Murder! Too Close To Home (15 page)

Chapter 35

March 11, 1997

Padding into the room in stocking feet, I was met by the sight and feel of the warm fire blazing in the fireplace. Sitting down at my chair, the aroma of the coffee wafted over me, mentally lifting my spirits. I grabbed the handle and lifted the cup to my nose, inhaling deeply the intoxicating aroma before letting the warm black liquid roll down my throat.

I look over at the chess board and see that another move had been executed, As usual, the move was what I would expect from my opponent while maintaining a defensive posture. Currently he was scrambling to counter my latest tack, the thought bringing a smile to my lips. I moved my next piece and sat back to continue my worship of the coffee, enjoying it more every time I visited, if that were even possible.

Taking in the room once again, I continued to marvel at the perfectness of it all. Whoever had set up this living space was definitely an interior designer extraordinaire, at least in my eyes.

Leaning my head back on the chair I closed my eyes to rest but was unexpectedly transported to a dark, old room when I again reopened them. Wallpaper was evident in spots throughout the room, but old bare plaster was the norm. At some places, even this was missing, with holes showing wood lath spaced randomly throughout the room.

Looking like it had once been a dining room; it sported a built-in glass-door china cabinet on one of the walls.   

The thin man entered the room carrying an armload of cans. It was the man from the other dreams…the ‘Ghost’.

His hooded sweatshirt was as usual hiding his features from view. He stacked the cans on an empty shelf in the room. As I looked closer, I noticed that the cans were bean soup…every single one was bean soup. The label on the cans read ‘Johnson Brothers’ ‘Bean Soup’.

As I was observing him stack the cans, one of them fell toward the floor. Watching it head toward its inevitable destination, it seemed to slow down, going in slow motion.

Seconds seem to pass as the can made its way down, my anxiousness increasing with each inch traveled. My focus on the fall intensified to the point that I was longing for the moment that it made contact, cheering it on in my head like one would for his favorite football team.

As it finally connected with the aged wood, I jumped up in excitement…right out of my own bed and onto the carpet of the bedroom. Quickly glancing at the clock, I was not surprised to see 5:30 registered on the digital face. I looked over at the bed and made out the form of Betty, still under the quilt and breathing steadily.

Moving to a chair, I sat down, going over details of the dream, trying to burn the bits of information into my head so that they didn’t evaporate into the ether.  

A thought came to me suddenly, and I smiled as I got up to get the coffee going and let Lucy out. I needed to get the day started as usual, although I had a feeling that this would not be a usual day at all. 

Chapter 36

March 11, 1997

The man pulled up to the old house, the hideout. He had been here often; the old shed on the property had been a fine place to hide the stolen cars used in his work.

Getting out of the vehicle, he went to the outbuilding and opened the swinging doors, backing the car in before quickly closing it up again.

Going out the small door in the back of the garage and slinking behind the house, the man entered the room that was once the kitchen. Electric was a long lost memory to this building, the utility no longer even having overhead wires to the property. He would have to use a candle or a lantern to see at night. Not that reading was a high priority, but he would miss the TV.

He had risked discovery by stopping at a little hardware store on his way here, picking up a few screws and a screwdriver to accomplish his next task. Pulling out a number of old and musty smelling wool blankets from a beat up chest-of-drawers, he set about covering the windows and doors in the old dining room, creating in effect a blackout room.

Heading back out to the shed, he found a camp stove that he had been told would be there, as well as a pot. Taking these items into his new home, he returned once again and picked up a case of soup and one of several bottles of water also stored there.

Back in the dining room, he busied himself setting up the stove and stacking the cans on a shelf. When one of the cans slipped from his hand and landed hard on the floor, he jumped back and quickly looked around; suddenly having the eerie feeling that someone was watching him.

Seeing no one of course, he nonetheless carefully checked out all of the windows before returning to his labors.

“Probably just spooked by this old house,” he thought to himself as he set up the stove in preparation of his first meal.

“Damn good thing I like beans.”

Chapter 37

March 11, 1997

There was a spring in my step as I walked into the office that day, not sure if it was the promise of finding our perp from the sketch we released the day before, or from the potential clue I had had in my dream. Maybe it was just the good night’s sleep.

I had no good understanding of why I was having the recurring imaginings, but I could no longer ignore the fact that there was, more times than not, a relevant meaning to them.

Heading into my office, I was quickly followed by Frank holding two steaming cups of coffee. Setting one of the welcome mugs on my desk, he took a seat across from me and crossed his legs, taking a sheet of paper out of his jacket and laying it in front of me.

Picking of the document, I saw that it was a copy of one of the county dispatcher’s log sheets.

“Our first lead came in about an hour ago. The caller said he was sure that the guy in the drawing is someone he works with at the Save-A-Bunch. Guy by the name of Jacob John Wesley. A couple of deputies are on their way over to the store to interview the employees, but the caller said Wesley hadn’t been to work in two days, said he didn’t even call in today.”

I took in all of the information Frank was giving me in silence, trying to absorb the facts. Why was it that serial murderers always used all three of their names?

“He probably went underground when he saw himself on TV,” I finally said out loud, thinking of the old house of my mind’s eye.

“Probably so,” Frank mused, sipping from his cup.

“Drink up Gabe; we’re heading to the suspect’s apartment in ten minutes. Allen’s working on a search warrant, and the state guys are watching it from the street in an unmarked car. He’s probably not there, but you never know about these crazy types.”

“He’s gone,” I stated with a little too much confidence, adding quickly “at least that’s what I’m thinking.”

I thought again of the details of my dream, and wrote down the name of the soup on my pad.

“Can you get someone to look into this for me?” I asked Frank as I ripped the sheet off and handed it to him. “We need to find out if it is sold in this area and where. I have never noticed this brand before, but I have a feeling someone around here sells it.”

Frank looked over what I had written, getting one of his baffled looks he always gets when something doesn’t immediately make sense to him.

“What, are you hungry or is this another one of your mysterious hunches?”

“Just a hunch” I stated as nonchalantly as I could.

“Hmmff” he said while shaking his head as he walked out of the office to find someone to work on the task. Although Frank many times thought I was a little quirky when I came up with these ideas, he nevertheless knew that more times than not it would lead to an answer. Whether the answer would make sense to us was of course a completely different animal.

I called Betty, who was checking in at the police station. She had heard the news and she and Harry were getting ready to head out to the apartment. Saying I would meet her there, I put my coat back on and grabbed the coffee as I headed out of the office to find Frank, sucking down as much of the hot liquid as I could before we left.

I was excited to see what we would find at the apartment, but I still needed my coffee to function properly. I guess everyone has a crutch they used to get through the day; mine seemed minor compared to some I could have. Convincing myself of the need, I grabbed a Styrofoam cup at the coffee maker, pouring myself a large one for the road before I walked out of the office.

***

We stood around for almost an hour at the small duplex before Allen showed up with the warrant. By then we had informally investigated the small yard surrounding the building, and found nothing of note, save for some toys and bicycles from the other tenant.

We had temporarily moved the single mother and her small children until we could determine whether our guy was home. We didn’t need any stray bullets going through those walls.

The landlord had been contacted and was on hand to unlock the door so we wouldn’t have to destroy the door of her property. You could tell she was pretty shaken up by the knowledge that a murderer had been living on her property, worriedly wanting assurances that she wouldn’t be prosecuted for harboring a fugitive.

Gloving up, we entered the apartment behind the two deputies of the task force as they went through the apartment with guns drawn to clear the scene. After being given the all clear by the deputies, the rest of us entered slowly and spread out.

“He’s definitely our guy,” Betty said from across the room, “take a look at this, gentlemen.”

Making my way across the living room, I joined the others who were looking down at an old Army footlocker. Sitting on top in plain view was a Sheriff’s uniform, the shiny badge gleaming in the sunlight coming through the grimy window.

Working carefully so as not to disturb the evidence until the crime scene guys could go through it, Betty lifted the uniform to see what was below it. Finding a small brown paper bag folded underneath, she gingerly unfolded it and peered inside.

“It looks like the missing necklace from the Letterman murders,” she said, showing it to Frank for confirmation before carefully refolding it and placing it back below the uniform.

Something caught her eye in the bottom corner of the box. Reaching down with one hand she retrieved a bullet casing, a .357 bullet casing. She smiled at the additional discovery and gently replaced it where it had been found.

Harry was investigating a cluttered desk and motioned me over. Making my way to the desk, he handed me a small spiral notebook, asking, “What do you make of this?”

I opened it up and found page after page of letters written in neat script and arranged in groups of five. Recognizing the arrangement from a previous life, I told him it looked like a code book, probably a keyword cipher.

Knowing it probably wouldn’t do us any good without a message to decode, I started to replace it on the shelf when I caught sight of a single folded sheet sticking out from between the pages. Carefully pulling the sheet out, I found it to be what looked like some sort of letter written in the strange code.

As I studied the book and letter closer, I noticed the very neat handwriting on both.

“Has anyone seen anywhere where he has written something, a list or a phone number?” I asked the room.

“On the fridge” Larry piped in, “there is a grocery list I think.”

Taking the notebook over, I compared the handwriting on the note on the fridge to that of the code book.

The grocery list was filled with a chicken scratch that more resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics than the English language. An idea was forming in my head, the consequences of which were disturbing if it could indeed be proven as fact.

The handwritten letter and code book, written in a different hand than the list, could indicate another’s involvement. At least it would if the book had any connection to the murders.

“We should get this handwriting analyzed by an expert, and the letter decoded,” I told Harry, “the person who composed the codebook is not our perp.”

Harry sported a confused look for a moment before asking, “You suspect other’s involvement?”

Thinking back to the early days of the investigation, we had originally surmised that the ghost may have had help, but had not actively pursued that line of thought. 

“We originally thought it could be a possibility, now we should definitely look into it. If this book was used to pass information for the murders, there is someone else that at the very least might have knowledge of them.”

Harry spread his arms wide as he moved his head around the room.

“From what I’ve seen so far, there is no evidence that this jackass liked using his brain anywhere near that hard, unless you count mentally undressing ladies in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions stacked over there in the corner.”

I nodded in agreement and replaced the book where we had found it, making a mental note to have the techs bag and process the volume ASAP.

We had definitely found the home of our perp, that much we knew, but where was he now, and did he have help with these crimes?

I had hoped that finding the identity of the “Ghost” would lead in short order to solving the murders. Now I was no longer so confident. We could have a long road ahead of us before we got to the bottom of this case, and it was looking more like the road had even more curves than we had expected.