He was yet another victim of Fifteen-X, but at least he’d have the opportunity to rebuild his life.
Unlike the others.
Jess saved her document to her hard drive, the cloud and a flash drive, then picked up her handbag and headed out. Her thirty minutes with Corrina Stone beckoned. She hoped the agent had a juicy tidbit to offer, something that would grab the readers. Not that she needed it. The chart on the office wall showed that print sales alone were at an all-time high, up 360 percent in the last three days, and still climbing.
She thought about the fifty-grand bonus, and realized she’d sold out cheap.
* * *
Corrina was surprised to see McCrae knock on the task force door. He normally called in advance when he was coming over.
She beckoned him in.
“Hi,” he said. “I brought over the case files for the Sheila Graham investigation. There’s something interesting and I think it might be relevant.”
“Please,” Corrina said, indicating a seat.
McCrae sat and opened the file. “The officers leading the case, detectives Wright and Hargreaves interviewed a suspect named Seth Benning about Sheila’s murder. A hair was found at the scene that didn’t match the main suspect, Calvin Holland, or the victim. They knew they had their man, but followed up anyway. According to the records, Benning was matched to the hair because they had his DNA on file following a drunk and disorderly arrest when he was in his early twenties. They asked him if he knew Sheila Graham. He said he didn’t. They then showed him a photo of her, and said he recognized the face. He’d been out shopping on Rodeo Drive, looking for a gift for a friend’s birthday. As he came out of a store he’d bumped into Graham. Said she was pretty livid about it. He was sure it was her because her lips and eyes really stood out. He said the hair must have dropped onto her during that contact.”
“And they took his word for it?” Corrina asked.
“Why shouldn’t they? They already had Calvin Holland as the prime suspect. Sheila’s blood was found on a knife at his apartment. Calvin admitted they’d been making love, but then he says he blacked out. Came around eight hours later, no sign of her. He assumed she’d just gone home, until the police came knocking.”
“Pass me the list of cancer victims,” Corrina said. Josh handed the printout to her, and she told him to check the list of GMC van owners.
“No Benning here,” she sighed. “It’s alphabetical, right?”
“It is,” Josh assured her, tossing his list onto the table. “He’s not here, either.”
“Maybe it happened like he said,” Hank offered. “He brushed past her, his hair fell onto her clothes and fell off again at Holland’s place.”
“Where was it found?” Josh asked.
“Holland’s place,” Hank repeated slowly, as if the kid was having trouble understanding.
“No, I mean where in the house? By the front door? The killer said he removed his covering before returning the remote for the garage.”
McCrae leafed through the file until he got to the forensic report. “Master bedroom.”
“Then he ticks no boxes.”
Corrina looked at Hank. “Bring up Street View on your laptop.” She asked McCrae for Benning’s address. He read it out, and Hank looked it up. Once he had a picture on the screen, he turned it so everyone could see.
The house was a one-story red-brick, with an arched window and a neat little garden.
“If there’s a basement in that house—which I seriously doubt—there’s no way he’s torturing anyone without the neighbors hearing. They can’t be, what, eight yards away?”
“At the most,” McCrae said, agreeing with Josh.
Corrina sighed. “How could a person leave so many clues, yet be so hard to find? I bet when we catch him, we find it’s all been lies. The house, the cancer, the van, the bike, everything.”
“Perhaps, but I just think we’re missing something,” Hank said.
“Maybe,” Corrina said. “Josh, have you finished adding the relatives of the cancer victims?”
“Almost.” He checked his list. “Sixty-seven to go, then that’s all of LA done.”
Corrina grabbed her jacket. “Okay, that’s your priority. I’m going to speak to Seth Benning.”
“Even though it’s a dead end?” Hank asked.
“You got something more pressing we should focus on?”
Hank shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
Corrina took McCrae’s elbow and steered him toward the door. “Come on. We’ll take your car.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he grinned.
As they rode the elevator to the ground floor, McCrae asked if she’d heard from Mike recently.
“I called him last night, but only to check up on Connor.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine. You know how kids are. Anything out of the ordinary is an adventure for them.”
“Actually, I don’t. Jean and I never got that far.”
Corrina grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It wouldn’t have been fair to bring a child into the world while we’re sitting on a pile of debt. I’d want to give it a good start in life. As things stand, I couldn’t even afford diapers.”
“She really screwed you, huh?”
McCrae gave a single nod. “The crazy thing is, I let her.”
Corrina faced the door. “We do stupid things when we’re in love.”
“That’s just it. It was never love. Lust maybe, but we weren’t soul mates. Hell, I think you and I are more compatible than Jean and I ever were.”
Before she could stop herself, Corrina planted her mouth on his and kissed him hungrily. When she pulled back, she was faced with a look of abject horror.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry. I don’t know—”
McCrae grabbed her cheeks and pulled her to him, their lips meeting and tongues immediately exploring.
When the elevator pinged, Corrina stepped back and faced the door, catching her breath. When it opened, they walked out without a word to each other. It wasn’t until they got to the car that Corrina broke the awkward silence.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“Nor do I, but I’m glad it did. I’ve been wanting to do that for eight years.”
“You have?”
“Uh-huh,” McCrae said.
“But when I touched your leg a few days ago, you looked uncomfortable.”
“That’s because I was trying to build up the courage to kiss you there and then, but by the time I stopped the car, the moment had passed.”
Corrina threw him her most seductive smile. “Wimp.”
“Aye, that’s me.”
They got in, McCrae driving. He entered the address they had for Seth Benning into the satnav and set off.
“Seriously, though, we gotta talk,” Corrina said, as they pointed north on 405. “Not now, but at some point.”
“Sure. Whenever you’re ready. But back to business, you think this Benning guy could be him?”
“Could be. Nothing points to him, but is the killer really gonna make it that easy for us?”
“I hear ya,” McCrae said. “If he’s not done killing, he’ll want to point us in the wrong direction ’til he can finish the job.”
“When you put it that way, anyone could be a suspect. Now that I think about it, what were you doing last Friday night, around ten?”
McCrae looked over and smiled. “Thinking of you.”
Corrina fixed her gaze forward, a grin fighting to gain control of her face.
“You’re blushing!”
“Quit it, Loney. We’ve got work to do.”
They reached Benning’s house just after ten. McCrae parked in the street a couple of houses away.
“Looks like a quiet area,” Corrina said. “Can’t see him bringing his victims here.”
“Me neither. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”
They got out and walked up to the house. Corrina not
iced that the yard was immaculate. Someone had taken a lot of care over it. The grass was vibrant green, the flowers evenly spaced and well-tended. “Compulsive gardener?”
“As in obsessive-compulsive?”
OCD was common in serial killers. Corrina had done a lot of reading on the subject in recent days. She guessed McCrae had, too.
“Tick box one,” she said, and gestured to McCrae to go first. He walked up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
He tried again, but still no one answered.
“I wanna take a look around,” Corrina said. She started with the garage. It had windows set high in the roll-up doors, but when she peered through, she couldn’t see a vehicle. No torture setup, either. She then strode to the back, looking in windows as she went down the side of the house.
“The guy’s definitely a neat-freak,” she muttered. The interior was immaculate, just like the garden.
At the back of the property sat a patio set, with three chairs around a small table. The grass here, too, was impeccably trimmed. Corrina knocked on the door, but got no response.
She wished she could break in and take a look around inside, but they needed probable cause, and displaying signs of OCD wouldn’t cut it with her superiors.
She was about to ask McCrae’s opinion when his phone rang. She watched him take the call.
“Yeah…uh-huh…okay, forward it to Agent Stone. I’m going there now.” He ended the call. “Birch found a store receipt with a partial card number next to Sheila Graham’s body. It’s pretty faded, but they’re working their magic. Let’s get back and take a look.”
They jogged back to the car and McCrae ignored the speed limit all the way back to the bureau office on Wilshire. By the time they reached the task force room, Hank and Josh were busy on their laptops.
“Birch said we were lucky,” Hank said as they walked in. “The drought over the last few years kept the ground dry, otherwise it would have disintegrated by now.”
“Did he get anything from it?” Corrina asked.
“It’s from a coffee shop in West Hollywood,” Hank told her, “dated the day before Sheila went missing. We checked the last four digits against her accounts and none match, so it could be our guy. Just waiting for the banks to get back to us on the transaction.”
They always mess up eventually, Corrina said to herself. She didn’t dare share her thoughts, just in case it turned out to be nothing, just some trash that blew into the grave while the killer was filling it.
She had to wait three hours before they finally got a name from First Republic.
“Ted Shearer, aged 39,” Josh announced. “I’ll check the database, see if he’s one of ours.”
Corrina found herself crossing her fingers as she waited for the results to come in. Shearer was in the right age range. This could be the break they were looking for.
But Josh’s face told her everything she needed to know.
“No GMC, no property, no to the cancer list. Nothing.”
“I still think it’s worth checking him out,” Corrina said. “McCrae, can you organize a team to stake him out, or would you like us to do that?”
“Best you do it. We’re spread thin at the moment, and you guys have the expertise.”
“Okay. Hank, get it rolling. Josh, I want a complete profile on this guy, everything from shoe size to favorite cookie. McCrae, you’ll need to sort out a warrant. I say we take him early hours.”
“You got it.”
* * *
It was just before four in the morning when Corrina and McCrae swapped places with the two men in the surveillance van parked three houses down from the Whittier home of Ted Shearer. The third member of the team gave them a rundown of the night’s activities.
“Short version, the subject arrived home at 18:32 and hasn’t been out since,” she told them. “No calls in or out.”
“Gee, you guys sure earn your money,” McCrae said. “How do I get a gig like this?”
“Raise your IQ by sixty points and learn how to use a razor.”
Corrina slapped McCrae on the back. “You asked for that. Come on, let them do their job.”
McCrae rubbed his stubbly jaw as they climbed out and walked back to his car. The SWAT team commander, a hulking sergeant by the name of Frankowitz, was sitting in the rear seat, and his men were standing by just around the corner. They would go on his word.
“You ready to do this?” he asked Corrina.
The unsuccessful raid a few days earlier was still fresh in Corrina’s mind. If this turned out the same, her decision-making would be called into question. Travis had given the operation the green light based on the evidence she’d presented to him, but ultimately the blame would rest with her if it wasn’t their man.
The signs all pointed to Shearer, though. Right age-range, and self-employed, which meant he could carry out his surveillance without an employer noticing his absence. He didn’t own a van, but that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have access to one. Brian Tanner had borrowed a relative’s vehicle, so why not Ted Shearer?
The alternative was to just knock on his door at a sensible hour and hope he didn’t respond with force or try to kill himself.
Neither of those scenarios was particularly appealing.
“Do it,” she replied.
McCrae nodded to Frankowitz, and the entry team commander gave the go-ahead.
The SWAT van slowly drove into view, its headlights off. Better to let the neighbors sleep through it if they could. They certainly didn’t want to wake Shearer before they were in position.
Eight armed men clad in black emerged from the back of the vehicle. They jogged to Shearer’s house, three going around the back, the other five congregating at the front door. When they were in position, they let Frankowitz know over comms.
“Ready. Ready. Go! Go! Go!”
One of the men in black used an enforcer to smash in the front door and the rest piled inside the house. Corrina could hear shouts coming from the house, but thankfully no shots. It was a tense couple of minutes before the call came through.
“One in custody, the rest is clear.”
McCrae was first out of the car, Corrina and Frankowitz following. As they ran to Shearer’s home, they could see lights coming on in the neighboring houses, the commotion waking the occupants.
The SWAT escorts led Ted Shearer out of the house and put him into a squad car as McCrae and Corrina approached the front door. The forensics team was already on scene to check the building over.
Corrina and McCrae put on plastic shoe covers and walked into the house. They checked every door looking for a basement, but all they found were rooms and closets. They then tried the walls to see if there was a disguised entry, but that came up blank, too.
On their way out, McCrae approached the FIU team leader. “I want the carpets up and every inch of flooring checked,” he said. “And check the attic. If there’s a hidden room here, I wanna know about it.”
As they left the house, uniformed officers were setting up a cordon. One of the neighbors must have called the news stations, because the first of the network vans had just pulled up and the crew made a beeline for Corrina.
“Agent Stone, have you arrested Fifteen-X?”
“No comment,” Corrina said automatically, and regretted it. A denial would have been better, but the reporter latched on to her words.
“Who’s the suspect? Did you find any remains in the house?”
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” McCrae cut in. “We’ll provide details at the appropriate time.”
Corrina and McCrae pushed past the reporters and returned to his car.
The cruiser containing the suspect was already headed back to the station, and they would let him stew for an hour or so before interviewing him at length.
Time for them to grab some breakfast and decide on their line of questioning.
Chapter 26
It was a good start to the day.
&nb
sp; As soon as he tuned the TV to the news channel, Seth Benning saw Agent Stone standing outside a house as she removed blue plastic bags from her shoes. The caption at the bottom of the screen told the watching world that an arrest had been made in the Fifteen-X case.
Just as he’d hoped. He’d waited five years to see whether they’d discover the shopping receipt he’d dropped in the grave with Sheila Graham’s remains. He remembered the moment he saw the guy leave his table at the coffee shop, with the receipt next to his empty cup. Always keep your receipts, Seth had said to himself. It was something he’d drilled into himself after seeing a colleague become a victim of identity theft many years earlier. That was why he kept a shredder. He never threw away bills, receipts, invoices, or anything else with his name on it. They either got filed away, or destroyed before going in the trash. Seeing the slip of paper lying on the table, an idea had popped into Seth’s head. If he left that as a clue with one of his victims, it would throw the police off the trail. At least for a while.
He’d picked it up on his way out, and two days later he’d slipped it under one of the packages containing bits of Sheila Graham.
Five years of not knowing whether the soil would render it illegible, perhaps even destroy the paper altogether. But no, it had survived its time in the ground. And now that they had a suspect, the heat would be off him.
But not for long.
And he still hadn’t decided how to take number fifteen.
He knew her schedule—such as it was. Work, and sleep. She never went out at night, had no friends to hang out with. In short, there were few ways to get to her without going to her apartment.
He had an idea, but it was risky. He would have to get hold of her phone, even if it was just for thirty seconds. That would be long enough. If he could do that…well, he had the perfect plan.
She would come to him.
But how to get it?
He couldn’t ask her for it. No, that wouldn’t work.
Excuse me, can I borrow your phone for a minute? I want to use it to lure you to a grisly death.
Fifteen Times a Killer Page 20
