Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  ‘You start,’ Narey shot back. ‘We’ll do our best to keep up.’

  ‘Do that. Garland used a Tor connection that hid his internet history and his general computer usage. Our tech guys are chipping away at that as we speak but all we have for now is a very limited search history. Most of it is general – news sites, some alt-right sites, plus Facebook, Twitter and some general Google searches. Almost all of those searches were focused on Glasgow.’

  ‘This gets weirder and weirder. What were the searches?’

  ‘He looked for bars, restaurants, places of interest, local transit. We don’t think he was planning any kind of trip to Scotland, since he’d no flights booked and he didn’t have a passport. We know he had an accomplice of sorts, a man known to us as Matthew Marr. He is the Glasgow connection. That’s about all we know, and we need you guys to help us change that.’

  ‘Which brings us to your list.’

  ‘I was really hoping it would. The suspense is killing me here, Detective Narey.’

  She smiled. ‘I’m not trying to piss you off, Detective Salgado, or to delay this. We are all wondering what the hell we’re in the middle of and I needed a clear picture. Okay, the reason that I personally am sitting here is that one of the names on your list is the victim in a case that I’m actively working on. Eloise Gray. She disappeared five months ago, and her body was found this week. Given that happened just a couple of days before your list was sent to us, it’s a coincidence I’m not very comfortable with. A fragment of clothing was found beside the body and DNA tests showed a match to our prime suspect. However,’ she breathed deep, ‘I don’t believe our suspect is guilty and this list just convinces me of it.’

  ‘What? Oh for fuck’s sake, Rachel,’ Addison exploded from stage right. ‘Why the fuck am I just hearing this now? Why am I hearing it at all?’

  She grimaced, eyebrows raised to the Americans away from Addison’s view, and directed her response to them. ‘I think he’s been set up. I’ve no idea by whom or why but I’m guessing the answer to that will answer some of your other questions too.’

  Salgado and O’Neill nodded at her from the other side of the Atlantic. ‘We’re hoping so. What about the other names on the list?’

  ‘Okay. There’s plenty. First of all though, the list is split into two. Roughly half in italics and half not. Was that your marking or his?’

  ‘His. All his.’

  ‘That makes sense. I have information on all the non-italic names but only have something on one on the other half of the list. Again, that’s a direct link to my own case.’

  She watched the two Americans look at each other and instinctively knew what they were feeling and thinking. She knew the rush of excitement tinged with fear, knew their pulses would be quickening, their minds racing. She felt the same.

  ‘Brianna Holden was a twenty-seven-year-old mother of two from Shawlands on Glasgow’s south side. She was murdered three years ago, found strangled on the outskirts of Pollok Park. A man, Kevin Monteith, went to trial, but the defence came up with a cast-iron alibi. Next—’

  ‘Sorry. How did you say she was killed?’

  ‘Strangled. My accent?

  ‘Right. Yeah, sorry.’

  ‘Next, Stuart McLennan. Thirty-three years old. Drowned after falling in the River Clyde while heavily intoxicated. No witnesses. Ruled as accidental death. There was discussion of the possibility of suicide, as he’d been having marital problems, but nothing more to support that. Ellen Lambert was a name I knew. She was killed in her home in Kilmarnock – a town about twenty-five miles south of here – early last year, severe blunt force trauma courtesy of a poker from a fireplace set.’

  ‘Nice. Who else do you have?’

  ‘Kris Perera. Sri Lankan doctor, lived in Scotland for five years after graduating here. Murdered in what was seen as a racially motivated attack. His presumed attacker, a Barry Leitch, was found not guilty at the high court. Leitch was a member of right-wing groups and became a bit of a tabloid villain, but always swore he had nothing to do with the killing. We also have Chrissie Ramsay from Hamilton, thirty-two years old, drowned in the bath by her husband after he discovered she was having an affair.’

  She looked up from the sheet of paper in front of her and saw the Americans staring back at her, tight-lipped, intense, knowing that they were secretly jumping for twisted joy inside. From the corner of her eye she was aware of Addison edging closer, leaning as far forward in his seat as he could.

  ‘So, bottom line, all the names on the non-italicised side of your list are dead. All murdered or the victim of misadventure. All except two.’

  ‘And those two?’

  ‘Emily Dornan from the East End of Glasgow. Attacked while walking home from a night out with friends. She matches the description in the profile, so little doubt it’s her. She was being strangled after being assaulted from behind, only survived because two guys were passing and chased off the attacker. One of them ran after the guy but he was never caught. The one left is Stefan Kalinowksi. Luckily for us, if not for him, it’s a pretty unusual name. We’ve tracked down one person of that name and we’re set to question him later today. I’m obviously going to speak to Emily Dornan too.’

  Cally O’Neill had one arm propped up by her elbow, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes on the desk in front of her. When she looked up, she took her hand from her face and pulled it through her long auburn hair. ‘Well . . . it looks like we came to the right place.’

  Narey liked her. ‘It looks that way. But it’s about the only thing I’m sure of. The other half of the list, the names in italics . . . as best as we can work out, they don’t exist. Any of them.’

  Salgado shot forward in his chair. ‘They don’t exist?’

  ‘Nope. I don’t think they’re real. We’ve chased down the list – Danny Cook, Greg Hurst, Ben Greaves, Alice Harper, Kelly Stein, Jamie Stark – and while we’ve found a few matching the names, none of them match the descriptions from the profiles. Not even close. Not the jobs, not the physical descriptions. Certainly, none of them are victims in the way that the others were. But . . . there’s one of the names, real or not, that we know very well.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Eloise Gray had told friends that she’d met someone she really liked. A schoolteacher named Jamie. We never knew a surname, but she’d told people he was six foot, blue eyes, fair-haired, thirty-two years old. He liked dogs, hill-climbing, old movies and Oasis.’

  ‘Fuck.’ Salgado spat the word out.

  ‘Yeah. Fuck. Your Jamie is our Jamie. He was Eloise’s Jamie and he is probably the person that killed her. And he doesn’t seem to exist.’

  ‘Sweet mother of mine,’ Salgado was sitting back in his chair, his hands behind his head. ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘A mess,’ Narey replied. ‘Your guy Garland didn’t have a passport so presumably didn’t leave the US, so he can’t physically have been involved in Eloise’s murder. What can you tell us about this Matthew Marr?’

  ‘Not a lot yet,’ O’Neill chipped in. ‘We’re in conversation with him and trying to get whatever we can. He says he’s in Glasgow and we have to believe him till we know otherwise.’

  ‘How is this conversation happening? And why? Why is he even talking to you?’

  ‘We’re using the same secure chat system he used to talk to Garland. And he’s talking to us because he’s getting a kick from it. And because we’ve agreed to run the video feed of the kid and let him see it.’

  Narey couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You’re letting him watch this guy die?’

  ‘It’s the price we’re having to pay to keep him on the line. We’re not happy about it but if we switch it off, he disappears, and we’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Right. Okay, I see that. Can I get transcripts of the conversations? See if there’s anything I can pick up on.’

  O’Neill smiled. ‘We’ve included transcripts in the report we emailed to you. But we’d like to go a step furt
her and have you talk to him directly. We figure you might get more from him, being local. Maybe trip him up and get us some kind of breakthrough. You up for that, Rachel? I can call you Rachel, right?’

  ‘Of course you can. And I’m definitely up for that. Whatever it takes.’

  ‘Good. For one thing we won’t have to get up in the middle of the night to talk to the guy. Not that we’re getting much sleep. Matthew Marr is our best hope, maybe our only hope of finding this kid before it’s too late. Our tech guy is working on the router and he figures he can let you access it within a couple of hours.’

  ‘Okay, good. That will give me time to read through what he’s said so far.’ She hesitated, filling the gap with a heavy sigh. ‘You’re sure your guy has killed five people?’

  ‘At least five, yes. We’ve already found one of his victims and we’re working on the others. Rachel, I know what you’re thinking and the thing you need to know is that the first line we had from Marr, who thought he was talking to Garland, was that the kidnapped male ought to be dead by now. Marr also said it was Ethan’s turn. Those were his very words. His turn.’

  Narey’s stomach flipped.

  ‘Jesus. If they were taking turns . . .’

  ‘Yeah.’ O’Neill let the thought sink in. ‘We think your guy is doing the same as ours. We think Garland and Marr are two of a kind. We’d been working on that basis but what you’ve told us about the names on that list kinda seals it. This isn’t two cases, it’s one.’

  ‘I’m going to have to take this higher,’ Narey told them. ‘There are seemingly solid convictions against some of those names and there’s a lot of people going to be very unhappy when I tell them they might have been done by someone that I can’t identify.’

  ‘Join the club.’ Salgado laughed. ‘We ain’t too popular in some circles either right now. We’re chasing Garland’s victims in the hope they show us a pattern and give us a lead on possible dump sites so that we might find this kid alive. Your guy Marr is a different problem – he’s still on the loose.’

  ‘And he knows we’re on to him.’ O’Neill piled on the unnecessary pressure. ‘He’s going to go one of two ways. He’ll either—’

  ‘Shut it down, meaning there’s a very good chance we’ll never find him. Or he’ll step it up while he still can.’

  ‘These guys can’t shut it down,’ Salgado said firmly. ‘It’s who they are. If Marr, or whoever he is, has killed as many times as we think he has then he’ll kill again. And chances are he’s going to do it as quickly as he can.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Marianne Ziegler told them that she fled from Ethan Garland on 14 April 2012. She’d no doubt at all that was the date. Engraved on her heart.

  Salgado had a contact at KABC-TV, a buddy from college, and a quick phone call had them en route to the studios in Glendale at GC3, Disney’s Grand Central Creative Campus. Everything was digitally stored and Salgado’s contact said he’d get them access.

  Marianne hadn’t been sure which show Garland had been watching so intently when he exploded at her but she said his favourite was Channel 7’s Eyewitness News. Even if he’d been viewing another channel, Eyewitness was likely to have covered the same event.

  The tech had left them the remote and the tape was good to go. They made themselves comfortable and got it started.

  ‘Coming up on Eyewitness News tonight . . .’

  A slightly younger Marc Brown was anchoring the show, promising forest fires, a double homicide, a father–child abduction, a multi-vehicle collision and video of a robbery of a taco truck.

  ‘The double 187 sounds promising,’ Salgado suggested.

  ‘Really, Columbo? You think the homicide rather than the taco truck heist?’

  ‘Will you ever cut me a break?’

  ‘Never. And you know it.’

  The schedule kicked off with an early season fire that was raging in the San Jacinto Mountains, burning its way through twenty thousand acres on the back of a dry winter. From there it trailed the double murder before hitting an ad break.

  ‘I can’t stand the sound of commercials,’ O’Neill moaned. ‘Can you fast-forward it?’

  ‘I’m looking for a new grill, one with a built-in smoker. I don’t want to miss the chance of a bargain. And I don’t trust this remote not to miss part of the show once it kicks off again.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus. Kill me now.’

  When Marc Brown re-emerged from safety after the commercials, he didn’t go to the promised murders but to some breaking news instead. A car chase was underway in Santa Monica and Channel 7 had an eye in the sky following it.

  ‘You gotta be kidding me!’ Salgado shouted. ‘What the hell is this obsession with chases? They could fill an hour with this shit every night. It just lets some asshole get his fifteen minutes and a few traffic cops get to tell their kids they’re on the news.’

  It was the world’s slowest car chase. A drunk driver in a red Nissan being tailed at distance by one black and white and then another, all being filmed live from the helicopter. The Nissan was swerving, driving on the other side of the road, ignoring red lights and stop signs as it sped best it could along Lincoln. The cops had to stay back and play it safe, just blasting out lights and sirens to try to keep the civilians safe. It was oddly addictive while also being mind-numbingly boring.

  ‘Now can we fast forward?’

  ‘It might end at any minute. I don’t want to scroll beyond it and miss anything we need.’

  It didn’t end at any minute. It ended after thirty-five minutes with a bunch of commercial breaks in between. The car got out of Santa Monica and onto PCH making for Malibu, doing no more than forty or fifty, on towards Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Woodland Hills.

  ‘Come on suckers, spike strip,’ Salgado implored. ‘This is killing me. Time for a spike strip.’

  Sure enough, just before the Nissan got to Ventura Boulevard, two cops were seen by the side of the road and moments later, the car ground to a halt, at least one of its tyres shredded. There was a further five minutes of half-hearted drama while the drunk got out of the car and finally got himself arrested. The news anchor reappeared, clearly as bored by the chase as anyone else.

  ‘Next up, neighbours shocked by a double homicide in Culver City. Back after this.’

  ‘Finally.’ O’Neill was so ready to hear about the killings she was prepared to overlook the commercials this time.

  ‘Chilling screams. Police sirens. A double murder. All of it rocked La Salle Avenue in Culver City this morning. Authorities have a man in custody accused of murdering homeowners Bill and Janetta Coulson in the early hours. Eyewitness News reporter Andrea Wills joins us now live outside the Coulsons’ home, where those murders took place. Andrea?’

  ‘Feel right?’ O’Neill asked.

  ‘Nope. Not yet anyhow.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  ‘Marc, I spoke to a neighbour just across the street and they told me they heard two gunshots around five this morning.’

  ‘Gunshots? Not our guy. Shit. Shit.’

  ‘Unless he cut them after shooting them?’

  He hadn’t. The Culver City killings were a robbery gone wrong. Two shots, two dead, no cutting. Cut to commercials.

  They’d been watching for nearly an hour, sitting through an amber alert after a father from Inglewood had abducted his son, two deaths and four injured in a pile-up on the 110, and the long-awaited taco truck robbery in Park Mesa Heights. They were close to giving up when Marc Brown changed the narrative.

  ‘Just in on Eyewitness News tonight, a twenty-five-year-old man from Reseda is given a life sentence for the brutal murder of a doctor’s son in North Hills. Phil Reid is at Van Nuys Courthouse East where he has been covering the trial for us. Phil, tell us about this case.’

  Both detectives sat upright and inched closer to the screen. This was much more promising.

  ‘Marc, this has been a harrowing trial for the twelve jurors who had to endure it. For the Los Ange
les Police Department it represents the end of a particularly difficult investigation. For the parents of twenty-three-year-old Adrian Mercado it means justice for their son. For twenty-five-year-old Jamarco Freeman it means life in prison.’

  ‘You remember this?’ Salgado interrupted.

  ‘Vaguely. Kid’s body was found in a dumpster behind a cinema. Mutilated.’

  ‘I’m interested.’

  ‘Me too.’

  The reporter told how an early morning garbage truck found the young man in the alley behind the Vista Theater on Sunset. Phil made great play of how the truck’s crew were horrified and traumatised by what they found. He suggested that the sight of what had been done to the victim’s body was so distressing that at least one of them vomited at the scene.

  The key word, the one that the reporter treasured and used more than any other, was mutilated. He threw in a few variations too. Lacerated, disfigured, butchered, but mutilated was his favourite.

  ‘This is it.’

  ‘No question. Garland’s trigger.’

  Homicide Special Section– the unit that investigates serial, high-profile and arson-related homicides – had picked it up because the victim’s father was a well-known doctor in the area and made the case high-profile enough to warrant them taking it. They didn’t get a break for two weeks until an anonymous letter suggested Jamarco Freeman as the killer and that he’d used a Ford Transit to move the body. The letter even told them where to find the abandoned vehicle. Cops made a dawn raid on the Freeman house and discovered items of Adrian Mercado’s clothing hidden under the house. They found more in the Transit along with the victim’s blood and a shirt with Jamarco Freeman’s DNA all over it. Freeman said the truck had been stolen and then returned.

  The report closed with a final reminder about mutilation and a solemn back to you in the studio.

  ‘Nice neat find in the house and the van,’ Salgado suggested.

  ‘When Ethan blew up at Marianne, he said the victim in the news story had had his throat and wrists cut, had bled to death, and that he’d do the same to her. You hear any mention anywhere in the report of those injuries?’