A Kettle of Hawks (The Birdwatcher Series Book 3) Read online

  “You sure?” was all Delgado responded to this. Sarah nodded and looked down at the five files on the table. “Whoever talks to Tusk only gets one more file, that’s only fair,” Delgado said with a smile. Sarah looked at him sideways and nodded,

  “Well played, Delgado, we’ll make an FBI agent of you yet,” she said, taking up Tusk’s file and that of Ray Pallister. She tried to make this second one look like a random choice and wondered if Delgado bought it. Probably not, but then, it didn’t really matter.

  Sarah drove to the southern precinct in Baltimore where Farley Tusk was being held. He had been found at home, asleep in bed, when they came looking for him. He had answered a few questions but he didn’t seem to know what was going on. Sarah went into the interview room with Detective Hastings to conduct further questioning and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  “Where’s his lawyer?” Sarah asked when they entered the room to find Tusk sitting at the table alone.

  “He says he doesn't want one. I advised him to get one but we can’t force him to do it,” Duggan shrugged. Sarah thought he probably preferred when there was no lawyer- she knew she certainly did. Sarah walked over and turned on the recorder introducing herself and Duggan.

  “I’ve been told you don’t want a lawyer,” Sarah said, “Is this true?”

  “I didn’t do anything so I don’t need one,” Tusk snapped back. He looked like someone who had just been dragged from bed in the last couple of minutes but he’d been at the station for twenty-four hours now.

  “All the same, it is advisable that you have someone here to represent you, even if you are innocent. Are you sure you won't reconsider having a lawyer present?”

  “No,” he snapped back, “Let’s just get this over with.” Sarah looked to Duggan and they both sat down at the table.

  “I see from your file you’ve already answered a few questions, but I only have one that I really want to figure out,” Sarah said. “Why didn’t you report Graham Ledener missing?”

  “I didn’t know he was missing,” Tusk said irately but Sarah got the sense this was all bluster and a tactic he usually used to get out of trouble.

  “You didn’t notice he wasn’t there each time you signed in at work, or the fact he hadn’t been signing in and out himself?”

  “His shift is his business, I do mine and that’s all I care about.”

  “Isn't there some kind of handover, a transfer of keys and the like?” Duggan asked.

  “The place we work isn’t like that,” Tusk said, “We’re out there in practically the middle of nowhere and no one comes by at all. I spend most of those shifts asleep and that’s out of boredom more than laziness.” A thin sheen of sweat was rising on his brow now and Sarah started to see the lies in physical form. She decided to turn up the heat,

  “So you worked alongside a dead man, knowing the body was there and you did nothing at all?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know he was there,” Tusk complained,

  “But you knew he was dead?” Sarah countered quickly.

  “What?” Tusk was rattled now, “No, no, I don’t know anything about it!”

  “The place stank of death to high heaven!” Sarah shot back, “there is no way you couldn't have known. Did you do it Farley, is that it?” This got him going,

  “Wait, no, I didn’t do anything, I wasn’t even there!” His eyes looked frantic and his voice suddenly an octave higher like a whining child.

  “What do you mean you weren’t there?” Duggan asked, both eyebrows raised. Sarah continued to pour her eyes into those of Tusk. The suspect’s eyes dropped and then he looked ashamed a moment and then looked back up at them.

  “I haven’t been going to work for the last week,” he said almost sighing as he did. “A foreign guy, an illegal, came to me and said he’d work my night shifts in my place for half the money I get paid for them.”

  “And you agreed?” Sarah asked, sounding dubious.

  “Yeah, I figured why not, he does the work, I get paid half. I was gonna get a few shifts somewhere else then and have that money too.”

  “Bullshit,” Sarah said. “You planned to pocket the money knowing full well that the illegal immigrant couldn't do anything about it without causing trouble for himself.” Tusk’s face flushed a deep purple at this and she knew she was right.

  “How did it work, this arrangement of yours?”

  “I told Graham someone was going to be covering for me for the week and told him to keep quiet about it,” Tusk said.

  “Mr Ledener was happy to go along with this?” Duggan asked.

  “He didn’t give a shit, just like I didn’t give a shit what he did.” Sarah flipped through the file on the table a moment and then turned a sheet to Tusk making sure the camera would be able to see it too.

  “Is this your signature on the time sheets?” she asked. Tusk glanced and said,

  “Yes, I got the guy to bring me the sheet and I signed it for the week in advance.”

  “That was risky, could have got you in trouble with your boss,” Sarah said.

  “I haven’t seen him since he hired me and I don’t think he's ever been to the site. He just collects his money and gives us a pittance to stay out there and be bored shitless.” Tusk sounded like he felt he was somehow a victim in all of this and it disgusted Sarah. She’d come across slovenliness before and it had never impressed her.

  “So you haven’t been at the site since what date?” she asked him.

  “A week ago today, whatever date that was,” he replied.

  “Where were you that night?” Duggan asked.

  “And the next night?” Sarah added, that was the estimated time of death for Graham Ledener.

  “Both nights I was at home,” Tusk said, a note of defiance coming back into his voice.

  “Is there anyone who can corroborate that?” Sarah asked, feeling sure there wouldn't be. Tusk thought for a moment and then shook his head slowly,

  “I guess not,” he admitted, “My neighbours might have seen me through my window but no one was with me.”

  “Did you go out anywhere on either night?” Duggan asked. Tusk looked in thought again.

  “I did,” he answered after a short while, “I went to the corner store for a six pack.”

  “Which night was that?” Sarah asked, leaning in a little; this could be significant.

  “I’m not sure, I think it was the second night,” Tusk replied.

  “Think,” Sarah said, “This part could be very important for you.” Tusk looked scared again and she could see his eyes moving about like his brain was working by clockwork and he was cranking up the gears. He grew flustered, seeming on the verge of saying something and the stopping and shaking his head a few times before he finally wiled,

  “I don’t know, I don't know, but it will be on the CCTV in the store!” Sarah didn’t like the way he said this, and she glanced at Duggan who seemed to share her idea. This was a nice ruse; had he gone to the store on purpose to use as some kind of weak alibi?

  “We’ll look into it,” Duggan said.

  “Now,” Sarah said, “I want to know every single detail about this immigrant and your interactions with him. Every single detail.” It was going to be a long interview.

  Chapter 19

  Delgado’s three suspects told similar stories and each of them looked to be shook up about being in a police station. Each said they didn’t know any of the people who had been murdered and that they had just been ‘passing through’ the area on the night each was suspected to have died. Delgado didn’t get the sense that any of them was outwardly capable of murder, but he’d been in this game long enough to know looks could be deceiving.

  Witnesses placed each man at at least one of the crime scenes and CCTV proved they had been local. Delgado felt they were all hiding something but what? All five murders looked to have been carried out by the same person. But from what had been gathered from the men he interviewed, they all had solid alibis f
or all the nights of the murders except the one they were hauled in about.

  Steven Haines was at a family wedding out of town for two days, a local bar for another two and working in a meat processing plant for the other night of the murders

  James Belfoy was working three nights as a taxi dispatcher and also spent two nights at his own local bar.

  Eddy Hobbs was working four nights as an industrial cleaner in a pharmaceutical plant and was at a party in his apartment block the other night. The men claimed not to know one another and neither Delgado nor the Baltimore Police had been able to make any links between them so far. It was very odd indeed.

  Delgado sat in a diner around the corner from the station where he’d interviewed the last two suspects. He had a legal pad in front of him and a file containing copies of some of the case files of each. He ran through their answers to his questions from memory. He felt they were covering something up, but there was something more troubling to him. It was the fact that he believed them all when they said they didn’t know one another. Not one of them had any tell or show of recognition when showed the photographs of the other men who were being held for the same string of murders. What did that mean? What could that mean? None of them were in on any of the murders? That was his first thought but that didn’t feel right either.

  Sitting back against the hard old leather of the booth, Delgado sighed deeply. He was tired, more tired than he’d been in a while. He had really been thrown into the deep end in this new post in Quantico. He thought about Sarah, wondered how she was getting on with her two suspects. He liked her as a partner and thought they were going to get on fine. She was driven and good at what she did. Her reputation had come before his meeting her and he wasn’t let down by the real thing. She was a lot more attractive than he’d imagined but that was all he’d got wrong.

  Back to the case he reminded himself, leaning forward to look at the folder's contents again.

  Common sense told him that the murders had all been committed by the same person, which would rule all of these suspects out right away. Sarah’s last two cases had been very complicated so Delgado was sure she was used to this, but his own case history, though not easy, had always been a lot more straightforward. Clues led to the killer; they weren’t always able to find him, but they were always led towards him. This case now had the feeling of contrivance, like it was something that had been dreamed up by some bad novelist.

  If that was the case, then why would they all be involved in a series of murders all carried out by the same person? Delgado thought of Spalding, of how he’d manipulated so many people into committing murder and other acts abhorrent to them over the last few years- if all Sarah Brightwater said was true. If it was him, it sounded textbook for him. Mass confusions, red herrings everywhere and people’s lives destroyed in the process.

  Another factor in the conspiracy idea was that all of the men had refused legal representation. They were willing to go into police interrogations alone and said they had nothing to fear- in so many words. Perhaps it would be a good idea to remind them their very freedom was at stake if they were found to be in any way complicit with even one of the murders. Put the wind up them good and proper.

  There was an easy solve hiding in all this mess, he could feel it. But where it was or where the final piece of the jigsaw would emerge could still be a ways off. Perhaps Sarah would have it from one of her suspects when they compared notes.

  As if on cue, Delgado’s phone rang and it was Sarah calling.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “Hi, it’s me, are you done yet?” Sarah asked.

  “Done for now,” he said, “There’s more I want to ask them but we all need a break for a while.”

  “Yeah, are you free to meet up now? We can run over what I have so far?” Sarah sounded as eager as a rookie cadet right out of the Academy. Delgado looked at his watch; he was about to finish up and start making his way home. He looked to the file on the table and smiled; if he wanted to work a nine to five he wouldn't have joined the FBI.

  “Do I have a choice?” he asked laughing softly.

  “None whatsoever!” Sarah said.

  Thirty minutes later, Delgado met Sarah in a bar that had been about halfway between their locations when she called him. It was a dank place and quiet, the only other customer, a man slumped at the bar who looked like he might be sleeping one off right here rather than go home to do it.

  They ran through the obvious facts they both knew now. None of the men had a reason to be where they were, but had alibis for every other night. They had no connection to any of the victims (except Farley Tusk and Graham Ledener) and all had refused a lawyer.

  “Mine are lying about something, but I don’t get the sense any of them committed any of the murders,” Delgado said. “Tusk seems like the only possibility as far as temperament goes.”

  “I agree, but I have a sick feeling he didn’t do any of them either,” Sarah replied.

  “What about Ray Pallister? How does he look to you?”

  “Scared shitless,” Sarah said, “I don’t think he’s ever gotten more than a parking ticket in his life.”

  “So how are they all wrapped up in this thing then?” Delgado asked. It was a probing question and he wondered would Sarah pick up on that. Sarah looked like she was about to say something but thought better of it. She probably didn’t want to say anything about Spalding to him just yet; he was still too new to her.

  “I just don’t know,” she said.

  “This is a needlessly complicated mess,” Delgado went on, “It has shades of your previous cases all over it.” Sarah looked at him questioningly but didn’t say anything. “I think it has Dwight Spalding all over it.” he finished. Sarah continued to look at him for a few more seconds and then looked away. It was a taut silence before she cut it with,

  “Don’t say that out loud or else we’ll be taken off the case!” She’d tried to make a joke out of it but she could feel the serious undertone to it.

  “There’s a common denominator between all of these suspects and it’s our job to find it,” Delgado said, leaving the name Spalding out of it. “I suggest we start with the description of the immigrant Tusk is talking about. Perhaps he is the link between them all, the one who they all know?”

  “It’s possible,” she said, “But it's also just as possible that this immigrant doesn’t even exist,” Sarah countered. Delgado nodded but smiled too,

  “Well, there's no harm in asking them all anyway,” he said.

  Chapter 20

  Megan waited again tonight as she waited every night. It used to be she expected to only hear from Ellie in the night but now she waited for Spalding to call or message. She just knew that he would sooner or later and for that reason she refused to contemplate the idea that he might never call again. That would give herself false hope and as soon as she believed in it the call would come, shattering her all over again in the process.

  An old rerun of ‘Cheers’ flickered on the silent TV screen. Sam Malone with one foot on the bar about to make a phone call, and the drunks at the bar looking on adoringly. How had that show been so popular, she thought. Still, she’d sit through a million bad shows rather than go back where she’d been for most of the last year.

  Megan had heard her mother go to bed not long ago; Melissa often stayed up later in the evening after Megan went to her room. It was hard for her mother to be around her, so worried she might say something to upset her and at the same time still not knowing fully what Megan had been through. Megan hadn’t wanted her in any of the FBI interviews. At the time, Megan felt, indeed hoped, she was protecting her mother, but it turned out she had only been torturing her. What she was imagining was probably somehow worse than what Megan had been thinking. And yet she still couldn't come to tell her mother of her ordeal. It stuck in her throat if she ever even tried to broach the subject.

  The blue light flashed on Megan’s phone on the bedside locker. The screen didn’t l
ight up and it didn’t vibrate; she’d turned off all of those settings. All except the light for notifications and to be honest she didn’t know why she left that setting on. The light didn’t tell you anything, it didn’t flash red for danger and the pleasant blue it generally flashed wasn’t soothing either. She reached for the phone and then clasped it to her chest. Anyone looking on might have thought she was a young woman praying the message was from some boy she liked. Two years ago that would have been exactly what she was doing. But not now, now everything was different. Boys or men didn’t play a large part in Megan Stanver’s ideas for the future.

  She turned the phone and lit up the screen. Relief dropped off her body like a weighted blanket and she slumped down. It was from Ellie asking if she could call. This is what counted for normality in her life now and it calmed her to think of it. Talking to Ellie, though oftentimes a horrible reminder of what they'd been through, was also very cathartic. While those conversations went on, the rest of the world seemed at bay and Megan was able to feel the inner strength and resolve both of them had expressed in their escape from Spalding’s hell farm manor.

  Megan messaged back she was ready to talk whenever and was surprised when the phone started flashing the incoming call right away. A moment of dread came over her but she pushed it away, she was being silly.

  “Hey,” she answered, trying to sound as upbeat as possible and it struck her how they always did this, both of them coming on like actors with painted on smiles before the talk started and the memories came back. Not this time, though.

  “Megan, I’m scared,” Ellie whispered and Megan knew she was crying. Without realising it she sat up in bed and loosened the sheets from her legs in case she had to go running suddenly.

  “Ellie, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I think Spalding is following me,” Ellie said, choking back tears as she spoke.

  “You’ve seen him?” Megan asked, unable to keep the fact she was startled out of her tone.

  “No, but I can feel it,” Ellie said. Though her friend was very upset, this last eased Megan’s mind some. It was likely Ellie was just under stress and freaking out over nothing. “Things keep moving around,” Ellie said.