Drained (13 page)

“Okay, sure. Did he give you the user names or anything?” Brett asked.

“Nah. We’ve gotten plenty of local law-enforcement requests like this. They’ll send a message or call with an inquiry, looking to see if we’ll give them what they are asking for voluntarily. Usually when this happens, it means that they don’t have enough evidence to get the subpoenas required. The FBI can be a little bit of a different story. They seem to come by the required paperwork a little more easily. I bet the guy gets in contact with us with everything needed.”

“So I don’t need to call this guy back?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Tom said.

“Okay. Appreciate you taking care of it, Tom. We’ll talk soon.”

“Sure. Have a good night.” Tom hung up.

Brett set his phone down, immediately logged into the master system for the website, and searched for each woman he’d had contact with. He needed to be sure that any trace of the women’s conversations with him were gone. After twenty minutes of searching, he couldn’t find anything between himself and any of them—they had all been successfully deleted from the website’s system.

Brett went through a mental checklist. Their phones weren’t a problem. The browsing history on their computers wouldn’t be a problem. The only thing that could put him and the women together was the standard coffee-shop meetup a day or two prior to him inviting the women over—or out—on a date. Yet all the coffee shops were the mom-and-pop variety and were in different parts of the city. He’d been using a fake name with each woman in case a mention of him came up in one of the women’s conversations with friends or family. The photos he used were of someone else—except the one with the Ferrari, but the car was rented and his face wasn’t visible.

Brett continued checking things off his mental list.

No place he’d ever dumped a body had any cameras, and the areas he selected were all cross-referenced against the database of Chicago traffic cameras. Each time, he took a different vehicle, sometimes using one from a past victim. He had numerous stolen license plates that he would cycle through. Brett couldn’t think of anything that could get him caught. He’d been far too careful.

Brett cracked his knuckles and rocked back in his chair—his heart still thumped rapidly inside his chest. Rehashing in his head every last step he’d taken to be careful still wasn’t easing his mind.

I need to know what they want. Are they inquiring about the women?

He stared at the agent’s name and number before him on his desk.

What did they call me for?

Brett grabbed his phone and dialed, hoping the fed would give him something.

“Agent Art Ball,” a man answered.

“Yes. Hello, this is Brett Bailor. You’d called my office earlier and spoken with my secretary. She was going to have someone from our legal team call you. I just wanted to see if you had been contacted.”

“I just got off of the phone with someone a few minutes ago,” the agent said.

“Sure. Okay, well I just wanted to follow up personally since you’d called my office. Did our representative from the legal department answer everything you needed?”

“Well, he didn’t really answer anything. Gave me some lawyer talk about getting the subpoenas for the information that we want.”

“Um, I guess I never really got the specifics of what the FBI was requesting, so I can’t really speak on that.” Brett waited a moment before speaking to see if the agent would elaborate.

The agent gave him nothing.

“Was this regarding some form of crime?” Brett asked.

“Yes. We believe that there may have been communications through your website involving multiple victims and a single perpetrator.”

“Oh, um, okay.” Brett paused, waiting for the agent to expand further.

Again, he didn’t.

“So I’m guessing you were looking for records of these individuals and transcripts of communications?” Brett asked.

“Correct.”

“Okay. Yeah, for something like that, we would have to have the legal paperwork to get the information to you. We take pride in the privacy of all users. Though, if a crime has been committed, we will do everything we can to furnish the authorities with the documentation requested.”

“As long as they have a subpoena,” the agent said.

“Yes, we do need the required legal documentation to release user records and interactions.”

“Okay, I’ll get what we need together and be in touch with your legal department,” the agent said.

“Sure. Anything else?”

“That’s it. I appreciate the call back,” the agent said. The fed gave him nothing further.

“Okay, have a good day.” Brett hung up.

Brett let out a hard breath. He’d have to see what the feds were after if or when they produced a subpoena.

Beth and I had just dropped off Jasmine Thomas’s laptop computer and Kennedy Taylor’s tablet with the Chicago branch’s tech department. They wouldn’t be able to get to them until later in the evening or, worst case, the morning. We met shortly with Agent Andrews and grabbed the file on Rebecca Wright, the latest victim. He said he still hadn’t spoken with her family but would call us as soon as he made contact. We left the FBI building around six thirty. Beth drove us toward Chicago Police District Sixteen. My phone rang in my pocket—I pulled it out and hit Talk. The call was coming from Agent Ball.

“Rawlings,” I said.

“It’s Ball calling back.”

“Anything?” I asked.

“I had Marcus in the tech unit get me the name and number for the founder of Classified OD. The guy also happens to be listed in the company database as the chief website developer. I figured if we had any chance of getting a little friendly cooperation, it would come from him. I left a message with his secretary and was contacted shortly after by their legal department, letting me know what would be required as far as subpoenas,
et cetera
to get the information released to us. Basically, they’ll want a subpoena per user. I was about to call you back when I got another call from the founder himself, asking if the legal department answered my questions.”

“So we got nothing from them is what you’re saying?”

“Exactly. We need that sworn statement before we can get the subpoena, and that will just be for her transcripts. Any news on getting anything from the computer or tablet?”

“The tech guys here won’t be able to get to them until a little bit later. Beth and I are heading toward the airport area now. We’ll probably grab something to eat quickly and then meet with the local PD. They are going to take us to view the dump sites of Jasmine Thomas and Kennedy Taylor.”

“The two that were in the same precinct?” Ball asked.

“Correct. Not sure how much good it will do, but it’s something.”

“Are those tech guys calling you if they get anything from the computer and that tablet?”

“They said they would, yeah.”

“Okay. If you guys get anywhere with anything tonight, give me a call. Otherwise, we’ll touch base in the morning.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Ball hung up.

“News?” Beth asked.

“Not really. Ball left a message with someone there and got a return phone call from a lawyer telling him to get a subpoena per girl, basically.”

She nodded.

We neared the airport area around seven o’clock. We stopped for a bite to eat at a fast-food chain and made our way to the Sixteenth Precinct building. Beth pulled past a handful of marked and unmarked cruisers parked in front of the two-story tan brick building—she pulled to the curb and parked. Beth shut the car off, and we stepped out.

“Do we have someone we’re supposed to be meeting?” I asked.

“The patrol sergeant I spoke with told me to ask for an Officer Ricodati.”

I took the building in as we walked up to the front doors. The two-story glass center section had multicolored windows to break up the space. Beth reached out and pulled the front door open. We walked through the small lobby, passed a pair of benches on each side, and approached a window in the wall separating the actual police department from the lobby.

A man lifted his chin to acknowledge us and spoke from behind a pane of safety glass. “What can I do for you tonight?”

“Agents Beth Harper and Hank Rawlings to see an Officer Ricodati,” Beth held her credentials up to the glass.

“Sure, I’ll get him paged for you. Should just be a moment.”

We left the glass and found one of the benches we’d passed walking in. A minute later, we heard a buzz from the door beside the counter opening.

A patrol officer appearing in his early forties exited the door. He was heavyset, bald, clean shaven, and uniformed. “You’re my two agents looking to view the dump sites?”

Beth and I stood.

“We are,” Beth said.

We went through a round of introductions with the patrol officer.

“Were you on the scenes?” I asked.

He nodded. “Both.”

“Did anything stand out at you?” I asked. “Maybe talk around the station of anything that someone noticed or thought was odd?”

He turned the corner of his mouth to the side and slowly shook his head. “Both were free of anything that could tell us who did it. Both Dumpsters were empty when we found the women. No cameras in the areas—just two women in two different Dumpsters.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I’m going to grab my cruiser from the lot and meet you out front.” He headed for the front door.

Beth and I followed him outside.

“Where are you parked?” he asked.

Beth nodded toward our rental. “That’s us there.”

“Great. I’ll pull up, and you can follow me over to the first. The second site is only a few miles further. It shouldn’t take us too long to get over there. A couple minutes,” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

He made a left for the station’s parking lot, and Beth and I got in our car. A minute later, Ricodati pulled alongside our car in his cruiser and waved at us to follow. Beth pulled from the curb, digging in her pocket for her phone. She glanced at the screen.

“It’s the local office calling,” Beth said, swiping the screen on her phone to answer. “Agent Harper.”

I heard the faint sound of someone on the other end of the phone.

“I’m going to give you to Agent Rawlings. I’m driving at the moment.” Beth handed her phone off to me. “I don’t like to talk and drive without my Bluetooth,” she said. “It’s Agent Andrews.”

I nodded and took the phone.

“This is Rawlings,” I said.

“Hey, it’s Andrews. I just got off the phone with Rebecca Wright’s mother.”

“Okay. Get something?” I asked.

“A couple of things. First, her vehicle isn’t accounted for. I’m going to get an alert put out on the tags. I did the same with Kennedy Taylor’s vehicle. The more important bit I got was that her mother said she was going to meet with a guy for coffee on Friday during lunch. Her mother spoke with her Friday morning. It was the last time the two talked.”

I rested Beth’s phone on my shoulder and pulled my notepad from my inner suit-jacket pocket to jot down what Andrews was telling me. “Define ‘met with a guy for coffee.’ Was this a lunch date? Did she know him? Do we have a name?” I asked.

“Everything I asked her mother. From what I got, she’d spoken with this guy—named John, no last name—online a number of times and then planned to meet with him on her lunch break from work. She worked in Skokie.”

I wrote that down. “Where is that?” I asked.

“Northern Chicago suburb. I called her employer. She did return to work from her lunch break.”

“Do we have a name of where they went to get coffee?” I asked.

“No. But her lunch break was an hour, and she was back on time. That tells me that the furthest she could have probably traveled from work would be about twenty minutes, I’m giving it about a five-mile radius at the most. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that driving ten miles anywhere in the Chicago area takes forty minutes.

I thought about it for a moment, and he was right.

Beth slowed for a yellow light that Ricodati, in his cruiser a few lengths ahead of us, had made. He pulled to the curb ahead and waited for the light to change so we could catch up.

I glanced out my window to see a coffee shop on the corner. I thought about the one right in front of our hotel and the countless others I’d seen, and I let out a breath. “That’s literally got to be hundreds of places.”

“Well, I didn’t say that there wasn’t going to be legwork involved, but it could be our best lead. I’m having my guys pull up and contact every coffee shop in that area. Her lunch break was at one p.m., so we should have a pretty good time frame to look into.”

I wrote down the time she’d taken lunch. “This is all provided that she actually met with the guy we are searching for.”

“True. I also already put in for her bank records to see if we can get a charge to a coffee shop.”

“Okay. Did her mother mention how exactly she’d met this guy, other than online?”

“She didn’t know. I asked. But she gave me a few phone numbers for friends that are on my to-call list. I’m going to try to knock those out before I leave for the evening.”

The light turned green and Beth started forward. Ricodati pulled from the curb ahead to continue leading us.

“Okay. Keep me updated on that. When we get back to the hotel after viewing these dump sites, I’ll get into the bank records from the prior victims. Maybe there is a coffee shop charge in those.”

“Sure. I’ve been through them and don’t necessarily remember any, but it’s worth a second look,” Andrews said. “Did you guys get anything on your end?”

“Right now, we’re on our way to view the two sites out by the airport. We’ll see if we get anything there. Aside from that, our supervisor back in Manassas got in contact with a few people at Classified OD.”

Andrews interrupted. “Classified OD?”

“There’s a chance that is how these women were in contact with our killer. We’re meeting with a friend of Jasmine Thomas tomorrow. She’s going to go on record that Jasmine met a man through the personals section of the site. We also have the sister of Kennedy Taylor saying that Kennedy met a man through that site, but she can’t swear to it. We’re thinking there is something there. I wanted to get the information from the website to see if, in fact, all the women were members and also the transcripts of their messages if they were. If we have a similar person they were all in contact with, well, that’s probably our guy. Right now, it doesn’t look like we have enough to get the proper legal docs to get them to release the information to us until we get that sworn statement.”