A Trace of Crime
The Raineys both shook their heads.
“May I?” Keri asked, pointing to the photos on the table.
Carolyn nodded. Keri picked up the stack and began to go through them. Jessica Rainey was a perfectly normal-looking twelve-year-old girl with a broad smile, her mother’s twinkly eyes, and her father’s wild brown hair.
“We’re going to follow every possible lead,” Ray assured them. “But I don’t want you to jump to any conclusions just yet. There’s still a chance that this is just a misunderstanding of some sort. We haven’t had a report of an abducted child in this community in well over two years, so we don’t want to make any assumptions at this point.”
“I appreciate that,” Carolyn Rainey said. “But Jess isn’t the sort of girl to just run off to a friend’s and leave all her stuff lying by the side of the street. And she would never willingly part with her phone. It’s just not her.”
Ray didn’t reply. Keri knew he had felt obligated to suggest other possibilities. And he was usually far less likely to leap to the abduction theory than Keri. But even he was having trouble coming up with legitimate reasons why Jessica would abandon all her things.
“Is it okay if we take a few of these photos?” she asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “We want to circulate them among law enforcement.”
“Of course. Take them all if you want,” Carolyn said.
“Not all,” Tim said, pulling one out of the pile. It was the first time he’d spoken since they all sat down. “I’d like to hold on to this one if you can do without it.”
It was a photo of Jessica in the woods wearing hiking gear, with a way-too-big-for-her backpack strapped to her back. Her face was smeared with what looked like war paint and she had a rainbow bandanna tied around her head. She was grinning happily. It wouldn’t help much for identification purposes. And even if it had, Keri could tell it was very special to him.
“Keep it. We’ve got more than enough,” she said softly before getting down to business. “Now there are a few things we are going to need from you and all of it in short order. You may want to write this down. In situations like this, time is crucial so we may have to sacrifice your feelings for information. Are you two okay with that?”
They both nodded.
“Good,” she said before diving in. “So here’s what’s going to happen. Mrs. Rainey, we’re going to need you to show us the route you took to meet your daughter and her usual route from that point to the school. We’re going to want to look through her room, including any computers or tablets she might have. As I mentioned, we’ll also look through her phone when CSU is done with it.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Rainey said, writing it all down as Keri continued.
“We’ll need the contact information for every friend you can think of and any kids she might have had issues with during the last year. We’ll need the principal’s number. We can get teacher and guidance counselor contact information from the school. But if you already have it, that would be great.”
“We can get you all that,” Carolyn promised them.
“We’ll also need the names and numbers of any coaches or tutors she has,” Ray added, “as well as those names of both the boys she was crushing on. Detective Locke and I will split up to maximize time.”
Keri looked at him. His voice sounded completely normal but she could tell that there was more than simple professional expediency at work.
Don’t take it personally. It’s a good idea.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Why don’t Mrs. Rainey and I walk the route to school before it gets too dark out? At this time of year, the sun will be setting in less than an hour. You can give me those contact numbers on the way.”
“And Mr. Rainey,” Ray said, “you can show me Jessica’s room. After that, I recommend you go get your son. What’s his name?”
“Nathaniel. Nate.”
“Okay, well, CSU will be gone by the time you get back so there won’t be so many people around. You’re going to want to try to keep things as normal as possible for him. That way, if we need to ask him questions, he won’t shut down.”
Tim Rainey nodded absently, as if he’d only just remembered he had a son as well. Ray continued.
“When you go, I’ll head over to the school to talk to the folks there. We’ll also check to see if there’s any video that can be helpful. Mrs. Rainey, I’ll meet you and Detective Locke at the school and drive you back home.”
“Are you going to put out an Amber Alert?” Carolyn Rainey asked, referring to the abduction messages sent out to the general public.
“Not yet,” Ray said. “It’s very possible that we’ll do that soon, but not until we have more information to share. We just don’t know enough yet.”
“Let’s get moving,” Keri said. “The more quickly we check off all these boxes, the better picture we’ll have of what might have happened.”
They all stood up. Carolyn Rainey grabbed her purse and led them to the front door.
“I’ll let you know if we learn anything,” she said to her husband as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He nodded, then pulled her in for a long, tight hug.
Keri glanced over at Ray, who was watching the couple. Despite himself, he glanced over at her. She could still see the hurt in his eyes.
“I’ll call you when we get to the school,” Keri said quietly to Ray. He nodded without replying.
She felt stung by his coldness but she got it. He had opened up and taken a big risk. And she had shut him down without explanation. It was probably good that they had some space for the next little while.
As the two women stepped outside and began to walk away from the house, one thought reverberated in her head.
I have screwed up massively.
CHAPTER THREE
Ninety minutes later, back at her desk, Keri let out a sigh of deep frustration. Most of the last hour and a half had been fruitless.
They hadn’t found anything unusual on the walk to the school and didn’t come across any obvious signs of struggle. There were no odd tire marks near the spot where Mrs. Rainey had found Jessica’s stuff. Keri had stopped at every house nearby to determine if any residents had street-facing video cameras that might be of use. None did.
When they got to the school, Ray was already there talking to the principal, who promised to send out an email blast to all school parents asking for any information they might have. The security officer had all the surveillance footage from the day queued up so Keri suggested Ray stick around and view it while she got Mrs. Rainey back home and returned to the office to call all the potential leads.
To Carolyn Rainey, it must have simply looked like two partners effectively multi-tasking. And to a degree, it was. But the thought of sitting awkwardly in the passenger seat as Ray drove her back to West LA division was something she wasn’t up for right now.
So instead, they got a Lyft back to the Rainey house and Keri continued to the station from there. That’s where she’d spent the last half hour calling all Jessica’s friends and classmates. No one had anything unusual to share. Three friends all remembered her leaving school on her bike and waving to them as she left the parking lot. Everything seemed fine.
She called both the boys Jessica had crushes on in recent weeks and while both knew who she was, neither seemed to know her well or even be aware of how she felt. Keri wasn’t shocked at that. She remembered that at that age, she’d filled up whole notebooks with the names of boys she liked, without ever actually speaking to them.
She spoke to, or left messages with, all of Jessica’s teachers, her softball coach, her math tutor, and even the head of the neighborhood watch group. No one she reached knew anything.
She called Ray, who picked up on the first ring.
“Sands.”
“I’ve got nothing here,” she said, deciding to focus solely on the matter at hand. “No one saw anything out of the ordinary. Her friends say everything seemed fine when she left school. I’m still waiting for some calls back but I’m not optimistic. You having better luck?”
“Not so far. The video camera range only extends to the end of the school’s block in each direction. I can see her saying goodbye to her friends, just as you describe, then biking off. Nothing happens while she’s visible. I’m having the guard queue up footage from earlier in the week to see if there was anyone loitering around on prior days. It might be a while.”
Unspoken in that last line was the assumption he wouldn’t be returning to the station anytime soon. She pretended not to notice.
“I think we should post the Amber Alert,” she said. “It’s six p.m. now. So it’s been three hours since her mom called nine-one-one. We don’t have any evidence suggesting this is anything other than an abduction. If she was taken right after school, between two forty-five and three p.m., she could be as far as Palm Springs or San Diego by now. We need to get as many eyes on this as possible.”
“Agreed,” Ray said. “Can you honcho that so I can keep reviewing this footage?”
“Of course. Are you coming back to the station afterward?”
“I don’t know,” he answered noncommittally. “Depends on what I find.”
“Okay, well, keep me posted,” she said.
“Will do,” he replied and hung up without saying goodbye.
Keri ordered herself not to focus on the perceived slight and put her attention into preparing the Amber Alert and getting it out. As she was finishing up, she saw her boss, Lieutenant Cole Hillman, walking toward his office.
He was wearing his usual uniform of slacks, sport coat, loose tie, and short-sleeved dress shirt that he couldn’t keep tucked in because of his ample girth. He was a little over fifty but the job had aged him so that there were deep lines in his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. His salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper these days.
She thought he was going to come over to her desk and demand a status update but he never even looked in her direction. That was fine with her, as she wanted to check with the CSU folks to see of they’d found any prints.
After she submitted the Amber Alert, Keri walked though station bullpen, which was unusually quiet for this time of night, and down the hall. She knocked on the CSU door and poked her head in without waiting for permission.
“Any luck on the Jessica Rainey case?”
The clerk, a twenty-something girl with dark hair and glasses, looked up from the magazine she’d been reading. Keri didn’t recognize her. The CSU clerk job was a grind and had a lot of turnover. She typed the name in the database.
“Nothing from the backpack or bike,” the girl said. “They’re still checking a few prints from the phone but the way they were talking, it didn’t sound promising.”
“Can you please have them let Detective Keri Locke know as soon as they’re done, regardless of the result? Even if there are no usable prints, I need to check that phone.”
“You got it, Detective,” she said, burying her nose back in the magazine before Keri had even closed the door.
Standing alone in the quiet hallway, Keri took a deep breath and realized there was nothing else for her to do. Ray was checking the school surveillance footage. She had put out the Amber Alert. The CSU report was pending and she couldn’t look at Jessica’s phone until they were done with it. She’d either spoken to or was waiting to hear back from everyone she had called.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, allowing her brain to relax for the first time in hours. But as soon as she did, unwelcome thoughts flooded in.
She saw the image of Ray’s face, hurt and confused. She saw a black van with her daughter inside rounding a corner into darkness. She saw the eyes of the Collector as she squeezed his neck, draining the life out of the man who’d abducted her daughter over five years ago, even as he was already dying from a head wound. She saw grainy footage of a man known only as the Black Widower as he shot another man in the head, took Evie from the man’s van, and shoved her into the trunk of his own car before disappearing forever.
Her eyes snapped open and she saw that she was facing the evidence room. She’d been in there many times in recent weeks, poring over photos from Brian “The Collector” Wickwire’s apartment.
The actual evidence was held at Downtown Division because his apartment was in their jurisdiction. They had consented to let the West LA police photographer take pictures of everything as long as it stayed in the evidence room. As she had killed the man, Keri wasn’t in a position to argue with them.
But she hadn’t gone through the photos in several days and now something about them was eating at her. There was an itch at the edge of her brain that she just couldn’t scratch, some kind of connection she knew was hiding just out of the corner of her consciousness. She walked into the room.
The evidence clerk wasn’t surprised to see her and slid the sign-in sheet toward her without a word. She checked in, then went straight to the row with the box of photos. She didn’t need the reference data as she knew exactly what row and shelf it was. She grabbed the box from the shelf and lugged it to one of the tables in the back.
She sat down, turned on the desk lamp, and spread all the photos out in her front of her. She’d looked at them dozens of times before. Every book Wickwire owned was catalogued and photographed, as was every piece of clothing and each item from his kitchen shelves. This man was believed to be involved in the abduction and sale of as many as fifty children over the years and the detectives from Downtown Division were leaving no stone unturned.
But Keri sensed that what was teasing her wasn’t in any of those photos she’d studied previously. It was something she’d only registered in passing before. Something had been jogged in her mind when she stood in the hall minutes before, letting all her painful memories wash over her.
What is it? What’s the connection you’re trying to make?
And then she saw it. In the background of a picture of the Collector’s desk was a series of nature photos. They were all 5 x 7 images lined up in a row. There was a frog on a rock. Beside it was picture of a jackrabbit with its ears pricked up. And next to that was a beaver working on a dam. A woodpecker was in mid-peck. A salmon caught on film as it leapt from a stream. And next to it was the image of a spider on a patch of dirt – a black widow.
Black widow. Black Widower. Is there something to that?
It might have just been a coincidence. Obviously the Downtown detectives didn’t think much of the photos as they hadn’t even been catalogued as evidence. But Keri knew that the Collector liked to keep coded records.
In fact, that’s how she’d found the addresses where Evie and multiple other abductees were being kept. The Collector had hidden them in plain sight, in an alpha-numeric code on a bunch of seemingly innocuous postcards in his desk drawer.
Keri knew that the Collector and the Black Widower shared a connection: they had both been hired at various points by the attorney Jackson Cave.
Did their paths cross at some point, maybe on a job? Was this Wickwire’s way of keeping the contact information of a fellow sinner for hire, in case they ever needed to team up?
Keri felt a certainty wash over her, one that usually only came when she’d uncovered a crucial clue in a case. She was certain that if she could access that photo, she would find something useful about it.
The only problem was that it was in Brian Wickwire’s apartment, which was still cordoned off by the Downtown police. The last time she’d tried to get in, two weeks ago, there was crime scene tape all around it and two cops stationed in front of the building to deter any looky-loos.
Keri was just beginning to consider how she might navigate that challenge when her phone rang. It was Ray.
“Hey,” she said hesitantly.
“Can you come back to the Rainey place right now?” he asked, skipping the pleasantries.
“Of course. What’s up?”
“They just got a ransom note.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Twenty anxious minutes later, Keri pulled up to the Rainey house. Once again a CSU truck was already out front. She knocked on the front door. Ray opened it almost immediately and she could tell from the look on his face that the situation was grim. She glanced over his shoulder and saw the Raineys sitting together on a couch. She was weeping. He looked shell-shocked.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ray said sincerely. “I’ve only been here five minutes but I’m having a hard time keeping them from going off the rails.”
“Is there a clock on the note?” Keri asked quietly as she stepped inside.
“Yeah. The guy wants the transfer to happen tonight at midnight. He’s demanding a hundred grand.”
“Jeez.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Ray said. “You need to read the letter. It’s…weird.”
Keri walked into the room. One CSU investigator was dusting what looked like a FedEx envelope. She looked back at Ray, who nodded.
“Crazy, huh?” he said. “I’ve never heard of a ransom note come via FedEx before. It was same-day. I already gave the tracking number to Edgerton. He says it was posted from a location in El Segundo. The time stamp was one fifty-eight p.m.”
“But that’s before Jessica was taken,” Keri said.
“Exactly. The abductor must have sent it before he grabbed her – pretty brazen. Suarez is headed over there now to look for any potential footage from the place.”
“Sounds good,” Keri said as she headed to the living room where the Raineys sat. She was reassured that some of their best people were in the mix. Detective Kevin Edgerton was a tech wizard and Detective Manny Suarez was a dogged, experienced cop. Nothing would slip by them.
“Hi,” she said softly and the Raineys both looked up at her. Carolyn’s eyes were puffy and red but there were no tears left. Tim was ghostly pale, his face dour and tight.
“Hello, Detective,” Carolyn managed to whisper.
“May I take a look at the letter?” she asked, glancing at the sheet of paper on the coffee table. It was already in a clear evidence envelope.
They nodded wordlessly. She moved closer to get a better look. Even before reading the contents, she could tell that the letter hadn’t been printed using a computer. It had been typed on a standard 8 x 11 sheet of paper. That immediately concerned her.
Every computer printer had its own identifiable signature, represented through a pattern of dots not recognizable to the undiscerning eye. The dots printed out in a code along with the text of the document and provided the make, model, and even the serial number of the printer used. If the person who typed this letter knew enough to avoid a computer printer, it suggested he probably wasn’t an amateur.
The letter itself was equally troubling. It read:
Your child has a dark spirit. The spirit must be pruned so that a healthy child can grow in its place. That will destroy the body of the child but save its soul. So sad but it must be done. The hothouse desire of the creator demands it. I can free this child of the spirit with my holy shears, the mechanism of the Lord. The demons must be uprooted from within her.
However, if you promise to redeem her yourself through bloodletting purification as he has commanded, I will return her to you for the procedure. But you must compensate me for my sacrifice. I demand $100,000 to be made whole. It must be cash, untraceable. Do not involve the authorities, the filthy purveyors of sordid wretchedness upon this world. If you do, I will return the child to the soil from which she came. I will employ the machinery of the Lord to spread her dripping remains among the spoiled weeds of the city. I have provided proof that I am sincere in my claims.
Midnight. Father only. For fathers alone will save this world from impurity.
Chace Park. The bridge by the water.
$100,000. Midnight. Alone.
The flesh of your flesh depends on your supplication.
Keri looked up at Ray. There was so much to process that she chose to set most of it aside for the time being and focus on the clearest elements of the letter.
“What does he mean about providing proof?” she asked him.
“There were several strands of hair in a baggie in the package as well,” he answered. “We’re having them tested to see if they’re a match.”
“Okay, there’s a lot to pore over in that thing,” Keri said, turning to the Raineys. “But for now let’s focus on the non-psycho stuff. First off, you made the right choice by reaching out to us. Parents who follow instructions not to contact authorities usually have worse outcomes.”
“I didn’t want to call you,” Tim Rainey admitted. “But Carrie insisted.”
“Well, we’re glad you did,” Keri reiterated, then turned to Ray. “Have you talked to them about the money?”
“We were just about to when you got here,” Ray said, then focused his attention on the Raineys. “It’s not a bad idea to secure the money, even if we hope not to hand it over. It gives us more options. Have you thought about how you might get it?”
“We have the money,” Tim Rainey said, “but not in cash. I called our bank to talk about transferring some securities over. They said that it’s hard to do that kind of transaction after hours and impossible on such short notice.”
“I’ve reached out to our fund managers and they say the same thing,” Carolyn Rainey added. “They might be able to get it for us by early tomorrow morning, but not by midnight and not in cash.”
Keri turned to Ray.
“It is odd that he had the letter arrive so late,” she said. “He had to know it would be almost impossible to get the money in time. Why make it so difficult?”
“This guy doesn’t sound like he’s operating from a full deck,” Ray noted. “Maybe he’s not up to speed on the timing challenges of financial institutions.”
“There is another option,” Tim Rainey interrupted.
“What’s that?” Ray asked.
“I work for Venergy, the new mobile gaming platform based in Playa Vista. I work directly for Gary Rosterman, the guy who runs the company. He’s filthy rich and he likes me. Plus Jessica and his daughter went to the same Montessori school until last year. They’re friends. I know he has cash on hand. Maybe he’d front me.”
“Call him,” Ray said. “But if he agrees, ask him to be discreet.”
Rainey nodded aggressively. His dark visage lifted slightly. He seemed heartened by having renewed hope. Or maybe it was just having something on which to focus his attention.
As he dialed the number, Ray turned back to Keri and nodded for them to step away from the Raineys. When they were out of earshot, he whispered, “I think we should take the letter back to the station. We need to have the whole unit on this, get their ideas on what it means; maybe bring in the psychologist. We should check for recent similar cases in the area.”
“Agreed,” Keri said. “I also want to filter the letter through the federal database to see if it matches anything else. Who knows what we’ll find? I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one.”
“More than usual? Why?”
Keri explained her concerns about typing the letter versus using a computer. It resonated with Ray.
“Whether this guy is crazy or crazy like a fox, he seems like a pro,” he said.
Tim Rainey ended his call and turned to them.
“Gary said he’ll do it,” he said. “He said he can have the cash in hand in about three hours.”
“That’s great,” Ray said. “We’ll send someone to collect it when it’s ready. We don’t want a civilian transporting that kind of money if we can avoid it.”
“We’re going to head back to the station now,” Keri told them. Seeing the sudden anxiety in their faces, she quickly added, “We’re going to leave two uniformed officers here with you, as a precaution. They can reach us any time.”
“But why are you leaving?” Carolyn Rainey asked.
“We want to run the ransom note through our databases and talk to some experts. We’re getting our entire Missing Persons Unit involved in your case. But I promise we’ll be back in a few hours. We’ll lay out the whole plan for the park with you and explain exactly what we’re doing. As soon as we leave you, I’m going to call to have surveillance set up there right away. Everything will be in place well in advance of the meet. We’ve got this.”
Carolyn Rainey stood up and gave her a surprisingly powerful hug. She did the same to Ray. Tim Rainey nodded politely at both of them. Keri could tell that his brief respite from his angst had faded and he was back in permanent crisis mode.