Black Frog, page 16
Needless to say, Enoch’s killing of a DEA agent in a cantina outside of Nogales, and the attention it drew to their below the radar anti-coyote initiative, did not sit well with DHS upper management. It was decided that the best course of action would be to quietly separate him from government employment. At the same time, however, there was considerable pride in how well Enoch had performed, both because of his talent as a chameleon infiltrator, and for his skill in dispatching bad guys. Soon after his discharge from the army a private consulting firm that offered specialized services to a range of corporate clients hired Enoch. He made a smooth transition into the private sector, and quickly became a much sought after problem solver.
. . .
Enoch, aka Jimmy Bob Lentz, aka The Cowboy, had successfully carried out assignments in many parts of the country before coming to Maine. His previous jobs had varied considerably in duration and he was never sure how long each one would take. As he pulled his new Ford 150 pickup truck into the drive leading to his hideout south of Greenville, his phone buzzed with a text message. He read the single phrase that appeared on the screen – “final task,” and realized his stay in Maine was almost over. The text message alerted him to an incoming encrypted email, and as soon as he reached his desk he opened his computer and downloaded the new file, which consisted of a photograph of a smiling middle-aged man, a name, and an address. Cowboy printed out the file and then wiped it from his computer. Stepping over to the bed, he knelt and reached under it, pushing aside his matrimonial ceremony pack, and slid out a vintage axe with “Merrill” written on the handle. Running his thumb along the rusty blade, Cowboy thought it would be nice to give it a good sharp cutting edge. As he stepped out of his RV and walked over to the workbench to sharpen the axe, he thought about what he should do – complete his assignment and leave Maine or try to add one more wife before he left – either Anne, who was still a strong challenge, or maybe Emma, whom he thought would be an easy conquest.
17
Douglas
Thursday
Anne, Doug, and Jim Torben sat around a large wooden table in the county courthouse office that had been set aside for their now combined investigation of Cowboy’s rapes and his suspected killing of the meth addict the previous day in the Rite Aid parking lot next door. Doug checked the time. Tom Richard was running a good twenty minutes late for their nine AM meeting. Doug hoped it was because he had decided to stop in Milo on his way up from the Maine State Police Barracks in Bangor to pick up donuts and coffee from Elaine’s Café and Bakery.
Anne and Doug were both on edge – concerned that Sheriff Hudson would intervene to block the combining of the investigation of the rapes and the Rite Aid murder, even though Jim Torben had assured them that Hudson had given him complete oversight and responsibility for the joint investigation. Torben too, appeared anxious, however, and kept looking at his watch and over his shoulder at the open door to the hallway.
Hearing the sound of a closing door and footsteps in the hall, Anne looked up and smiled as Tom came into view carrying a box of Elaine’s donuts and four coffees. Tom entered the office, put the donuts and coffees down on the table, and gave them a broad smile.
“Sorry I’m late. I stopped for donuts and then to join up with these two guys here in the parking lot.”
Standing behind Tom were two men in suits. Both had somber expressions, and simply nodded a greeting. Jim visibly relaxed when he saw the two men accompanying Tom and replied to their nodded greeting.
“I’m certainly glad to finally see you two here.”
Tom saw Doug and Anne’s puzzled expressions and let out a quiet chuckle.
“We’ve got a few surprises for you this morning. Follow us for the first one.”
Turning, Tom left the office and continued down the hall at a casual pace, followed closely by the two suited strangers. Reaching the door to Sheriff Hudson’s office, Tom waited for Anne, Doug, and Jim to catch up and then entered without knocking. The sheriff was busy reading the Piscataquis Observer and eating a large bear claw pastry. He was clearly irritated at the interruption, brushed crumbs from his shirtfront, and started to speak, then stopped as he saw the two suits take up position in front of his desk. He stood as they reached inside their coats for IDs and looked confused as Tom Richard nonchalantly moved behind his desk to stand next to him, and then placed his hand over Hudson’s holstered handgun. The older of the two suits broke the silence.
“Sheriff Hudson, I’m special agent Flannery with the FBI. This is special agent Evans. We are arresting you on a number of federal charges and are here to take you into custody. We have a car downstairs to transport you down to Boston.” Agent Flannery continued addressing Hudson – reading him his Miranda rights and asking him to step away from behind his desk. Hudson twisted away from Tom, who slipped Hudson’s handgun out of its holster and stepped back as the federal agents closed in to cuff the sheriff. Leading Hudson out of the office, the senior FBI agent smiled at Anne and thanked her for her help with the case. Anne frowned in puzzlement at the remark, and Hudson scowled at her as he shuffled down the hall and out of her life.
They followed Jim Torben back to the conference room and as the box of Elaine’s donuts and the coffees were passed around, he filled them in on the arrest.
“Sorry to have kept you mostly in the dark on this but the feds wanted it that way. They have been looking at Hudson since before he won the election and building a case for his involvement with organized crime down in Boston. I had my own suspicions, which I shared with the FBI field office in Boston several months ago, and that’s when I was drawn into the investigation.”
Turning to Anne, Torben continued.
“Anne, your photos from over at Lagrange of our former sheriff meeting up with a high-level Boston mobster were a welcome addition to their case against him. I was glad to see they thanked you for that. They also wanted me to let you know that you will most likely be called to testify at trial.”
Anne nodded.
“It will be my distinct pleasure.”
Doug set his coffee down and asked.
“What was he involved in – drugs?
Torben nodded.
“Ayup. Mostly he was facilitating the movement of opioids and other drugs into Maine but may also have been active in other criminal enterprises being run out of Boston. The feds are curious as to why he was so concerned about keeping Anne away from any participation in Doug’s murder cases up at Moosehead. We still don’t have a clear idea of why he was blocking that – if it was just jealousy, or if there was more to it.
The good news is that I have been asked to take over as acting sheriff in the interim until the next election, and in that capacity am formally detailing Anne to all of your murder cases, Doug. County law enforcement needs to be involved, and you two make a good investigative team. I realize that’s a lot to ask, and the rape cases will probably have to be set aside for now, as the homicides take precedence.”
Setting down his second donut, Tom Richard opened a folder he had placed on the table and looked at Torben.
“If I may interject here. I mentioned earlier that there would be a few surprises this morning. A crooked sheriff was the first, and the second is in the folder here. It’s the first DNA results back from the lab looking for matches to the samples recovered from the axe handle in the Virginia Breen killing. There is no match to the Potter killing – lots of DNA from Emma Lange at the Potter murder site, which is not surprising, but nothing else. But they did find a match with samples from two other crime scenes, which was somewhat of a surprise.” Tom Richard paused for effect before continuing.
“The DNA from the Breen murder scene, recovered from the handle of the axe that split her skull, matches semen samples recovered from the rapes of both Betsy Crawford and Gayle Robertson. It certainly looks like your serial rapist, the Cowboy who brands his victims, is also killing people with axes.”
Tom smiled at the surprised looks that greeted his news and continued.
“I think it’s safe to say that things just got a lot simpler. We have a single perp and so far we can link him to two rapes, a botched rape attempt at Anne’s, and two murders. All we have to do now is catch him.”
Anne nodded and continued Tom’s line of reasoning. “Actually that makes some sense. Patty Crown, the FBI profiler who has been searching databases nationally for rapes like the Crawford and Robertson assaults – with branding and marriage ceremonies, has found a pattern of numerous isolated clusters of rapes in different parts of the country. The rapes – two or three or more per cluster, occur over a pretty short period of time, then the rapist – we call him the Cowboy, vanishes, only to pop up somewhere else, often at a considerable distance, and carries out another cluster. What if the Cowboy is a contract killer? He moves around the country – wherever his job takes him, and the rapes are carried out on the side – like a hobby. I’ll let Patty Crown, the profiler, know what we’ve learned, and ask her to look at the rape clusters she has identified and see if there are any unsolved murders that happened in the same areas at about the same time. I’ve already sent her our DNA results from the Cowboy rapes here and she’s checking to see if there are any matches with the other rape clusters she’s identified.”
“While you’re doing that,” Jim Torben replied, “we’ll be looking at the CCTV footage from Main Street. Rite Aid has a camera by the front door – it doesn’t cover the back of the lot where the killing occurred but should show all the vehicles leaving the parking lot around the time of the murder. We might be able to get some footage of the car the killer was driving. There’s also a camera east on Main at the Bangor Saving Bank, which could also provide some footage.”
“A vehicle ID would be key,” Doug commented. “He seems to know the area pretty well but he or his vehicle might be noticed if we get the word out and assign some cars to monitor the main roads. We also should ask the FBI to question Hudson about the Cowboy. If he knows he’s now a person of interest in a murder investigation he might start talking.”
Tom joined the conversation.
“We should also be checking local B&Bs, motels, and longer-term rentals between Dexter and Greenville, along with RV parks and camping areas – this Cowboy guy has to be hunkered down somewhere. It’s a big area with lots of places to hide, but outsiders will certainly stand out.”
Anne then interjected.
“We may not have much time to catch him before he pulls up stakes and disappears. We don’t know how many people he has on his kill list, or who they are. He may already be on his way out of town.”
“I don’t think so,” countered Doug. “He was staked out in the Rite Aid parking lot for a reason – likely targeting Anne at the sheriff’s office. So he may just be hoping to add her to his current list of local brides before he vanishes. But I think there is another name on his hit list that he hasn’t gotten to yet – or we haven’t found yet. The CCTV footage from Kamp Kamp shows him buying two axes – one of which was used in the Virginia Breen murder, but the second axe, with “Merrill” on the handle, is still out there.”
“I’m going to go back over all the business dealings of Potter and Breen,” Tom offered. “Maybe I missed their connection – the shared interest that whomever has hired the Cowboy wanted to snuff out. The Lily Bay project seems like the most likely commonality but maybe it’s something else entirely.”
“Sounds like we finally have some traction on this case,” Doug said. “I’ll start working with Jim on searching motels and other rentals for where he’s staying and setting up some active monitoring of major roads. Let’s meet back here at five to see where we are.”
Anne returned to her desk and immediately called Patty Crown.
“Hi Patty. I’ve got an update from this end on the Cowboy, and a request.”
“Anne. I was just about to call you. I also have some news. The DNA profile for the Cowboy from the two rapes up there that you sent to us are a match for at least two of the rape clusters in other parts of the country – the one in Virginia and the Park City cluster. I expect that others will also match. It looks like our Cowboy has been at this for quite a while - moving around a lot, and only staying in any one place for pretty short periods of time.”
Anne replied. “We’re also getting DNA linkage between cases. Semen samples from the two rapes were recently matched with a DNA sample recovered from one of the killings up here. We think Cowboy may be a contract killer – moving around the country on assignments, and that the rapes might be a hobby of sorts he conducts on the side. Can you go back and take another look at the rape clusters and see if there are any as yet unsolved murders in the same time frame – particularly prominent business leaders? Both of our murder victims had some sketchy business dealings and may have been targeted because of their opposition to a big development project up here.”
“Sure thing,” replied Patty. “That should be pretty easy. I’ll get back to you tomorrow at the latest.”
Anne still hadn’t heard back from Patty Crown when they reconvened back around the conference table at five o’clock. Jim Torben led off with the results of the CCTV search.
“We found something right off on the Rite Aid camera covering the front of the parking lot,” he commented. “I’ve got it loaded up here on the computer.” Starting the first video clip, Jim described what they were looking at. “This first footage shows a beat-up Honda Accord – painted a dull black, parking across Main Street right after Anne arrives at the courthouse this morning. There’s only the driver in the car. Can’t see him too well at first but in the second clip – here, he exits the car and walks across Main and into the Rite Aid. He takes care, it seems, to shield his face from the camera. Here he is inside the store, and at the cash register, and then walking back out to the car. I think this is our guy.”
Pausing to start the next clip, Jim continues.
“An hour or so later he moves the car from his parking place on Main into the Rite Aid parking lot, moving out of view toward the back of the lot where the killing took place.”
Jim Torben set up the final clip.
“This footage is time-stamped 10:45 AM, which would be right around when we think the killing occurred in the back of the lot. Again, this is the Rite Aid camera at the front of the parking lot. You can see a woman exiting the drug store, crossing the parking lot toward the courthouse and then pausing on the sidewalk as the black Honda slowly cruises by her. The driver of the Honda looks directly at her from maybe fifteen feet away as he passes her, then turns right on Main. The Bangor Saving Bank camera picks up the car a little later as it proceeds on Main. Unfortunately we can’t pick up the license number of the car so all we have is make and color and approximate year – not a lot to go on.”
Tom Richard asked the obvious question.
“Any idea what the identity is of the eye witness who saw him close-up in that last clip?”
Doug responded immediately.
“I’m not sure but I think that’s the reporter – Emma Lange.”
Anne agreed.
“Yes, that’s her. She’s on her way to the courthouse for an eleven o’clock appointment with Hudson. He was bragging about being profiled for the Boston Globe.”
“That’s weird,” Jim Torben added. “She was taking lots of pictures at the murder scene and interviewing people. I would have thought she would have mentioned seeing what might have been the killer close up. I can’t imagine she didn’t connect the car driving away with the killing.”
“Maybe she wants to keep what she knows quiet for now and work it into one of her articles,” Anne suggested. “Who knows? But we need to get to her quick – Cowboy has probably read her articles and seen her around and knows who she is. He might well go after her since she’s an eye witness who can place him at the crime scene.”
Doug agreed.
“I’ll call Chief Marcus in Greenville and have him start the search for her. We’ve also got six county and state police units on the main roads from Newport down on the interstate up to Greenville – I’ll get the description of the black Honda out to them with a warning to stop but to wait for backup before approaching – Cowboy is no doubt armed and extremely dangerous.”
Looking down at his notes, Doug continued.
“Chief Marcus and some deputies here in the sheriff’s office have been calling local motels, B&Bs, and other rentals, but with no good leads so far. They have also started checking with local realtors about longer-term rentals. It’s also possible Cowboy found something without going through a normal business channel – finding a place on Craigslist or newspaper ads. Tracking those down will take a lot longer. Let’s hope we get lucky.”
Anne’s phone rang and seeing that the call was from Patty Crown, she held her hand up, mouthed “FBI,” and answered.
“Hi Patty. Did you find anything?
“Bull’s-eye, Anne. The first three of the Cowboy’s rape clusters that I checked on all had unsolved killings in the same area and time frame, and all three were business people. Your hunch was a good one – Cowboy could very likely be a contract killer with a wide geographical reach and a penchant for rapes on the side. I’ve notified higher-ups of the patterns and your ongoing investigation – we might be sending some reinforcements your way.”
Anne thanked Patty and ended the call, assuring her that she would keep her in the loop as things developed. She relayed what Patty had told her and was somewhat surprised by the less than enthusiastic response from her colleagues. All three men frowned, and Tom explained.
