Drained (14 page)

“And they won’t give us anything voluntarily, I’m assuming.”

“Right. Someone from their legal team called our supervisor back and told him they’d need subpoenas.”

“Okay. You know they have an office here in Chicago, right?”

“They do?” I asked.

“It might actually be the headquarters. I’ll look into it,” Andrews said. “Let me get on making these calls. I’ll see if the classified site rings any bells with any of her friends.”

“Sure, let me know.”

“Yup. I’ll be in touch,” Andrews said.

I clicked Beth’s phone off and handed it back to her.

“What did he say?”

I gave her the highlights from my notes. “He spoke with the mother of the victim that was found this morning. She said her daughter, Rebecca, met with someone for coffee the Friday before she was found deceased. He has his guys looking into coffee shops around her workplace. I guess she did this on lunch and returned back to work. Aside from that, he has a list of her friends that he is going to try to make contact with.”

“Where did she work?” Beth asked.

“Skokie. He didn’t give the business name.”

“We need to find out and get in contact with her employer. Maybe she came back to work with a cup of coffee from the place. Maybe it’s in a garbage can next to her desk. Maybe the man she met with bought it for her and his prints are on it.”

Beth had a number of plausible points. “Let me call Andrews back,” I said.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until after ten o’clock. Both crime scenes were in low-traffic areas of town, and aside from staring at Dumpsters and hearing Ricodati rehash how the two investigations had played out, we found nothing new. Andrews gave us Rebecca Wright’s employer, the public works office for the city. We wouldn’t be able to get into the building or meet with anyone until the next morning—our Thursday was quickly filling up with interviews and places we had to stop at. We put together a schedule, and Beth headed off to her room. I figured she was calling it a night.

I sat in the office chair at the small desk in my room and dialed Karen, having just finished making myself an eighteen-dollar gin and tonic.

“Hey, hon,” she said.

“Hey. Sorry I didn’t call sooner. We actually just got back to the hotel a little bit ago.”

“That’s a long day,” she said.

“A long day of not really getting anywhere. Ah, I shouldn’t say that. I guess we know a little more than when we got here and have a couple of guys working on a few things. It just seems like a hell of a lot of running around for not much. Interview after interview, meeting after meeting.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe that’s the job.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that whoever is doing this hasn’t been caught by the local police or the FBI for years, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“Well, if you’re getting anywhere, I’d say that’s a good thing.”

Leave it to Karen to nail the voice-of-reason role.

“I guess you’re right,” I said.

“I take it you’re done for the night?”

“Um, I might poke around at these bank records we have on the victims. I just want to see if I can find one thing specifically. After that, I’m shutting it down until tomorrow. I have another meeting with a family member at ten in the morning. Are you getting ready for bed?” I asked.

“I’m in bed. Watching television. Chop is lying next to me, slobbering up your pillow.”

I smiled. “Great.”

“Call me in the morning,” she said.

“Okay. Love you.”

“I love you too. Have a good night.”

“You too. Bye.” I hung up and tossed my phone onto the desk. Then I opened the file box of the victim’s records and started thumbing through the folder containing the banking information from Kennedy Taylor.

A shave-and-a-haircut knock came at my room door. I walked over and opened it up.

“Two bits,” I said.

Beth stood in the hall, looking back at me, confused. She wore a T-shirt and what looked like pajama pants. Her hair was no longer pulled up but resting on her shoulders. She wore a pair of dark-rimmed glasses.

“Shave and a haircut,” I said.

Her face said she still didn’t get it.

“Forget it.” I motioned to her glasses. “Nice goggles,” I said.

She smirked. “Oh, yeah, I took my contacts out. What’s up with those banking records? Are you planning on going through them or are you done for the night?” she asked.

“I actually just started looking through them,” I said.

“Want me to come in and lend a hand?” she asked. “Otherwise, you could just give me one or two of the girls, and I’ll take them back to my room and go over them there if you wanted some private time or something.”

I stepped to the side and waved her in. She walked to the box on the desk, grabbed a file, and went to the wingback chair. She sat, placed the folder on her lap, and opened it. She looked up at me. “How far into these did you get?”

“Just started on Kennedy Taylor,” I said. I headed back over to the desk and sat down. “Keep your eyes peeled for coffee shops,” I said.

“I’m actually just going to write down all purchases that aren’t bills. You should do the same. Maybe we can match something up,” Beth said.

“Good idea.”

I took a sip from my drink and continued reading through the banking records. From all appearances, Kennedy had been pretty smart with her money. The records went back five months. I didn’t find any frivolous spending. Most of the activity was deposits—every few days. Her checking account balance seemed to hover around ten thousand, and it looked as though she made regular transfers to a savings account. My assumption, from what her parents had said, was that the savings account was where she was keeping the money she was saving for a house. It looked as though her only semiregular purchases were from a gas station near her house—they all seemed to be around forty dollars, so my best guess was that she was filling up her car with fuel. Through five months of records, she’d only made five or six purchases with her debit card that I’d wrote down.

“Kennedy Taylor worked in a restaurant, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, a place called The Pub if memory serves,” Beth said.

“Okay. I’m almost through with her records here. She didn’t use her debit card for much of anything, but working in a restaurant and getting tips would account for that, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that she’d always have cash on her.”

Beth nodded.

“Well, for someone with not a lot of money, Jasmine sure liked to spend it. Not that there are any significant charges here, but she used her debit card about five times a day. This is going to take a bit.” Beth adjusted her glasses on her nose. “She charged things for less than a dollar.”

“Some people are like that. They just don’t carry cash.”

“I guess,” Beth said. “Seems a little extreme, though. I mean, if she took sixty dollars out of the bank a week, she would have been able to cover all these little charges.”

I shrugged and reached into the box for the banking records on Angela Wormack. “See any charges from a coffee shop?”

“No.”

I set Angela’s banking file before me and started in. Beth’s phone buzzed from across the room.

“Who is calling me this late?” she asked.

I didn’t respond but turned to see Beth staring at the screen on her phone.

“Local number.” Beth swiped the screen on her phone to answer. “Agent Beth Harper.”

I couldn’t hear who was on the other end.

“Yes, what did you get?”

Beth reached for the pad of paper and pen on the table next to her and jotted down a few things. “Really? What a coincidence.” She gnawed on the end of her pen while she listened to the caller.

“Yeah, I would think that’d be enough to persuade someone to give us the rest,” she said. “Okay, I’ll let Hank know. We’ll talk in the morning. Thanks for the call.” Beth hung up.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Andrews. He just wrapped up a call with one of Rebecca Wright’s friends. Rebecca met the guy she was going to get coffee with on Classified OD.”

“Well, that takes care of that. It has to be our connection.”

“It looks like it. He’s going to meet this woman, Amy Meadows, now and get a sworn statement from her.”

“He’s meeting her this late?” I asked.

“He said she works at a bar or something and could take a break to meet with him.”

“Okay, and then what?”

“As soon as he gets that, he’ll be able to get a subpoena for her transcripts from the website,” she said. “With her statement and the one we get for Jasmine Thomas, it should be enough probable cause for us to secure subpoenas for all of the women, I would think.”

“Perfect. About time we’re getting somewhere.”

“This is actually moving along a hell of a lot faster than normal. Usually, things don’t go this way. Leads in these investigations are few and far between for the most part. I’m thinking we’re going to get this guy.”

“Hopefully before he kills anyone else,” I said.

Beth nodded.

Brett drove Rebecca’s couple-year-old Honda toward Aurora, a city forty-five minutes northwest of his house. He wore dark clothes, a baseball cap, and thin black leather gloves. Beneath him, covering the seat was plastic sheeting that he would take with him when he left the car. He had a reason for choosing that town, something he’d stumbled upon when he was going through Monica’s correspondences from the website just before he deleted them. Brett had spotted a user name that looked familiar—it was a user name he’d seen while looking into everyone Rebecca had chatted with. He reinstated both women’s accounts to confirm.

Monica and Becca had apparently both been speaking with another man—the same man. He went by the handle of Ladykiller75. His real name was Jeff Mercer. Brett had gotten his IP address and found him. The user name couldn’t have been more perfect.

If the feds were in fact sniffing into the women and had figured out that they’d all used his site, they would have a number-one suspect in Mr. Mercer. Furthermore, when they found the body of one woman he’d spoken with—along with the vehicle of another—near his home, that would really tip the scales. Brett had reinstated each woman’s messages through the website, all except the ones he’d sent and received.

Brett exited the highway and traveled the city streets, looking for the perfect place to be rid of her. Once he left Becca’s car and Monica’s body, he would walk a mile or two until he found a bar. From there, he’d call a number of taxis with his prepaid phone to get back home. He had a pocket full of cash to pay the drivers and a number of random addresses he would have them drop him off at.

The clock on the dash read a few minutes after midnight. The area was quiet, as it should have been. He spotted an old church next to what looked like a small single-story factory on his right—that would make a suitable place to leave her.

Brett slowed and made the turn onto the small road that split the church and the business. A dead end sign stood on the right-hand side of the street between the road and the factory’s parking lot. Brett glanced left to see a small building and a single light on a pole behind the church. To his right, a handful of cars were parked in the well-lit factory parking lot, and beyond the cars were more parking spots and a row of green Dumpsters. Brett didn’t plan on removing Monica from the trunk—he assumed that within a day or two, the car would be called in and the plates would be run and would lead back to Becca, who they knew was murdered. The police would search the car and find Monica’s body.

Brett pulled past both the church and the factory and killed the car’s headlights as he approached the end of the street. Then he pulled the car to the right side of the road and stopped at the metal barrier and dead end sign that wouldn’t allow him to go any further. Brett left the keys in the ignition, opened the door, stepped out, and pulled the plastic from the driver’s seat. He closed the door and looked around, spotting no one.

Brett balled up the plastic sheeting and headed for the row of Dumpsters by the factory to toss it. He kept a watchful eye on his surroundings as he entered the factory’s lighted parking lot. He spotted the business name on a sign on the side of the building: Penn’s Tool and Die. Brett walked to the second Dumpster and lifted the lid just enough to toss the plastic inside. He let the lid fall and took a step back toward the street.

“What did you just toss in there?” a voice asked.

Brett froze. He slowly turned his head to the right to look at the back of the factory. He saw the glow of fire from the end of a cigarette and the silhouette of a man behind it, leaning against the back of the building.

“Some garbage from the car,” Brett said.

“You know that’s illegal, right?” the man asked. “What are you doing back here anyway?”

“Just had to take a piss,” Brett said. He continued walking.

“Also illegal,” the voice said.

Brett didn’t turn back to look at the guy. “Yeah, just mind your own business, buddy.” He walked back toward the car—he needed to look elsewhere for a place to dump it and the girl.

“Kind of warm for gloves isn’t it?” the guy asked. “What are you up to?”

He stopped walking and turned toward the guy, who was standing at the Dumpster, peering under the lid to see what Brett had tossed.

Brett figured he’d try a story to defuse the situation. “Look, man, I was at the bar. Some girl gave me her address to come over. I’m not from around here and am lost. Sorry—I stopped, took a piss, and tossed something in your Dumpster. Geez. I’m not out here hurting anybody, man.”

The guy let out a breath. “Where are you trying to go? Do you have the address?”

This guy isn’t going to let up.

“Yeah, I have it on a piece of paper.” Brett fished around in his pocket and started walking toward the guy, who was still standing at the Dumpster. The lights from the parking lot lit the guy up. He wore a green oil-stained T-shirt and a pair of dirty jeans. The man looked to be in his fifties, with stringy chin-length hair. Brett had him by a good thirty pounds. The cigarette the man smoked hung from his mouth.