An Unkindness of Ravens Read online

  An Unkindness of Ravens

  The Birdwatcher Series

  European P. Douglas

  Published by European P. Douglas, 2020.

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

  First edition. July 25, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 European P. Douglas.

  Written by European P. Douglas.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 1

  Warrenton, Virginia,

  May 21st 2004,

  “Theresa Brightwater wiped a tear from her eye and smiled. She was thinking of Frank, her late husband, and how proud he would have been to see his daughter as she left for her high school Prom this evening. Sarah had always been his little girl, forever on his lap or climbing on his back, and he loved every second of it. Theresa had loved it too. She’d loved when it was just the three of them and they were a family. When Frank had passed from an aggressive short fight with cancer, things were hard for Theresa, but she had to struggle on for her daughter. She worried constantly now that something might happen to her and Sarah would be left all alone in the world. It was Theresa’s biggest fear.” Dwight Spalding said all this as he watched Theresa though her kitchen window wiping that tear away. “Until tonight,” he added with a mean sneer.

  Spalding liked to watch for a long time on these nights, liked to narrate what he saw, or imagined was going on before him as he built up to his work. He saw it all like it was a movie, or a recreation of a crime on one of those true crime shows on TV, which he always knew was a future possibility. Only the TV could never show as much as Spalding saw and knew as he looked on his imminent victims. They could never know how it felt to be him and to do this work.

  When he saw Theresa go to the sitting room and take up a book, Spalding knew this was his moment. Glancing around to make sure no one else was watching, he jumped over the small rail fence and crossed the backyard in four long silent bounds. He slipped inside the back door and closed it softly. Silly Theresa, he thought, it was careless of her to leave this door unlocked so often. It was a quiet neighbourhood, but that didn’t excuse it. Anyone could be lurking around out here, and tonight someone was. Spalding went inside stealthily and eased open the door to the closet under the stairs. In here he would conceal himself until much later tonight. He sat down and got as comfortable as he could in the warm dark and waited. This was always the hardest part, the waiting. It was always worth it in the end, though.

  As he listened, Theresa came back into the kitchen, took the phone receiver and dialled her sister Estelle in New York, as she did every night at this time. She leaned over, stretching the cord, and locked the back door as she waited for Estelle to answer - something else she did every night.

  The two of them were now locked into the house together. Dwight Spalding waited.

  FBI ACADEMY, NEAR QUANTICO, Virginia,

  February 5th 2018,

  Sarah Brightwater’s stomach dropped when she saw Special Agent in Charge Bobrick accept the file handed to him by the Assistant SAIC, Daniels. Bobrick was in his office and Sarah saw this handover through his open door. Their eyes met for a moment before she looked away. She heard the file rustling open. She always felt sick when a new file came in. One part was the fact it meant someone else was killing people, and the other was nervousness that it might be Dwight Spalding, the man who had orphaned Sarah at eighteen years of age.

  Though her eyes were trained on her computer screen, her ears cocked to Bobrick’s office, hoping to hear something of the new case, something to quell at least part of her nausea. Bobrick and Daniels were talking, but she couldn't make out anything. She wanted to look their way, to try reading their lips, but she had already been seen nosing, and it wouldn’t do for her to be caught a second time.

  “Brightwater!” Bobrick’s calling voice startled her, “Come in here before you get a crick in your neck trying not to turn your head this way.” Agent Malick, who sat facing Sarah over a low desk partition, sniggered.

  “Coming, Sir,” Sarah said, getting up and throwing a pencil at Malick, who looked at her like he’d been minding his own business before breaking out into a broad smile. “I notice they didn’t call you, hotshot!” Sarah teased.

  “Must be something they don’t want solved too fast,” Malick ginned back, hitting Sarah between the shoulder blades with the returned pencil. Sarah didn’t turn back to him—she would get him back later.

  “Close the door,” Bobrick said when Sarah came into his office. Daniels walked to the window and looked outside on some trainees running by in loose formation.

  “We’ve got a new one,” Bobrick said nodding to the file that sat on his desk now.

  “Where, Sir?”

  “Not far,” he said, “Whitney State Forest.” Sarah felt another lurch in her stomach,

  “Near Warrenton?” she asked, knowing full well that it was.

  “That’s right,” Bobrick said. “Two bodies, one three weeks ago, and one yesterday.”

  “Someone came to us fast on this one,” Sarah commented.

  “Just the way we like it,” Daniels said though he still looked out the window. Sarah looked to him and then back to Bobrick,

  “What do you want me to do, Sir?” she asked.

  “Go down there and look at the sites, and then the body still above the ground. Report back on my desk by 9am Wednesday with as much as you can cram in by then. Got it?” he asked, closing the file and holding it out for her.

  “Yes, Sir,” Sarah said, taking the file, “Thank you.”

  “Take Malick with you,” Daniels said, turning now to face her.

  “I don’t think we need a second agent on this one,” Sarah said.

  “More agents is always preferable,” Daniels said.

  “Yes, Sir,” Sarah said noticing that she’d lapsed in not calling him ‘Sir’ a moment ago. Was he going to make her pay for that?

  Closi
ng the door behind her as she left, Sarah bent and picked up the pencil and walked back to her desk. She sat down and read through what was there for a few minutes and then looked up to Malick,

  “Get your coat, boss wants me to bring you to school on a scene,” she smiled.

  “So it is something they want solved after all,” he said, jumping up, his jacket on him before he was fully standing.

  Whitney State Forest was an hour’s drive from the Academy, and on the way Sarah called the local police to have someone meet them at the scene while Malick went through the file. He was the type who liked to read every word and study every picture on his first viewing of a file. Sarah was silent after the call and left him to it, waiting for him to talk once he was done. A lot of things ran through her head right now and it was hard to push preconceived ideas away.

  “This must have been a shock for you,” Malick said, closing the file, “So close to your childhood home?”

  “Sure was.”

  “You don’t think it was Spalding do you?”

  “That’s what I always think initially,” she smiled, “But no, I don’t think it was him.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, you might finally be getting over your obsession.”

  He’d said this in a playful way but it stung Sarah deep. It wasn’t a part of her life she had any sense of humour about. This was the man who had murdered her mother after all. Who wouldn’t be obsessed with finding him and making him pay for what he’d done? And it wasn’t just her mother, Spalding had killed nine other women in much the same way, always single moms while their daughters were at the prom. How sick could you get? Sarah couldn’t help but see the flashing lights and police tape around the house when she got home that early morning fourteen years ago, the first rays of light coming over the day.

  The two agents arrived at the southern end of the forest park off Route 684 and saw the police officer leaning against his patrol car taking in the lunchtime sunshine. Sarah could see the disdain in the officer’s face at the sight of the FBI agents. It certainly wasn’t him who’d contacted them, that was for sure. There was one other car in the parking lot, and a man sat inside paying them no heed. He looked to be working on a laptop. Sarah noted the registration number mentally.

  “I’m Agent Brightwater and this is my understudy, Agent Malick,” she said, walking up to the man and offering her hand.

  “Officer Pitts,” he said back, shaking both agent’s hands in turn. “Let me take you back to where we found the body.” Pitts turned and walked without any more small talk.

  “Who’s that in the car?” Sarah asked. Pitts didn’t stop.

  “Just a reporter,” he said.

  “Understudy, eh?” Malick smiled, elbowing Sarah lightly in the ribs as he brushed past her to catch up with Officer Pitts.

  “The killer is not much of an athlete,” Pitts said, “Both bodies were dumped only a hundred yards or so from the two carparks.”

  “Maybe he wanted them to be found quickly,” Sarah suggested.

  “Maybe,” Pitts said, sounding unconvinced. He stopped walking on the bank of a ridge that ran down to a tiny stream about thirty feet below on a steep but treadable slope. “That’s where he was.” Pitts pointed.

  “How long has the body been gone from here?” Malick asked as he and Sarah looked at the police tape fluttering in the light breeze and seeing the footprints everywhere.

  “He was there until about ten this morning, a long time to be on display like that.”

  “Who found the body?” Sarah asked.

  “A couple out walking their dogs early yesterday, they were pretty shook up about it when we got here.”

  “Do you guys have any leads on the possible murder sites?”

  “None,” Pitts said, and he sounded pissed about it. He knew as well as the FBI did that they were unlikely to find any real evidence at the dumping site. The kill site was where the real stuff was.

  “How many people have been through here since the body was found?” Malick asked.

  “Twelve or thirteen,” Pitts said, “Including a few reporters that came by.” Malick nodded but didn’t say anything to this. Sarah knew he was annoyed about how badly the scene had been preserved, but there was no point in having an argument about that now.

  “Let’s go have a look,” Sarah said, pulling on her blue plastic overshoes.

  Chapter 2

  Tyler Ford had seen the site long before the FBI showed up. The body was still there at that time, covered in a grey tarp while the duty cops waited for the forensics team. Tyler had contacts in a lot of the local police departments and he’d heard about the murder before a lot of his competitors in the news press. His paper, ‘The Baltimore Echo’, was going to be ahead on this one. He’d been able to get to Whitney State Forest in under two hours from his home in Ellicott City with no traffic in the very early morning.

  Tyler spoke to the officer who was first on the scene, and though he wasn’t allowed to see the body under the tarp, it was described to him. It was a man, early thirties. His throat had been slit and he was fully clothed when found. No other indications of violence in the preliminary examination of the body. Forensics might have something to say about that when they arrived, however. There was very little blood and it was unlikely the killing had taken place here. The key point though, was that the little finger of the left hand was missing. This meant only one thing to Tyler, who had been at the previous murder scene in this woods recently - a serial killer!

  The very idea sent a shiver down Tyler’s spine. He knew how much his boss and, more importantly, his readers loved stories like this. And he loved to write them. He thought back on what he could recall from the first murder and it seemed very similar - in fact exactly the same. The only fresh blood at that scene had been when the finger was cut off. This meant that the person was killed, brought here for dumping and had the finger removed onsite in a very short period of time, perhaps as little as a couple of hours. Which meant he was close, no farther away from these woods than Tyler’s own home. Another shiver ran down his back; that was the kicker, the fact that would terrify and delight his readers in equal measure. There is a killer in your locality - he could see the reaction to this!

  Tyler went back to his car and wrote up his notes on his laptop. He had to be sure he got all he knew down so he wouldn’t forget anything. It was this work ethic that made him so well respected in his field and had him win numerous awards for his investigative journalism. He’d covered murder cases before but almost always as a straight reporter. This time he wanted to look in more deeply, to turn his investigative eye to something much more serious than financial crimes or corporate cover-ups. He wanted his name to be known nationally for something that mattered.

  Once this work was done, he came back to the police cordon and watched the forensics team go about their work. He was too far back to see anything properly, but he did see members of the team bend over a few times to examine things, and twice one called for a colleague to come and have a look at something. Other reporters had arrived by now, and Tyler took pleasure in hearing them ask the first officer some of the same questions he’d asked. By now, however, the officer was more tight lipped. There were more people around to hear him talking, and also he was fed up repeating the same details and facts. The early bird catches the worm, he thought and smiled.

  The body was taken away, covered completely on the stretcher now, and those present watched in silence as he was loaded into the ambulance. Tyler went back to his car and sat for a while, jotting down a few more notes as the other reporters and forensics people left. When everyone was gone save the poor sap whose job it was to guard the site for now, Tyler got back out of his car and told that officer he was going to go for a walk in the forest.

  “Just don’t try to sneak up on the site from the far side,” the officer warned, “I’ll be watching and I’m in no mood for any bullshit.”

  “No bullshit,” Tyler smiled, “I promise.”

/>   It didn’t take long before Tyler felt like he was in the middle of nowhere. He’d always loved being outdoors, especially in the woods. It was a chilly morning, and frost sat on the grass in a lot of places. He could see his own breath as he walked, stepping over fallen and ancient logs as he went. Birds cackled in the trees and this was the only noise to be heard.

  He was hoping to get lucky and stumble on something, anything at all, that might show that the killer had come deeper into the woods than had been assumed. He didn’t think it would make any sense to have done such a thing, but then weren’t killers well known to like to watch the aftermath of what they had done? To be a face in the crown of onlookers trying to fit in, while at the same time getting their kicks from the reactions of those all around them? What could be better than finding evidence like that?

  Tyler walked in a large loop for about an hour, coming out of the woods only fifty yards from where he’d come in. The officer watched him as he emerged from the trees, and Tyler noted with humour that the man’s hand was poised for his gun. Did he think the killer was back and coming for him?

  “Only me,” Tyler called with a wave, “It’s a nice park, shame it’s going to be known only for these murders now.” The officer didn’t answer him.

  As he made his way back to his car, he heard the officer’s radio crackle to life,

  “Be advised 118, FBI agents Brightwater and Malick enroute to your location. ETA one hour. Over”

  “This is 118,” the officer sighed. “Got it. Over.”

  The FBI, Tyler thought, looks like it was a good idea to stick around after all. Another scoop for the ‘Baltimore Echo’. He could wait another hour or two while he worked on his story in the warmth of the car. He searched online for agents with the names he heard and found a few news items but nothing too exciting. He was going to need first names and some inside help to find out what he needed to know to fill out his backstory on this.

  The car pulled into the carpark less than an hour later. Tyler glanced once at it and went on with his writing as it pulled up. When he heard the car doors close and the footsteps on the gravel, he looked out and watched them approach the officer. All three of them then disappeared into the woods.