James Swain - The Program

By the time Linderman had finished reading the record, the mosquitoes had returned, and he spent a minute swatting them into oblivion.

He knew that Jason Crutchfield was the person he was looking for. Crutchfield was a sociopath, just as Mr. Clean was a sociopath. The only people sociopaths trusted were each other. They were talking to each other, and he needed to find out why.

He decided to call Bob Kessler, and see what other insights he might have on Crutchfield. He pulled up Kessler’s number from his cell phone’s address book, and heard the call go through. Kessler answered sounding out of breath.

“Hope I’m not getting you at a bad time,” Linderman said.

“Not at all, Ken. I was out on the lawn practicing my golf swing.”

“How’s retirement treating you?”

“It’s great until I run out of golf courses to play.”

“I need to pick your brain for a few minutes.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me about Jason Crutchfield. His name has come up in another case, and I wanted to hear your feelings before I questioned him.”

“You’re going to interview Crutchfield in prison?”

“That was the plan, yes.”

“Jason Crutchfield is the prince of darkness. Take my advice, and tell him as little as possible about yourself when you interview him. Otherwise, you’ll start getting postcards from him, like my family did.”

“He contacted you?”

“Yes. Right after I testified against him at his trial. He somehow got my home address, and my children’s addresses as well. For several years he sent us hand-made cards during the holidays. They were sick.”

“Were you aware he was coming up for parole next year?”

“What? Who told you that?”

“The warden at Starke Prison. He made Crutchfield out to be a model prisoner, and said he was coming up for parole. It sounds like they’re buddies.”

“Did the warden bother to read the report I sent him?”

“I don’t know, Bob – what did it say?”

“It said that Jason Crutchfield was one of the most dangerous serial killers I’ve ever encountered,” Kessler said. “While I was on the witness stand at his trial, Crutchfield kept looking at me and grinning. I’ve seen that look before. It was like a cat that’s just eaten a canary. It told me that he’d committed crimes more heinous than those he was being tried for, and enjoyed that I didn’t know what they were.”

“What did you do?”

“I started digging. Crutchfield was a suspect in his college girlfriend’s slaying ten years earlier, so I used that as my starting point. I contacted the cops in the town where he lived while he was in college, and asked if they’d had any unsolved homicides around that time. Sure enough, they had. The bodies of four naked young women had been found in a remote wooded area, all of them having been raped and murdered. Unfortunately, there was no physical evidence linking them to Crutchfield.

“Right after he graduated from college, Crutchfield took a job in Raleigh, North Carolina programming computers. I contacted the Raleigh police, and sure enough, the bodies of four women were found in the woods during the time he lived there. The condition of the victims’ bodies were identical to those in Pittsburgh.

“Crutchfield lived in three more cities before eventually settling in Melbourne. I contacted the police in every city, and each time, I scored a hit.”

“How many victims did you find?” Linderman asked.

“Twenty-four. There were four in each city, all women. He was a regular killing machine. On top of that, there’s evidence suggesting he might have done away with his family when he was younger.”

“What happened to his family?”

“I don’t know. They just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Why wasn’t any of this in his record?”

“Because the bureau won’t let us put things on the record without proof. I sent a report to the warden at Starke, and told him what I’d found. I also offered to speak in front of the parole board when Crutchfield became eligible. It was all I could do.”

“Did the warden ever contact you?”

“Never heard a peep.”

“I need for you to email me a copy of that report.”

“Of course. Not that it’s any of my business, but what is Crutchfield doing? I spent a lot of time studying this guy, and I’d like to know.”

“He’s in contact with a serial killer in Fort Lauderdale who’s abducting violent teenage boys, and murdering them.”

“A tag team?”

“Yes. We’re calling the other killer Mr. Clean. There’s a videotape of him killing the driver of a van and abducting his latest victim that I can send you.”

“I’d like that.”

The front door of the house opened, and Wood stepped out with a concerned look on his face. Linderman had been gone a while, and he waved to his counterpart. Wood returned the wave and went back inside.

“I’ve got to run,” Linderman said. “Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“One more question,” Kessler said.

Linderman smiled into the cell. Bob Kessler was famous for asking one more question during investigations, his curiosity insatiable.

“Go ahead.”

“You said Mr. Clean was abducting and killing teenage boys. Crutchfield’s previous victims were all women. What do you think these guys are up to?”

The mosquitoes had returned and were attacking him with abandon. Linderman was sick of the blood on his hands from killing them, and climbed out of the van.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m going to find out.”

Normally, Linderman would have enjoyed the scenery as he and Wood drove from Jacksonville to Starke Prison, the towering pine trees lining both sides of Highway 301 as beautiful as any he’d ever seen.

But sightseeing was not on today’s agenda. His conversation with Bob Kessler had turned his internal radar up a notch, and with each passing mile, his apprehension grew. Kessler had called Crutchfield the prince of darkness, and told Linderman to be careful. It didn’t matter that Crutchfield was incarcerated in a maximum security prison, or that he passed his days in a nine by twelve cell. Crutchfield was the personification of evil, and as every FBI profiler knew, evil knew no boundaries.

Wood wanted coffee, so they stopped in Starke. The main drag consisted of every fast-food joint you could name and a Baptist church the size of a Wal-Mart. They picked a mom-and-pop, and sat in a secluded booth.

“What do you know about Warden Jenkins?” Linderman asked.

“Jenkins came in on the coattails of a scandal,” Wood replied, blowing steam off his cup. “The last warden got preoccupied running a softball league inside the prison, and was blinded to the fact that the guards were having sex with the female inmates. The place was a regular Sodom and Gomorrah. The local newspaper found out, and blew the lid off of it.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About three years ago.”

“Did Jenkins bring in new people with him?”

“He turned the place upside down. Is that important?”

“Yes. Bob Kessler sent a report to the previous warden telling him that he’d linked twenty-four murders to Jason Crutchfield. I’m guessing that during the transition, Crutchfield used his job in the records department to make that report disappear. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts Jenkins never saw it.”

“So Jenkins has no idea who Crutch is.”

“That would be my guess.”

The journey to Starke Prison was one of straight lines. The two-lane highway leading to the prison was as straight as a shotgun blast, as was the walk from the visitor’s parking lot to the main reception area. The final walk to the red brick administration building was also straight, the rough concrete scraping the FBI agents’ shoes.