The Trinity Murders Read online

  She was really proud of this blog and she got more and more hits everyday. She hit send, shut off her laptop and went back to her searches.

  16

  Linnie felt her time was near. She sat there chained to the wall day after day and all she could do was stare at the empty frame which was meant for her. She hadn’t seen him in awhile, which was not uncommon. Each time before he left he would remove her leg irons and replace the short chain on her cuffs with a longer one so she could reach the bathroom at the far end of the room. Each time he left, she would spend most of her time exploring the length of her freedom in hopes of finding a way out. At the end of each attempt, the hopeless feeling in her heart became stronger.

  She could usually tell how long he was going to be gone based upon the amount of food he left. He left her a loaf of bread and a plastic bowl with fruit. Bananas, oranges and apples, a cooler with a jug of water, luncheon meat and energy bars. She knew why he left the energy bars, so she always tried to hold out and not eat them, but inevitably, she would have to eat them.

  She figured him to be gone for six days but it was actually only five. She had heard him come in the night before and anticipated him coming down and taking her into the bedroom but he never came. Waiting for him to come in was torture and that terror rose with each passing minute. After three hours of being back, he opened the door, poked his head in and then left again. She knew something was wrong.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that he came in and stayed with her. The first thing he did was replace her long length of chain and put her back in leg shackles. He then grabbed a stool out of the bedroom and sat in front of her.

  “You look sad,” said Linnie.

  “Our time is almost up.”

  Even after being held captive for so long, she was looking for angles she could play. Sympathy seemed the way to go now. “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “I have no choice, it’s almost time.” She had never seen him in such a somber mood, almost like he was in a trance. Looking at him was almost like looking at a mirror image. His mood had finally started to mimic hers, ambivalence. Although looking back, in her heart she knew that her fate had been sealed when she got into his car, but she still had to try and prolong her stay.

  “How much longer will we be together?”

  “Two, three days tops.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Don’t you get it? There’s nothing left to be done. It was found too quickly, I should have had four or five more weeks. It was found too quickly.”

  “What was found too quickly?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to complete the triad, I have to do my part. Do you understand the significance of the number three? The triangle is the first geometric shape. Two straight lines cannot enclose a space but three straight lines, three lines is complete.”

  As he got up and started to pace the room, Linnie realized there was going to be nothing she could do to get out of this and she started to cry.

  “In religion, God has three attributes: omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Time is divided up in three parts: past, present and future. Don’t you get it? Me, myself and I; animal, vegetable, mineral; the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; birth, life and death. I could go on.

  “Did you know I was born on March 3rd? I’m the last of three boys. It’s my destiny, I have no choice.”

  With that he left the basement, slamming the door behind him. He went upstairs and picked up the phone.

  “Are you sure I have to get rid of her now? Ok, I’ll take care of it by the end of the week.”

  17

  Driving back to the station, Mayfield called Minnie in Virginia so he could update her searches. He said he was on the way back to the station to catch up with Topper and Trufant. After he broke the connection, he thought about the day he finished first at the academy in the obstacle course. His instructor told him that he was destined for great things in law enforcement, and as he drove back to the station, he anticipated hearing similar things from Trufant and Topper. He thought about his wife and how they were waiting to start a family until they saved up a little more money. He knew that his actions today were going to allow them to start that family.

  It was hard for him to control his excitement but he obeyed all traffic laws on his way back to the station. Had he been in his police issue car instead of his personal vehicle, it would have been no different. He was a straight shooter in every sense of the word and he knew someday his actions would lead to something great. He wanted Topper’s life, at least before last week, and hoped Topper would take him under his wing, not just on this case but maybe future cases. He could see his future and it couldn’t come fast enough.

  He pulled into the parking lot at headquarters. His tires squealed to a halt which momentarily startled Mayfield. He took a deep breath to calm himself and then bolted from the car. He grabbed the backpack off the passenger seat and went straight to autopsy, but Topper and Trufant had already left.

  Carl was just finishing up a phone call. He still had Mandy on the table. Mayfield stopped and gazed down at her. Now that she had a name and at least a limited background he saw her differently then he had when her body first arrived. It shouldn’t be that way; he should see each victim the same, but it never turned out that way.

  “Her name is Mandy,” said Mayfield.

  “Huh?”

  “No last name but I just came from West Dallas where I found somebody who knew her.” He told Carl about his trip and what he found out. “Could you imagine if we closed the case on a serial killer who killed thirty-two women that we know of? A serial killer that nobody knew even existed.”

  Mayfield was so excited he failed to notice that Carl had become a little agitated. He could have chalked it up to showing up during an autopsy unannounced and being interrupted, or it could have been something more altogether.

  Carl had always liked to work alone. It was probably why he had been drawn to the medical examiner’s office. He didn’t have to deal with patients, insurance companies or filling out prescriptions. His job was to find answers and document them. As an ME, he was able to achieve that by cutting people open instead of asking them where it hurt.

  “That’s great news,” said Carl. “I’m just finishing up my examination of … Mandy. God, that’s great. I’ll update her file.” Carl picked up her file, erased the name Jane Doe and put Mandy in its place. “I’ll bet the T’s were excited to finally get a break in the case.”

  “Well that’s why I’m here. I thought they were meeting with you this morning. Did I already miss them?”

  “They left about half an hour ago. Topper tried to call you but it went straight to voicemail.”

  “Damn, I turned my phone off while I was out. I’ll call him now.” He started to reach for his phone when Carl stopped him.

  “Well now, his phone is probably off. Joann Brewster called because she remembered something and the two of them went running off. Before that was when they tried calling you. They did tell me where they were going to be in case you came back. Let me see where I wrote that down.” Carl went back to his desk and start rummaging around, looking for the address.

  18

  After the break of being able to officially link these cases and the subsequent misstep of a key piece of evidence gone missing, Topper decided to go down to the chess park where he could think. He also wanted to have Minnie run another search and didn’t want to request it inside the police station.

  He made plans with Trufant to meet back at the station in three hours to plan their next steps. A detective at heart, Trufant wanted to get out and beat the bushes, talk to some of his old informants and hopefully catch a break. Topper was going to talk to an informant too. Three years earlier his team was working a serial arson case in the Dallas area and Topper made nice with a tweaker named Shakes.

  Normally that wouldn’t spell the recipe for success, but Shakes turned out to be an excellent source of information. The arsonist
was strictly burning down crack houses. He had lost his sister to one of these establishments and it was his way of paying tribute to his sister and cleaning up the streets at the same time.

  The team showed up at the scene of the latest smoldering building and while the rest of the team was talking to the fire chief, police chief and evaluating the scene, Topper spotted Shakes on the other side of the street and decided to go talk with him.

  As it turned out, Shakes was instrumental in breaking the case. He had been in that crack house the night it went up in flames, but earlier in the evening he went outside to take a leak and get some fresh air. He ended up passing out in the field he was currently standing next to.

  He woke up to the crackling sound of fire and the heat that accompanied it. He looked up just quickly enough to see a man exiting the house and the car he got into. In his previous life, Shakes used to be private investigator so he was able to give Topper a full description and the make and model of the car he was driving. He was even able to give a partial license plate. They closed that case in record time.

  Topper didn’t want to use Shakes for many reasons. He was a profiler and informants were the domain of detectives and beat cops. The first thing he told himself when he agreed to come down to Dallas was he was going to do this without any help from the FBI or with any of the benefits he gained from his years at the FBI. He had already broken that by accepting Minnie’s help and now he was about to do it again. Also, he wasn’t sure Shakes would be able to help. It was a stroke of luck he was able to help the first time. He didn’t want to get anyone’s hope up and he didn’t want to look like an idiot for turning to a tweaker.

  He was surprised that the cell phone Shakes had been using at the time was still in service and he was even more surprised to find out that he was still alive and in the area. He grabbed his tablet and cell phone and struck out for the park not too far from the station.

  The heat still hadn’t broken but a cool breeze had been blowing all morning which made the day pleasant. Topper remembered driving past the chess park and there were plenty of trees to further offer comfort from the heat. The familiar click made by chess players starting and stopping the timer on their games soothed Topper and reminded him of times with his father. He did his best thinking at the park.

  He walked the two blocks to the park and was happy for the exercise. He tried to do some sort of exercise everyday. Whether it was a late night run at the end of the day or hitting the weight room for a few reps. He realized that since he got to Dallas, he hadn’t thought about anything but the case. Two days earlier, sitting in his dark condo thinking about St. Barts, he didn’t think that would be possible. He had an extra spring in his step as he made the rest of the way to the park.

  He got to the park and just as he thought, the wonderful breeze brought everybody out. Before picking out a spot to sit down, he stopped at a table which had a handful of people watching a rousing game of speed chess between two teenagers.

  Pawn to king’s knight four, slap. Queen to rook four, check, slap. King to queen one, slap. Knight to queen’s bishop six, check, slap. Topper could watch that all day and once in awhile, he did. He would always have a special place in his heart for chess because his father taught him the game, but he also found a certain degree of poetry in a well-played chess game. Offense, defense, surprise in a well executed series of moves. Attack, counter attack.

  He thought a lot of what he did at the FBI was a real life chess match. His father always taught him to look three moves ahead and in many regards, that was what he’s had to when hunting serial killers. It’s what made him the best at his job.

  After a few minutes, he moved away from the game and picked a spot under a Texas red oak. The triangles intrigued him, as did the religious aspect. He spent the next fifteen minutes doing internet searches and, while coming up with a lot of fascinating meanings behind the number three, there was nothing to directly help his search. He was basically killing time until Shakes arrived and watching the tableau in front of him.

  Five minutes later, Shakes appeared as if out of thin air. “Three years, you don’t call or write and then out of the blue you want my help. I should have said no.”

  “Come on Shakes, don’t be like that. I kept your phone number all these years; that should count for something.”

  Shakes sat down next to Topper under the red oak. “Yeah, that’s just data in a phone. You probably just never got around to erasing it but I guess that does count for something.”

  Topper took a good look at the crack head sitting next to him. Shakes was paper thin with a permanent three-day stubble. The first fear that went through his head was with this nice breeze, Shakes could blow away at any time. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans that could probably stand up on their own. If Topper wanted to know the last time they came in contact with water, all he would need was to check the last day of rain. Completing the ensemble was a black t-shirt being covered up by a blue zip up hooded sweatshirt. He did have access to a barber or some sort of razor as he had a close cropped buzz cut that couldn’t be more than a few days old. His fingernails were raw and jagged and the signs of a lifelong biter.

  “When’s the last time you had something to eat?” asked Topper.

  “Well, yesterday afternoon there was a great spread in the owner’s box at Arlington and then last night there was a semi-intimate affair at the Governor’s mansion. So I would have to say last night.”

  “Wiseass, awesome. Let’s go over to that diner across the street.”

  Topper stood up and reached out his hand to help Shakes up. As both men started to head toward the diner, they stopped to watch a couple more moves of the chess match. Topper instinctively reached down to the king around his neck and rolled in between his fingers.

  “Still carrying that chess piece around, huh?”

  Topper glanced at Shakes and then started across the street. They were seated in a booth at the window overlooking the park. Topper ordered a soda and some onion rings, Shakes ordered a double cheeseburger, extra cheese, with fries, a side of onion rings, an order of jalapeno poppers and a vanilla malted milkshake.

  “So what was so urgent that I had to drop what I was doing?”

  Topper resisted the urge of a wisecrack of his own. “Thirty-two murders across three states. Twelve of them here in Texas. He’s targeting homeless and runaway girls, mid to late teens. He’ll be driving a late model dark SUV. He won’t be around all the time; he’s pretty busy but he probably shows up every couple months and then is gone again.”

  The food arrived and Shakes bit into his burger. “You know, as luck would have it, I’ve taken on a bigger role here out here. Helping you reminded me of the old days and since then I’ve kind of watched over things here on the streets. I could tell you who the biggest dealers are, pimps, johns, who beats their girls. I’ve got it all in this notebook.” He reached into the pocket of his hoodie and produced a tattered notebook with a rubber band around it.

  The notebook had definitely seen plenty of use but it looked sturdy in Shake’s hand. Topper couldn’t help but think a career could be made if that book ended up in the right hands, but he had other ideas. “That’s great Shakes, and maybe when I’m done with this, you and I will clean up the streets together, but right now I need help with something specific.”

  Shakes was having a hard time concentrating and wasn’t really hearing what Topper had to say. In reality, it had been close to three days since Shakes had eaten anything. He tried hard to get his life back on a path of substance and meaning but he kept falling short. Most of the money he did come by went towards the drugs that helped keep his demons at bay, for however short a time.

  Topper recognized this too and he went silent, allowing Shakes some time to eat. He had planned to give him some money as soon as he spoke with him but he knew any cash he gave him would end up in his arm. At least this way he knew Shakes would get a good meal. Shakes flagged down the waitress and ordered some more oni
on rings and a root beer.

  After five minutes like this, Shakes looked like he was going to throw up but he also slowed down enough to hear Topper above his chewing. “Shakes, buddy, can I take a look at that book?”

  The book was sitting next to him at the table and at the request he snatched it up and held it close to his body. “No way. Nobody sees this but me. I keep them safe. These are my people, I keep them safe.”

  “Fair enough, fair enough. Can you look through that book for me and see if anything resembles what I’m asking for? Late model SUV only showing up once every couple months. Girls going missing around the same area. Anything like that?”

  Holding his milkshake in one hand and the ledger in the other, Shakes debated which one to put down. He took one big pull on his milkshake, set it down and took the rubber band off the notebook. “Okay, let me take a look.” A slight brain freeze stopped Shakes in his tracks for about thirty seconds, then he opened the notebook and started thumbing through pages.

  Although his mind had been swimming in a haze of pharmaceutical enhancements for years, in certain respects Shakes had retained some of the sharpness that made him a good PI. Topper was correct, that notebook could make a detective’s career; it could also get Shakes killed if the wrong people realized he had it.

  Every person Shakes had encountered since last helping Topper was in the book, including Topper himself. He knew which cops were dirty, which cops he could trust; Topper fell into the latter. He knew which drug dealers sold bad stuff and which drug dealers only sold, well, bad stuff. When he found the bad dealers, he started getting the word out to the other junkies about the stuff being sold. He’d even been successful in getting a couple dealers to leave because nobody was buying their product.

  He had names on most of them. The ones without had nicknames. There’s Gollum and the Dark Knight. The Creeper and Chatter Box. Crosses were next to the names of people that he knew were deceased. Each name had a list of dates trailing them which indicated the last time he had seen each person. Mandy was in the notebook but the last time he saw her was two months ago. He went through a few of the pages and then flipped past the middle of the book which was where he recorded cars.