CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Tuesday, September 12, 1:05 A.M.
Tutwiler Hotel

 

 

Vivian’s parents had called twice to make sure she was all right. She appreciated their concern but she didn’t want to talk about this.

Pierce had tried her cell three times. The third time she had told him she didn’t want to talk.

Not to him anyway.

She wasn’t sure she would be ready to talk about anything personal with him again in this lifetime. Trust didn’t come easily. Which made the fact that she had spilled her guts to McBride completely irrational. They had talked about her childhood, which couldn’t have been more satisfying or complete. High school had been high school. She hadn’t exactly been a nerd … but she hadn’t been popular either.

Then college, and her life had turned upside down.

Until it happened to them, no one realized how much could change in a mere instant.

The night air was cool; the view from the balcony calming in a strange way. What lay all around her was home, though for years she had tried to deny it.

McBride had loosened her up with a miniature bottle of Jim Beam whiskey. What could she say? She was a cheap drunk. One little bottle and she was ready to tell him anything he would sit still long enough to hear.

Or maybe she just needed to tell someone.

“After study group ended,” he prodded, reminding her that she had stopped mid-story.

“I was on my way back to my dorm.” She moistened her lips and forced her mind to look at that painful memory. “It was late. Dark. Past curfew. I knew if I was caught I’d be in trouble, so I stuck to the shadows. Stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid.” He leaned against the banister, exhaled the drag he had taken. “Understandable. You were seventeen. You were more afraid of disappointing the dean and your parents than you were of the dark.”

She made a derisive sound. “Boy, I learned that lesson in a hurry.” Taking in a big breath, she continued. “I never saw or heard him. I woke up in a room later, hours, maybe minutes. Felt like a basement. I found out later it was. The bastard had a mansion in Brentwood, just outside Nashville. He was a doctor … or at least he pretended to be one. His license was phony. Dr. Lyle Solomon didn’t exist beyond the two years he had been practicing medicine in Nashville.”

McBride didn’t ask any questions. He just let her talk.

“The first few days I was certain someone would come. Then I slowly began to realize that no one was coming.” She remembered that moment, as if it had only been that morning. The realization had almost caused her to give up. Then, for some reason she would never understand, her determination kicked in. “From the beginning I did whatever he told me. I’d heard about a couple of his other victims. I knew what would happen if I didn’t. Maybe it was the whole obedience mentality of growing up in a conservative Southern home. Whatever. I did exactly what he told me—no matter how sickening.”

“Hey, you’re alive. You were smart.”

Or a coward. “I wasn’t smart, McBride, I was desperate.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, but the chill came from deep within. “I didn’t have a weapon. He was bigger and stronger than me. I was helpless. Then he said something to me that made me think.” She shuddered at the memory. “He touched my throat …”—she demonstrated—“at the pulse and reminded me how fragile life was. I thought about that and decided he was right. All I had to do was hit the right spot. I’d have only one chance. I’d either kill him or he’d kill me.”

“Desperate can be good,” McBride allowed. “You got the job done.”

Yeah, she did. “I never saw his face until after he was dead. Just heard his voice …” She had always been certain that there were two men. That certainty nagged at her even now.

“You made sure he couldn’t hurt anyone again,” McBride said as he tamped out his cigarette. “That’s something to be proud of, Grace.”

“There were times …” Should she do this? The shrinks, the investigators, they had all told her that the second man’s voice was her mind playing games on her. The fact that she had murdered a man, even such a sicko, in what could only be called a heinous manner, had caused her to invent the other voice. “I was certain there were two men. Two distinct, different voices. But the evidence indicated only one subject was involved and I killed him.”

McBride considered her revelation a moment. “Are you afraid that the owner of that other voice is still out there? Do you look over your shoulder when you cross a dark parking lot?”

The answer was yes. She did. As hard as she tried to pretend she didn’t, she did. “Yeah, I do.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I’m still a little afraid when I let myself dwell on it. Maybe that’s why anonymity felt safer.”

He assessed her with those blue eyes that saw right into her soul. “Then you’re human, Vivian Grace. If you felt anything else, you wouldn’t be.”

He was right. For the first time in a really long time, she felt that someone understood.

“Thanks, McBride. You’re not nearly as shallow as I originally thought.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He straightened away from the railing. “Have another whiskey, Grace.” He sniffed his shirt. “I need a shower.”

She watched him disappear into the room, the smile on her lips widening instead of slipping. Though she had known him four days, she had scarcely cracked the surface of the complex man beneath the indifferent veneer. What she had found underneath, she liked … a lot.

Maybe she would have another of those whiskeys. She could sleep like the dead for a couple of hours and then get back to the office. One thing was clear, she could not live her life hiding from the past any longer. It was time to face it head-on. If any of her colleagues gave her any grief, she would set them straight.

She had just twisted off the top of another miniature bottle when her phone vibrated. On the table next to the bed, McBride’s phone trembled against the wooden surface.

She looked at her phone’s display before taking the call. Agent Davis.

She flipped it open and then answered, “Grace.”

Davis’s first three words had ice forming in her veins. Come in now.

Vivian glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table, her pulse reacting to the tension in Davis’s voice. “It’s only one-thirty.” She and McBride weren’t scheduled to go back in until four. “What’s going on?”

Davis told her that he had tried to call Worth at home and had gotten his wife. Worth hadn’t made it home and there was no answer on his cell. But the strangest part was that his car was parked in his driveway.

Devoted Fan’s most recent e-mail scrolled past her mind’s eye, pausing on one particular part: “ … this one is a lesson I am sure you will appreciate as much as I.”

How could Devoted Fan have known that Worth and McBride didn’t particularly like each other? The bastard couldn’t be watching them that closely.

“I’ll call Pierce,” she told Davis. “McBride and I will meet him and head that way.”

Vivian closed her phone. Jesus. If this scumbag could get to Worth … no one was safe.

 

 

2:00 A.M.
1000 Eighteenth Street

 

McBride drove since Grace preferred not to after having had that single shot of whiskey. Pierce followed. If he knew any more than they did, he had said nothing.

As if the media had sensed trouble in the wind, the crowd outside the field office had multiplied to what it had been prior to Trenton’s rescue.

The rush inside and up the stairs left no opportunity for chitchat. Suited McBride fine. He had nothing to say to Pierce. Neither did Grace it seemed.

“Let’s have an update,” Pierce ordered as soon as they entered the conference room that had served as a command center for the past few days.

“Talley and Aldridge are working with Birmingham PD on the scene at Worth’s home,” Pratt related. “Apparently he drove his Crown Victoria straight home after leaving the office. His wife and son were in bed asleep and didn’t realize he had even arrived or that he hadn’t come inside until Davis called. According to ADT Security Services, Worth didn’t enter the home since the alarm was activated at 10:15 P.M. and that status remained so until Mrs. Worth got up to check on his whereabouts at 12:50 A.M.”

McBride propped a hip on the edge of the conference table and studied the timeline board where new notations were in the works as Pratt spoke. Davis was scribbling away with a Dry Erase marker.

An agent McBride hadn’t met, male, young, skinny guy, hurried into the room. “Agent Pierce,” the new guy said, evidently knowing where the most power lay, “there’s a new communication from Devoted Fan.”

McBride shoved off the table and headed for the computer. Grace waited next to his chair. Pierce, Pratt, and Davis moved up behind him as he clicked the necessary tabs.

McBride,

As I am sure you know by now, Randall Worth is a part of your latest challenge. He has a lesson to learn, atonement to find, as did the others. Once more, survival depends upon you.

It is such a shame that when someone or something grows older, many times it is set aside for a newer model. Flesh and blood, brick and mortar, nothing is respected for its true value.

Unfortunately for Agent Worth, the tearing down of the old could destroy him as well. Amid a cloud of controversy the old sometimes falls, ending many, many stories. Perhaps the fall is inevitable. In the end, it is only the truth that really matters, not the story at all. Not even a century of stories.

This is the final test, Agent McBride. I trust you will not fail … Agent Worth is counting on you … he is hanging by a thread. This time I do have one minor condition: no one but you and Agent Grace are to enter the scene. I will be watching; any failure to adhere to that condition will result in great calamity. You have six hours … starting now.

Sincerely,
Devoted Fan

“Does any of the phrasing reach out to anyone?” Pierce asked.

Six hours.

That phrase reached out and grabbed McBride by the throat. Fuck.

“I’ll run the phrasing against any historic landmarks in Birmingham,” Pratt volunteered. “Brick and mortar … stories.” He shrugged. “Controversy.”

“So far, historic landmarks appear to be his crime scene of choice,” Grace explained to Pierce. “If Worth is at risk of falling as suggested by the e-mail, then we’re looking for a location with more than one floor or an elevation of some sort.”

Lila Grimes, Worth’s secretary, appeared at the door, her eyes red and swollen. “I thought you might need my help,” she offered. She cleared her throat. “Agent Worth’s cell calls have been forwarded here. I’ll take those calls until he … he returns.” She hesitated, seemed to gather her composure. “There was a call from Agent Schaffer. She’s faxing a number of letters she found in Agent McBride’s files.”

Schaffer. The boot lady. “Thanks,” McBride said to the distraught secretary as he pushed out of his chair. He strode over to the fax machine, which had already whirred to life.

Davis joined McBride. “Sir, I may have found a connection between a name on the fan list and Dr. Trenton.”

McBride shifted his attention to Davis. “What kind of connection?”

“It may not be relevant,” Davis qualified, “but—”

“Agent Davis,” Pierce interrupted, “if you have an update, we’d all like to hear it.”

Davis looked from McBride to Pierce. “Yes, sir.” He pivoted and addressed the room. “Agent Arnold and I have been narrowing down a fan mail list.” He gestured at McBride. “Fan mail for Agent McBride.” Davis adjusted the tie he’d loosened sometime earlier in the night. “Anyway, we found a name, Martin Fincher. Fincher’s wife was a transplant patient a couple of years ago. Dr. Trenton was the surgeon of record.”

McBride felt that old familiar tension ripple through him. “There has to be a connection to the others as well,” he urged. “One isn’t enough. Look harder.”

Davis nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Agent Arnold?” Pierce wanted to know.

Davis seemed a little less nervous with the second question. “He’s going door to door down the list of names. That was SAC’s order. I was supposed to catch up with him but then the news about Agent Worth came in and …”

Pierce nodded. “I understand. You should locate Arnold now.” Pierce surveyed the room. “I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone. We work in pairs.”

McBride mulled over the idea of Devoted Fan as Martin Fincher with a wife in ill health. If it was about something Trenton did or didn’t do …

“Pratt,” McBride said, “wake up someone on Trenton’s staff. Find out how the surgery on Fincher’s wife turned out.”

“Will do.”

Grace joined McBride at the fax machine. “What did Schaffer find?”

Remembering what he’d come to the fax machine for, McBride grabbed the stack of pages. Six in all. He read the note from Schaffer on the lead page. “Discovered one letter from this same guy in your fan mail file. Found five others, unopened, in the bottom of one of the boxes shipped to you. Whoever packed the boxes just tossed the letters in and then shoved your files on top of them. You just can’t get organized help anymore.”

McBride appreciated her cutting sense of humor. The part of his brain that wasn’t in shock at the idea of having only six hours wondered what color boots Schaffer had on. Purple? Green? Pushing aside the distraction, he shuffled to the first letter, read it, then read the next and the next after that. The adrenaline searing through him turned to ice.

“Son of a bitch.” He passed the letters to Grace, his gaze colliding with hers. “It’s Fincher.” That one letter he’d read from the man years ago was why the e-mails had felt familiar to him. The formal prose, the wide margins and excessive spacing. And damn, the man had even signed the last two “Martin Fincher, your devoted fan.” Two of the letters had been sent after Fincher’s son had been murdered. In both he had lamented that he was certain McBride could have saved his son … but the special agent-in-charge refused Fincher’s request for McBride. Randall Worth had been the special agent-in-charge.

“Fincher probably blames Worth for the loss of his son,” Grace said as she read the final letter McBride passed to her. “Oh, my God … this guy has been obsessed with you for years.” Her gaze collided with McBride’s. “And you were right … he does have a story to tell.”

Davis rushed back into the room. “Got a call from Arnold as I was heading out. He says McBride needs to see what he’s found.”

“At Martin Fincher’s residence.” McBride guessed.

“You got it,” Davis confirmed. “He’s already ordered a forensics unit.”

“Pratt, you keep working on this e-mail and any connections you can come up with,” Pierce said. “Grace, McBride, we’ll follow Davis.”

McBride tossed the letters onto the conference table. If they were damned lucky, there would be some kind of clues at Fincher’s house about where this latest challenge was going down.

Otherwise, Agent Worth was fucked.

And McBride would fail … again.

3:30 A.M.
Seven Oaks Drive, Vestavia Hills
Four hours, thirty minutes remaining …

 

The forensics van waited at the curb. McBride, Grace, and Pierce arrived, pulling in behind it.

Agent Arnold stood at the door of Martin Fincher’s small cottage. “You gotta see this, man,” he said to McBride. “I didn’t want to let anyone else in until you’d taken a look.”

“Good work, Arnold,” McBride confirmed. Any change in the unsub’s environment could alter an investigator’s or profiler’s overall assessment of what he was dealing with.

Once outfitted with gloves and shoe covers, they followed Arnold inside. The house was clean and neat; the decorating and furnishings older, but in immaculate condition. A picture of Fincher, his wife, and son sat on a table. Fincher wore dark, horn-rimmed glasses just like Horace Jackson said.

“First,” Agent Arnold said, “you need to see his office.”

Arnold led the way through the living room and down the narrow hall to the first door on the left. The office couldn’t have been more than ten by twelve feet, but every inch of wall space, floor to ceiling, was covered in newspaper clippings. Most were about McBride.

“Here’s something on Trenton.” Arnold indicated one of the articles. “Katherine Jones.” He pointed to another, then looked at McBride. “Here’s a full-page spread on Byrne and the article mentions Worth.”

Grace moved closer and started reading.

“Give me the Reader’s Digest version,” McBride said to Arnold. “I’m on a tight schedule here.” The tension was expanding with each passing minute, making it harder and harder to stay calm and focused.

“Six years ago,” Arnold began, “Martin Fincher’s twelve-year-old son went missing. Agent Worth was in charge of the case. Four days later, the boy’s body was found, along with another teenage boy who had gone missing in Jefferson County the week prior. The boys were found at a construction site.”

“A Byrne construction site,” McBride offered.

Arnold nodded. “That’s right.”

“How does Katherine Jones fit into this?” Grace asked, pausing from her reading.

“She was the clerk on duty in the electronics department at Wal-Mart the evening the Fincher boy went missing.”

Grace’s gaze met McBride’s. “She didn’t notice the abduction … making her guilty in Fincher’s eyes. Oblivious.”

McBride figured the same. “What about Trenton?” There were several headlines about him plastered on the wall.

“Oh yeah,” Arnold said, “Pratt called while you were en route. Couldn’t get through on your cell,” he said to Grace. “He spoke with Trenton’s office manager who checked the schedule. She didn’t like it, said she had to pull up a whole different program to do it. Anyway, Trenton turned Mrs. Fincher’s surgery over to one of his colleagues because Tipper Winfrey’s name came up on the list for a heart that same day. The office manager reminded Pratt that the surgery had taken place two years ago, and that if there was a problem, the doctor’s office never heard about it.”

“State Senator Tipper Winfrey?” Grace asked for clarification.

Arnold gave her an affirming look. “The one and only.”

“Where’s Fincher’s wife?” McBride knew where this was going.

“Now that,” Arnold said, his big frame looking even larger with the cockiness that went hand in hand with knowing something no one else did, “is the really creepy part. Come this way.”

He led the way to a bedroom farther down the hall and to the right. A woman wearing a flannel nightgown lay in bed. If she had slept through all this, then she was on heavy drugs.

McBride approached the bed slowly.

“Don’t worry,” Arnold called after him, “she’s dead.”

McBride studied the body. Damned good condition if she’d been dead two years. A dozen bottles of prescription medicine sat on the table next to her. Transplant patients required lots of drugs, immune depressors, blood thinners. He didn’t know all the names, but he didn’t have to. The picture was crystal clear.

“Mummified?” Grace asked as she moved to his side.

“Looks like she’s been coated in plastic or some kind of clear varnish.” McBride touched one smooth cheek. “At least now we know why Dr. Trenton’s office didn’t get a call back when things didn’t go well. Fincher wanted to keep her at home.”

Pierce joined the party. “Fincher’s not going to be too happy when he finds out we’ve taken her away.” His gaze locked with McBride’s. “We’ve got to finish this fast. He’s already a couple of steps ahead of us. If he comes back here before we find Agent Worth you know how this will end.”

Like I need anyone to remind me. McBride turned to Grace. “Search the rest of the house with Arnold. Pierce and I are going back to that office to see if we can find anything that will help locate Worth.” McBride shifted his attention back to Pierce. “Fincher will stay hidden somewhere near the scene where he’s holding Worth until Grace and I come to rescue him. He likes to watch us do it. We can’t do anything until we know where to go.”

That was the hell of it … the clues sucked this time.

The manic ramblings of a devoted fan.

 

 

4:45 A.M.
Three hours, fifteen minutes remaining …

 

McBride found the cemetery map, the information regarding the sealing of tombs, the newspaper article related to the controversy with the Wellborne family. There was a schematic for Sloss Furnaces, created for the preservation board. A complete blueprint for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church related to last year’s restoration efforts. But nothing on where Worth might be now.

Grace and Arnold had come up empty-handed in their search of the rest of the house. The third room, at the end of the hall, was a kid’s room. From the look of things, it was just as it had been the last time the Fincher boy had slept there.

Pierce had Agent Pratt on speakerphone.

“Any historic buildings recently abandoned for a new construction?” McBride inquired. Time was running out fast and they had nothing.

“We found three,” Pratt reported. “An old military plane hanger that was deemed unsafe and beyond restoration. A piece of residential property that was supposedly used in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. And the old Birmingham News building. But that last one is still up in the air. The Preservation Committee is lobbying hard to save the old News building.”

“Which ones are brick and mortar?” McBride was reasonably sure he could count on that part of the e-mail as literal.

“The residence that might be part of the Underground Railroad and the Birmingham News.”

“In the end, it is only the truth that really matters, not the story at all. Not even a century of stories.”

“Wait.” McBride mentally chewed on that a moment. “Is the Birmingham News still in operation?”

“Definitely,” Pratt said. “They built a new building and want to demo the old one for a parking lot.”

“But you say that’s not scheduled,” Pierce reiterated.

“No, the Preservation Committee is trying to save it.”

“Amid a cloud of controversy the old sometimes falls …”

“How many floors is the old building?” McBride was itching to get moving. The tension was churning inside him. This had to be it.

“Five plus a mezzanine.”

Definitely a lethal fall.

“They misspelled his son’s name.”

McBride’s attention swiveled to Grace, who was reading another of the articles plastered on the wall. “Show me.” He moved to her side, looked at the line in the Birmingham News article about the bodies found at the construction site. “Daniel Fitcher,” he muttered as he shook his head. “Looks as if they focused more ink to showing how Byrne employed hundreds of Birmingham citizens in his construction companies than on covering the murder of two young boys.”

McBride touched the misspelled name. “That’s the place. He’ll be waiting somewhere close by, watching for our arrival.”

Grace nodded her agreement. “Just the two of us this time.”

Pierce put his hands up in a hold-it gesture. “No way am I letting the two of you go into this without backup.”

“Then we might as well all go back home,” McBride warned, “because if we don’t follow the rules, Worth is a dead man.”