Chapter Seven
Evangeline
“W E’RE SO SORRY, Evangeline, it’s just not safe to travel,” my agent said. “Hurricane warnings are happening all over the area, so we’re going to postpone the Savannah signing until we get the all-clear sign.”
“You don’t think we’ll have to cancel, do you?
“So far, we’re only looking at a postponement, and we’ve got some time to play with before your next stop.”
“I understand,” I said with a sigh. “So, what does this mean for now? Do I go home?”
“Would you mind staying put? We’re hoping the weather will clear in a few days, and we’ll cover the hotel until it does. Go out to dinner, on me. Enjoy everything Nashville has to offer. If we can’t get the event rescheduled for Thursday, we’ll call it and send you home.”
I bit my lip. It was risky, staying in town for so long after finishing a project. Now that Barry was off my to-do list, I was anxious to get my next project underway. The next one was going to be rather... well, satisfying, as he’d been hard to track down. Creepy little bastard.
But a little more time with Shep? Now that could be nice.
“Sounds good, just keep me posted and I’ll sit tight until I hear from you.”
After finishing up the conversation with my agent I opened the bottle of wine I’d selected for the occasion and grabbed my kit from the bottom drawer. After opening the bottle and pouring myself a hotel room plastic cup full of wine, I prepared a workspace on top of the bed, unpacking my tattoo machine.
Gloving up and sterilizing the equipment, I prepared a needle by giving it a slight bend for better skin contact at the angle I’d be working from. Then I wrapped and banded the machine, connected the power supply and footswitch before loading the machine with ink and was finally ready to begin.
Sitting up straight on the bed, I relaxed my thighs until I was in a comfortable position. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop until I was completely finished. Then I started the outline of butterfly number seven. The needle delivering its first delicious sting.
As a teenager I started cutting as a coping mechanism for my trauma. Small razorblade cuts on my inner thigh. Self-inflicted, controlled pain to drive out the demons of victimization. Most of the cuts healed without scarring, but a few times I cut too deep. After my mother’s death I had one of the scars covered with my first tattoo. A monarch butterfly. Its glorious wings spread in flight. And as I lay in that tattoo shop chair, lost in a haze of revelatory pain, I had a moment of clarity. A vision of my future. An understanding of exactly who I was and what I was to do with my life. The ones who had abused me had called me ‘Angel,’ and now I would revisit them all as the Angel of Death.
* * *
C larke
I poured my third glass of Scotch, slowly swiveling back and forth in my chair, while studying the evidence board I’d tacked up on the wall. I’d transitioned my living room into a makeshift squad room long ago . I didn’t own a TV and never had guests over, so I figured why not use the space for something constructive.
Dating in the Holler was an absolute no-go, for many obvious reasons, and if I ever did meet a woman I wanted to screw, I’d pay for a room at the Night Owl Inn. Besides, it wasn’t like I could use the actual police station house, of which I was Sheriff, to do important police work. This investigation was strictly off-book, and I was on my own when it came to collecting and examining evidence. Once I knew the identity of the killer and how his victims were connected, I could go straight to the FBI. Fuck Captain Travers and Sergeant Babich and the goddamned NYPD for that matter. I was going to use solving this case as my resume for a new career with the feds. Between my position as sheriff and the various law enforcement connections I still had, I was able to poke around and collect evidence fairly inconspicuously, and felt I was on the verge of a major breakthrough.
At the center of my evidence board were pictures of George Hanford, a New York financial advisor, and Henry Duplass, Vice President of FarmTown Foods in Baltimore, Maryland, who was murdered while on a business trip in Newark. Both men were found dead within four days of one another. Both had been tortured and disfigured prior to death but were ultimately killed by a single gunshot to the back of the head. Their corpses dismembered and dumped out in the open. Despite the similarities and proximity of the two cases, early investigations found no link whatsoever between the two men. To the knowledge of both the NYPD and NJPD, the two had never met, nor did they run in the same social, religious, or work circles. Forensic testing proved that a different gun was used in each of the killings. One a .22 caliber handgun was used in the Hanford killing, while Duplass was shot with a .38. Also, the methods of torture and the materials used did not match. To the best of our knowledge, neither man was in debt to loan sharks or bookies or had ties to organized crime, so who the fuck killed them and why? It was a total mystery to everyone including me, until one day I found a connection between Hanford and Duplass. A connection I now know I was never meant to see. A connection that cost me my career with the NYPD, and one I now knew was the lynchpin in solving this case.
That connection was the honorable Judge James Faulkner.
Months after the Hanford and Duplass cases had cooled to the point of freezing, I found an old, personal email address of George Hanford. One he hadn’t used in several years, which is why the forensic team had missed it early on. From this old account, Hanford had a brief exchange with Judge Faulkner thanking him for a wonderful weekend and for saving his life. Faulkner replied, telling Hanford that it was his pleasure to help and that he was glad for Henry to have made the introduction. The email made hints at the fact that the judge had helped Henry in a similar way a while back. As far as I was concerned, this was a smoking gun. Hard evidence that George Hanford and Henry Duplass knew each other after all. Not only that, but that a powerful New York judge made up this unlikely threesome.
It was right after this discovery that I was thrown off the case and ultimately shit canned. At the time I had no idea why, but the evidence I’ve found since leaving New York has certainly shed some light on a thing or two. After finding the emails between Hanford and Judge Faulkner, I searched for any electronic correspondence between the judge and Duplass but came up empty, but what I did find was shocking.
Four years ago, Judge Faulkner wrote a strongly worded and passionate character reference on behalf of Henry Duplass to the Board of Directors of FarmTown Foods, Inc. Apparently, the board had been ready to appoint Duplass to the position months ago but had second thoughts when word got out that he was in the habit of paying for sex with very young women. And even girls, possibly as young as ten-years-old. The Board was all but ready to appoint a different candidate to the position and nuke Duplass until the judge intervened. I have no idea why he did, or how he came to know Duplass, but the judge not only saved his career but made the rumors go away as well. With one letter of recommendation, Duplass was saved from public humiliation and placed right back on top.
This got me thinking about George Hanford and his comment about the Judge ‘saving his life,’ so I continued to dig until I came across sealed court records regarding a sexual misconduct civil case between George Hanford and Christina Voormann, an eighteen-year-old exotic dancer and sex worker. I paid a tidy sum to have the records unsealed and delivered to my private server, and found that once again, Judge Faulkner had personally intervened in this case. Christina Voormann wasn’t eighteen, she was fifteen, and George knew it, so Christina was paid off, and the judge on the case had the records sealed, a clear indication of Judge Faulkner’s influence. I don’t know why the judge intervened in the lives of these two perverts, but the fact that they both showed up dead not long after couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
Did Faulkner hire a hitman to take Hanford and Duplass out in order to cover his tracks? If so, why torture and mutilate them first? And why bail them out in the first place if you were planning on having them killed in the future? Was the judge a vigilante? Pretending to help these men but secretly planning their demise?
Soon, that question would be answered for me when Judge Faulkner died while on vacation in Miami, Florida. He’d been missing for several days, when his body washed up on the shore near the beach house where he and his wife were staying. He appeared to have drowned, despite the fact that he was a champion collegiate swimmer. Granted, that was a long time ago and the judge appeared to have been drinking heavily the night he died. And while he hadn’t been shot and dismembered like the other victims, there was no way in my mind that his death was a coincidence.
Now we had three dead bodies in Florida, New York, New Jersey, not to mention several other unsolved cases from around the country that I was currently investigating possible links to. Businessmen connected to sex crimes who’d either turned up dead or gone missing.
A pattern was emerging and the killer coming into focus. These men all traveled for work, and most were found dead or went missing while away from home. The link between sex trafficked women and out of towners has been well known and documented for a while, but the number of these guys who’ve ended up dead as Dillinger over the past few years was no series of random acts or coincidences. In fact, the pattern, or lack thereof was so random, it almost suggested meticulous planning.
I sighed, taking a liberal swig of my drink.
Or maybe I’d just been staring at this damn board for too long. Too many nights spent pinning up and staring at photos, receipts, phone records, printed emails, and hundreds of scraps of paper. Month after month, searching for answers to a puzzle I was no longer sure even existed.
The scotch was kicking in and my brain was starting to ache from all the overthinking, so I turned off the lights and stumbled off to bed. I fell asleep just about the second my head hit the pillow, but moments later was jolted awake by a thought.
What if the killer was a traveler, just like his victims?
* * *
Shep
“S o?” Marco asked the moment he got into the van. I had a job booked in Franklin, and the kid was such a great sous chef last time, I thought I’d hire him again. Besides, the job would run much smoother with four hands than with only two.
“So, what ?”
“Come on, man. Don’t be like that.” He waved a hand, pressing for more. “The hot author lady.”
“What about her?”
“You know. Did you hook up with her or what?”
I frowned. “That’s none of your business.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it is. I practically set the two of you up. And as your official wingman, I have the right to know every last freaky detail of what went down between the two of you.”
“I think I liked you better when you called me ‘Chef’ and were afraid of me.”
Marco folded his arms and shook his head. “This is some serious bro code violations and shit.”
“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “Evangeline and I went out on a date.”
“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
“Cool your jets,” I hissed. “It was just one date.”
“One date that carried on into the morning,” he said gleefully.
“Wrong. Just a date. Dinner, conversation, a little wine. That’s it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Are you going to be like this all day?” I grunted.
“Yes, chef,” he retorted.
I rolled my eyes and let out a quiet grunt as we pulled into the circular driveway of the mansion where we’d be working today.
“Keep your comments to yourself and your eyes on the food, yeah?”
“Fine,” he grumbled, and climbed out of the van.
I grinned, following him.
* * *
Clarke
A t seven AM sharp there was a knock on my front door.
At least we know the kid can tell time.
“Come on in, the door’s open,” I yelled from my seat at the evidence board.
“Mornin’, Sheriff Clarke,” my new deputy said. “I brought coffee, just like you said.”
“Not Betty’s coffee, right?”
“No, Sheriff. I went across town to the Drillers.”
“Thank you, Deputy Jost.”
I laughed on the inside anytime a local used the term “across town.” Where I’m from, going across town could mean going from Hell’s Kitchen to Washington Heights, which could easily take an hour with traffic. In the Holler, cross town travel meant going from the Post Office to the Smiley Freeze Ice Cream Parlor. A trip that took less than seven minutes by car.
“I didn’t know they served coffee at the Driller’s Club,” I said.
“Only between the hours of five to seven. You know, to try an’ sober up the really drunk ones.”
“They should know that giving coffee to a drunk person doesn’t sober them up. It only creates an alert drunk. They’d be better off letting those guys sleep it off.”
“Yeah, but they’ve gotta get ’em outta the bar somehow.”
I frowned. “As long as they’re not letting anyone in that kind of condition drive.”
“No, Sheriff. I think it’s safe to say that every patron of the Drillers knows to walk home, halfway in the bag, and completely in the dark.”
I raised the Styrofoam cup to my mouth, hopeful that the coffee inside would be better than Betty’s. My hope was quickly dashed.
“Jesus Christ, that’s fucking horrible,” I said, setting the cup down. “What is it with the people in this town? Doesn’t anyone know how to brew a good cup of coffee? Human beings have been brewing coffee for centuries, using the crudest of tools. I mean, just by the law of average you’d think someone within the town limits would accidentally pour something drinkable once in a while.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, if you’re so picky about it, why don’t you fix your own coffee?”
“Because I don’t know how to either. I never had to learn. I’m from New York. There’s a good cup of coffee to be found every two blocks.”
Deputy Jost pulled out his notepad and pen, made a single pen stroke, then put the pad and pen back in his pocket.
“What was that about?”
“Oh, nothin,” he replied.
“Take a seat,” I said, motioning to the only chair that didn’t have files stacked onto it.
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
“Do you know what the most important thing is in the relationship between a sheriff and their deputy?” I asked.
“Trust, Sheriff?”
“No, that’s the second most important thing. The most important thing is that you do exactly what I say, when I say it, without question or hesitation. If you do so, you may earn my trust. Possibly even my respect. Until then I want you to be a robot. A cold, unfeeling, mechanical wonder, designed and programmed to aid and assist me to the best of your ability. Understand?”
“Yes, Sheriff,” Jost replied.
“Good. Now, what did you jot down inside your notebook?”
“I made a tally mark,” he replied, quickly adding sheepishly, “At the behest of everyone back at the station.”
“ Everyone at the station? You mean Betty and Lt. Fox.”
“Yes, sir. Uh, yes Sheriff.”
“Why?”
“Apparently, they have a pool on how many times a day you’ll bring up the fact that you’re from New York City. I was told to mark down a tally when—”
I waved Deputy Jost off. “Alright, alright. I get the picture. Obviously, my office staff has too much free time on their hands. I’ll make sure and correct that.”
“Oh, I don’t wanna get anyone in trouble—”
“Don’t worry about it. I have other things I need you to focus on right now. Okay?”
Jost nodded. “Yes, Sheriff.”
“Good. Now, that trust I was talking about is a two-way street, and right now I need you to trust me with something very important. Will you do that, Deputy? Will you trust me?”
“Cross my heart, Sheriff,” Jost replied, making the little cross motion over his heart with his index finger.
I smiled and nodded in approval. “Jost, I hired you because I had a feeling that you’re a smart and loyal man. Am I right? Was my first impression of you correct?”
“Yes, Sheriff. I mean. I like to think so, sir.”
“And humble to boot,” I said. “I think the two of us are gonna get on like a house on fire.”
The truth was I didn’t hire Herman Jost based on any intuition I had about him. I selected him because I knew I’d be able to control him. I needed to kick this investigation into high gear and in order to do that I was going to need help. Help from someone I could easily gaslight and manipulate into doing whatever I needed him to do.
Herman Jost was the youngest of two brothers. The older boy, Craig was killed in Afghanistan and Herman had lived in his brother’s shadow all his life. I knew he’d be eager to please and driven by a sense of duty to live up to my expectations of him as his superior officer. The Josts were a poor family, and I was certain Herman would do just about anything to keep his job.
“Deputy Jost, I’m about to read you in on a highly classified case. A case that I’ve been working since before I arrived here in beautiful Kentucky. A case that my old colleagues in New York have asked me to assist them with.”
I paused before asking, “Does that mention of the NYPD warrant a tally mark in your book, Deputy?”
“No, Sheriff,” Jost replied with a slight grin.
“So, I can trust you? No information about this case leaves this room.”
Jost stood at attention and gave me a crisp salute, “Yes, sir.”
“Alright, at ease. That’s enough of that shit. Lemme tell you what we have so far and what it is I need you to do for me.”