An Unkindness of Ravens Page 13

  The real question, the only important question, was of the identity of ‘John the Baptist’. Who was he?

  Danny shuffled in his seat and Tyler glanced over at him. Danny had shown good skill in following both Sarah and Ferguson and who knew who else. These were the qualities important to a good prospective investigative journalist, but also, Tyler had to admit, the same ones used by the killer. He looked at Danny again. Could he be ‘the Baptist?’ No, it couldn’t be possible, there was no experience in the boy and he was far too young for something like this. It was worth keeping an eye on the boy all the same; there was skill there that could easily be put to ill-use. Tyler certainly had experience of this.

  Just then Danny turned to Tyler and said,

  “You’ll want to see this.” Tyler was just getting out of his seat to look at Danny’s screen when Davis erupted out of his office, shouting,

  “How the hell did the others get the names of the victims before us!” He was looking directly at Tyler and his face was red with anger. “We have nothing on this and now it’s all over the internet!” Tyler looked at Danny’s screen and saw this was what Danny wanted to show him.

  The names of the victims and a very limited biography of each were printed in three different online papers, all breaking within a few minutes of one another by the looks of it.

  Tyler's first thought was that this looked very orchestrated, and he wondered if ‘John the Baptist’ was starting to spread what he knew around more evenly.

  “This has to have been a tip-off,” Tyler said, “There’s no way the police found out the four identities on the same day!”

  “Why weren’t we the one’s tipped off then?” Davis shouted, it was clear nothing was going to satisfy him on this one.

  “I don’t know,” Tyler said, “I’ll call my contacts and see if I can find out where all of this has come from.”

  “You, Kircheck!” Davis barked at Danny, “You start getting all those names down and find out what you can online about them. Social media, work, blogs, anything at all, you got it?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Danny said, turning back to his computer and starting on this task right away.

  Tyler went outside and phoned a few people as he walked the streets nearby. None of them knew where the names came from and had only heard about it online themselves. He called Sarah, but he knew she would be into this now too, searching through the names and their backgrounds for something to tie them all together, some common strand. She wasn’t going to answer him right now.

  He felt put out by this, as though ‘John the Baptist’ had cut him out of things unfairly. Now someone else had an edge in the story and he was going to have to play catch-up on the victims. Still, he had his letters and the phone call. It wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. He went back to the office just long enough to grab his laptop and then left for home where he always felt he got his best work done.

  He listened to the radio on his way home, picking up what was already known by the media as he went. There were two male victims and two female all from outside of Virginia or Maryland. This was odd - why had they all been within two hours of their dumping sites and yet seemingly not from there? Their names in order of being murdered were: Dennis Roban, Stuart Bachman, Elizabeth Barker and Patricia Dorris. None of these names meant anything to Tyler.

  Once home, he looked deeper into their lives for as much as he could find. There wasn’t a whole lot to begin with, so he marked off their homes on a map of the eastern United States looking for something to help him here. Each was from a different state but must have travelled to wherever it was they were murdered before being transported to the sites their bodies were dumped. Each of them must have been lured to their death but how?

  Elizabeth Barker had the worst of the deaths it seemed. She was the one killed by both Stanver and Roche, and she had suffered much more than the others through ineptitude as much as any malice that went into the killing. How terrified she must have been.

  As he built up his file of pages to be read over again, and started to get a view of these people’s lives, he couldn’t make any kind of connection at all. What did ‘John the Baptist’ see in them? What was he missing? It seemed fairly certain that political leanings could be pushed out of the way. There was something he wanted to cleanse these people of, but what? At first glance they all looked like clean-living people, no trouble to anyone.

  Then of course there was the fact of having Stanver and Roche carry out a murder in his name, and this time there was no merciful death and no careful cleaning of the body. What was different about Elizabeth Barker? Why was she singled out for this harsh treatment? What did she do to deserve it? She was the one he needed to look into most closely.

  For the next hour and a half Tyler delved as deep as the internet would allow him in the life of Elizabeth Barker. She was in her late forties, not an attractive woman, with brown hair she wore long, and blue eyes that looked warm in any photo of her he saw.

  She had been active on social media through a few apps and also he found a profile on a book lovers site with all the books she read and when, and a long list of those she wanted to read yet. She would never get to those now. Clicking through the books, he found she was into fantasy and science fiction mostly, but there were lots of books from other genres too. She must have been willing to follow word of mouth recommendations, or something like that. She rated all the books and reviewed a lot too. She was always kind in her ratings and didn’t say anything bad that he could see about the books with the lower ratings.

  Tyler looked at her comments on all these sites and didn’t find any harsh words or disagreements involving her. He had to wonder how much of her life was lived in front of a screen. It wasn’t much of an existence, but then if she was enjoying it, who was he to say anything about it? His own life wasn’t ideal either. There was plenty he could change there for the better of everyone around him.

  He leaned back in his chair as he scrolled through her twitter profile; there was an awful lot to read about her online, but he felt he was going to have to go to her home town of Zannesville, Ohio, to find out more. He was going to have to talk to people who knew her in real life.

  Chapter 28

  At the same time Tyler was finding out about the victim’s identities, Sarah Brightwater and her team were searching through their databases for anything they could find on either the victims, their hometowns or their families. All three online newspapers had contacted the FBI just before hitting the publish button with the names they had received from an anonymous letter. Those three letters were being collected by agents as they spoke for forensic analysis. Sarah knew, but couldn’t say of course, that they were not going to find anything incriminating on them.

  Local agents from the field offices in the states where the victims were from were going to carry out initial interviews with family members and the files would be made available centrally as soon as possible. The techs looked over all social media and financial activity they could on the victims but didn’t find anything of interest.

  Sarah had the same idea as Tyler about Elizabeth Barker and there being something special about the way she died. It was also very disturbing that it seemed none of the people dead had been reported missing. Each one, on being lured somewhere, must have told loved ones they were going on vacation or something like that. This must be why none of them was missed. The number one question was how was he luring them? Why did these people go willingly so far from home to meet someone who was going to kill them? Of course Sarah didn’t think for a moment any of them felt they were going to be in danger, but what could it have been to make them travel like this?

  Checking her phone, which had been vibrating away a few times in her pocket over the last hour, she saw a missed call from Tyler and a couple from Woodbridge PD. Tyler was probably just looking for information; it looked like he’d been left out of the loop on this one by the killer. She wondered if Tyler’s part in this story was over now? Either
way, he would have to wait. She called the Woodbridge Police Department.

  After a couple of minutes getting bounced from one desk to the next, someone finally came on and said,

  “Agent Brightwater? I’m afraid we’ve had to let Mr Ferguson go. He is under suspicion of theft from the church, but we can’t hold him on that. We have even less on your murder case and his lawyer knows how to get things done.” Sarah didn’t like to hear this, but after a moment’s thought she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Does he at least have a bond to stay in the town while we investigate?” she asked.

  “Yes, and he says he wants to clear his name of everything. He seems pretty fired up about it.”

  “OK, thanks, keep an eye on him,” Sarah said and she hung up, never knowing who she’d been talking to. She thought then about calling the lab to see if anything was back from the hair sample, but just as she was about to do this, one of the team called to her,

  “You’re going to want to see this, Agent.” Forgetting about her phone call, Sarah strode over to the young girl’s desk to see her screen.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “A blog. It’s just gone live and it’s about the murders,” the girl said. Sarah scanned the page, taking control of the mouse to scroll down when she got to the bottom. This was bad, this was really bad.

  “Get a trace on this; find out where it’s coming from,” she said to the girl as she left to go see Bobrick or Daniels, whoever was available. It turned out to be Daniels.

  “What now, Brightwater?” he asked as she came into his office. He didn’t look up, still reading whatever report was on his desk.

  “A blog about the murders just went live online,” she said.

  “So?” he asked, sounding uninterested.

  “I think it belongs to the killer.” Now he did look up.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “He knows more about the case than is available online, and there are some things in there that we don’t know,” she said, gulping a little at this lie.

  “Like what?”

  “The journalists he’s been in contact with already.” she said. The letters to Tyler had been mentioned on the blog, and though the author hadn’t made any connection to Sarah also seeing these letters, she had a sick feeling that he knew this too. He was toying with them all, taunting them. He didn’t reveal everything, but it was enough for Sarah to feel it was him and he was enjoying himself.

  “Show me,” he said, turning his laptop around for her to go to the site. She pulled it up and turned it back to him. He read the pages and then worried his forehead vigorously.

  “When are these fucking reporters going to learn that people’s lives are more important than their newspaper sales!” he said angrily.

  “I have the techies running this down. They’ll find where it’s hosting from and we might be able to get a geographic location ...”

  “Bullshit,” Daniels interrupted her. “This guy knows what he’s doing, this damn thing probably bounces all over the planet before it lands here. It could take weeks to track it down.” He got up and paced around his office and then turning to her said, “Go out and do some of those interviews yourself. Go get a feeling for where they lived and where the victims came from.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said and started to leave.

  “And I want daily updates on this,” he said. “Congress and Joe Public will be all over us about this.”

  Sarah left, glad he hadn’t asked her to have Tyler arrested, but she knew at the very least he was in for a grilling and possibly some obstruction of justice charges. The scary thing was if he was nailed, she would be too. She was in deep, and this one would have to be solved quickly before she was pulled off the case, or worse.

  On her way back to the case team, she dialled Tyler’s number. It rang for a long time before going to his voicemail. As his recorded greeting came on, she wondered if she should leave a message or just hang up. The beep came.

  “This is Sarah,” she said. “I’m assuming you’ve seen the blog. Call me when you can.” Instant regret flooded her; as if she wasn’t giving her superiors enough evidence to hang her out to dry, now she was calling a reporter who withheld information from her work cell phone only minutes after finding out about the blog. The message in itself was very incriminating. What was she thinking?

  Spalding came to mind and Sarah saw very clearly what she’d been thinking, what she wanted. Even now as she worried about being pulled into deep trouble at this case, she wasn’t ready to tell the truth and give up on her chance of getting to Spalding. She would figure out a way to get Tyler off the hook or else to keep him quiet about her role in it all. Even if it meant her becoming a part time informant for his stories, she could live with that to make sure she kept this job and with it the hope of avenging her mother alive for as long as it would take.

  Chapter 29

  Tyler decided to fly to Columbus, Ohio, and rent a car there, rather than to drive the five and a half hours it would take to get to Zannesville by road. It was late afternoon and the sun was fading when he got to the town. It was cold and breezy today and not too many people moved about the streets. It was a nice looking town, a place he’d never been before, and he took in some of the buildings as he drove along the main street.

  The warehouse where Elizabeth Barker had worked was on the outskirts of town and it was still busy when Tyler got there. He went to the reception desk and talked to a short woman with red hair who sat behind a sliding glass window.

  “Can I help you?” she asked as he approached. Tyler saw her give him the once over and possibly registered attraction in her eyes. He flashed her a smile,

  “Hi, I’m Tyler Ford, I’m an investigative journalist with ‘The Baltimore Echo.’”

  “You’re a long way from home,” she smiled back and he wondered was this her version of flirting.

  “Yes, I just got here.”

  “We had a tonne of reporters in earlier today,” she said. “They didn’t stay long though.” She sounded sad at this. Perhaps her job was boring and this had been something to spice it up and she was sorry it had been so short lived.

  “Well, if you’re still willing to talk, I’m willing to listen,” Tyler said, that smile beaming again. She ran a hand though her hair quickly and blushed.

  “What would you like to know?” she asked.

  “First off, I guess, would be your name?” She tittered at this.

  “Oh yes, of course, I’m Annabelle Susans.”

  “Nice to meet you Annabelle,” Tyler said, shaking her hand through the window. “Can you tell me, did you know Elizabeth Barker?”

  “Yes, she worked this very desk, so I saw her every day on my way inside.”

  “You’re doing her job now?”

  “For the time being, until they hire someone else,” Annabelle said, “I work in the accounts section usually.”

  “I see, was Elizabeth well liked here?”

  “No one I know of ever had a bad word to say about her.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was quiet, but friendly. She’d always look up to smile and say hi to everyone who passed by here, coming or going.”

  “Did she work alone in this office,” he asked, not sure what to call the very small and cramped booth Annabelle currently occupied. There was another small desk opposite to her back to back.

  “Yes, I suppose it was lucky they let her write her stories or she would have gone crazy sitting here alone all day.”

  “She wrote stories, here in work?”

  “Yes, there’s not a whole lot to do on reception here, but the boss insists someone is here all the time. We can do what we want a lot of the time so long as it looks like work. We can't lean back and read a book or anything like that, but writing, scanning the internet, that kind of thing is ok.”

  “Really?” Tyler said, trying to sound envious. “What did Elizabeth write?”

 
“Short stories, I think. She didn’t really like to talk about it and she never showed them to anyone, even though we all asked to read them.”

  “Are those stories still here?” he asked.

  “No, she kept them in notebooks, writing with a pen. She never typed them on the computer here in case somebody saw them.”

  “She took some vacation time, I believe?” Tyler asked.

  “Yes, two weeks, said she was going down to Florida to visit relatives.”

  “How did she seem before she left?”

  “Same as ever I guess. She was a happy person, and that was right up to the last time I saw her.” Here tears encroached on Annabelle’s eyes and she wiped the corners. “Sorry,” she said.

  “No need, it’s a terrible thing that happened to her. It’s upsetting for everyone who knew any of the victims.”

  Tyler spoke to Annabelle a little more, trying to establish if anyone at work could have been considered close to Elizabeth, but no one was. From what Tyler was told, Elizabeth came to work, had her lunch alone in the canteen and then left on time each day. She didn’t socialise at all apart from when people came to her window. He thanked Annabelle for her time and gave her his card in case she thought of anything else.

  Tyler drove past Elizabeth’s home and as expected saw many local reporters camped outside the house looking to talk to the family. There was no point in his trying now, he would look for an alternate way to get to talk to them.

  Back in his hotel room, he tidied up his notes and then called for room service, not feeling like going out to eat. Only a few minutes after he placed his order the phone in the room rang. He assumed it was going to be room service telling him they were out of what he wanted or something like that. He sat up on the bed when he realised he was wrong.

  “Tyler, don’t worry, I didn’t cut you out. I knew you’d come to see about Elizabeth first, the same way I knew you’d go to the wrong Stanver. I won’t stay on the line, but I think you should ask yourself, can you trust Sarah Brightwater?”