His phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and was relieved to see it was Ann. “I was hoping you would call tonight. How are you?”
“Feeling beat up. The funeral for the mom and her six-year-old twins was today. There was an arrest made this afternoon. The case came down to a divorce. The mom got custody of the kids, and the father decided none of them should live. The man was a state court judge. I’m not sure how much I helped my cop beyond buying the food and listening, but at least he’s finally going to get a decent night’s sleep. I’m on the way to the airport. A question: do you want to do the flyover of the burial sites and visit the cabin tomorrow? The weather is good. It may not be later in the week. A front will be moving through.”
“Sure, but you would benefit from a day off.”
“Flying is my way to relax. I wouldn’t offer if it wasn’t something I wanted to do.”
“Then the answer is yes. The timing dovetails well with where we are at in the review.”
“We’ll need to be in the air by seven a.m., if you could let Sam and Rita know. How’s Black?”
He held the phone down. “Black, say hi to mom.” The dog barked once, and his tail slapped Paul’s leg.
“He misses you. We both do.” More emotion than he had intended went into those words.
She hesitated before responding, and her words when they came were a soft echo of his. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Fly safe, Ann.”
“I always do. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.”
Paul walked through the VP’s home to the sunroom just before six a.m. to see if Ann had arrived. He stopped short. His sister-in-law was having breakfast with the VP.
“Paul, please, get a plate and join us.”
“Glad to, sir. Vicky, this is a pleasant surprise.”
“The VP asked if I would go along as security for this trip. He said Reece was helping you on a case and would be otherwise occupied, and someone needed to watch that your trip attracted no particular attention. That’s the definition of my specialty. I’m going to hang out with Ann and watch your back.”
“I’ll be glad to have you.” Paul glanced at the VP, wondering if any of that reason was true or if the VP had simply found a reason for Ann to have the company of a friend on the trip. Either way, Paul was glad for the outcome.
He joined them at the table with a breakfast plate.
“Ann has already come and gone,” Vicky said. “She arrived, stacked three bacon sandwiches, said good morning to Black, and left for the airport. She said to join her at hangar four.”
Paul nodded, regretting that he’d missed her.
Paul was beginning to appreciate airports and private hangars and the coordinated activity going on around the flight line. He walked with Sam and Rita, following Reece and Vicky to the hangar Ann had specified. Ann was circling a stunning plane painted deep blue. The name Grant Summer was painted in crisp white script near the open passenger cabin door and stairs. She tucked her clipboard under her arm when she saw them. “Good morning. We’ve got beautiful weather to fly. Settle in and get comfortable. I’ll be ready to go in about ten minutes.”
The cabin was configured to seat eight, all captain’s chairs in a deep plush leather. Paul chose a seat in the middle of the cabin, and the others spread out around him. Ann boarded the plane fifteen minutes later and pulled the door closed. “Everyone comfortable?”
“It’s a nice ride, Ann,” Reece remarked, speaking for all of them.
“It is that.” She scanned the group. “I’m going to give a one-minute safety drill, so listen up. Emergency exits are those windows marked with orange squares. The top two levers, pulled together and turned ninety degrees, will pop the window out. They will also yield to a hard kick. Smoke is a problem in this cabin configuration. If oxygen masks come down, use them. If this plane is going down, your best defense is to tighten your seat belts, brace your feet against the closest seat, and lock your arms around your neck. Better a broken arm than a broken neck. Turbulence can bounce this plane around the sky, so if I turn on the yellow caution lights in the cabin, find a seat and a seat belt. The highest risk on a clear day like this is a bird strike on takeoff. You hear a thump, you yell bird, and you brace as fast as you can. The airports we are using today aren’t forgiving about an immediate stall. I’ll be picking grass out of my teeth thirty seconds after we lift off if we strike a bunch of blackbirds.”
“You know how to set the stage, Ann,” Paul said.
“Now you’ll be glad when I get you safely in the air. On a lighter note, the snacks and beverages on this flight are top drawer and fair game, so help yourself. The purpose of this flight is a visual survey of the grave sites, so I will be flying at a low altitude for most of the flight. I will give a two-minute alert as we come to each location. There are two planned stops today, the first one in about six hours. I hope you enjoy the flight. I know I’m going to have a nice day flying this gorgeous plane.”
Ann walked forward and settled into the cockpit.
Minutes later the engines were started. The plane pulled slowly from the hangar and turned toward the taxiway. After a pause and when they were cleared for takeoff, Ann turned onto the runway and began to pick up speed. Paul saw Sam and Rita both at windows, scanning the sky looking for birds, while Vicky and Reece relaxed in their chairs, conversing quietly about a mutual friend. The flight lifted off so smoothly, Paul didn’t feel them leave the ground.
Paul spread out the map of the Midwest, marked with the victims’ burial sites. Ann had added small numbered Post-it notes to show the order they would pass over the sites.
Forty minutes after the flight began, Vicky’s phone vibrated with a message, and she walked forward to join Ann in the cockpit. She returned and announced, “Out the east windows, coming up in two minutes, will be the burial site for victim six.”
They flew over the area, and Paul got his first look at what this killer defined as a proper dumping ground. Thick, mature trees, a country road, isolated, not a house within sight even from the air. He hadn’t stumbled on a place like this just by pulling off the highway and driving into the countryside. He had spent some time to locate this area. Paul made notes on the burial site.
Ten minutes later they passed over another one. More trees, and isolated, hard-to-reach terrain. A hunter would wander those woods, wildlife, but it was isolated ground. The victims had been buried too deep to have an animal disturb the remains, or a heavy rain dislodge the body.
The day passed in a grim progression of burial sites, each one more remarkable than the last for how similar they looked from the air. The chief of staff had been a planner. He had wanted his victims to remain secure until he chose to reveal their locations. None of the eighteen had been found before he wished them to be found. The sites were yet another taste of the control he had wanted to exert over his victims.
Vicky came back from the cockpit. “Ann says we’ll be landing at Columbus in ten minutes. It will be a half-hour stop, depending on the refueling time, but enough time to walk around. Any changes you need her to make to the flight plan, this is the time to say so.”
“Her plan is fine. We’re getting what we need,” Paul assured Vicky after a quick glance around at the team.
The second leg of the trip took them across more grave locations and then toward the cabin site. Late in the day, Vicky came back from the cockpit carrying a hand-sketched map. “The cabin is about ten minutes ahead. Ann will fly over the site, then circle to the airport, and we will drive to the cabin.” She held up the map. “Here’s the lake. The cabin is on the north side of this inlet, back from the shore about fifty feet. Watch for where the water and shoreline start to look like the letter Y, and you’ll have the area.”
Ann brought the flight in low enough that Paul could clearly see the leaves on the treetops and the water shining bright below them. They flew toward the inlet. The area of the cabin was remarkable for what it was. Isolated, heavily wooded, w
ith only one access road coming to a dead end. Ann banked and turned toward the airport. Paul saw only two fishing boats visible on the water.
Ann landed the aircraft with such skill he didn’t feel the wheels touch down. She taxied to a private area of the airport, turned the plane in a tight circle, and came to a stop lined up along the taxi ramp.
Paul was thinking about how to suggest that Ann stay with the plane rather than join them for the drive to the cabin. But when Reece came back with keys for two rental cars, Ann walked with Vicky to the second car. Paul hesitated, but decided it was best she make her own decision.
Reece drove, making the trip from memory and not even needing to glance at a map. Paul watched him, aware of the tension in the man. They hadn’t sat down for an interview yet—Paul intentionally keeping it for a later date. The VP had been a victim, and Paul understood the man’s instincts to hide what had happened. Reece was the man who had decided not to push back against the idea of a cover-up. Paul wasn’t sure yet that he fully understood Reece’s thinking, or his motives.
The dirt road leading to the site wandered through heavy trees, in places nearly impassable from washouts over the years. Reece slowed and pointed. “There’s the cabin site, up ahead near that cluster of white pines.”
Reece scanned the road and chose a place to park where he could turn around later. Vicky pulled in and parked beside him. Paul could see the lake now, the sunlight flickering off the water. The dock on the lake still stood. They all got out of the vehicles.
Paul glanced at Ann. She was talking with Vicky, all but ignoring the scene. He was relieved when Ann stayed leaning against the car while they walked to the grown-over remains of the cabin.
Paul stood at what would have been the cabin’s front door, and he listened. There was only the faint sound of a motor on the water. He could hear no traffic. There were few indications of civilization. The chief of staff had not been one to take chances. He had fully believed he could leave the diary writer here for two days while he went to get the VP.
This place had been carefully scouted out and selected. Though isolated, it was on a lake where people came and went. He hadn’t chosen a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. A car being seen here would not attract attention. Maybe that was enough of a reason. A too-remote area would mean a car parked over a week would draw attention, but here a car coming and going would not be noteworthy.
“Let’s go down to the dock and see the lake,” Paul said.
Ann leaned against the car, waiting with Vicky and watching as the others walked down to the lake. She glanced over to her friend once she was sure they were out of earshot. “Paul knows, or he suspects. I’m the only one the VP told in nine years? Paul’s asked the question. He’s too good an investigator not to have asked. The question is, why hasn’t he asked me?”
“He doesn’t want to put you in a position of having to answer,” Vicky guessed, her voice soft.
“Maybe. Probably.”
“What will you say if he does ask?”
Ann shrugged. “There are a lot of shades of not answering. I can simply not answer and still confirm whatever he wants to know.”
“However you answer, you’ll confirm what he already knows.”
“Yes. But the whole truth is going to go to my grave.”
“He’s strong enough to know the truth, Ann.”
“I’m not strong enough to tell him.” The silence stretched between them. “I’m glad you came along.”
“So am I. You want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing new to say.”
“You would have been better off if you had accepted the VP’s offer to write a chapter of your own. If everyone knows, you wouldn’t need to look at someone and wonder.”
“The only thing the truth does is give people more to gossip about. I still wish the VP had let this go to his grave. It’s another crime. The world already knows plenty of crimes.”
“You know it’s not that simple.”
“It could be that simple. Gannett doesn’t want to see God with a lie on his conscience.”
“Would you?”
“Depends on how many people I had to tell in order to clear my conscience. There’s telling one person, and there’s telling millions. The public is going to be fascinated with the story, and the families of the victims are going to have to deal with the press, and the money the book brings in for them is going to only partially offset the staggering impact they will have to absorb. The victims were in the way of the chief of staff’s master plan to have the VP one day become president. They were killed because the chief of staff blamed them for what they did or didn’t do during a campaign. These were senseless murders done for stupid reasons, and the diary just shows how twisted the chief of staff really was inside. The details of the truth serve little purpose, Vicky. That’s the sad part of this. It ends a cover-up, but the truth doesn’t benefit anyone. It’s just another crime.”
“I know. The sad thing is Gannett would have been a good president. Had he never met his chief of staff, maybe that would have been what he achieved eventually.”
“When it comes down to it, the outcome of most people’s lives hinges on only a few decisions. The VP will be remembered in large part for his wrong choice of a friend and employee.”
Ann saw the group returning and reached over to open the passenger door. “When we fly back, would you come join me up front? I’d rather not have Paul come forward to carry on a conversation about flying or whatever else he chooses to bring up. I’m moody today, and it shows.”
“Sure. And I don’t mind moody.”
Ann tried a smile. “You’re too good a friend to say so if you did.”
Paul stretched his legs out, grateful the plane didn’t crowd them together like a commercial flight. The day had been long and was still an hour from being over. They had accomplished what he had hoped—they’d seen the eighteen burial sites and the cabin. He looked over to Sam and Rita. “What did you notice about all the burial sites?”
“Rural terrain, mature, thick trees, a winding country road passing near the site,” Sam said without a pause. “He had a destination in mind before he grabbed his victim. He didn’t find those sites by chance. He planned them out.”
“Looking at his schedule, can we figure out when he had time to do that? Was he choosing the sites in the days just before the abductions, or was he doing that kind of planning weeks or months before the abduction?”
“We can look at that. The diary suggests a familiarity with their lives. But the chief of staff is a known person. He couldn’t have been in an area very often and not have been noticed and remembered. Same with the burial sites.”
“Are the two of you up to visiting the VP’s vacation home tomorrow? Ann said we could fly out early in the morning and be there by midafternoon. I’d like to get this done.”
Rita smiled. “A trip to Florida is no hardship, boss.”
21
The VP’s vacation home in Florida was on the water, a residence kept private by a tall, white stone wall and a break wall protecting a private cove from the open ocean. The Atlantic waters rolled with chop farther out, but the cove was a perfect place to swim and large enough even to sail. Ann flew over the property so they could see it from the air, then turned toward the nearby airport. They arrived back at the estate by car just after three p.m. Reece introduced them to the private security protecting the estate.
Paul sent Sam and Rita to walk through the house and get overview photos of the layout while he walked with Reece toward the boat dock and the water. It was a beautiful cove, with sandy shores and calm waters rippling under a nice breeze, which helped to cool the heat of the sun.
“The VP said he was heading toward the open water but had not yet passed the break wall when the chief of staff pulled a gun, turned them back to shore, and abducted him.”
“Right. The chief of staff put them ashore on the far side of the cove”—Reece pointed—“there, by that
lone tree. He had parked his car in the turnaround area.”
“Where did the boat end up?”
“The chief of staff put the boat on autopilot and sent it back through the break wall and into the open waters. Once it cleared the break wall, the boat was taken by the current almost two miles out where it was found drifting.”
A boat was moored at the floating dock. “Is that the same boat?”
“A newer model, but the size and cabin layout are close to being the same.”
Paul walked down to check it out. “Tell me, Reece, about that day, about what you thought when you realized the VP was missing.”
“I was with his wife attending a flower show, where she was making a few public remarks. We returned to the house, and the VP wasn’t there to meet her. He made it a point to be on hand when she got back from a public event, to ask how it had gone, to thank her for attending. I had known them both for years. It was a mainstay of their relationship, that small courtesy of his to be there for his wife. He knew she wasn’t comfortable with public events, and it was the reason he had sent me to travel with her that day. I immediately knew when we walked in the door and the VP wasn’t there to meet her that something was wrong.
“The boat had GPS on it, and it showed the boat moving slowly in the area he normally fished. He didn’t answer a radio call. We went out by another boat to see if he was having problems. Before long we found his boat, drifting and empty. The fishing gear was out. The public was told it was a boating accident, but we were working it as several things: a foreign agency had snatched him, a kidnapping for ransom, a heart attack that caused him to fall into the water and drown.
“When the VP called me from the cabin, the ocean search had been under way for seven hours. By the time I got him from the cabin back to Florida, it was three o’clock in the morning. We used the drifting tides to create a story that put him in the water and had him drift into shore about four miles north of the house. The story we used was he had seen debris in the water, thought it was from a capsized vessel, and had been retrieving a piece that had writing on it when he’d gotten into trouble and had fallen into the water. The current had pushed him into shore, but the surf had beaten him up on the rocks as he came ashore.