“Absolutely. One moment.”
As Davidson scurried out of the room, Delores and Vincent arrived at a section of shelving marked “L-M” on a laminated piece of paper tacked onto the shelving.
“Here it is,” she said as she flicked one of the boxes with a finger. “And you mentioned something about pulling the work logs for one of our guards?”
Vincent pulled down the box marked “Michaels, Trevor” from the shelf and placed it on top of the small desk in a corner to his right. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’d like to look at all the personnel records you have on hand for a Bryan Presley.”
“Give me a few minutes,” she said as she half hobbled back toward her desk. “We have it all compiled in a new program. Took me six damn weeks to figure the damn thing out…”
Vincent took the lid of the box, a strong cardboard smell wafting up as he began removing the contents from inside. The first was a wristwatch, cheap and purchasable in any pharmacy across the country. Next, Vincent pulled out two paperback books with aged yellow pages: The Shining and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He thought them to be appropriate.
He then removed the last three items in the box: a rosary, a toothbrush, and a folded-up photograph that looked like it had been printed on computer paper. Intrigued, Vincent folded up the photo and found himself laying eyes on a young girl, maybe five or six, with a half-smile, half-frown and pigtails.
Who in the hell are you?
“I have your records,” Delores called out from her desk.
Vincent moved toward her as she stood aside and told him to sit down. “This is everything,” she said. “All of the files here pertain to Bryan Presley’s employment history with the facility.”
“Thank you kindly,” Vincent sat down, and Delores wandered out of the room to do God only knows what.
Vincent began searching through every shred of information pertaining to Bryan Presley—his timesheet, tax returns, electronic paycheck stubs, sick days, et cetera. According to records, Bryan was an exemplary employee who was on time, efficient, never took more than three sick days a year, and never once received a reprimand or so much as a verbal warning.
Around fifteen minutes into his search through Presley’s records, Stone entered the room.
“We’ll need to get back soon,” she said. “We’re already running into some logistical problems back in town. Our people need us.”
That was when Vincent found something.
He pointed to the screen. “Come here. Take a look at this.”
“What do you have?” Stone asked as Vincent moved out of the chair.
“It’s a work log,” Vincent said, “for Bryan Presley. It shows where and when he was working during every shift he ever had here.”
Stone found herself looking at an Excel document with numbers and letters.
“Look at the far-right column,” Vincent said. “That shows the sections inside the pen that he was pulling shifts on.”
“Wing 1B,” Stone read aloud. “What wing is that?”
Vincent pulled up a second document he had at the ready for Stone’s viewing: a list of each patient and where they were staying in the facility.
“Wing 1B,” he said, “housed six men. One of which was none other than Mr. Trevor Michaels himself.”
Stone looked at Vincent. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
“There’s one other thing.” Vincent pulled out the photograph of the young girl and held it out to Stone.
“Who in the hell is that?”
“Not sure,” Vincent said. “Maybe something in Michaels’ old cell might shed some light.”
The cells, or rooms, at the Hollow Green Mental Health Facility were just as dull as the exterior of the building. The dimensions of every room in the facility measured eight by nine feet, and they were painted the same color of green as the entry hallway.
Vincent and Stone were directed toward Trevor Michaels’ room—102—and motioned inside by Davidson. Vincent and Stone took a look at everything from floor to ceiling, spotting nothing out of place in a room that sported nothing but a twin mattress with no sheets on a box spring, and a bolted-in stainless-steel sink attached to a toilet.
“How often was Michaels in his room?” Stone asked.
“Four hours a day, aside from sleeping,” Davidson said. “He had two hours of exercise, breakfast, lunch, and dinner—one hour apiece—and one hour of time in the rec room. Any other downtime he may have had was spent with myself or another one of our specialists.”
Vincent paced the room, taking into account every dent in the walls and each minute chip in the paint, trying to sniff out something that would stand out.
But he found nothing.
“You said you stand by your assessment of Michaels upon his release?”
Davidson shrugged. Rubbed his neck. “Now I’m not so sure.”
He took another survey around the room. He then looked to Stone and pulled her out of earshot. “Anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing stands out. Not a damn thing.”
Vincent took a moment, wondering what was missing, trying his best to piece together a puzzle sporting a few missing—and crucial—pieces that would make it all make sense.
Stone’s cell phone rang—it was her ASAC, telling her she was desperately needed back on the front lines. “Detective,” she said to Vincent, “we gotta go.”
Vincent composed himself, extended his hand to Davidson, and said, “Thank you for your time, doctor. We’ll be in touch.”
Vincent and Stone then slipped out of the room and trekked their way back to the parking lot, Davidson watching them leave with a chagrined and anxiety-ridden furl of his brow as he bade them goodbye.
8
Vincent rubbed the stubble on his chin, trying to recall how long it had been since he had a shave. Two days maybe three?
And at this point he didn’t really care.
All around Hollow Green, uniformed officers were cordoning off streets, interviewing residents, and stopping cars from attempting to enter or exit the town. FBI agents were working in pairs under Stone’s command as they went door to door and did searches of every residence, every nook and cranny in the city, to try and locate Trevor Michaels.
The collective mindset of the town was on edge, uneasy, and slowly becoming surlier as the hours ticked on, the town of Hollow Green now under a pseudo-martial-law status that no resident had ever dreamed was a possibility in a town where nothing ever happened.
Vincent, Stone, and Sandoval were in and out of the station, coordinating with Chief Mason and several other members of the FBI, finally settling in for a quick bite to eat in the conference room as Stone displayed a file in front of Vincent.
“This is starting to turn into less and less of a coincidence,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Vincent asked.
“The first victim that died had an interesting work history.”
Vincent skimmed through the file and saw that the first victim, Sarah Howell, was a freelance consultant for non-profit organizations, specializing in budget restructuring and fiscal accountability, helping streamline and keep organizations afloat when they were on the edge of bankruptcy.
One of her clients: Hollow Green Mental Health Facility.
“Jesus Christ,” Vincent said. “We need to look at the file for the second victim.” He turned his head. “Sandoval,” he said. “Where is he?”
But there was no sign of him.
Stone said, “I think he stepped out to speak with the chief.”
Vincent stood up and huffed, agitated and feeling a sense of panic overcoming him. “All the elements are starting to stack up,” he said. “None of this makes any sense.”
“My people are looking into Trevor Michaels’ records to see if anything lines up with that photograph you found with his possessions. So far, we’re not coming up with anything.”
Before she finished, Vincent had taken out his cell phone and dialed the n
umber for Dr. Davidson back at the facility. The phone rang four times. Davidson didn’t answer.
“Shit,” Vincent hung up the phone. “I want to know if Davidson ever heard Michaels mention anything to him about that photograph.”
Stone said, “You would have thought he would make it a point to mention it.”
“Exactly…”
Vincent tapped his pen repeatedly on the desk, shaking his head at the same time, like the tapping of ruby slippers and hoping that the ritual would yield some kind of result.
“Something’s wrong,” Vincent said. “Something is very wrong with all of this. Every element of this feels out of place.”
He stood up, pacing the room, the chatter and ringing phones outside the conference room acting like a metronome.
“What do we know?” he said to Stone. “What are the facts we have so far?”
Stone, after finishing off the remnants of the cheap hamburger they’d picked up from local fast food joint Burton’s, wiped her hands. “Trevor Michaels is released from Hollow Green Mental Health Facility with a big pat on the back from his doctors. He’s a model parolee until he goes missing. Not long after, a string of murders starts occurring in the small town he was incarcerated in, in the same fashion in which the original murders were conducted. Three victims, one of which was a male victim, breaking his pattern and sending all of Hollow Green into a frenzy.”
“Meanwhile, his doctor,” Vincent added, “seemed shocked but not too shocked at the turn of events. We find out that one of the victims was connected to the facility, along with our first victim. I’m starting to think that once we get our hands on Karen Mercer’s file, we’ll probably discover something along those lines.”
Sandoval entered the room, rushed and rolling his eyes. “Fucking Feds,” he said, glancing at Stone and adding, “No offense,” after closing the door behind him.
“None taken,” Stone said.
“I need Karen Mercer’s file,” Vincent said to Sandoval.
“I think it’s out in the bullpen. One second.”
Sandoval slipped out of the room. Vincent stood and surveyed the agents and officers working in a hustle out in the bullpen, dismayed looks and furled brows adding to the already abundant amounts of tension that had accumulated.
Then Vincent had a thought. “What’s the best way to go about robbing a bank?” he asked.
Stone sighed. “Shit. You’re losing it, aren’t you?”
“Indulge me a moment. You work for the bank robbery experts. What’s the best way to go about robbing a bank?”
Stone pushed her file aside and held her hands up. “Coordination. Prep work. A tight team on a tight schedule. I could go on.”
Vincent turned around. Shook his head. “Misdirection,” he said. “Distraction. Making sure that everyone’s attention is fixated on something else while you go about taking what you want right out from under everyone’s noses.”
Stone was starting to catch on. She stood up and joined Vincent, surveying the agents and HGPD officers trying their best to tend to an untenable situation.
“You think…” she began quietly, “that… all of this is just a misdirect?”
Vincent nodded solemnly. “You and I both had a sense that these murders weren’t being committed by Trevor Michaels. None of it makes sense. Now, he’s allegedly on a spree again, and we have new elements being thrown at us at every turn.”
Vincent took a survey of all the heads in the room, trying to find something, anything that would shed some light on a case that was being pushed further into the dark as the seconds ticked by.
Sandoval reentered the room, Karen Mercer’s file in hand. “Sorry about that, Eddie,” he said, handing the file over to Vincent. “One of the uniforms was running around with it.”
Vincent said nothing. He cracked open the faded brown folder and skimmed the contents, his finger tracing the paper and running from side to side like a man reading Braille.
He paused. Squinted.
“Wait a second…”
Vincent feverishly turned the pages, searching.
“What is it?” Stone asked.
“Son of a bitch…”
“What?”
Vincent turned to Stone. “Mercer’s employment history isn’t in here.”
“What the hell?” Sandoval exclaimed, taking back the file. “The patrolman I took it off said everything was in here.”
“Get him in here,” Stone demanded. “Right away.”
Sandoval ducked into the bullpen and returned seconds later with a fresh-faced and timid-looking officer who poked his head in the room like a child about to ask an adult for a favor.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
Vincent held up Mercer’s file. “You had this in your possession?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re missing several pages from this document. Where are they?”
The patrolman swallowed, nervous as all hell as he held up his hands. “I, uh,” he mumbled. “It was… It was just sitting on my desk, sir. I didn’t touch it. I swear, it was just sitting there.”
“Who else had it in their possession?”
Sandoval raised his hand. “I took it off the patrolman.”
Vincent turned back to the patrolman. “Who did you get it off?”
“Chief Mason,” the patrolman said. “He had it on his person for the last couple of hours.”
Vincent looked at Sandoval. “Where the hell is the chief?”
Sandoval took a quick three-sixty of the bullpen—nothing.
“No sign of him, Eddie.”
Vincent threw the file down on the conference table with a slap and stormed into the bullpen. “Mason!” he shouted. “Chief, where are you?”
Heads turned. But no one answered.
Stone arrived hot on Vincent’s heels. “Take it easy. It might just be an error.”
“There’s no error here.” Vincent’s heart rate was now working into overtime as he began walking through the bullpen on a mission. “Someone’s withholding pertinent information from this file.”
“Easy,” Sandoval added as he joined them. “Stone’s right. The pages were probably just misplaced.”
“No. No, they weren’t.”
Sandoval turned to the left and said, “I’ll look for him. Hang on.”
Stone grabbed Vincent by the elbow and pulled him out of earshot, Vincent’s face turning a shade of red. He was livid. The elements stacked against him now felt like an overwhelming force that tested him to his limits, limits he previously would expand by adding a shot of liquor into the mix.
“Cool down,” Stone said, her calm demeanor beckoning to Vincent, encouraging him to come down off the ledge. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I told you,” Vincent said. “Someone’s toying with us. The victims are connected, and someone is trying to lure our attention away onto the manhunt so that we fail to see the real production going on behind the curtain.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Vincent. But you’re starting to talk in riddles.”
“Because this is now a run-out-the-clock situation, Stone. The more time that passes, the less likely we are at finding out what’s going and who is responsible.”
“Agreed,” Stone said, leaning in a little closer. “But you’re working off frustration and adrenaline right now.”
“That’s a bunch of psych bullshit,” Vincent said with a squint.
“No. It’s not. I can see it in your eyes. You have the same look of frustration that builds and builds until you find yourself lashing out at the most opportune moment to release that tension.”
“That a fact?”
“Yeah,” Stone said. “Happens to me when my dick of an ex-husband changes up the times I get to see my son.”
Vincent fell silent. In an instant, he felt his rage and irritation subside, his heartstrings being plucked by a musician who played sad music similar to his—Stone.
“I’m right,” Stone s
aid. “Aren’t I?”
Vincent took a breath, stepped back, and nodded solemnly. “You’re right,” he said. “You are one hundred and ten percent right.”
Stone posted up beside him like a friend on a school bus. “I get it,” she said. “I get it. But don’t let it distract you from the bigger picture. You’re right—something is going on beneath the surface here. Someone is pulling the strings on this whole puppet show.”
“Who is it?” Vincent asked. “Mason?”
He arched his brow as another suspect—and, quite frankly, a more obvious one—crept up his spine and planted itself like a seed in his brain.
He looked at Stone, the answers now more evident than ever.
“Davidson,” he said. “Trevor Michaels’ doctor.”
Stone nodded. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe…”
As Vincent tried to theorize how and why, Sandoval hustled up to them with a sweaty brow and a tense expression.
“We just got a call,” he said. “Someone thinks that they found Trevor Michaels in their house!”
9
As if fate itself had been on their side, the FBI tactical response team had arrived the moment that Sandoval received a call from a neighbor on North Slater Road who informed them that a man was in his basement, creating all sorts of ruckus and doing only God knows what.
The Hollow Green PD then coordinated with the FBI on locking down the street, setting up roadblocks, and positioning the six men dressed in all-black gear, complete with the FBI initials on their Kevlar and helmets, outside 1428 North Slater Road, a one-story property that had been lived in for several generations.
Sandoval and Vincent rolled up in their sedan, a patrolman clearing the way as onlookers watched on with tense expressions and nervous hops in their steps.
“Move out of the way!” the patrolman said, pushing back the citizens. “Let’s go! Come on!”
“Oh, man…” Sandoval took a look around through the passenger-side window. “Everyone is starting to lose their minds.”
Hollow Green Page 4
