The River's Secret Read online

  “No, I hadn't seen him before.” She shook her head. “But I sure hope he comes back.”

  “If we get a sketch artist in here, could you work with them and give us a picture of the guy?”

  “I guess. What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” Jake shook his head. “We're just following a lead.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “Tell the artist to ask for Sandy. I'll do what I can.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sandy went over to a group of men who had just come into the place. They all smiled and winked at her. Those tight jeans would definitely increase her tip with that group.

  “That doesn't make any sense,” Jake said, between bites of his own burger. I had to tear my thoughts away from Sandy and her friends.

  “What?”

  “Leaving that much money for the waitress.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “The Jackal wouldn't be a big tipper. That makes people remember you and he's the master at slipping in and out so nobody can recognize him.”

  “Do you think he paid someone to hit on Jane?”

  “No. I think he always planned to kill Jane and Carl but the fight made him do it at two different places. Jane for me, while Carl was some kind of penalty. But I didn't lie to him. Who did? And what did we lie about?”

  “I have no idea, Connie.”

  “We'd better find out fast or there will be two bodies each time instead of one.” I pushed my plate away even though it still contained several fries. My appetite was gone. “Let's get back to the station.”

  I took out my wallet, but Jake put his hand on my arm. “My treat, Connie.”

  “No, let's split the check.”

  “No. I'm an old fashioned guy. Besides, every cent I spend is money that my two ex-wives don't get.” He smiled, threw a handful of bills on the counter, and stood up.

  Back at the station, Jake went off to find a police sketch artist and have them go back to the bar and talk to Sandy, while I walked into an empty conference room. The victims' photos were stacked on the table. I spread them out. So many dead women, and now a man, too. How were we going to stop this guy? He had to make a mistake, but so far, he hadn't. We had made a mistake - and it cost Carl his life.

  Jake came in a few minutes later, sat down, picked up the photographs, shook his head, and then laid them back on the table. “The sketch artist is going to talk to Sandy later today.”

  I nodded. “I don't think it will do any good, but maybe we'll get lucky.” I picked up the photographs of the victims and attached them to the white boards that covered one wall.

  Jake stood. “What are you doing?”

  “We know the victims don't have anything in common, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we have no dump site, either.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let's look at where we think they were abducted from. Maybe we can find the kind of area the Jackal likes to prowl.”

  “Okay.” Jake picked up one of the ten boxes piled against the wall.

  Just then, Sheryl came in. She walked over to where I stood by the whiteboards.

  “What are you doing?” She asked.

  I explained to her.

  “Okay, give me the five victims from the first city and I'll go through the files and figure out the possible abduction sites.”

  I handed her the first five pictures and she went to work, rummaging through the boxes to locate the files. Jake and I took the other five. As we went through the file, we looked at the information that family and friends had given us about the victims’ routines and the usual places where they went. Under each picture on the whiteboard we put the possible abduction sites. Some one of the women must have spent their entire day in the car as most had multiple possible abduction sites.

  I had just added a tenth possible place to one of the women when John and Ed came in an hour later. Both their faces were pale and drawn, the tiredness and frustration showed.

  Sheryl explained to them about my suggestion and John nodded and placed a file on the table. “Here's what we've gathered so far on Jane and Carl.”

  “Any forensics?” I asked.

  “Nope, the cleanest crime scene these techs have ever seen.” Ed shook his head and sat down at the table with the rest of the team.

  I glanced at John. “Did you read the note he left at Carl's place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you understand it?”

  John shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “I do,” came a voice from the doorway.

  We all turned our heads.

  William stood there dressed in an expensive black suit, light blue silk shirt, and dark blue geometric tie. His jaw was set the way it always was when he was unhappy.

  Chapter 16

  My stomach took a dive and my pulse accelerated. He looked the same - cool, composed, and handsome. I didn't move. I didn't make eye contact with him.

  John strolled over to William and they shook hands. “What do you mean, you know?”

  “I got a note.”

  “Another damn note?” Jake huffed. “I'm getting sick and tired of all these stupid notes.”

  John held out his hand. “Give it to me.” He read it out loud.

  William,

  You must come to Riverbend, Oregon. If you're not here by the time the first woman dies, there will be a penalty given. You're almost as important as her. You're the other player. Catch me if you can, before I turn on you both.

  The Jackal

  “How'd you get the note?” John asked.

  “It was sent yesterday to the main office in D.C. I’ve been in New York for the last several months and just arrived in D.C. early this morning. I went straight to the office to clean up the pile of papers on my desk rather than going home first. As soon as I read the note, I got a chartered flight to Riverbend.”

  “It wasn't soon enough,” Jake growled. “The penalty was the girl's boyfriend.”

  “Well, the team's all here now. It's the Jackal's move.” John motioned for William to sit down at the table.

  My cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Well, it's nice that everyone is finally present. Good. No more penalties.”

  If I could have reached through the phone and strangled him, I would have. “He came as soon as he got your note, damn it!” I shouted. “Did you kill Carl just to make a point?”

  “I don't have very much patience.” The mechanical voice laughed, which made him sound more diabolical than crazy. “Let's just say I don't like to wait.”

  “A man died because you lost your patience!” I slammed down the phone on the table.

  John's eyes widened. “Connie, what are you doing?”

  “I'm tired of the Jackal.”

  “But what if he doesn't call back?” John asked.

  “Oh, he'll call,” William said softly. “It's not a game without all the players.”

  My cell phone rang again. William picked it up, pushed the button for the speaker phone, and set it on the table.

  “Hello.” William said.

  “Well, William. It's nice to talk to you,” said the same mechanical voice. “I'm glad you got my note and finally joined the game.”

  “What do you want?” William said, his tone calm but with a hint of impatience.

  “I want to play the game,” the mechanical voice whined.

  “Well then, let's go.”

  “Okay, the next victim's name is Sarah.”

  “Is she already dead?” I asked.

  “No, I haven't picked her up yet, Connie.”

  “Then make the game fair,” William said. “Give us twenty-four hours to find her.”

  “No.”

  “Then it's not a game,” I huffed. “It's just us processing dead bodies.”

  “Okay, it's just after six. I'll give you ten hours. That means if you haven't found her by four o'clock tomorrow morning, she's dead.”

  “What about he
r occupation?” William said. “Last time you told us she was a clerk.”

  “It might make this one too easy for you.”

  “Stick with the rules,” William said.

  “She's a teacher.”

  “What kind of teacher?” I asked, and then the phone went dead.

  Sheryl immediately went to the computers. “All teachers have to have a teaching credential; I'll get the list from the state.”

  “Preschool and private school teachers don't need them.” I went to the table with the phones. “I'll start calling them.”

  “I'll help Connie.” Jake took a seat next to me.

  I glanced at my watch. “It's almost six thirty so many of them might be closed. Hopefully there is an emergency contact number on the answering machine.” I opened the local phonebook and started to call the preschools. Jake started at the other end of the alphabet.

  Ed looked toward John. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Start calling churches. They have teachers, too.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Ed came over to me. I handed him another local phone book. “Use your cell phones,” I said. “We all can't call from the same table or we won't be able to hear the people on the other line.”

  He nodded and took the book to a table in the back of the room.

  If the school answered or I got an emergency contact number, I asked them if they had any teachers named Sarah. If there was no answer, I left an urgent message and my cell phone as a call back number.

  William paced in the middle of the room as he went through the files on the newest victims. I knew his routine like my own. First he reviewed all of the files as he walked the room, then he made his own notes, and finally he gave us his insight into the Jackal. He had a sixth sense about killers and their motivations. This case was pretty obvious, but I knew he would still be able to tell us things about the Jackal that would help in the investigation.

  He never looked up or attempted to make eye contact with me. Was he really a hallucination before or had he actually come to Carl's apartment? And if he had been there, why hadn't he come into the room and said something? Actually, he had. Just enough to push away my anxiety attack and set me back to work. At least I wouldn't have them anymore during this investigation. As long as William was around, the attacks disappeared.

  He obviously had no more feelings for me. If he had, he would have certainly called me at least one time in the last year. I realized I had set the ground rules for our affair, but he could have picked up the phone to check on me, see if I was okay. See if I was still alive. What an ass! He paced and flipped through files, not caring enough to say Hello? How are you? How have you been?

  “Are you okay, Connie?” Jake asked.

  I nodded and brought my concentration back to the phone. “I'm fine, why?”

  “You stopped dialing numbers and just stared off into space.”

  “I'm fine, let's get back to it.”

  Over the next hour, I spoke with twenty different preschools and had four names. Thank God all of the schools had emergency numbers. I supposed that wasn’t unusual since they dealt with children. If a child was missing you wouldn’t want to wait until the next day to reach their school. As I got the names, I wrote them on one of the whiteboards. So did everyone else. We had a total of thirty women named Sarah at the end of the session.

  William met me at the board as I added my fourth name. “I was thinking about the Jackal. He said he would take a teacher, right?”

  I nodded.

  “There are too many possibilities in a city the size of Riverbend to call them all.” He pointed to the names on the board. “He knows that.”

  “What are you thinking?” I finally looked him in the eye and felt my legs buckle a bit.

  Thankfully, John joined us. “What's up? Why have you stopped calling the preschools?”

  William pointed to me. “This game is all about her. It's logical that each of the victim's occupations would have some connection to her, too.”

  John looked at me. “Does this make any sense to you?”

  “No,” I shrugged.

  “There's a card shop in Arroyo, right?” William asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever work there?”

  “Yes, one summer when I was in high school.”

  “Were you ever a teacher?” John asked.

  “Well, sort of.”

  “What do you mean?” William asked.

  “One summer I taught a guitar class at the high school.”

  John got the phonebook from the table. “Then let's try music teachers.”

  Jake put the phone receiver down and asked, “What's up?”

  “William thinks it's a music teacher,” John called over to Ed. “Switch gears. Call all the music stores and studios. It’s early and they’ll all still be open. Ask if they have a teacher named Sarah.”

  Jake got up and stood by me. “Why a music teacher?”

  I told him about William's theory.

  “I guess it makes sense.” Jake frowned. “We could call the high schools and see if they refer the kids to any music teachers.”

  “Good idea,” I told him. “I'll help.”

  Jake and I went back to our table and made the calls. William returned to the table and the files. He hadn't used my name since he arrived, only referring to me as “her”. What was that about? And something was up between Jake and William. I hadn't known Jake long, but his tone and facial expressions toward William were strained.

  I leaned toward Jake. “What's with you and William?”

  “I don't like him,” Jake said loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

  Everyone looked up except William who flipped open another file.

  “He doesn't like the Jackal,” I said quickly.

  Everyone nodded and went back to their phones.

  We spent another two hours calling the school principals and the owners of music studios. In the end we had only four names on the whiteboard.

  We all sat at the table. William got up and moved his files to another table. He didn't come back to join us.

  John pointed to the names. “We have four: Sarah Johnson, Sarah Carlsberg, Sarah Burston, and Sarah Langer. Sheryl printed out their home and work addresses. She also printed a copy of their driver's licenses. I want us to stay partnered up, in case we run into the Jackal. So Jake and Connie, you'll take two, and Ed and I will take the others. If Sheryl finds more, she'll get the local cops to pick them up.”

  I glanced at the DMV photos of the four Sarahs. “The ages aren't right on some of these women. Johnson's fifty-six, Carlsberg's only twenty-three.”

  “I know.” John pointed to William. “He thinks the Jackal will have to adjust that part of his M.O. since he seems to want specific women rather than an age.”

  William looked up from his files. “I think there's something else making his choices.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don't know yet.” He shook his head.

  “What if they don't want to come in?” Ed asked.

  “Then arrest them,” John replied, his tone stern. “We can hold them for twenty-four hours and that's well past the ten hours the Jackal gave us.”

  Ed nodded and looked at Jake and me. “But we're taking the sedan.”

  “But…,” Jake started to object.

  “Take my car,” William said, without a glance up.

  “Your car is here?” I asked. Hadn't he said that he took a chartered flight to Riverbend?

  “No, but I rented one just like it.” He put the keys on the table and went back to the files.

  I walked over, snatched the keys, and we left the building. William's rental car was parked in a visitor's slot next to the sedan. Candy apple red, Nissan 350Z convertible.

  “Nice car,” Jake said as he got into the passenger seat. “I might have to reconsider my opinion of William.”

  “What's that all about, anyway?” I asked as I got
into the driver's seat.

  “What?”

  “Your obvious hostility toward William.”

  “I don't like him.”

  “I know. You said that. But why?” I started the car.

  “I don't know. He dresses better than me, he's younger, maybe a little better looking, and he reminds me of the guy I found sleeping with my second wife.”

  “Is that all?” I teased.

  “No, I don't like the way he looks at you.”

  “I hadn't noticed that he looks at me at all.”

  “Only when we're all busy and he doesn't think anyone will notice. I don't think he realizes I've seen him.” Jake stared at me.

  “I'm sure he's looking at everyone, not just me. It's part of the way William works. He studies people.”

  “No, it's you, babe.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I've seen the look before.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “Tom cat.”

  “What?”

  Jake smiled and leaned back in the seat. “Let me tell you a story.”

  “Sure.” I smiled as I pulled out of the Riverbend Police Station. “We've got a few minutes before we get to Sarah's house.”

  “When my last ex and I were still together, we had a few pets. An English bulldog named Buster, a cockatiel named Elvis, and an old cat named Tom. That cat used to drive my wife crazy.” He smiled. “Or crazier, in my ex-wife's case.”

  “How?”

  “He loved to hunt. He'd bring pieces of mice and birds and lay them on our back porch. One time he brought home a squirrel's tail.”

  “Cats are supposed to be hunters, so that makes sense.”

  “Don't interrupt.” He frowned. “Or you'll stifle the flow of the story.”

  I put one of my hands up. “Okay, keep going.”

  “Well, Tom used to sit for hours and watch Elvis. Elvis's cage was in our bedroom. That damn bird threw feathers and bird seed everywhere. It was such a mess.”

  I started to interrupt and Jake frowned again. “That's not really part of the story -- I just hated that damn bird. Okay, so Tom would lie at the top of one of our dressers and watch that bird. I used to kid my wife that one day Tom was going to figure out how to open the cage and have Elvis for lunch.”