Consumed (19 page)

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Um, no. Zero chance.”

“That’s what I figured,” I said. “Tom, where were we meeting this news team?”

“The sheriff’s checkpoint to the south. I figured that is probably about as close as we’d want any media when this is going on.” He nodded toward the men loading bagged remains into the vans.

“The checkpoint should be perfect. Can you give me a lift down there?” I asked.

“Yeah, no problem,” he said.

I hopped in the passenger side of his car, and he started it up and pulled out from the driveway of the property. He made a right onto the road out front and headed down to the checkpoint. The short, half-mile ride was silent aside from Tom saying that he’d never laid eyes on a scene that bad in his life and me grunting in agreement. Tom slowed at the two sheriff’s cruisers blocking the roadway. He and I stepped out and walked toward the deputies, both in uniform. I didn’t see a news van or any other vehicles or any people, for that matter, anywhere.

“Been quiet?” I asked.

The deputy on the left, whose nameplate read Nicker, nodded his head, which wore a campaign hat with a badge and gold tassels tied above the brim. “We had a car come through about ten minutes ago. Homeowner that lived up the road here a bit.” He pointed the way we’d come. “We checked out her DL and sent her home.”

“Nobody turning around when they saw the squad cars?” Tom asked.

“Nothing,” the other deputy said. His nameplate read Stark. “You guys just doing a checkup here, or…?”

“We have a news van coming for a quick interview,” Tom said.

“Oh, okay. We’re off at three. Are you guys going to need us to swap out with another shift?”

“Yup,” I said. “We need this checkpoint here through the night.”

Tom and I waited another five minutes for the news crew to arrive. I spent the time trying once again to get a hold of Whissell—I got the voice mails on his desk and mobile phone again. I clicked off and wasted another twenty minutes watching the news crew set up before delivering my thirty-second statement. I kept it short and sweet—we were looking for a man named Richard Kirkwood in connection with a number of homicides. Any information anyone watching could provide us on this man, no matter how small, would help facilitate his capture. That was it, aside from the FBI’s toll-free tip number. We thanked the news crew for coming out, told them they would be the first to hear if we had anything new or a description they could circulate, and headed back to Tom’s car.

The next few hours on the scene went by at a turtle’s pace. I’d called Whissell another three or four times without getting him on the phone. My final call went to the receptionist—I asked her if she could get anyone at the station who’d ever seen Kirkwood to get in contact with me. Beth and I watched the men from Safe Disposal finish loading the remains into their pair of vans and leave the property. All the severed limbs, as well as the twenty-four bodies, were going back to the Medical Science building in Nashville for processing. I planned to check in there the following day to see if they’d come up with anything—getting identifications on them was another story altogether.

After the vans left, we watched the forensics team collect evidence for hours, and when they finally finished at roughly five o’clock, we were allowed into the homes to begin looking for anything resembling some kind of a clue as to where Kirkwood could be. The other agents from Tom’s resident agency, as well as the forensics team, gave us a hand searching—after another two hours of digging through junk with our gloved hands, we’d found nothing. The guy had no receipts of anything, no bills, no mail, and not even a home phone we could hit redial on, to get the last number. We even went through his refrigerator, which was mostly empty after the human remains were removed, to see if we could find out where he shopped—again, nothing. I never did ask anyone what exactly was in the crockpot, which had since been turned off—I didn’t really care to know.

The helicopter returned to pick up the forensics team right before Beth and I left, a few minutes after seven o’clock. The team took everything they’d gathered to begin processing immediately. They said we should receive a phone call in the morning with anything they’d found that could help.

Beth and I got back to our hotel around eight thirty. We left strict instructions with the second shift of deputies manning the checkpoint, to notify Agent Clifford as well as us if anything out of the ordinary happened. Beth had gone to her room and said she’d be over after a bit. I changed out of my suit, from which I kept catching whiffs of death, and put on a T-shirt and jeans. I sat on the edge of the bed in my hotel room and stared at the television. The news channel I’d done the brief interview with must have contacted the other stations because I caught my face on two different channels. The last time I’d spoken with Ball, he said anything of any substance that came through the FBI’s tip line would be forwarded to Beth and me immediately. I walked to the room’s shelf, which doubled as a desk, sat in the lime-green office chair, and picked up my phone. I needed another investigative mind, in addition to Beth, to bounce a few things off of, so I dialed my old partner, currently the Tampa homicide captain, Carl Kane. He answered right away.

“So you’re coming next weekend, now?” he asked. “Callie said Karen picked up your plane tickets.”

“Hopefully. I’m still out here on this investigation but should be back before then.” I spun the chair and kicked my feet up on the edge of the bed.

“How’s that going?” he asked.

“Looks like it will be national news shortly.”

“Get him?”

“No. That’s the reason for the call. We have a suspect, and judging by the twenty-some bodies we found on his property, it looks like he’s definitely our guy.”

“Twenty-some bodies?”

“Yeah, just your typical guy who picks up prostitutes, hacks them up, and eats them. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Kane was quiet for a moment. “Damn, Hank. Where are you at with finding him?” he asked.

“Well, that’s the problem. He’s a ghost. No phone, no car, no driver’s license, no bank records, no credit cards—we don’t even have a description, just a name and the property he resided at. So, you tell me, what am I missing that will help me find the guy?”

“Was there power?” Kane asked.

“Huh?”

“Did the place have power when you were inside?”

“Yeah. My guys back in Manassas looked into utilities on the address. We got nothing. I spotted a generator on the side of the house. Guess he was getting power that way.”

“Hmm,” Kane said. “Friends and family, then. No pictures in the house?”

“Not a single photo anywhere. Both parents dead. He had a brother that up and disappeared quite a while back.”

“Well, maybe that’s who is helping him.”

“So you think he might have an accomplice?”

“Hell, no way of knowing for sure, but I take it you remember the Carmen Simms and Angel Redding case.”

“Don’t remind me. I thought that may have been the worse scene I ever saw up until this morning. What I saw today made that house look like a fun park with kiddie slides.”

Kane grumbled. “I don’t want the details,” he said. “I don’t need any more of that shit bouncing around in my head. Anyway, what I’m saying is when someone has nothing to tie them to society, just like Carmen, it probably means that there is someone helping them—in her case, it was her daughter. I’d try to find that disappeared brother. Either that, or do whatever the hell you can to find out who this guy was in contact with. You try redial on his house phone?”

A tap came at the door of my hotel room. I walked over, glanced out the peephole, and pulled the door open. Beth stood in the hall, wearing a pair of jeans and a pink-striped long-sleeved shirt. Her hair was pulled back, and her dark-rimmed glasses had made a reappearance though she didn’t look as if she was calling it a night. Beth saw I was on the phone and mouthed the words that she would come back.

I waved her inside and covered the mouthpiece of my phone. “Just a second,” I said. Then I brought the phone back to my mouth. “No house phone, Kane.”

“Damn, that’s usually a good one. Well, like I said, find who is helping him, and you’ll find him.”

Beth plopped down in the chair next to the window.

I let out a breath. “Yeah, we’ll see. I guess I have a couple of things working.” I heard a high-pitched wail come from his end of the phone.

“What the hell?” Kane said.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I think it’s the boy screaming. Can’t say I’ve heard that noise come out of him before. One second.” The sounds of him rummaging around shuffled through the phone, then he came back on. “Nope, he’s fine. I think he was just pissed that he lost his binky. All good.”

I smirked. “I’ll let you get back to parenting. Let me give you a buzz tomorrow.”

“Sure, Hank. Have a good night,” Kane said.

I clicked off and walked over to Beth. I spun the lime office chair from the desk and took a seat.

“Old partner?” she asked.

“Yeah, he seems to think that someone is helping Kirkwood. If we find his help, we find him.”

“I’d argue with that if I could,” Beth said.

I dug one palm into an eye. “Whissell is really starting to piss me off.”

“He never called back?”

“No. And the last time I called the station, I told the woman that answered that I wanted anyone who has ever seen or heard anything about Kirkwood to call. Needless to say, my phone hasn’t rung yet.”

“Want me to try Whissell? Different number. Maybe he’s avoiding you.”

“Still a Virginia number. I doubt he’s that dumb.”

“What about the hotel phone?”

“Haven’t tried that,” I said. “Pretty sad if that’s what is going on.”

“What’s his number?” Beth went to the room’s phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed when I told her. A moment later, she clicked the phone back down. “Voice mail. Come on.”

“Come on where?”

“Hotel bar. Let’s go. After a day like today, it’s a necessity.”

I rocked my head back and forth. “All right. I’ll meet you in ten minutes. I need to give Karen a call and check in.”

Beth smiled. “Meet me downstairs at the bar when you’re done. Tell her I said hi.”

I nodded and dialed as Beth left my room.

“Hey, baby,” Karen said.

“Hey, you. How’s it going?”

“Pretty good. I picked up our tickets to Tampa.” Muffled sounds came from her end of the call, as though she was in the middle of doing something.

“That’s what Kane just said.”

“So you’re calling him before me now?”

I smirked. “No. I wanted to bounce some things about this investigation off of him.”

“Did he help?”

“Maybe.”

Karen’s car keys jingled unmistakably. “Well, I haven’t heard from you all day. Did you guys find out anything?”

I didn’t feel like rehashing what I’d seen, and I was positive she didn’t want the details. “We did. Got his name—pretty much confirmed that he was the guy behind the killings. Now we just need to find the guy.”

“That’s great news. So why don’t you sound happy about it?”

I heard the creak of our front door opening. “Just a long day, babe. Where are you headed?”

“How do you know I’m going somewhere?”

“Detective skills.”

She chuckled. “I’m going to Ken and his wife Jenny’s—poker night. Just about ready to leave the house. I didn’t get to tell you. We have another girl that plays. She’ll be there tonight.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah. Newer agent. I think she has something going on with Doug. Me and some of the guys have caught their little looks and things like that, but they play it off pretty well.”

“Gossip and poker. Sounds like a good night. How is Chop?”

“Good. I’m taking him with.”

I heard her tell him to
come on
followed by the closing of a door. “Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, you don’t care that he’s in your new truck, do you?”

“No. Not at all. It’s a Jeep—supposed to be dirty. Take the top and windows out so his little face can flap in the wind.”

Karen laughed. “Already did.”

I heard her tell him
good boy,
and
stay
.

Karen continued. “Ken has a female Boston terrier that I’m going to let Porkchop terrorize.”

“Just keep an eye on him,” I said. “He seemed a little frisky at the park last week.”

“What do you mean? He’ll be fine. He’s been around other dogs a million times. I’ve never seen him try to mount one.”

“No, I don’t mean the dog. When he was at the park, he found a dog’s owner that he seemed fond of if you know what I mean. He may have a little Mississippi leg-hound in him.”

“You mean…? Eew,” Karen said. “You didn’t tell me that.”

I laughed. “I was trying to keep it between him and me. Guy stuff. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Oh, now I don’t know if I want to take him,” Karen said. “Ken and his wife offered to watch him while we went to Tampa. What am I supposed to do?”

“He’ll be fine, babe. Just take him. I’m sure the other dog will keep him preoccupied.”

“God, I hope so.”

I heard the sound of my Jeep starting. “Why don’t you give me a call when you get back? I’m supposed to head downstairs and grab a drink with Beth.”

“Are you sure? It might be late.”

“I don’t care. Just call.”

“Okay, I love you. Tell Beth I said hi,” Karen said.

“Yeah, I will. She actually wanted me to tell you the same, so hi, for Beth.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you later. Love you again.”

“Love you, too.” I clicked off, put my phone in my pocket, and headed out.

Richard sat on the leather recliner in his brother’s living room with his eyes closed and the volume on the television turned up to the max—his mother had been nagging at him for the better part of the last few hours, and he was trying to tune her out. The noise from the television was some late-night talk show, yet Richard wasn’t much focused on its content. His mind kept replaying the vision of his old father on the bed upstairs, the conversation they’d had, and the throbbing from his arm, which surely required medical attention that it wouldn’t receive. Richard had run a needle and thread through the wound, wrapped it with a few paper towels, and fashioned himself a splint from a ruler and some duct tape—it wouldn’t address the cuts to the bones, but it would have to do.