Drained (25 page)

“And to what hospital?”

“Silver Cross in New Lenox,” he said.

“Address?” I asked. I patted the inside pocket of my one-sleeved, blood-covered suit jacket for my notepad.

“I know where it is,” Andrews said. “I might have to go there and get stitched up, I think. Damn head won’t stop bleeding.” He inspected the rag he was holding against his head. “You can give me a ride as soon as we take care of everything here.”

I looked back at one of the EMTs. “How long is she going to be there?”

“Probably just overnight. We’ll take some X-rays and keep running fluids.”

“I’ll meet you over there in a bit, Beth.”

“Okay,” she said. “Just make sure we get everything from here. Call Ball and let him know.”

“I will.”

The EMTs wheeled Beth from the garage to the awaiting ambulance. I went to Andrews at the front of the Jeep. “Do we have anyone else here yet?”

“No. I’d imagine any minute.”

“All right. I need to go and check out that wall downstairs quick. We’re going to need a forensics team in here. If you need to go and get stitched up, you should probably do it.”

“I’ll be fine, and forensics is on the way. You’re talking about the wall with the papers and photos?”

“Yeah, some looked familiar,” I said.

Andrews and I headed down the steps from the garage to the basement. We walked to where Beth had been lying. Both of us stared at the cinder-block wall behind the stainless-steel table. I counted over twenty photographs. Each one was of a woman in a state of undress and apparently dead. Many of them had the same—or a similar—stainless-steel table beneath their bodies. Tubes came from the women in about half of the photos. Taped to the wall behind each photo was a piece of paper. I got closer and read a number of them. The latest ones were all the same—a copy of a man’s personals listing. I recognized the most recent victims photos attached to each. Some of the older ones looked like copies from people either buying or selling something.

“It’s a damn trophy wall,” I said.

Andrews let out a breath. He took the bloody rag from his head, inspected it, and then jammed it into his pocket. “Disgusting, but a whole pile of evidence.”

I moved to the left to inspect some of the older photos and listings. My eyes caught a date at the bottom corner of a photo. I looked left to right—some of the photos were dated, and some weren’t. I found the oldest date I could. “Nineteen ninety-four.”

Andrews turned toward me, taking his attention from the items sitting upon the shelves next to the washbasin. “I don’t think the classified website started until the early two thousands.”

“Yeah, these older ads look like something you would post on a cork board. We have some that look like they were clipped and copied from a newspaper.”

“So he’s been at this a while. Just changing to keep with the times.”

“Guess so,” I said.

“Are there names on any of the sheets behind the photos?”

“No. It doesn’t look like it. We’re going to have to try to find out who these older ones are. Anything over there?”

“A couple of cell phones. Miscellaneous garbage on the top and bottom shelf. Bleach, gloves, a Polaroid camera with a photo sticking out of it on this one.” He lifted his chin to get a better look of the picture. “The photo is of Beth. We might have interrupted him when we came in.”

“Just a damn good thing we got here when we did. Did the forensic team give you an ETA?”

“They should be here any minute.”

“Okay.” I stepped back from inspecting the wall. “Let’s leave all of this for them and step outside.”

We headed back out through the garage. Agent Toms was standing with a group of patrol officers in the driveway. Andrews and I walked over.

“Is Agent Harper going to be okay?” Toms asked.

“It looks like it,” I said.

“So the gazillionaire owner of Classified OD is our serial killer?”

“Without a doubt,” I said.

“How does that happen? I mean, you can have anything with the amount of money this guy had.”

“It looks like he was doing this prior to starting the business. There’s photos in the basement dating back to ninety-four,” Andrews said.

Agent Toms didn’t respond.

“Forensics?” Andrews asked.

“Nick is down at the street with one of his guys. Should be up any second, I’d think,” Agent Toms said.

“Andrews, when they get up here, do you want to show them around a bit?” I asked. “I need to make a call back to my home office quick.”

“Sure. You’ll probably need this.” Andrews reached into his pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and passed it over.

“I’m sure it would help.” I gave Andrews a nod and dialed Ball back in Manassas. He picked up within a few rings.

“Ball,” he said.

“Hey, it’s Rawlings.”

“I was wondering when I was going to get an update from you.”

“Ah. We found him. He’s dead,” I said.

“Certain?” he asked.

I scratched at the back of my hair, freeing a couple of wood splinters that I assumed had come from a bullet shattering a tree. “Certain on both accounts. It was definitely him, and he’s definitely dead.”

“Tell me what happened,” Ball said.

I let out a long breath and went into the day for him, start to finish. The call lasted the better part of a half hour. I paced the driveway as I spoke and watched Andrews lead the forensics guys into the house. He came back out and waited ten minutes for me to finish my call. The bloody rag he had been holding against his head earlier made a reappearance. When I finished, I clicked off from Ball and gave my attention to Andrews.

“Forensics guys have it under control. Everything from the place will be gathered and taken back to the field office,” Andrews said. “I’m going to leave the scene with Agent Toms. Think I could bother you for that ride to the hospital?”

Wednesday afternoon, I sat in front of my desk computer. Beth and I had flown back the previous Sunday, as planned. Ball told her to take a few days off at the beginning of the week, which she refused. My week had been mostly spent going through everything we’d received from Bailor’s houses. The trophy wall we’d found in Lemont, full of photos and classified listings, wasn’t his only one. We had matching trophy walls in the basements of his home outside St. Louis and another in a Columbus, Ohio suburb. We had photos of fifty-four deceased women—only fifteen had been killed via the tubes and blood draining. Others were strangulation, knife wounds, and blunt-force trauma.

He’d given us most of the information we needed to place identities on the victims. All the listings that it seemed he had responded to were identified—each had an address, e-mail, or phone number to contact. The ones giving us a bit of trouble were the ones where people had responded to his listings though we were beginning to see a little light at the end of the tunnel by working with missing-persons departments and running license plates. The vehicles in Bailor’s shed all belonged to prior victims—seven cars total. The car he’d crashed into the tree belonged to the late Kennedy Taylor. Altogether, Beth and I had positively identified over forty victims going back to the early two thousands. However, who knew how many lives Bailor had actually taken.

Andrews had been making a point to dig into Bailor himself. He’d interviewed Bailor’s ex-wife Monday and sent me a copy of the lengthy statement she’d given. While she’d had no idea he was actually capable of the acts he’d committed, she included the reason behind the divorce: she believed he’d been drugging her regularly. Her statement read that she would often wake up in the morning, feeling weak with no recollection of the previous night. Aside from waking up in a fog, she’d have what looked like track marks on her arms and legs. As soon as she distanced herself from Bailor, both of the frequent occurrences discontinued. As to why she didn’t go to the authorities, she claimed that she couldn’t prove anything and needed his money to provide the best life possible for their child. That was a reason, I guess, but not one I was fond of.

I heard the wheels of Beth’s chair squeak at my back.

“I think I may be on to another,” she said.

I spun my desk chair around to look at her. “Yeah?”

“I just got an e-mail back from a missing-persons unit in Ohio. I think we might have a match here on a woman named Claudia Hamlin. He sent over a couple photos.” Beth waved me to her desk.

I walked over to look at the photos.

“This is the photo from Bailor’s.” Beth brought it up on her screen and minimized the window so we could see it next to the other one. “See the little mole on her cheek there?” she asked. Beth pointed at the screen and then turned her head and looked at me.

The bruising around Beth’s eye was black but fading to a shade of green. “Yeah. I see it,” I said. I looked back and forth between Bailor’s photo and the other. “That does look like a match. What did they say as far as when she went missing?”

“Late nineties. They basically have nothing, though. The missing-persons report was filed by a mother who lived out of state.”

“What was Bailor’s listing that accompanied the photo?”

“Um, hold on.” Beth turned back to the computer screen. “Looks like a newspaper ad for workout equipment. A treadmill.”

“Okay. I’d say try to get a hold of anyone the missing girl had contact with—friends, family, whatever—and try to see if they remember her mentioning anything about shopping for such a thing. Click back to the photo from Bailor.”

Beth brought it up.

“Damn, no date on that one.”

Beth turned back toward me. “Yeah, this is an older one, I think. It looks like most of the newer ones were the Polaroids. Speaking of which, why the hell would he be using a Polaroid camera?”

I shrugged. “Why the hell would he be murdering people for twenty-some years.”

“Good point.”

My eyes dropped to her neck—the bruising was virtually gone. “Looks like you’re healing up.” I pointed to my neck and then my eye. “Bruising is looking better.”

She nodded. “Makeup helps, but it can’t go away soon enough. You wouldn’t believe the stares I’ve been getting, walking around with a black eye.”

“Yeah, I would. I’d have to say that was probably my most uncomfortable airport visit and plane ride in my life. The looks I was getting from people were not good. The stewardess asking you if you needed to talk to someone was the icing on the cake.”

Beth smiled. “I told her the truth.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she was buying your story. I half expected to be greeted by police when I stepped off of the plane.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.”

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I slid it out and looked at the screen. “Let me know what you get on the friends-and-family front about that treadmill. This is Karen—third time she’s called. Seems like her new position offers a lot of desk time for her to check in on me.”

Beth smiled and nodded. She went back to her computer screen. I clicked Talk and headed from the SCUH office to grab a coffee.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, you. I called a couple times,” Karen said. “Are you busy?”

“I’m just getting things taken care of and going through the case we worked. Still trying to get identities for all these victims.”

“How’s it coming?” she asked.

“Ah, so far, so good. We’re almost there.”

“Did you get any comments about your tie?”

I turned left at the hall and headed for the lunch room. “Nope. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’m entirely on board with the pink tie and pocket square.”

“It’s stylish, Hank. You want people to notice you there, don’t you? It helps with advancement.”

I laughed. “Well, seeing as I’ve been here for a week, I’m not sure I’m in line for moving up that ladder quite yet. Besides that, I’m not sure I want to be noticed for being the guy who wears the pink ties.”

Karen laughed. “It’s more mauve than pink. Okay, okay, I’ll let you dress yourself for a few days, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“You’re the boss,” I said. I turned into the lunch room, which was empty.

“Speaking of which, I’m drinking from my mug now.”

I smiled. “I figured you’d like that coffee cup.”

“Oh, I do. Anyway, just wanted to remind you about dinner later. Try to not be too late.”

“I shouldn’t be. I’m guessing I’ll be home around six.”

“Perfect. Maybe dancing after?”

I winced and quickly made up an excuse. “My ankle has been kind of bugging me.”

“Weird. First I’ve heard of it.”

“Yup. Must have twisted it sometime today.”

“Mmm hmm. See you in a few hours,” Karen said. “Love you.”

“Love you too, baby.” I clicked off, grabbed my coffee, and headed back toward the office. As soon as I found my desk, Agent Ball walked up, holding a ten-inch-tall stack of files.

“Rawlings,” he said. “How are we coming on Bailor?”

“It looks like there’s a bit left to do with getting identifications on victims, but I’d say pretty well. Beth has what looks like a pretty good lead on another.”

“Oh yeah?”

Beth nodded and gave him the quick version of what she’d found.

Ball turned back to me. “Good work out there again, Hank.”

“Appreciate that,” I said.

“Okay. So when you think you have about as much as you’re going to get on Bailor, maybe next week sometime”—Ball set the stack of files down on the edge of my desk—“these will be yours.” He tapped the top folder in the stack. “These are all cold investigations but new serial killers in the last couple years. See what you can find. Just plug the investigation number into the computer like I showed you, and it will bring up everything we have in the system.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Nice tie,” Ball said. “I’ve been meaning to mention that all day.”

Beth spun in her chair and faced us. “Yeah, that is a lovely shade of pink.”

“You’re screwing with me, right?” I asked.

“No. Looks great.” Ball curled a finger beneath his lip as if he was in thought. Then he removed his hand and ran it through his gray hair. “You know, that’s damn close to the same color as a car I seen in the parking lot—little pink hybrid number with some Florida plates.”