An Unkindness of Ravens Read online

  Chapter 47

  Tyler and Danny had in fact spent the day going through the timeline of the blog before he spoke to Sarah that night. They went through everything for accuracy, and then to see when the information was released to the general press and when it showed up on the blog first. This was a harder task than it seemed it would be and it was time consuming. Sometimes they would think they’d found a discrepancy in times or dates, but it would turn out to be a cached page or something erroneous on one of the websites that explained it all away.

  After all the hard work of the day, it seemed that the blog had been the first source on many things and didn’t post anything that turned out to be untrue. It was a frustrating day’s work. Tyler kept expecting a new post to pop up as they were working, something along the lines of ‘Clueless Journalists Search through Old Blog for New Clues!’ but it didn’t happen.

  The job was made a little more difficult by Tyler having to remember what Danny knew and didn’t know. It would be very easy to give something away in this close working environment.

  “What are you two doing here all day?” Davis called out from his office when the pair had been working for three hours straight.

  “‘John the Baptist!” Tyler called back.

  “Anything new?” David said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Well get something, the website is looking stale already!” Tyler and Danny looked at one another and Tyler shook his head. As if they weren’t busting their asses trying to get something to put on the site and in the paper. He wondered, not for the first time, what the hell Davis did in that office all day.

  “Working on it!” he called back to his boss and rolling his eyes. Danny smiled and looked back to his computer screen.

  Later, Tyler felt that Danny was about to say something to him a few times but held off for whatever reason. When he did it again, Tyler turned to him this time.

  “What is it?” he asked. Danny looked at him in first surprise, but then in seeming embarrassment. “Come on Danny, spit it out.”

  “I don’t want to offend you,” Danny started, “I mean I don’t know what’s going on with you and Sarah...”

  “Me and Sarah!” Tyler said in almost shock, “There's nothing going on with us. Where did you get that idea?”

  “Well,” Danny shifted in his seat, “It felt the other night in the bar that there might be something going on.”

  “Well there isn’t, I can assure you of that. Now we’ve cleared that up, what were you going to say?” Danny leaned in a little closer like he was about to tell Tyler some great secret.

  “Do you think it’s possible, Sarah is the leak herself? Or even the one writing the blog?”

  “What?” Tyler had not considered this at all, but now that it was said out loud he was forced to consider it rapidly in his mind. She did have a lot of the information that was posted, perhaps all of it. She had looked surprised and angered by the blog though too. Was she a good actress? It wasn’t something he imagined Sarah would be good at, wearing her heart and mostly her anger on her sleeve in the way she did. No, his gut was telling him it couldn't be true, but his mind was willing to remain open to the idea.

  “I don’t know,” Danny said, sounding like he was backtracking, “It was just an idea. Especially as they haven't found anyone in the FBI for the leaking.”

  “I can’t rule it out, Danny,” Tyler admitted, “But I don’t think so. You got anything specific that might tie it to her?” he asked. Danny shook his head,

  “Nothing specific, I just thought of it as possibility and said I better run it by you.”

  “Afraid I might get my heart broken?” Tyler laughed and Danny smiled,

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s not a totally ‘out there’ idea,” Tyler said, thinking on it some more. “Do you want to look into it a bit more; see if you can dig anything up?”

  “If that’s OK with you?”

  “Of course. The story and truth are what’s important here. If Sarah Brightwater is involved in this in any way, she’s played a great game and it would be a fantastic story were we to get to the bottom of it.” Danny nodded in agreement with this.

  “Is there anything in particular you want me to do?” he asked. Tyler shook his head.

  “Go with your gut and do whatever you have to do,” he said, knowing he was giving full permission for Danny Kircheck to follow Sarah once more. It would be some punch in the stomach for Tyler if his intern turned out to be right, but he really didn’t think that was going to be the case. If Tyler’s suspicions in regards to the blog were pointed anywhere it was at the young man who sat close by sifting through websites looking for clues on the case. His following Sarah might free Tyler up to look a little more deeply into Danny’s own background.

  Somebody had an awful lot of information they shouldn’t have access to, and Tyler was determined to find out who it was.

  When Danny left the office late that evening, Tyler knew he was going to head for Sarah and keep tabs on her. When he spoke to Sarah late that night, he couldn’t help but think Danny was outside watching her apartment and he had to hope he wasn’t able to hear what she was saying.

  When he hung up that call, Tyler thought about what Sarah said. Something obscure was going to link them. It felt right, and he knew between them they would be able to find out what it was. Tyler Ford sat in his living room and thought about the victims so far, hoping for the idea to come to him as it had on so many other stories in the past.

  If it didn’t, time was passing fast. ‘John the Baptist’ must be ready to kill again by now. It was only a matter of time.

  Chapter 48

  The next morning, Sarah set off before 7am. It would be a long day’s driving to see the people she wanted to talk to today - the people who knew the victims best. She was determined to find the link, and she had a strong feeling that it was going to be something personal. This might make it more difficult to find out, however, as it may be hard for the families or friends of the dead to speak of.

  The first stop was the family of Dennis Roban. It was just gone ten when Sarah knocked on the door where his wife and child now lived alone. Mrs Roban answered the door and she looked exhausted.

  “Hi, I’m...”

  “I know who you are,” she said wearily. “Did you catch the guy who did it?”

  “Not yet,” Sarah said, embarrassed, “But I’m hoping you can help me with that this morning.” Roban scrutinised her face a moment and then stepped aside.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  There was a pot of coffee made and Sarah accepted a cup when they sat at the large round kitchen table.

  “Your daughter’s still in bed?” Sarah asked.

  “Yep, she only sleeps when it’s bright out now, never during the night.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said, pitying the woman this added burden to the one of grief. Roban shrugged in response, a fitting gesture for her tired appearance. Sarah decided it was best to go with her questioning and leave the personal stuff aside. “Mrs Roban, we are following up a new line of enquiry in an effort to link the victims of this murderer and I’m hoping you might be able to help me.”

  “How so?”

  “By telling me something more about Dennis, as in how he was in life, what were his passions, what did he like to do?

  “I don’t know, he liked golf sometimes, he played guitar every now and then, mostly when he’d had a few beers.” She smiled at the memory, but it didn’t make a pleasant appearance with the grimace that was part of it. “Do you want to look in his ‘man cave’?” she asked Sarah. “Police and FBI have already been in there, but if you’re looking for something new?”

  “Yes, I think that would be a good idea,” Sarah said.

  As they got to the door of the room, the child upstairs began to call out for her mother. It was a heartbreaking sound to Sarah.

  “Go on in and have a look around. I’ll just settle her and come back
to you in a few minutes,” Roban said. Sarah nodded and watched her run up the stairs and heard her make soothing sounds as she came to the child. Sarah could sympathize with the child more so than the mother, but at least this little girl was much younger, and she might not remember all of this when she’s older.

  Dennis Roban’s ‘man cave’ was a large room to the side of the house that was probably at one time a garage. There was a desk there, some bookshelves, a couple of guitars and some exercise equipment. Dust covered a lot of the surfaces and it was thick on the workout gear. There were a few clear places on the desk where his computer had once stood, but that was now in an FBI storage, having been searched through by techs for leads in this murder. From the reports, they hadn’t found anything of interest.

  Sarah had seen photographs of this room and felt like she’d been here many times before, but it was different being in the room itself. She looked at the guitars, wondering if they could be the link, making notes to check music threads on social media and forums. A golf bag with the clubs hooded leaned like a drunk in the corner, and Sarah felt it and noted the dust buildup there too. This guy hadn’t done a lot of anything for some time in here, it would seem.

  The bookshelf took her attention next and she ran her eyes over the spines of the books. Mostly fiction titles, spines cracked and pages yellowed with age. There were some golfing books, guitar music and some slim computer help manuals that looked like they might have come free with a magazine or something. Nothing more there than anywhere else in the room. Just as she turned away, however, she saw one book that looked newer than the rest, the spine unbroken and the pages much whiter. Leaning to look at the title she read, ‘The Long Shadow’ and then the name of the author took her breath away. It was written by Dennis Roban!

  Sarah pulled out the book and flicked through it. It was a novel, but it didn’t look like a normal book. She turned to the copyright page and saw it was dated 1990 and published by AW Services - a company she’d never heard of. The book’s dedication read to his wife Sonia. The cover of the book was more glossy than normal paperbacks and it was of a larger size too. She had an idea of what she was holding, but she ran a quick internet search on the company on her phone and found she was correct. AW Services had been a vanity publisher long gone out of business. Dennis had written this book all those years ago and gotten some copies printed for a fee.

  Suddenly her mind went to the scribbled notebooks of Elizabeth Barker and she knew this was the link. Writing was the link, she was sure of it!

  When Sonia Roban came back down having settled the child, Sarah held up the book and said,

  “Dennis was a writer?” Sonia looked at the book and Sarah could literally see the memory coming back to her face.

  “Oh my God, I haven’t seen that in years,” she said taking the book and holding it carefully in her hands like it was made of glass. “He used to write when we first met, but he gave it up a long time ago,” she laughed. “I remember he got into the final of some competition in a magazine and he was so proud of himself.” Sarah was finding it hard to contain herself, she was sure this was the link - that it would turn out all of the other victims had been (or used to be) amateur writers. The killer was going to be on a writing website or forum and that would hugely narrow down the search. It felt like the break in the case she so hoped for.

  “Do you have any more of Dennis’ writing in the house?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sonia said, “But if it’s anywhere it will be in this room.”

  They looked about the room together for some time, Sarah asking questions about the time frame of Dennis’ writing.

  “It was late eighties to early nineties and then it tapered off and then he stopped altogether. I didn’t notice it at the time it was so slow and we never spoke about it again.” It was a sad thought and Sarah felt the woman’s pain as she thought about this. Sonia composed herself and asked, “You really think this is important to the case?”

  “I hope so,” Sarah answered, “I really hope so.”

  In her bones, however, she knew so.

  Chapter 49

  When Tyler’s eyes and mind were both frazzled from looking through websites, blogs and files on the computer, he got up to stretch his legs and grab some coffee. He was thinking about a quick walk around the Edgar Allan Poe Museum before getting back to work, but Davis made some noise in his office and Tyler decided now was as good a time as any to talk to him about the book idea.

  “You got a minute, boss?” he said from Davis’ doorway.

  “What is it?” Davis said in a bored voice.

  “I’ve been writing the Spekler story,” Tyler said, and Davis warmed up all of a sudden and looked a lot more receptive to what Tyler had to say, “and it gave me an idea.”

  “Go on,” Davis said, a hint of suspicion in his voice now.

  “Well, I was thinking of a book.”

  “About Spekler?”

  “Not just Spekler,” Tyler said more animated. “There are a tonne of killers in jail, some awaiting death sentences. If I were to interview them as well, the paper would benefit with the stories and I could put the whole thing down in a book too.”

  “I don’t know,” Davis said, shaking his head doubtfully, “That sounds like a whole lot of cost this paper can’t afford.”

  “It wouldn’t have to cost much. There are plenty of killers in prisons within driving distance, I could start with those and go from there as you see the fruits of my labour?”

  “What about other stories here, as they are happening - plus I’m also assuming you’re not even thinking about going anywhere while the ‘John the Baptist’ case is ongoing?”

  “No, I’m not planning on going anywhere yet. As for the local stuff, I can work on that from anywhere, especially now that we have Danny. He can do the leg work until his story writing is up to scratch and I’ll write them. He’s great at what he does, you gotta put him on the payroll once his internship is done. You'd be a fool not to.”

  “Hiring and firing are my department,” Davis said. He was thinking and Tyler left him to it for a short time, “Couldn’t you just lash up a quick book on the subject without going to interview them all? We could give a free sample away with the print copy of the paper to advertise it?”

  “That would probably work as a marketing thing short term, boss, but if I was doing it the way I’m thinking, people would be following the paper for months to find out what these killers have to tell me. People are crazy for serial killer news. I could get four or five articles out of each interview and still hold something back for the book.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Think about it,” Tyler went on with his sales pitch, “First we line it all up and there is a story and ad campaign about the series in the paper. Then as I do each interview, sales will rise and rise, and finally at the end, there will be the book, which will have all the information from the articles in there plus some hidden facts that people will be gagging for. The paper wins all the way along.”

  “You could do pretty well out of such a deal yourself,” Davis said pointedly.

  “Which is also good for the paper,” Tyler countered.

  “I don’t know, Tyler, I’ll have to think about it,” he said with a note of finality in it. “Let’s see how the Spekler stories do before we talk about it again, OK?”

  “Fair enough,” Tyler said, smiling. He was fully confident that would only make his case for this book more solid. He was fully sure these stories were going to blow previous sales records of the paper out of the water.

  “Glad we’re in agreement,” Davis said back to his usual sarcastic sneer, “Now go and either catch ‘The Baptist’ or write up this Spekler story!”

  “On it boss,” Tyler smiled, and he got up and left the office.

  Back at this computer, his earphones on listening to Stewart Spekler’s voice, Tyler knew he’d already decided he was going to do this book. Ultimately it didn’t matter whether Davis
approved it or not. Someone at some other paper was bound to want it, and Tyler would simply quit and go to that paper. It was sad to be thinking of leaving this place, but if it wasn’t for his own articles and good standing with readers, there was a good chance this paper would have already folded. There was no guarantee that it was going to survive, even with the Spekler stories about to land. This time next year there might not even be a ‘Baltimore Echo.’

  In the bathroom later that day, Tyler took out the phone he used to communicate with Sarah. She had sent him a message telling him she was going off for the next day or two to interview the families and friends of the victims in the hope of finding the obscure thing that linked them all. There had been nothing since and he wondered how many, if any, she would have managed to talk to so far. He could only hope she was getting farther than he was today.

  Chapter 50

  It was late that evening when Sarah called Tyler, and she couldn’t have been more excited when she did. So excited was she, that she almost called him with her own phone to his normal cell, forgetting completely about the new way they had to talk. It was only at the last moment that she realised what she was doing and swapped out the phones. She had just left the home of a friend of Stuart Bachman, and they had confirmed that many years ago, Bachman had been very interested in writing before he gave it up to work in a corporate job. She had spoken to family and friends of all four victims today, (with only Ferguson’s left) and all of them had been wannabe writers in the late eighties and early nineties. It had to be the link!

  “Hey, what did you find out?” was how Tyler answered the phone.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried out triumphantly.

  “Really?” Tyler said, sounding excited too now, “You think so?”

  “I do, I really do,” she said and it felt so good to say it.

  “Well?” he cried, “Don’t hold out on me. I'm dying here!”