Just Take My Heart (23 page)

Tom Schwartz, the executive producer of Fugitive Hunt, called the Bergen County prosecutor's office on Monday, just after four o'clock. He reached the prosecutor's secretary and told her that it was extremely urgent for him to talk to the prosecutor about a serial killer they had recently profiled and who might be living in Bergen County.

Ten seconds later Ted Wesley was on the phone. "Mr. Schwartz, what's this about a serial killer?"

"We have good reason to believe that a tip we have just received may lead to the location of a serial killer. Are you familiar with our program?"

"Yes, but I haven't seen it recently."

"Then if you'll bear with me for a few minutes, I'll give you the background."

As Schwartz rapidly laid out the history of the murderer last known as Charley Muir and why his coworker believed that he and Zach Lanning were the same person, Ted Wesley was already envisioning the positive press coverage that he would get if his office was able to capture this fugitive. "You said this guy lives in Glen Rock. Have you got an address for him?" he asked Schwartz.

"Yes, but remember our tipster said that when Lanning called his boss this morning to quit his job, he told him he was leaving for Florida right away. He may already be gone."

"I'll put my detectives on it right now. We'll get back to you."

Wesley put the phone down and pressed the intercom. "Get Billy Tryon in here. And get the Des Moines prosecutor on the phone."

"Right away."

As he waited impatiently, Wesley tapped his reading glasses on his desk. Glen Rock was a quiet, upscale town. Emily lived there, and so did some other people in the office. He reached behind him and took the office directory from a shelf. The tipster had given Zachary Lanning's address as 624 Colonial Road.

Wesley's eyes widened when he opened the directory and looked up Emily's address. She lived at 622 Colonial. My God, if this is the right guy, she's been living next door to a nut, he thought.

At precisely the same moment, the Des Moines prosecutor's call came through and Billy Tryon rushed into the office.

Twenty minutes later, Tryon, Jake Rosen, and the squad cars from the Glen Rock Police Department were at the house where Zach Lanning had lived for two years. When there was no answer at the door, a Glen Rock officer got the number of the realtor who rented the house to Zach and called him to get permission to enter the house.

"Sure you can go in," the realtor replied. "When Lanning phoned me this morning, he told me he'd hang the keys on a hook in the garage. His rental is over. Why are you looking for him?"

"I'm not at liberty to say why right now, sir," the young officer replied. "Thank you."

They retrieved the key from the garage and, with guns drawn, cautiously went inside, then fanned out, checking every room and closet. They found no one.

Billy Tryon and Jake Rosen then went back through each room to see if there were any clues as to where Lanning had gone but there wasn't so much as a newspaper or magazine in the entire house.

"Get the fingerprint people here right away," Tryon said. "We should be able to get prints and then we can verify that he's our guy."

"I hope we can get prints," Jake Rosen commented. "This guy must be compulsively neat. There isn't a spot of dust anywhere and take a look at the way the glasses are lined up in the cabinet."

"Maybe he went to West Point," Tryon snapped, sarcastically. "Jake, tell the Glen Rock guys to ring the doorbells on this block and see if any of the neighbors know anything about him. Make sure the town cops know that we already put out an APB on his car and license plate."

Tryon looked around. A small device on the sill of the kitchen window caught his eye. Then he was astonished to hear a dog barking as loudly as if it were in the room. The sound was coming through the device, which was operating as an intercom system.

He looked out the window. Ted Wesley had told him Emily lived next door to Lanning. Right now she was hurrying out of her car and up the walkway to her front door. That's why the dog's barking, he thought.

He watched as she opened the door and went inside. Then he could distinctly hear her call out a greeting to her pet.

"Jake," he yelled, "come in here and look at this. That guy Lanning has some kind of microphone planted in Emily's house and he's been listening to everything she says."

"Come on, Bess," Emily was saying. "I'll let you out quick. There's something going on next door with that crazy guy who used to walk you."

"My God," Jake muttered as he listened to the crystal clear sound of Emily's voice. He tilted the blind. "Look, Billy. He's had a direct view into Emily's kitchen. And you know what I think? Looking at this house, this guy is superorganized. He didn't forget to take this device. He left it for the police to find and for Emily to hear about." They heard the porch door open, then Emily calling the dog back inside.

A Glen Rock detective walked into the kitchen. "We're ninety-nine percent sure Lanning is the guy," he said, trying to control the excitement in his voice. "I watched that program the other night. One of the clues they talked about is that Charley Muir loved to plant yellow mums. We just found three big garbage bags filled with them in the garage. We figure he watched that program, too, and got nervous about them."

Through the window, they could see Emily crossing the driveway. She joined them in the kitchen. "Ted Wesley called me and said you're checking out this guy. He filled me in on some of the details. You were talking about the mums in the garage? Zach planted them a little over a week ago on a Saturday and dug them up and planted new flowers twenty-four hours later. I thought it was very odd, but on the other hand he was always very strange."

"Emily," Jake said, softly, "we're pretty certain now that Zach Lanning is the serial killer Charley Muir. There's something else we have to tell you and I know it's going to be very upsetting."

Emily froze. "It can't be worse than what I'm realizing. Back in June, he offered to walk Bess for me in the afternoons. I keep Bess on the enclosed porch during the day and I gave him a key to that area only, not to the door that opens into the kitchen. But one night when I came home late he was sitting inside the porch and it scared me. I stopped the dog walking immediately. I made up some excuse for ending it, but I could tell that he didn't buy it and he was upset."

Her eyes widened and her face paled. "I'm sure now that he was in my house last week. One night when I came home I noticed that the bottom drawer in one of the dressers in my bedroom had a small piece of a nightgown sticking out of it. I was certain I hadn't left it like that."

She stopped. "Oh, my God. Now I know what was bothering me yesterday when I packed those nightgowns to give away. One of them was missing! Jake, tell me what you have to say."

Jake pointed to the window. "Emily, he's got a listening device planted in your house. We could hear you talking to your dog just now."

The enormity of Zach's invasion into her life made Emily physically ill. She immediately had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and her legs felt wobbly.

At that moment a Glen Rock detective rushed in. "Looks like we've got a burglary across the street. There's a screen cut out of a back window and the old lady who lives there isn't answering the door. We're going in."

Tryon, Rosen, and Emily hurried across the street with the po-lice. An officer kicked in the front door. Within a few minutes they knew that Madeline Kirk was not in the house.

"Check the ga-rage," Tryon ordered. "There's a car key in a dish by the kitchen door."

Following a few steps behind the officers, Emily observed that Madeline Kirk's afghan was crumpled on the floor in the den. She gasped when she saw the pad on the table next to the chair. The words Fugitive Hunt were written on the pad. A pen was lying across it. Now certain that something bad had happened to her neighbor, she followed the detectives into the garage. They were searching the interior of Madeline Kirk's car.

"Open the trunk," Billy Tryon directed.

As the trunk was raised, the odor of death was overpowering. Tryon carefully untied the twine holding the garbage bags together and lifted one of them. The rigor mortis that had set in had preserved the look of terror on the elderly woman's face.

"Oh, my God," Emily moaned. "That poor helpless soul. This man is a monster."

"Emily," Jake said gently. "You're lucky you didn't end up like her."

Mike Gordon went directly to his office on Monday afternoon after attending Jimmy Easton's sentencing. Those clips of him threatening the prosecutor and as much as saying that he knows a lot more will make for a great show tonight, he thought. Was he bluffing and just lashing out because he didn't get probation? Or is he about to drop a bombshell? The panel is going to have a field day with this tonight.

His secretary, Liz, followed him into his private office and told him that there had been fifty-one responses phoned to the number on the Web site since the offer of the twentyfive-thousand-dollar re-ward had been posted Sunday evening.

"Twenty-two were from psychics, Mike," she told him, standing in front of his desk. "Two of them must have the same crystal ball. They both see a man with dark hair and wearing dark clothing watching Natalie Raines as she drove up to her house the morning she was killed."

She smiled. "You won't believe the rest of it. They see him waiting for her with a gun in his hand. That's where the vision stops. Apparently, when they get the reward they'll be able to see his face and describe him fully."

Mike shrugged. "I was positive we'd attract some of those weirdos."

Liz did an informal summary of the calls. "Ten or twelve of them were people who said that Jimmy Easton has cheated or robbed them. None of them could believe that a jury found Gregg Aldrich guilty based on his testimony. Some of them said they'd like to go to court when Aldrich is sentenced and tell the judge that Easton is a pathological liar."

"That's good to know but it doesn't do us much good. How about the woman who called Friday night and asked about a reward? Have we heard from her?"

"I was saving the best for last," Liz told him. "She did call back this morning. Says she absolutely has the proof of where Jimmy worked and why he may have been in the Aldrich apartment. She wants to know if we can put the reward money in some kind of se-cure account to make sure she isn't cheated out of it."

"Did she give her name and a number where we can contact her?"

"No, she didn't want to do that. She wants to talk directly to you first. Doesn't trust anyone else not to steal her information. Also she wants to know if Gregg Aldrich gets out of jail because of her tip, will you have her as a guest on the show with him. I told her you'd be in around now and that she could call back."

"Liz, if somebody gives us concrete proof, of course I'll have them on the show. I just hope she isn't another kook." Worried, Mike thought of how he had told Alice and Katie about this tip at lunch yesterday, and their ecstatic reaction to it.

"Okay. That's all I have," Liz said, cheerfully. "We'll see what else comes in."

"Hold the calls for awhile unless that woman calls back. Put her right through."

Liz was barely at her desk when the phone rang. Through the open door, Mike heard her say, "Yes, he is back, and he will speak with you now. Hold just a moment, please."

Mike's hand was on the phone waiting for the buzzer to sound, indicating that the call had been transferred.

"Mike Gordon," he said. "I've been informed that you may have some information pertinent to the Aldrich case."

"My name is Reeney Sling, Mr. Gordon. It is an honor to speak with you. I very much enjoy your program. I never thought I would be getting involved in one of your cases but. . . ."

"How are you involved, Ms. Sling?" Mike asked.

"I have important information about where Jimmy Easton worked around the time that Natalie Raines got killed. But I want to make sure that nobody steals my reward."

"Ms. Sling, I personally guarantee you, and I will put it in writing, that if you are the first person to give us this important information and it leads to a new trial or a dismissal of his charges, you will get the reward. You should know in advance that if your information combined with someone else's additional information leads to that kind of result, you will split the reward."

"Suppose my information is much more important. What would happen then? Oh, just a moment, please. My husband wants to tell me something."

Mike heard lowered voices but could not discern what they were saying.

"My husband, Rudy, said that we'll trust you to be fair."

"It's a fair question to ask," Mike said. "We will proportion the reward based upon the value of each person's information."

"That sounds good," she said. "Rudy and I will come in to see you whenever you want."

"How about tomorrow morning at nine o'clock?"

"We'll be there."

"And please bring any written materials or documents that would help support what you say."

"Absolutely," Reeney replied enthusiastically, no longer afraid of being cheated out of the reward.

"I'll see you then," Mike said. "Let me give you back to my secretary and she will give you our address and any directions you may need."

Jimmy Easton had just arrived back at the Bergen County Jail after his sentencing.

Captain Paul Kraft, the shift commander, was waiting for him. "Jimmy, I have news for you. You're about to leave your home away from home. We're going to transport you to the prison in Newark in a few minutes."

"Why?" Jimmy demanded. He knew from extensive past experience that the administrative transfer to state prison after a sentence normally took from a few days to a few weeks.

"Well, Jimmy, you know you've got some problems with guys here because of your cooperation."

"That's what my lawyer tried to tell the judge in court," Jimmy snapped. "I get no peace. I get hassled all the time because I helped the prosecutor. Like these guys wouldn't do the same thing to get their time cut down!"

"There's more, Jimmy," Kraft told him. "In the last half hour we've had a couple of anonymous calls. We think it was the same guy both times. He said you better keep your mouth shut from now on or else."

Seeing the alarmed look on Easton's face, he added, "Jimmy, it could be anybody. It's probably a nutcase. What you said at your sentence is already on the radio and the Internet. With the problems you've had here and now these calls, we thought it was better to get you out right away. For your own protection."

It was obvious to Kraft that Easton was genuinely frightened. "Jimmy, be honest. Do yourself a favor. You know who made those calls, don't you?"

"No, no, I don't," Jimmy stuttered. "Some jerk, I guess."

Kraft did not believe him, but didn't push it. "We'll check into the number that came up on the caller ID, and trace it back," he said. "Don't worry."

"Don't worry? Easy for you to say. I guarantee those calls came from a prepaid cell phone. I know all about them. I've had dozens of them myself. You make an important call, then you throw it away. Try it sometime."

"All right, Jimmy. Let's collect your stuff. We've already let them know about this at the prison. They'll make sure you're okay."

But an hour later, handcuffed and shackled in the back of the transport van, Jimmy stared morosely out the window. They were on the Turnpike in Newark in the vicinity of the airport. He could see a departing plane ascending into the sky. What I wouldn't do to be on that plane, no matter where it was going, he thought.

He remembered a song by John Denver. "Leavin' on a jet plane ..."

I wish I was.

I'd never come back here. I'd start over somewhere.

As the van arrived at the prison gate and was screened for entry, Jimmy was plotting his next move.

Aldrich's lawyer was pretty nasty to me at the trial but I bet he'll be glad to hear from me tomorrow.

When I'm finished filling his ear, he won't even mind that it was a collect call.