T
he FBI jet landed at the Penn Yan airport and two black Suburbans awaited their arrival along with two stereotypical agents in dark suits, sunglasses and their hands clasped in front of them. “They look like extras in a Michael Bay movie,” Mac quipped.
One Suburban was for them, which Mac quickly drove to the north side of Lake Seneca, through a large stone arch with Lake Seneca Lodge engraved in the stone, underneath which hung a wood carved sign announcing it as the summer home of the American Academic Honor Society. Through the arch, Mac drove down a long tree-lined drive that emerged into a large open area with the road splitting the manicured lawn and eventually circling in front of the large lodge. As Mac hopped out of the SUV, he could see the small dorms set back into the woods as well as the deep blue waters of Lake Seneca.
A woman who looked to be in her mid to late forties, a white golf shirt with an AAHS logo and long tan cargo shorts came quickly down the steps, extending her hand. “I’m Alice Walton, the executive director of the camp. Please come inside.”
Mac and Wire followed Walton inside the main lodge entrance, straight through a large seating area of couches and chairs and past a large stone fireplace soaring high into the dark timbers of the rafters. Past the fireplace, they turned left down a long narrow hallway to a corner office with large windows that overlooked a grassy hill descending gently down to the sandy beach and the lake.
Walton’s corner office was spacious with a U-shaped desk in the corner. To the right as they entered the office was a seating area arranged around a rustic two-toned colored wood carved table. Coffee and pastries were placed on a tray on the table between a couch and two soft chairs that awaited their arrival. Walton sat down on the couch and quickly served them and then stated, “I can’t tell you how shocked we are to learn that three of our former counselors were murdered by this killer you call The Reaper. Have you learned anything further?”
“Only that the three of them were here at the same time,” Mac answered, opening his leather folder to take notes.
“Well, from what I’ve been able to uncover from our records, it was just the one summer they were all here together,” Walton answered taking three manila folders out of a brown red-rope file. “Melissa Ross was here as a counselor that summer, as was Sandy Faye, back then her name was Helen Williams. Hannah Donahue was the only name that rang a bell here initially because she was a counselor here for three summers and her father William was and remains such a generous contributor. They of course were all students here when they were in high school but not the same weeks.”
“How is it they became counselors?”
“We like to have college kids as our counselors and we recruit the counselors from the students who were here when in high school.”
“The summer they were all here together, was there some sort of conflict or incident that would have been cause for concern?”
“There is nothing in the files that point to that,” Walton answered, shaking her head and then sipping her coffee. “I have a lot of turnover of staff, in addition to a new batch of counselors every summer. I’ve been contacting people who were here at the same time to see if they remembered anything and at least so far, nobody has.”
“We’ll need a list of those people,” Wire stated.
“Of course,” Walton answered, handing over a folder with the information. “That’s what I have so far and we’ll give you anything we have, just let me know.”
“How about the relationship of the three women; what, if anything can you tell us about that?” Dara solicited.
“The only information I can glean from our records is that Hannah Donahue and Melissa Ross were counselors in the same dorm and in fact were on the same floor. Helen Williams worked in the next dormitory over.”
“So Hannah and Melissa knew each other fairly well then,” Mac suggested.
“I would say that’s likely. You work as counselors together on the same floor, by the end of the summer you’ll know each other well.”
Mac shook his head, “Odd.”
“Why?” Walton asked.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that Melissa and Hannah Donahue ever were in contact again after that summer in any way shape or form. No phone calls, no e-mails, Facebook, texts, nothing. In fact, that’s true of all four of our victims. Other than the picture we found with Hannah, Melissa and Sandy Faye, there is no record of contact and we still don’t know where Janelle Wyland fits in.”
Mac and Wire spent the next half hour working through the files and questioning Walton, but nothing probative came to life.
“Let’s turn to speculation then,” Mac asked, pouring another cup of coffee. “If these three were to have gotten in trouble in that summer up here, how could that have possibly happened?”
“I’ve been thinking about that since last night. The only time I think something like that could have happened would be on a Saturday night.”
“Why on Saturday night?” Wire asked.
“Sunday through Friday night, the kids are locked in here and the counselors are looking after them in the dorms. Nobody gets out of here then. But Saturdays are the transition day here. The students from the previous week leave by noon on Saturday and the next batch of kids doesn’t arrive until Sunday afternoon. Saturday nights the counselors have free and we do let them leave the camp so if they go out and get involved in something on a Saturday night …”
“You might not know about it,” Mac finished, nodding his head.
“Right. That’s all I can think of,” Walton answered. “Otherwise, we’d have a record of it because if kids get out of line or the rules are violated, we deal with it. We’ve sent kids home for trying to sneak out at night or otherwise violating the rules of the camp, and that’s true of both students and counselors. We don’t have many problems, but every once in a while something happens.”
“But there’s nothing in any of these three girls’ records to suggest anything like that happened?” Mac asked as he thumbed through the files, which contained general information, dates of birth, high school and college records and reviews of their performance, exemplary in all cases—three girls with incredibly bright futures.
“No,” Walton answered, pouring herself more coffee.
“What would the counselors do when they left on a Saturday night?” Dara asked.
“Go into town, maybe find a party to go to and just do whatever young college age kids do. This is vacation land up here. Lots of college age kids are around in the summer so you can imagine what they might possibly get into. College kids are college kids. Sometimes, if they don’t find trouble …”
“It finds them,” Mac finished. “But from what you’re telling me, you don’t recall anything from that summer?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t and I don’t have anything in my files, no incident reports, anything for these three, or for really anyone that summer. Other summers have been a little more eventful but seven years ago we had a good quiet year.”
Mac sat back in his chair and sipped from the coffee, which wasn’t bad. He looked to his right to Wire who was looking out the window to the lake, thinking.
“One thing you might want to do is talk to the police chief in Geneva,” Walton suggested. “Chief Whitlock was here back then. Perhaps the girls got into something we never found out about and maybe he’d have something for you.”
“Does that happen?” Wire asked. “Where your students get into trouble offsite and you don’t hear about it?”
Walton nodded. “Let’s say the chief has informed me of some mischief he and his officers have come across over the years that he’s not told us of until a much later date. These things are usually minor, sneaking out or sneaking back in midweek or some other issue when they happened. But then a year or two later, he’ll get this big smile on his face down when I see him down in his booth at the Cozy Cousin Restaurant and he’ll say: ‘Did I ever tell you about the time …”
• • • •
After a stop at the Geneva Police Department, Mac and Wire were directed to find Geneva Police Chief Percy Whitlock at the Cozy Cousin Restaurant, a classic diner sitting on the corner of Exchange Street and Paradise Alley in downtown Geneva, two blocks from the lake.
Whitlock, a large, round, African American man with his aviator shades tucked in the breast pocket of his shirt opposite his badge, was occupying a significant percentage of a corner table with an elderly gentleman, both ordering lunch. They walked up in time to hear the chief order an open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes. After introducing themselves and displaying their identification, Mac and Wire took seats opposite of the chief and Milo Fissure, the former and now retired chief of police for Geneva. Whitlock and Fissure cordially invited them to join for lunch, and given the time of day, Mac and Wire agreed, ordering quickly from the menu themselves. “The food here is tremendous,” Whitlock exclaimed happily pointing to his rotund stomach. “As you can see, body by Cozy Cousin.”
“Where did you come from, Chief?” Mac asked as Whitlock looked to be in his mid-forties.
“Buffalo. I was a homicide detective but the hours were running me ragged and the wife, well, she wanted a slower life, so when the position opened up here, I came over and interviewed with ole Milo who was setting to retire. A week later he offered and I took it and I ain’t never looked back.” Whitlock guffawed, “In a life full of sometimes questionable decisions, this was a great one. So,” he gestured to Mac and then Wire, “has the FBI dropped their dress code?”
Wire and Mac were both casually dressed. “No, we’re more like consulting Feds than real ones.”
“Ahh, you’re the ones I heard about on the news the other day if I’m not now mistaken.”
They both nodded.
“Refusing to wear the FBI uniform? A sort of, shall we say, form of fashion defiance?”
“I don’t know about her, but I left all my dark suits back in Minnesota,” Mac answered smiling and the conversation continued for a few minutes on various matters, everyone getting to know each other, Whitlock and Fissure were both bullshitters. As their food arrived, Mac finally got a chance to explain the purpose of their visit, even though Whitlock had undoubtedly been alerted to what this would be all about.
“Chief, you would have been on the job here a year or so seven years ago, and I suspect I’m really pushing the limits of your memory here, but do you recall anything in that summer that these three girls were involved in?”
Whitlock shook his head, “Sorry, I can’t, at least off the top of my head. I can pull reports and the like, but none of those names, obviously outside of their recent roles as victim, rings a bell with me.”
“How about an incident, perhaps unexplained that they could have been involved in?”
Whitlock shook his head, “Nothing that I can recall.”
“What kind of trouble would you have had around here back then?”
“Probably the same as we have now. We’re in something of vacation country here in the summer months, so there are parties of course, issues at the taverns, the occasional vehicular incident, but I’m scratching my head for that time period and nothing pops.” Whitlock reached for his radio on his hip. “Let me call in to the department and see if they can pull reports from that time period, probably June through what, mid-August for seven years ago, right?”
“Correct,” Wire answered, and then added, taking a bite of her Cobb salad, “This is delicious.”
“And this pastrami is too die for,” Mac added, taking another bite. “I need to get the recipe for this for Shamus,” a comment which led to a lengthy discussion about McRyan’s Pub back in St. Paul, the second McRyan family business, the first being policing.
“My old man was a bartender back in Buffalo,” Whitlock stated with a wistful smile. “He’s been gone a few years now, but I grew up in that place. It was a place for the brothers to hang out back in the day, both for the ones carrying a badge and for those defying the ones carrying the badges, if you know what I mean.”
“Neutral territory?” Mac asked.
“That’s right.”
“I can relate,” which led to ten minutes of Mac explaining McRyan’s Pub’s sordid history during the era of prohibition.
“John Dillinger drank in the basement of your family’s bar?”
“There is a picture of Dillinger, my great-great-grandfather and the St. Paul mayor.”
“That’s terrific.”
“Agent McRyan,” Fissure asked, veering to different territory.
“Call me Mac, Chief.”
“Mac, you said this was seven years ago?”
“Yes. Does that ring a bell with you, Milo?”
“Not right around here, son, but a number of years ago, which includes my time as police chief in this fine burg, we had issues with parties over by Auburn, which is a half hour to the east.”
“What kind of issues?”
“With field parties at abandoned farms or businesses out in the sticks and a big part of the problem were the people coming down from Syracuse. I believe the kids called the parties raves. Kids from all the towns around here were going to those parties and we had issues with drugs, some overdosing and what not. Maybe something happened at one of those.”
Mac looked over to Wire, “What do you think?”
“Long shot,” Dara answered and then shrugged, “What do we have to lose?”
Mac turned back to Whitlock, “Would you be able to pull reports of any incidents, things of the like over that way, see if there is anything?”
A half hour later, lunch complete, they followed Whitlock back to his office. Sitting on his chair was a report which he quickly thumbed through and then handed it to Mac, “That’s the report I asked for when we were at lunch. Nothing jumps at me, but you two should look. But this is just here in Geneva. Now let me see about broadening it out,” he said as he walked out of the office.
Mac and Wire flipped through the report. There were party incidents, minor intoxications, vehicle stops, domestic complaints, a few robberies and three burglaries which were ultimately solved and one homicide for the summer that resulted from a domestic incident. “Nothing that seems to fit,” Wire remarked.