American Predator

by Maureen Callahan

  “Place the knives on your trunk.”

  Henry was nervous. He looked around for Hadnot, who had followed. Henry waved him over, then got in his patrol car to run the license plate. Nothing. No record, no warrants, not even a speeding ticket.

  Hadnot called Rayburn and Gannaway, and in the minutes before their arrival, Henry again approached the driver.

  “What’s this about?” Keyes asked.

  “We’re looking into a kidnapping,” Henry said. “From Alaska.”

  “I’ve been mostly staying in Wells,” Keyes said. “But I stayed at the Quality Inn last night with my brother. I have two brothers in town for the wedding. They’re both from Maine.”

  These were a lot of unsolicited details. Henry’s training told him: This man was lying.

  Henry also noticed that Keyes was sweating profusely, more than usual for the weather. It was a perfect Texas spring day, 85 degrees, no humidity. There were patches of sweat blooming under the man’s thin gray tank top, the kind you buy in a three-pack at the drugstore.

  “How long have you been in Texas?” Henry asked.

  Keyes paused, as if thinking.

  “Last Thursday,” Keyes said. “The same day as the big rain.”

  That was right. There had been a massive storm that night, dumping more than four inches of rain, hailstones the size of grapefruit knocking birds out of trees.

  “Did you fly down here or drive?” Henry asked.

  “The only plane ticket I could get from Anchorage was to Las Vegas,” Keyes said. “So I flew to Vegas and then drove to Texas. Also I flew into Vegas so I could take my daughter to see the Grand Canyon.”

  This story was getting more and more convoluted.

  “Where is your daughter now?” Henry asked.

  “She’s in town with my brother, in Wells,” Keyes said. “She’s ten.”

  * * *

  —

  Rayburn pulled up with Gannaway, relieved to see everyone on the scene. He approached Henry, who gave a quick briefing while unhooking his body mic and giving it to Rayburn. Careful to stand in the “arena of performance”—within view of the patrol car’s dashboard camera—Rayburn approached Keyes.

  Keyes spoke first.

  “Does this have anything to do with the officer who drove through my parking lot last night?” he asked.

  Rayburn knew nothing about that. He ignored the question.

  “Did you stay at the Quality Inn last night?” Rayburn asked Keyes.

  Keyes looked to Gannaway, who was quietly circling the rental car, then back to Rayburn.

  “Yes, with my brother. The room’s in his name. I’ve been in and out of there for the past two days.” Rayburn peered around Keyes and into the driver’s door. He saw a pair of white sneakers peeking out from under the seat.

  “When did you rent this car?”

  “A few days ago,” Keyes said. “The day after I flew into Las Vegas. Last Thursday.”

  Keyes began stretching his limbs, another giveaway: This guy wasn’t telling the truth. He might be ready to run.

  Gannaway walked over.

  “I’m Special Agent Deb Gannaway with the FBI,” she said. “So how many states have you stopped in?”

  “Well,” Keyes said, “I drove Interstate 40 and stopped at the Hoover Dam. But I didn’t really stay in any state because I only slept for an hour and a half a night. I drove the rest of the time.”

  “Never stopped to get gas?” Gannaway asked.

  “Oh, yeah, of course. A few times.”

  “How’d you pay for it?”

  Keyes paused.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably cash.”

  Gannaway was really intrigued now.

  “Again: How’d you pay for the gas?”

  “Probably cash,” Keyes said. He was getting annoyed.

  Rayburn stepped in. “Listen,” he said. “It’s easy enough to corroborate your story. Can we search your wallet?”

  “You guys aren’t searching anything,” Keyes said. “Am I under arrest?”

  * * *

  —

  Steve Payne sat in his car, in line at the Sugar Shack coffee kiosk, staring straight ahead. It was a little after 8:30 A.M. in Anchorage, the sun now finally rising.

  He was so tired. Last night he’d been woken up three times, calls about more ATM withdrawals at 2:00, 2:30, and 2:47 A.M. Payne was on the phone with field teams in Texas until 5:00. It was a struggle to get back to sleep.

  He was running on fumes, a low-level nervous energy laced with guilt. When Payne wasn’t working he was sleeping, but when he was sleeping he wasn’t working. What if something happened? Then again, if he wasn’t sleeping, he wouldn’t be clear enough to think straight—but was that just an excuse, something he was selfishly telling himself?

  He sat waiting to order his usual, a twenty-ounce skinny peppermint mocha with whipped cream. Payne got teased about it all the time, his penchant for what he called his “froufrou” coffee, and compensated by drinking a pot and a half of cheap office swill the rest of the day.

  The Sugar Shack was a couple of minutes from the FBI field office, and Payne watched the young baristas—two now, never a lone girl in any kiosk since Samantha vanished—serving rush-hour coffees; their breath forming plumes in the cold air; the lightening sky; their worn, fingerless gloves popping in and out of the kiosk’s window with cups, cash, credit cards. These girls had been up since 4:30 to open, pushing against all impulses to sleep, warm and cocooned from the unrelenting cold.

  Payne knew most of these baristas by name, and so did his girlfriend, a nurse. Some were saving for college; others were working on medical degrees. Payne’s girlfriend always made a point of telling them to stick with it. They were good girls, Payne thought, the girls who make my skinny mocha every morning. Any one of them could have met Samantha’s fate, whatever that was.

  His cell phone rang. Payne didn’t recognize the number, but he picked up anyway.

  “I’m Special Agent Deb Gannaway with the Lufkin, Texas, field office. We pulled a suspect in your case over for speeding.”

  Payne jolted awake.

  “We have his driver’s license. He’s from Alaska. His name is Israel Keyes.”

  The name meant nothing to Payne. Alaska, though—that was compelling. Still, he reminded himself: Murphy.

  “Okay,” Payne said. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re asking him where he’s going, why he’s here,” Gannaway replied. “He said he rented a car in Vegas to drive down here to his sister’s wedding.”

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Well, from what we can see from outside, he’s got a pair of white sneakers under the driver’s seat. I also see a roll of rubber-banded cash in the passenger door pocket. There’s red dye on it. And on the passenger seat there are some maps with highlighting on them.”

  Cause for pause, Payne thought. Shoes that match the suspect doing all those ATM withdrawals—generic yes, but a match. Banks preload cash with exploding ink in case of robbery. And paper maps in the era of GPS?

  “He’s being uncooperative,” Gannaway said. “He’s agitated and keeps asking why all these questions for a routine traffic stop. What do you want to do?”

  Payne felt a surge of adrenaline. He had to think this through quickly but carefully. Did they have enough probable cause to search Keyes’s vehicle? The stuff Gannaway had was pretty thin.

  “I don’t know,” Payne said. “Maps and sneakers . . . It’s not much.”

  “I agree,” Gannaway said.

  “But then you’ve got an Alaska driver’s license and this crazy story,” Payne said. “Is there probable cause?”

  Gannaway thought for a moment.

  “I don’t want to blow this for you,” she said. “You should know that in Texas,
we have a probable cause exemption. If you have enough reason to believe a vehicle has been used in the commission of a crime, you can search it.”

  Payne’s decision had to be unimpeachable. The little he had just learned made Keyes an automatic suspect. But if it was later determined that there wasn’t enough probable cause, anything they turned up would be thrown out of court—fruit of the poisonous tree, they called it.

  Payne checked himself. He had never thought about a case this way before, caring more about finding someone than losing evidence along the way.

  Keyes piped up. “Can I leave?” he asked. “Or at least call my brother?”

  Gannaway turned her head, cell to her ear.

  “Yes,” she told Keyes. “You may call your brother.”

  Payne made his decision.

  “I don’t want to cut this guy loose without searching that car,” he told Gannaway. “It doesn’t matter to me how you do it.”

  * * *

  —

  Payne hung up. He was near tears. He got his coffee and parked his car behind the shack. He so badly wanted to stay on the phone with Gannaway, but his training took over. He knew that she and her team needed to focus. He thought about heading over to the FBI, but he didn’t want to do that either. He wanted to sit in his car with his coffee, in the quiet, and think.

  Could this actually be the guy? Payne was aware of how badly he wanted it to be, and worried that being hopeful might jinx it.

  He pushed that fear away. Think like the agent you are, he said to himself. What do the facts, as you know them to be, tell you?

  We’ve got someone from Alaska, he thought, all the way down in Texas. We’re remote. This guy can’t account for why he took such an odd route to his sister’s wedding. The vehicle matches. The dye packs. The maps, the shoes. The shifty demeanor.

  This should be the guy, Payne thought. He felt it in his gut. He allowed himself to go a little further: This was the guy. He knew it, and once again he felt a surge of hope that Samantha was alive.

  * * *

  —

  Payne looked at the time. Ten minutes had passed. It felt like an hour.

  The loneliness, in that moment, was surreal. Here he was, the lead FBI agent on the interstate kidnapping of a teenage girl, sitting in a parking lot with his overpriced coffee quickly going cold, the air crisp and clear, the illuminating sky a harbinger of hope. He was the only person in Alaska who knew they might have Samantha’s kidnapper and the consequences of the next few minutes.

  The wait was unbearable. What if these investigators blew it? What if this guy was smarter than they even thought? Who would drive around with evidence of such a crime, especially if he was telling the truth about traveling with his little girl? What if there was no choice but to let him go? Then what?

  Twenty minutes went by. Were they coming up empty?

  His cell rang. It was Gannaway.

  “We got him,” she said. “This is the guy.”

  Payne couldn’t believe it.

  “What do you have?” he asked.

  “Enough,” Gannaway said.

  Payne thanked her, over and over. They were going to bring Samantha home.

  SEVEN

  Down in Texas, on the side of the road, the suspect stood, surrounded by five officers.

  Rayburn walked back to his pickup, grabbed his Nikon camera, and handed it off to a sergeant on the scene.

  “Shoot everything we find,” Rayburn said.

  It was 12:26 P.M., almost an hour after Keyes had been pulled over. Rayburn and Gannaway began the search. From inside the vehicle, they inventoried the front. In addition to the highlighted maps of California, Arizona, and New Mexico on the front passenger seat, they found:

  One can of AMP Energy drink, open

  One set of school photos of a child

  One pair of sneakers, white

  One ATM receipt, under driver’s-side floor mat, reading “DEBIT NOT AVAILABLE”

  Sony digital camera containing 200-plus photos of a wedding

  One new gray shirt, with store tags, packaging Winchester brand

  Amber-tinted sunglasses, no packaging

  One T-shirt with one sleeve cut off

  Dark gray fleece Columbia jacket

  Several Walmart bags

  Rolls of cash in denominations of $5 and $10

  In the backseat they found:

  Walmart receipt stamped “Lufkin, TX, 4:10 A.M., 3/12/2012”

  One sandwich

  One energy drink

  One pair of black sunglasses

  One partial gallon of water

  Laundry detergent

  One pink backpack

  In the trunk:

  One green backpack

  One gray DVD case containing pornographic images of a black female

  Pornographic DVDs including transgender pornography

  Alaska Airlines flight confirmation of Israel Keyes and daughter to depart Anchorage on 3/6/2012, arriving Seattle, WA, 5:54 A.M., departing Seattle 3:30 P.M., arriving Las Vegas 5:56 P.M.

  Bottles of alcohol, still chilled, in Walmart bags

  Gray fleece jacket

  Gray hooded sweatshirt with amber shooting glasses and a gray cloth mask in front pocket, gloves in another pocket

  One laptop

  One black Samsung cell phone, slider type, battery and SIM card removed

  Toiletry kit

  One handgun

  One pair binoculars

  One black ski mask

  One headlamp

  Rayburn wanted Henry, who’d done the initial traffic stop, to have the honors. “Hook him up,” Rayburn said.

  Now that Keyes was under arrest, Rayburn could search his wallet. Inside was a driver’s license belonging to Samantha Koenig.

  EIGHT

  Payne made the five-minute drive over to the FBI, calling APD on the way. Bell and Doll immediately ran a criminal records check on Israel Keyes. They came up empty.

  That was unusual. Most people arrested on big charges almost always have a record.

  Next, they ran his driver’s license and got his home address: 2456 Spurr Lane, in the Turnagain section of Anchorage. That was also unusual. Lots of lawyers, prosecutors, and judges lived in that neighborhood.

  Everyone had the same thought: What if Samantha was in the house? What if she was tied up in the basement, alive in Anchorage this entire time?

  Doll began writing up a search warrant. Bell, along with the Special Assignment Unit and SWAT, rushed to the house.

  * * *

  —

  Next, Payne called Kat Nelson and asked her to run a search of her own. She also began with criminal history and was surprised to find nothing. Such an unusual name in such a small community, no record? Like Payne, she began doubting herself. “Did I enter this right?” she wondered.

  Nelson ran the name Israel Keyes again. This time she used the FBI’s internal database. If Keyes had even been mentioned in a prior police report anywhere in the United States, his name would come up.

  Nothing.

  Desperate, Nelson finally just Googled him. She was looking for friends and family members—“known associates,” in law-enforcement parlance—plus former addresses, hunting and fishing licenses, and whether he was a registered gun owner.

  Did he rent a storage unit? Who did he know who had a place to hide Samantha?

  Nelson found a couple of clues. One of Keyes’s former addresses was in Fort Lewis, Washington. This meant he’d probably served in the military. She made a note to call the army.

  The hou
se at Spurr Lane, Nelson learned, was owned by Kimberly Anderson, a nurse at Alaska Regional Hospital. Nelson ran Anderson through an FBI and public records search and learned she purchased the home in 2009. Registered to her was a Nissan Xterra, which had been spotted in some of the early Anchorage ATM withdrawal videos.

  What was a smart, professional woman like this doing with Keyes? Could she have been an accomplice? Nelson called the hospital and identified herself as FBI. Is Kimberly Anderson working today? she asked.

  Yes, came the reply.

  Keep her busy, Nelson said. Don’t let her leave until I call you back.

  * * *

  —

  It was now 9:30 A.M. in Alaska. Bell and members of the Special Assignment Unit were taking positions outside the house. It was small, blue, well tended, tucked toward the horseshoe end of a cul-de-sac. There were two sheds off to the right and a trailer. In front sat a white pickup truck, a Chevrolet.

  Bell’s heart sank. This truck, at this very address, had been checked out by APD right after Samantha disappeared. They had ruled it out.

  Officers knocked on the front door. No answer. They looked to the right and saw fresh tire tracks in the snow. Someone had just driven away.

  Bell hadn’t gotten a judge to sign off on the search warrant yet, which meant they couldn’t get in the house or the sheds or the trailer, even though Samantha might be in any one of them. The best they could do was knock on the front and back doors and look through windows.