A Clattering of Jackdaws (The Birdwatcher Series Book 2) Read online

  A Clattering of Jackdaws

  The Birdwatcher Series, Volume 2

  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.

  A CLATTERING OF JACKDAWS

  First edition. July 30, 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 1

  FLICKERING CANDLELIGHT danced on the old fashioned red and white checked tablecloth at Vito’s Italian restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland. Carson Lemond sat alone in a corner booth enjoying his tagliatelle and prawns, musing over his day’s success. His inside jacket pocket bulged with a heavy wad of cash, and he tapped it every couple of minutes to be sure it was still there.

  Collecting this money would be the clincher, he hoped, in his attempt to get in with the Castino Family in the city. Collecting a debt on their behalf would surely be a step closer to this. Assuming they didn’t somehow get offended by his help. He pushed this negative thought away.

  Ever since he left school, in his graduation year, Lemond had been in awe of the powerful men he saw running things in Baltimore’s inner city. Seeing their wealth, the gold watches and the cars they drove ruined him for normal work and he felt he’d never be happy until he had what these men had.

  To date, eight years later, Lemond was not much better than a street punk, robbing the odd liquor store or holding up an elderly couple for their wallets and handbags. He barely made enough money as a criminal to pay the rent and feed himself; it was a far cry from the opulence he dreamed off.

  But all that was going to change now. Carson Lemond had just done a favour for the Castino Family and they would repay him with some more work, he was sure of it. That would be the real start of things for him. Lifting his glass, he took a sip of wine as if to seal the deal in his mind. Carson Lemond had never felt better.

  That was, until a few minutes later when strange gurgling noises began to erupt in his stomach. At first, it was just some odd noises, sounding like liquids squeezed from one tube to another in his gut, but as they grew louder and Lemond started to become a little self-conscious of them, a sharp pain suddenly gripped him and he dropped his cutlery and clutched his stomach.

  The few patrons who shared the restaurant with him this evening looked up at the sound but quickly went back to their own meals and conversations. Lemond slid out of the booth, the pain growing with the movements and was just about to scurry down the hall to the bathroom when he remembered his jacket. He couldn’t leave that there; he’d worked too hard to see this opportunity slip through his fingers by losing the money for the Castino's. Leaning across the table, the need for the toilet multiplying by ten at this, Lemond grabbed his coat and pulled it to his side before hobbling down the hall, fully sure everyone in the place was watching him and probably snickering behind his back. That didn’t matter right now, all he wanted was the toilet and then he would give Vito a good telling off about his food doing this to him.

  The urinal cake odour tugged at his throat as he went into the bathroom. It was a rank smell and one that Lemond didn’t know was much of an improvement over stale urine. A huge man was at the sink washing his hands and he looked to Lemond and smiled in the reflection of the mirror. Lemond grimaced and made his way to the single stall door.

  “If you have a happy life, I wouldn’t go in there!” the man by the sink said jovially, still with his back to Lemond and looking at him through the mirror. Lemond grinned, appreciating the heads up- this guy must have done a real number on the bowl- but knowing he had no choice but to go in and ease his own stomach cramps.

  “No choice, I’m afraid!” Lemond called back as he pushed the cubicle door. It gave easily enough, though it creaked heavily on old uncared for hinges. Lemond had taken a step inside as the door was still in motion before he noticed the blood running to the floor. He looked up and was greeted with the sight of a man sitting on the toilet bowl, his throat slashed and his abdomen opened up, and blood flowed freely from his wounds.

  Lemond’s own pain was instantly forgotten as his brain tried to make sense of what was in front of him,

  “What the fuck?” he managed to say and at that moment he felt a strong hand turn his shoulder and it was the man who’d been washing his hands.

  “I told you not to go in there!” he said like it was the punchline to some sick joke, looming over Lemond and with a pressing movement Lemond suddenly felt something in his hand. The man stepped back and pushed Lemond who slipped on the rapidly reddening tiles and fell onto the lap of the dead man.

  He pushed himself away in horror and as he did, he saw in his own hand a huge knife, no doubt what had been used to kill the man. It was then Carson Lemond knew just how bad things were for him.

  The dead man in front of him was none other than Jeff Suchet, the same Jeff Suchet Lemond had beaten that afternoon to get the wad of cash after visiting him at his apartment downtown. There had been more than one witness to that event- that had been the idea at the time; Lemond had wanted to be sure of the credit- but now it looked awful. There was no way anyone was going to believe he didn’t kill Jeff. Here he was, covered in Jeff’s blood, holding the murder weapon and with a very recent history of being enemies.

  Climbing to his feet, Lemond spun around as these thoughts came to him. There was no sign of the man who had really done this, and a door leading out to the alley was ajar. An alarm should have gone off when that door was opened but it hadn’t. Why, he wondered?

  Lemond’s jacket was on the ground and he took it up. He wrapped it around the knife to conceal it; he would have to get rid of it later. He looked down and saw his clothes were completely destroyed. He wouldn’t get far walking the streets like this. Either the first police officer he met would pick him up, or the first do-gooder he passed would call the cops.

  There was no more time to think about it; he had to leave and get out of town before it was too late. Pushing out through the door of the alleyway, the air felt cool on his sweating s
kin. Almost at once the cramps came over him once again, but there was nothing he could do about that for now. He had to keep on going; he had to escape.

  His mind raced as he moved through the alleys. At that moment all he was aiming for was to put distance between himself and the murder, but after that he would need to use a bathroom, change his clothes and get out of Baltimore- probably in that order. He could chance going home, but bringing this blood into his apartment would only leave more evidence for later down the line if they caught up with him.

  How quickly this happy night had turned to shit.

  Chapter 2

  IF SARAH BRIGHTWATER had not known already, the scene at the farmhouse would have told her at once that this was the same killer as two other sites in rural Virginia in the last four months. She had been at the scene of the second herself, but the first had taken place while she was on her previous case and as it had only been one murder at the time, it hadn’t been on the FBI’s radar.

  The rain rattled steadily on the roof as Sarah walked the house looking over the scene. As before, the killer seemed to have brought a lot of items that made no sense and strewn them about the room where the body of the man had been found.

  Each of the victims had been a strong male, all single farmers under forty. Not your typical victim of choice for serial killers. Whoever was doing this was either really strong or had the charm to put these men at ease, only to take advantage at the right moment.

  “Have someone run through the victim’s computer and cell phone for any way he might have been in contact with the killer,” Sarah said to Amina, a young Agent Sarah ha taken a liking to. She didn’t think they’d find anything, but you never knew. So far the only thing to link the men was that they were farmers who lived alone. Each time a day worker had been unfortunate enough to find the body. None of them would likely ever recover from the scenes they had unwittingly stumbled upon.

  Sarah stood before the body of the latest victim, a Mr Terrence Shannon, who was- well the only word was displayed- on his dining room table. He’d been cut surgically from his chin to his goin and the skin had been peeled back and hammered in to the underside of the table. The smell of the blood and inners hung in the air and it was something no police officer or agent could ever get accustomed to.

  There didn’t seem on first inspection to have been anything taken from the body, so why they were cut open like this was still a mystery. What did it mean to the killer, what did it signify?

  Without her even realising, Sarah’s mind went in search for a way this could be connected to the Dwight Spalding murders- that was the real case she should be one right now. What was the point in chasing down this one if the man who’d murdered her mother was still at large and as had been discovered (though not fully believed yet by her superiors) to be still active all these years later? She shook her head; there was no point in thinking like this, getting angry about things she couldn't change. That wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

  What she needed to do was prove herself once again, catch this killer and then try to get reassigned to the other case. Her partner Malick, who had been almost fatally shot in their last case was finally coming back to work this week. That should help her in her goal of a fast resolution. She’d missed having a partner and it was probably the fact Malick had not been around that had let her get in so deep with the journalist Tyler Ford with whom she’d worked well outside her remit (and the law) to solve the recent ‘John the Baptist’ case. It could have cost her her job, and truth be told if what actually happened came out, it still could.

  Sarah looked at the floor of the dining room in which she stood. The items looked tossed about the floor but having studied the photos of the previous scenes, she was sure they were not arranged haphazardly, but what was the message? So far, she hadn’t come close to finding one.

  This time the items were as random as the previous two scenes. An unopened pack of gum, a five kilogramme dumb-bell, a kids comic book - this was one she didn’t recognise and the price printed on the cover was 60p which made her think it was British and she hoped this was going to be some kind of more meaningful clue. Next there was a copy of that previous Friday’s New York Times- like the last two scenes; and finally a hunk of liver in a plastic bag like you’d get at a butcher’s. It had been established it was not part of the victim’s liver but it would have to go to the lab at Quantico for further testing to see where it had come from. Sarah really hoped it was from an animal.

  The forensics team were still going through the house, but as of yet there had been nothing to report before the lab work was done. Again Sarah wondered how the killer met or found his victims. How did he get to their houses and how did he leave? There hadn’t been any car tyre tracks that didn’t match the victim’s trucks or cars. It was possible that the killer had a car with tyres exactly like those of his victim, but that seemed like a very long shot- three different sets of tyres to match three different victims- that was a hell of a lot of research. Still, it was possible and local tyre sales and car rentals had been checked out but nothing had surfaced thus far. How did he do it?

  The break; that was what they needed on this one. It was always what they needed. It got hard to find a break, however, when the killer was an organised and purposeful individual. They enjoyed what they were doing and in no way did they want to be caught and have to stop killing. Once they show themselves, it’s nearly over, she reminded herself. Thinking again of Spalding.

  Sarah leaned down, careful where she was placing her hand, and looked under the table to where the flayed skin was tacked to the table. As she suspected, it was the same kind of nail as the other two murders. It was one inch long, black in colour and had a thin head on it that made it look like a letter ‘T’ when removed. It looked unusual to Sarah but turned out to be fairly common. The list of suppliers and sales people on the East Coast alone was running to the hundreds, each one receiving a call from a local police department or FBI field office in relation to any small sales or suspicious customers. Sarah doubted the answer would come from there, especially with the nails being such a prominent part of the evidence, but you just never knew.

  The killer could have been as cool as cucumber buying these nails, perhaps in bulk- way more than he needed- but the salesperson might be one of those people who got ill feeling from people, or cold see auras and in the past, following up on these wild things had turned out to be the break in the case.

  The break in the case.

  Sarah counted the nails, seventeen, also the same as the previous murders. It was a strange number and Sarah felt it too meant something. The gruesome job could probably have been completed with less nails, and the fact it was not an even number of nails struck her. Surely someone completely organised would use an even number unless it means something?

  An argument started somewhere down away from the house, back towards the road. She looked out the window and saw the flashing lights of the squad car by the blue and white police line and saw the first of the press had arrived. It was a TV news van trying to get closer shots of the house. Sarah looked around to see if any other, quieter reporters had arrived yet. She assumed they would have. Though she didn’t admit it to herself, she knew she was looking to see if Tyler Ford was here. This was just the kind of case for him, one where his endless contacts would tip him off and he would arrive before anyone else.

  But Sarah didn't see him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t here though. He could be looking at her through the window right now. The thought was somehow comforting and she supposed it was the perceived support that made it feel so. Sometimes, especially lately, it seemed like Tyler was the only person who had any faith in her. It had been a long time since they spoke. Perhaps that was for the best.

  Chapter 3

  TYLER FORD WAS FOLLOWING the case of the murdered farmers, but on the night of the third murder, he was in Washington D.C meeting one of his long time contacts, Lewis Oakley from the Office of the Department of State. Lew
is was a low level clerk, but had become so ingrained in the offices that it was like he blended into the background and people often spoke candidly while he was nearby or left computer screens with sensitive information open for his wandering eye to take in.

  Since the trial of Tyler’s old boss at ‘The Baltimore Echo’, Derek Davis had been tried and convicted of the ‘John the Baptist’ murders, Tyler had been trying to find out the fate of his onetime intern Danny Kercheck.

  Danny had infiltrated both Davis’ murderous life and Tyler's investigation of it under the orders of someone he’d called only ‘The Monster’. Both Tyler and Sarah Brightwater at the FBI believed this to be none other than prolific serial killer at large Dwight ‘Prom Night’ Spalding, but no proof had ever emerged that would have anyone else believe it. The only thing Tyler had to go on was what Danny had said to him as Tyler was held captive in his own car while Sarah’s life was in danger.

  Tyler had tried to get an interview with Derek Davis, but the old editor never agreed to it and had never admitted guilt for any of his crimes. Tyler still hoped to speak to him at some point. His thought-flow was disturbed by the sound of hurried footsteps in the alleyway; busy shuffling feet Tyler would recognise anywhere. He popped the locks on the car and the rear passenger door opened and Lewis slid in, sure to be covered by the shadow and not be visible to any long lens camera that might be on the car from the front. It was over the top bullshit, but Tyler didn’t say anything as he wanted to keep him on side. Tyler stayed looking straight ahead, another part of the charade.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi,” Lewis answered trying to regain his breath.

  “You got something solid?” Tyler asked. Lewis shuffled about a little and Tyler glanced at his reflection in the side window but didn’t know what he was up to.

  “Not much, but it will explain why no one has heard anything about Danny Kercheck and why you can't get in contact with him,” Lewis said, sounding pleased with himself.