Homecoming_Chapter 22
itsmeocean@hotmail.com
Why kill Donald Summers? Why do you have to wear his shoes? Because they caught your fancy?
Fetus. Came out alive. Almost impossible but… once again, we have our dear Murphy Law. But even if you did come out alive, you will have most probably died. Even babies being birthed prematurely in this time when medical science is far more advanced have to fight desperately hard for their lives.
Donald Summers. You killed him, most probably. I'll have to find out why. But you wore his shoes.
You wore his shoes.
Frank made his solitary way to the Philadelphia's Police Department for his appointment with Detective Thorton. He wondered how Joe was doing- his brother was gone for almost an hour with Simon Lee over to Maine to check out the pond where the bodies were found years ago. Frank had been reserved on his positivism on that prospect but Joe was ready to kick down all doors.
The brothers had returned to the motel after meeting up with Simon and faxed the print over to Con. Using an investigative software, Con Riley compared the full print with the partial prints Frank lifted and they were a match. The positive verification should excite any investigators, at least, Riley was, but all it left for his brother and him was a feeling of barrenness - and some fear.
"I just can't stand him. 'And you too, Joe'," Joe spat sarcastically in the middle of their discussion in the motel room, trying to decide the most fruitful paths they would embark on since time was running out. Joe was sitting on his bed, grumbling at times about a terrible headache from the heat while Frank was standing by the dressing table with a fax copy of Con's extremely speedy reply.
"C'mon, Joe. He's a nice guy." Frank spoke in a low breath, covering the mouthpiece of the phone just in case Simon Lee picked it up and heard Joe's insults. Joe snorted. He loved to befriend friendly people but he didn't like the way 'amiable' Simon Lee disregarded him.
"He addressed me like some freaking afterthought! And you! Why didn't you tell me about the bodies? I can take it! This is serious, Frank!"
"This is no time for your tirades. I promise… when this is over, I'll let you beat me up."
"I do not want to beat you up, brother. I just… forget it. I don't know what I want. I just want a stomach that won't give me trouble now."
Frank chuckled humorlessly before raising a hand to shut Joe up. He greeted the person on the other line sincerely, "Hi, Simon. This is Frank… yes, great to hear from you too… my brother? Ah… well, I just want to tell you that the prints were a match. I can fax you the relevant details but we may not have time for that. I'll need your help to coordinate something. We'll like to take a look at the pond where the bodies were found a few years ago."
Simon thought it was worth a shot. He actually suspected that the kidnapper was a native to the small town in which the forest was close to or, at least, a local in the surrounding cities and towns for the pond was so deep in the forest that anyone unfamiliar with the layout of the town would be lost immediately. However, by the time the bodies were dredged up, the trail of the kidnapper had run cold and the police couldn't get a handle on anyone.
Joe gave the final word by saying he had a gut feeling. Frank let Joe go, knowing his brother, at times, could be uncannily psychic but he hoped that Joe would find the girls alive and not dead. Besides that gut feeling of his brother, Frank could not deny that criminals were known to revisit the crime scenes out of some nostalgia or perverted pride. Maybe, even if the pond did not yield results, they might gather something from the locals. Whatever it was, at least Frank was here, searching out the kidnapper from another angle. They would not be wasting too much time if either path ended up in a dead end.
He rapped on the Detective's office's door- the impatience in his actions was a perfect replica of his brother's impetuousness. The Detective was either deaf or he was just patronizing Frank on the phone. If there weren't so many police officers around, Frank would have bang on the door with a sledgehammer just to be invited in.
"Come in." An authoritative voice boomed out suddenly. Letting out sigh of annoyance, Frank recomposed himself and tried to smile before he swung the door open. A burly man with brown hair and graying sideburns sat behind a clean, white desk, reading a case file frowningly.
Frank immediately assessed that the Detective was efficient- maybe even a little cold. His office was too neat and organized- everything was the default white- from the walls to the desk to the window blinds.
Then he smiled a little at the empty donut box on top of the Detective's side cupboard. Somehow, just that sight was enough to make the man seemed less imposing.
"Hello, Sir. I'm Frank Hardy. We spoke on the phone earlier."
Detective Thorton glanced at Frank from beneath his glasses, still frowning. When he had sized Frank up, he smiled grimly.
"Oh, yes. Frank. Please sit. This is regarding Summers' case right? My men are working hard on it as we speak. I've been informed by a mutual friend about your plight and I'm deeply apologetic. What can I do for you?" Detective Thorton sat up straight as he brushed away, what appeared to be, donut crumbs.
"Well, for starters, did you guys find out anything of interest from the crime scene or on the body? Some clue about why, how and when the murder occurred?" Frank took out his Palm after he made himself comfortable on the seat opposite Thorton. He only hoped that Simon had pulled enough strings for them on Thorton.
"Yes, actually. The body was left in that state for slightly over two weeks. Simon asked me an interesting question actually; he asked if the man's reproductive organs were mutilated. It was. How did you come to that conclusion? It wasn't noticeable at first glance."
"First glance?" Frank blurted out as the detective leaned back and smiled satisfactorily.
"I gathered- two private investigators with personal agendas in town who knew about the murder before the press got hold of it…"
"Oh… yes… well… I'm sorry about…"
"About leaving an anonymous report?"
"Yes… I…" Frank shrugged, letting out a defeated chuckle. "We didn't want to get embroiled in an interrogation when we have something more important to look into and my brother was very sick. I hope you understand my predicament."
"I do. This was why I agreed to this meeting. I don't really have much patience for PIs who didn't know what they were doing and end up sabotaging cases…"
"Well, we haven't sabotage anything yet." Frank hunched over and clasped his hands together contemplatively, "In fact, if we work together, it benefits the both of us. And you can see I do not have time to trade banters. I have my reasons for coming to the conclusions that I did though I do not have facts to back them up yet. I am thinking about the professor's unfinished profiling done on a serial kidnapper…"
"Yes, Simon briefed me about it. And you're thinking the serial kidnapper is the same person who kidnapped your loved ones as well…"
"Not only that, we think he's linked to the murder as well… it's pretty obvious. Simon mentioned something about finding out why the professor knew about the serial kidnapping which the Feds had kept pretty low profiled. I guess I was hoping the police would have an answer." Frank shook his head, smiling a little embarrassedly, his downcast eyes fixed on his clasped hands. "I should have known. It's too soon."
"I'm open to suggestions. And I'm going to bend the rules. There's something on your mind." Detective Mike bored his gaze intensely into Frank's eyes. Frank met the eye-contact, stretching his lips thinly.
"I do not have the necessary tools right now and, at the risk of sounding like I'm telling you what to do which is not my intention, I think you should check his phone bills, faxes. In fact, you should run some forensic programs on his computer to see if you can recover any transcripts of online chats he had."
"You're thinking he was prompted by the killer himself into this research?" Detective Thorton eyes hooded over in deep thoughts. "I'm sure that can be done. I'll get my men to do it immediately."
"And you'll tell me the results as soon as it comes up." Frank pierced the Detective's eyes with comparable intensity. Thorton smiled grimly.
"You have my word."
"And it seems that's all we have right now," Frank didn't like replying on the faith of strangers but right now, he had not much choice. However, Thorton seemed like a man of his word which was just about the only consolation Frank found.
"And more. I have actually run through the victim's phone and fax bills for the past few months and there isn't anything of suspicions. But the chat line, message board etc. is something I have neglected. If you'll wait here, I'll call my technical guy and we can go over right now to the professor's office and run those programs. It's faster than to haul the thing back here."
Frank was extremely grateful at the open gesture and his surprise must have been flashing on his mien for Thorton smiled sardonically before commenting in a grudging tone.
"Simon and I go a long way back. And you're right. Helping you will eventually help me crack this too. The professor is a prominent figure and no one will take too kindly to his death. I don't want my superiors breathing down my neck. Just assure me you have something up your sleeves, kid, that you'll be willing to share."
Donald Summers. Male reproductive organs mutilated. Symbolic? Of course. I didn't make that guess for fun.
Frank didn't know what half-baked ideas and deductions were worth but he was confident of his own gut feelings. "Yes, I do."
***
Moments later, Frank was in the Professor's office with Thorton, his and Robert Hayek who gave them assess to the professor's computer. The three of them hovered around a sloppily dressed, bespectacled young man, around Joe's age probably, who was typing speedily onto the keyboard with one hand while maneuvering the mouse excitedly with the other.
Thorton tapped at Justin's, his computer guy, shoulder impatiently. "Are you done? You've been at it for very long."
"Yah, yah, Chief. Don't rush me. You have to be very careful about this sort of things. It's not so easy to retrieve the chat transcripts. What if you make the PC angry? It'll die on you and we'll get nothing." The young man drawled, his lips twisted with annoyance. A slow, satirical smile crept up Frank's lips. He was reminded of the times when Joe would hurry him as he meddled with his computer only to meet with the same, irritated answer.
Thorton was not too pleased by the lack of authority in the guy's voice but he let it passed with a grunt. In less than a few minutes, Justin let out a triumphant whoop.
"There! I have it… all fifty five pages. Check them out." The scrawny young man stretched his hands up in the air and cracked his fingers. The printer groaned before it churned out the pages with a disturbing rattle.
They split the transcripts and it was Frank who had the gentleman's luck. "I have something here."
Suddenly, everyone crammed around him and Frank felt like he was about to suffocate from the crowdedness.
Especially when Uncle Robert's enormous paunch kept bouncing into him and everyone.
Executioner: You heard about the children's bodies found in Maine?
Prof : Yes, a little only. But nothing much of interest as the Feds had nothing on him.
Executioner: Imagine. You could be the one to bring the guy to his knees. I have some insider information that you may be interested in.
"And another transcript dated just a little over a month ago." Detective Thorton, who was perusing through his after reading Frank's, drew out a few pieces of paper from the stack he had, "The Executioner and the Professor had actually made arrangement for a meeting and then he told the professor that the Feds knew that the parents of all the children who went missing had undergone an abortion at one point or another in their lives."
Frank knitted his brows, recalling nothing of this information in the case file that Simon had. And Simon hadn't mentioned it.
"I think I better call Simon about it." Frank commented, "If the Feds didn't know about it, it meant that the Executioner could well be the kidnapper himself…" He then pointed at a string of numbers beside each nickname.
"The IP address tagged to his nickname may vary but we can see from the string that it belonged to the same server. We might be able to find out from the provider which computer the addresses were assigned to at the given time and dates."
""That will be done." Thorton announced and started calling his men on his cell phone.
Robert Hayek draped an arm across Frank's shoulder, "So we know the killer could well be the kidnapper for certain now. Any new insights?"
It's you. You wore his shoes. You killed him. You desecrated his body in a manner symbolic to you. Something I guessed.
And the letters sent to the clinic- you talked about being alive and yet dead. You think you were supposed to be dead, right? And I wonder, how can you still be alive?
You wore his damn shoes! You were filling in your father's shoes!
Did you kill the children as a punishment to the parents? They have gone through abortions before. Do you find them unfit to be parents and thus...
Who's your mother?
"What mother?"
Frank hadn't realized he had voiced his last thought aloud until Robert startled him. He gazed at his uncle blearily as reality sank once again into his consciousness.
"Uncle Robert, was Summers ever married or had a fling with anyone about twenty-odd years ago?"
Robert Hayek knitted his brows, "Why do you ask?"
"Because I believe it's pertinent to this case." Frank stated matter-of-factly with finality.
Robert gazed at him with slanted eyes, almost as if he was trying to read Frank's mind. Frank remained inscrutable and yet, confident.
"Don was married before- a long time ago. He was also widowed, a long time ago."
"How did his wife die?"
"Suicide. That's what I heard. She died… well, should be about twenty-eight or nine years ago… around there. Rumors floated around but there's one which seemed to sound quite true. Donald was supposed to have an affair with one of his students during those days when he was not so prominent in our circles, teaching in a community college."
"Where exactly was he teaching?" Frank asked, his heart pounding fast.
"I can't remember… I'll have to check his CV." Robert Hayek went back to his office and Frank followed him, quite glad to be out of the dead man's office actually.
"Here it is…" Robert took out a file from one of his cabinets, "He taught in Port City Community College in 1973."
"Port City? That's like… right next to Bayport and Porter's Bay…" Some pieces of the most complicated puzzle were falling in place. Frank frowned.
Affair with a student. Porter's Bay abortion clinic.
"Thanks for your help, uncle. I think I need to be going now."
"Aren't you going to wait for the findings?"
Frank shook his head, "I don't think that will be necessary. Most likely, the IP addresses would come from some internet café or other public use facility but I'm pretty sure it would point to some place in Bayport, Porter's Bay or Port City. The location would only give me confidence in my deduction. I think I have learned enough."
"Learned enough? Wait… where're you going?"
The brown-haired young man smiled humorlessly, "I'm going back home."
