The Rainy Day Killer (9 page)

Bennett
nipped at his coffee and set down the cup. He picked up his napkin, patted his lips, and nodded. “Heidigger’s priorities have been re-evaluated,” he said. “His people have too much work to do to waste time on personal vendettas.”

Hank
remained silent.

“That said, I have a favor to ask.”

“I see,” Hank said, his tone guarded.

“I’ve discussed the
upcoming staffing action at the captain’s level with Doug and Ann. They agree with me that Lieutenant Cassion needs the kind of seasoning an acting stint in your section would give her. Her field experience with the Bureau was somewhat limited, and since joining the department she’s mostly worked on the administrative side. I’d appreciate it if you’d give her the benefit of your experience and support while she gets her legs under her.”

Hank hid his disappointment. “Of course, sir.”

“Fine. Good.” Bennett looked at his watch. “I have to leave. I should add that the competitive process will be posted in a week or two. It won’t be a lot of time for her, but it’ll be something.”

Hank nodded.

“I expect to see your name on the list of applicants.”

Hank looked at him. “I wasn’t planning to apply.”

“Then change your plans, Lieutenant.” Bennett stood up and pushed in his chair, looking for his driver. “Change your plans.”

1
5

Tuesday, April 30: dawn

Karen took a last look over her shoulder and slipped through the door, her SIG Sauer P-226 at the ready position.

The
abandoned factory was being cleared by an eight-member tactical entry team. The property was completely surrounded by a twelve-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Strathton district had established a perimeter, sealing all entry points. Four members of the entry team breached a side door at the west end of the building, which led into the raw materials handling area, while the other four and Karen went in through the loading dock area at the east end.

Tactical had chosen not to breach
the building through the main entrance at the front because surveillance had shown the big glass doors were solidly chained and locked. They probably hadn’t been opened since management had snapped the padlock shut five years ago. More importantly, it was tactically preferable when entering a building at ground level to enter through the end of the structure rather than the middle, in order to minimize threats in front of the team.

Karen smelled dust, wet cardboard, oil, and an overlying odor she associated with rats and feces, but no
seafood. The smell was one reason why she’d elected to come in through the loading dock area and not the other end of the abandoned cannery, where the raw seafood had been sorted and cleaned. The other reason was that she was betting whoever was using this place also found the stink repulsive enough to avoid that end of the dump, and she wanted to be in on the bust, not doing mop-up out in left field.

A
drive-by patrol last evening had spotted suspicious activity, and the Strathton district commander had authorized Tactical to do their thing at sunrise. Because the exact location of the suspected individuals inside the building was unknown, a stealth entry had been ordered by the team commander. This approach relied on a quiet breaching of the building, brief and preferably silent communication among team members, and swift but systematic clearing of each successive area.

The team Karen was following got off to a good start, for a
lthough the roll-up door leading into the loading area was closed and locked, someone had conveniently left the steel security door next to it propped open with a chunk of two-by-four. The first man inside moved left and cleared from the center to the far left corner. The second man moved right and cleared from the center to the far right corner. The third and fourth, right behind them, entered and cleared the other two quadrants of the loading dock.

Inside, Karen peered through the gloom at stacks of old wooden pallets and shredded garbage bags. Refuse was scattered about the cement floor.
The ceiling above her head was high, and the long-disused fluorescent light fixtures were filthy. The team’s lights probed the shadows back and forth, up and down. She saw two shapes parked inside the big rolling door and, moving toward them, realized that they were two motorcycles. She used the light attached to her SIG to check them out. They were both Harleys, a few years old, and appeared to be in good working order. Tire tracks on the floor seemed fairly recent. She put the back of her hand against the muffler. Cold.

She looked at the team leader, who was watching her. She shrugged and shook her head.

On the left of the loading area was a security door, propped open like the door they’d just entered. It led into the main front corridor of the factory that ran the full length of the building, east to west. Two team members slipped through this door as Karen watched. Their job was to sweep the main corridor and link up with another pair clearing the corridor from the other end of the building.

The other two, followed by Karen, moved through a pair of blue fabric barrier doors on the right, the kind of doors you were supposed to be able to bump open and push through with a cart or a
hand truck. On the other side of these doors was a product storage area with four long rows of empty ten-foot-high metal shelves. One man checked each row while the other covered the room. Karen, following orders, remained just inside the fabric doors, out of the way.

Was this the building where the Rainy Day Killer had held Theresa Olsen? The power had been shut down
several years ago, but the incident commander had confirmed that the city had never turned off the water. Griffin believed the Rainy Day Killer didn’t necessarily need electricity—the video camera could have been operated on battery power—but running water was a must for his clean-up procedures.

What the hell was
the deal with the motorcycles? It bothered her that there was no sign of a van or SUV around the place, and the bikes didn’t fit the picture. Could they have been left behind by the cannery staff? She shook her head. They had to belong to whomever had propped the doors open with the chunks of wood.

Maybe he used a van for his snatches and dumps, and a m
otorcycle for scouting and surveillance, giving him greater mobility.

One of the Tactical officers caught her eye and raised a thumb, indicating that the room was cleared. At that moment they heard the sound of distant gunfire.

“Thirty-one,” a voice said in Karen’s earpiece.

“Copy,” the entry team leader acknowledged.

A third voice, which Karen recognized as belonging to the incident commander, said from his command post outside in the parking lot, “Go hot. Acknowledge.”

“Copy that,” the team leader replied, his voice calm. “We’re hot. Rock and roll.”

She heard the two team members in front of her acknowledge the change in tactics to a dynamic clearing method, in which force and speed were now key to accessing the objective. The closest man pointed at Karen.

“Stay put.”

“Yeah, right,” she muttered. She heard a sound coming from one of the rows. She crouched and aimed. A rat passed through the beam of her light, scuttling on a bottom shelf. She turned back to find herself alone in the room.

She moved cautiously into the next room. She looked at m
otionless, filthy conveyor belts, packing tables littered with garbage, a rusted push cart.

More shots were fired, in another part of the building.

“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded. “Where is he?”

“Please stay off the channel, Detective,” the team leader said. “Remain where you are until the situation has been resolved.”

What the hell am I wearing body armor for?
she thought, shaking her head. “I’m exiting the packaging area and entering the canning area.”

“Negative, Detective. Remain where you are.”

Crouching, she moved through the door into the next room, a large, cluttered area where the crab meat and baby shrimps had been packed into cans. Conveyor belts were everywhere, bending and twisting, rising and falling. Weak amber daylight from the rising sun filtered through a row of filthy windows on the far side.

She moved beside a hooded mass of machinery that must have been used to put the lids on the cans and vacuum
-seal them shut. Now she could smell the foul odor of stale, rancid seafood. It wasn’t one of her favorite smells.

She heard movement through the maze of conveyors at her two o’clock and a shot rang out
. A bullet punched through the hood above her head and clanged around the machinery within.

“Taking fire in the canning room,” she said calmly, crouc
hing. “Not a good time for fratricide, folks.”

Voices chattered in her earpiece as the team leader co
nfirmed the location of each tactical pair. He assured Karen she was not taking friendly fire, and directed a pair to close on the canning area. Suddenly, more gunfire rang out elsewhere in the building and the tone of communications changed as another conflict erupted.

Edging along the side of the canning machine in a crouch, gun ready, Karen caught a glimpse of movement at her one o’clock. Someone scuttled past the end
of her row and on to the next.

She held her fire.

It didn’t make sense. The target she’d just seen was overweight, with long hair, a denim jacket, jeans, and cowboy boots. She hadn’t read anything in any of the case files connecting the Rainy Day Killer to firearms, and this guy was firing a semi-automatic pistol at her.

Was he working with a partner? A fat slob who rode a moto
rcycle and was a really bad shot?

On a sudden hunch, she doubled back the way she’d come, scuttling through the doorway into the packaging area
.

After
a moment, the guy edged through—gun first, belly second, nose third.

As soon as he cleared the doorway she stepped behind him and stuck the muzzle of her SIG into the back of his neck
, hard enough to leave a mark.

“Freeze, fuckhead.”

Startled, the guy yelped and dropped his gun on the floor.

She took double-cuff disposable plastic locking straps from a pouch on her vest, swiftly secured his wrists, and then used her handcuffs to lock him to the end of a conveyor belt.

“One suspect apprehended and secured in the packaging area,” she said.

“Copy,” replied the team leader. “Situation has been r
esolved, Detective. Thought you were told to stay put.”

“Don’t be a crab.”

He barked a short laugh that was mostly adrenaline. “On our way.”

She holstered her gun and eyed her prisoner. “Thought you could bug out, did you?”

“I’m just a ride-along,” the guy rasped, sweating profusely. “I don’t count for nothing. It’s not me you want. It’s Lewis who’s checking the place out. He’s the one.”

“Oh, and I guess Lewis was shooting at me from the other
end of the fucking building, was he?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was scared.”

“You didn’t
mean
to shoot at my fucking head? Exactly how stupid are you, you fucking moron?”

The room suddenly filled with bodies as the tactical team moved through on their way out of the building the way they’d come. They were leading another suspect, a taller, thinner version of the one she’d caught. This one, however, wore a leather jacket displaying gang colors, which explained the two motorcycles and ruled out the Rainy Day Killer as a possible squatter.

“Rest of the building’s clear,” the team leader told her. “We’ll send Crime Scene in, but we didn’t see any sign whatsoever that your guy was here. These two jokers were holding down the place for a meth lab. Just a happy coincidence we bumped into them.”

Karen freed her prisoner and pocketed her handcuffs. “And a good time was had by all.”

He winked at her. “Copy that.” He grabbed her prisoner and hustled him out of the room.

Alone,
Karen remained behind for a moment, looking around.

A damned false alarm, that’s what it was. Nothing but a go
ddamned false alarm.

Theresa Olsen hadn’t been here. But she’d been somewhere else like this. Filthy, poorly lit, foul-smelling, infested with rats, hop
elessly far away from help.

Karen’s heart caught for a moment as she thought
of Theresa ending her life in such a pitiless, desolate place at the hands of the Rainy Day Killer.

Two in the brainpan would be too good for an inh
uman son of a bitch like that.

She looked forward to the moment when she had him in her sights, cold.

16

Wednesday, May 1: late morning

Hank was reading a report submitted by Detective Kaplan on the interrogation of his suspect in the drive-by shooting when the telephone on his desk began to ring. He looked at the call display:

10:48 AM                                                        5-1

0-000-000-0000

UNKNOWN NAME

He hit the button on the call recording box attached to the phone and picked up the receiver: “GPD Homicide, Lieutenant Donaghue.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. I trust you’re well today. It’s a pleasure to finally make personal contact.”

Hank looked at his computer screen. The call recording box was a USB device connected to his computer. In addition to recording the call and storing it on the departmental network server, it also activated software that logged the call and opened an instant message to Criminologist II Mickey Marcotte, Byrne’s IT specialist, down in the lab. Hank grabbed his mouse and clicked on the “OK” button, which sent the instant message to Marcotte and activated a call-tracing routine.

“I recognize the voice,” Hank said, “but I don’t know your name.”

“I told you, Lieutenant, it’s Bill.”

“In Louisville it was Paul. In Pittsburgh it was Charlie. What’s your real name?”

“Actually, it
is
Bill.” The voice sounded tired. “William. I won’t give you my last name, though. Don’t want to make it too easy.” He laughed humorlessly. “Anyway, I assume you’re recording this call and trying to trace it, so I won’t spend all day on trivialities. I just wanted to say hello, make direct contact with you, so to speak, and let you know I saw the thing on the news about the raid on the factory. I laughed. It made my day.”

“Glad to hear it,” Hank said. “Where are you now?”

“Well, not there, that’s for sure. Although I did actually scout the place, so it was a nice try on your part. I couldn’t stand the stink. Eau de rotting crab. Not exactly conducive to romance. But your CSIs won’t find any trace of me there. I’m careful. Very careful.”

Hank glanced at his monitor and saw that Marcotte had r
esponded to his instant message with one of his own, indicating that the trace was underway. “Where are you originally from, Bill? I’m listening to your accent. Is it St. Louis? Is that where you’re from?”

“I saw that detective of yours on the news report,” the
man said, ignoring Hank’s question. “The short blonde one. I think her name’s Stainer, isn’t it? When she gave the reporter a ‘no comment’ it was like she was biting through a steel rod. She looks tough. I saw her on the footage under the bridge, too. By the way, that spokeswoman of yours, Montgomery. She’s quite a looker. Why don’t you let her do the updates on me any more?”

“Never mind them, Bill. It’s just you and me. This is between us now, isn’t it? You and me.”

“I expect that’s Father Ed’s doing. I think I remember reading about it in one of his books. Something about controlling the media and maintaining the UNSUB’s focus on a single person. Oh, well. That’s the way it goes. You’ll have to do.” The despondent tone was gone from his voice. “It was fun, though, being hunted by that woman cop in Louisville. Exciting. You may have noticed, both Stainer and Montgomery are my type. It could give me ideas, Lieutenant. You never know.”

Watching his monitor, Hank saw another instant message pop up on the screen. “Tracing. Bouncing all over the place. Staying with it.”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea, Bill,” Hank said, “unless you’d like to come in and talk to Detective Stainer one-on-one about it. You could go to any district police station and explain the situation to them, or you could come downtown here. I can give you the address.”

“Oh, I’ve got the address, Lieutenant, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that. Detective Stainer looks like she’d enjoy nothing more than double-tapping me right in the middle of the forehead. I’ll pass, thank you. Listen, I have to go. I know you’re probably getting u
pdates on the trace, which is bouncing through Europe and South America and all over the place right now. I just wanted to let you know that I’m trying to make up my mind who’s going to be my next love friend. It’s hard, because now I’ve got two more cute little blondes to consider. But there’s no rush. Just keep your eye on the weather. Who knows? The next time it rains, someone else could be taking the ride of her life. Well, the last ride of her life, anyway.”

The line went dead.

Hank rapped the disconnect button, got a dial tone, and called Marcotte. “Tell me you got him.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Marcotte replied. “This guy must have some skills, or really good software. I’ll analyze what happened but the bottom line is, we didn’t get a location.”

Hank hung up but kept his hand on the receiver. First, the package addressed to him with its grisly contents. Now, direct telephone contact. Griffin had been right: the Rainy Day Killer enjoyed making a personal connection between himself and the lead investigator, for whatever reason. The more often he contacted them, the more opportunities it created for him to make a mistake that would lead to his capture.

Hank didn’t like the man’s comments about Karen and Ele
anor Montgomery. It was a disturbing new direction that he couldn’t remember from any of the other case files. The killer had commented before about Lieutenant Kowpacki in Louisville and how he’d enjoyed being pursued by a female law enforcement officer, but Hank couldn’t recall a prior instance in which he’d talked about stalking a female cop as his next victim.

He lifted the receiver and punched in Ed Griffin’s number.