"See? If you start unraveling the tangle between the corporations it starts to become a little clearer," Blair concluded, setting down his marker and standing back to study his chart on the erasable board. They'd started off the meeting discussing the security measures, which were kicked into high gear, and the status of the surviving council members. Now Blair had been given the floor to explain the results of his research into the ownership of the corporations they suspected might be involved.
The six by three board was nearly filled with Sandburg's quick, economical printing, creating a complex web of businesses interwoven into an intricate network where shady business deals could be hidden behind the cloak of confusion. The anthropologist had circled recurring names highlighting four stockholders who not only were the officers of
Firestar Corporation but were also officers of up to six 'satellite' companies. Blair had neatly written those four most likely suspects down the far right of the board.
Nathan Silverstone.
Renee Savage.
Daniel Webber.
Blaine Knight.
"Hairboy, I thought you'd fingered Webber as a potential vic, now you're saying he may be the killer?" Brown questioned, studying the chart critically.
"Yeah, it's kind of hard to determine which side he's going to fall into, he's straddling the fence between ecological preservation as his public stand and his considerable investment in companies dependent of the toxic waste plant." Blair tapped the marker he'd used against his hand as he contemplated Brown's question.
"He would be a major target of the other stockholders if he is using his position on the council to counter the plant's approval, since it would be so financially adverse. Yet, what better cover from which to kill the council members than from the position of being on the council himself? He's definitely the top of the list of those to investigate. What about the others?" Simon was all business as he made his inquiry.
"Nathan Silverstone is the only son of Gerard Silverstone, of Silverstone Industries, which produces and distributes those small novelty toys you get for a quarter from those machines at the stores. You know the ones I mean; they come in a plastic bubble? Anyway, his dad is like the founding father of that industry, made his fortune from that. Nathan is known as a slacker and general 'cad about town', his only hobby appears to be collecting paternity suits. He's been hit with seven so far, four of those have resulted in him being identified as the father and required to pay child support," Blair read off a notepad he'd brought with him.
"Renee Savage has a very successful, very exclusive line of designer woman's wear, specifically catering to the athletic woman, with a special emphasis on those in equestrian sports. Personally she's very reclusive, the only 'society' functions she attends are various highbrow horse shows and riding events."
The grad student paused, then pushed his glasses firmly up again as he read the last notes on the potential suspects. "Blaine Knight spent most of his life working for the city, until he took an early retirement and bought the landfill. The county used to run it, but turned it private four years ago, and since then that's how he's supplemented his retirement."
"The landfill where the third victim was found," Simon added quietly.
"Yeah. That landfill. Where I've worked for the last two months," Sandburg agreed.
"What about the other officers and directors of Firestar?" Bruinswick wanted to know.
"Two of them are from out of the area. I'm not certain, but I think one of those might be related to Renee. But I couldn't find their names in any of the other corporations, and as you see, I traced their roots as thoroughly as possible," Blair replied.
"Okay, Ellison, I want you and Sandburg to concentrate on Webber, I want to know if he's a potential victim here. Bruinswick, you start looking into Savage and Silverstone. Brown, you get Knight. Have Harris do a background check on our out of town shareholders. Sandburg, this list, is it ALL shareholders, or just officers and directors?" Banks turned his attention to his new observer.
"Um, just officers and directors. But a lot of these corporations have ONLY shareholders who are officers and directors," the young man replied. "But, if you're thinking there may be more involvement than I have uncovered, well, you could be right. A list of shareholders is much harder to come by legitimately from home." He turned his innocent expression on the captain.
"Good thing Harris loves research almost as much as you do, Sandburg. We'll have him check into obtaining lists of shareholders for all the corporations. You do have a master list, right?"
"Right here, Captain Banks," Sandburg assured him, handing over a sheet of paper with the needed information.
"Gentlemen, I don't need to remind you that time is already running short. Report to me as soon as you have the information we need. Let's get to work!" With that Banks sent the men on their separate ways.
TSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTS
Detective James Ellison had been in the business long enough – more than long enough – to no longer be surprised or shocked by the depths to which people could sink in their search for the all-mighty dollar. But the young man sitting beside him lacked that perspective.
"Man, this is ridiculous. He had enough of everything anyone could want; a good home, wife, kids, money, cars, vacations. Prestige. And all from legitimate sources. Why would he risk everything to get more? It doesn't make sense to me."
"Come on, Chief. Haven't you ever heard of the more one has the more one wants? Besides, I suspect it's more to keep the life style, not add to it. And the risk is probably part of the attraction. He's a spoiled brat looking for some excitement in his life. But too much of a coward to do something blatant like robbing a bank or even knocking over a convenience store. Nope. Nothing that real. So he gets his cheap thrills from cheating and double crossing. Happens all the time." Ellison's voice was weary and sarcastic and sounded far older than the man himself was.
"Geez, nice world view there, Jim."
"Look, Junior, you hang around here long enough and you'll understand why I feel that way."
"Good thing they don't have you working in the recruiting department," Blair replied with a slight grin as they paused outside Simon Bank's office door.
A quick knock got them an impatient sounding "Come in."
"Captain, you wanted to be informed as soon as we had something," Jim began, sitting down and setting the file he'd been holding on the edge of the desk. "It's looks like Webber may be involved in the killings after all. He's invested a lot into four corporations besides Firestar, and all of them are losing money hand over fist. But, Sandburg here did some calculations, and IF the plant goes in it will repay those loses up to four times over in the first two years alone."
"That would certainly raise the question of why he's involved in anything opposed to the approving of the place. How badly is he hurting due to the losses so far?" Simon queried.
"It wouldn't have been too bad if his second son hadn't gotten himself into a mess of trouble. Seems young Ross Webber developed a fondness for cocaine and fast cars; three weeks past his eighteenth birthday he totaled his Porsche. They found two grams of coke in the vehicle, his blood work showed he was higher than a kite, and his seventeen-year-old girlfriend was killed. Ross suffered a broken neck, resulting in permanent paralysis from the waist down. Obviously, the medical and legal bills were astronomical, even with insurance. They managed to keep the whole situation fairly quiet, the accident happened in Los Angeles, which is where the kid still is. In rehab." Jim shook his head in disgust as he concluded his report.
"I can't believe we never heard a word of this locally. Not with Webber being a public figure and the subject of driving impaired being such a hot topic," Simon noted.
"That's what a really high priced lawyer can buy you," Jim retorted.
"But we don't think he's working alone," Blair put in, speaking for the first time. "I went back to my earlier chart and reviewed who Webber owned the various companies with, and Blaine Knight and Nathan Silverstone were the names that come up repeatedly."
Captain Banks consulted a notepad in front of him then picked up his phone. "Rhonda, please locate Brown and Bruinswick and ask them to report to my office immediately." He turned his attention to the two men in front of him. "Hopefully they are close by, I want to hear what they've uncovered so far."
The tall captain's wishes were realized when a knock at the door heralded the arrival of the other two officers who immediately sat down beside Blair and Jim, notepads and files at the ready.
Banks quickly filled in the other detectives on what Ellison and Sandburg had found out, then turned to the detective from his division first. "What do you have so far, Brown?"
"Gotta tell you, Cap'n, Blaine Knight is a man what likes to keep busy. Those corps he's involved with, they're a busy bunch, fingers in all sorts of pies all around Cascade. But none of them make much in the way of money, though from what I hear cash receipts are pretty good in most of them. Even the landfill is running in the red. I got the word from one of my snitches that Mr. Knight is a well known and a VERY frequent visitor to the Cascade Casino out on the res. And word has it that Lady Luck has not been paying him any visits recently. Some think he's paying off his gambling losses through the corporations, through dummy expenses. I did a little digging and it seems he has three local accounting offices he works with. And I'm betting that none of them know the others exist," Brown suggested, leaning back and checking over his notes one last time.
"The problem is; he hasn't done anything wrong I could even begin to prove at this point. It's just speculation and suspicion right now. As for when the kidnappings/killings took place; he had good alibis for them all. And no known problems existed between him and any of the victims. That's all I've managed so far," he concluded.
"Did you find anything that tied him especially to Councilman Daniel Webber?"
"Nothing yet, but I wasn't looking for that specifically."
"Okay." He nodded at the Homicide detective. "How about you, Stan? You had Renee Savage and Nathan Silverstone?"
"Yeah. Savage looked pretty clean, most of her holdings, outside the corp that handles her clothing business, are centered around horses. And yeah, they're losing money, but the clothing business isn't. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Still making a fortune while supporting the struggling businesses. And horse breeding, horse training, all those horse businesses, they mostly lose money, anyway. My sister tried it and ended up bankrupt; it's a brutal business and eats up the 'small operators' like crazy. Her interest in Firestar doesn't date back to the start of the corp. She bought in a year after it was formed, and was voted Secretary at that year's board meeting. Guess who she was dating at that time?" He looked around with an expectant smirk.
"Uh…Nathan Silverstone?" Blair ventured with a smile of his own.
"Give the young man a kewpie doll! Turns out it was convenient you having me check on both of them. They dated for only five months, but from what I heard it was an intense five months. We list six calls to her house for domestic disturbance, with no charges being filed in any. They were frequently featured in the society section of the newspaper, as often for their appearance at various social functions as for their public spats. Of course, part of the interest was due to the fact Renee Savage is so reclusive most of the time. This was a rare period of public appearances that had the press intrigued. But I digress. As for Nathan Silverstone, it's not a question of what shady business practices he has, but what ones he hasn't. Last year the IRS got into the act and audited one of his busier corporations. They ended up disallowing hundreds of thousands of dollars of deductions over a five-year period, assessed taxes, penalties and interest, then seized the property when the corp went belly up. He still owes nearly a quarter of a million in back taxes, and word has it the IRS is now looking at the other businesses he's involved in. So Firestar might be in the line of fire for that," Bruinswick concluded.
"Did you check his whereabouts at the time of the murders?" Jim wanted to know.
"Not yet, I hadn't thought of him as a possible suspect before this. What about Webber?"
"Nah, we didn't get that far yet, either," Jim conceded. "So that means that Knight is the only one who is not under suspicion for the actual kidnappings at the moment."
Blair had fallen quiet, his expression indicating he was deep in thought, no longer actively listening to the conversations around him. Ellison noticed the kid's preoccupation and nudged him gently in the side.
"Hey,Chief, you look like you're thinking some pretty intense thoughts there. Anything you need to share?" he prodded gently. He knew Blair wasn't happy that Blaine Knight was under suspicion; the young man obviously liked his former boss.
"Do any of these guys have a military background?" he asked abruptly.
Bruinswick looked up with a mildly disgusted look. "Silverstone? No way."
"Knight served in Viet Nam. Wounded less than a week after arrival in the country, he was honorably discharged," Brown provided.
Jim was thumbing through the paperwork they'd assembled on Webber. "No, no military training at all. Where you going with this, Sandburg?"
"These killings are not the typical work of a psycho killer, as it were. I think we may be looking for someone with a military background, preferably Special Forces sort of training."
"What gives you that idea, Sandburg?" Simon wanted to know.
"The profile of a psychotic strangler typically has a psycho-sexual pathology. You would expect to see evidence of molestation. And strangulation is a means of killing fraught with passion, something that is totally lacking from these crime scenes. Based on the forensic evidence it would appear that they were strangled from behind, military style rather than with a garrote, which would be ritualistic, or with hands which would be psycho."
"What do you mean by ritualistic? The murders were all the same, isn't that ritualistic?" Banks asked.
"Not necessarily. It could just be efficiency. Ritualistic would be like what the Thuggee Cult practiced. The name comes from the Sanskrit word sthaga, which means deceiver. The Thuggee were a Hindu sect whose members worked in small gangs in India. They murdered- usually by strangulation, robbed, and buried travelers passing through their region. The Thugs worshipped the goddess Kali, the Hindu goddess of death, and observed very strict rules in dedication to her. They even employed a secret language amongst themselves. The Thuggee cult was suppressed in the 1830's," he paused when Simon raised both hands, waving them as if washing an invisible window.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sandburg. Enough. We get the idea," the captain stressed.
"Ah, sorry Simon, I get carried away," the young man said, blushing furiously under the amused gazes sent his way.
"No kidding," Brown grinned, eliciting a round of snickers that worked as a welcome relief to the mounting tension in the room.
Impossibly, Blair's blush deepened before he cleared his throat and spoke again. "Anyway, so that leaves military. The most popular method would probably be to strangle the victim from behind with a chokehold, crushing the larynx. Is that what was done?" the grad student asked his Sentinel.
"Actually, yeah. It's something we've kept from the press completely. The bright shoelaces are just 'window dressing.' The victims are dead before the laces are tied. I think you're onto something here, Chief. We need to look closer at these suspects, and their known associates, wouldn't you agree Simon?" he turned to the captain.
"Absolutely. And it time to question these gentlemen and rattle their cages just a bit, I'd say. Since you're each already well briefed on one suspect each, go ahead and interview them again, see if we can shake something loose before we lose someone else. But try not to tip our hand too much yet. If you suspect for any reason your suspect is going to do something stupid, call in for surveillance. We have carte blanche on this case; we can use a many officers as it takes. I'm going to add some more to Swensen, since he's looking good to be the next victim. Go get the bad guys," he urged his team, gratified when they all stood to hurry out. He called Ellison back in before he could leave.
Brown walked out alongside Sandburg, one meaty hand reaching out to tousle the long curls affectionately. "No wonder this grows so long, all that fertilizer inside your head," the big detective teased the smaller man.
"Fertilizer!?" the grad student squawked. "Hey, man, I'll have you know that's pure anthropological fact!" he defended, swatting good-naturedly at the officer. Brown's booming laughter faded as they went across the bullpen, Ellison and Banks watching from in front of the captain's desk.
"The kid's got some interesting ideas," Simon admitted quietly, his gaze still on the two younger men.
"You don't know the half of it, Simon. What'd you need?"
The captain's expression hardened. "Just to remind you that Sandburg is just an observer, so you watch him. I don't want any lawsuits against the precinct because the kid gets hurt. And watch yourself around Webber, he can be an obnoxious son-of-a-bitch, don't let him get your goat."
"Won't happen, Sir. I'll be on my best behavior," Ellison promised before heading out to gather up his new partner and head on out to question the councilman.
TSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTS~
Detective Jim Ellison was known to his dentist as his '401(k) patient' since every time he saw Jim the treatment usually covered his retirement contribution for the entire year. Interviews such as the one he and Sandburg suffered through with Daniel Webber were the primary cause of his dental woes. A full hour and a half of clenching his jaw over his anger would crack anyone's teeth.
The councilman was charming, erudite, self deprecating and lying through his teeth, as far as Jim was concerned. On the drive over Blair had suggested Jim try to hear the man's heart rate and respirations to see if he was nervous when talking to him. That would help pinpoint a lie, he figured, and could help the detective determine which way the interview should head. And damned if the kid's idea didn't work; too well, in fact. Webber was nervous from the moment he greeted them at the door, and with every question his unease increased to the point Jim had to turn his hearing back down.
After ninety minutes they thanked the man for his time and left him to his bodyguards, four Cascade policemen inside, and three more plus electronics outside. Plus, in Webber's case, two privately hired muscle men. It was a nice touch of authenticity, Ellison thought sardonically as they left.
"Well, man, what'd your senses tell you?" Blair asked excitedly as soon as they were settled back in Ellison's vehicle.
"His heart rate was accelerated from the moment we got there, Darwin. He was nervous when I asked him if the food at Ricardo's was good, for God's sake. He's either guilty as hell or in serious need of Prozac," the Sentinel reported, pinching the bridge of his nose before starting the truck.
"Headache again?" his Guide asked gently.
"Not too bad, Chief. This one's from clenching my teeth so much; I have to quit doing that, or so my dentist says. But, God, he set me on edge."
"He did me, too, and I'm not a Sentinel. How the hell did he ever get elected?" the younger man wondered as Ellison turned on the motor. The radio immediately squawked to life, reporting a disturbance and shots fired on Willow Drive, where Councilman Georges Swensen lived.
"Hang on Chief," Jim instructed his partner as he pulled a tight U-turn and called in their location. Less than five minutes later they arrived on the scene of controlled chaos.
"What's the situation?" Ellison asked the patrolman standing hunched just outside the front door of the spacious home.
"Gas," the young officer gasped, coughing harshly. "Goddamn gas. Almost got Swensen, but they didn't know about the extra team. Swensen's being treated, and we got one of them, he was driving. Lucky catch, really. But they still got away, in the councilman's car, no less. Sorry, Detective, this was a new method for them."
"Hey, sounds like a success to me; the councilman's still with us, and we have a kidnapper in custody. Go get yourself checked out," Jim urged the officer, sending him toward the nearby ambulance before joining his Guide on the lawn a short distance from the house.
"He okay?" the anthropologist asked, indicating the officer.
"Yeah, I think so. And Swensen's okay. Got one kidnapper in custody. Damn, how the hell are they getting so close? I'm starting to think we may have a leak in the department," the Sentinel mused.
"Anyone recognize the kidnapper?" the grad student wondered, looking around at the milling police officers and paramedics, with the press gathered behind the cordoned off area.
"Not yet, Chief, but we will find out soon enough. Let's get back to the station, this is under control here," the detective decided with a last glance around.
"Great. Look, if you don't need me for a while, I was thinking I'd run by Rainer. I need to go there some time today or tomorrow to review my schedule, if you don't need me for anything," the young man trailed off a little uncertainly.
"Not a problem, Sandburg. Look, I don't expect you to spend all day at the precinct with me; you still have your own life. Take care of whatever you need to, if you can get back to the station later that'd be helpful," Jim replied easily with a reassuring look at his unofficial partner.
"Great, man. I should be back in two, three hours at the most. I'm kind of anxious to find out about this kidnapper, you know? I mean, this just keeps getting stranger and stranger," Blair enthused as they neared the PD building.
"You said it, Buddy."
TSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTS~
Rainer University was caught in the perfect lull between the summer session just ended and the fall semester slated to start the following Monday. The campus was nearly deserted, save the occasional faculty member taking care of last minute preparations for their fall classes, and the rare student looking to get a head start on their semester.
Blair arrived to find the only person in Hargrove Hall was Shelly, the secretary, who smiled and flirted with the young man as he picked up his mail. He glanced over the missives, pleased to find everything appeared to be in order for the next week. Promising Shelly a lunch date before the end of the month, he retired to his so-called office to answer a few emails and ensure he had everything in order.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he spent another hour making notes of what he'd observed so far in his study of James J. Ellison, Sentinel. Allowing himself to indulge in his excitement for a while, he couldn't suppress his grin at the thought of finally proving his naysayers wrong. For years now he'd faced scoffs of disdain at the mere mention of Burton's research into tribal watchmen. More than one advisor had told him to forget the fantasy and concentrate on something real, but the dream he'd carried from childhood refused to die.
And now that dream was realized.
Closing up his office, he bounded up the stairs and out the main doors, all but bouncing along, his good mood reflected in the bright and cheerful greeting he gave the two instructors who crossed his path. He was so engrossed in his thoughts of a successful future that he didn't even notice the van that pulled up beside him until he was grabbed from behind. A damp cloth was placed over his face and his struggles abruptly ceased as the chloroform took effect.
Seconds later the doors to the van closed again and the brown vehicle rolled sedately toward the exit, no one having noticed the kidnapping.
TSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTSTS~
The kidnapping suspect captured at Georges Swensen's house was a middle-aged man with short curly brown hair and light brown eyes. He sat sullenly at the table in the interrogation room, picking disinterestedly at the fingernails on his left hand as Stan Bruinswick and Henri Brown questioned him.
"Tell us again, Mr. Bateman, why were you in Mr. Swensen's house?" Brown asked wearily.
"I already told you three times," the man's lazy sounding voice now had added a petulant whine. "My dog Billy went in through the back door. I was just trying to find him and take him home and all hell broke loose and now Billy is missing. And I have all these dog treats and no one to give them to." He indicated his pocket where he'd had a half dozen dog biscuits.
"Mr. Bateman, there was no dog, the back door had been secure. You managed to circumvent the security somehow, and we want to know how. You're in a peck of trouble, don't make it any worse than it already is," Stan Bruinswick said, leaning closer to the cuffed prisoner.
"You didn't find Billy? But, he needs me! You can't not find him! You have to find him, he's scared to be on his own," the man argued, looking desperately between the two detectives.
In the observation room Jim paced restlessly as Simon watched the exchange between the two detectives and the suspect. "Simon, there's something…this is familiar somehow. Something I should know…Billy…a dog named Billy…" the Sentinel paced again, listening to the conversation in the room beyond without concentrating on it.
**..want to know how. You're in a peck of trouble..**
Ellison stopped and straightened up, turning an incredulous glare to the one way window. "Son of a fucking bitch!" he growled.
"What? What is it Jim?" the captain asked, turning his attention to his detective.
"He's yanking our chain, Sir. The prick is trying to put one over on us."
"Explain."
"You ever hear of the 'A-Team', Sir?"
"A TV show, back in…what?…the 80's?" Simon replied with a puzzled look.
"Exactly. It was popular, and, at the time, controversial because of its violence. I didn't watch it when it was on network TV, but a couple of years ago, I got the flu, remember?" At Simon's nod he continued. "I was stuck at home, bored out of my head, and I stumbled on this marathon of episodes of that show. Long story short, I watched about ten straight episodes of it."
"And you lived to tell about it? I remember Daryl watching it a few times, it grated on my nerves," Banks noted.
"Well, yeah, but I was sick. And it was mindless. But the thing is, I remember is the pilot on the team, Murdock, was a Section 8 case. He had an invisible dog named 'Billy' in an episode. This guy, Bateman, he's impersonating that character. I'd be willing to bet on it! And actually a fairly accurate impersonation from what I remember of the show," Jim commented with a slight frown.
Simon turned his attention back to the suspect, mulling over Ellison's observations. "So, now the question would be, are we dealing with a group who has patterned itself as the 'A-Team'? Or is he just a lone nut case? I can tell he's not going to give us any information right now. I think we should get Henri and Stan out of there, and wait to see if there are any replies to the data we sent the FBI and the military. Maybe he's on their radar," the captain decided, clapping Jim on the shoulder as he headed toward the door.
It ended up being four hours before they got a reply from the FBI regarding Michael Bateman. Ellison had just left, intending to get a late lunch and check over the scene at Swensen's house again, when two men dressed in suits that fairly screamed 'AGENTS' came into the bullpen. They strode toward Simon's closed door without so much as pausing and entered without knocking.
"Captain Banks, I understand you're in charge of the task force that captured Michael Ray Bateman earlier today?" the taller agent said without preamble.
"I am. I am also the captain of this division, a man who expects to have a closed office door respected, regardless of who or what you might be. And speaking of which, who and what are you?" the big man asked crossly.
"Agents Conway and Mathers, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington," the shorter agent replied as they both presented their credentials. "We'd like to see the prisoner."
"I'll have detective Brown show you to him in a moment. First I'd like to know what we're dealing with here," Banks said, indicating the two men should be seated.
"If this prisoner is Bateman, he is part of a group of four men who we believe are responsible for the deaths of as many as sixteen people in the last five years. They are all veterans, who, for reasons we have yet to determine, have modeled themselves after an old television program," Mathers explained.
"The A Team." It wasn't a question, which surprised both agents.
"You've heard of these criminals?" Conway asked sharply. "The FBI hasn't released too many details on them as yet."
"No, I didn't hear anything from the FBI on that. One of my detectives, Jim Ellison, recognized what, or rather who, Bateman was impersonating."
"It's the public memory and acceptance, even nostalgia, that has enabled this group to be so damned successful. They actually manage to find idiots willing to help them escape, believing this bunch are as harmless as the TV characters were. It's amazing, in a rather sick sort of way," Conway explained, shaking his head slightly.
Banks looked disgusted, rolling his unlit cigar between his fingers. "So you know who the other three are?" he asked.
"Yeah, we know who they are, not that it's helped much. All four served in Vietnam, though only Paul Osgood, their leader, had any special forces training. Their ploy has the virtue of being rather ironically successful," Mathers continued, with a wry look. "They actually operate like the fictional A-Team did, only it's the bad guys who hire this group, and the military isn't looking to capture them for old crimes, just the new ones. Osgood is their leader, and has been known to don disguises when needed to gather information. That's his specialty; he sets up the job, does the initial recon. Sean O'Malley is their con artist, usually working with Osgood to set things up and keep it running. Bateman is their driver, flunky, jack-of-all-trades. He is NOT a Section 8 case, by the way. However, Terrance Manfred is quite possibly heading to that. He's the muscle; almost certainly he one who actually commits the murders."
Four photographs had accompanied the descriptions, and Simon looked them over carefully, recognizing Bateman immediately. He stared at the shot of Osgood, eerily certain he'd seen the man somewhere recently, but unsure where. The other two were total strangers.
"You said they are suspected of committing sixteen murders in five years. How have they managed to elude capture for so long?" the Major Crime captain asked in a carefully neutral voice.
Both agents looked discomfited, but it was Conway who finally answered. "They're good, Banks. Damned good. And, like we said, they can get the public aiding and abetting them. I don't know how well you remember the A-Team TV show, but they were like modern day Robin Hoods, protecting the innocent, persecuting the evil and the rich, that sort of thing. They were relatively harmless, but these jokers are NOT," he snorted, indicating the four photos.
"Well, good luck with Bateman," Simon began, stopping abruptly when Jim Ellison came through the door with a colorful piece of clothing clutched in his right hand.
"Simon we…oh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but Simon we have a problem," he announced holding the cloth up toward the captain.
"What's the problem, Detective?" Banks asked tersely.
"This is Sandburg's vest. It was on the front seat of my truck," he replied shortly. At the puzzled looks being sent his way, he sighed. "The last time I saw it he was wearing it and getting in his car to go to Rainer University. Now it's in my truck with a note attached." Using the cloth to protect from adding fingerprints he laid a slip of paper down on his Captain's desk.
"'You have what we want, we have what you want. We'll be in touch,'" Simon read. "Oh, damn. You send anyone to the University to check on him?"
"Called it in from downstairs. And I have forensics going over my truck as we speak. Dammit, I knew I should have kept the kid in sight," he sighed.
"Who's this 'Sandburg'?" Conway asked.
Ellison explained about the grad student while Simon made a couple of phone calls to check on the status of the patrol car dispatched to Rainer. He hung up just as Jim had finished.
"They found the kid's car, and recovered a rag soaked with what smells like chloroform from the parking lot. I told them to secure the scene, I'll send Rogers and Wong over to investigate, but I doubt they'll find anything," the tall captain sighed sitting back in his chair.
"I should go check over the scene as well," Jim began only to be cut off by Simon's raised hand.
"No, Jim, I need you here for when they contact us. They obviously know you're the one working with the kid, they will likely want to deal with you personally. Let Rogers and Wong do their jobs, you do yours. Keep working on the evidence we already have, maybe you'll spot something else," the captain instructed him, indicating the detective should return to his desk. When Ellison had left Banks turned again to the two FBI agents.
"Now, let's let you two have a word with our guest."
To be continued...