Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2) (14 page)

Chapter 39

August 26, 1998

The weather cooled off greatly that evening, prompting me to build a fire in the fireplace. I moved my files to the living room and sat in front of the fire, going through them yet again.

Something was tugging at my brain, but I had yet to be able to pull it out into the light to look at it. But maybe that was a good sign,
“better than nothing I guess.”

I concentrated on the ones I had done some work on, the new file for Mr. Johnstone, and the file for Martha Jackson. Since there were also some known factors for Frank’s files on Craig Jasper and Don Carrier, I included these also. At the last moment, I included Frank’s file to the mix, since there were also some known facts about that case.

Frank Luther: Murdered, injected with Curare, Investigator, bachelor.

Johnstone: Definitely murdered, husband, middle manager at a large company. Had been injected with insulin, put in coma, then electrocuted, fought with wife before she left on retreat.

Jackson: In Frank’s file, single, lesbian, worked in a factory, electrocuted. Exhumation order in the works, will know more then.

Jasper: Pipefitter at distillery, married, died in crash and burn; accelerant found on car, no smoke in lungs, dead when fire started, body too burned to determine cause of death.

Carrier: Janitor at grade school, wife left him, fake suicide, two previous actual attempts, no CO in lungs, prick marks on neck, embalmed body did not reveal poison, had been under doctor’s care for depression.

Writing these findings down, I note there are three bodies with needle pricks of some sort. If I assumed that Mr. Jasper was also injected with something, I had but to wait on the autopsy of Ms. Jackson to confirm a fifth.

I also was confronted again by the fact that there seemed to be no connecting factors between these victims. Completely different jobs, and all worked at different companies. Three were married, two not, and two of the three married victims had at least a hint of marital problems.

Thinking of the injection points again, the unavoidable logic of the situation compelled me to think about questioning everyone with medical training. Thinking about this further however, I realized that there were maybe a thousand people that either lived here or worked here that had that training. Adding to the list dentists, veterinarians, and even farmers, and the list of potentials grew to a gargantuan proportion. Without something to narrow down the field, there was no way my department could even cover
doing
the interviews, much less taking away any useful information from them.

Another thought struck me then. At least in Frank’s case, we knew the poison, and it was an ancient concoction, but never commonly used on this continent to my knowledge.

This gave me a couple of things to look at. The least likely one was tracking people that had spent some time in South America, maybe Africa with a medical background. Thinking longer on the subject, I came to the conclusion that it might be a good way of confirming a suspect, if we had a suspect. But I could think of no easy way to gather this information on those with medical training. But maybe I could get Allen to have someone in his office do some poking around for medical personnel who had spent some time in a third world country.

The other thing would be to find the ingredients used to make Curare, and to see if any of these items were sold locally. It was a long shot though; they could probably be easily obtained through mail order, or online. Nevertheless, it was something to pursue, and I had very little else. 

I sighed and dropped the files to the floor. I felt that realistically I was only marginally farther along from where I had started two hours earlier, a few more facts and nothing to use them on, no connections between the victims, and no way of identifying the perp.

I needed coffee.

But I didn’t move. My eyes caught the flames before me, and I was suddenly mesmerized as I watched their dance. A lick of flame would grow longer, straining for more fuel to consume. Reaching its maximum height and finding none, the tip of the flame would disintegrate into a wisp of smoke as another hungry flame took its place.

My eyes grew heavy and I let them fall closed for a moment before opening them again in the cozy room of my dreams. The fire before me looked exactly the same, but it seemed even warmer, lessening the chill in my heart, at least for now.

There was coffee as always, so I let the liquid slide down my throat as I glanced over to the chess set. There would be no major challenge on the chess front this night though, as my opponent had made the standard move used to block my last. Having expected a bolder move from my invisible rival, I was unsure what to expect next as I made my next planned move.

Maybe he was losing interest in our game?

I sat back with my cup under my nose, allowing the intoxicating aroma to waft up into not just my nostrils, but into my whole being. I closed my eyes, the warmth and comfort of the room giving me peace.

Opening them once more, I was surrounded by the now familiar warm feeling as I was staring into the eyes, the beautiful, loving, and sad eyes. The embrace comforted me as the eyes tried again to deliver a message

The eyes from the painting!

There was a tear forming in one of them, and they again seemed to be pleading, pleading with me to help.

But…help with what?

Chapter 40

August 27, 1998

I awoke with a start, shivering, the fire having died down in the fireplace. Glancing at my watch, I realized I had spent the whole night leaning against the couch, and that 5:30 has rolled around once again.

I got up and made coffee, cleaning up the files off the floor as it brewed. I was still a little spooked by the revelation of the vision I had had. Realizing the eyes in the dreams were the same as the paintings in the last two crime scenes, Jesus’ eyes, left me at a loss.

How would I possibly be able to help Him?

While a Christian, I had not ‘practiced’ since I was a kid, finding organized religions contrived. Since Betty’s death though, even the small amount of faith left in me had been taxed; some days I was beyond believing at all. 

So the notion of Jesus asking for
my
help was ridiculous; I just must have been interpreting the whole dream wrong. One thing I had learned about my visions was that they never gave me the whole story; so the results were open to interpretation.

I had to smile at my latest interpretation as I went back to the kitchen to grab some coffee; maybe Abby would get a kick out of the story one day.

I was momentarily shocked when this idea entered my thought process. What was it about this girl that fascinated me? Quite possibly it was just my lack of living friends, but it seemed more than that. I was impressed by her, her confidence and honesty, and I would find that refreshing in anyone, much less someone so young.

I had plans to visit the location of another one of the accidents today, the Gracen’s. It was one of Frank’s files; maybe she would want to ride along with me.

Looking at my watch, I realized that it was still too early to call her; so I decided to wait an hour before calling. I would go over the Gracen file until then, refreshing my memory on the details.

Again, it looked very cut and dried, using an electric drill on his tractor while standing in a puddle of water. Techs found the drill was old and ungrounded; stuff like that happens every day. Why Frank had this particular case in his file was beyond me, but I accepted unequivocally that he had found something. Now, if only I could find it too.

I jumped as the phone beside me screamed. Picking it up, I realized that the conversation had started before I even got it to my ear.

“Hi Gabe, how are you?”

“Abby?” I answered when I realized who it was. “I was just thinking of you.”

“Really? What were you thinking?”

“Ladies first,” I replied. “Why did you call me?”

“Oh, well, I was just checking on you, see if you were ok; I knew you got up early.”

I told her I was fine, and I had been wondering if she was available to drive with me to check out a past accidental death case.

“That’d be great!” she shouted into the phone as I pulled the receiver away. “I don’t have school today, and so far they don’t need me for anything at work; what time do we leave?”

“I’m supposed to be there at 9:00; it’s on the other side of the county, so…”

“I’ll be at your house at 8:00!” she said excitedly before abruptly hanging up.

Looking at the receiver for a moment, I finally hung it up, thinking she must really need something to do today. By then, it was 6:30, and I went back to my file, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door at 7:35. Walking to the door, I found Abby waving at me through the curtains.

“Hi Gabe, I’m early!”

Smiling, I opened the door to let her in. “I see that, want some coffee?”

“You know I do!” She said this while gripping me in a tight hug around the neck. Again I wondered at the over familiarity she displayed on a regular basis as I returned the hug shyly. 

I pulled a cup out of the cupboard and filled it, taking it to her at the table.

“So, what’s the case?” she asked as she sipped on the hot liquid.

I handed her the file, giving her the quick rundown. She opened the folder, reading through it silently as she continued to sip on her coffee. Finally, she looked up at me and set down her cup. Her face was a mask as she seemed to mull something over before speaking.

“Ok, what’s really going on?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You find a murder the other day at an apparent accident, now we’re going to a year old accident; you think this was a murder too don’t you?”

My mind went into overdrive; so far I had kept the investigation under my belt, Allen and Doc Elliot being the only ones aware of what I was actually working on. This was due entirely to the fact of a suspected leak causing Frank’s death, and I had no idea who to trust. Now I had to decide if I trusted my new friend enough to let her into the investigation, not to mention possibly putting her in danger by doing so.

She still had the determined look of before, but she seemed patient as I mulled over the alternatives, seeming to sense I had a decision to make.

“I don’t know Abby, even knowing this could put you in danger.”

Leaning back in her chair, she pulled up the hem of her jacket, revealing a small 9mm automatic in a clip-on holster. “I’m licensed to carry, have been since I got here. I go to the range every week, and you know I can handle myself in hand-to-hand.”

I wanted to put my trust in her hands; lord knows I could use a fresh perspective on this case. But it was just supposed to be a nice ride in the country, now I’m considering having her help on the suspected murders.

“Look Abby, I wouldn’t mind having your help on this case, but I believe that there may have been a leak somewhere when Frank was working on it, a leak that I believe probably got him killed. I’m sorry to say, I don’t know who to trust.”

A look of understanding crossed her face, and then she smiled the impish smile that she always exhibited when she was happy.

“Sure, I can see why you would be concerned. But I can assure you, I didn’t know Frank I’m sorry to say. When I started, he was already squirreled away working cold cases, and that’s all anyone ever told me about him. I barely ever saw him being part time like I am, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think he ever even noticed me when I was there.”

I again felt sadness at the thought of Frank working alone, but knew that he would have been bulldogging his way through the case as Abby described.

Frank would have liked Abby, if he had gotten to know her, and I told her as much.

“He would have liked you; you’re just the kind of woman he appreciated. You remind me a lot of Betty.”

I had to fight off a bout of sorrow and self-doubt at the thought of Betty, and took a few moments before speaking again, now convinced that Abby could be a good addition to the investigation. I definitely trusted her anyway.

As I looked back up at her, a warm smile greeted me.

“Thank you for what you said about me and Frank, and Betty. It means a lot to me, to be included with your friends, even in the same sentence.”

“Wait right here for a moment,” I told her as I left the room, returning in a couple of minutes with the rest of the files from the safe.

“These are the files Frank was working on when he was killed. He somehow figured out that at least some of these seemingly unrelated accidents were in fact murders. According to Allen, he had also discovered at least a possible link between them.”

Abby’s eyes grew wide at the realization when she saw the size of the stack.

“I have been able to confirm the facts that he had uncovered, as well as a couple more. We are fairly certain Mr. Johnstone was his latest victim…that we know of. But as of yet, we have no motive, nor what commonality the victims had to one another.”

Abby seemed overwhelmed at the amount of information before her, paging quickly through one folder after the other, reading the highlights before moving on to the next. Seeing the concerned look on her face, I was pretty certain she would want to back out of any further involvement in the investigation.

Then her look changed; I don’t know exactly the words to describe it, but it was a look that said ‘Ok, I was momentarily overwhelmed, but I’m now ready to tackle this’.

“Ok, I can read these later; what’s our next move?”

More than a little surprised at the resilience of my young friend, I told her… “I don’t know.”

“Truthfully, I really don’t know. We need to look for anything out of the ordinary today, anything that might indicate foul play. I’m sure we will get the body exhumed eventually, but it has been in the ground for a year, and there is little hope at this point of any kind of useful forensic evidence. Our best play for the interview is to try to dig into the human factor, look for any irregularities in the wife or kid, or in the husband’s relationship to them. We’re also looking for anything that might tie them to the other Vics; all in all I’m not very hopeful that we will find much.”

Looking at her watch, she said we had better get going; it was already 8:30. We jumped into the Jeep and took off down the road, heading for Lawrenceville. On the drive, my new partner was uncharacteristically quiet. I would have to clear this arrangement with Allen of course, but I don’t think he would mind, as long as she could stay on her part-time salary.

I was pretty sure that, whatever her motivation was for volunteering for this assignment, that it had nothing to do with money. I was a long way off from figuring out my new friend’s motivations, or anything else about her for that matter. But I liked her fresh energy, and I now believed it was something I desperately needed on this case.

“Sorry Frank,”
I said to myself as I drove,
“she’s not you, but I think she can help.”

I just hoped she was up for the challenge.