The Trinity Murders Read online

  “I was thinking about this case we caught in Idaho a few years back.”

  “Mitch Myers, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. He was a prolific murderer, twelve girls over the span of three months. It was similar, abducting prostitutes and runaways, and when we finally caught up to him he felt that he was cleansing the world of bad seeds. His mother was a prostitute who used to lock him in the closet when she brought men home. He was afraid of the dark and she threatened to beat him if he made a sound. She was his first victim at the age of twenty.

  “I’m wondering if this might be something similar. Usually, though, in a case like this he’d be trying to clean up his own area. The fact that we are finding these bodies in three different states would be a new wrinkle.”

  “Well, you’ve mentioned how smart he is. Could he be abducting these girls from the same general area but traveling with them to avoid detection?” said Mayfield from the driver’s seat.

  Topper slowly shook his head, “Probably not. One of the reason people like me exist is because the psychopaths are predictable. It’s definitely possible and maybe even probable that he’s traveling from state to state but to come back to one specific hunting ground and carry these girls with him would be unlikely. The way they are dressed, the way they are disposed of without leaving any evidence and the way he is leaving them in places that have a finite window of inactivity, this guy likes control and he likes the time he spends with these girls. If that scenario were the case, he would either be carrying these girls after death for hundreds of miles or he would be transporting them alive and neither of those situations is likely.”

  “How so?” said Trufant.

  “Well, both reasons are the same. We’ve decided that he’s methodical to avoid capture. Transporting girls like that leaves too much up to chance. He could be pulled over, he could have car trouble. He could get in an accident. No, that’s just too many variables that he can’t account for. I believe that once these girls are dead they are of no use to him. There is nothing to suggest he keeps these girls for long after death. There’s no mutilation and although these girls are wearing new clothes, there doesn’t seem to be much care in their disposal. So transporting deceased girls would be out of the question. He wants to dispose of them shortly after he’s done.

  “Live girls pose two problems. First, if he’s driving he’s not able to spend time with them and he runs the risk of them getting out or bringing attention. It’s just too risky. He could sedate these girls but there is nothing in their tox screens to suggest that either. Like I said though, it’s still possible so we won’t rule it out. If that’s the case, he’ll be driving a motor home, carrying a trailer or some type of panel van.

  “We’re definitely looking for a sex offender and somebody who has done time. He’s just too clean for somebody who hasn’t been through the system. Since he’s probably done time, that limits his access to these girls. He won’t be a social worker, run an outreach program or something like that. He wouldn’t get past the background check. Now if we discount the theory of one hunting ground and three dump sites, then he’ll be driving a late model SUV. Late model so it’s something reliable and dark in color so it doesn’t call attention. He needs a way to transport these girls and he’s not doing it in a hybrid. It’ll also need to be nonthreatening because somehow he is luring these girls and it’s possible he’s picking them up off the streets. He’s going to need a way to do that with alarming the girls.

  “So when we get back I’ll want to do some computer searches, see if I can’t narrow some of this down and maybe come up with a list. We had a great girl back in Virginia that would do these searches but I think I can handle it.”

  “We’re about twenty minutes out, Topper. Be there in no time.” With that, Sergeant Trufant turned back around and the three men rode the last twenty minutes in silence while they all pondered where they went from here.

  7

  He called it the dungeon but really it was just the basement. One downfall to living in Oklahoma was tornados, but on the flip side, every home built was equipped with a basement. Had he lived in California or Arizona or someplace like that, he might not be able to do what he did and he had no intentions to stop doing what he did.

  He’d made modifications over the years. When he first bought the property it had a fully furnished basement which he promptly ripped out, covered all the anchors with cement and smoothed them over. At regular intervals along a wall, he had affixed handcuffs and leg irons. Rarely did he keep more than one girl down here at a time but now and again he enjoyed the challenge. He felt it kept things fresh. Also, he loved the horror on the girls’ faces when they came down and saw all that hardware. He didn’t think they would have the same reaction if it was only the one set of irons. Currently, though, he was only keeping one girl, but she proved to be more than enough.

  All of the handcuffs were on the north side of the wall because he wanted the girls forced to look south. The room measured thirty feet by ten feet but that south wall was practically empty. On that south wall were framed photos of every girl who had the pleasure of staying in the dungeon. On the end of the long row of girls was an empty frame and beyond that, plenty of room to hang more. Linnie stared at that frame everyday knowing a day would come when another girl would stare at her picture.

  He’s adapted with age and experience. With the first girl, Becky, he took her picture on day one. The anger and rage was clearly visible in her face but he was stuck with that photo; he had never taken another. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. With the second girl, Cammy, he took her picture everyday. Although Linnie was the first girl he had broken, there came a time when each girl resigned themselves to their situation but still plotted their escape, still held hopes of someday getting out. In the absence of being broken, he was looking for that day when resignation would set in. By girl number three, he pegged it at day thirteen. By girl nine, he could set his watch to it.

  He started keeping each day’s photo in a scrapbook. He had a scrapbook for each girl and he displayed them on a bookshelf in his den with pride as if they were cherished family photos. Some days he would spend hours looking at those photos in different combinations. Sometimes the entire album of one girl, sometimes the same day of each girl. He was fascinated how each girl would follow the same progression towards their fate. He fashioned himself an amateur psychologist and was excited that someday he and his girls would be studied.

  The authorities only knew the names of a handful of the girls but he knew them all. Most of the girls had a driver’s license or some sort of ID and he kept those on the first page of each scrapbook. Although he wanted to call the police each time they had called a girl Jane Doe and fill them in, he actually hated when they had the name of one of the girls. Each time that happened they were one step closer to building a profile which meant they were one step closer to catching him.

  Usually his limit was three weeks. He kept a girl for three weeks and then would be done with her. His previous girl, Janie, he had kept for three weeks and when it was time to dispose of her, he realized how much fun he had so he grabbed another girl the same night. Linnie he’s been holding onto now for three months and in his opinion, it turned out to be a stroke of luck.

  He had never been able to break a girl. As it turned out, three weeks just wasn’t long enough. Every one of these girls was a “street” girl and had a determination and toughness that couldn’t be worn down in three weeks. He was surprised he had never thought of that before. With Linnie, somewhere around week nine he was able to see the fire extinguish in her eyes. He was able to see the defiance shake out of her posture. He was able to see the loss of all hope as she had finally resolved herself to the fact that this would be it for her. There would be no rescue, no escape. She would be in that dungeon until her death.

  Seeing that change, that transformation, gave him such an arousal that he immediately undid her leg irons and unhooked the handcuffs from the w
all and led her back to the only other room in the dungeon. It had been the best sex he ever had. That night he had felt an ecstasy that he thought would never be topped but somehow it was topped the next night and each night after. Her submission was so profound that he could hardly stand it and before long he found himself engaging in self pleasure when he wasn’t with her. It was intoxicating.

  Soon, he would have to end her life and dispose of her body. He always did and this time would be no different. Until that time, he would drink in everything he could about her and not waste a single moment. Once that time came though, as soon as that last shovelful of dirt was tossed, he would be on the prowl looking for another girl.

  8

  Arriving back at the station, Topper was eager and a little nervous to get to work. Usually at this point he had the support of his team but now he was flying solo. What he was most worried about was not having the support of his technical analyst Minnie Marlow back in Virginia. He quickly realized that he took for granted the fact that she was just a phone call away and all he had to do was give her a few parameters and she would come up with amazing search results.

  Shortly after entering the station, a UPS driver walked in and asked to be pointed in the direction of Topper McMullen.

  “Topper McMullen?” asked the driver.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” As they drove in he didn’t notice a UPS truck idling outside or see one anywhere for that matter, but clearly he had been instructed to camp out and deliver his package the minute Topper arrived.

  “Can you sign here please?”

  Feeling a little confused, Topper signed for the package and the driver went on his way. The package was small, no bigger than a brick and before he could start wondering what was inside, the box started ringing. At first Topper thought it might be a bomb, but before his heart rate really started to soar, he realized that it was the sound of a ringing phone. He quickly ripped open the box to answer it.

  “Topper McMullen, how may help you?” said Topper in his most soothing telemarketer voice.

  “Oh that’s cute. You knew it was me didn’t you?”

  “Minn, who else is going to do all this cloak and dagger crap? Not to mention the phone started ringing the second I signed for it with the UPS guy, so clearly you’ve hacked their website.”

  “Not too shabby, huh? You truly are the most observant profiler I’ve ever met.”

  “And you truly are the most bad ass of bad assed technical analysts that I’ve ever met.”

  Minnie Marlow was the glue that held their little team together. The FBI found most of their analysts from some of the finest colleges across the country but a small few are found using an entirely different set of criteria. The FBI likes to target some of the nation’s best hackers. Most of these hackers are self taught but the FBI looks for a few qualities in the people they target. They look for raw talent. The self-taught hackers are the best because they start out with a talent level that cannot be taught. From there they can be taught some of the traditional methods and that really sends their skill set soaring. They look for malicious intent. Some hackers hack to steal or to cause havoc but some of the truly best hackers hack simply because they can. The Feds rarely try to change a malicious hacker because that rarely works out. They like to find the people who simply like a challenge. Lastly they look for creativity. They look for those hackers who have a level of sophistication which can’t be taught. They look for people who can hack the most unhackable places and find the most creative ways to do it.

  One of the very best they ever found was Minnie Marlow. During her hacking days she went by the screen name Mouse and she was known the world over. Her biggest claim to fame was hacking the website of Bank of America. She didn’t go anywhere near the accounts or client information. She wasn’t interested in those things. What she managed to do was change the name of the bank to Bank of Mouse and she changed all their logos to a wedge of cheese. She was twelve years old at the time.

  It took the FBI a month to find her, but once they did they showed up on her doorstep and offered her a job. They convinced her parents to let her finish getting her education in Virginia while at the same time work for the FBI. This was a dream come true for Minnie’s parents. Minnie wasn’t challenged at school and, subsequently, that showed through her work. She was constantly bored and her move to the FBI opened a whole new world for her. That was ten years ago and Minnie was proud of the fact that she was the youngest analyst working for the FBI.

  Most serious hackers had similar tastes and characteristics across the board. Dark and edgy, usually found wearing black. The musical tastes of the hacker community usually ran towards heavy metal or techno music. Piercings and tattoos were also commonly found among members of this community. Not in the case of Minnie. If there was an exception to every rule, then Minnie embodied each and every one of those exceptions.

  Minnie lived up to her name in both size and stature. Not a hair above 5’2” and weighing less than one hundred pounds, Minnie was constantly underestimated by people she met. It never took them long though to change their tune. Her look could best be described as sexy librarian. Pleated skirts, blouses, cardigans and of course her cat’s eye glasses. The team had never been able to count how many pairs of glasses Minnie had but they guessed at least twenty pair in different colors which she always seemed to match to her outfit.

  What Minnie loved more than anything was music and she was partial to music from the 50s and 60s. Everything from Chuck Berry to Chuck Negron, Martha and the Vandellas to the Marvelettes. Her favorite, though, was the Motown sound and as Minnie spoke, Topper could here Smokey playing in the background.

  “Tracks of My Tears, Minnie? Are you playing that in honor of me?” asked Topper with a hint of disbelief.

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I wanted to express the sadness of you being gone. Why must you always profile? Just let things be once in awhile,” huffed Minnie.

  “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. So what’s with the phone; what’s going on?”

  “You didn’t think I would let you go out there by yourself, did you? As soon as I spoke with Sergeant Trufant yesterday I had that phone sent overnight so you would get it today. It’s a burn phone, untraceable … pretty good, huh?”

  “Minn, you could get in trouble for this. Wait, so that’s how Trufant got a hold of me today and my e-mail address.”

  “Well, yeah. He’s been contacting us every time he finds a new body he thinks is related to his case. He’s been contacting us for over a year now. There just has never been enough for us to classify it as a serial so we couldn’t help him, but I thought since you now had all this free time and are still the best profiler in the country, that you could probably help him out. Not to mention help you out in the process. You know what this could do for you if you closed out thirty-two murders?”

  “Wow, you sound just like Trufant; did you guys rehearse?” Topper liked to give Minnie a hard time but he never pressed it too far because he knew if it ever came down to it, she most likely could beat the crap out of him.

  “I just want what’s best for you, Topper. And yeah, technically I could get in trouble but that’s not going to happen. Everyone here hates that you’re gone and if given the choice, each one would jump at the chance to help you. I just happen to be the only one in a position to do so,” said Minnie with a touch of pride in her voice.

  “So of course I’m not going to let this affect my other work but you can use that phone and contact me anytime and I’ll get you whatever you need. So what do you need?”

  “Well, now that you ask, I want you to look for areas in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana where there have been reports of missing street girls. Not missing girls but hopefully some of these girls have been reported missing by their friends on the streets. Maybe if I can show some pictures around, I can catch a break.

  “If we have all the bodies, these murders started three years ago. So check all prison releases three years ago and grab
everybody who was in on sex offender charges, specifically those against teenage girls. Then cross reference those against DMV records and single out any who drives a late model SUV, preferably dark in color. That should be a good start.”

  “I will get you this information with speed and accuracy. I’ll send it to your tablet. It’ll be coming from a different e-mail address that I’ve set up. That way it can stay anonymous.”

  Topper let out a chuckle. “Alright, Minn, I’ll be looking for it and Minn, seriously, thank you.”

  “You got it my friend. Wait, one more thing.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Sarah called me this morning. Seriously?”

  Topper was silent for a second, thinking about how much he would divulge but, knowing that after Sarah Minnie meant the most to him, he would tell her whatever she wanted to know. “It’s complicated.”

  “Why don’t you see if I can understand it?”

  “As soon as I get back Minn, we’ll talk about it all, but right now I have enough to think about. Is that fair?”

  “Of course. I’m going to hold you to it, you know.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “Okay, I’ll get back to you.”

  Minnie broke the connection not knowing that Agent Samantha Greyson was leaning in the doorway behind her.

  “Eh hem,” said Sam to make her presence known.

  Minnie would have been killer at freeze tag because she instantly went motionless. It was a few seconds before she finally spoke. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough.”

  Minnie whipped around in her chair with an expression of surprise across her face. Sam was leaning against the door jamb with her legs crossed at her ankles and her arms folded across her chest. “How’s Topper doing?” asked Sam.

  Not sure what to say, Minnie decided that since Sam was a profiler she would go with the truth. “He’s good. I set him up with a detective in Dallas and he flew out there this morning to work on a case.”