A Kettle of Hawks (The Birdwatcher Series Book 3) Page 6

  “You still sure?” Terrence asked, looking at Tyler’s face. Tyler nodded,

  “I’m going to give you one chance to walk away right now and then that’s it,” Tyler said. Was he going to cross that line? The urge to do it was so persuasive and thrilling. Terrence lunged at him with the knife.

  To this day no one had ever heard from Terrence or knew what had become of him. That had been Tyler’s first murder, and the one Spalding was missing. Tyler had buried Terrence in sight of nesting hawks and it was this that formed the basis for the rest of the burial sites for his victims.

  Tyler knew about birds, knew about their habitat and nesting and mating rituals. He knew all of the species that called the American Mainland their home, even if only when migrating. Though he didn’t have one single book on the subject, had never checked one out of a library and his internet browsing history would rarely show it when it couldn’t be explained away as research for a story he was working on. He was ‘The Birdwatcher,’ and he had been for a very long time.

  Tyler’s phone shrilled into life, pulling him back to the present and he looked at the screen. A number he did not recognise. He’d been expecting this call all evening.

  “Hello Dwight,” he answered it.

  “Hello Tyler. How was your day?”

  “Were you there?” Tyler asked. He didn’t think so but he wasn’t sure.

  “No, no,” Spalding laughed, “Getting up there once was enough for me.” Tyler felt he was telling the truth. The question of how Spalding had found out burned within him but he refused to give Spalding the satisfaction of asking it.

  “How many?” Tyler said. “I understand that now.”

  “Too late for Carson Lemond.”

  “You were going to kill him either way,” Tyler said, “Maybe not then, but at some point.”

  “I guess we’ll never know for sure,” Spalding replied. Then changing the subject back to one of more interest to him he said, “Did I get them all right?”

  “All but one,” Tyler said, the feeling of getting one over on Spalding for once feeling good.

  “What? One of them was wrong?” Spalding sounded incredulous.

  “No, no, they were all right but there was one missing,” Tyler replied.

  “Ah, now I see,” Spalding said, "Your first, someone who has never been found.”

  “Got it in one,” Tyler said trying to be as smarmy as possible, “Or should I say missed it in one, thats not like you!” He laughed hoping to poke at the more seasoned serial killer.

  “I can’t talk for long,” Spalding said and Tyler knew he was annoyed. “You know how it is. I have another set of coordinates for you, but this time you have to go alone. You can tell Agent Brightwater about it later but go alone first, it is a present for you, for your newspaper.” Tyler asked for the coordinates and Spalding rattled them off as he wrote them down.

  “Any clues about what I’ll find this time?” Tyler asked.

  “Victim number one in the next game,” Spalding said.

  “Brand new?” Tyler asked grinning.

  “Don’t be playful Tyler,” Spalding said a little sternly, Tyler felt. He didn’t reply and there was silence for a moment. “How do you think Sarah would feel if she found out who you really are?” Spalding asked menacingly before hanging up abruptly.

  Chapter 14

  Sarah Brightwater continued her obsessive search for the names of the people in the photographs. She studied the pictures she had taken on her phone of each face and compared it to ones she found on the internet. She thought it was possible she had found another one, but the images online of this person didn’t match up exactly with the one that had been in the forest- still was in the forest in fact. Tyler and she had decided to leave the stuff where it was. They couldn't very well make it known, but if someone else were to stumble across it that would be no bad thing.

  She left for work having spent the last two hours of her morning looking for these people. Something felt amiss as she started the car and pulled out into the street. The same feeling permeated her body the whole ride to work and it wasn’t until she was almost pulling in the gates of the FBI Academy that she suddenly understood what it was. A new Agent was going to take up residence at Malick’s old desk today. In all her rushing around in the hills and searching for these people, it had somehow slipped her mind. Sarah was going to meet what amounted to her new partner today. She didn’t know if she was ready for this and definitely knew the timing was not good for her.

  But there was something else wasn’t there? Something else nagging down below. She knew what it was but she hadn’t let it come to the surface until now, feeling it would somehow weaken her to be so distrustful all the time. The thought remained, however, what if this new guy was also working for Spalding? Was a member of his family being held somewhere that he hadn’t reported?

  Sarah knew that all of these things had been checked and looked into already, especially in light of what had happened with Malick. But still the fear, or more accurately the anxiety of the possibilities remained. Why did she have to get a new partner anyway; she was fine working on her own.

  As soon as Sarah came out of the elevator on her floor, she knew something big was going on. The place was abuzz, people moving in all directions and barely anyone even passing her a glance as she stepped onto the floor. She hadn’t seen activity like this in a very long time. She was about to ask one of the tech team who was whizzing by what was going on when she saw Bobrick over near her desk, his eyes on her looking to meet hers.

  Sarah rushed over to where he was, beside him stood Daniels and a man she’d not seen before, a tall dark skinned man, Latino she thought. The three of them looked at her as she arrived.

  “Agent Brightwater, this Agent Delgado. I’m afraid we don’t have time for proper introductions today but you can get to know one another in the car,” Bobrick said. So this was the new partner, Sarah thought. Easy enough on the eye but he looked very serious and there were no smile lines on his face.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, glancing around the room again at the scurrying movements all about.

  “Delgado will tell you on the way,” Bobrick said as he started back towards his own office. He turned back then and said to Delgado, “Welcome to the job, I’m sure you’re going to love it.”

  “It’s a pretty good start, Sir,” Delgado said and he did smile, and to Sarah’s surprise it looked natural and fitting on his face.

  “Get going,” Daniels barked at them as though feeling he needed to add something to the conversation.

  Sarah grabbed a small pile of envelopes from her tray and Delgado took up some files from his new desk and they made their way to the elevator.

  “I’m Sarah by the way,” she said offering her hand. Delgado shuffled the files so they were all under one arm and shook her hand,

  “Pedro,” he said.

  “So what are we looking at this morning?” Sarah asked

  “Four murders, all in Baltimore, all discovered around the same time, all in different locations and all committed on different days.”

  “Victims linked?”

  “All males, thirties, all white, that’s all I know right now,” Delgado replied. They made their way down to the carpool and signed out one of the cars.

  “Are you a driver or a reader?” Delgado asked her, jingling the keys.

  “I usually drive and my partner was the reader. That suit you?”

  “Today it does, but I do like to do the driving some of the time,” he smiled at her. There was something very open and honest about him that she liked right away.

  “That sounds fair,” she said, catching the keys as he tossed them.

  As they drove to Baltimore, Pedro read the files aloud. All four men had been found yesterday evening and the Baltimore PD had called on the assistance of the FBI pretty much straight away. Each of the victims was found in his own home after an alarm was heard in each apartment. The doors had been unlocked
by a timer and sprung open to allow curious or frustrated neighbours to enter. All of these alarms and door locks were sprung at the same time.

  “Jesus,” Pedro said, “This is some serious planning. The killer could be on the other side of the world by now.” Sarah nodded tacit agreement with this but all the time he was speaking she was thinking how like Spalding all of this was. All the theatrics and confusion everywhere, the multiplicities of action and the spreading of police resources. Again she thought how great a man he could have been if murder had not been the one thing that drove him.

  “Are there any messages at the crime scenes?” Sarah asked. Pedro shifted a few pages and shook his head,

  “Nothing that’s mentioned in these initial reports.”

  The crime scene they arrived at was a building that was very reminiscent of the one where Des Roche had lived. She was sure this was not accidental. Malick had been shot that day and Sarah could have been too if she wasn’t quicker on the draw. How much she’d worried about Malick pulling through and all the time he was on the same team as the man who shot him. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Des Roche wasn’t on Spalding’s side, he’d just been made to assist in a murder to try to save his sister from being killed by Spalding.

  The apartment was that of a single man and Sarah was sure they would all have this in common. It wasn’t a pitiful life, any more than her own current single status was, but even Sarah could feel something had been missing in the life of the man who lived here. A TV in the corner was tuned to a news channel with the volume muted and had been since the killer left.

  The victim's name was Dennis Lenane, thirty four and a worker in a local pharma plant. He worked shift and would have been missed that evening if he didn’t arrive in for work. His body was in the bathtub and it looked as though this was where the murder had taken place. Perhaps the killer had forced him in there at gunpoint. Denis lay slumped to one side in the tub, his eyes still open and a gaping bloody wound in his chest, most likely a long jagged knife, that had pierced the heart.

  “At least it looks like he died quick,” Delgado mused after checking no one else was there, but Sarah was close enough to hear. She nodded,

  “That’s something I guess.” She was looking around the room, high on the walls, along the top of the shower curtain rail. She felt sure there was going to be something here, something to tell them what was going to happen next. Delgado followed her eye and she saw him.

  “I’ve been at a few of these over the last few years and a lot of the time there is message somewhere near the body,” she explained.

  “I know,” he replied, “I’ve studied all your cases over the last four years. I wanted to know what I was getting myself in for.”

  “And you still came?”

  “I’ve been looking to get into this unit for a long time. There was never an opening. I’m sorry that one had to open up in the way that it did, but I couldn't let that stop me joining the team.”

  “No, of course not, and I’m sure you’re a fine agent. I haven’t had the chance to look you up yet because I didn’t know your name until this morning.”

  “Well, compared to yours my resume isn’t all that exciting, but I’ve been places and seen things,” Delgado said modestly.

  Someone arrived at the door and knocked on the frame. The two agents turned to see a member of the forensics team.

  “If you’re done in here, they’re going to remove the body now,” the woman said. Sarah nodded and they made their way out of the room.

  “Have you guys found anything at all?” Sarah asked the forensics woman.

  “A lot of prints and some swabs taken around for DNA testing but nothing we’re going to get excited about yet,” came the jaded reply.

  “Make sure the prints get run through the FBI database too,” Sarah said.

  Three burly men in forensic suits took a gurney to the bathroom door and went inside. They came out a few minutes later, the body covered in a dark bag and zipped shut. It didn’t look like the body of a person laying down comfortably. The press outside huddled close together near the van that would take the body away. Sarah wondered if Tyler was out there. She hadn't seen him on the way in but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

  It was time to move on to the next crime scene.

  Chapter 15

  Tyler was on his way to the outskirts of Baltimore when he heard the news come in over the car radio. Four murders in Baltimore, sketchy details but all discovered last night and all being linked. The report was a lot of fluff and interviews with locals who didn’t seem to have any idea about what was going on. Their voices were scared though, and that was what the report was really all about. Local fear equals local ratings. Tyler had a feeling he was on his way to find body number five in this sequence. It had the smell of Spalding all over it. The only question was if Spalding had carried out the murders himself, or if this was another killer, like Davis who Spalding had tracked down and was now making a plaything of.

  He took his second phone from his pocket and dialled Sarah’s number. The ring tone went for a little and then it went to her message. Tyler paused a moment and then hung up before the beep, deciding not to leave a message. She had his missed call notification, that would suffice for now. He had tried to tell her where he was going, and if she called back before he got there he would tell her the truth.

  When he reached the coordinates Spalding had given him, Tyler was surprised to find he was parked outside a halted construction site. There was a notification on the closed and locked gate that read, - Closed until further notice. Tyler got out of his car and looked around. He didn’t see any sign of a security guard which was instantly unusual. Machinery lay idle and he was sure tools and copper wire would be lying about the site too. Things that couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t be left unattended. The development, half completed, was of a three floor apartment building and a few stores on the ground floor. It was on a dusty road that was south of Baltimore and the suburbs were about half a mile away. It was like someone had decided to build here on a whim, a madman with some money wanting to build his own small town, within commuting distance of the city.

  “Hello!” Tyler called out through cupped hands thinking perhaps the security guard was asleep or maybe taking a piss. No answer came, the only sound the wind through the shell of the building making it sound like a howling banshee at times. It was probably that sound that kept children away so far. Tyler took one more look around to be sure no one else was here and then he scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side.

  He went into the building, most of which had no facade and he walked along an exposed floor towards the more completed side of the apartment block. He knew it was there that he was going to find the body. It would be the same as the others in Baltimore but the news reports hadn’t said where that was so he didn’t know yet.

  “Are you here Spalding?” Tyler said, his voice carrying well in the cavernous space between floors. It was the kind of place a man could hide well, his voice would be indistinct and you would never be sure where the sound was coming from. There was no reply and Tyler didn't get the sense that anyone was around, anyone living in any case.

  He came to a long dusty corridor, the floors still only uncovered concrete and there were ten open doorways on each side. These were all access to different apartments and Tyler could imagine the place when it was fully built. It would be devoid of life and most likely the tenants would be single men with miserable lives and jobs they didn't want but couldn’t afford to give up. The place reeked of failure and unhappiness and Tyler felt it would probably be best if the construction was never finished.

  Tyler walked along quietly, not wanting to let his own location be broadcast too far. He decided to walk the full length of the corridor first, glancing in each door as he went rather than go apartment by apartment as he came to then. He hadn’t walked five feet before the smell hit him. It was pungent and rancid and he knew it to be death. It wasn’t
coming from this floor, however, he felt sure of that. At the end of the corridor was an open door that led out onto a stairwell and it was this he headed for, glancing into each apartment as he passed by just in case.

  It was up on the third floor that he finally found the body. It was the security guard that was missing from duty on the site. Odd though, was that he had been dead for many days by now. Had no one noticed him missing? Was he living out here while guarding the place? Surely there should have been someone to relieve him at the ends of his shifts? It didn’t make sense at all.

  The man, looking to be in his early sixties- though death may have aged him a few years- was slumped in a bathtub, a large knife wound in his chest. His clothes from his chest to his knees were covered in dried blood and there was a pool of the sticky substance in the bath around him too. There was no sign of the murder weapon and Tyler was very careful not to touch anything around him.

  The bathroom had not been finished yet, the walls were plain concrete waiting for plaster and tiles. The toilet was sitting next to the bath but it was still in plastic wrapping and hadn’t been installed. The man’s eyes were closed, one of them opened a tiny slit like he was peeping at something but there was no chance this man had seen much after he was attacked. How miserable his death had been.

  Tyler looked around, still thinking it was possible he was being watched. He didn’t feel eyes on him, but he guessed that must have been part of Spalding’s skill, to go undetected, while watching those he toyed with. A soft throbbing at Tyler’s thigh alerted him to a call coming in on the second cell phone. He removed it from his pocket and saw Sarah’s number on the screen.

  “Hello?” he answered walking out of the bathroom to be sure of a better view of his surroundings while on the phone.

  “You were looking for me?” Sarah said. “Have you heard what’s goin’ on in Baltimore?” she added.