Steven James - Opening Moves

“Alright, so just to reiterate: I can’t divulge anything confidential about the case. It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“How about if I just tell you what I can, based on what I already know. From television, the newspapers, that sort of thing. Start there. See if that helps at all.”

“Fair enough.”

He steepled his fingers. “The Dahmer and Gein locations relate to the story he’s telling more than to the travel routes he’s taking. For instance, we don’t know that he himself has ever visited the New Territories Bar or the alley in Milwaukee, or the graveyard or the hardware store in Plainfield for that matter. Remember, he sent other people to those sites.”

“True. Good point.”

He gestured toward the map. “Which does not help us in our efforts to use geographic profiling to discern the most likely location of the kidnapper’s anchor point, but that’s not really the issue anymore, is it? Since we already know where it is.”

“We do?”

“The boxcar.” He stood and, with his finger, he traced, on the map, one after the other, the roads that branched out from the train yard’s parking lot. “The location of the train yards determined his travel routes more than his home address did, which will not help us in finding his home. He knows these neighborhoods. He was familiar enough with the woods to flee through them in nearly dark conditions, and then to make it through the neighborhood-yet being a Caucasian, he would likely be highly noticeable to the people living along those streets.”

“We were thinking the same thing.”

“Yes. The news accounts last night implied as much. Which reminds me, you’ve forgotten one key location.”

“Which one is that?”

“The parking lot in Pewaukee from which the Ford Taurus was stolen.”

I was embarrassed I’d missed that. “I’ll add it.”

“So, knowing the anchor point-the boxcar-I would suggest you begin to analyze the possible travel routes to and from the train yard to the other sites you’ve already noted.”

At least that thought had already crossed my mind. “The algorithms in your notes.”

“The last three pages, yes. And you’ll want to closely examine the victimology here. Find out how the two couples targeted in these crimes are connected to each other.”

“We’re working on it.”

“Of course.”

Time to pick his brain. “I’ve been thinking, Dr. Werjonic-”

“Calvin, please.”

“Calvin-I’ve been thinking…The guy who killed the women in Ohio and Illinois passed by Indiana.” I shared one little piece of information that wasn’t exactly public knowledge yet, but I kept it vague enough to feel comfortable telling him. “Of the other missing persons cases in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana we’re looking at-”

“Let me guess-you don’t have any in Indiana that fit the MO or victim demographic from those cases or the two out-of-state victims.”

“Correct. I’m wondering why he would skip that geographic region.”

“That, my boy, is a very good question.” He stared into space for a moment, then consulted his pocket watch again. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I must be going. I have a lunch appointment and a short drive ahead of me. It seems a writer is working on a book and wanted to interview me while I was in town. Investigating some cold cases, as it were.”

I thought back to my conversation with Thorne yesterday afternoon when he mentioned that a true crime writer used Griffin as one of her sources. He’d brought her up again at our briefing a few minutes ago. “It’s not a true crime book, is it?”

“It is.”

“The writer’s name wouldn’t, by any chance, be Heather Isle?”

“No, a gent named Slate Seagirt…” Calvin nodded, then smiled faintly. “Ah. Clever. A nom de plume.”

A pseudonym…?

I processed that aloud: “Both ‘heather’ and ‘slate’ can mean gray…An ‘isle’ is an island…” I hadn’t heard the word “seagirt” before, but its meaning was easy enough to decipher: “Seagirt-girted by the sea.”

“Yes.” Calvin looked pleased that I’d ventured a cursory guess at the word’s etymology. “Surrounded by water.”

“What’s the cold case about?”

“Something concerning the tragic unsolved murder of a young girl whose body was found in a tree house.”

I stared at him. “Mindy Wells?”

“I wasn’t told her name. Are you familiar with the case?”

I wondered if I should tell him what happened to Mindy back when I was in high school, and after a brief deliberation I decided it would be fine as long as I stuck to the facts in the public record.

When I was done, he carefully deliberated on what I’d said. “Perhaps what intrigues me the most is not that this chap contacted me but that he contacted me now . With your connection to the case, it’s too convenient. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“As a matter of fact, neither do I.”

“A man after my own heart.” His voice was softer now; he was deep in thought.

Someone knuckle-rapped on the door, then pressed it open before I could invite him in. It was Radar and he looked anxious. Obviously he had something he wanted to share because he jumped right in: “Pat, we might have some-” Only then did he notice Calvin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, no. It’s quite alright.” Calvin stood. “I was just on my way out.” He extended his hand to me. “I look forward to speaking with you again soon, Detective. So I can share with you a description of this gray island.”

“Call me.” We shook hands again. “As soon as your meal is over.”

“Yes, of course.” He drew on his overcoat, then doffed an imaginary cap to Radar before exiting, but only after letting his eyes linger one more time on the maps on the corkboard.

“Who was that?” Radar asked.

“That was Dr. Calvin Werjonic.”

“The guy you mentioned at the briefing?”

“Yes.”

For a moment Radar seemed distracted, then caught himself, returned abruptly to the conversation: “Sorry, as I was saying, we might have something.”

“What is it?”

“The receipts. We found a discrepancy.”

Oh yeah, I liked discrepancies. Discrepancies are always a good thing.

“What discrepancy?

“Well, it might be just an accounting error, but-”

“What discrepancy?”

“It seems there was one item that, well…” He said nothing more, just handed me a receipt. Ralph, who’d been walking past the open door, saw us and joined us in the conference room.

“It seems there was one item that what?” I asked Radar.

“There was one item that Griffin sold that he didn’t buy.”

A chill.

I gazed unbelievingly at the receipt.

The item Griffin had sold but didn’t buy was a book of nursery rhymes with one specific page missing.

Oh.

No.

I snatched my things off my desk. “Ralph, we’re going to need another search warrant. There’s more in Griffin’s house.”

“How do you know?”

“‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.’ The nursery rhyme. There was a copy of the song under Jenna’s pillow-she’s the seven-year-old we found dead three years ago. She’d been raped, then buried alive in a shallow grave. The song had been ripped out of a book. We identified which nursery rhyme book it was from but we never found the book itself.” I slapped the receipt down on the table. “Griffin sold it. But he never bought it.”

I expected an expletive but got only shocked silence instead.

“I’m going to Fort Atkinson.” I pulled out my car keys. “Have the local authorities get to his house now and hold him on something, I don’t care what, and get me a search warrant for the rest of the house by the time I get up there. Fax it to the Fort Atkinson Police Department.”