The Trinity Murders Page 9

  Here he knew which cars were around daily and which ones were only on the weekends. License plates for all and where he normally saw them. Which cars were there for drugs, which cars were there for girls and which were there for both. Scrolling through his book, he was relaying all this information to Topper.

  “Okay,” said Topper. “Let’s start with cars that are just looking for girls. How many SUVs do you have that fit that?”

  “Umm, fourteen.”

  “Ok, what about taking out the ones you see daily or weekly.”

  Shakes starts flipping through pages. “Let’s see, that takes us down to two but one of those is a regular, he usually only comes down when his wife is away on business.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I check with the girls, I ask around … they tell me things.” Shakes gave a nervous smile and laugh exposing his yellow teeth. Topper could tell as a child serious attention was paid to his teeth because they were straight and had no gaps. He wasn’t sure if the stains would ever come out though.

  Topper took down the information for the one remaining car and then he had Shakes move on to people. The only girl Shakes hadn’t seen in awhile was Mandy and she fit the description of the girl they found at the state park. Topper knew that he was on the right track and even though he wanted to be on that track alone, he was thankful for everything the FBI had given him. He took down her information too.

  He started thinking about the pair of socks and the second pair that went missing and he convinced Shakes to give him the information he had on all the dirty cops. He ended up buying him three desserts and then he headed back over to the park to call Minnie. After that, he’d head back to the station to confront the one name on Shakes list that he recognized, Carl Magnusson.

  19

  Linnie was fifteen when she ran away. On the surface, she was the last girl thought of who would be lost to the streets. She had dreams of becoming a veterinarian when she grew up and running an animal shelter. Every so often Linnie would bring a stray home that she found on her way back from school. She would beg her mom to let her keep them but instead, her mom helped her find the other little child who was sad over their missing pet.

  That exercise taught Linnie a level of compassion that helped shape her early years. She volunteered at school, she volunteered at church. Anytime help was needed, Linnie stepped up and set the example.

  All that changed when Linnie turned fourteen. It was that year her mother married Mitch. The abuse started almost instantly. First it was benign. Mitch would walk into her room while she was changing or the bathroom while she was taking a shower. Then it became more aggressive. Hugs that lasted too long, sitting too close to her on the couch while watching TV.

  She went to her mom but Mitch was the first man who looked at her since her husband died six years earlier. A combination of denial and disbelief guaranteed that Linnie’s mom would not provide help. Shortly thereafter, it became criminal.

  The first night, he came into her room and watched her sleep. The following night, he got into bed with her and just laid there. The third night, he touched her for the first time and Linnie’s innocence was lost forever.

  The next morning, Mitch sat down and had a talk with Linnie. He said that he knew she had already gone to her mom which had gotten her nowhere. He told her that if she if tried to tell again, he would say that it was her who was being inappropriate with him and that he would leave her mom.

  She didn’t know what to do so she let it continue. She tried different things to slow Mitch down. She would sleep out on the couch so she would be out in the open. She tried locking her door but Mitch always managed to get in. Every chance she got Linnie would sleep over at the houses of her friends but it wasn’t enough. She felt like she was slowly dying and her only course of action was to run away.

  She had been saving her money to buy a car once she turned sixteen. With that, she also took all the money she could find in her mom’s purse and Mitch’s wallet. She set out with a little over $1200. She went to the bus station and bought a ticket on the next bus out of town. It was a bus coming from Los Angeles with a final stop in Oklahoma City. She boarded the bus in Phoenix and never looked back.

  Her plan had been to get an apartment and find a job, but it wasn’t a well thought out plan. She didn’t have enough money for first, last and a security deposit and nobody would give a job to a fifteen-year-old without an address or parental consent. The first few nights she stayed in a motel but she realized that her money would dwindle quickly that way. So she ended up on the streets.

  She had $800 left and it took only three days before she was robbed at knife point. She made friends with some of the kids on the streets and after a few weeks, she began turning tricks. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Her first john was in his 60s and he was smelly and sweaty. She would never forget the feeling of his hot breath on her neck as he grunted his way to completion. He was the second guy she ever had sex with.

  She taught herself how to shut off. She became a pro at being able to go through the motions while pretending she was back at school with her friends or at the pet shelter volunteering. Ironically, had she learned how to do that back home, she might still be there. With her new found ability to shut down, she thought about going back home but she wouldn’t be able to stand being a prisoner in her own home and she wouldn’t be able to stand not having the support of her mother.

  Being 5’7” with blond hair, blue eyes and looking like the teenager she was, she proved very successful at her “craft.” It went on for about three months until she ended up getting into the wrong car.

  She knew almost instantly that it was a mistake. As soon as the car started moving, the doors locked and he asked her name, all she wanted to do was get out. Shortly thereafter she had one hundred volts coursing through her body and she woke up in the dungeon. She’d been there ever since.

  From the first moment she realized where she was, she was devoid of hope. Nobody was looking for her outside of Phoenix, and maybe not even there. Her friends on the streets would think she either moved on or think exactly what happened to her. Either way, they had their own lives to worry about.

  When she wasn’t trying to think of ways to get out of her situation, she spent her time thinking about how she got into that situation. She wished she would have fought harder against Mitch. She should have told a counselor, the police, anyone. Since it appeared the longevity of her life had been seriously curtailed, she believed that would be the biggest mistake and regret of her life.

  Since Mitch came into her life, she kept trading one prison for another. This prison would most likely be her last. Her only hope was to stay alive as long as she could until somebody came for her. Her hope continued to lessen with each passing day.

  20

  As Carl came around the table and started to hand him the address with his left hand, Mayfield didn’t notice him reaching into the pocket of his lab coat with his right. Before his mouth could protest, but not before his eyes, Carl was pressing down the plunger on the syringe and injecting Mayfield with a dose of propofol.

  After a few seconds, Mayfield began to slump towards the floor and Carl eased him to the ground. He locked the door to autopsy before an unsuspecting guest arrived. He swiftly walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a black body bag off the top shelf. Unzipping and placing it on the floor next to Mayfield, he quickly rolled him on top of it and then pulled the bag up around him, zipping it back up as he went. He unzipped the bag one more time and reached both hands inside Mayfield’s pockets, finding his cell phone. He removed the sim card, replaced the phone in his pocket and zipped it up once more.

  He wanted to take the keys to his car also but knew the parking lot had surveillance cameras. His hope would be to get rid of either his personal or police car and make it look like he went missing from somewhere else, but he would have to cross that bridge if he came to it. For now, he thought he had most of his ba
ses covered.

  Moving to the next room, he grabbed a shiny silver gurney and came back to Mayfield. A lifetime maneuvering dead bodies made it easy for him to lift him off the floor and place him on the gurney. He rolled it to the side of the room against the wall as if it were ready to be picked up by one of the local mortuaries.

  Carl moved back towards the door, not only unlocking it but opening it also. The level of calm Carl showed rivaled any bomb tech or army sniper. He wanted to kill Mayfield right then and there. He could do it. Killing him now would be the easiest thing in the world. He could mark the body as a John Doe and send it off for cremation. He could even cut up his face just in case anybody was to recognize him.

  He also knew that this time, it was different. It wasn’t just getting rid of somebody who’s seen too much. Mayfield had information and he couldn’t be sure whether that information had been passed on. He needed to assess the situation and find out who knew what. Carl had never liked Mayfield and his can do attitude and he would have loved nothing more than to dispose of him right then, but he knew it would be a mistake.

  He sat down to collect his thoughts, thinking about how sick and tired he was of cleaning up messes. He was sick and tired of this twenty years ago but he felt an obligation to keep going. Distracted now, he took another bite of his sandwich and started making some notes in Mandy’s file. The first thing he did was change her name back to Jane Doe. Then he looked at the inventory list in the report. His blood started to boil when he saw the socks.

  In an effort to lower his pulse, he stepped out on the loading dock to have a cigarette. Leaning against the wall of the empty loading dock, Carl thought again about killing Mayfield. As soon as he was done with Mandy, he’d have to make two calls. One to the mortuary to pick up Mandy and a second to Boggs. Until then, he took another drag on his cigarette.

  As he was stubbing out the last remnants of his smoke on the bottom of his shoe, bits of ash falling to the ground, he gave a slight roll of his eyes as he saw Trufant coming out of the employee parking lot on his way back to the precinct. Spotting Carl nonchalantly leaning against the wall, Trufant altered his direction and made his way to the loading dock.

  “Hey Carl, you got one of those for me?”

  “I thought you quit, sarge.”

  “Going on three months now, but I’ve been a ball of nerves ever since I brought Topper into this investigation and we started making progress. I need something to take the edge off and I’m not turning to the drink.”

  Internally, Carl tightened up a bit at the mention of Topper. He was going to be the death of Carl if Carl couldn’t be the death of him first. He needed to get out in front of this. He reached into the pack and produced two cigarettes, handing one over to Trufant. He wasn’t planning to have a second one but not wanting to pass up the opportunity to subtlety press Trufant, he decided one more couldn’t hurt. Producing a lighter, first lighting Trufant’s cigarette and then his own, he put the lighter back in his pocket and calmly blew a stream of smoke into the passing breeze.

  “Thanks Carl.”

  “It’s fantastic you’re starting to make progress after this long year. I thought the only way we were going to get this to stop was when he died of old age.”

  “You and me both, but we don’t have a conviction yet. We don’t even have a suspect. I’ll tell you this though, this is the first time I’ve felt alive since I lost my own little girl. I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel like this again. Of course, I have you to thank for that.”

  “Thanks Travis, but I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  “Are you kidding me? Once I started finding other victims, it was you who convinced me I should try to bring all the cases together. You helped me get in touch with your ME buddies and got the ball rolling. Without you, these cases would still be spread across three states.”

  Carl thought about the irony for a second and about which scenario he’d rather have. Whatever hindsight might tell him wouldn’t change the present. “Well when you put it that way, Travis. Once I agreed that these cases were connected, I just figured it would be easier to control all the cases if they were under one roof.

  “Speaking of which, there’s nothing new with the Jane Doe in there. I’m just getting ready to contact the mortuary. Anything new come up on your end? Have you heard from Topper or Mayfield?”

  “No on all counts. We all have different strengths so we spilt up to do our own things. I’m supposed to meet Topper in about an hour and I was hoping to catch up with Mayfield now. His car is right over there but I guess he could be in his police issue. I guess that means you haven’t seen him either.”

  “Not since yesterday. Of course, I’ve been cooped up in autopsy all morning and he hasn’t been down to see me. For all I know, he’s been in the squad room all morning. You haven’t tried his cell phone?”

  “About five minutes ago, no answer. Thanks for everything, Carl. I know you have a vested interest in this too. If I come across anything new, I’ll let you know.” Like Carl, Trufant used the bottom of his shoe and then stepped into autopsy in search of Mayfield, almost bumping into him as he passed through the room.

  Carl finished his own cigarette, went back into autopsy and picked up the phone.

  21

  A personal favorite of hers, Rockin’ Robin by Bobby Day, was coming through the speakers.

  Minnie was responding to comments on her latest blog post; not from Fast Food Fast One, but from her main blog, A Survivor’s Journey. Since Minnie first began with the FBI, she was always concerned with what happened to the families left behind. Once her team was done, they moved on, but that was impossible for the people devastated by loss. She started A Survivor’s Journey to help bridge the gap and hopefully help guide these people to the next chapter in their lives.

  Of course, she didn’t always have contact with the families from their cases, but after each case, she would anonymously e-mail each one with a link to her blog. Some would reach out, some wouldn’t, but Minnie always felt that she had a deeper obligation that went beyond catching the bad guy.

  The woman she was responding to was not someone from one of her cases but someone who happened to stumble upon her blog. Most of the people that followed her blog were not from FBI cases but she accepted all comers. Her work with the FBI gave her life purpose but her work through her blog gave her life meaning.

  She was currently responding to Allison from Albuquerque who lost her twin sister to a stalking ex-boyfriend. Her sister Gayle had taken out a restraining order and her bruises were documented with the police. He even spent a few nights in jail but in the end, none of it mattered. A piece of paper is no defense against a madman, and one night he followed Gayle home from a date. No more than two minutes from the time her date kissed her goodnight on the porch, he was breaking down her front door. He strangled her in the living room. He proved easy to catch and was serving a life sentence for murder in the second degree. Minnie was putting together contacts of groups in the area Allison could talk to when her secret phone went off.

  “Busy day, Topper. Tell me you have more good news.”

  “More good news? What’s going on?”

  “Detective Mayfield called an hour ago; you haven’t talked to him yet?”

  “No.”

  “Oh … well, that can wait. I assume you’ve been talking to Shakes. What’s the buzz?”

  Topper had a tone of puzzlement in his voice. “Yeah, but … no, no, no; what did Mayfield call you about?”

  “Your latest Jane Doe, her name is Mandy. Mayfield got that from a group of drug dealers over in West Dallas. She was also last seen getting into a dark-colored Ford SUV. She had been staying with these dealers and one day she was just gone. One of the runners remembered her getting into the SUV the last time he saw her.”

  “That actually matches all of my information. I assume you’ve already updated your searches?”

  “I have, but there is no missing persons report for a Mandy in
any of the three states.”

  “You need to go nationwide with the search, fourteen to eighteen year old girls. Mandy or Amanda.”

  “Already started it. Hopefully it won’t take too long but if the report hasn’t gone out nationwide, I’ll have to go state by state.”

  “And I have a license plate for the SUV we’re looking for. It’s RAB275.”

  “I’m already a step ahead of you, Tops. Since we were roughly able to get the day and time Mandy was last seen, on a hunch I started pulling traffic cam information looking for SUVs.”

  “A gold star for Minnie.”

  “Why, thank you. I found an SUV I believed to be the one and you just confirmed it with the license plate. The car is registered to a Paul Lamb but things got crazy as I went deeper. The address on the registration is in the center of a state park and although there is a social for Paul Lamb, there is no history. There’s no bank records, employment records, tax records, nothing. This ID was created to pass the most basic of searches but past the license, registration and social, it’s a house of cards.”

  “Do I need to even say it?”

  “I flagged the license plate and the ID. If he gets stopped for any reason or uses the ID to buy a weapon, open a bank account, whatever, we’ll be notified.”

  “Seriously, I’m going to find you a gold star.” He looked back over across the street and saw Shakes still plowing through his food and he decided once this was all over he was going to try and help him get back on his feet. “So Shakes also keeps track of bad cops and he showed me the list and I recognized one name, Carl Magnusson.”