“Hey, Detective!” a voice called from across the room. Jim Murkowski waved from a table near the back. “Garcia’s cell phone records just came through. The billing address is Terre Haute, Indiana.”
All heads turned as Mois and Negron hurried over to the large wall map.
Negron pointed to two small yellow pins that had been stuck into areas inside the Omaha city limits. “The Hunter and Brumback residences.”
“Okay, Jim, let’s start with May 12, 2013,” Mois said. “The day of the Brumback murders. Any activity on Garcia’s phone?”
Murkowski scanned through the digital records. “Mmmm, yep! His phone pinged at a cell tower at 6842 North Forty-Fifth Street, near the Parkway.”
Negron did a quick scan of the map and, finding the address, grabbed a red pin and pushed it in. It sat just below and to the left of the Brumback address.
“Not two miles from the cell tower!” Mois exclaimed.
“And it looks like Garcia did a few address searches that day,” Murkowski said as he continued scrolling the records. “One was for 3436 Madera Lane.”
“Someone do a check on that!” Mois called out, excitement rising in his voice as he scanned the map for the street. “Is it a residence or business?”
No more than two seconds passed before Alex shouted: “Residence! Dr. Chandra Bewtra.”
At the name, Mois did a double-take and gripped Negron’s arm. “Dr. Chandra Bewtra. Hunter mentioned her this morning. She also had a run-in with Garcia.”
“Whoa—get this!” Alex exclaimed, his face buried in his monitor. “Bewtra reported an attempted break-in on May 12, 2013. Burglar alarm scared whoever it was off.”
“That alarm probably saved her life!” Mois said as he strode purposefully up to the front of the room. Negron stared in amazement at the change in his demeanor from just a few minutes before. She hurried after him to the front of the room.
“What now?” she asked.
“Keep digging, build that case,” Mois said as he quickly grabbed his laptop and briefcase. “And hold down the fort.”
“And where are you going?” Negron demanded.
“Terre Haute.”
Chapter 25
He keeps hoping I’m gonna leave. People just don’t get that I know what they’re thinking. They don’t realize what I can do.
Anthony Garcia rapped the bottom of his glass on the warped countertop; the sound echoed loudly in the small, dimly lit bar. “Hey, how about putting on the news?”
The bartender looked up from the drinks he was mixing with a frown.
“I like keeping up with current events,” Garcia said with a big friendly smile.
Sighing heavily, the aged bartender reached for the television remote and changed the channel from a ball game to the local news but—pointedly—kept the sound on mute. He noted that the weather forecast was being given, which meant that the main news was already over. Maybe this weirdo with his dark, piercing eyes will take off after all, the bartender thought. This guy is trouble.
Garcia toyed with his glass, whirling the last remaining inch of whiskey around and around. He looked over at the only other two people in the bar: a young couple in stylish designer clothing sitting at the far end. They probably thought coming to this dive with its beat-up jukebox and missing floor tiles made them hip. Garcia thought about engaging them in conversation—just to see how uncomfortable he could make them. But he quickly realized it wouldn’t take much and so wasn’t really worth the effort.
Besides, he had bigger things on his mind. He’d missed the beginning of the news but he was sure the killings were still the top story. That was okay; he could wait until the ten o’clock broadcast. The bartender would really love that—four more hours of his company. He wondered if there’d be a new Crime Stoppers reward. There should be at least a $20,000 increase over the old one, he thought. After all, the body count had gone up—they could think of it as inflation.
Garcia giggled out loud—causing the young couple to glance at him with alarm. He just gave them his big smile and tipped his glass in their direction.
He remembered the first time he’d seen the Crime Stoppers reward flyer—the one that featured the drawing. It was like his own wanted poster, and he’d felt an enormous sense of pride at the sight of it. He really was a guy who got things done! He’d also felt—he had to admit—some fear. The sketch was startlingly accurate. But to his amazement, no one spotted him. And he’d wandered all over Omaha in the days that followed. Malls, grocery stores, movie theatres, bars—even the funeral! But no one recognized him. Or, maybe they’d never bothered to look at him in the first place.
It didn’t matter. The important thing was he hadn’t been caught. He’d been too smart for the police, not to mention the entire medical profession. None of them ever had the slightest idea who they were dealing with. But, he reasoned, it was inevitable that the pieces would start to fall together. Sooner or later even the dumb-shit police would realize who he was—and what he could do. And they’d be astonished, everyone would be.
Especially Mia.
She already knew he got things done for her. What she didn’t know was how much more he planned to do—for both of them.
Chapter 26
Anthony Garcia wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t diabolically clever. He wasn’t even particularly intelligent or skilled. He was just a cold-blooded killer who had been unusually lucky.
Up until now.
That was the conclusion Mois had reached after doing the eight-hour drive from Omaha to Terre Haute. He’d spent much of the trip trying to get inside the killer’s head. What could drive a man, he wondered, to use murder as revenge for actions that his victims had played no part in, or—for that matter—had no awareness of?
Mois knew he was no psychologist, but as he entered the city limits of Terre Haute just after dawn, he realized that there probably was no mysterious secret behind Anthony Garcia. He was simply a weak, disturbed man who lashed out at others rather than accept the consequences of his own choices and actions.
“Get any sleep at your hotel, Detective?”
The words startled Mois out of his reverie. He was driving with Sergeant Martín Hidalgo of the Terre Haute Police Department. They were headed toward Garcia’s residence, three squad cars followed immediately behind them. It was a warm, sunny day and Hidalgo had the car’s AC at nearly full blast. It seemed like overkill to Mois but he was glad; the chill was helping keep him awake.
“I got about forty-five minutes’ shut-eye before my cell rang,” Mois answered, stifling a yawn. “My son—reminding me about his rugby game on Saturday. If I miss it, I think he’s going to file for legal emancipation.”
Hidalgo laughed knowingly. Mois figured the sergeant to be in his early forties. His eyebrows and goatee were jet-black and impeccably trimmed; on top of that, he was wearing a striking Hugo Boss suit. Mois thought Hidalgo looked as immaculately groomed and alert as he felt disheveled and weary.
“I get what you’re saying. It’s the damned job,” Hidalgo said. “I’ve missed my share of my daughter’s soccer games. And every time I do, her future wedding budget gets just a little bit bigger.”
The sergeant turned off the freeway they’d been on and entered what looked to be a slightly run-down middle-class neighborhood.
“Our department has had a few run-ins with your Mr. Garcia,” Hidalgo said in a more serious tone. “Apparently, some college kids—three girls—live across the street from his house. He’s done some disturbing things—once brought them flowers in the middle of the night, so drunk he could barely stand. And one girl alleges that he’s peeped in her bedroom window. Also, Chicago PD picked him up on a DUI a few months back.”
They pulled into a neighborhood of homes that dated from the early 1950s, mostly small, nondescript bungalows. While a few looked like they had been upgraded or at least well maintained over the years, the majority were on the shoddy side. Hidalgo stopped the car directly i
n front of Garcia’s address, a plain white house. Two of the other patrol cars parked at dramatic angles in the middle of the street to block exit or entrance. They immediately began flashing their patrol lights. Hidalgo noted Mois’s surprised look.
“I’m thinking a show of force might be good for Mr. Garcia,” Hidalgo noted. “We’ve got back-up the next street over. He isn’t going anywhere.”
The two men approached the house; one of the other officers—a jocky-looking guy named Ben Bateman—followed close behind. Mois thought that while the residence looked a little dingy and the lawn needed mowing, overall it was more presentable than he would have imagined. He wondered if Garcia would seem just as bland and unremarkable when he finally met him face-to-face.
“Records show that the house is facing foreclosure,” Hidalgo noted. He then suddenly and fiercely banged a fist on the front door. The startling sound jolted through the otherwise quiet neighborhood, just as the sergeant had intended. The inside of house remained silent. After a beat, Hidalgo put a hand on the door knob and turned it. The door opened. The three men looked at each other in surprise.
“Anthony Garcia? Terre Haute Police!” Batemen boomed. His voice echoed emptily through the house. They waited for a response, then Hidalgo warily led the way inside.
Mois immediately noted that the interior wasn’t much different from the outside. Not dirty but not clean, with inexpensive furniture that was mismatched but not threadbare. On the left side of the front hall was a small den with a desk and a file cabinet. Files and papers were haphazardly stacked on the desk, chair, and floor. Mois walked in and picked up a sheet while Hidalgo and Batemen proceeded to investigate the rest of the house.
Mois was flipping through a few pages when Hidalgo reentered.
“All’s clear,” he said. “I’m thinking Mr. Garcia may have vacated the premises.”
Mois nodded and read aloud from one of the sheets: “For my parents, in case of emergency…He’s got his mortgage statements here. Life insurance policy. He’s definitely trying to get his personal effects in order.”
Just then, Bateman called from the back of the house: “Sergeant! Got something!”
Mois and Hidalgo hurried down a small hallway and entered what seemed to be the master bedroom. Clothes were strewn all over the floor and the bed was unmade. The dresser drawers had all been left sitting open. Bateman pointed to the top drawer. Mois stepped forward and looked inside. Sitting there was an empty box for a 9mm pistol.
“That model fits the magazine we found at one of the crime scenes,” Mois noted. As Bateman started to carefully bag the evidence, Mois looked over the rest of the room. Spying something under the bed, he bent down and retrieved a legal-sized notepad. Hidalgo looked over Mois’s shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Some kind of journal, I think,” Mois said as he flipped through the pages. Wild scrawling covered some sheets, while others contained neatly ordered lists. On one page a single line was repeated several times. “‘If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’” Mois read in a mystified tone.
“Shakespeare,” Hidalgo said without missing a beat. “From The Merchant of Venice.”
Mois couldn’t help but do a double-take at the sergeant’s unexpected literary knowledge. Hidalgo shrugged.
“I did some theater in college,” he said in a low voice. “And if you tell anyone on the force, I’ll have your car impounded for a month.”
“I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that Garcia knew the quote or that you did.” Mois laughed. He turned the next page and saw another list. This one had several names on it. And two of them had dark lines struck across them.
Those names were Dr. William Hunter and Dr. Roger Brumback.
Below, there were two other names: Dr. Charlotte DeLavigne and Dr. Chandra Bewtra. They did not have lines struck through them.
“What’s that?” Hidalgo asked.
Mois slowly looked up at the sergeant.
“A hit list.”
Chapter 27
“Oh sweetie…you’re just way too nice for me,” Mia said as she backed her hips in between Red’s stumpy spread legs. “I only date, you know, bad boys.”
She wriggled her butt suggestively and then quickly pivoted away before he could touch her. Mia had given enough lap dances to know how to outmaneuver even the most inappropriate and drunken client. She’d offered Red this free session as a thank-you for getting her son’s medication last week. She very much hoped it would settle their account, so to speak, and that there’d be no more talk of a date. But Red had brought it up the moment they entered one of the club’s tiny private rooms. Mia had tried to laugh it off. He was clearly not only very drunk but also strangely zonked out, and Mia suspected he was on something. After all, he had access to prescription meds.
As the low lights in the room flickered along with a change in the music tempo, Mia tried doing one of her signature gyrations to distract Red from talking but he leaned forward and grabbed her forearm.
“You are going out with me! You’re my girl,” he said angrily in an unexpected shout. His yell was so loud that Mia was afraid he’d attract attention. She’d tipped Eddie, the security guard, twenty dollars not to log this dance and not to tell JJ, the surly club manager. She realized she needed to calm Red down and get him out of here as quickly as possible.
“Now don’t be silly, sweetie,” Mia said in what she hoped sounded like playful manner as she did a bump-and-grind. “I mean, I don’t even know your name!”
At that, he stood up from the club chair and staggered toward her. His eyes were suddenly dark and piercing. Mia reflexively backed away from him.
“Everyone knows who I am!” he bellowed as he grabbed at her. “But they don’t know how bad I am. You have no idea what I do when people cross me!”
Mia felt a ripple of fear shoot down her spine. She knew Eddie was within shouting distance, he’d be in the room in a flash if she called out. For now, she didn’t really doubt her safety. But for the first time she realized that Red wasn’t just the lonely drunk she’d taken him for; a skeevy guy, to be sure, but essentially harmless. No, there was something wrong with this guy—something seriously wrong.
“Okay, okay honey, just chill,” Mia said, trying to be soothing but aware that her voice was shaking slightly. “Let’s just have a good time here, all right? Just sit down. We can talk after I dance. Just relax for now.”
To her surprise, Red immediately obeyed; he resumed his seat like a chastened schoolboy. He stared as she warily started dancing again and suddenly gave her the smile he always wore when he watched her out front. A friendly, dopey kind of smile. Maybe this was going to turn out all right, Mia thought with relief. Yeah, okay, the guy is drunk and a little high—that’s no crime. Especially in this place.
“I killed a boy once. An eleven-year-old,” Red said in a normal speaking voice that was somehow more chilling than his previous shouting. “And a couple of older people. Stabbed them. You can’t get any badder than that, right?”
Mia couldn’t help herself—she froze on the spot. This wasn’t happening—this guy couldn’t be serious. As she paused, the look in Red’s eyes changed again. They went back to being dark and beady—and angry. He locked his gaze onto Mia’s. It was as though he was daring her to believe him—or disbelieve him. She couldn’t tell which—she only knew that she was, after all, absolutely in danger.
“Well, you—you’re being bad because you aren’t appreciating my dancing!” she said, her voice quavering. “Maybe we’ll do this another time, okay, hon? I gotta be out front soon anyway.”
Mia turned and picked up the sheer baby-doll dress she always wore when at the bar. But before she knew what was happening, Red jumped up and tore the dress away from her. Twisting it in his hands, he backed her up against the wall of the small room, using his body to block any chance she had of getting to the door. She could now smell the alcohol on him—it seemed to ooze out of his pores and from his b
reath.
“You don’t have to dance anymore,” he said with strange eagerness, his eyes burning with a crazed kind of glee. “You’ll come with me. We’re going to Louisiana!”
At this point, Mia didn’t care if JJ did fire her for giving a free lap dance. She just wanted out of this room, away from this unhinged guy. She was about to scream for Eddie when, suddenly, Red unclenched his grip on her dress. He gingerly shook the material out and then held it up to her. He nodded for her to put it on. Wide-eyed with fear, Mia slowly slipped the dress over her head and let it fall down around her hips.
Swaying unsteadily, Red reached out and awkwardly petted the folds so that the dress flowed evenly. Mia held her breath, unsure what was happening now, what had caused his mood to swing again so drastically. As he looked her over, Red’s big, dopey smile returned—and all of the threat seemed to vanish from his face.
“I’ll go first,” he said, his words slurred but intent. “You’ll come later. Once everything is done, I’ll send for you.”
He slowly backed away from her—still with that wide, weirdly delighted grin on his face. Though he was looking directly at her, Mia felt like he was seeing something just beyond her; a reality all his own.
After he walked out the door, she stood there, stunned. She struggled to find a way to steady her panicked breathing.
Suddenly, the door swung back open. Mia yelped out loud but it was just Eddie—the short but powerfully built security guard wearing his signature red bandana and Hoosiers tank top.
“Move it, baby!” he whispered urgently. “JJ is lookin’ for ya—and he’s out for blood! He switched the dancing order and put you up next!”
Mia just continued standing there, white-faced and trembling, unable to say a word.
Eddie gave her a curious look. “It’s okay, I got your back. I told JJ you were just gettin’ something out of your car. He’s cool now. But girl, you got no idea how close you just came to gettin’ killed!”