Authors: Wayne Batson
“Son of a…” Her voice trailed off. “That’s how he did it!”
“Smiling Jack took them young,” I said. “Somehow kept them out of sight and off the grid as they grew up. When they were old enough, he killed them for the whole world to see and got away with murder.”
“No missing person reports,” Rez muttered. “No one to recognize the victims.”
“Because they were all fifteen years older,” I said. “The reports were filed, but they were for children, not adults.” The battery warning beeped again.
“So Smiling Jack and his accomplice had us off track from the beginning,” Rez said. “But why? Was this just all about beating the cops? Is Jack some egomaniac getting off playing Dr. Moriarty and making fools of the FBI?”
“No,” I replied. “There’s more, but I haven’t pieced it all together yet. But remember the weapon. We’re talking a turn-of-the-century abortion knife. That’s the key. Listen, I’ve—” The battery warning. “Agent Rezvani? You there?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. You know, you can just go buy a charger. Radio Shack or Walmart probably have a generic that will work.”
“Noted,” I said. “But for now, just get this: the knife is the key. Smiling Jack is sending a message related to this weapon. Now, I made a contact at Panama City Beach Hospital Center. He’s a cardiac surgeon, and he’s done some legwork for me. Turns out the old abortion knife is something of a rarity; only a few are known to still exist. Doc might have a list of potential owners, or maybe your crew can dig one up.”
“Holy smokes!” Rez said. “Could it be that simple?”
“Maybe,” I said. “If you can get the list, look for ties. See if any of the owners lived in Louisiana fifteen years back. Also, get someone searching out kids who went missing fifteen years ago. If there was a burst of disappearances, especially if they’re geographically close, there’s a better chance they’re related.”
“Fifteen years,” she muttered. “Wait, something I’m not getting here. What’s the time connection?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are two sets of Smiling Jack murders,” she said. “Separated by four years. If he takes the victims as kids and lets them grow up, what is his trigger? What happened twenty-three years ago to kick this all off?”
“Twenty-three years?”
“Yeah,” Rez said, “assuming he did the same thing, right? Figure he takes them at five years old or close to that, waits, and then kills. The first set of pictures appeared eight years back, so fifteen years or so before that—gives you twenty-three. Was there a tragedy, twenty-three years ago? Maybe something related to abortion?”
“And why the four years of silence in between killing sprees?”
“There’s a bigger picture we’re missing,” she said.
“I know. But we have important pieces. So, you’ll follow up with Doc Shepherd, get that list of anyone who owns a Cain’s Dagger. Get the Bureau resources combing for related kidnappings occurring around the Graziano abduction. You got that?”
“On it,” Rez replied. “It’s all going to hit the fan when my team finishes with Graziano. You know that, right?”
“I am not very popular with the Bureau,” I said. “I won’t forget.”
“Forget…I can’t believe it,” Rez grumbled. “I almost forgot to tell you. Ramirez, the La Compañía boss we put away, he got out on bail. Watch your back.”
“I had a little run in with La Compañía already,” I said, remembering the rest stop incident. “I’m good.”
“Okay,” she said, hesitance brittle in her tone. “Still, don’t underestimate them.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ve got my game plan,” she said. “What…uh, what are you going to do?”
I was about to answer when the phone made a whooshing sound. I looked at the display and watched it shut itself down.
Just as well
, I thought. Rez didn’t need to know my game plan. She didn’t need to know that I had six hundred miles of traveling to do to get back to Florida.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
“Anything back from Shreveport?” Rezvani leaned into the conference room and asked. But Deputy Director Barnes wasn’t there. She swept down the hall and ducked into the newly dubbed command center, a little closet of a room filled with computers. She found Barnes there, bathed in electronic hues of blue and green. She started to speak, but he held up a hand.
The phone smashed between his ear and shoulder, Barnes scribbled something on a notepad and said, “I understand. No, not a coincidence. No, not a chance. I want it pushed through.” He paused a few moments and as he did, his granite chin became more set, his gray brow lowered like a storm’s mantle. “You tell Seavers that he can get me the results within the hour or he can flip burgers for a living!” He slammed the phone, looked up at Rezvani, and snarled, “What?”
“I can come back.” She tried to duck away.
“Here. Now.”
Rezvani trudged sideways into the room full of computers. “Bad news from Shreveport, I take it?”
“How’d he do it?” Barnes demanded.
“How did who do what, Sir?” Rez asked.
“You don’t wear stupid well,” Barnes said.
“And you don’t wear vague well, Sir,” Rez fired back. “What are you talking about?”
“Your boy,” he said. “Your consultant, Phil Spector.”
“John Spector,” Rez corrected.
“John, Paul, George, or Ringo, I don’t care. How in the great cauldron of Hades did Spector get in to see Graziano before our team?”
“I told you,” Rez said. “He has connections higher up.”
“Connections, Agent Rezvani? Like who? Scotty on the Enterprise?” Barnes’ face purpled.
“I…I uh,” Rez stammered.
“I called in a favor,” Barnes explained. “Our team choppered straight to Eglin Air Force Base where a twin-turbofan C-21 was already fueled and waiting. They landed in Shreveport within two hours. They were at Graziano’s door twenty minutes later—and your man Spector had already been and gone.”
“That’s not possible, Sir,” Rez said. “Spector was in town when I spoke to him, and that was two hours after our team left.”
“Maybe he was already en route,” Barnes said. “Maybe he lied about where he was. Whatever, but he got there first.”
“He didn’t…uh. He didn’t mess anything up, did he?”
Barnes shook his head. “But you already know something, don’t you? And may I remind you, Agent Rezvani: if you withhold any information—”
“I know, Sir,” she said. “Graziano’s the victim’s father.”
“Great Scott!” Barnes exclaimed. “Spector got a DNA test done that fast?”
Rez didn’t answer directly. “Graziano is the victim’s father. Her name is Erica Graziano, and she was taken from the family when she was five years old.”
That stopped Deputy Director Barnes short. His jaw snapped shut with an audible click. Rez told him everything Spector had shared.
“This changes the entire span of the investigation,” Barnes said. He cursed inventively. “You know what this means?”
“It means that the FBI gave up,” Rez said. “It means that somewhere between twelve and eighteen women were held captive, likely tortured, and then murdered on our watch.”
Barnes cursed again. This time something about Director Peluso giving birth to several unlikely things.
Then, Agent Rezvani told him about the murder weapon. “That’s impossible,” Barnes replied. “We had experts, we scoured every journal, every database.”
“Spector’s source is better,” Rez said. She didn’t know if that were true or not, but so far, Ghost’s resources had proved incredibly accurate.
After an invective related to the improper treatment of circus animals, Barnes stormed to his feet. “This is unbelievable!” he thundered, casting around the command center. “Couldn’t happen at worse possible timing. Where is it? Where is it?” Then, he darted toward a flatbed scanner. “Here. Here it is.” He handed a newspaper to Agent Rezvani. “Go ahead, read the headline.”
It was the
Miami Herald
, and Rez noted it was today’s edition. She read the headline:
The Wait May Be Over.
The photo showed several hundred protesters, some looking strangely overjoyed. Then she read the caption and understood at last:
Pro Life organizers march outside of the Supreme Court where in just a few days the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade is expected to be overturned.
“See what I mean?” Barnes grumbled. “Sweet mother, this is going to stir them up. I can hear Senator Esperanzo now.”
“What do you mean?” Rez asked.
“He’s already must-see-TV,” Barnes said. “He’s leading the Dems in the polls by close to thirty percent. That’s unheard of.”
“So?”
“So, Esperanzo is
Pro Life
,” Barnes said as if the phrase was unpleasant. “If he gets wind of Smiling Jack and the abortion knife—and somehow I think he will—he’ll shine a ten-thousand watt spotlight on it. He’ll blame the FBI’s failures on the current administration. But it’ll come back on us.”
Agent Rezvani left the command center feeling sick to her stomach.
Four years,
she thought.
Four years between killing cycles.
Her mind reeled, even as she sat at her computer and began her search. She typed:
Presidential Candidates and Elections to Present.
Chapter 28
“Restroom, please!” I gasped, holding my hand at an angle so that, hopefully the woman behind the counter couldn’t see my face. The condition I was in, one look and she’d probably call an ambulance…or the police.
“Sir, the restrooms here are for paying…” She stopped that line of thought. “Oh, mannn, uh…yeah, it’s back there behind the chip rack. Use the second door. The men’s sign is too faded to see.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled, hurrying around a tall wireframe rack of gourmet potato chips. I stumbled into the second door on the right and heard a shrill sound that wasn’t quite a scream but more of a startled squeak.
A wide-eyed brunette, twenties, maybe a college student stared at me. Then she glared at me. “Uhm, wrong room!” she said. “Duh.”
Out I went. I must have been completely waxed from the surge. I’d gone in the first door on the right. The Ladies Room. This time, I made sure. I saw the faint, faded stencil of the word MEN, and ducked into the room. The door had a latch lock. I rattled it into place and went to the sink. I smacked cold water on and glanced into the mirror. I found myself looking at a Hollywood zombie version of my face. The skin sagged horribly and capillaries had burst all over, streaking my flesh with jagged streaks of crimson lightning. Both eyes were dilated, and the whites were bloodied. I’d pushed myself too hard for too long.
What I really needed was a shower or a submersion, a proper resetting. But I needed to make do. I cupped my hands under the flowing cold water and splashed it all over my face, my neck, my bare arms. The first dousing vanished as my flesh absorbed the resiliency-giving water and began to rebuild. The feeling was like knobby cables untangling beneath my skin, spreading into something linear and smooth. My eyes stung, but I knew that to be a good thing: a cleansing of contaminated blood, a clearing of visible imperfections. Again and again, I splashed myself. I didn’t care how soaked my shirt and cargo shorts became.
Finally, I stoppered the sink and let it fill. I bent at the waist and plunged my face in, ten-twenty seconds at a time. I repeated the dunking once, twice, a third time. Then, I gasped for air. I breathed deeply, slowing down a bit between each breath, letting my heart rate return to normal. When I looked into the mirror again, I found that I could pass for normal again. Sixty-hour work week, anxiety-ridden, three hours of sleep a night—normal, but good enough.
“Thank you, so much,” I told the woman behind the counter. I slapped a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “I need a computer code and the biggest mug of the best coffee you’ve got. And please, keep the change.”
The woman blinked at the bill and then back at me. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “That’s like eighty dollars change.”
“Please,” I said. “It’s the least I can do. I kind of splashed a lot of water in the restroom.”
“Oh,” she said. She eyed me more closely. “You okay?”
I nodded. Then, I made a show of sniffing the air. “I’ll be even better when I get some of whatever smells so good.”
She laughed, and slid me a tiny slip of paper. “Here’s the internet code,” she said. “I’ll get your coffee.”
I wandered over to a computer and slid into the chair. I exhaled, and it seemed a lifetime of exhaustion flowed away into the air with that breath. The waitress—or was she a barista? Serving girl, hostess, bartender, shopkeep? It was an Internet Cafe, and they served coffee. So I had no idea what to call her. All I know is she brought me a massive, steaming mug of coffee.
“You have no idea how much this means to me,” I said, closing my eyes and inhaling the aromatic blend of Costa Rican coffee beans, almondine, and cacao.
“Been traveling?” she asked. “Long road?”
“Six hundred miles,” I muttered, taking my first sip of brown paradise. “Mmmm, this makes it worth it.”
“There anything else I can get you?” she asked.
I opened my eyes from the coffee-induced euphoria. I finally figured out what to call her: Melanie. Her name tag said so. “You’ve already done me a service I will never be able to repay.” She laughed. I wasn’t joking. “But, if you’ll bring me another mug of this…this heavenly nectar…say, every half hour, I will most assuredly leave you a tip that will make your day.”
“You don’t need to leave any tip,” she said. “Your last one already made my day.” Melanie laughed again, a musical, trilling giggle that reminded me of how important my mission was…how precious these people are.
As she walked away, I used the cafe’s code to login to the computer. It was a high-end Mac, and it was fast. Since I didn’t have my silver case and the splendid drives within, I needed all the speed I could get. I wouldn’t have access to law enforcement files. I wouldn’t be able to break down firewalls. I’d have to search this out the way everyone else did.