An Unkindness of Ravens Read online

  “Please don’t say that to anyone else.” Sarah said, “I’ll get a proper confession and then you can spread the word, but he has to say it, and more than once.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” he smiled at her, and she saw in this the ambitions of a political career. It was like he was practising on her for the future.

  When Sarah re-entered the room, Stanver was in a much better condition. His eyes were puffy and red from crying, but he was composed. The photographs she’d left with him were still on the table, but they were face down now and she guessed he didn’t want to be reminded of what he’d done by them. He looked at her and before she even sat down he said,

  “I want to tell you what I did.”

  “OK,” she said, “I’m listening.” she eased into her seat as she said this, never breaking their eye contact.

  “I killed a woman and put her in a car that was driven away by Des Roche.” That was it, the confession. Sarah felt herself drawn to the two-way mirror on the wall where she knew Brogan would be listening to this. He’d probably be out bragging about it right away. She managed not to look that way and stayed looking at Stanver.

  “Who was the woman?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You just picked her at random?”

  “No. We were told where she’d be. Waiting on a corner for us to take her.”

  “She knew she was going to be killed?” Sarah couldn’t believe this was correct.

  “No, she thought she was waiting for someone else, I think, I don't really know that part.” Sarah nodded, she could find out more about that part later.

  “Where was she killed?”

  “In an alleyway near the edge of town.”

  “You killed her alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you cut her finger off?”

  “No.”

  “Mr Roche did this?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Did you speak to Mr Roche after this happened?”

  “No, I only met him as I put her in the car, I never knew him and hope I never see him again.”

  “Why did you do this?” Sarah asked. Stanver was silent a moment, and she thought she felt a hesitation here, like he was trying to remember something.

  “I wanted to make it look like the murders up near Whitney Forest,” he said. Sarah looked at him a moment. Something was wrong here, he was being too open all of a sudden and she didn’t trust it. His last answer looked like he’d been expected to say it. Expected by who?

  “Who put you up to all this?” she asked.

  “No one, I did it all myself,” he said, and now he was looking worried again, like an actor who’d forgotten his lines.

  “So how did Mr Roche get involved then?” Stanver looked confused and then said,

  “Wait, actually I did know him, we met before we did this, we agreed on it.”

  “This sounds like you’re making it up as you go, Mr Stanver. How about we get to the truth? We’re going to find out anyway, so it’s better for you if we know now. Who put you up to this?”

  Chapter 25

  It was late in to the night, when Sarah finished up with Stanver. She came out of the room, with tired eyes and a stiff back from the uncomfortable chairs in there. She had her confession, but it was not enough. It was what Stanver was not telling her that was of the most importance in the case. He’d clammed up after admitting to the killing, went so far as to say Des Roche was involved, but everything he said after that was one contradiction after the other. He tied himself in knots trying to make a believable cohesive story about his relationship with Des Roche and it was laughable.

  What greeted her outside was mayhem. At once she could see the heavy white lights of the media vans and she went to the window to look outside. There were vans from TV stations all over the state, and down below on the steps was a throng of journalists listening to Chief of Police Ray Grogan. Sarah couldn’t hear anything from where she was, so she rushed down stairs and stood just inside the door to the station, out of view of the cameras - she hoped - and close enough to Grogan to hear his voice.

  “So I think all Virginians can sleep a little easier tonight knowing ‘John the Baptist' and his accomplice are in secure custody and can no longer pose a threat to the decent people of this State.”

  Sarah couldn’t believe it, but she felt there was no point in having a public spat with the Chief of Police here and now in front of everyone. The reporters surged forward with their questions, and Grogan affably waved them down to try take them one at a time. Sarah took this as her moment to leave, sneaking out past the crowd and going back to her car without anyone even looking her way.

  She was angry and still had a long drive home before her. She saw some missed calls on her phone as she hooked it to the holder by the windshield and noticed one from Tyler Ford. Did he have any more information, she wondered? She hit redial as she left the streets of Petersburg for home.

  Tyler answered on the fourth ring.

  “Sarah,” he said, “I just saw you on TV.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, you were in the background sneaking out of the Petersburg PD while that ass is trying to make a name for himself,” Tyler laughed.

  “Ugh,” Sarah said. “How did I look?” She tried to be as light about it as he was.

  “Angry,” he said, still sounding cheerful.

  “Well, I guess I was,” and then she added after a short pause, “Still am I guess.” There was silence from the other end of the phone and Sarah thought the line had dropped, “You there?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I got something to tell you,” Tyler said, sounding apprehensive.

  “What is it?” she asked, feeling her blood beginning to boil again. She knew he’d done something she wouldn’t like.

  “You’re already angry, so I might as well just come out with it,” he said. “I got a phone call yesterday from someone telling me I should look into a Karl Stanver.”

  “Yesterday!” Sarah shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

  “Actually, it was the day before,” Tyler said, and this really set her off.

  “You’ve been sitting on the identity of a killer for two days and you didn’t think that was something you should share with the FBI?” she shouted.

  “I didn’t know who was calling or what the hell it was about!” Tyler shouted back.

  “You still should have passed that information on to me. It looks like it turned out to be correct!”

  “So I see,” Tyler said, “On the news!” This was a dig at her not sharing her own information, but that was entirely different; she was in law enforcement, he was a journalist.

  “This isn’t working, Tyler,” she said, “It’s too much risk...”

  “Listen, Sarah, I’m sorry, I know I should have told you about this, and I promise from now on you’ll know everything I do as soon as I know it.”

  “How can I trust you now, after two times holding out on me like this?” she asked.

  “I’m not the only one holding out,” he said back but quickly changed tack. “OK, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” There was more silence for a moment; Sarah didn’t want to be the next one to say something. “We need to keep this going, Sarah,” Tyler said.

  “Why should I?” she asked.

  “If we don’t, you lose access to early information. Don’t forget that I’m the one the killer is in contact with,” he said.

  “It’s not just you anymore,” she said, satisfied to give him this news. “He contacted me directly, a letter to my office to tell me about Karl Stanver.”

  “I see,” Tyler said, “Did he tell you it was the Karl Stanver in Petersburg?”

  “No, that was my own choice.”

  “I went to Palmyra,” Tyler admitted.

  “The barman?” she asked. “He’s a sleaze ball, but I think that’s it with him.”

  “I still got my information long before you did, though
,” he said, “That could be crucial in the future.” Sarah was silent again. “This could be the only way to catch Spalding,” Tyler said, and those were the words she dreaded hearing, the ones she knew she couldn’t fight against. As much as she wanted Spalding brought in, she had an overpowering and unfightable urge to be the one to do it. That was the only way it was ever going to feel right to her. Sarah often wondered did that mean even if she was the one to pull the trigger and ultimately end his life, or did she want him in jail? It varied from day to day.

  “Last chance, Tyler,” she said, “One more fuck up on your side and this thing is over.”

  “That’s fair,” he said, “But it won’t happen.”

  “I know,” she said firmly.

  “So, Stanver confessed to the murder with Des Roche?” Tyler asked.

  “He did, but what that asshole Grogan didn’t bother to tell everyone was how many holes there were in Stanver’s story, especially about how he met or knew Roche.”

  “I don’t think he knows anything about Roche,” Tyler said, “I think there was an arranged kill spot and transfer to the car, to get the body to the dump site.”

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he said, “The position of the bloody fingerprints in the car, on the inside of the rear door of the passenger side, it adds up to the owner of those prints using the door for balance a moment while he pushed the body inside. I think she was still alive at this point but badly hurt.”

  “Why would anyone do this in that way?” she asked, not disagreeing with him.

  “I believe you think the same as I do. They were under the control of ‘John the Baptist.’ I don’t know what he has over them, but it’s something big.”

  “Roche said he had no choice, and Stanver is scared shitless of something,” Sarah said almost to herself. It was true; she did think what Tyler did.

  “What could he have that could be so powerful as to make two men like that do something so horrendous and evil?”

  “Has the FBI come with anything from their pasts?” Tyler asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Maybe they were part of a paedophile ring or something like that?” he suggested.

  “It’s possible,” she said, that would be enough information to have on someone unknown to the police to get them to do something like murder, but no... “No, there’s something else here. If they had been told to carry out this murder, surely they would have at least worn gloves or did something to try clean up the car before dumping it. I think they were told to do it this way, that they had to leave the evidence behind them.”

  “Well then, it can only be one thing,” Tyler said.

  “What?”

  “John the Baptist must be holding someone they love. He’s going to kill them if Roche or Stanver say the wrong thing!” Sarah knew at once he was right. That would explain it all - the unlikely nature of the murders, the lack of an attempt to clean the car, everything. This was a whole other problem and one her bosses were going to have to know about right away.

  “Shit!” she said, “It’s even more fucked up than we thought it was!”

  Chapter 26

  When she hung up from Tyler, Sarah tried to get in touch with Bobrick but couldn't get him. She was put through to ASAC Daniels.

  “What have you got, Brightwater?” Daniels asked when he came on the phone. She told him of her talks with Roche and Stanver and then of the conclusion she had come to (obviously not mentioning Tyler’s part in the whole thing). Daniels agreed that this added a whole new layer of shit to the case.

  “OK, Brightwater, good work here. I’ll let SAIC Bobrick know, and get people working on this through the night. In the meantime, you go home and get some sleep.”

  “Yes, Sir, thank you,” Sarah said. Daniels hung up without saying goodbye. He was often all business. It wouldn’t be long before she was home, and she was very tired.

  As soon as Sarah walked into her apartment, she knew the atmosphere had completely changed. Glancing around the room she saw that though it was tidy, some of the tell-tale signs of Marcus living here were gone. With a heavy heart, she went to the bedroom and looked in the chest of drawers. All of his clothes were gone. There couldn’t be a clearer visual image than that empty drawer to tell her things were definitely over. She sat on the edge of the bed and cried for a time.

  Still thinking of Marcus, she went to the kitchen and took a beer out of the fridge. What she really wanted was a gin and tonic, but she couldn't be bothered to go to even the minimal trouble that would cause her. Perhaps it was only the idea of alcohol was all she needed.

  Sarah sat by the window looking out into the night. She’d had trouble like this with boyfriends before, and she supposed she should have seen it coming again. But she’d thought it was different this time. It looked like she had been wrong about this. It was always going to be hard for her; how was she supposed to find someone who could truly understand what drove her? To accept that stopping these killers and ultimately looking for Spalding was what mattered more to her than anything else in the world? There was only one answer to that; she wasn’t going to find someone like that.

  Sarah, single Sarah, still sitting at the window, had another beer after the first one. As though to mock her failed relationship, her mind wouldn’t even let her dwell on her misery like normal people do. Her thoughts kept drifting back to the case, to everything she’d been through these last few weeks. Getting up, she went to the closet and took out her private files on Dwight Spalding.

  It was a large square cardboard box with holes for handles and a lid. On this lid was written the words in large letters, ’The Monster.’ Inside there were many manila folders with copies of FBI files (she shouldn’t have these at home) and newspaper clippings of his crimes including her own mother’s murder. There were also countless printed pages from the internet where people had suspected sightings of the elusive killer. None of these had ever been substantiated, but she kept them all the same. You never know when one piece of gossip or rumour might turn out to be true, and with that a whole case could turn on its head.

  One of her worst fears had always been that Spalding was already dead. It wouldn’t be from old age, that was for sure, he’d only be in his late forties by now. His death would be one reason to explain why his killing run ended fifteen years ago so abruptly. Maybe he chose the wrong victim or luck had intervened and he'd been killed as he tried to kill someone else. Sarah’s personal feeling had always been that he was still alive. It was possible that he had left the United States, but she didn’t think this either. There were so many places to hide in such a vast and populous country. Had he been biding his time, planning for years for these events that were now taking place?

  Every time Sarah looked in this box she hoped to magically see something in a new light or context. A couple of times she’d gotten the old heart rate up, but those turned out to be nothing. Just more deflation when she knew she was wrong.

  Sarah held the police photo of Spalding, taken on his arrest many years ago before he escaped from the police station and continued on with his murders. They didn’t even know who they had when they arrested him, so poor had been the communication between state law enforcement. This picture had for a long time adorned the front page of the FBI most wanted list, but despite her protests and the long wrangling efforts she’d made to prevent it, it was no longer there. Spalding was still wanted, he just wasn’t ‘most wanted’ material anymore.

  Spalding was a big man, six feet four inches and wide across the chest. He’d been very muscular at the time of his arrest, and this imposing image was what Sarah thought about when the terrible image of her mother’s last moments came to her mind. How scared she must have been on being confronted by this monster in her own locked-up home, a place everyone is supposed to feel safe.

  Inevitably when she thought of her mother’s last moments, her thoughts went to what she was doing at the
time. Fumbling about with Jerry Seefer in his mom and dad's bedroom, feeling pressured to lose her virginity but not able to give it away at the last moment. Jerry had left her in the room in a frustrated huff, and it was then as she sat on the large bed crying and embarrassed that her mother was being killed back home. Not a good night at all for the Brightwater women.

  Sarah stepped away from the box and went to the photo of her mother that hung framed on the wall. She took it down and rubbed her mother’s cheek and with tears in her eyes said,

  “I’ll get him, mom. I’ll get him for you.”

  Chapter 27

  Tyler was in the office writing his story on Stanver and Roche as Danny sat nearby still working on the file for him. The words were flowing easily for Tyler, but it was hard to write within his limits holding back the very pertinent facts that only Sarah and he were privy to at the moment. The story was much bigger, a lot deeper than the one he was writing. Davis wanted it done now, using Chief of Police Ray Grogan’s statement to lead the story. Of course, Tyler couldn’t tell him that this was bullshit, but even if he could, he felt sure Davis would have insisted on running with this part of the story all the same. Everyone else would!

  Tyler looked over the footage of Grogan’s press conference and added some quotes to the story. Local and national TV had picked up on the story by now, and Tyler wondered if he was the only person watching who noticed Sarah leaving angrily in the back of the shot? He smiled, thinking how much she must hate seeing this.

  As he wrote on, he couldn’t help but think of lines he would be writing if they had discovered the identity of the real evil in all of this. ‘John the Baptist’ was still at large, Tyler had no doubt of this, and it was only going to be a matter of time before he killed again. What would the likes of Grogan say then? Most likely he wouldn’t care at all, he was only looking to have his name in the papers with this case for some upcoming mayoral or congressional race he was thinking of throwing his hat into the ring for.