Part 3 (1/2)
”Who is he going to murder?”
”If we knew that, Will, we wouldn't be having this meeting,” Jared said, holding up a hand to stop the conversation while the young male waiter returned to serve their lunch.
”Anyone need anything else?” the waiter asked. a.s.sured that no one did, the young man left the room, and once again closed the door.
”Somehow I get the feeling that I'm the only person in this room who doesn't quite know what's going on.” Will's gaze went from one face to the next, stopping when he reached Miranda.
”That must be a first,” she murmured as she picked a slice of tomato from her sandwich.
Ignoring her, he turned to Jared.
”How 'bout you bring me up to speed?”
Jared nodded and finished chewing a mouthful of sandwich.
”Several months ago, there was a series of murders in Lyndon, a community about thirty-five miles from here. All women whose names were listed in the phone book as Mary Douglas or M. Douglas.”
”Wait, I heard about this. Mara Douglas, your sister, was the intended victim,” Will addressed Anne Marie.
”That's right. That's how the Bureau became involved in the first place. I called in Aidan s.h.i.+elds from medical leave to work with us.”
Will turned to Miranda.
”You called me during that investigation. You wanted information on an old case from Ohio. The victim was Jenny Green. . . .”
”Proving that the rumors about Will are all true.” Miranda glanced at the others. ”He never forgets a d.a.m.ned thing.”
He continued, ”You wanted copies of the statements of a suspect you'd interviewed at the time. He'd been let go.”
”Right again.” Miranda nodded. ”Here's the story in a nutsh.e.l.l. We had several victims here in eastern Pennsylvania. Evan was the lead detective on these cases because, at the time, he was with the Lyndon Police Department. Something about the crime scenes reminded me of a case I'd worked on about six years earlier. That Ohio case was the first time I'd worked in the field, so everything was memorable. I remembered wanting to reinterview a suspect who'd just flat-out disappeared. I called Will to look up the file, get the name of the suspect for me. Once we had that, and a little information on him, Aidan followed that thread to a man named Curtis Alan Channing.”
She paused to sip at her water.
”Channing was a serial killer who'd been a real busy boy over the years. But he'd flown so far under the radar that his prints weren't even on file anywhere.”
”If he was under the radar, how do you know he was a serial killer?” Will asked.
”The Bureau has been running his DNA through the data banks,” Miranda explained. ”So far, we've had hits on old, unsolved cases in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He was not only busy, he was clever. He could have gone on for years.”
”Then a few months back, he ran a stop sign in my town.” Evan picked up the story. ”The officer who stopped him found an outstanding warrant for another Curtis A. Channing, and over Channing's protests that they had the wrong man, he was hauled out to the county prison, since the arrest had been made on a Sat.u.r.day night.” Evan leaned back in his chair. ”The following Monday, when the courthouse opened, Channing went before a judge, proved his ident.i.ty, and was released.”
”And he then proceeded to murder how many women?” Jared shuffled through the stack of notes he'd made the night before.
”Three women named Mary Douglas,” Anne spoke softly, ”and two other women. My sister, Mara, would have been his sixth victim, if he'd had his way.”
”Where is he now?” Will asked.
”In h.e.l.l, where he belongs,” Anne Marie replied.
”So what's this got to do with this Archer Lowell?” Will asked.
”All of the victims-including his intended victim, Mara Douglas-had a connection to a man named Vincent Giordano. He killed his family in cold blood, and was convicted and sentenced to several life sentences,” Evan told Will. ”Sentences he'll never serve, because the evidence used to convict him was all tainted, all fabricated. They had to let him go.”
Will whistled long and low. ”That had to hurt.”
”More than you could imagine.” Evan grimaced.
”How were Channing's victims connected to Giordano?” Will pushed his plate aside and rested his arms on the table.
”Mara was the child advocate who recommended that the court terminate Giordano's parental rights to his sons,” Evan said. ”One of the other victims was the judge who ordered that termination; the other was Giordano's former mother-in-law. The other three Douglas women were killed by mistake. Channing hadn't done his homework too well at first. He'd been a little sloppy there in the beginning.”
”So you were able to put Giordano back into prison as Channing's accomplice?” Will surmised.
”No. Not only was Giordano still behind bars while the killing was going on, we have not been able to positively establish that the two men ever met. Giordano, of course, swears he never met Channing and has no idea who he is.”
”I'm confused. I don't understand what this has to do with this other guy, this Archer Lowell.”
”Shortly after Giordano was released from the county prison, my sister Amanda's business partner was found with a bullet through his head.” Evan spoke levelly. ”Not long after that, another close friend of Amanda's was found murdered.”
”And Lowell, who had been convicted of stalking and a.s.saulting your sister . . .” Will's fingers began to beat softly upon the table.
”Was still in prison,” Evan told him.
”And your sister?” Will asked tentatively.
”Is alive and well because of Miranda and the local chief of police,” Evan said. ”Giordano came after her.”
”But what was the connection between your sister's partner and her friend-the two deceased-and Giordano?” Will accurately followed the sequence.
”There was none to Giordano,” Evan said, ”but they were both people who had p.i.s.sed off Archer Lowell. Both had given statements to the police about Lowell's actions; both had made it very clear they were going to testify against him at his trial. Their testimony was the main reason Lowell's attorney insisted that he accept the plea offered by the D.A.”
”Strangers on a Train,” Will murmured. ”You do mine, I'll do yours. . . .” Will murmured. ”You do mine, I'll do yours. . . .”
”Exactly.” Miranda nodded, then added grudgingly, ”You figured that out a lot faster than we did.”
”Channing offed people who had connections to Giordano, Giordano took out people who had connections to Lowell. So if the pattern holds, we could expect Lowell to be going after people who have ties to Channing,” Will said.
”That's the way we see it.” Miranda munched a potato chip.
”So, if we're correct in a.s.suming that Channing got the names of his victims from Giordano,” Will continued, ”and Giordano got the names of his victims from Lowell, we have to figure out whose names Channing gave to Lowell. Who, over the course of his life, p.i.s.sed off Channing sufficiently that he'd want them dead.”
”Unfortunately,” Miranda reminded him, ”Channing himself is now dead.”
”Guess we won't be getting much help from him,” Will muttered.
”So the question is, who is Lowell going to go after, now that he's out of prison, and how do we get to them before he does?” Jared stated the obvious.