A Fall of Woodcocks (The Birdwatcher Series Book 5) Read online

  “Why do you want?” was the reply.

  “I don’t want anything,” he said, “I was quite happy before we spoke this evening.” Now it was Martin who looked around the room, but it like he was about to give up and was looking for one last way to get through to Freeman.

  “Do you know anything about Sarah’s past?” Martin asked looking back at him.

  “No,” Freeman lied.

  “Her mother was killed by a guy called Dwight Spalding; I’m assuming you’ve heard of him?”

  “I have.”

  “This goes no further,” Marin said leaning in closer and lowering his voice, “But the case we are on is to catch him.”

  “Jeez,” Freeman said shaking his head like this had blown him mind. “He wants her on the case, want to communicate with us through her, but I can’t get her back right now.”

  “That’s a shitty situation you’re in,” Freeman said, “Sorry about the part I’ve played in making it that way.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry; you were looking out for her. That’s why I’m coming to you now. I think you could still look out for her.”

  “And pass on any information I come across to you at the same time?” Freeman held his gaze until Martin looked away.

  “It could save a lot of lives, hers even,” he said. It didn’t sound like this was false claim.

  “Has she been threatened by him?” Freeman asked, his mask of unconcern slipping a moment.

  “No, but I think when he’s done with her he intends for her to be dead.” Freeman nodded at this and took some more of his drink.

  “Sarah and I are not on the best of terms,” he said. “I’ve been apologizing to her but she’s making me work for it.”

  “That’s understandable,” Martin said, “But she’s keeping you round.”

  “I guess so, but I feel she has plans to try to use me,” he said, “Just like you.” Their eyes met once more over the small table.

  “I make no bones about it, Detective. I want to save lives and I’ll use anyone I can to make sure I do my job.” Freeman regarded him a moment. He looked tired and worn down, but his face wore an honest expression. Freeman nodded slowly and said,

  “I’m not promising anything.”

  “I couldn’t hold you to one even if you did,” Martin replied. Freeman finished off his drink and stood up.

  “How can I get in contact with you?” he asked. Martin pulled a scrap of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to him. Freeman looked at the scrawled hand, but he could make it out.

  “That’s my personal number. If you don’t get me leave a message to text me. No one else will ever see it.”

  “Like I said,” Freeman said nodding goodbye as he started to walk away, “No promises.”

  Chapter 12

  Sarah was at home; her door was closed, and her phone was turned off. She sat at her window and leafed through her new files on the double personal case she now had before her. Tyler’s call had sent her into a spiral of shame and regret that no amount of showering could ever wash away. It was hard work but now, a full day later she’d finally managed to stop the question ‘How could you have been so stupid?’ from coming to her every ten seconds.

  Rain was falling now, and she watched the bouncing drops on the slick black surface of the intersection down below. The light stood out in the dark as they change from red to green. She closed the folder in her lap. It was time, she felt, for another trawl of the internet.

  The internet was a place where all of the worlds secrets might be found. You just had to know how to look, to ask the right questions, read past the first page of results and follow up on anything you thought could possibly be relevant to what you were looking for. It was also a place where every crackpot in the world who wasn’t hiding from technology could be found and oftentimes it was hard to separate those from the ones with real information.

  There was plenty about Dwight Spalding on the net— there is plenty about every serial killer there— but in all the years Sarah had been searching she’d never found one thing that could really be substantiated. Tyler on the other hand; his whole history was there in one form or another. He had tried to live out in the open, to hide in plain sight as it were, and that meant he left a trail. People had met him, talked to him. He’d interviewed hundreds of people and had countless contacts in all walks of life. Sarah wondered at that moment how many other members of law enforcement regretted anything they’d ever done for Tyler Ford?

  Sarah got a beer and some chips and sat down with her laptop and started searching. She made notes of all the places him name came up, saving URL’s into a spreadsheet to go back to later. She wanted to get a feel for the internet about Tyler that didn’t necessarily include his work as a journalist. There would be people at the FBI who would be scouring his journalistic life’s work looking for clues to either his whereabouts, or those of the people he’d killed. Sarah was looking elsewhere.

  It was while looking elsewhere that Sarah first encountered the Tyler Ford fan sites. This was something she had not considered, and she was very surprised to find that there was more than one of them. Each was devoted to his looks and photos of his body taken at various beaches of charity sports games he’d taken part in. Only one seemed to make any reference to his work as a writer.

  She spent a while going through each site, reading the comment threads under the pictures. It was sad really but what was most disturbing of all, Sarah felt, was that many of the comments on recent pictures were positive and had come after Tyler had been outed as a serial killer. What was wrong with people? Is this what teen girls were like today? If so, the future wasn’t looking great! She shook her head, maybe she shouldn’t be so hard on them. They were only kids after all, caught up in the war of hormones inside themselves. They saw how Tyler looked, not how he was. They didn’t read about the things he’d done, or even the things he himself had written. It was all about that face, and that body.

  An idea came to Sarah as she read more and more of the comments and blog posts. Was Tyler aware of this? Did he know teenage girls, and some boys surely, felt this way about him, idolized him like this? She bet he did. It would be just like him to keep tabs on the internet for items relating to himself. He would have loved it. In fact, she was sure he still did. Tyler could be sitting somewhere right now looking at this same website and seeing the comments of his adoring fans who didn’t even care he was murderer!

  This led Sarah to another idea, one she also felt was withing the realms of possibility. Would Tyler use these girls for his own ends? Had he been using them all along? Did they do things for him, tell him things they would never tell anyone else? He didn’t think he would be interested in them sexually but what they hell did she know, perhaps he was. A teenage girl who had slept with a manipulator like Tyler would be very easy to mold and turn to your own ends. Could he be using them now to hide him?

  Before Sarah knew what she was doing, she found she was setting up a few Gmail accounts in names she plucked out of the air. She chose names from different races and birthdays nowhere near her own. She chose all girl names, not wanting to complicate things by trying to pass as a gay teenage boy on the sites. She trawled the internet for avatars and decided one of the girls should have a real profile picture and sought one out from the millions online. After this, she signed up for the blogs and newsletters from the sites and waited to be accepted by the admins.

  One accepted her within minutes, but it was the next day before the other two came back with acceptances. Being a member didn’t enable to her to see anything more but now she was able to post comments and talk to other members in private chats. This, she felt, was where she was going to be able to trap him. She felt sure he would use these girls and these sites to help him. If only he asked her for help she would have him!

  Chapter 13

  There is a little ridge is a corner of Virginia, where an outcropping of rock long hewn by the wind make it look like a bench carved by an
artist. It is here that Dwight Spalding sits now with a birds eye view of the house down below. It is his last hostage house, the last one with anyone in it at least, and it is with a bittersweet smile that he says his final goodbye to it. In the rooms, both above and below ground, there are twenty-four people, all from different states, all held captive for varying lengths and each unaware of how short a time they have left in this world.

  This hadn’t been his plan; no. Spalding had intended to use these people and their families for a long time to come. Instead, his own game had turned on him, and he came up against an opponent stronger and more resourceful than expected. It was a ruination of many years of work, but Spalding was philosophical about it all. This was the game and though he made up the rules it didn’t mean he could control them. He had to play along, and this was his next move. This would put the advantage back to him. Once this last bastion of evil was destroyed, there would be no place or person to tie him down anymore. He would be like the wind again, nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there.

  In a way things were better now. Spalding was really part of the game now instead of simply an involved spectator. His murder of Vicky Siren and the message for the FBI about bringing back Sarah had been delivered and he had enjoyed reading about it in the news. If things had been different, it would have been Tyler Ford’s name on the by-line breaking that news. But alas, Tyler’s name now was the news. He filled the pages of newspapers the country over in a way he could never have dreamed of as a mere journalist. Spalding had made him immortal, synonymous with serial murder and yet what thanks did he get for this? Tyler had found him, sent an FBI agent to his second life, and then shared the locations of many of his hideouts.

  Spalding couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at this and he shook his head in wonder. How the hell had Tyler been able to both find him and his hideouts without Spalding ever being aware of it?

  The first siren came on the breeze and Spalding looked across the tops of the trees to the interstate. The flashing lights of the fire engine met his gaze about two miles away. Then, as though forming from a mirage a second engine not far in the road behind it. Police and EMT would be rushing this way too. He sat back on his natural bench and looked down at the house. This was going to be fun.

  The house looked like any other rural home, the lawns were kept, windows were clean and the paint on the wall wasn’t flecked or dull. This was a hiding in plain sight house of horrors that Spalding had been particularly proud of. It was the first place he bought many years ago and the one with the most extensive work done on it. It had taken him two years of almost constant labor for his to get it the way he wanted it and now all that work was about to be undone.

  The sirens were louder now, joining by those of the accompanying police and ambulance vehicles. Spalding pressed a button and a device in his hand and watched as flames erupted along one of the exterior walls of the house, thick smoke from the coating he’d used rushing into the air in a plume that looked like ferocious thunderheads.

  Spalding then presses another button on his controller and the sounds from within the house started to fill his ears. There was confusion, not much panic yet but someone was aware of the smell of the fire and they would be scurrying about like lab rats in there now trying to find out the source. He placed a second device to his mouth and spoke.

  “Don’t panic everyone, there is a small fire on the ground floor level, localized on the outside of the building. Fire service is on the way and it will be put out very soon. If you could all remain quiet while they are at the house that would be great. They won’t be able to gain access inside and will away after a time if we all work together at being silent.” He listened again, wondering what they would have to say about this. These people were so scared and broken there was a chance they might think he was being serious and right now the ones who could see each other were probably looking from face to face trying to get a reading about what others thought without saying anything.

  The first fire engine came rushing up the driveway and pulled up not too far from the house. Right away, the firefighters were out of the vehicle and setting to work to combat the blaze. They would think it was only a small affair and they would be able to extinguish it easily. The second engine pulled in then, followed quickly by EMT and the police. As Spalding had expected the second fire team didn’t spring into action. One of them got out and went to the other engine and spoke to the commander. The fire was being doused and looked like it would be out in a couple of minutes so there was no need of the second truck.

  “Well,” Spalding smiled pressing another button, “I don’t want you to have come all the way out here and not get to play with your toys!” Another fire started slowly on the opposite side of the building from the first one, and though it couldn’t be seen yet, more fires also started inside the structure.

  “Keep quiet now everyone!” Spalding said into the speaker though he couldn't keep the snigger out of his voice this time.

  He looked on as first the second truck’s team sprang into life to tackle the secondary fire, and then saw the surprise on the first team as the original fire whooshed up into flame as bad as before.

  That was when the screaming started to come from within the house.

  “There’s people in there!” one of the police officers shouted out. He started to make his way to the front door which was clear of fire for the moment.

  “Stay back until we have the fire under control!” the fire chief roared at him, but the cop waved a dismissive hand and kept on going.

  “A brave fellow,” Spalding said nodding his approval. “It’s a pity you were on duty today.”

  Just as the officer got to the front door, Spalding set of his next little surprise. The door exploded outwards, a jet of flaming gel coming along with it. The officer was thrown back and knocked unconscious by the force of the door hitting him and then the falling gel settled on him and set his clothes alight.

  Panic broke out now among the emergency services. EMT medics rushed forward but had to stop because of the spraying fire and the second team turned hoses on the doorway as others rushed forward with hand held extinguishers and a fire blanket to try put him out.

  Spalding pressed another button, and then from installed pipes in the roof, more of this same flammable gel erupted, catching fire as it passed through the flames of the walls and then reigning down on the rescue service people and vehicles like Greek fire.

  “Everyone get the hell out of here!” the other police officer by the patrol car shouted, “This is a set up!”

  Spalding saw pockets of fire pop up all over the ground where the gel was landing and on hearing the cry of the officer he set off another of his traps. With the flick of a button a huge explosion rang out beneath the driveway. A huge fissure appeared, and the driveway collapsed into the ground making a quick escape for the vehicles now an impossibility.

  Fire seemed to be spraying all around and confusion reigned below, the fire fighters not knowing where to aim their hoses, the medical people running for cover and the police officer now sitting back in his car as protection from the falling fire. He didn’t look like a man in control of his own destiny.

  “Time to close out the box,” Spalding said pressing another button. Now all the pipes he’s plumed withing the bushes than ran around the perimeter of the small plot on which the house sat erupted and flames threw up all around completely surrounding everything with the exception of the now cut off gateway.

  “Add the fleeing cowards,” he said and with another press of a button all the windows and doors to the house burst outwards, sending glass and wood flying in all directions. A could of seconds later, people began running from the house, they too were covering the gel and fire covered them. The whole of the countryside seemed lit up with screams as the crazed hostages ran towards the fire fighters hoping for salvation. The fire fighters knew above all they were defeated, there was nothing they could do but try to doge the flam
es and gel that came their way. There was no way in hell they would be able to put all of these fires out with the two engines and no water supply they had at their disposal. Spalding sat back to watch a while longer. He would have to leave before it was all over, but for now he could enjoy the last of hostage houses in its dying throes.

  Chapter 14

  Jed Freeman waved to Sarah when he saw her come inside the bar. She waved back and nodded towards the bar to see if he wanted anything. He held up his full drink and shook his head and instead of going to bar she walked right down to him and sat down.

  “You’re not going to get a drink?” he asked.

  “Maybe in a minute,” she said looking around. “Geez, I haven’t been in a cop bar for a long time,” she said, “I forgot how much testosterone you could fit in one room.” Freeman smiled,

  “They’re not as bad as they used to be.”

  “So,” Sarah looked at him. “Why the public meeting like this?”

  “I have something I wanted to tell you, something you’re not going to like. I figure you’re less likely to let rip into me if I tell you in a public place.”

  “What is it?” she asked, a look of worry clouding her face.

  “It’s not so bad,” he assured her. “And you’ll understand in a minute that we’re already working around it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your boss at the FBI, Martin. He came to me about you.”

  “He came to you?” Freeman nodded. “Why?”

  “I think his idea if that I keep an eye on you, find out what you know, and report back to him.” Freeman smiled.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I would, but we both know I’m not going to.”

  “So what will you say when he comes asking?”

  “Oh, I’ll tell him something of course; you and I will work that one out so you’re fully aware of what’s going on.” Freeman was smiling like a school kid who was planning on getting one over on the principal. Sarah wasn’t smiling. She sat there staring down at the table, evidently deep in thought.