CHAPTER 27

 

Alan was up bright and early Monday morning. He had spent Saturday night with Amanda, drinking and watching old horror movies. On Sunday they had gone out to Easton, shopped a little, went to the cinema and had a nice dinner at Max and Erma’s.

The girl was growing on him big time.

He had not mentioned anything about his encounter with Tony at Snuffy’s. In fact, Tony’s name hadn’t come up the entire weekend. This made him think she felt safe with him and that her energy was being focused on the present instead of the past. That was a good thing.

His main order of the day was to assemble all the photos of laid off Urbangroup employees and show them to Katie Callahan. He had asked Amanda if UrbanGroup had any sort of corporate publication with photos of the employees through the years. She said there was in fact a complete collection of annual reports containing employee headshots stored at the office. He asked if he could come by and borrow them for the day and she said that shouldn’t be a problem.

One thing in particular had been bothering him ever since he’d come up with the revenge theory in this case. Why hadn’t Mike Draker or any of the other investigators ever interrogated UbranGroup’s former employees? He realized that the police had been inundated with other cases at the time but one would think they’d have considered revenge as a possible motive for Chloe’s murder.

Yet they hadn’t.

The only answer he could come up with was that there had been no reason to think that anybody would actually kill an innocent child just to hurt Travis McPherson. In fact, had it not been for his stumbling upon Henry Sands scoping out the schoolyard at Saint Christopher, Alan’s revenge theory may have never materialized in the first place. Learning from Banks that a black Lexus had picked up Chloe that day initially re-implicated her father as the prime suspect. But after McPherson’s alibi checked out, the next logical assumption was that somebody had wanted to make it appear that Travis McPherson was the murderer. Katie Callahan was his ace in the hole. She had actually seen the killer on her way to school that day. If she could ID the UrbanGroup employee from his photo array, Alan would have his man.

And he was now almost certain who that man was.

Gerald Thomas.

With renewed resolve, Alan showered, dressed and headed to UrbanGroup.

 

After arriving at UrbanGroup’s downtown branch he went directly to Amanda’s office and tapped on the doorframe to get her attention.

“Hey,” she said, smiling.

“Hope I’m not too early.”

“Not at all. I have them right here,” she replied, gesturing toward a stack of annual reports sitting on her desk. “Oh, and you can keep them—we apparently have plenty.”

“Awesome.”

Alan walked over and pecked her on the cheek.

“Thanks for finding these for me,” he said.

“No problem. I think that everybody you had on your list is in here. I went ahead and bookmarked the pages for you.”

“You didn’t have to do that. But thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Are you ever going to fill me in on the case? I know we agreed not to talk about it but it’s so hard—especially now that you asked for these.”

“I promise I’ll tell you everything once I feel that I actually have something solid to report. So far I have nothing but hunches and theories—nothing concrete. I will say one thing, though. These reports may very well be the case solver.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. So maybe the next time we talk I’ll have some news for you.”

“Where are you off to now?”

“I have an appointment out in the burbs. I probably better get moving.”

“Call me tonight?”

“For sure.”

“Lovely weekend, by the way.”

“The best I’ve had in years. We’ll have to do it again some time, eh?”

“For sure,” she replied.

They kissed again before he left.

Back in the Pilot, Alan leafed through the reports. He took a pair of scissors from the console and began clipping out each of the employee headshots, sans their names identified in the captions, and cross-referenced them with his list. On the back of each clipping he scribbled the initials of the person for reference. When he came to Gerald Thomas’s headshot, he gasped out loud. The photo showed a man in his early thirties dressed in a crisp suit and tie, clean-shaven with closely cropped hair, smiling confidently, at the camera. Alan flashed back to the man he had seen in camo pants and a hoodie with long greasy hair and stubble riding a ten-speed, and found it hard to believe it had been the same person.

Yet it had been.

Could this really be the barcode killer?

He thought of the down-on-his-luck life Gerald Thomas had led since leaving UrbanGroup and again felt doubtful this man was capable of committing these crimes. How could a strung-out, alcoholic loser like Thomas devise such elaborate plans and pull them off successfully without getting caught? It didn’t seem plausible.

But looks could be deceiving. Ted Bundy suddenly came to mind. Based on appearances, folks had trouble believing that such a well-mannered, clean-cut friendly guy could do such horrible things to all of those women. Yet he had. So why couldn’t Gerald Thomas, either the clean-cut or scraggly burnout version, have been Chloe’s murderer?

Alan cut out the last image and stacked the photos neatly. He noticed the time and realized he’d better get moving or he would be late for his appointment with the Callahans.

Fortunately Katie hadn’t gone to school that day. Her mother said she was just getting over the flu so she had decided to keep the youngster out one more day. She agreed to let Alan come by to show Katie the photos as long as it didn’t take too long. Her daughter needed rest.

As he neared the Callahan residence, Alan felt his pulse quicken. He felt confident that in a few minutes he’d know for certain who had killed Chloe McPherson. After Katie ID’d him, he would call Nick Draker. The police would in turn track Draker down, read him his rights and lock him up.

Once the killer was behind bars, Alan would at last be able to take a deep breath, knowing that justice would finally be served. The topper to it all would be the ultimate conclusion that Gerald Thomas was also responsible for the Wielding murder and Morrow arson case.

He could hardly wait.

He pulled into the Callahans’ driveway, gathered up the stack of headshots and got out. His anxiety was palpable as he knocked on the front door.

A moment later Nancy Callahan opened the door.

“Hello, Mr. Swansea. Come in.”

“Thanks.”

Alan followed her to the family room. Katie lay on the sofa watching TV, under a thick pink blanket.

“Mr. Swansea’s here to see you, honey,” Mrs. Callahan said.

“Hi Katie. I hear you’re a little under the weather,” Alan said.

“What’s that mean?” the girl asked.

“He means that you’ve been sick, Katie. It’s an old expression.”

Katie failed to see the connection and said nothing.

“I was wondering if you’d mind taking a look at some pictures.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Sit up honey,” her mother said.

Looking annoyed, the youngster sighed and propped herself up.

“What I’d like you to do is think back to that day at school when the man talked to you about Chloe. Then look through these pictures and tell me if you see the same man. Okay?”

“Okay,” she replied.

Alan handed her the photos. She looked at the top photo for a second and then flipped to the next one. She continued through the stack quickly, making Alan wonder if she was taking enough time to examine each one.

“Take your time, Katie. This is really important,” her mother said, apparently thinking the same thing.

“I am, Mom,” she replied.

Alan realized that he was holding his breath as she got closer to Gerald Thomas’s headshot. He had purposely planted it about two-thirds into the stack. The girl continued to zip through the photos until she finally paused for more than a second at one of them.

It was not Gerald Thomas.

She then resumed flipping and passed Gerald Thomas as quickly as she had the others. When she reached the last photo she looked up at Alan.

“I don’t see him.”

“Are you sure?” Alan said. “Maybe you should go through them one more time. And a little more slowly.”

“Take another look, sweetie,” her mother insisted.

With a heave of her shoulders Katie proceeded to thumb through the stack of photos again. She went slower this time, but Alan could tell she was just doing that to appease them. Alan watched as she passed up Gerald Thomas again as though it wasn’t even there, causing his heart to sink. When she reached the end, she looked first at Alan and then up at her mother.

“I don’t see him here.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” Alan said.

The girl nodded. “I’m sure.”

As much as he wanted to suggest she go through the stack again, Alan refrained. It was clear that the girl had not recognized Chloe McPherson’s killer in the array. Either she couldn’t remember what he looked like after a year had gone by or he simply wasn’t in there.

What it ultimately boiled down to was that he was not going to leave this house victorious at all.

“Well, thank-you, Katie. I appreciate it.”

“Sorry,” Mrs. Callahan said.

“So am I,” Alan replied.

A few minutes later as he backed out of the Callahan’s driveway, Alan crumpled the stack of photos into a tight ball with his hand. He needed a drink badly.

“Back to fucking square one again,” he seethed between his clenched teeth.