Truth in the Bones Read online

  “In the meantime we’ll go over what we do have, so settle in, get comfortable and dig in,” Josh said, looking out over the pizzas and pastas he’d ordered. “By this time, I pretty much know what everyone likes to eat and ordered accordingly.”

  “As long as you got plenty of pepperoni, I’ll be happy,” Zoe declared, opening up a box and sliding two slices onto her plate.

  The sixteen-year-old had gone through her “emulating Skye” phase to settle into her own skin and sense of style. This month, she wore her dark brown hair down to her shoulders, streaked with blond highlights running through it.

  While Zoe reveled in her appetite, the others were too fascinated by Harry’s fax to eat. Instead, they twisted off the tops of beers and settled back to study the documents.

  Leo Martin, the most laid-back of the trio, sported a headful of dreadlocks. He could’ve been a bodyguard—he had the build and the muscle for it—but instead of a show of strength he possessed a mind as sharp as any Einstein. And right now that brain questioned what he was reading. “Are you sure this is accurate? I mean, taking out entire families is seriously whacked. How do we know these aren’t all cases relating to murder/suicide? It does happen. The fact that one of them in each case took off shouldn’t be discounted as anything else.”

  “Already discussed that at great length,” Skye said. “Harry assures us that the files you have in hand suggest a pattern and it isn’t the murder/suicide angle. We know for certain Christy Maldonado didn’t bury herself off I-90 with a gunshot wound to the head and no gun nearby. Even though the other cases might need more scrutiny, Christy’s death was murder. Just because some nerd—no offense—but just because some analytical nerd at the FBI says these cases popped up on his radar, doesn’t mean we take that at face value. That’s why, for now, it’s okay to keep an open mind about the rest. I need input from you guys. That’s why you’re here.”

  Winston Reeker adjusted his glasses, a pair of Burberry frames that made the man barely out of his teens look more like a studious grad student than a savvy cyber hacker. And if Winston had suspected that’s what people were saying about him, he’d have ditched the fashion statement in a heartbeat for a plain pair of wire rims. The programmer had long since given up caring what other people thought about him—code, no doubt, for what the opposite sex thought. Since breaking up with Rhonda Braddock some six months earlier, Winston had become more philosophical about life. “No, I’m pretty sure this data is accurate. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  Reggie Bechtol, a Cal Poly grad and the oldest of the three at twenty-six, read over his own copies before turning to Leo. “What makes you so skeptical? Because what I’m seeing here are police reports that mention a family member who went missing over and over again. Each time the cops put the murders on them. They blame the one who left because it seems these people all had known issues. From alcohol- and drug-related problems to a list of teenagers dealing with the usual angst. Looks like a lot more than that going on here. I’d say there’s a distinctive pattern that occurs far too often to be considered murder/suicide, not in this many cases anyway, nor should they be counted as a bunch of coincidences.”

  Judy Howe agreed. Once a victim of serial killer Jason Berkenshaw, she’d run naked through woods as black as pitch to escape his clutches. Recovering from the man’s brutal attack had taken years of therapy. Gone were the days when Judy refused to leave her apartment. No longer a recluse or a stuttering fraidy-cat, Judy was now one of the premier faces at the Foundation. Tonight, she stood spine-straight by the dining room table shuffling through her portion of the faxes. “I understand how these might’ve fallen through the cracks. But someone should’ve seen one or two of the red flags some years back. I have to wonder what took so long?”

  “Red flags,” Winston muttered in agreement, still going over the information. “A lot of them fell under the radar. I could run more data as to how many instances of parricide, patricide, fratricide, and matricide occurred in the U.S. in the past five years since this phenomenon started. Even in our violent society, the act of killing one’s entire family is strangely rare, no matter who gets the blame, father, mother, sister, brother. I’d say these statistics are not an anomaly.”

  Leo wasn’t easily persuaded, though. But he had to hand it to his friends, who usually reserved their disagreements for more practical discussions about software bugs and broken strings of code. Whenever their ideas collided it usually came with loud debates, shouting even. This was different, a quiet acceptance as they considered this disturbing series of events. “It doesn’t bode well psychologically for the person who executed these people. I’ll say it again. He or she is deeply whacked.”

  “That goes without saying,” Skye said as she brought out more documents from the fax machine and rearranged them in order into her stack. “A departure from the norm of this magnitude could indicate more than a psychotic breakdown. Even though he’s likely living a somewhat normal, unremarkable day-to-day existence, he’s experiencing his highs and lows based on the success he has at the murder scenes, inside these people’s homes. It’s personal, intimate, an execution up close. Maybe he knew these people, maybe not. It’s certainly likely that he blends in wherever he goes.”

  “What did they ever do to him though?” Zoe muttered between bites of gooey cheese and pepperoni. “And how do we catch him if he doesn’t stand out or make an impression?”

  Positioning his tall frame in front of the white board he’d set up, Josh pointed to the map and stepped in front of it. “We do what we always do. We let the data we have in hand provide us with a pattern, his pattern. We focus on his repetition enough that maybe we pick up a trail. We use the FBI’s data to tell us everything they have on our suspect, beginning with his first kill. That happened in Brunswick, Georgia, August 2012, to a family of five named Sanderson, two adults and three children. The oldest boy, Tyler, vanishes from the scene without a trace. From there, our killer waits seven months almost to the day on March 9, a Saturday, before he surfaces again in De Kalb, Texas, a little town with fewer than two thousand people. Despite De Kalb’s small population, he picks the Strom family, another couple, two adults with three kids. The oldest is Jason, a boy of sixteen, who disappears into the night and is never heard from again. There’s no paper trail where the guy uses daddy’s credit cards or money from the family bank account. There’s no financial trail left behind to follow.”

  “Fits exactly like the Sanderson boy named Tyler,” Skye added, skirting around to the white board and continuing the narrative. “What strikes me odd is that these two families couldn’t be more different. The Sandersons were considered wealthy, living in an upscale neighborhood in a house valued at well over a million dollars. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the Stroms. His second set of victims were living in a three-bedroom ranch style house with one bathroom. They were barely making ends meet.”

  “Well, his first two targets had last names beginning with the letter S,” Judy volunteered. “It might be significant.”

  Skye jotted that detail down on the white board. “Although that pattern breaks apart down the road, it warrants checking out further. All serial killers change their methods at some point. It’s the signature that never varies. This guy’s signature is targeting families and making sure that one member disappears.”

  Travis Nakota, a full-bloodied Nez Perce tribal member, was thoughtful before he spoke. At five-feet-ten, Skye’s father still wore his coal-black hair long and pulled back into a sleek ponytail that trailed all the way down his back. At fifty-four, his face showed a few frown lines creeping in, but for the most part his eyes were still sharp and clear and tended to mistrust first before any other emotion kicked in. “It sounds to me like he chooses the families based on the troubled kids.”

  Skye nodded, pleased they were all contributing to the discussion. She turned to write that theory down on the white board as well, keeping track of everyone’s input. “You’d think st
icking with troubled kids would be the way to go. But not this guy. He changes that up when he hits the very next time. Although he does stick with the individual in the family who has the most problems. At the third attack, he waits five months, another August night, and ends up in Colorado Springs where he attacks and murders a family of five. This time, it’s the wife and mother who goes missing. An adult, it seems, who’d been in and out of rehab for most of her adult life. Tracy Evanston was battling a major alcohol problem. The police report mentions Tracy liked her vodka so much that many mornings she’d drop the kids off at school already drunk.”

  Josh held up the police reports. “But with the Evanston murders, a few striking differences in MO. For one, the bodies weren’t found in their bedrooms, but in one area of the kitchen. The crime scene photos show the father and the kids lined up in a sitting position against the island.”

  “That’s weird,” Winston noted.

  “It is. Because in almost every other instance the people were killed in their beds, except for Colorado Springs.”

  Skye shook her head. “Which leaves us wondering what was different about the Evanstons. Because something obviously caused him to veer off course. Check out the estimated time of death from the medical examiner.”

  Reggie cleared his throat. “He hit during daylight hours.”

  “A definite departure from the first two,” Skye noted. “So now we have three attacks and we’re only in 2013. It’ll be several more years before Christy Maldonado’s set of remains surfaces here in the Seattle area. My point is, of all these murders, none of the others who went missing have yet to be discovered. Not Tracy Evanston, not Tyler Sanderson, not Jason Strom, or any of the others who went missing. Instead, the cops have APBs out for them or BOLOs. At this point, our guy has come and gone in these three towns like some phantom in the night and no one even knows about him yet, or suspects things aren’t what they seem.”

  Winston rubbed his chin and nodded. “I see what you mean. Instead of hunting for an intruder, the cops are pointing the blame on the missing family members and no one suspects they’re looking in the wrong direction.”

  “All the while, he’s racking up quite the number of kills,” Josh added. “The FBI analysis believes his next victims were from a rural area outside Albuquerque. This time he took the father with him, leaving behind four dead bodies.”

  “So this time the husband and father must’ve been the one with the psychological problems,” Skye muttered, adding a pin near Albuquerque to the map. “Our suspect waited six months after that before striking again. Notice a pattern yet?”

  Winston spoke up. “He hits each house on weekends.”

  “Bingo. Either Saturday or Sunday nights,” Skye said, staring at the map. She held up a hand. “With one exception. The Evanston family in Colorado Springs was attacked on a Friday afternoon. Everyone else was on the weekend. So far, we have him in Georgia, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico.”

  “He’s staying southern and southwest,” Reggie noted, grabbing his laptop. “I need to start a spreadsheet factoring in that information.”

  Josh cocked his head and grinned. “But wait, just when you think you have him figured out, he moves out of the southern region of the U.S. and surfaces in the northeast, specifically Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. In 2015, he switches things up again and heads west to Seattle and the Maldonado family. After that, he’s in St. Louis, Missouri. And last December, he strikes in San Diego, California, which brings us up to speed on what the analyst at the FBI calls ‘an unusual pattern of murders’ to say the least.”

  Lena Bowers, a trim, fit woman of fifty-three, ran a hand through her tapered, bobbed haircut. “If my math is correct, does that mean he’ll likely strike within the next two months?”

  Skye chewed her lip. “Sure, if the pattern holds. So far it seems he manages to spread out his activity, holding himself in check over a span of five or six months between attacks. The shortest amount of time is one hundred and fifty-five days.”

  Josh studied Skye’s expression. “What are you thinking?”

  “As important as that information is, what we shouldn’t overlook are the states we have left on the map without a pin. It’s where he didn’t strike that should interest us. Which part of the country did he avoid, what state didn’t he grace with his presence? Because that would mean…”

  Josh turned his head from the map to stare at his wife. “You always zero in on the logical. He wouldn’t want to kill anywhere near where he lives.”

  She chewed her lip. “He’d probably avoid going anywhere within five hundred miles of where he calls home. So far anyway. I did a little research on Israel Keyes this afternoon before Harry’s faxes arrived. That was Keyes’ downfall. The day came when he couldn’t resist zeroing in on a victim too close to home. That act spiraled out, sealing his fate, and got him caught. He got sloppy, tried to ransom the victim—who was already dead—and used her debit card on one of his crime sprees. After that, it was only a matter of time before a traffic stop played into his capture, notably in Texas.”

  Travis found it difficult to comprehend how such a destructive killer could make those kinds of mistakes. “So you’re saying we could get lucky and this guy could go off the deep end and get caught by running a stop sign?”

  “Not really. I brought Keyes up because Harry did this morning. The stuff I related about Keyes represents how a serial killer does, on occasion, get sloppy. BTK got careless and smug and sent a computer disk to the media. Bundy went batshit crazy and killed three people in a sorority house. Harry compared our guy to Keyes. I’m thinking this guy is much more warped, but also much more disciplined. The part of the map without a pin identifies the potential area for his next target. It isn’t much, considering the fact we have forty-one states he’s avoided.”

  “That we know of,” Winston clarified. “We can’t eliminate any states at this point because there might be events that didn’t make it into the FBI analysis.”

  “That’s where you programmer gurus come into the picture,” Josh asserted. “You guys have to shore up the data. Make sure we have all the family murders over the past five years. In fact, make it six in case the FBI didn’t go back far enough. Make sure we have all that occurred within the contiguous forty-eight states.”

  Reggie frowned into his beer. “Why eliminate Alaska and Hawaii?”

  “It’s a gut feeling,” Josh answered. “It would take way too long to get to those locations, carving out too much of his precious time stalking and making it back to his home base—wherever that is. We can always jump on information if it surfaces about Alaska and Hawaii later, but right now we should focus on finding out if we have complete data and eliminating any known family murders that don’t belong to this guy. We need to be as accurate as possible homing in on the specific ones to toss from the equation or add to his victim count.”

  Josh shifted his attention and looked over at his father-in-law. “I wouldn’t expect this guy to make the same kind of mistakes Keyes or BTK made. I agree with Skye. This killer could be carrying out some type of thrill-kill crusade in the same vein as Robert Hansen.”

  Travis grimaced. “Another guy from Alaska who kidnapped women and hunted them down for sport.”

  “Hansen is a good example of what I’m talking about. Pillar of a small community who owned his own business. The only way they caught him was through a ballistic match up.” Skye picked up a marker and began to write on the white board. “From what I see in the FBI profile, comparing this guy to Keyes is a mistake. While our guy may have been influenced early on by him, he won’t repeat those same bone-headed moves. He’ll keep to what has brought him success until it stops working.”

  “Then what’s your take on how to stop him?” Leo asked, reaching for a slice of pizza.

  “We learn as much as we can. For one, our guy has access to money. Whether he steals it or has more than he knows what to do with, he’s flush with cash.”

&n
bsp; “How do you know that for sure?” Reggie pressed.

  Skye threw out her hands. “Look at the white board. You don’t make multiple cross-country trips from New York to Washington State without some type of bankroll. Two, he uses that money to travel, could be for business purposes. Purely speculative at this point. But he definitely spends time away from his family for probably two weeks at a time without his absence raising any type of suspicions as to why he’s gone. That says business trips to me. When he is home, he’s likely distracted and distant to the people around him because he’s planning his next target. Three, he recons with military precision. Four, once he’s in the area of his intended victims, he comes prepared to get the job done, no guesswork, no surprises. Israel Keyes claimed to have weapons and money stashed all over the country. I think our guy has adopted that same approach to his travels.”

  Lena wrapped her arms around her body. “Then let’s hope we catch this guy before he kills again because he gives me the willies already.”

  Skye smiled at her longtime friend. “Well, you’re surrounded by bright people. We’ll figure out how much of the speculation is real and what’s not, as we go.”

  Zoe patted her stomach and pushed her plate to the side. “Maybe he’s a long-haul trucker and drives cross-country like that smiley-face guy.”

  Reggie sent the kid a look of respect. “Not bad. Could be.”

  “So does anyone else notice anything strange about our guy?” Skye prompted. When no one responded, she went on, “I don’t think he lives in or near any of the states he’s already targeted. That means we should take a GIS approach to mapping his movements so far. If, as Josh believes, there are more murders out there, then we add them in as we learn about any other crimes. He might be burglarizing neighborhoods before each attack. We look for any type of pattern where we know he’s been. For example, in De Kalb did the neighbors report any burglaries before the day of the murders? If so, were any weapons taken? The more information we have, the better our chances are at taking this guy down, sooner rather than later. Which brings up the travel alert. I doubt this guy lives in or near Washington State. After targeting the Maldonados he went back to his regular life somewhere else. Which means, at some point, we’re looking at hitting the road. All of us or in part. Does anyone have a problem with traveling out of state on a moment’s notice?”