use him on the Thorman hit.”
“We all do, Inspector,” Livermore said. “Mann, I want you there when we do move in. Full SWAT takedown. I want this done right and sooner than later.”
“It will be. They will let me know the minute he gets back and then we will be set to move. You just have to give me the word.”
Flem stood up and went to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, waiting on things like this always gives me indigestion. Let me know what you come up with.”
Chapter 78
As Preston passed the corner, he glanced up at the building that housed the Securities and Exchange Commission. It read four forty five. He confirmed the time with his own wrist watch. The SEC’s clock was one of the few street clocks in the city that could be relied upon.
The temperature briefly replaced the time. Thank God it had dropped below ninety, he thought. Keeping vigil on the street was hell in this heat. Of course, the beer tasted all the better. He thought he would have time for at least one beer tonight.
Tonight, Little Miss Red was going to meet Mister Enjoyment. He would wait at the Short Sell until she showed up. He could risk being in there that long. Then, once she showed, he would casually leave. He would be ready so he didn’t lose her this time.
She wouldn’t spend a long time in the bar. None of the sluts like her did. Anyway, by the time she came out, nobody would remember the stranger’s face. He would be forgotten, as he always was, and free to complete his appointed task.
Thinking of the thrill the night held for him, he went through the heavy doors and sat at the bar stool.
Chapter 79
“Haynes ID’d his DMV photo,” Mann said to the Commissioner over the speaker phone. “That doesn’t give us much. We haven’t tied him to the bathing suit.”
“Why not?”
“The sales lady is on some kind of retreat with some group of leaf eaters doing a spiritual cleanse,” Mann said. “No phones, no cells. Just a bunch of canoes. We have the local Sherriff trying to track her down.”
Mann still wanted to pull the suspect in as soon as he appeared at the apartment. The Commissioner had overruled him, albeit reluctantly. He wanted to hold off until the case was more solid. His words sounded hollow, as though he was following orders.
“We have enough to go for an arrest and a search warrant.”
Warrants for the task force seemed to be easier to obtain as more bodies were found. They had been issued on much less than they had now.
“We’ve got him tight,” Livermore said, agreeing with Mann but needing to play his political role. “He isn’t getting out of the building. Let’s sit on him tonight and see what more we can come up with. We can do a lot of digging in the next ten to twelve hours.”
“I agree,” added the Commissioner. “I don’t really want to test the new warrant powers in the courts. The city already faces several wrongful arrest suits because of this thing. If the other warrants don’t hold up, and they won’t, we’re screwed. It could taint this case and our guy could walk. There is no way this guy walks.”
“We have the physical evidence,” Mann said. “We bring him in and nail him with the DNA.”
“The DNA evidence is useless if the arrest warrants fall apart. I can’t have that.”
“This is the guy!”
“Then get me more than a year book,” the Commissioner said. “I have faith in you gentlemen. Right now, I’m going to get out of here. I haven’t been home on time all week.”
Livermore stood up and pressed the disconnect
button. Neither Mann nor Livermore mentioned that they hadn’t even been home in a week.
Chapter 80
After an hour and three beers dumped in the plant, she arrived.
He left his seat on the bar stool and moved across the room in pursuit of the red hair. As casually as possible, he moved up behind her and edged around to get a glimpse of her face. She turned suddenly and their eyes momentarily locked before she looked away.
Every instinct told him to run.
It was the wrong redhead.
Worse, he recognized this one. He knew her. Would she know him? Would she remember him, later?
The panic ebbed away as he realized he knew her from the television. She was a reporter or something.
He circled to get a closer look, wondering if this might be his new contact. Ellen was forgotten for the time being. He was a mere three feet from her, intending to pass by her on the way to the door, when all hell broke loose.
The men in the dark blue suits surrounded three other men standing about five feet from his prey. He was in the middle of what had become the centre of attention for the entire bar.
The guys in the suits were showing official identification and one guy said he was from the FBI.
Preston backed up and almost tripped over a table. He caught himself but attracted the eye of the Fed. He got the once over and was ignored.
The most important man in the city and he was ignored. On the front page of papers across the country and they just looked right through him.
The FBI was helping the SEC arrest some twat in a designer suit – likely for insider trading – and letting the Southside Slasher get away! Their brains had been in their foreskin; lopped off at birth.
He backed away, blending into the crowd. That was the way – money before lives. Like gawkers at a car accident, everyone in the bar was staring at the small knot of men. As they started to leave, the television broad shoved past with her camera so he beat a hasty retreat. Outside the bar, he grabbed the first bus that went by, not even caring that it wasn’t heading toward his home.
Two Graves (A Kesle City Homicide Novel) Page 26
