Fatally Bound (7 page)

“So how did he get inside ahead of her?” Gesch asked.

“Maybe he had a key,” Mac answered.

“We thought about that,” Delmonico stated. “We didn’t find one anywhere around the house.”

“You wouldn’t if he kept it,” Wire stated. “Did you find a key holder perhaps? People stash one outside their house sometimes.”

“That occurred to us as well but we never found one. We asked her family and friends and they weren’t aware of one.”

Mac crossed his arms and thought about it a little more. “Your profile on this guy says he’s mission oriented, right?”

The FBI agents nodded.

“And we don’t know what the mission is yet, because we don’t know what ties these women together.”

“Right,” Gesch said.

“But as a mission-oriented killer, if that’s what he is, he’s a planner, right? On a mission you prepare. This killer is a schemer.”

“Meaning?” Gesch asked.

“He hunted Hannah Donahue, stalked her and knew exactly when to strike, when she would be most vulnerable and he would be least vulnerable. He followed her for, I bet, at least two weeks before he took her. In those two weeks he watched her every move and somewhere along the line he found some way into the house.”

“So what are you thinking, McRyan?” Delmonico asked.

“We need to go back through the last two weeks of her life, we need to reinterview all of her coworkers, friends, family, anyone she intersected with and see if anything pops.”

“We’ve done all that already,” Gesch answered skeptically. “We’ve had agents meet with these people. We used Wente’s local detectives here in Dover. Nothing hit and we,” he pointed to Delmonico, “I don’t know that we can spend the time on that; we have to run this thing.”

“I know you don’t, and I don’t think you should. Wire and I should,” Mac answered.

“We’ll run a parallel investigation,” Dara added. “We’ll go back through the case and work it backwards, while you’re continuing to go forward.”

“Exactly,” Mac jumped back in. “Look, Agent Gesch, this is what we excel at. I think he had a key to get in. He got it somewhere in the last couple of weeks, I’d even bet in the last few days before she was killed. Somebody knows something, they may not even know they know it, but they do. Maybe the right person hasn’t been talked to yet. Maybe they haven’t been asked the right question yet. Maybe we don’t even know the right question to ask—yet.”

Gesch, Delmonico and Wente were about to object. Mac held his hands up, “I don’t mean to suggest people weren’t doing their jobs. They were. Everyone is trying to find this guy. And maybe we’ll fail too. However, I think Dara and I are looking at asking some different questions. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Sometimes when you go back a second time you stumble onto something that was missed the first time around.”

Gesch looked to Delmonico, who nodded and then looked over to Detective Wente, who asked: “So what do you need?”

• • • •

It was time to start again.

Hannah Donahue was punished for her sins, just like the others. Having done it, he got away, laid low for a few days and now he felt it was safe for him to come out again and start scouting. With three down, he could actually see the finish line now. Once the final blow was delivered and his mission was complete, he would once again disappear.

His next target was prospering greatly, making a name for herself, a rising star and someone that people recognized. That made her both a more intriguing, and in many ways, a more dangerous target for him.

She pulled out from her parking garage in her little sports car and raced down the street, clearly happy in the success she was experiencing, a star on the rise.

He dropped the gear shift for the pickup truck, fell in three vehicles behind and followed, his wrist draped casually over the steering wheel.

The hunt always started this way, just loosely following his target around from a safe distance, looking to get a feel for the rhythm of her life. What time did she get up in the morning, what was her daily schedule, who did she see, did she have a significant other to complicate matters, were there any regular places she went at specifically scheduled times and, most importantly, was she on guard.

In doing all this he’d find the ideal time and place.

He would plan it down to every last detail.

S
o far, they were getting nowhere.

Mac eighty-sixed another Styrofoam coffee cup into the wastebasket and just stared at it, on top of three others he put in the garbage. There had been two days of Styrofoam coffee cups, stale donuts and fast food to go along with countless interviews and stacks of documents. So far, there was nothing to show for their efforts.

The plan was to go back through, as best they could, every stop of Hannah Donahue’s life for the last two weeks. In fact, after they started they went back as far as eighteen days as Donahue had been out of town for five days over a school break and the second victim was killed in the middle of her time away. So from the day Hannah Donahue returned to Dover, they’d started piecing together every component of her life.

On three whiteboards in a conference room at the Dover Police Department, every minute detail of her life that could be accounted for was logged and noted. For two days Mac and Wire, with the occasional assistance of Detective Wente, methodically worked their way through Hannah Donahue’s life.

The first step had been to go to the family home outside of Wilmington, an hour to the north of Dover, to meet with her family. Delaware, and the city of Wilmington in particular, was a financial center for the world because of the state’s finance and banking laws. It was an oddity that Mac first learned of in law school when he took business organizations and learned of the whole line of Delaware law that applied to business transactions. It was why so many corporations were incorporated in Delaware, to take advantage of the Delaware law.

William Donahue made his fortune in the banking industry that was the life blood of Wilmington. Over the years his banking work necessitated spending many hours in Washington, working to massage the nation’s finance and tax laws. It gave him access to the nation’s power brokers which craved his dollars and robust connections to more of it. That access, that money, that power was why Mac and Wire were here.

“I see my threat got through to the president,” Donahue said non-boastfully. He’d lost his daughter. He was devastated and simply wanted some closure now and would push any lever available to get it.

“The president and Judge Dixon thought we might be able to help, sir,” Mac answered neutrally. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

“Question is, Mr. Donahue,” Wire asked, “can you help us?”

As bombastic and demanding as he was on television, he was as docile when interviewed. He simply didn’t know anything helpful.

“I loved my daughter. I talked to her all the time, texted with her, e-mailed her, and there was nothing in any of those conversations that led me to believe she was worried about her safety in any way. She said nothing,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. “What I should have done is kept her closer to home.”

“How is it she ended up in Dover?” Wire asked.

Barbara Donahue answered, “Hannah was fiercely independent. She wanted her own life. Her brothers went into Bill’s business and at first she was going to as well. Then halfway through college, she changed her mind and decided she wanted to give back. She thought she should pay forward for the fortunate and privileged life she had growing up. It was as if one summer she grew up and got serious about life. She loved children, so she went into teaching.”

“She decided she wanted to blaze her own trail,” Mr. Donahue added. “She wanted her own life. In all honesty, I admired her for it. It would have been easy to just tag along with the family business, but she decided on something else. The only thing she let me help with was a contribution to the down payment on that house and some money for her car.”

The Donahues were devastated but simply couldn’t provide any more help, nor could her brothers, who’d had little contact with her in recent weeks. “It wasn’t that we weren’t close,” Adam Donahue stated, “it’s just that we were busy with our lives, with our families, with our work, that we didn’t talk to Hannah a lot, other than an occasional e-mail, text or phone call. I hadn’t been down to Dover in three months. You know how it is.”

Mac did. He was close with his three sisters, yet he didn’t see them that often. Everyone was busy with their lives and with cell phones and computers it was easy to stay in touch without actually physically getting in touch.

“So are you making any progress?” Mrs. Donahue asked Mac, as she poured him a cup of coffee to go from the kitchen.

“We’re trying, ma’am, but we’ve really just started,” Mac answered. “The two of us have just gotten into the case. I’ll let you know if anything pops and I’ll call in two days just to let you know how it is going.” As he was leaving the kitchen, he stopped to ask one last question. “Mrs. Donahue, I have three sisters. I know for a fact that they always talked to my mom about things that they’d never, in a million years, talk to my dad about.”

Mrs. Donahue smiled, a wan yet knowing smile, “There are some issues men are not equipped to handle.”

“So you know the killer left a message on the wall, right?”

“Yes, a biblical verse about reaping what you sow.”

“That’s right. This killer looks to be something we call a mission-oriented killer. He’s viewing killing these women as fulfilling some mission and in his case to kill these women, including Hannah, for their sins, or at least that’s what the messages he leaves seem to convey.” Mac took a sip of his coffee and softened his voice. “This is a really hard question to ask, but did she have any problems that she told just you about? A secret that she wouldn’t want to get out and have others know about?”

Mrs. Donahue shook her head, “Nothing I can think of, Mr. McRyan. She was a big party girl back in college, especially her first two or three years, like every kid did and does when they go away to college. But she never had any trouble with the police at school or got into any accidents, at least that I’m aware of. She was just a really
really
good kid,” she answered and started to weep.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I had to ask that question.”

“I know,” she answered quietly, sniffling. “I know.”

Mac and Wire next went back down to Dover and to the elementary school where Hannah taught. Despite talking to every teacher, administrator and worker in the building, they learned little beyond what was already in the investigation’s files. She was universally liked by teachers, administrators, students and parents. “She was a lovely young girl,” the principal stated. “She never had a problem with anyone, just a stellar, wonderful teacher who adored her students.”

“As you know,” Wire stated, “the killer left a biblical message about reaping what you sow. We think he’s punishing these women for some reason. Can you think of any reason someone would want to punish Hannah?”

The principal shook his head vigorously, “I can’t for the life of me think of why anyone would want to kill Hannah. Not one reason.”

“I noticed you have pretty robust security around the school?” Mac asked.

The principal nodded, “After Sandy Hook, we increased our security school district wide. Dover is a nice safe town and you wouldn’t think we could ever have a school shooting, but I bet they thought the same up in Connecticut.”

Wire spoke to the school’s head of security, his assistant as well as the local police officer assigned to the school. None of them noticed anything unusual around the school in the days leading up to Donahue’s murder. “The teacher’s have their own parking lot that we have a camera on and we walk it all the time during the day. You’re free to watch the tapes, but I don’t think you’ll find anything.” Dover detectives and the bureau had been through the tapes. Other than the occasional kid chasing down a stray red gym ball, nobody had approached the vehicles other than school personnel.

At the end of the school day, Mac and Wire sat in small chairs at a table in a classroom and talked to Hannah’s two closest teaching friends, Lana Meister and Nicole Moore.

“She never seemed worried about a thing,” Meister said. “She was over to my house and had dinner with my husband and me just a week ago. She was fine, normal, nothing seemed unusual. As to your question, Ms. Wire, if there was something in her past, she never confided in me about it.”

Wire went through the task of walking Meister through the last eighteen days and her interactions with Donahue. Nothing popped.

“We were close here at school and maybe occasionally went out for a drink, but I didn’t do anything with her in the last couple of weeks outside of school.”

“How about you, Ms. Moore,” Mac asked. “Was there anything unusual that you recall happening in the last couple of weeks?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

Mac walked through the last eighteen days with Moore.

“The last time she and I really talked was when we went out for drinks a week ago, last Friday.”

Mac looked at his notes, “She went out for drinks?”

“Yeah, she and I went after school. Then she had another friend join us, her name was Wendy, I think. An old friend of hers who’d just happened to come into town for a few hours. I think she worked for some international bank up in Wilmington or was in Wilmington for some meetings and lives somewhere else, something like that.”

“Here name was Wendy?” Mac asked. There’d been no record of her. “Do you recall her last name?”

“Jones, Jonas, something like that. They were good friends and from what I could tell, they hadn’t seen each other in a really long time. I had my drink and left them to catch up with each other. I figured I … could …” Moore’s eyes started to tear up and she put her hand to her mouth. “I figured I’d just get a drink with Hannah another time, you know? And now … there won’t ever be another time.” She broke down, hugging Meister.

Mac looked to Wire, “We should track down this Wendy. I don’t think anyone has spoken with her.”

Wire shrugged, “We should, although if she was just in town for a few hours, what would she know?”

On Saturday, they worked her neighborhood, talking to her neighbors. Donahue was young for her neighborhood, in her mid-twenties whereas most the neighbors were older, with families. Originally, some said there was concern when Hannah first moved in that, given her age, her house would be a party house. But as with her friends and everyone at her school, people loved Donahue. She was a great neighbor. There were never any problems and nobody recalled seeing any unusual vehicles or people around the neighborhood.

The last people they talked to were Donahue’s immediate neighbors. To the north was an older couple of empty nesters who talked with Donahue frequently.

“I helped her from time to time,” Mr. Empty Nester said. “She would have a problem that needed fixing in the house and she’d come and ask questions. She was funny.”

“Funny how?” Wire asked.

“She always liked to try to fix something herself first. She’d get in way over her head and get stuck and then come and find me. My favorite was two months ago when she decided to put a toilet in herself.”

Mrs. Empty Nester nodded and laughed, a sad laugh, “I told Earl he needed to stay around that day because Hannah was going to get herself in trouble again.”

“And she did,” Earl answered with a wistful smile. “Sure nuff, about 3:30 in the afternoon that little girl came over and knocked on the door, all frazzled and tearing up. She had her water off, the toilet out and it was a disaster.”

“I’ve been there, Earl,” Mac replied knowingly. “I’m rehabbing a townhouse right now. Plumbing’s the worst thing I have to work on, especially in an older home. You can do everything right and it still won’t work.”

“Exactly right, young man,” Earl Empty Nester replied. “Hannah? She did okay pulling everything apart but, of course, that’s the easy part. The poor thing couldn’t figure out how to re-hook everything back up. She had water dripping, she was looking at water damage, and if she had to call a plumber, she was probably out some big bucks.”

“Earl’s good with plumbing,” Mrs. Empty Nester added.

“So I went over and took a look,” Earl shook his head. “That little lady had a mess on her hands for sure, but I figured out the problem pretty quick. We made a run to the hardware store and within a couple of hours we had her all set to go.” Mr. Empty Nester got quiet. “I’m sure going to miss doing those kinds of things for her.”

The neighbors to the south were a young family named the Burroughs. There were four sons, all under the age of nine.

“My goodness, you have your hands full,” Wire said to Mrs. Burroughs in her living room, standing amongst four laundry baskets of folded clothes.

“I’m used to it, Agent Wire,” the mother of four replied. “It is what it is. But you asked about the night that Hannah was … killed … and we just didn’t notice anything. It was chaos around here until 9:30
P.M.
or so, trying to get this crew through their baths, into bed, stories read and then finally to sleep. I can tell you that about fifteen minutes after these guys were asleep, my husband and I were in bed, watching television and would have been asleep by 10:00, 10:30 at the latest. Trust me; it was a very normal night around here.”

“Do you recall seeing Hannah get home that night at all?” Mac asked.

“No I don’t, but other than talking to her out in the yard on occasion, maybe borrowing from each other the occasional egg or cup of milk, we didn’t talk a lot. I mean, our life was different from hers so there wasn’t a ton in common. But she was a really nice girl, a very nice neighbor.”

Mr. Burroughs came in the house and was of no more help. “I wish I could help you, I really do, but the night she was killed I was literally asleep five minutes after I finished the story for the boys.”

Neither of the Burroughs noticed anything unusual in the days leading up to Hannah Donahue’s murder.

Mac and Wire sat dejectedly on the steps for Donahue’s house, the yellow crime scene tape flapping in the light breeze, the sun beginning its decline in the west. Three marathon days of working the case and they had nothing to show for it.

“Does it seem odd to you,” Wire mused, “that nobody in this neighborhood recalls seeing anything unusual in the last two weeks? I mean, nothing at all? Not an unusual vehicle? No suspicious people? How is that possible?”