The Ghost

by H. Berkeley Rourke

  "Did you ever see him come back and pick up his car?" Jeanne asked Remedios.

  When she asked the question Remedios grinned and said, "I thought this guy might interest you so I have put a marker on the time when he came back and got his car. Here it is." The time was a little more than an hour later. The camera shot was not great but did show what appeared to be the same man get into the same car and drive away.

  Jeanne immediately got on her cell phone and called the coroner's office. They could not give her a time of death specifically but did say that it was in the evening hours. She then called Jim Wilson and asked him specifically if he had the time of the last call he had received from the Ghost. Since Jim had set up a recording system on his phone to cover any more calls from the Ghost it turned out he did have the exact time. She asked Jim: "How long after he called you did you go home?"

  "Right away Jeanne. I was there within half an hour after he called."

  "Does your cell phone have the time on it when you called me about the writing on your window?" Jim told her to hold on and looked at his cell phone for a few minutes until he found the right call and then confirmed the time with Jeanne. Jeanne then asked him "How long was it before my tech arrived and began working on your house?" Jim confirmed the arrival of the tech was no more than half an hour after he got home. All the times fitted together. All the pieces of the puzzle of the death of Rebecca Daniels had come together.

  Jim asked, "What is going on Jeanne? Are you onto something big or what?" You know I am putting a story into the paper right now about the rapes and so on at Scalian. What is it? Can you give me anything?"

  "Jim I cannot give you anything right at the moment. Later I will call you again. You may have a story for your front page for day after tomorrow. Go ahead with the Scalian story. I want the public to be well aware of what this guy has been doing. We will see about the next story. I have to go back to the office and talk with my superiors about that."

  Jeanne asked Remedios to make copies of the frames of the man in the store and of the frames showing the car even though those frames did not show the license plates. Remedios told her he had tried every angle he could think of to be able to see the license plates on the car without success.

  She also asked Remedios if it was possible to run an identification check through ACJIS (Arizona Criminal Justice Information System) using the photo of the guy to compare with driver's license photos. He confirmed he had already done the identification check, anticipating her request and handed Jeanne a photograph from the ACJIS system of a man who was either the twin to the guy in the convenience store or the same man. His name was Jefferson Wells, III. "Jesus Christ" was her immediate response. "What the hell," she said to herself. "This is too much of a coincidence."

  Jeanne took the picture of Wells, the pictures of the man in the convenience store, the pictures of the car in the convenience store parking lot and headed at top speed back to the office. She called ahead while en route and asked for an immediate conference with Captain Will Atherton and Lieutenant Tom Leivas, to be held as soon as she arrived at the station. As she walked into the conference room she also saw George and Jenny Adams who just happened to be there when she called and who were asked to stay by Will Atherton.

  Jeanne had stopped just before going into the conference room and made half a dozen copies of each of the photos. As she walked into the conference room she handed copies of the photo of the driver's license to Will, Tom and to the Adams. She said to them all, "Let me introduce you to Jefferson Wells III, the Ghost Rapist." The moment was electric for her, impactful for the rest to say the least. As the words came out of her mouth she was almost spitting them out she was so filled with rage. She wanted to run to the campus, find this bastard and tear his “package” off him.

  It took a few minutes for her adrenalin to abate slightly. Half an hour later, or so, after she had finished detailing all she had done during the day and the work Remedios had done at DPS labs they were all shaking their heads. Will said to her: "This is absolutely excellent work Jeanne. Of course you know, don't you, even with the picture it does not give us probable cause to arrest him? There is definitely reasonable suspicion now but we do not yet have enough to arrest."

  "Yes boss I am aware of the deficiency. I already have another of my guys working on something for me. Horning was supposed to give me copies of all new hires at the University by this afternoon. Has a courier with any information from them come in?"

  "Yes," Tom said. He went into his office and brought back a manila folder which held a couple of pages of names and dates, typewritten and double spaced. The first of those names was Jefferson Wells, II, President of the University. The typewritten information included the name of Wells' wife and son. The three of them had arrived two years previously. The information also included a sticky note from Horning saying that he had added information as to where the last place of employment had been for each of the new hires. Wow, Jeanne thought, maybe Horning will be an asset to the investigation yet. He seems to have started thinking a little bit about what is going on here.

  Jeanne looked at the information from Horning and walked out of the conference room for a few minutes. Then, on her return she said, "I have Bret, one of the detectives in my squad calling the place in Georgia where Wells’ father worked last right now. We may have to wait until tomorrow to get hold of anyone back there because of the time difference. I think it is worth doing though. I want to know if there were any rapes or rumors of rapes there before Wells and his wife and son came out here."

  George Adams clapped his hands together and said, "My God Will, you have found another one. This young lady is not only very pretty and a very hard worker, she is damned smart as well. As you were looking at the lists of new hires Jeanne," he said, now directing his comments to her, ". . .I was talking with Jenny about wondering where they came from and whether there had been any problems there. The kind of thinking you are showing us all is really excellent. I don't think you ever knew Josie Du Puy but man you really remind me of her in respect to the speed at which you grasp things. By the way,” he added, "I don’t mean to be patronizing by these comments at all. You have done a very impressive piece of work here.”

  Jeanne never had known Josie Du Puy. But Will Atherton had talked about her some with everyone in Homicide. Jeanne responded, "From everything I have heard about her George I consider that a high compliment." Bret knocked on the door and walked into the conference room just as Jeanne finished her comment about Josie. Bret shook his head at Jeanne and said nothing. She had expected it to occur since it was nearing the end of the day in Phoenix and was well after the end of the normal work day in Georgia.She said to Bret, "First thing tomorrow please try to get the information. Bret, this is really important. If there were unsolved rapes back in Georgia and they stopped once the Wells family came here it gives us a really good piece of deductive evidence."

  Jeanne sat down at the conference table and looked at the Wells' photograph. "Dammit," she said, "how the hell are we going to get this guy? He has been so careful. We may have a couple of samples of his DNA but I would bet my last dollar he is not on any DNA lists which would identify him. Hell!Even if he was on a list he would be able to alibi himself. Hell. How are we going to get this guy, especially now, especially since we know who he is?"

  Will spoke up. "We have his address. I wonder if his father has stopped running and maybe come home?" he said. "We ought to be able to get a search warrant for the home based on his fugitive status shouldn't we?"

  "I don't think so," George said. "But we could put some surveillance on him from time to time, couldn't we?"

  Will said, "The boys downtown don't want any talk about spending money on this thing. They have repeatedly told me we ought to be able to solve this thing without any kind of a task force being initiated. The budget office says we cannot afford a task force and complains the last one we had which got that damned bomber cost us a ton without any recompense from a
ny source. It's not like we can use seized assets in the same way as the drug unit. So if we are going to do any surveillance it is going to be us, those of us in homicide for the moment."

  George looked at Will and said, "I bet I know a group of people who will help Will. None of us will ask for any money or anything of the kind. What do you think. Would you like to work with the guys again?"

  Will knew exactly who George was referring to. Jim Cade, Eduardo and Jaime Ontiveros, Ned Markham, Josie’s widowed husband were retired but still lived in Phoenix. They had organized a private detective firm titled AJJENT. He intended to join the firm when he retired. Will responded: "You bet. Why don't you see what Ned and the boys are doing. Jeanne your task for tomorrow is to get any information you can from Georgia about there being rapes, etc. back there. You have been busting your hump on this thing and I want you to relax a little tomorrow."

  "Boss I have a question. What would you think about putting the picture of the guy in the convenience store on the front page of the Arizona Republic day after tomorrow, along with all the television stations, and simply asking the question, 'Do you know who this man is? Contact Phoenix P.D. please.'"

  "Would Jim Wilson do that?"

  "Hell yes he would if I asked him to. He is running a major story about the rapes in tomorrow's paper. It will detail the start of these things which I think goes back a lot further than we know right now. And he is going to lambaste the university senior staff and the campus police for their attempts to cover up the situation. Speaking of the cover up now I wonder a great deal whether his father knew Wells III was doing these rapes."

  "Do we know what the guy drives?" asked Tom.

  "Yes, boss," Jeanne said. "He has an older model Toyota which is kind of a dark color. At least it is what he was driving when he was at the convenience store the night Rebecca Daniels was killed. Goddamn it I want to go get the guy and beat the shit out of him before I put him in the box. Then I want to hook electrodes up to his balls and pour water over a towel under them. Man it would be a pleasure to torture this asshole."

  It was quiet for a moment in the conference room. Tom said, quietly, "We all feel the same way Jeanne. You know we do. But we cannot torture him unfortunately. We have to get this dirt bag in the right way or he will continue with his reign of terror."

  Jeanne said, "I have one more idea I want to float with you all. It will take a little time to set it up but I can get the first part of it started right away after the paper comes out with the picture."

  George, ever aware, ever looking for innovations, said, "I know what you want to do Jeanne. You want to provoke him and see if you can get him to make a mistake and come after you. You want to set yourself up as bait for the guy."

  "Yes, George," she replied, "yes, you got it. If I can get him to make a try at me then maybe he will make several mistakes. First of all, if he continues with his same modus operandi I can defeat him very easily and very quickly. I will simply carry a knife in my hand as I walk the campus and when he puts the bag over my head I will cut his hand, turn the entire thing around in a hot second."

  "Are you sure he won't change his M.O. Jeanne?" asked Captain Atherton.

  "Well he has not done so in all these weeks and months, but of course it could happen. I think I could deal with him under any circumstance though Captain. He is not a big man and as you are aware I do have some martial arts training."

  Will thought, yeah, and you have motivation. If I let you, he thought, you would probably make the little puke into a eunuch. "All right then but you must have a back-up plan as well. You must have someone, me, Tom, Bret, someone hidden nearby in order to make sure if he does change his M.O. you or we can deal with whatever he does."

  "Yes, I can see the wisdom in your idea. But how are we going to set it up for someone to hide out near where I would get attacked?"

  "Is there a standard time of day when he is active?"

  "At night of course," she replied, "but later in the evening on the campus at least. He would wait until about eleven o' clock when the library closed to attack in the past. I guess I could control the timing by taking a stroll on the campus after I provoke him. He might really want to come after me and be watching for me then."

  Jennie Adams asked, "What time does full dark come now?"

  They all discussed the time of dark. They all discussed who could hide out and where. Jeanne wanted it to be somewhere close to where the little girl Billie and Marilyn Cummings had been attacked. Those were places in which it would be entirely appropriate for him to be caught. After all the potentials for difficulties, after all the negatives were looked at in their discussions, Jeanne asked, "Well, what do you think? Can we do this? We have to stop this guy some way. His DNA is not going to get us a conviction. We have no way of getting any DNA from him now, for sure. We cannot search his house unless it is incident to arrest. If we leave him in the wind he will find a way to murder again. We all know he will. So, is there any reason we should not try this? Remember, I am single, I am willing. No I am not willing; I want to do this very badly. It has to be done soon. If it is not done soon this monster will no doubt kill again."

  No one could come up with any kind of excuse for her not to try and provoke the guy into mistakes. No one could persuade her she could not defeat him if he attacked her. She scoffed at the idea he had the ability to over come her. They began to work out a plan. They needed an overhead look at the campus. They obtained a really good overhead series of satellite photos of the campus from Google Earth. They found the areas where he had attacked Billie and Marilyn. They plotted putting one or more persons close to those places. They chose a date and time after the newspaper photo story would come out. They were ready. It had to be soon. Above all they did not want to have to deal with another victim. And they all knew he would kill again, soon.

  something strange was going on...

  the girls were together in pairs...

  it was like that all day...

  he watched out the window...

  he had another one in mind...

  but she was with another girl...

  how could he get at her...

  he had begun to crave death...

  it was exciting to watch it...

  it was exciting to hurt them...

  it gave him an erection...

  It was strange in his mind because he had already ejaculated once. But after killing he almost always would relieve himself again somewhere close by to where the killing occurred. He wanted to do each of them again after they were dead, do them without a condom. But he knew it was way too dangerous. There was no record of his prior series of rapes in Georgia. He knew if he made a mistake and left dna at the scene of any of the killings it would be dangerous for him in the run of time in Georgia as well. So he never did any of them without a condom. His studies of police science had taught him to be wary of those things.

  how he wanted the new one...

  she really looked hot...

  he loved cute little butts...

  he loved butts that were big...

  hell he just plain loved butts...

  Chapter 9-

  There You Are, Mr. Wells

  Jeanne sent Bret to set up as surreptitious a surveillance on Wells III as could be done under the circumstances. Captain Horning had to be contacted in advance this time. He was asked to consider a place where a surveillance could be set up on the young man. Jeanne was not happy to give up his name to Horning but had to do so in order to protect them all. In return for knowing who was being watched he acquiesced in no arrest being made right away.

  Horning helped Bret set up in an area of the administration building which was heavily traveled, but overlooked Wells III's apartment. Horning also walked Bret, Tom and Will Atherton through the campus. As they strolled he showed them where the previous attacks claiming the lives of Billie and Marilyn took place. Horning thought it strange they would ask to see those places. He was very pleased to be able to commun
icate with and help part of the leadership of Phoenix P.D. Homicide even though curious. He didn’t ask. He knew Ms. De Leon was not particularly friendly to him even though he hoped he could change her attitude. He didn’t want to give her a different reason to be angry with him.

  Several very young officers just out of academy who looked more like college students than cops were gathered. They were briefed on the situation at Scalian. They all volunteered to interrupt their education as a street officer for the moment. They were enrolled in police science classes since Wells III was taking the same type classes. Their purpose was to learn who his friends were, who he saw as a girlfriend, if any, anything else which might be of use.

  An excuse for them coming in late to the classes was engendered. A "cover" was built for them. They were a special group of students just out of academy which the department wanted to immerse in criminal justice training at the college level. It was only a momentary thing the P.D. could grow if it worked out. They were put into dorms around the campus. Their locations enabled them in their primary task of watching Wells in the night as best they could. None of them would have to stay too long on campus if Jeanne's plan worked.

  Jim Wilson's article hit the streets like a ton of bricks. The entire news community had been scooped by Wilson. Many of them called homicide and complained. A few who knew of the relationship of old between Jeanne and Jim Wilson called her. When they began to whine about his exclusive, she asked them "Has anyone been murdered outside your home lately?" It was enough to shut off the whining which came her direction.

  The campus was awash with copies of the Republic. Pictures of the campus were prominently featured in the article. Pictures of the arrested members of the former campus police and administration officials were featured prominently. Pictures were shown of the crime scenes where Marilyn and Billie had been attacked. A direct appeal was made to anyone who might see President Wells to report his whereabouts to any police officer. A large picture of him was displayed on the front page with the caption under the photo of ‘Have You Seen This Man?’ The caption was followed by a telephone number for Phoenix Police Department Homicide. Calls of sightings began to come in right away. All were far out of town, mostly out of state.