After supper, once Mom and the girls were settled in front of the TV, I pulled Marie aside. I’d told them I was going to help Marie clean up the kitchen, and they were more than willing to disappear.
Marie chuckled when I began clearing the table. “Why are you helping me? Do you have a fever?”
“No, I have to show you something.” I pulled the folded piece of copy paper out of my pocket. “Is this the man who came to the door and said he was Rob Thurston?” I handed her the paper, and she held it under the sink light.
She shook her head.
“Use your words, Marie.”
“Well, how would I know with a thumbnail-sized driver’s license photo? Plus the guy had on sunglasses, but I’ve already told you that.”
I jabbed the line showing his height on the paper. “It says he’s six foot six.”
“Right, and so are thousands of guys. Here’s my answer, Mitch. I don’t know. Plus his name isn’t Robert Thurston on the license.”
“Damn it. The license is fake.”
“So, what aren’t you telling me?”
I wiggled my finger for her to follow me upstairs.
“Geez, what is all the mystery about?”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you this because I knew it would worry you, but we’re pretty sure that man has killed three people.”
“He was here two days ago and you’re just telling me this now? What the hell?”
“That’s why I didn’t say anything. I knew you’d melt down.”
“And rightfully so. I’ve got two kids here and now Mom too.”
“And Patrol does a sweep every forty-five minutes. We have motion sensor lights and camera alarms. We can set the camera on the away mode so they’re always activated, if that makes you feel better.”
Marie groaned. “What would make me feel better is if criminals didn’t always want to kill you.”
I stared at the floor. “I’m sorry, Sis. We’ll catch him soon. I’m sure of it. Until then, if he or anyone you don’t know comes to the door, call 911 immediately.”
She grunted as she headed downstairs. “If that was supposed to make me feel better, it didn’t. Now come and help me finish cleaning up the dishes.”
It was ten o’clock when I said good night and headed upstairs. Chloe and Della had already gone to bed, Gus was settled in with the girls, and Marie and Mom were watching the last few minutes of a science fiction movie.
As I lay in bed, my thoughts returned to the accident earlier that day. Forensics hadn’t found anything of value in the sedan, and other than the reports of the black smoke Brandon’s car emitted, there wasn’t any nefarious reason for our mystery man to rear-end him. It truly was an accident, yet learning his destination or how he’d slipped through the police barricade could have helped our investigation.
I’ll never know that, and if I don’t turn off my mind I’ll never get to sleep.
I needed to make one call before my brain would power down. I pressed the office number for our night shift detectives, and seconds later, Ricky answered.
“Homicide, Detective Bloom speaking.”
“Hey, pal, it’s Mitch.”
“Shouldn’t you be dreaming about a Caribbean beach vacation right now?” he joked.
“If I never see the Caribbean again, it’ll be too soon.”
Ricky chuckled into the phone. “What can I help you with?”
“Just wondering if any legit calls came in after the sunglasses man’s driver’s license photo was aired on the news.”
He groaned. “Plenty of calls, but legit, not really. Since we didn’t air the guy’s height and only went with his face on TV, a caller would actually have to know him if they gave us his correct size. Most everyone we spoke with described him as an average guy in height and weight.”
“That doesn’t work.”
“Nope, it sure doesn’t.”
“Okay, thanks. I guess we’ll continue monitoring the calls in the morning.”
I hung up, closed my eyes, and after lying there for another half hour, fell asleep.
When I woke the next morning, I was energized. I assumed it was because I’d fallen into a deep sleep and stayed that way until my phone’s alarm woke me. I looked forward to arriving at the precinct and knew I’d be more productive if I walked in with a positive attitude. I showered, dressed, and grabbed a couple of cookies from the jar. Marie gave me a scowl as I headed for the door.
“Bye, everyone. Sorry I don’t have time for a sit down breakfast.”
At work, I caught Rue at the stairwell, and we walked up together.
“Wonder if the night shift got anywhere with the calls last night,” Rue said.
“As of ten fifteen, they hadn’t.”
Devon gave me a frown. “You called and asked?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so yeah. I needed to know.”
“Shit.” Rue scratched his forehead. “But it makes sense.”
“What does?”
“If the guy is actually an out-of-towner, there’s more than a good chance that nobody in Savannah will recognize him.”
I had to agree. Rue made a good point, and as soon as we talked to Bloom and Prentice, we would likely have a better idea of whether the man was a local or not.
We walked the hallway and met up with Royce. He said our briefing with the night shift was happening in five minutes. There was a lot to go over. Rue and I had just enough time to veer off to the lunchroom and grab two coffees.
In the briefing room, Rue, Lawrence, Bentley, and I took our seats next to the night shift detectives and officers. Royce and Bleu stood at the podium until everyone was situated and all eyes were on them.
Bleu began by saying he was happy that no new homicide reports had come in during the night. “We have enough to keep our hands full for quite a while. Also, the tip-line calls proved to be of no help, so far anyway. There are plenty coming in, but we’ve yet to hear anyone mention how tall the man was.” He looked at Royce. “Guess your guys can work the lines now. Maybe they’ll get lucky.”
Bleu sat down, and Royce took over. “The APB is still in effect for our mystery man. I’m sure you all know that the black sedan is in the evidence garage, but nothing useful was discovered. Meanwhile, the hunt for him just got tougher. He’s either on foot, which can make hiding pretty easy, or he’s scored another car, which we don’t have any information on. No matter what, watch the streets and sidewalks for any man who’s unusually tall. He could have dyed his hair, so don’t just assume he has black hair and ignore the rest. He also could have left town before our alert went out to all the transport companies. Today, I’ll send an alert over the internet to all police and sheriff’s office locations throughout the US with his driver’s license photo and vital statistics. Somebody will see him, even if it isn’t us, call it in, and he’ll be arrested. It’s just a matter of time. Today, we’ll have four officers work the phone lines, and the rest of you do whatever you can to track down that monster before he kills someone else.” Royce slapped his hands together and dismissed us.
In the office and seated at my desk, I wondered what we could do to find a solid lead. I had been sure the driver’s license would be our golden ticket, but that was a miserable failure.
“What now?” Rue asked. “We’ve spoken with everybody who was related to or knew our victims. Airing the picture of the perp on TV hasn’t proven to be successful.”
“It’s still early. Royce said they’re going to air his face on all the news stations throughout the day and tonight too.”
“Maybe we should widen the coverage, even to neighboring states, especially Alabama.”
“Not a bad idea. I’ll run that by Royce.” I tapped my pen on the desk as I thought. “If we’re able to get another proximity key for that sedan, there’s the chance that Forensics can pull up the locations it’s been to from the navigation system.”
“I bet we’d need a warrant for that spare key. I imagine since Forensics didn’t find a key in the car, our mystery guy had it in his pocket when he fled.”
“Likely.” I grabbed my phone’s receiver and called Royce. I ran my idea about the proximity key past him, and he was on board. He said he would call Judge Laughlin. I also told him about Rue’s idea of spreading the perp’s face across other states’ news outlets, especially Alabama’s. He liked that idea too.
After hanging up, I gave Rue a nod. “We might have a successful day after all.”
Within the hour, we were notified that the judge had okayed the warrant. The car rental headquarters would have to surrender the secondary proximity key for the sedan. It would be overnighted to the forensic garage in Savannah, and hopefully, they would find useful locations—if any were programmed into the navigation system. I kept my fingers crossed that our perp had actually used the navigation, especially if he wasn’t familiar with Savannah, and that was the direction we were leaning in. Getting his photo on out-of-state news channels would prove more difficult and time-consuming since other states didn’t have a reason to broadcast his picture. There wasn’t an immediate threat in their viewing areas, and as we all knew, people watched news to find out what was happening in their own back yards.
An idea popped into my head that could save Royce a lot of time and might give us better results. Other than running his face across Birmingham’s local news stations, I thought we would get a bigger bang for our buck by airing the perp’s image on the US Nightly News. It was a long shot but might prove to be a huge success.
I called Royce and told him my thoughts on the news coverage. He promised to give it serious consideration and let us know. He admitted that it couldn’t hurt to contact the news station and see if he could discuss the possibility with someone.
After checking in with the officers about the tip-line calls to see if there was somebody we needed to interview in person—and there wasn’t—Rue and I headed to the lunchroom to grab some food while we had time. On our way back and with our hands full of sandwiches and chips, we stopped in by Bentley and Lawrence to share the latest news. We had to be proactive instead of reactive if we ever wanted to solve the case and bring the killer to justice.
“So the judge okayed the warrant for the proximity key? That’s huge,” Lawrence said. “We could nab that killer as soon as we find out where he’s been. If he’s staying in town at a motel or somebody’s house, all bets are off for him. We’ll swoop in and take his ass to jail.”
“That’s the plan. I doubt that he had time to clear all the locations when he crashed into Brandon’s car. He just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.”
Bentley chuckled. “Can’t wait to find out what’s programmed in there. By the way, how is Brandon? Didn’t you say his forehead was scuffed and bleeding?”
“Yep, but he refused treatment. He didn’t have working airbags, his car was trashed, and Patrol cited him, too, for driving an uninsured vehicle.”
Lawrence laughed. “When it rains, it pours.”
Bentley jumped in on the phrase game. “Three strikes and you’re out. He’s got two against him already.”
I held up my hands. “Okay, okay, and I don’t even want to know what the third strike would be. Maybe I’ll do a follow-up call to make sure he’s all right.”
We carried on and returned to our office, where we wolfed down our lunches. I pulled the police report on the accident and dialed Brandon’s number. It went directly to voicemail. I left a message, asked if he was okay, then hung up. “Nobody answers,” I said. “I feel bad for the guy. He said he couldn’t afford to fix his car, and he still had to pay to have the piece of crap towed away.”
“And he got slapped with a citation.”
“Yep, that too.”
After wiping the crumbs off my mouth and taking a swig of iced tea, I walked down the hall to check on the progress of the tip-line calls again. We had exhausted every means we had to get a lead, and we needed something to do. I approached Officer Petrie and asked how it was going. His response was the same as when I’d spoken with him before lunch. Nobody had described the man as tall.
With slumped shoulders, I returned to our office. Waiting until tomorrow for that proximity key to arrive would drive me crazy, yet I had no guarantee that anything useful would show up on the navigation system.
I sat down and tried Brandon’s phone again without luck. “Either he’s pissed and doesn’t want to talk to the police because of the citation, or he’s at work and can’t use his phone.”
Rue frowned. “What was his job again?”
I looked through the police report and saw that his job wasn’t noted. “Don’t know. I guess he wasn’t asked when giving his statement.”
Seconds later, Royce stormed into our office. By the look on his face, bad news was headed our way.
“We just got a call from Patrol. Brandon Ellis’s boss has tried reaching him all day. He didn’t report into work for his shift.”
I sat up straight. “And?”
“And Patrol finally did a welfare check. They heard his phone ringing inside the house and then made entry. They found him dead on the floor. They said his face was smashed beyond recognition.”
“Shit. That’s the same way John Keller was found.”
Royce waved us on. “Get over there now. I’ll text you the address. It’s somewhere on the west side of town.”
“On it.”