Chapter Five through Seven

Chapter Five

Louise Spalding is in early, earlier than usual she has a lecture today and she wants to review her lecture notes. She is surprised to see Janet at work so early, she walks past Janet's desk in the bull pen area, "Janet what has you in so early?"

Janet looks up, "going through Olympic National Park again, like we talked about, what we could have done better on that case. Coffee is going, can we talk about Olympic?" She follows Louise towards her office.

Louise looks back over her shoulder, "Not this morning, later today, I am giving a lecture at the academy at ten I want to go through my notes. Is the background ready for Toledo?"
Janet is still following Louise, "Still working with Stan on Toledo, we should be ready tomorrow. I will bring you a cup of coffee."

Louise opens the door to her office, turns and smiles. "Thanks, that would be great."

                   *******

Louise is sitting in the front row of the small auditorium at the FBI academy in Quantico listening to her introduction, she used to be nervous speaking to groups, now she rather enjoys it especially this group. New agents recently graduated from the academy enjoying an orientation series of lectures before they hit their first permanent assignments. "Louise Spalding is here this morning to talk to you about the area her team in the BAU here in Quantico specializes in, mission based serial killers and violent crime and deep pattern analysis. You should remember her name, some of her cases were used in your training courses and several of the cases she has broken have been reported in the media, most recently a few months ago, what the press called the tribal land killers in Olympic National Park."

Louise walks to the lectern, "I know you have all graduated now, but don't think you are off the hook to answer some questions. I have a seating chart with your names and pictures."
She chuckles from the collective groan, "one point of correction on that kind introduction, I didn't break any cases, I don't work alone I work with a team. The cases we have been successful on, have been a team effort. If there is one thing you remember from what I say today, remember this, criminal investigation requires team work, never try and go it alone. Let's start with a question. What is a mission based serial killer? Agent Fletcher, what can you tell us?"

The young man feels his colleagues eyes on him he stammers getting started, "well hmm . . . the focus of these killers is not on the particular victim or the act of killing, like many other types of serial killers. Their focus is on a mission, which they perceive requires killing. They are compelled to complete the mission, sometimes the mission is somewhat rationale to others sometimes the mission is quite delusional, victims are a means to an end for them. Your team has a particular reputation for finding difficult to identify mission based serial killers because the mission is subtle, some social message or activist agenda they believe in."

"Good answer, an example there is Ray Luffy from quite a long time ago, early in my career, the press dubbed him the trail head killer. No one was aware of any pattern to his killings, in fact when I identified the victims, they were only missing persons, thru hikers on the Appalachian Trail. To me there was a pattern, missing persons that seemed not to fit the profile of missing people, occurring on a schedule matching the movements of someone hiking the Appalachian trail for a thru hike."
Louise takes a sip of water, "we were never able to interview Luffy he was dead when we got to him. Research of his computer and evidence in his home found that he was obsessed with what he saw as the destruction of the purity of the Appalachian Trail."
"He thought there were too many people on the trail and he had a particular disdain of thru hikers who used social media and the internet to promote thru hiking. Not on the individuals per se, but their use of the technology to draw even more people to the trail and to boast about their travels. He seemed to believe he could weed these people out over time, eliminating them from the trail. It's an absurd idea, a delusion, but he was devoted to it. By general appearances he seemed to be a normal rational person, to acquaintances and family, who never suspected he was involved in criminal activity."

Louise is wrapping up after nearly two hours, "an example of the importance of deep pattern analysis, is Wilbur Rogers, the press dubbed him the trespass killer. The initial crimes when we were called in were two burned down properties, with victims killed by strangulation inside. Traditional in depth victimology revealed no connection between the victims, two hundred and fifty miles apart in small rural towns in the mountains of western Virginia. We eventually found, an unusual and subtle pattern connecting his victims."

"We knew the first two properties were near the Appalachian Trail corridor and we found that the owners had gone to rather extraordinary means to stop trespassers, mostly people from the trail. We used this common but tenuous link to look for a victim pool, we found hundreds of potential victims. We also were able to identify Rogers as a likely killer, finding some personal history that could drive him to go after these victims. With the help of local law enforcement, we eventually got Rogers, we determined he had twenty nine victims, all with property on the AT and all of them having gone to extreme measures to keep hikers off their property."

Louise walks from the lectern to near the front row, "thank you for your attention, and good luck in your careers."

As Louise packs up her brief case a young lady approaches, "SSA Spalding, my name is Kim Pauling, Agent Pauling. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You ever think that any of these killers were justified? They all believe that the ends justify their means?"

Louise cocks her head thinking, "Interesting question why do you ask?"

"Yeah I know it's kind of strange, that's why I waited after class. I was thinking what if someone was killing sex offenders against children, people the police can't catch. If they were really getting those people out of society, would I want to stop them. If I arrest the killer and more children are abused or killed, is that the greater good?"

"Yea okay public service killings; you have to stay within the system and it's not our job to weigh those decisions for society. This job is emotionally draining in many ways, if we tried and weigh cases like that it would be very burdensome. Let the prosecutors, juries and judges sort through all of that, focus on finding the offenders. You are right, they all believe that the ends justify their means. I have never found a killer that I believed was justified."

The young agent smiles, "that's good to know, thank you for your time, great lecture."

"Best of luck agent Pauling."

                   *******

Louise is finishing lunch in the breakroom, and heads back to her office, Janet intercepts her, "how about now, Olympic National Park lessons learned."

Louise keeps walking, "listen Janet, this is my thing okay, we got a commendation for that investigation, some people think I am crazy for breaking them all down to find the ways to improve, a bit obsessive."

"I want to be good at this job Louise, I want to be the best that I can be."

"Okay sit down, what do you think we could have done better?"

Janet sits in the chair in front of Louise's desk, Louise sits in her desk chair and spreads her hands, "okay we were told to move fast, so we went right to the most credible suspect pools, native American rights extremist groups and white supremacist with a particular agenda against native Americans, who might want to set them up for these three murders in the park. We had the signature of all three killings with a ceremonial hatchet, Skokomish design, were we wrong?"

"No, we weren't wrong, but we could have asked another question. What was the trigger that started the killings? If we stepped back, we might have seen the recent news about the casino bid that the Skokomish was in competition to win as a finalist. The corrupt business motive of their competitor, to get them out of the competition, even if it meant killing."

Louise gives a thumbs up, "You got it we had tunnel vision, that is the mistake that might have gotten us to the killer's more quickly, good job Janet. That is what I want to remember from that case to improve, ask the question about victim zero, or the index crime. What was the trigger that started a serial murderer, we might not be able to figure it out but we should try and remember to ask the question."

Louise is about ready to leave for the day, catching up on her email before heading home. She opens a bulletin from Virginia State Bureau of Investigation, she takes a drink of warm green tea and opens the report. Hmm, two murders execution style, Clear Creek a small town population of about four thousand, last murder was in the 1940s. Town pizza restaurant owner and another guy, running drugs together, found them dead and sheriff's office found the drug cache and money, open an inactive. Sounds like some drug thing, maybe a supplier from a bigger city, or someone wanting to take over the business. Can't see us doing anything with that one.


Part II Public Service

Chapter Six

She has been the principal of the middle school in Flat Top Gap for nine years, after twenty years in Philadelphia. She thought she was getting away from drugs and violence, there wasn't any violence to speak of but the drugs were as bad or worse in this small rural town in the Appalachian Mountains. It is a nice town but it was a much nicer place decades before she arrived, it is not the paradise she had hoped for, she had not been realistic. The only large employer in town the paper mill just on the outskirts closed down less than a year after she moved here.

She walks over looking out the window, its lunch-break the six, seven and eight graders are playing, and walking together, it's a beautiful late spring day with the green mountains in the background. She has the window cracked open, she can hear the laugher and chatter streaming in from the playground. She exhales slowly, none of these kids are addicts or users, at least she hopes not. But many of them have parents and older brothers and sisters in the home that are, or worse have died because of the drugs; she has seen the terrible cost of these drugs on many families. The school year is over in another week, the eighth graders will be in Staunton for high school and by the end of next school year some of them will be addicts or recreational users. She hears the bell and heads to the playground, just to make sure everyone is headed back to class.

                   *******

He sits in Hikers Cafin the back booth, drinking coffee and finishing up his map of Flat Top Gap, George Washington National Forest and the mountains on the northwest border of town, the highway heading to Staunton leads to the east. The highway turns into main street in town, and the center of town marked by the intersection with first avenue that heads north south then out of town. He marks the locations of the caf post office, sheriff's office, the middle school and grade school to the northwest near a large park. South of the schools are the baseball and softball fields, soccer fields with two small shacks one burgers and dogs the other tacos and burritos, with lots of outdoor seating. The weather is getting warm, he expects lots of teenagers and young adults will be hanging out there.

He adds some additional notes to his map, where people gather and socialize. He takes a last gulp of coffee slips the map into his backpack; he leaves a tip for the barista working today. They make a pretty good cup of coffee, he heads past the sports fields into the park and towards the back, towards the trail head. It's not a marked maintained trail, one hikers and campers use to make their way down to the town. He heads up the switchbacks, towards the main ridge of Flat Top Mountain, the name sake of the town.

                   *******

Mark and Phil are on afternoon patrol, sitting in the SUV down the street from the bus station on the far east end of main street, across the street are old basketball and tennis courts, the town does not maintain them anymore. Older kids like to hang out there, there are benches near an abandoned snack stand. The high school kids who take the bus to Staunton, have their drop off and pick up here at the small bus station. The station is still open part of the day, there is still a bus that comes through once a day around one in the afternoon, runs from Richmond to Saint Louis, stops in a few small towns like Flat Top, mainly because it's a place where they need some fuel.

They see the school bus stop, the same group of fifteen to thirty get dropped there every day, the numbers depending on the time of year and the weather and what school activities they are involved in. Today it looks like about twenty, and about ten of them head over to the abandoned snack stand. Phil picks up the binoculars, Mark can see they are lighting up smokes, Phil puts the binoculars back down, "just cigarettes." They don't hassle them if they are smoking a little pot, unless someone pulls out a big bag selling, then they will go after them.

Mark is staring at the kids across the street, "school will be out soon." They both know there will be kids here during most of the day, some playing on the old ball courts, some just hanging out. In the early evening it will be older kids and young adults. There will be even more over by the sports fields and the park all day and in the early evening, in the park shelters later in the night. The warm weather pushes life outside, including drug dealing and drug use. There are hard core addicts across town, mostly older that they rarely deal with, impossible to catch them buying drugs in this small town or they go over to Staunton to buy. The summer brings out the younger recreational users.

He sighs, "I hope it's not like last summer." Three dead from overdose, two in high school and one in college all on opioids, two at the beginning of the summer and one at the end. All three in the back of the park, in the old picnic shelters on the edge of the forest.

Phil frowns shaking his head, "yeah me too, lets head on over to the sports fields. See if the food shacks are open, they usually open up the week before school gets out. That will start attracting some crowds."

Phil looks both ways down the highway before he pulls out, across the street further down towards Staunton he looks at the faded sign Clyde's Salvage and Scrap. "First thing people see when people come to town most everyone comes in from the east, he could clean that place up a bit."

                   *******

Peter Clay parks the patrol SUV in the side carport, next to his wife's small hybrid, she has been giving him grief that they should go hybrid in the department. "Hey, I am home, whose turn is it to cook?"

Carol is sitting in the family room reading, she chuckles, "why do you always ask that when it is your turn and no, we are not ordering pizza."

"Okay how about Chinese? We haven't tried that place yet, I hear it is pretty good, they do delivery."

"It's a weekday, pork chops are thawed out, do mashed potatoes and broil the pork chops. Easy-peasy."

"Okay." He opens the closet near the front door and locks his gun in the lock box. Walks over and gives her a kiss on the cheek. "I will get a shower and get on it, where is Chance?"

"Got an early start on homework believe it or not."

Peter takes the pork chops out of the oven, "Chance set the table, everything is ready."

Carol sits down with a mocking tone gesturing to the food, "my goodness, fancy tonight onions and celery in the mashed potatoes." She looks at Chance "one more week of middle school, high school next year you ready?"

"Yea guess so, wish we had a high school here in town. Why did they close it?"

Peter shrugs shaking his head, "that is way before we moved here, about fifty years ago, I guess. It was where the old tennis courts and basketball courts are near the bus station, demolished the building. That's what people told me, a lot of smaller high schools went away back then all over the country, school consolidation. My grandparents went to the same high school, only had like twenty people in their graduating class. It's better for academics they can have more college preparatory classes in a larger school. I'm sure money might have something to do with it, hard for all those small schools to keep going."

"How big was your high school? "

"Mine in Blacksburg was like a thousand kids, it was pretty big but there are a lot bigger ones, three thousand or more in the big schools."

"How about you mom, in Roanoke?"

"About fifteen hundred, dads right you have better academics in the bigger high schools, advanced math, science, more languages. Leaving out the wealthy private schools, definitely better than a small school in a rural town." She doesn't say what else she is thinking unless it's over run with drugs and violence. Not something her parents or grand parents ever worried about, there were drugs in her high school but it is worse now, more lethal concoctions.

Peter and Carol are in bed, she moves close putting her arm around his chest, "high school next year."

Peter sighs, "yeah, we need to talk to him again about drugs he will definitely be exposed to users over there, but there are places a lot worse."

"Yeah, I know. Let's focus on that later, he has the whole summer."


Chapter Seven

Friday afternoon Ginna Murray is just getting home, taking off early from the realty office, Carol was covering for her. It's just past noon, the last day of school for Paul and Debbie. She has been planning a big dinner tonight for a few weeks, more of a small family party. She goes into the small study and turns on the laptop to check email and her social media. She picks up her mobile phone and hits speed dial for Reggie.

Reggie sees it's Ginna calling, "Ginna, I told you I can't get home until three, I will take care of the grill I promise." He knows she is excited about the end of school year celebration; Paul is graduating from high school and Debbie is finishing middle school.

"There is an email from the UVA Sports director, subject Baseball Program. Paul has been waiting to hear from them, what should I do? I don't know if he would want me to look or let him read it first."

"Its to the family email account?"

"Yeah, the high school coach must have given them that ID."

"Read it, it would be good to know if they are going to offer him anything before the cookout tonight."

Reggie hears Ginna squeal with excitement, "Oh my God Reggie! Full scholarship they want him to sign a letter of intent, he is going to flip out."

"Wow, I didn't expect a full ride to UVA they are usually top twenty, great academics. Mark the email not read, you know how to do that, look at the top of the screen."

"Okay I see it, yeah he has been checking expecting to hear something from them, I will turn off the computer and let him find it when he gets home from school. I will tell Debbie no computer time until later, she will be home in a little bit, middle school is letting out early today."

"Now I'm excited, I am going to head home in a little bit, how about a cake? Well, we can't put a message on it for the scholarship, he will know we read the email before him. And we don't want tonight to be just about him, it's for Debbie as well."

"Buy two undecorated cakes, chocolate for Paul and banana with strawberry icing for Debbie, get some decorating icing in a tube. I can do a decent job decorating them, we will decorate them later after he checks the email."

                   *******

Scott is sitting on the porch on the old run down home on the south west side of Flat Top Gap. He sees Roger Stanley pull up in his old junker across the street. Scott sucks the last bit of beer from the can and tosses it into the barrel on the porch, damn Runt looking for free beer.

Roger walks up onto the porch, "Hey Scout, got a beer?"

"Sorry Runt, just finished the last cold one."

"Come on man, I know you got some inside."

Scott gets up, "okay just one, your driving idiot." He comes back with two cans of beer handing one to Roger.

Roger takes a long drink sitting on the floor of the wooden porch with his back against the wall, "Runt, man I really hate that name."

Scott chuckles, "tell the boss if you want to change it, what are you maybe five foot five?"

He frowns shaking his head, "Five seven, and I ain't no runt."

"Okay fine, you aint a runt, what you doing here anyway. Shouldn't you be doing some business."

Roger points a finger at Scott, "You aint doing any bszness sittin here drinking beers. You know what it is like in this town during the day this time of year, man its dead. I barely made it through the winter, eating nothin but hot dogs and beans the last two months. How bout you."

"Yeah, it's been slim for me too, but school is out, colleges are letting out and the summer rentals people on the north west side of town will be filling up."

Runt finishes his beer and tosses the can into the metal barrel, "yeah customers, every afternoon and evening, lots of customers." He gets up, "you got a bag of zippos, I am all out got to make a drop off, dirty old Leo says he has some money."

"Yeah, okay make sure he has money, we split it okay. Last time he tried to pay you with a bunch of old mobile phones, they weren't worth shit."

Scout comes back out with the small bag, looks around and puts it on the small wrought iron table. Runt stands up lights a cigarette, walks over and picks it up, he looks out towards his car wishing he had something better to drive. "You think Wrecker has been to Pittsburgh, they need to make a big run before the summer gets into swing."

Scout is rubbing his chin, "I don't know, why do you say they? Wrecker is just a damn runner man, he aint Humbles partner. Nothin like that, Wrecker has a good place to store the shit. Humble has the money and connections, he would make sure Wrecker would take the fall if anyone ever found out what was going on."

"Really ya think so?"

Scout laughs, "what did Humble tell you, when you came on board if you were to talk, what did he say would happen?"

"Said I would get some time even if I made a deal, the Pittsburgh people would get some one to rape me in jail before they killed me. Dude is scary, like split personalities that's what they call it. See ya later man."

Runt heads to his car, to make a delivery to dirty old Leo.

                   *******

Ricky North is ready to close down for the weekend, he puts the closed sign on the door and looks at his watch. He was supposed to be here ten minutes ago, that prick looks down on me.
He pulls his car into the side gravel parking lot of Clyde's Salvage and Scrap, looks around to see if anyone is nearby before he gets out with the large duffel bag. He can see the closed sign is up, he is fifteen minutes late Ricky will be all bent out of shape. He knows Clyde was Ricky's grandfather, the one who had started the business about forty years ago.

Ricky sees the door open, "lock it asshole, your late."

"Wrecker, always something nice to say."

"What is it with these damn names." He knew he should not have said that, he was serious as hell about not being seen doing the business, rules about how they communicated and these code names, it was all a part of his system.

"Listen, I can find someone else to work with if you don't like how I operate. It will take me some time, but I can find someone willing to make the runs and set up a warehouse, working with the boys. You want out just let me know."

Ricky bites his upper lip; he is making an extra thirty grand a year in cash no taxes from working for Humble. He is not getting rich but that money lets him live a half way decent life and have some savings. Humble even gave him tips on how to launder it through the salvage business. "No sorry bout that, just don't like it when you're late."

"Okay fine, let's talk about the first big run of the season to Pittsburgh, I have the list for the buy, I confirmed it yesterday, same guy same place, prices are same as the last buy. There are more kids coming back into town from college this year, it should be a good summer."

Ricky looks at the list, and opens the duffel bag looking at the money inside, he does not need to count it, "burner phone inside, tomorrow is Saturday what time do they expect me?"

"Yeah, burner is inside they expect you between noon and one, it's important to be on time."

"I know, I will leave around five in the morning, that will get me there by 1130, I will be back here around nine tomorrow night, what about bagging everything for selling?"

"Put it in the safe, I will send a message to Scout for the boys to come on Sunday and work with you to bag everything up for selling, it will take up a good part of the day. I will come by late Monday after work, look everything over, and we talk with the boys, make sure everyone is square on the price, what their cuts will be and make sure they have organized their coverage of town."

"Okay same three, Scout is the leader?"

"Same three."

                   *******

Carol is clearing the dishes, "that was good."

Peter chuckles leaning against the countertop, "yea your night to cook and we order pizza, again."

"Hey its Friday and today was great, we booked almost all of the summer rentals for the first two months, that's a lot of money babe. I love summer business." She looks at Peter and sees him clench his jaws. "Sorry, I know this is a bad time for you and the deputies, it was just a good week for us and it has been a tough year."

"I understand, I like summers but not as much these last several years, it seems to get worse each year. There will probably be a hundred kids back in town from college, another fifty from high school and with the vacation rentals in the mountains, a lot of recreational customers for the dealers. But we shouldn't let that spoil your good week, good job babe. I'm gonna watch some sports, while you finish the dishes."

"Not going to help?"

"Don't remember any help from you yesterday."

Carol comes into the family room sitting on the sofa next to Peter, "Ginna took off early today, Paul is graduating high school and Debbie is in Chance's class so they were doing a cookout tonight, a kind of celebration for the two of them moving on. She called me just before I left work. Paul got a full baseball scholarship offer to UVA, they just got the email today, she called me right after Paul got home."

"Wow, I heard he was All State, didn't realize he was that good, Reggie and Ginna must be really happy."

"Ginna said we should come to the game tomorrow, home game over in Staunton Chance likes baseball, games at 2:00."

"Yeah, that would be fun."