Steven James - Opening Moves

Lyrie answered. “No.”

Ellen looked anxious to share what she’d found. “When I was calling around checking on his work, I learned who his temp had been for a couple weeks in September. Filled in for his secretary.” Whether she intended to or not, she gave a dramatic pause. “Colleen Hayes.”

Okay, now that was interesting.

I recalled what we’d learned earlier. “She said she found Griffin’s catalog in a trash can at work.” I looked around. “Who has that copy of Griffin’s subscription list?”

Gabriele jogged to the other room and returned with it, scanned it, and said, “Yeah, Basque’s on the list. He’s a subscriber.”

That was it. “We need to have another chat with this guy.”

But when we tried his office we found out he’d left for the day. The receptionist didn’t know where he’d gone.

“Let’s get a car to his house,” I told Thorne. “I’m not sure if we have enough to bring him in for questioning, but we can give it a shot. Maybe find out something before he lawyers up. We might have rattled him when we visited his office. He could have taken off.”

“I’ll put out an APB,” Thorne said. That could create a legal mess to mop up later if this ended up being a dead end, but I trusted Thorne to handle it and I was glad he was ready to make the call.

Earlier, Corsica and I had set up a one-fifteen appointment to have a talk with Janelle Warner, the other Hathaway amp; Erikson employee who’d flown with Basque and Demell. However, right now I didn’t want to leave headquarters. Ellen offered to go over there with Corsica and talk with Ms. Warner, hoping she might be able to tell us something about Basque’s behavior on their trips.

As they were getting ready to go, we received word that Calvin had arrived and was in the lobby. “Call him in,” I said. “I want to get his take on this too.”

1:25 p.m.

3 hours until the gloaming

Joshua entered the school.

“Yes?” The secretary at the front desk was a stern-looking woman with a single eyebrow that bridged across both of her dark, scolding eyes. “May I help you?” Somehow she made it sound like a reprimand rather than a question.

He showed her his credentials, then told her the children’s last name. “I’m afraid I have to deliver some bad news regarding their father. He’s been in an accident.”

“An accident?” Her voice had softened only slightly.

“He’s at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.”

“What happened?”

“A car accident. It’s quite serious, I’m afraid. Their mother is there with him now. She asked me to come by and speak with the children.”

“We can’t release students to anyone who’s not family or who’s not on their emergency contact form,” she replied.

“No, I’m not here to take them home. Their grandmother will be by shortly. But their mother wanted to make sure it would be me rather than their grandmother who told them. I’m sure you understand.”

Before she could reply, the principal poked her head out of the office door behind the reception desk and asked her to pick up some payroll forms from the central office.

After the principal had closed the door again, the secretary hesitated for a moment, but at last reached across her desk, picked up a visitor’s tag, and handed it to Joshua.

She told him which rooms the boy and the girl were in. He thanked her, and as he pinned the tag to his shirt, he headed down the hall toward room 118, Tod’s second grade classroom.

He would take the boy, exit through another door, and leave the girl here.

We filled Calvin in as comprehensively and yet as quickly as we could on the different aspects of the case.

He reflected on what we’d said. “And the mattresses? Nothing in that part of the city?”

Gabriele shook her head.

“Maybe you don’t need to look at places that sell mattresses, but places that use them, that use mismatched ones. From what I’ve heard, the West Reagan Street neighborhood is low income, has a high population of vagrants. Are there any homeless shelters in the area?”

“I’ll find out.” I grabbed a phone book and it took only a moment to look it up. “West Reagan Street Mission is only three blocks from the train yards. The ad here says they have beds available, free job training, medical care and meals.”

“Try them,” Calvin said. “See if they might’ve perhaps received a recent donation to purchase new mattresses and, if so, who donated the money or picked up the old ones. Even if we don’t get a name, that’ll give us a date to work with.”

I tracked with him. “Then we can check moving truck rentals that week.”

“It’s always about timing and location,” he noted contemplatively.

I nodded for Gabriele to make the call even as Radar, who’d been working down the hall, came hurrying toward us. “I came up with someone who might be the next pastiche. David Spanbauer. He was a serial rapist, killed three people. Very disturbed, and Isle did one of her true crime books on him.”

Yes, that was a good thought. “He was caught up in Appleton, wasn’t he?” I said.

“Yeah. I’m not sure about the exact address.”

“Find out. Call the Appleton PD. Have them send a car over to stake out the location.”

Two cases.

The homicides. The abductions.

Related? Unrelated?

I still couldn’t tell.

Somehow, unimaginably, they seemed to be both.

“Let’s not forget the Oswalds.” I was thinking this through, processing it aloud. “We need to get a car to…” I ran through the pertinent locations in my mind: The intersection of Highways 18 and 83 where they first encountered the police…Meadowbrook Road where they shot Captain Lutz…the residence where they abducted Judy Opat…the bank they robbed in Wales…the corner of SS and Oak Street where they ran the roadblock.

Which one?

Which one?

Screw it.

All of ’em.

I gave the word, the squads were dispatched.

Gabriele, who’d been on the line with someone from the West Reagan Street Mission, hung up. “They got a donation to purchase new mattresses a week ago.”

“Who was it from?” Calvin asked.

“Anonymous.”

Of course.

“Who picked up the old mattresses?”

“The guy I spoke with didn’t know.”

Thompson used to patrol that neighborhood and would have been the guy to send, but he was out checking on leads in the Franklin Heights area. I said to Lyrie, “Get to the mission. Talk to the other staff, the homeless guys. Somebody knows who took those old mattresses.”

He nodded, then left.

Gabriele offered to contact moving companies and see if she could get names of people who’d rented out a truck one week ago.

“Perfect.”

Calvin was busy at his computer, plugging in information. I sat down beside him and told him all the sites the team had pulled up regarding Basque’s known activity nodes.

I wanted to see if his geographic profiling approach could come up with an anchor point for the Maneater, and if it did, if Basque’s home would be anywhere near it.

2:25 p.m.

2 hours until the gloaming

Sergeant Brandon Walker, or Radar as he preferred to be called by his friends, was at his desk making calls to Basque’s work associates at Hathaway amp; Erikson, trying to find out if anyone knew where he’d gone this afternoon, when one of the officers who worked the front lobby walked up to his desk carrying a package the size of a shoebox.

“This came for you. It was left in the lobby. No idea who it’s from.” He shook the box a little and there was a soft, dull thud as whatever was inside it bumped against the sides of the box. “You want me to trash it?”