* * *
Like Martha Pane, Sergeant De la Peña had also slept in an extra hour. He and Moffat had put in another two hours after dinner and were well prepared for the morning briefing with the team. Moffat had suggested they take the extra hour this morning. At his kitchen counter, De la Peña poured a glass of orange juice and drank it, still standing. He walked back through the apartment to his bedroom, lay socks, underwear, black slacks, a white shirt and blue tie on the bed then shaved with an electric razor before taking a four-minute shower. He completed dressing by buckling his shoulder harness and inserting his automatic before pulling on a blue and black sport coat.
Moffat had awakened at his usual time. He and Jean enjoyed having the house to themselves, their houseguests having departed late yesterday afternoon for a visit with an old Navy buddy and wife in Modesto. For Alexander’s breakfast, Jean prepared an omelet of Eggbeaters and low fat cheese. She served it with turkey sausage and fresh strawberries and orange slices. Moffat noticed and was grateful that a container of half and half was on the table with his cup of coffee. The sunshine streamed through the kitchen window as they ate. They talked casually about the garden, the house and when next they would see Alison. Moffat’s mood moved even higher when Jean’s goodbye hug and kiss lasted quite a few seconds longer than usual. He wouldn’t think about work until he parked in his reserved space at the County Administration Building.
* * *
Back in Miner’s Flat, in the most expensive section of the new town, Nicholas Conti and son Scott finished their morning routines of showering and dressing. They were alone in the house. Wife and mother Diane, as was her custom, had left for the office an hour and a half earlier. Two bedroom doors opened simultaneously. Nicholas and Scott greeted each other cheerily as father followed son down the stairs. Nicholas’ mood elevated as he watched his handsome, athletic son stride to the kitchen. Scott was also in a good mood this morning, though the lingering effect of MDMA rather than pride or the weather was the reason. They talked enthusiastically about sports as they filled breakfast plates with the eggs and bacon Diane had prepared for them. The silverware and plates were left at the table and food was left on the counter. The housekeeper would do the cleaning up.
* * *
About the time Moffat walked into the conference room, Aaron, still fully dressed, listening to his iPod while lying on top of the bedspread, opened his eyes and rolled his legs off the mattress. He picked up his backpack from the floor and looking around, collected his textbooks and library books. He had decided to leave his bike at home today and so would leave fifteen minutes early for the walk across town. Before he left, he stopped in front of the desk in the hall. Quietly he slid the bottom drawer open and reached to the back for the handgun his aunt had given his mother for Christmas the year before last. Aaron placed the gun in a cloth lunch bag and put it in the backpack.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 18
Sergeant De la Peña was impressed by what the Chief had accomplished since yesterday afternoon. Walking into the Team Center, he saw three rows of two tables each. Each table had two computers and two phones, two spiral notebooks and two pens. Most of the chairs were filled by officers talking and reading or staring at monitors. De la Peña recognized Jane Duncan who had responded to the call from Nicole Davies last week. Some of the officers held the summary of pertinent facts De la Peña and Moffat had prepared after returning from the Pub the night before. At the side of the room, Officer Tashara and a slim, tall policeman recognized from the Gillis crime scene investigation tacked a large street map of Segovia County onto a bulletin board. Mrs. Grubb had arrived before De la Peña and had brought the box of case files Moffat and De la Peña had selected for review. From this Tashara had typed a list of the victims’ home addresses. As she read each address, the tall policeman, Officer Brandon Fat, inserted a colored pushpin onto the corresponding location on the map. She had selected a color code for the pins: black for the two crimes believed to be linked, red for the missing persons, yellow for homicides and white for assaults.
Except for Mrs. Grubb and Moffat, the two oldest persons in the room were overweight men in their late 30’s or early 40’s. These two, Schoenberg and Lang, had quickly scanned the summary then had begun reading the morning Ledger Dispatch, while breakfasting on donuts and coffee. A story several pages into the front section caught Lang’s attention.
“Hey, De La,” Lang called out to the Sergeant at the front of the room. “It looks like your scary preacher is going to have a tenant for his empty grave.” He pushed his elbow into the arm of his tablemate and pointed at the newspaper. They looked at De la Peña and then laughed loudly.
“Some old war hero died in Miner’s Flat last night.”
De la Peña walked to the table and looked over Lang’s shoulder. At the top of page twelve, he saw a photograph of Major Franke from 1988. De la Peña recalled the name from the first night of the Gillis investigation but would not have recognized the stocky dark-haired man in the photo as the bald, pale man with sunken cheeks and temples that he had encountered in the house across from the church. He glanced at the article then moved to the computer next to Lang. Without sitting, De la Peña clicked onto the Internet, brought up the on-line version of the newspaper and the article on Franke. De la Peña e-mailed the article to himself, Moffat and Mrs. Grubb.
“Good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming.” Moffat began in a voice louder and deeper than his coworkers were accustomed to. "By now, you’ve read the briefing and heard from Sergeant De la Peña. We know that there is a criminal out there who attacked Nicole Davies in her own kitchen. Quick thinking on her part and some luck prevented either a rape, kidnapping or murder. We have a limited physical description and little else to help us. Now, the Chief’s appeal to the public seems to have smoked out a response from the perpetrator himself. We have reason to believe that there is a link between last week’s attack and the Amy Price disappearance from three years ago. And, if these two crimes were committed by the same man, then there is a chance he is responsible for others as well.’
“Some of you have been participating in the Veronica Gillis investigation. We will pursue it and the Davies/Price investigations simultaneously but, based on the threat we perceive to the public, we will have to give priority to Davies/Price.”
“Why is that, Captain?” Duncan asked.
“It’s the nature of the two crimes. Mrs. Gillis was most likely killed by someone she knew for a motive related to money, sex or revenge. If so, there doesn’t seem to be a reason for that person to commit another crime. With the Davies and Price cases, we face the possibility of a criminal who may not know his victims but selects them based on criteria such as age, hair color or general appearance. He was recently stopped from achieving his objective and may be motivated by anger and humiliation to strike again soon. We have limited time and resources and so we have to give priority to this investigation.”
Sergeant De la Peña handed out assignments, expanding on the information in the briefing sheets. The team would examine the twenty-five case files - which ranged in size from 50 to 200 pages - looking for similarities among them and particularly with the Davis and Price cases. They would be looking for any common acquaintances, any witnesses interviewed in more than one investigation and geographic overlap including work, recreation or shopping. De la Peña quoted his old lieutenant at LAPD homicide: “We want to know if any of these people used the same brand of toothpaste.” The team would look for opportunities to apply advances in DNA testing and other forensic science to evidence that had been gathered in the older cases and would now be stored on shelves in the administration building’s basement.
At the mention of this, Moffat picked up a 10 inch by 13 inch yellow envelope.
“This is the first piece of piece of evidence we will test for DNA. It’s the three-year old letter to the Ledger Dispatch about Amy Price’s disappearance. One of you will take it to the lab this morning.”
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De la Peña continued. On the missing persons cases, the officers would phone the victim’s next of kin to learn if there had been any new developments not contained in the Segovia Police Department files. Two detectives would call on Nicole Davies this morning to put together a detailed description of how she had spent her time since moving to Segovia. They would ask her to look at her appointment calendar (if she used one), telephone records, charge card receipts or anything else that could jog her memory. Next, they were to visit Davies place of employment and the laundromat and the Denny’s restaurant she went to on the day of the assault along with the businesses in the vicinity of each, hoping to find someone who both remembered seeing the shapely blonde and could tell if there was anything going on around her at the time that might give a clue to her attacker.
Moffat finished the session with a request that the team members ask questions and share ideas and suggestions freely among themselves and with the Sergeant and himself. This first meeting of the task force now over, Tashara and Fat jumped up to finish placing the push pins on the map and the others accepted one or two files each from Mrs. Grubb. Within minutes, Duncan was ringing Nicole Davies home phone and would soon hang up and phone her at work.
Moffat stood behind Tashara at the map. He noticed four yellow pins and two black pins were located on or within a block of old Highway 49, called Main Street at the center. Just then Mrs. Grubb called him to her desk in the corner. The police operator had a call for Moffat from James Rees in Miner’s Flat.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 19
For the fourth time in six days, and only minutes after telling the task force that the Gillis investigation would be on the back burner, Moffat found himself traveling to Miner’s Flat. Moffat left De la Peña to coordinate the team’s efforts and set out himself with the expectation of returning within ninety minutes. A record of a telephone call the evening of Gillis’ murder had been discovered at the offices of Gillis Executive Real Estate Group.
Someone must have seen Moffat park his Highlander on the street below the 4th floor window. When the elevator doors opened, James Rees stepped forward with his hand outstretched and a trace of excitement showing on his good-natured face.
Rees quickly explained as they walked together down the hall. “Monica, our temp, took a call for Ronnie Wednesday evening at 5:15.” They entered a small cubicle where a young woman of about twenty sat with her hands folded at the desk. Rees explained that Monica had not been called in to work since the day of the murder. She lived outside the county and had heard nothing about it. Then, today, the office manager told her as soon as she reported for work. The policemen’s visit was described along with the questions they had asked. Monica immediately thought of a late call, remembered a message record she had written and soon asked her supervisor whether it might be of interest to the police. Rees pointed to a pad of pink “While You Were Out” sheets.
“I’m afraid we’ve all touched the message, Captain…Monica, the office manager and me.” Rees said apologetically.
Moffat smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rees. I don’t expect the murderer would have left any fingerprints through the telephone lines.”
“Oh, right.” Rees chuckled. “I’m new at this,” he added while the young woman giggled.
Moffat read the message. Five words - “wants to see Mrs. Gillis” - were written on the lower half. At the top, the time was recorded. Just below that, the line that would show the caller's name was blank. On the next line, the caller’s phone number was recorded.
“What do you remember about the call, Monica?”
“A lady called asking to see Ronnie. No wait…what she said was ‘I need to see Ronnie right away.’ She sounded pretty worked up…maybe kind of mad. I told her Ronnie was out. She kind of moaned. I asked if I could have her return the call later when she got back from the church. She said no thank you and hung up.”
“You’re sure you said ‘back from the church’?
“Yeah. I remember saying that.”
“And she gave you her number?”
“No. I saw the caller I.D. here on the screen. I always write down the number as I’m taking the call.”
“Thanks. You have been very helpful.”
Moffat placed the note in his inside coat pocket.
Rees asked Moffat if he would come to his office. He displayed an odd, guilty smile. Moffat walked with him to the glass-walled office in which on Thursday he and De la Peña had drunk coffee and listened to Rees’ account of Mrs. Gillis’ business career. Rees closed the door.
“I’m sorry, Captain. I couldn’t resist. I used reverse number look up and found out who the call came from.” He waited for a reaction. Moffat nodded. Rees said, “That phone number belongs to Cheryl Haugen.”
“Interesting.”
Not quite satisfied, Rees turned his computer monitor toward Moffat and opened a reverse telephone directory website. He pointed to the screen for Moffat to double check that number as he entered it, then double-clicked the “look up” button with the mouse. Moffat confirmed Rees’ finding.
“Very good, Mr. Rees. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Have I really?” Rees laughed and added, “Hey, it’s more fun than working.
Moffat left Rees’ office and walked toward the elevator. He saw that there was an occupant in Veronica Gillis’ large windowed office. It was Laraine Jamison. At the memorial service, Moffat had thought that Mrs. Jamison looked different than she had at their first meeting. Today, as he saw her more closely she looked considerably younger, healthier and more alert than she had on Thursday morning. Moffat greeted her from the doorway.
“Hello, Captain. I hope it’s ok for me to be in Ronnie’s old office. I knew your people had already been here. They took her computer but didn’t say anything about not using the room.”
“Yes, that’s fine, Mrs. Jamison. How are you feeling?”
“Quite well, thank you. With Ronnie gone, I thought it would be a good idea to come and help sort things out. I’m not sure that James is pleased but it did use to be my company and when we settle Ronnie's estate, I'll own half of it once again. I can’t imagine my son-in-law coming in to run things.”
Moffat said he understood and that he would say good-bye for now. As he turned back into the hall, his cell phone rang. Seeing the caller’s name, he answered immediately.
For the second time this morning, Moffat’s plans were changed by a phone call.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 20
Two and a half hours earlier, when Aaron completed his three-mile walk to Miner’s Flat High School, he was sweating in spite of the 63-degree temperature. He had sweated through his shirt into the fabric of his backpack. Though he had eaten nothing in the last twenty-four hours, he felt no hunger. He came in through the front entrance, then walked the long hall that ran the length of the campus, covered yet open on both sides with concrete walkways branching left and right. The hall was packed with students. Some talked loudly, some ran in every direction and others opened their lockers to store their lunches and grab the textbooks they would need for their first two classes. Aaron was barely aware of the noise and the moving crowd. He stopped at the library door to push three books through the book drop, then walked to his locker. A senior class boy shoved him with his shoulder. Aaron moved to the right but otherwise had no reaction. At the fourth wing of classrooms, Aaron turned right, walked a few feet to room D-100 and leaned against the wall to wait for the first class of the day. Ten yards away, in front of his own locker, Scott Conti noticed Aaron and reminded himself of unfinished business. Scott was busy at the moment, chatting with a senior class girl, Julie Chancellor who had transferred six weeks earlier. With black hair, sunglasses, a beat up suede jacket and a tattoo on her left hand, Scott thought Julie looked a bit tough but was extremely sexy. He put Aaron out of his mind and returned to the task of getting to know this new girl who treated him so coolly.
* * *
Now
in the classroom, Aaron was relieved to take his seat at the back of his world history class. He forced himself to listen for his name at roll call so he could shout “here” without drawing any attention then sank back into his own thoughts and emotions. Five minutes later, the room went dark for some seconds and then a screen lit up at the front of the room and Aaron realized that a film was being shown. He was grateful to have forty more minutes free from any interaction with students or teacher.
* * *
Aaron had only three minutes to get from the D wing to his next class at the far end of the B wing near the student parking lot. While the film played in his first class, he had dozed for a few minutes and gradually came out of the dream-like state he had been in all morning. He was aware of the gun in his backpack, but not fearful of getting caught with it. Coming more alert to his surroundings and recognizing probabilities associated with his situation, he took an alternate, circular route to his next class. He was nearing the door to B-400 when Scott spotted him. Scott and another large boy rushed to head him off. Aaron was just a foot beyond them when he stepped through the doorway. His momentum stalled suddenly when the other boy grabbed the loop at the top of Aaron’s backpack.
Mrs. McKeon, the health education teacher, looked up and saw the boy pull Aaron by his upper left arm back out of the room.
“Where do you think you’re going, Queer Boy?” Conti’s partner growled to Aaron.
Aaron caught the door jam with one hand and pulled against the force of the other boy. Scott Conti waited just outside.
After several seconds, Mrs. McKeon snapped her fingers and said “Aaron, come in and take your seat.” It was an angry command directed at Aaron, but the other boy released him. Aaron walked to the back of the room, red-faced and panting.