Jack Ryder Mystery Series: Vol 1-3

  “A girl. Early twenties. She was pulled out of the water by three fishermen this morning. It looks like she drowned.”

  We walked under the tape and onto the jetty. I nodded to a couple of technicians that I knew from earlier crime scenes.

  “So, why am I here? Sounds like an accident or suicide?”

  We approached the body, which was still lying on the jetty where it had been pulled out of the water. Her skin was as pale as her blonde hair. Yamilla Díez was sitting bent over her.

  “You’re here, Ryder,” she answered, “because she was heavily beaten before she fell or was thrown in the water, where she drowned.”

  I froze when I saw the face of the girl.

  “We don’t know who she is yet,” Ron said. “She didn’t have any identification on her body.”

  “But I do,” I said. “I know her.”

  “You do?”

  “She’s one of the girls staying at my parents’ motel. They’re a flock of spring breakers. I gave some of them surf lessons.”

  I felt sick to my stomach looking at the young girl. I remembered her from the beach when the girl Katie had lost her bikini top. She was one of the girls who had laughed.

  “Talk to me about the beating,” I said with interest. I kneeled next to the body, while Yamilla went through what she had found so far for me. “She has taken some blows to the body and the right cheek here has a subcutaneous bleed as well in the musculature. You see, here and here there’s bleeding under the skin that occurs from broken blood vessels. She also took some blows to the chin and nose. The bruise on the chin looks like she was hit with something hard.”

  “So, what you’re saying is, she was beaten, then thrown into the water?” I asked.

  “That’s what I believe, yes. Might have been a fight. Maybe the other person took some beating as well, but looking at her fists and knuckles, I hardly believe this girl managed to defend herself much.”

  I looked down the canal. “If she was thrown in the water, then the current must have brought her down here before the fisherman got his hook in her.”

  Ron stood beside me. “You’re thinking she was attacked while she was at one of those restaurants or bars further down the canal?”

  “She’s a spring breaker on the last weekend of her vacation. I believe Grill’s had open bar for girls last night. She gets drunk and meets her attacker. He rapes her, beats her up, and throws her in the water afterwards.” I looked at Ron. “If you visit the bars, then I’ll go back to the motel and talk to her friends. I need to contact this girl’s family right away.”

  Ron put a hand on my shoulder. It was tough to look at this girl, the same girl I had seen at my parents’ motel so many times the past week. She was not more than a few years older than Emily…killed on a joyful night in town while on spring break. I had a terrible feeling about this.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  March 2015

  “What do you mean Britney is dead?”

  The three other girls staying in the room were barely awake when I knocked on their door and told them what had happened. Leanne, the tall redhead who I always saw Britney with looked at me like I was lying to her.

  “We were just with her last night?” Leanne had tears in her eyes. They all did, except Katie.

  “So, you were all out last night?” I asked.

  They looked at each other, then at Katie, who was still sitting in her bed under the covers. “Well, we were. Katie stayed here.”

  “I…I wasn’t in the mood for partying,” she said.

  I noted it on my pad, then looked at the two other girls. “So, the rest of you, Leanne, Irene, and Britney, you all went out? What time did you leave the motel?”

  “We…” Leanne looked down. She looked guilty of something. Irene and Katie both avoided looking at me as well. Something was very fishy.

  “We left around six to go to dinner at The Lobster Shanty,” Irene said.

  “And was that all of you?” I asked.

  Leanne shed a tear and wiped it off.

  “We have to tell him everything,” Irene said.

  Leanne hissed. “I know. I know.” Leanne’s face suddenly twisted into an expression of fury as abrupt as a gust of strong wind. “It was just Irene, Britney, and me. Katie stayed at the motel.” Leanne stared at Katie, like she was waiting for her to say something.

  Katie didn’t seem to be feeling well. “Why didn’t you go to dinner with the others?” I asked.

  “I…I wasn’t hungry.”

  I didn’t quite believe her. Something was definitely wrong here.

  “She had a date,” Irene said. “She was going to meet up with one of the boys, with Greg. They were going to watch the moonrise.”

  I made notes on my pad.

  “How do you know about that?” Katie asked. She sounded angry and hurtful at the same time.

  “Because…” Irene looked at Leanne, who didn’t seem to want to take part in the conversation. “Because…well, it wasn’t exactly Greg who sent you that text and asked you to meet with him.”

  “Who was it then?” Katie asked. She was the one sounding angry now.

  “Britney,” Leanne answered.

  “She borrowed Greg’s phone and sent the text earlier in the afternoon, then deleted the texts afterwards,” Irene said. “She asked Greg to meet her there, at the spot where you thought you were going to meet him. She told him she would give him a blowjob, no strings attached. No boy would ever say no to that, right? But it was all a show. A show meant for you to see as you came down there thinking…” Irene stopped. She had made her point.

  Katie had tears in her eyes. “So, she did this to me to hurt me?”

  I was getting a clearer picture of what was going on now. “So, if I’m getting this right, you came down to meet this Greg and found Britney…found him with her instead?” I asked.

  Katie tightened her lips, and then nodded.

  “Alright,” I said and noted it. “So, Britney was with Greg, then what happened?”

  “We stayed at the Lobster Shanty and had some drinks, then Britney came there and told us what she had done,” Irene said. “I want you to know, she never told us what she intended to do; we knew nothing until after it was done,” she said, addressed to Katie. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have been in on it.”

  “So, Britney came to the restaurant and then what did you do?” I asked.

  “We grabbed a taxi and went to the port. We started at Milliken’s and ended at Grill’s, where we could drink for free all night,” Irene continued.

  “Who did she talk to during the night?” I asked.

  “She talked to a lot of guys. Britney always talks to everyone.”

  “Why didn’t you go come home together?” I asked.

  “It was getting late,” Leanne said. “We wanted to get a taxi home, but Britney wanted to party some more. She was dancing outside on the deck by the water with some guy and told us to just leave. She said she would come home later. We were tired and thought the place was getting boring, so we left.”

  “So, the last time you saw her, she was dancing on the deck at Grill’s?” I asked.

  They both nodded. Leanne sniffled and wiped her eyes, not caring that her mascara was smeared. It looked like it was left over from the night before anyway. I turned and looked at Katie. I didn’t like this story one bit.

  “So, what did you do while they were all out partying?” I asked.

  Katie looked at me with wide eyes. “I…I was just here. Asleep.”

  “Did anyone see you? Were you with anybody?” I asked.

  Katie shook her head. The two other girls looked at her. The tension was thick in the room. It didn’t take a mind reader to know what the two other girls were thinking. I had no idea what to believe. The girl had a strong motive. What Britney had done to her was really bad, but would she be capable of killing her? I had my doubts. On the other hand, anger and jealousy were hard to control even if you wanted to.

&n
bsp; “I need to have Britney’s personal information so I can contact her family. What was her last name?”

  “Foster,” Leanne said. “Her mom lives in North Carolina.”

  I wrote it down, thinking I had heard that name somewhere before. “Good. Thanks.” I got up from the edge of Britney’s bed where I had been sitting. “No one touches any of Britney’s things. I’ll have to have our technicians go through her belongings. I’ll ask my parents to give you a new room.”

  “But, we’re going home today anyway?” Katie said.

  “Yeah, spring break ends today. We have classes tomorrow,” Leanne said. “We’re driving home today.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re not. I’m going to have to ask you to stay for a little longer. We need you here for the investigation. All of you.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  March 2015

  Stanley was on the move. Both of his legs could hardly move, but he did it anyway. He had to. This was his chance to escape this hellhole once and for all. He stumbled towards the door, left slightly ajar, and then managed to pull his hurting body into the hallway. He couldn’t believe it. He was out of the room. As he passed the door next to his, he heard the voice of someone crying behind it. It sounded like Roy, the guy he had spoken to through the walls in the bathroom. He was begging and pleading.

  “Please, stop. I can’t eat anymore!”

  Stanley had wanted to help Roy out, but now realized his guardian was in there feeding Roy right now, so there was no way he could save him. He had to think about himself. He dragged his painful body down the hallway and finally reached a set of stairs. He almost cried when he saw the ray of sunlight coming through the entrance door at the bottom of the stairs. Stanley thought about Elyse and wondered if the girl was somewhere in the house as well, but then decided he would have to come back for her. He couldn’t do this on his own. He had to get ahold of the police somehow. The police would be able to help. It was the only way.

  Stanley held onto the railing as he dragged his hurting legs down the stairs, resisting the temptation to scream out loud in pain. He panted and used all of his strength and finally managed to get himself to the bottom of the stairs. He was crying in pain as he stopped to catch his breath. In front of him he could see the daylight through the frosted glass of the front doors.

  Freedom. Wonderful, beautiful freedom.

  Stanley drew in a deep breath. The smell of freshly cooked food filled his nostrils and he felt like throwing up. If he ever made it out of there, he wasn’t going to eat again. Never again. Stanley moved as quietly as possible, making sure his guardian wouldn’t hear him upstairs. But Roy was making an awful lot of noise up there, so chances were, no one could hear a thing.

  At least that’s what he thought. Stanley hadn’t exactly accounted for the fact that maybe, maybe there were more people in the house.

  “Stop right there,” a voice said behind his back.

  Stanley froze. All hope was sucked right out of him as he turned and looked into the barrel of a gun.

  Damn it.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the voice said.

  Stanley drew in a deep breath. All this pain. All this…for nothing? No. No. No. He wasn’t going to take it. Not anymore. He was done.

  “You haven’t eaten yet,” the voice said.

  “I can’t…I can’t…” He looked down the barrel of the gun, then felt the anger rise like a wave in the ocean.

  NO MORE!

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay for dinner,” he said. Grabbing an umbrella leaning against the wall next to him, he slammed it into the person with the gun, forcing both the person and the gun to fall to the ground and slide across the tiles. Then, he sprang for the doors. He grabbed the handles and pulled both open at the same time. He limped heavily, but the prospect of feeling freedom again gave him strength and made him push through the pain. The smell of fresh air without a hint of fried chicken in it gave him the last push he needed to make it into the front yard of the house.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  March 2015

  Britney’s mother flew down immediately from North Carolina and was at the ME’s office in the early afternoon. I made sure two officers from our department picked her up at the airport in Orlando and got her to me in a hurry. I had told her over the phone that we believed something had happened to her daughter and we needed her to come down for identification.

  I greeted her as she stepped inside. She was a small delicate woman who looked like she had led a hard life. I could sense she was very fragile, and I tried to break things to her gently.

  “Maggie Foster,” she said, as I shook her hand. It was at that moment, when she said her name out loud that it occurred to me where I had heard that name before. I stared at her for a few seconds, while trying to get the pieces to fit together. They still didn’t.

  “Let’s go inside,” Yamilla said and helped Maggie Foster in.

  The identification didn’t take long. Maggie Foster took one look at the body and then burst into tears. I grabbed her as she was about to fall when she turned away to cry.

  “Yes,” she said through tears. “Yes, that’s her.”

  “Thanks, Yamilla,” I said, and helped Mrs. Foster get out of the ME’s office. There was no reason to stay any longer. I drove Mrs. Foster back to the Sheriff’s Office and poured her some water and a cup of coffee. I borrowed Ron’s office for our talk. I let her cry for a little while, let the news settle in before I started asking my questions. It was always a delicate moment when interrogating a victim’s relatives. It was important to do it as fast as possible while everything was fresh in their memory, but I still had to consider their emotions and the rollercoaster they were going through. It wasn’t an easy task. Luckily for me, Mrs. Foster opened the conversation herself.

  “Who?” she asked and looked at me for answer. “Who would do such a terrible thing?”

  I shrugged. “We don’t know yet, Mrs. Foster. But that’s what I am hoping to find out as soon as possible. Now, tell me, I have to ask, your name. I remember it from another investigation that we recently took a look at. It could be a coincidence, since it took place in Boca Raton, north of Miami, but are you the same Maggie Foster that witnessed and gave your statement after the shooting in the cinema in 2009?”

  Maggie Foster went pale. “Yes,” she said with surprise in her voice. “We used to live in Boca. After the shooting, I went back to my family in North Carolina. I lost my husband that evening. My daughter, Britney was seriously injured when she was shot in the arm. I had to get away. There was no way I could stay.”

  A million thoughts flickered through my mind as I looked at Mrs. Foster in front of me. This could hardly be a coincidence, could it? But how on earth was this connected? The killing of Britney? Was that connected to the shooting at the country festival?

  Maggie Foster suddenly looked at me with wide open eyes. “You don’t think…oh, my God,” she said. She looked like she remembered something. Then she clasped her mouth.

  “What?” I asked.

  “She called me last night. I suddenly remember. There is nothing unusual in her calling; we talk almost every day, but she said something.”

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She told me she believed she had seen the killer in Cocoa Beach. She had seen the shooter in Publix, she told me. She said she wanted to go to the police and tell them the next day…that is today, before they left town. She was so uneasy, because she knew the guy that was initially called out as the killer, the guy that had killed himself and that all the media said was the shooter…she knew that it wasn’t him. She knew because she had looked into the eyes of the killer. Right before she was shot, right before her dad was killed. She never told anyone except me. And I didn’t believe her. I told her it was nonsense. I was certain it was him and that it was all over. That’s what the police told us. It had to be the truth, right? Maybe I just really wanted to believe it. I couldn’t stand t
he thought of him not being caught, of the shooter possibly still being out there. All those years, I refused to believe her. Even last night. I told her she had to give it up. It was over; it was history. I begged her stop ripping up the past. Still, she kept going on about it. How the police had it all wrong. How they had blamed the wrong guy. She knew it could never be him, because the shooter wasn’t a he. It was a she.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  March 2015

  Could our shooter be female? I found it hard to believe. Usually, shooters in mass shootings were Caucasian males with a death wish. Mass murderers were often characterized as isolated individuals that, over time, had built up aggression towards to the society they felt disconnected from.

  It did make a lot of sense when I thought it through. Many things about the shootings at the cinema and at the country festival were so different from other mass shootings. There was something about both incidents that rubbed me the wrong way. It didn’t seem like the shooter wanted to kill a lot of people. There had been fifteen people in the movie theater; eight were hit and four of them died. With around forty thousand present at the concert, it was quite lucky that only two had been hit. Two certainly weren’t many, considering how many people had been there. It was still two too many, but it wasn’t a lot.

  “Tell me more about the shooting in ’09,” I said to Maggie Foster. I sensed the memory of what happened back then made her feel very uncomfortable, but I had to know more.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know if there is much more to tell, other than what I told back then.”

  I kept thinking about the emails that Shannon had received from the alleged killer. I’m so sorry. It had to be done, all of them said. What did this killer mean by that? Why did it have to be done?

  “There is one thing that always struck me as odd,” Maggie Foster said.