Gallows Pole, page 2
The man standing in front of him was short and broad. His red hair was cut short and his fair skin reddened by the sun where it hadn’t freckled. The skin of his face seemed stretched tight over the bone, giving him a harsh, unforgiving appearance. He wore the same type of military tee-shirt as Bishop, but his was already stained with sweat from the work he’d done before dawn. He wore baggy army PT shorts. Both of his legs ended just below the knee, replaced by a pair of gleaming plastic and metal prosthetics.
“Got your breakfast,” the red-haired man said. He gestured towards a small picnic table up against one side of the fence, where a metal tray sat waiting.
The prisoner nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant Calhoun.” He walked to the table, sat down and began to eat. The red-haired man swung the gate open and walked to the ATV. Despite the prosthetics, he moved quickly, with only the slightest limp. He left the gate open behind him. When he walked back in, he was carrying a bundle of blankets. Bishop was looking pointedly at the open gate.
“Sorry,” Calhoun muttered. He put down the blankets and closed the gate. Bishop resumed eating. He ate quickly, not showing any outward sign of enjoyment, though the food was home-cooked and quite good. When he was done, Calhoun was standing by the door of the cell, holding a broom. Bishop took it and swept out the cell. When he was done, he handed the broom back. Calhoun gave him a hardback book in return,
“This the one you wanted?”
Bishop looked down. The book was a leather-bound copy of The Confessions of St. Augustine. “That’s the one.”
“Ought to last you a while.”
Bishop nodded. “Thank your mother for the breakfast. It was excellent. As always.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Bishop re-entered the cell and began making up the bed. He could hear the door lock shut, then the gate lock, then the sound of the ATV starting up. When the bed was made up, he sat on it and watched the small bar of sunlight travel down the wall opposite the window. He watched as it traveled over the rough face of the cinder-block, over every mortar joint. It was a landscape as familiar to him as the mountains where he’d been born. It should have been; he’d laid every block with his own hands.
There was a small shelf screwed into the wall opposite the window. It held a few meager possessions: the small electric lamp that he used to read by at night, his toothbrush, and a double picture frame, hinged in the middle so that it would stand up. From where he sat, he couldn’t see the faces in the picture, but he knew them so well he could see them in his head. The one on the right was of him in his Class A dress uniform and a beautiful brunette in a wedding dress, smiling as they ducked beneath an arch of crossed dress swords. The other was a candid shot of him, dressed in civilian clothes, holding a baby boy in his arms. He hadn’t seen either the woman or the boy in ten years.
He picked up the book and began to read.
CHAPTER FOUR
Melissa Saxon knew it was going to be a bad one when she saw the cop throwing up in the bushes. She stopped a few feet away and waited. The cop was older, but still looked to be in pretty good shape. His uniform was crisp and clean and fitted well. He looked like a veteran who hadn’t let himself go. Anything that could make a cop like that lose his dinner was going to be one for the books. At least, Melissa thought, he kept it together long enough to get outside and avoid contaminating the scene.
The cop stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He spotted Melissa and a flush of shame brought the color back to his cheeks. His face hardened. “Can I help you, ma’am?” Anger and embarrassment made his voice a little sharper than it needed to be. She checked out the name badge over his shirt pocket. Sgt. Heston. Melissa took out her credentials and showed them. “Special Agent Saxon,” She said. “FBI.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he croaked. “But…” he gestured to the open door behind him.
She took pity on the guy. If this scene was like the others, it was enough to shake anyone up. The first two had certainly shaken her. “Tell me,” she said, as if his lapse had never happened, “what am I going to find?”
Heston straightened a bit. “Five vics, ma’am. One adult male, one adult female, one apparent teenage female and two…two children, ma’am.” He paused. “Children,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. “Just babies.”
Her insides twisted. Just like the other ones. It took an effort to keep her face neutral. “Who’s the lead detective?”
“Lt. Donaldson.”
She nodded. “My partner’ll be here in a minute,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay here and brief him.”
Heston looked relieved, then ashamed as he realized why he was being posted outside. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. She stepped past him, stopped at the open door. She paused to take a deep breath, then went in. There was a small vestibule with a coat closet to her left, then a broad archway opened into the living room, where the bodies were hung from exposed beams.
The youngest child was at her far left, the father on the other end. Someone who she assumed was one of the local criminalists was doing something with the smallest victim’s hand. Melissa could see the ligature marks on the wrists from where she stood. The hands of the others were still bound behind them, save one. The father. The crime scene photographer was focused on the bodies, but when he lowered the camera from his face, it was as pale as Heston’s. Melissa walked towards him. She had to duck around the father’s legs, glad there was sufficient room so that she didn’t have to push him aside. At the first scene, she had had to do that, and the motion had set the line of bodies swinging. She’d lost it then, shaking so badly that she’d had to leave the room. Her partner had noticed and covered for her. He’d never mentioned it.
She stepped behind the photog and looked up into the faces of the victims. After a long moment, she looked away. “Anything?” he asked the criminalist.
He straightened up. “Who are you?”
She pulled out the wallet again and showed him the credentials.
“Some kind of residue under the fingernails,” the criminalist muttered. “Looks like blood.”
“Kid put up a fight,” the photographer said. The criminalist didn’t answer. Melissa looked back up at the dead, swollen face of the father, then down at his unbound hands. The most obvious explanation was that he’d hanged his wife and three children, then taken his own life. But how the hell, Melissa wondered, do four people allow themselves to be killed like this? It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered that.
“Agent Saxon?” she heard a voice say.
She turned. The man standing in the doorway was in his late forties and slightly paunchy. He was dark-skinned and his black hair was cut close to his scalp. His eyes were shrewd, sizing her up as he extended a hand.
“Harve Donaldson,” he said, “Dearborn PD. Pleased to meet you.” She took the hand, gave him a professional two pump handshake, and turned back to the bodies. “Who phoned it in?”
“Anonymous tip,” Donaldson said.
Again, just like the other ones, she thought. He wants us to find them.
“Mind telling me what this is about?” Donaldson said.
Her partner appeared in the doorway, cell phone in one hand. His muscular bulk made Donaldson, who was not a short man, look small.
“This is my partner, Agent Collette,” Melissa said. Collette nodded and shook Donaldson’s hand. “We’ll be working with you on this investigation,” Melissa went on. “We’ll need an office. Maybe several. Who do I contact?”
“I’ll talk to the chief. You’re not just taking over, then?”
She smiled for the first time, but it was the polite smile of someone who’s heard a joke too many times to laugh. “We don’t do that,” she said, “except in the movies.”
“Glad to hear it. So what’s the FBI’s interest here?”
She looked up at the hanging bodies. “This incident fits a pattern. We’ve seen crimes just like it in other states.”
“Crimes…other murder-suicides?”
She shook her head. “We don’t think they were suicides. Someone did this to them. This family was Lebanese, right?” He nodded. “We’ve seen two other killings,” she went on. “Two other families, Both immigrants. One Iraqi family, one Honduran. All hanged in a row, by height and age.”
“Holy shit,” Donaldson whispered.
“Yeah,” she said. “That about sums it up.”
“A goddamn serial killer. With a bug up his ass about immigrants.”
“That’s the working hypothesis.”
“This could get ugly.”
“It already has. I hope I don’t need to tell you, but we need to keep a tight lid on this thing, Lieutenant.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. The Arab community in the Detroit suburbs would go ballistic. “And you can call me Harve.”
She hesitated. “I’m Melissa,” she said finally.
“I look forward to working with you.”
“I won’t be here long. I’m coordinating the national investigation. You’ll be working with the local office.”
“Oh.” He tried not to look disappointed, but failed. He’d obviously been checking her out.
“One thing to look out for,” she said. “Somewhere on the premises, you’ll find a small figure of a horse. Made of iron. Like an old-fashioned kid’s toy.”
“An iron horse?” Donaldson said.
“One of those figurines has been found at each of the scenes. That’s on a need-to-know basis, by the way. We’re not releasing it to the press.”
“Got it. An iron horse.” He looked around, then pointed. “You mean like that one?”
She walked over to the corner of the room, where the small figurine stood, looking innocent. “Yes,” she said, “exactly like that one.” She straightened up. “It’s like a calling card,” she said. “We’re not sure what it means.”
“Maybe he’s trying to send a message,” Donaldson said.
“Most likely,” she said. “They usually are. But to whom?”
He had no answer for that. She looked at her watch, stifled a curse. “Dave,” she said, “take over for a minute.”
Collette glanced at his own watch and grimaced. “Go, go,” he said, waving her out the door. He had his pad out and was talking to Donaldson as she strode out the door, past where Heston stood guard. She had her cell phone out and was hitting the speed dial before she got to the car. The phone rang several times. She wondered if Roger wasn’t going to answer, then dismissed the thought. If he was pissed off at her tardiness, he’d pick up and let her know. He was never one to stew in silence. He’d probably left the portable phone in the other room. She could see him in her mind’s eye, rolling his wheelchair across the floor to the ringing phone, the sound of the wheels on the hardwood floors a sound as familiar as his voice. Finally, he picked up.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re at work.”
The tone of his voice made it sound like a moral lapse. At one time, she’d have bristled, snapped something back at him, started one of the arguments they’d both been so willing to have whenever they could. But she was tired of fighting, weary of throwing the same old stones. “Crime scene,” she said. “Sorry.”
There was a pause. She knew part of him was aching to ask her for details. He’d been an agent himself until a fleeing bank robber’s bullet had put him in the wheelchair. It was his unvoiced resentment of her continued career, she was convinced, that had done as much to doom her marriage as anything. It had always made her feel guilty when they fought. When Roger picked up on that, he took it as pity, which only enraged him more.
“He still up?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “He’s not going to sleep until you call. You know that.” She could hear her son’s voice in the background: “Is that her? Is that…” She was grateful for the interruption. It avoided the inevitable recitation of the times she hadn’t been able to call, and how that had affected Nils. He came on the line. “Mom?”
“Hey, guy,” she said. “How was your day?”
“Okay,” he said. “Algebra’s kicking my ass, though.” She heard Roger’s voice, sharp in the background.
“You know better than to talk like that,” she said, trying not to laugh. Roger had always had a vocabulary that would make a longshoreman blush. For that matter, so had she. But her ex-husband’s attempts to keep their son from following their terrible example had always amused her.
“So,” Nils said, “You catching any bad guys?”
She looked at the door of the house. “Working on it.”
“Whatcha working on?”
“I can’t talk about it,” she said. “Not right now, at least.” It might give you nightmares, she thought. It’s given me enough. They exchanged small talk for another few minutes. Then he paused. She could tell he was working himself up to ask her something. “We made the playoffs,” he said. “They’re this weekend.”
“That’s great,” she said, meaning it, but dreading what was coming next.
“It’s okay if you’re too busy to come,” he said.
His bravery broke her heart. She was torn between wanting to give him hope and wanting to tell the truth. “I’ll do everything I can to make it,” she said finally. “I should be back in town by then.”
He obviously took it as a yes, and that broke her heart all over again. “Great,” he said. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” Then Roger’s voice came on the line. “So,” he said, “You’re coming?” It was clear he didn’t believe it.
“I told him I’d do everything I could,” she said.
He obviously wanted to make an argument of it, but Nils was probably still in the room. They’d torn holes in each other with reckless abandon, crossed lines that never should have been crossed, but the one unspoken rule they’d never violated was that they didn’t do it in front of the boy. The fact that he’d probably still heard at least some of it from his room was something she tried not to think about.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll look forward to it.” Then he broke the connection.
She sat for a moment in the car. It was starting to rain. She thought of the children, dead in the home in front of her. She thought of the children who would die if the killer wasn’t stopped. She thought of Nils. She’d make it, she promised herself. She’d get to the game. Then she went back to work.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was an office like thousands of others, in one of the nondescript office parks scattered across the suburbs of WashingtonDC. The décor was unremarkable: generic furniture, generic pictures on the walls, generic plastic plants. A casual observer might think the office was home to a software firm or a company that sold paper. A more perceptive one would notice a few strange things. Unlike most offices, not one worker there was overweight; all of the men and women were fit and trim. All had short, neat hair, except for a couple who shaved their heads. Everyone carried themselves with unusual poise and confidence.
“Hey, Captain,” the man in the doorway said, “take a look at this.”
Rod Lanier looked up. “What’ve you got, Boss?”
Bonaparte Sims walked in and shut the door. He took a seat without being asked and handed a file folder across the desk. “This got flagged in the morning traffic.”
Lanier took the file folder and opened it. Sims leaned back and looked out the office window as his partner read. A low hum of activity came through the office door.
They were the classic Mutt and Jeff team; Sims was short, broad, dark-skinned and muscular, where Lanier was taller, slender, fair, and wiry. Lanier’s close cropped hair was receding; Sims had begun shaving his head the moment he started losing his.
After a few moments, Lanier took a photograph out of the folder and stared at it, his brow furrowed. “Where was this one taken?”
“Dearborn, Michigan,” Sims said. “A couple of days ago.”
“Dearborn. Suburbs of Detroit, right?”
“Yeah.”
Lanier pulled out another photograph. “And this one?”
“Baltimore. And the third one was in Charleston, South Carolina.”
“Okay, maybe a coincidence.”
“It gets worse,” Sims said. “The family in Detroit was Lebanese. The one in Baltimore was Honduran. The ones in Charleston were Iraqi.”
“Lebanese, Honduran, Iraqi.” Lanier shook his head.
“Detroit. Baltimore. Charleston,” Sims said,
Lanier rubbed his temples. “All places we worked.”
“It gets worse,” Sims said. “Look at the last page. Look what they find at each of the crime scenes.”
Lanier looked. “Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah.”
“Someone’s sending us a message.”
“Not us. Him.”
“Why?”
“Maybe whoever’s doing this wants him to come out and play.”
“I can only think of one person who’d do that.”
Lanier grimaced. He put the pictures on the desk and ran a hand trough his thinning brown hair. “We’re going to have to let him know.”
“I know,” Sims replied. “I already got us a plane.”
“Damn it,” Lanier muttered.
CHAPTER SIX
“Okay, people, let’s get settled.” The Deputy Director called the meeting to order. “We haven’t got a lot of time here.”
No, Melissa thought, we really don’t. Not for this. The DD, and she assumed the Director above him, had demanded regular status reports and briefings, and she was beginning to chafe under the constant requests for information. She knew, as they all did, that a serial killer would strike again, then again, each attack coming more quickly than the last as whatever demon drove the killer become more hungry, more demanding. She knew every moment she sat here around this borrowed conference table in Michigan was another tick of the clock, another moment that the killer was working himself up to kill again. And this time, if she failed, there would be more than one death. She’d worked serial cases before, but never one where victims were entire families, wiped out in one night. She realized with a start that everyone was watching her. It was her case; despite the fact she hadn’t called it, the meeting was hers. Being caught staring into space was a bad start.
