Drained (6 page)

“Angela Wormack’s was at her house, and Jasmine Thomas’s was found at her apartment complex. We never found the vehicle of Kennedy Taylor.”

I wrote down the information.

“Anything as far as video from places near the body-dump sites?” Beth asked.

Agent Andrews shook his head. “Nothing.”

Before leaving the federal building, we spent another hour discussing the local FBI’s portion of the investigation, and I took notes. As far as hard evidence went, we didn’t get much more than what was in our file. However, I felt that both hearing what they’d already looked into and knowing Agent Andrews’s thoughts on the investigation could help.

I followed Beth, driving through downtown Chicago, to our hotel—a half-hour drive from the FBI building.

Beth made a right off north Michigan Avenue, drove around the block to east Walton, and pulled into a valet area under a massive, ornate awning hanging out over the sidewalk of an old building. I pulled in behind her and glanced to my right. Old English lettering on the front of the building read The Drake.

I saw Beth stepping from her car and getting her suitcase and bag from within. She waited under the awning while the valet pulled away with her car and I pulled up. I got out, grabbed my bags, took my ticket, and headed inside with Beth. We left our bags with the bellman and walked up the double flight of stairs to the building’s lobby.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the coffered wooden ceiling. Blue carpet with gold patterns covered the floor. A circular table with a huge floral arrangement filled the center of the room. Miscellaneous chairs for lounging and talking were grouped in pairs. I didn’t see a single television or computer monitor anywhere. The building was old and extremely elegant. Beth continued walking. She appeared to know where she was going. I followed her toward the hotel’s check-in area.

“Been here before?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yup. This hotel is so beautiful. I actually got married here.” She continued walking.

Maybe she just didn’t wear her ring on the job.
“I didn’t know you were married,” I said.

Beth continued, “Divorced. The marriage only lasted like two weeks. Well, it was more like two years, but it went pretty quick.”

I didn’t question the topic further but remained quiet.

Beth stopped at the unmanned check-in counter, and I stood to her side.

She looked at me. “He and I are still close.”

I nodded. “So how far are we from the sites of the body dumps?”

“Um, from here, the most recent is about a half-hour drive south. The others are about twenty minutes in each direction. We’re pretty centrally located between everything.”

A woman approached the counter from a room in the back, and we checked in. The woman told us someone would bring our bags up to our rooms. We headed to the elevators, and I thumbed the button to take us up. We stepped off the elevator on the tenth floor and found our rooms down the hall.

Beth stood at her door. “I need to call Ball and give him an update. Then I’m going to get settled in and unpack as soon as my bag comes. I’ll pop over in a bit, and we can get started on some things.”

“Yeah, sounds fine.” I swiped my card in my door and entered the room. The door swung closed at my back.

I walked in farther and took in my surroundings. To my right was a single king-size bed, nightstands to its sides. A wingback chair and a small table stood directly in front of me. To my left was a television sitting on a four-door wood cabinet. A black folder containing the hotel’s in-room menu stood beside the television. I pulled the two larger center doors of the television cabinet open. One side was stocked with chips, booze, wine, and snacks. The other side was a mini refrigerator stocked with beer, soda, and champagne. I debated eating some of the chips and snacks—breakfast had been my last meal. I searched the small pamphlet for the prices of the items and flipped it closed when I saw a six-dollar candy bar.

I closed the cabinet doors and crossed the bluish-gray octagon-patterned carpet to the small desk and office chair in the corner near the bed. I set my laptop bag on the desk and removed my suit jacket. I hung my jacket on the back of the chair and went on to check out the bathroom. I reached inside and flipped on the light. Beige marble tiles filled the shower and tub area, and the vanity was topped with a matching marble slab. Decorative wallpaper covered the walls. I flipped the light off and took a seat at the desk. I spun on the chair and looked over the room again. All the furniture in the room was classically designed. It went with the hotel’s character of being extremely high end for the last hundred or so years.

I pulled my phone and dialed Karen, but my call went to her voice mail. I left a message that I was at the hotel and would try her back later in the evening. Then I turned back to the desk and removed my computer and the investigation file from my bag. After plugging my computer in, I powered it up and plugged it into my phone to get a secure Internet connection. Then I rocked back in my chair and began looking over the file for a place to start. I opened a search on my computer and plugged in the three most recent victims’ names together. I got a handful of news articles and videos mentioning the homicides—that wasn’t what I was looking for, but I took a few minutes to read what the local press was reporting. A knock came at the door.

I headed over and pulled the door open. A bellman dressed in a black uniform with a single gold stripe down the center delivered my suitcase. I fished a tip from my wallet, took the bag, thanked him, and closed the door. Then I heaved the suitcase onto the edge of the bed, opened it, and laid out the contents. My underclothes found the drawers of the cabinets, and my suits hung in the closet.

I sat at the desk and thumbed back through the file to the friends-and-family interviews and glanced over the answers for where the victims had been seen last. I shook my head. Someone else’s notes in a file wasn’t doing it for me. I wanted to contact all the victims’ friends and family myself so I could hear the information first hand, so I jotted that down in my notepad. I also wanted to see the scenes where the bodies had been found, interview the people who found them, and talk to the officers that worked those scenes. My to-do list grew.

I heard another knock at the door, so I set my pen down and answered it.

Agent Harper didn’t enter. “Hungry?” she asked.

“Starving.”

“Let’s go get something to eat and spitball how we are proceeding. There’s a pretty good burger joint within walking distance if it’s still there.”

“That works for me.” I noticed she didn’t have a file or anything other than a small handbag with her, so I grabbed my suit jacket, dropped the file on the table, and left my room.

The restaurant she spoke of wasn’t even a full block away. The hostess took us to a booth next to a giant American flag that made up an entire wall. I looked at the plates of the customers eating as we made our way to sit. I saw everything from waffles to shrimp to burgers.

I grabbed a menu and flipped it open. “I want to interview everyone,” I said. “Family, friends, officers, the people who found the bodies.”

“I agree, and it’s needed,” she said. “We could split it up, do what we can over the phone—make trips to those that we have to.”

“I’m going to get started on making the calls when we get back—get some interviews set to meet people within the next day or two. I think something was overlooked somewhere,” I said. “Or the dots not connected somewhere.”

Our waitress walked over and introduced herself. I ordered a Philly cheesesteak sandwich, fries, and a soda. Beth got some kind of a salad and an iced tea. The woman left to put in the order.

“What makes you so sure they missed something?” Beth asked. She brushed her brown hair away from the side of her face.

“Call it a hunch. Plus, like you said yesterday. When someone dumps a bunch of bodies in a short time in the same area, they have a good chance of getting caught.”

“You were listening.”

“Always. If our killer was courting these women, someone had to know about a particular man that their friends or loved ones were seeing. There has to be something that we should be able to match up. A phone number, an e-mail address, a website, something.”

“You’d think,” Beth said. “It doesn’t always work that way, though.”

Brett sat in front of his computer at the desk in his home office, a chat window open on the screen, awaiting a response. His cell phone, sitting on the desk next to a glass and bottle of whiskey, rang. He reached for the phone and looked at the caller ID.

Cracking his knuckles, he leaned back in his wide leather office chair. Then he clicked the button on his phone to answer.

“Hey, Carrie,” he said.

“I have your schedule of meetings for tomorrow.”

“Sure. What’s on the books?”

“We have that meeting set with the media agency and the board to start running the television spots in the morning. That’s at nine. Then your eleven o’clock is with a reporter looking to do a human-interest piece. After lunch, you have an appointment at two o’clock with a rep from an energy-drink company that would like to do some sponsored events. The last of the day is at four o’clock with Bill Simms.”

“What did Bill want?” Brett asked.

“Um, I think that he received something from your ex-wife’s attorney.”

Brett let out a puff of air in frustration. “Okay, Carrie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure, have a good evening, sir.”

Brett hung up. Grumbling, he dialed his ex-wife. The phone rang in his ear and clicked as someone answered.

“So it takes a letter to your attorney to get you to call me back?” she asked.

“I haven’t seen the letter. What do you want?” Brett asked.

“What do you mean what do I want? I want my money. I’ve been trying to call you for weeks.”

“Your money? Don’t you mean my money, Nicky?”

“Whatever. You’re a month behind. It’s unacceptable.”

Brett scoffed. “Unacceptable?”

“You married me. We had a kid. We got a divorce. You have to pay.”

Brett rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, a bunch of bad decisions in a row.”

“Well, I also didn’t know I was marrying a complete psycho, so it goes both ways.”

“Maybe someday I’ll get to show you what a complete psycho looks like, Nicky.”

“Yeah, well I should have sent your ass to jail about ten different times.”

Brett said nothing.

“Whatever. I’m not getting into this with you for the thousandth time. It’s called alimony and child support. And it’s court ordered,” she said. “Just pay it. If I don’t see the money in my account by Friday, I’ll have my attorney put together the paperwork to have your income garnished.”

“You’re going to get my income garnished? Good luck with that. You know, I’ve been thinking about putting a dream team of attorneys together, maybe getting a private eye to follow you around and see what you do. Maybe it’s time for that. Maybe I should fight you for custody.”

“Stop with the stupid threats and just pay me,” she said. “You don’t give a shit about Travis and don’t want him anyway. It’s been over a year since you even spoke to him. You don’t even try to call.”

“You made it clear that you don’t want me as part of his life.”

“I just don’t want you spending time with him. That doesn’t mean you can’t call.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s something wrong with you. Whatever the hell it is, I don’t want it rubbing off on our son. Phone calls are fine. In person, unsupervised, no.”

“I’ll pay when I see him.”

“Not a chance. God. This is so stupid. Just pay the damn money. It’s not like it even affects you. What are you making now, like a gazillion dollars a month?”

Brett spoke through a clenched jaw. “It doesn’t matter what I make. I give you twenty thousand dollars a month for no damn reason other than I was stupid enough to get you pregnant and then try to do the right thing by marrying you.”

“You know what? Screw it. You can deal with my attorney,” she said.

Brett heard a dial tone in his ear. He tossed the phone back onto the desk, took the glass of whiskey in his hand, and took a drink.

Shaking his head, Brett thought about Nicky. He’d only married her to try to appear normal. No one ever suspects the married man with a kid. Yet Brett quickly realized it limited his ability to move about freely. Nicky was always watching. He should have just killed her as he’d planned to all those years before, yet it would have caused immediate suspicion. Brett knew it would get him caught somehow—he was successful in his hobby, he enjoyed it, and he wouldn’t risk capture. However, when they were still together, he got tastes of what he desired without Nicky’s knowledge.

Brett leaned forward, minimized that chat window, and logged into his online banking. He transferred the funds to Nicky. Brett logged off.

In the drawer of the desk was a ledger with an old beat-up leather cover. Brett removed the book and opened the cover. Every foul, derogatory word he could come up with over the course of eight years littered the pages corners. Doodles of a dead woman scattered the pages as he thumbed through toward the back. Drawings of dollar signs were present on each margin. Brett ran the pen tip down the page and found the blank line below the last entry. He entered her amount—a bit over twenty thousand. He added it to the total—two million twenty-one thousand eighteen dollars and twelve cents since the divorce, a bit over eight years prior.

Brett took a large mouthful of whiskey and swallowed. The chat window popped back up with an incoming message.

He smiled and moved his computer mouse on the screen to view the message—it came from Monica, a woman he’d been in contact with over the last week and a half. He’d met her for lunch earlier in the day.

The message read:
Sorry, I couldn’t respond sooner. Yes, I’d love to meet for dinner. Eight is fine. Where should I meet you?

Brett messaged back:
No problem. How about I send a car to pick you up from your place?

Monica responded right away:
Send a car?