Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

“Need a refill?” he asked from the doorway.

“I do. Thanks.” She handed him her cup.

The fax machine beeped, signaling more incoming.

“Released a flood here, I do believe,” she muttered to herself as she stapled the pages of the last fax together.

Mitch returned with two cups in hand. “What was that?”

“I said, we’ve opened the floodgates. I can’t believe how many unsolved murders are out there.” She shook her head. “And these are only the ones that fit our profile.”

“Well, let’s take a look and see how many actually do.”

She handed him a stack of papers.

“These are already separated. They’re from all over the country.”

He sat in one of the leather chairs near the corner of the desk and leafed through the faxes.

“This looks like the real deal here, this one from Texas. This could be our guy.” He continued reading, his face a study in concentration. “This one, the one from Idaho, not so sure. Let’s see if there’s any DNA we can compare to the DNA profile we already have.”

He bent over the pages, turning them thoughtfully.

“I like this one from Kentucky,” he murmured. “Let’s see what else they have on him…”

“Before you get too engrossed, there’s another fax you need to look at before Rick arrives.” She handed him a folder. “This came in from your office early this morning. I kept it separate from the other faxes.”

He opened it and paged through it. “The scoop on the four names Rick gave me. Christ, any one of these could be our guy… did you look at these?”

She nodded.

“That was my first thought, too. All of them are in a position to get around.”

The sound of a car door drew her to the window.

“Rick and Cass are here.” She disappeared from the room, the sound of her footsteps leading to the front door. She was back in a moment, Rick and Cass in tow.

“This is an incredible home,” Cass was saying. “The grounds are beautiful.”

“Thank you. My father’s doing-I’m afraid I contributed nothing to the décor, nor to the landscaping.” Regan smiled and pulled a chair closer to the large desk. “Cass, have a seat. Rick, if you’ll pull that chair up, we can get right to it.”

Regan took the chair behind the desk, and sat back, motioning for Mitch to begin.

“First of all, we’ve had phenomenal response to our requests for information from agencies around the country. I’m still going through them, but thus far I’ve got a pile of an astonishing sixty-seven unsolved murders that fit our killer to a tee.”

“Sixty-seven?” Cass gasped.

“Sixty-seven that merit a closer look, yes. No guarantee it’s him, but they’re looking damned good. There are another several dozen that are long shots, but all in all, I think this guy has been busier than any of us could have imagined.”

“Well, if we take those sixty-seven and put them in order of date, we should have a pretty fair idea of where he was in what year,” Cass said thoughtfully. “If we match that up with where the four prime suspects were during those times, we should be able to determine which one is our man. Or if none of them are.”

Mitch nodded. “We’re already on that. John is having someone back at the office feeding the data into the computer as we speak. He should have something for us soon.”

“Chief Denver needs to know all this,” Cass told him. “He should have all the information you have.”

“He already does,” Mitch assured her. “I spoke with him yesterday afternoon, faxed over the nuts and bolts. Didn’t get to send him everything because his fax machine jammed.”

“Damn thing.” Cass shook her head. “We’ve been having problems with it for months. We just haven’t gotten around to replacing it. Give me copies of whatever didn’t go through, and I’ll deliver them this afternoon.”

“I’m one step ahead of you.” Regan smiled and handed her a brown envelope. “All copied and ready to go.”

“Thanks.” Cass slid the envelope onto the floor between her and Rick’s chairs.

“Well, let’s look at what you do have on these four,” Rick said. “Let’s see what they’ve been up to since leaving old Bowers High.”

“Bayshore Regional,” Cass corrected.

“Whatever. Let’s take a look.”

“Regan, can you toss these through the copier behind you? Let’s give everyone their own set.” Mitch handed her the stack of papers he’d withdrawn from the folder, and she stacked them on the copy machine to her right and pushed Start. The machine printed and collated four sets in slightly more than a minute. Regan collected and stapled them and passed out the packs.

“Okay, let’s take a look at William Calhoun. Age forty-five, currently separated from his wife. Resides in a small town outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. William is a pilot who’s logged in many a mile with Universal Airways.”

“He looks good,” Rick said.

“He looks even better when you learn that there’s a large number of unsolved murders along the border, not too far from where he lives,” Regan told them.

“Before you get too happy over Calhoun, take a look at Jonathan Wainwright. Son of the chief of police who investigated the murders back in ’79,” Mitch reminded them. “Widower whose wife died under questionable circumstances. Like Calhoun, he currently lives in the southwest. Left college after two years to join the army. Special Forces for nine years, then left the army to work for a private security firm.”

Rick’s head shot up. “Mercenary?”

“Possibly, with that background,” Mitch agreed. “We’re looking into that, too.

“Then we have Kenneth Kelly. Son of Judge Kelly. Divorced three times. Two children, one by each of the first two wives. Latest ex-wife lives in London. Four years of college followed by a master’s in international studies. Has worked for the U.S. Commerce Department since grad school. London, Brussels, Sofia… this guy’s been around.”

“They’ve all been around,” Rick muttered.

“And the last one? That was only three,” Cass pointed out.

“Joseph Patterson. Same age as the others. Single. Never married. Son of a man who was mayor in Bowers for fifteen years. Did a stint in the Marines, then went to work for JTS for the past eighteen years. Sales-he managed most of the south and the southwest.”

“JTS. The software company?” Cass asked.

Mitch nodded. “Right.”

“He would have done a lot of traveling…”

“It could be any one of these guys.” Rick shook his head. “They all had jobs that permitted them to travel. Domestically and internationally.”

“So how do we narrow it down?” Regan asked.

“With luck, Lucy will do that for us,” Regan said. “She’s meeting with the FBI’s sketch artist in about two hours. Hopefully, we’ll have a face by the end of the day.”

“And with the information we get from the Bureau’s computer, by then we’ll have zeroed in on every place this guy has been for the past twenty-six years.”

“Do you think Denver should bring all four in for questioning?” Mitch asked.

“I don’t know. By the time he gets them rounded up and into the station, we could have Kendra’s sketch. A positive ID would be better than pulling all four in and hoping that the face she draws belongs to one of them.”

Mitch nodded. “You have a point, Rick.”

“This could all be over within the next twenty-four hours,” Cass said as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

“If the cards all fall our way.” Rick nodded, then added, “Not that they usually do.”

“Can I fax these to the chief?” Cass asked. “I think he needs to see them right away. Let him decide if he wants to start pulling one or all of them in for some preliminary questioning. The danger there, of course, is that without probable cause to hold them, we can’t act on even our strongest suspicions. We’d have to let them walk when they want to, and then the Strangler could just flat-out disappear.”