Closer Than You Think (45 page)

‘Stalked me for almost a year. Then tried to kill me.’

Stunned, he glanced at her throat, then lifted fearful eyes to hers. ‘Again? How?’

‘He shot at me, tried to run me off a bridge, burned my apartment down.’

A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘And the Miami police did nothing?’ he asked too quietly.

‘When they finally believed me? He was gone. Disappeared under the radar somewhere.’

Jordan leaned back in his chair, his expression gone dark with anger. ‘Since someone is shooting at you, he’s obviously reappeared. What are the cops trying to do to find him?’

Looking for clues on the bodies of ten dead women
, she thought, but couldn’t say so. ‘BOLOs,’ she answered, knowing it sounded woefully inadequate.

‘BOLOs,’ he repeated flatly. ‘What about the body in the basement? Why are the cops asking me who had access to the basement when they know who did it?’

Because the bodies were there long before I met Combs
. But of course she couldn’t say that either. ‘They have to explore all possibilities and eliminate anyone connected to the house.’

‘What about this body they found? How does she connect to Combs? He had a daughter, right? Is it her? Did he kill her?’

‘Stepdaughter, and no, she’s alive.’ Vega had said that she’d spoken with the girl a few weeks before. ‘I don’t know who she was. I don’t know if the police have identified her yet.’

‘I don’t like this. None of it. I don’t like that you have to be afraid again. I don’t like that this guy was using our house for his sick games. I especially don’t like that the cops have no idea where he is. I don’t like that they’re keeping information back.’ He went still, his eyes narrowing. ‘What about the furniture they were removing, Faith? What were they really doing?’

Bodies
, she realized. The bodies she wasn’t supposed to be talking about. But before she could think of a response, there was a knock at the door and Novak entered the room.

‘I’m sorry to cut your visit short, but I’ve had something come up. Mr O’Bannion, thank you for coming in. I’ll have an officer escort you back to the lobby.’

‘No. I want some answers. What are you removing from my mother’s house?’

‘Evidence. That’s all I can tell you now.’

He bristled. ‘And the body you found in the basement? Who is she?’

‘We truly don’t know, but even if we did, we couldn’t release her name until we’d informed her family. I’m sure you understand that.’ He gestured to the officer now standing in the doorway. ‘Again, I’m sorry that I kept you waiting so long, but I do need to go.’

Jordan rose, but didn’t move toward the door. ‘And my niece?’

‘I’ve located a safe house for her. She’ll be protected. Don’t worry.’

Jordan shot Faith a frown. ‘I’ll worry less if you’re with me. Your old room is ready.’

‘My old room? What happened to your housekeeper?’ she asked.

‘Mary moved into my room and I’m in Mother’s suite.’ He took her arm protectively. ‘Faith will come home with me, Agent Novak. She’ll be safe there. I promise you.’

Faith gently pulled away. ‘I can’t come with you, Jordan. Neither of us would be safe if I did. My hotel was sprayed with bullets last night, and a young man was hurt. My going to a safe house protects both of us – and all of your neighbors, too.’

Plus she’d lose ready access to Deacon Novak, and she wasn’t ready for that to happen yet.

Jordan gave her a helpless look. ‘I don’t like that you’re in danger and I can’t protect you.’

‘I’ll be safer with the police.’

He sighed wearily. ‘All right. But if you need me, you call me. I’ll come right away.’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

When her uncle was gone, Novak closed the door, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

‘What’s happened?’ Faith asked. ‘Please don’t tell me they’ve found more bodies.’

‘No, they haven’t. I needed to stop him from pushing you for an answer on what we were removing from the house.’

‘The bodies. I wouldn’t have told him anything.’

‘You did, kind of,’ he said gently. ‘When you realized what he was talking about, your face gave you away. I know you didn’t want to lie to him, so I stopped the conversation.’

‘No, I didn’t want to lie. He did take care of me, Deacon, the best way he knew how. After Combs . . .’ She realized she was tugging the collar of her sweater higher and made herself stop. ‘After he cut me, I woke up in the hospital to find Jordan sitting with me. He’d gotten there even before my dad. Dad and Lily drove down from Savannah, but Jordan dropped everything and caught a flight out of Cincinnati. He brought me comic books and my Game Boy. A portable DVD player and all the X-Men movies. And then when they let me eat real food, he snuck me in some Skyline.’ She smiled sadly. ‘A five-way with extra onions.’

‘In Miami? Really?’

‘There are a few in Florida. Jordan went out of his way to find it. He’s always taken care of me. I hate to keep him in the dark. When will you tell him what’s going on?’

‘Once we’ve eliminated him as a suspect. Speaking of which, I have to send you home, too. Agent Pope’s here to take you to my house.’

‘Why? Why can’t you?’

‘Because I have a meeting with Isenberg in a few minutes. If I had time to take you back to my place, I would, but I’d probably be
very
late coming back.’

His voice had dipped suggestively and she found herself at a sudden loss for words. ‘Oh.’

His lips quirked up briefly, but then he was sober again. ‘There is something you need to know. I got an email from the lab while you and your uncle were talking. They found a tracking device on your Jeep, identical to the one Vega found on your Prius.’

Faith stared up at him. ‘What? How did it get there?
When
did it get there?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll need a list of everywhere you stopped on the way to Cincinnati from Miami, and every place you stopped after you arrived.’

Faith sank into the chair, her knees a little weak. ‘He was close enough to me to put a tracker under my Jeep. Why didn’t he just kill me then?’

‘Maybe there were too many people around.’

‘He wanted to wait until I was alone somewhere.’ She took the hand he offered and levered herself to her feet. ‘Where is Agent Pope?’

‘Waiting for you in the lobby. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

Chapter Twenty-One

Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 7.30
P.M.

‘I have to meet with the commander and the mayor in thirty minutes,’ Isenberg said, taking her seat at the head of the table. ‘Where is everyone?’

So far Deacon and Isenberg were the only ones to have shown up for the meeting. ‘Bishop’s on her way up from the parking garage.’ Deacon turned to the bulletin board, where someone had hung photos of the victims they’d identified so far, alongside a map showing where each abduction had occurred. ‘Nice case board.’

‘Crandall’s new intern is very thorough, which isn’t surprising, as she’s Crandall’s niece.’

Bishop burst through the door, trying to catch her breath. ‘You’re here already. Damn, I was hoping you’d be late like usual.’ She slid into the chair on the other side of Isenberg.

‘Where were you? Isenberg asked with a frown.

‘Mount Adams, verifying Jordan O’Bannion’s alibi. He and Alda were together every night this past week, including the two nights in question.’ Bishop grimaced. ‘Alda was very specific as to the details of the positions they explored on each night. Apparently they’ve been reading the Kama Sutra and checking off positions as they try them. So, yeah. Alibi is verified.’

Momentarily speechless, Isenberg was saved from a response when CSU leader Vince Tanaka entered the room to sit next to Deacon. ‘Where’s Kimble?’ she asked.

‘He had to take a phone call,’ Tanaka said. ‘He said he’d be in in a minute.’

‘Okay, so the rest of you give me something that’ll keep the brass from breathing down our necks and make the press go away.’

Deacon shook his head. ‘You’re not going to make the press go away, Lynda. This case is going to draw media from all over the country before we’re done.’ With mounting dread he remembered the constant barrage of questions in West Virginia, the photographers with their long-range zooms. ‘It’ll be a madhouse. You need to prepare yourself for that. All of us do.’

Isenberg sighed. ‘I know. At least we’ll have good news to go with whatever bad you’re about to tell me. The hospital says that the bellman at Faith’s hotel will make a full recovery.’

Deacon’s shoulders relaxed a hair. That would give Faith some small measure of comfort. ‘That
is
good news. I didn’t think he’d make it.’

‘So where are we?’ Isenberg asked. ‘Please say we’re still at ten bodies.’

‘Yes,’ Tanaka said. ‘But that could change. Novak’s archeologist arrived, so we’ll soon start looking outside. The officer managing security sent me a picture so that I could verify her ID.’ Tanaka turned his phone so that they could see the photo of a blonde wearing an ancient army jacket. ‘I wasn’t expecting Dr Johannsen herself.’

‘Neither was I,’ Deacon said. ‘All she said was that she’d find us someone good.’

Tanaka’s smile was weary. ‘She’s the best out there, so I’d say she kept her promise.’

‘Who is Johannsen?’ Isenberg asked.

‘She’s the archeologist I worked with in West Virginia.’

‘Ah. She mapped out all the graves,’ Isenberg said.

‘She’s one of the world’s leading experts in ground-penetrating radar,’ Tanaka added. ‘She assists forensic teams and disaster recovery efforts all over the world. If she doesn’t find anything, we can safely say we’ve found all the bodies.’

‘From your mouth to God’s ears,’ Isenberg muttered. ‘So what do know about the ten?’

‘All blonde, all about the same age,’ Deacon said. ‘All autopsied and embalmed, internal organs removed. I got a status update from Carrie Washington just before you came in. She ID’d one more of the women, so we’re up to three ID’d. Another college student, who disappeared from Ohio State three years ago. Assuming Corinne Longstreet was his intended victim, we can add the common link of college attendance or recently graduated when they were abducted.’

‘Any commonalities in college majors?’ Isenberg asked.

‘No. Corinne is an art major. Roxanne Dupree studied interior design and Susan Simpson had her BA in criminal justice. The most recent ID, Wendy Franklin, was a chemistry major. The outliers in terms of both coloring and age appear to be Arianna and Roza, the girl who helped Arianna escape – both are dark and younger. I checked the missing children database for girls named Roza, but the only matches were either too old, too young or the wrong race. When Arianna is able, we’ll get a sketch artist with her.’

Adam let himself in to the room, closing the door behind him. ‘We got a hit on the white van. It was called in by the first responders.’

Isenberg’s eyes narrowed. ‘Responders to what?’

‘GSW,’ Adam said. ‘Attempted homicide.’

Everyone perked up. ‘The victim survived?’ Bishop asked.

‘Barely. The van was found in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour grocery store off of Red Bank Road. The victim had been shot in the head and rolled underneath the van. A shopper noticed a hand sticking out from under the vehicle. It appears the victim may have pulled herself a few feet, but lost consciousness. The first responders recognized the white van from the BOLO, so they called us immediately. The officer on duty said there was an exit wound, so they’ve secured the scene and cordoned off the area, looking for the slug. Vince, can you send a forensic team?’

‘The team that processed the original scene where Arianna was found has had time to rest. I’ll send them.’ Tanaka tapped out a quick text. ‘They’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

‘The victim had no ID on her person,’ Adam went on. ‘Her purse wasn’t in plain view. The van’s plates had been changed from the Tennessee plates it had in the hotel’s video to an Ohio set reported stolen five years ago. They were on a car that had broken down on the side of the road. Whoever took the plates left the car alone. That’s why it took so long to find the van. We were looking for Tennessee plates. He’s not as stupid as we’d hoped.’

‘But he made a mistake,’ Deacon said. ‘He left a potential witness alive.’

‘What about the location?’ Bishop asked. ‘Red Bank Road is out east, not far from Lunken Airport, which isn’t far from Mount Carmel. He passed several places where he might have ditched the van before he got to Red Bank. Maybe it’s an area he’s familiar with? Comfortable with?’

Isenberg nodded. ‘Maybe close to home. Or maybe chosen to make us think he was close to home. Suspects?’

‘Maguire and Sons,’ Bishop said. ‘Whoever they really are. Their office is in Mount Carmel, not far from Red Bank. Twice a year they inspect the O’Bannion house, top to bottom. The way it was supposed to work was that the grandson of the O’Bannion family attorney – Herbert Henson the Third – would meet them at the house with the key and wait as they did their inspection and maintenance. However, a witness says that Henson the Third, wearing golf clothes, just dropped the key off at Maguire’s Mount Carmel office. The business is legit from a paperwork standpoint, but their office is abandoned. Crandall says their mail is being forwarded to a mailbox store in Forest Park.’

‘That’s a fair distance from Mount Carmel,’ Tanaka said. ‘Inconvenient for mail pickup.’

‘Unless it’s close to something that
is
convenient,’ Bishop said. ‘Crandall’s getting the store’s security tapes so we can see who’s collecting the mail. My bet is that it’ll be the same woman who took the house key from Henson the Third. I’ve put in a request for a sketch artist to get a description of the woman from the witness. When we’re done here, we’ll interview Jeremy O’Bannion. He’s a surgeon, so that fits with the way the victims were autopsied, their organs removed. And so far two family members have mentioned his predilection for young women.’

‘The ten victims weren’t minors,’ Isenberg said. ‘They were all college age or older.’

‘We know,’ Deacon said. ‘That’s why we want to interview Jeremy at work. He might like younger girls, but he’s a med school professor with access to college-aged women. I want to watch him among them. He’s publicly gay but was married to an older woman, so his image could be a smokescreen. I hope we can find something during a voluntary interview that’ll be enough to get a warrant to search his home.’

‘So he’s on our list of suspects?’ Isenberg asked.

‘Definitely a person of interest,’ Deacon said. ‘Jeremy doesn’t meet the physical description of the gunman from the hotel last night, but that could have been Combs.’

‘Who is still on our list because a) he’s trying to kill Faith,’ Isenberg said, ‘and b) we have a ballistics match on the gun he used last night at both the O’Bannion house and on the dead hotel guest with the gun used to kill Gordon Shue in Miami.’

‘Yes,’ Deacon confirmed. ‘But the gunman from the hotel last night also could have been Jeremy’s stepson, Stone O’Bannion.’

‘Since when?’ Bishop asked in surprise.

‘Since ten minutes before you got here, when I received a report from the agent who’s been watching Jeremy’s estate. I forwarded the email to you as soon as I got it. Jeremy didn’t leave his house last night, but his stepson did. Stone O’Bannion left at 11
P.M.
and returned at 4.15 this morning.’

‘Gives him the perfect window to shoot you at the hotel,’ Bishop said, ‘then steal a van from the store parking lot on Red Bank Road and make it back to Jeremy’s house.’

‘Exactly. Add to it that Stone is former army. Served two tours in the Gulf. Crack shot. Does a lot of hunting. I pulled this photo – his height, weight and build are the same as that of Peter Combs, which is the same as that of the gunman from the hotel last night and the man who climbed through Faith’s bedroom window two weeks ago in Florida.’

Isenberg studied the photo. ‘What does Faith have to say about him?’

‘She only met him once, when they were kids. Jeremy’s side of the family is estranged. He has one biological daughter and two adopted sons. None of them were included in either of the elder O’Bannions’ wills. Could be hard feelings.’

‘When did Stone finish his last tour overseas?’ Tanaka asked.

‘Five years ago,’ Deacon said, ‘so he would have been stateside during the time frame of the abductions that we’ve identified so far.’

Tanaka shook his head. ‘But with two tours in the Gulf he may have been out of the country when the O’Bannion basement windows were covered up.’

Deacon sighed, frustrated that he’d missed that.
I need to sleep
. ‘You’re right. No one person’s a perfect match to all the evidence. But Stone is still one we need to watch. Google says he’s a reporter now, freelance. His work’s been published in
Newsweek
and
Time
, but also in
Hot Shots
– an article on sights for long-range shooting. I ran a background on him right after I received the surveillance report. Stone’s got no arrest record, but he does have a number of registered weapons, including a nine mil he reported stolen after his return from the Gulf.’

‘Convenient,’ Isenberg said. ‘Report it stolen, then use it to kill . . . how many?’

‘Faith’s old boss in Florida,’ Deacon said, ‘and here in Ohio there was the Earl Power tech, the locksmith, the occupant of the hotel room. That’s four. We have a missing slug that hit the woman found under his van. Plus I assume the bullet we found near the path at King’s College was a ballistics match.’

‘It was,’ Tanaka confirmed.

‘So he also used it to abduct Arianna,’ Deacon said. ‘Of course, we don’t know if the nine mil involved in all those crimes is the one Stone reported stolen.’

‘Bring him in anyway,’ Isenberg said. ‘We need to have a chat with the man.’

‘Bishop and I were going to visit Jeremy next,’ Deacon said. ‘But after that, we need to crash for a little while. We’re running on fumes.’

‘I got a decent nap between the morgue and interviewing Arianna,’ Bishop said. ‘I’ll drive to Jeremy’s and you can sleep.’

‘I’ll take you up on it,’ Deacon said, ‘but we need more support – more agents and detectives. I can request support from SAC Zimmerman if CPD’s resources are being stretched too thin.’ Deacon was part of Isenberg’s task force, but Special Agent in Charge Zimmerman, the head of the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office, was his official boss. ‘We need someone to pick up and interview Stone and to track down Henson the Third, who hasn’t contacted us yet. Maguire is still an unknown, if he’s even a real person. We could use at least three more detectives or agents.’

‘I’ll contact Zimmerman,’ Isenberg said. ‘We’ll get more bodies. If you’re too tired to interview Jeremy, I can send someone else.’

Deacon shook his head. ‘No, he’s a key person of interest and we’re the lead investigators. We’ll interview him. Then we’ll hand off to whoever’s second shift and get some sleep.’

‘I have a question,’ Adam said. ‘Did any of the victims found under the floor have GSWs?’

‘Just the cop,’ Bishop said. ‘But the wound had healed before he killed her. Why?’

‘Because what I can’t figure is why he keeps using the same gun,’ Adam said. ‘He’s got to know we can compare ballistics.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t care,’ Deacon said. ‘He may be that arrogant. Or he may have figured that he’d have killed Faith by now and we’d never connect the dots. Have we found any usable fingerprints in the basement?’

Tanaka shook his head. ‘Surprisingly few. Every surface has been cleaned – walls, doors, the autopsy table, all of it. We found several partial prints on the cot, but only one yielded anything through AFIS – those of his most recent victim, Roxanne Dupree.’

‘The student at Miami University,’ Isenberg said. ‘Any word on why he picked her?’

‘I asked Detective Vega to check her out,’ Bishop said. ‘She said she’d get back with us.’

Isenberg checked her notes. ‘She was going to talk with Combs’s girlfriend, too. Did she?’

Bishop grimaced. ‘The girlfriend and her attorney are playing games with the DA, trying to make a deal on the possession charge. Vega thinks they’ll have something tomorrow.’

Isenberg’s eyes narrowed. ‘Their DA understands what we’re dealing with, doesn’t he?’