The Reaper stood up and pushed his chair away and left her in the chair and walked to the cellar steps, stopped and turned to Mychal Richardson, “I believe in my own form of poetic justice, and tonight I’m going to bring it to you.”
M
ac and Wire left Congressman Weiss with a crew of agents and the McLean, Virginia, police. As they departed Weiss’s house, they had to slowly drive through a sea of reporters at the end of the winding driveway. The media had learned Mychal Richardson was missing and here was Mac and Wire at Congressman Weiss’s house. For all of their shortcomings, the media could add up that there was a connection between the two and it wouldn’t take them long to put it all together.
If there was one thing he learned in his brief stint working a high-profile FBI case, he wasn’t in the Twin Cities anymore when it came to the media. A case like this back home and he would have a few televisions stations hovering around, maybe a newspaper reporter from the
Star Tribune
on the case, but that was it. Here, there was media everywhere, seemingly able to get to any location instantly, and when they arrived, they arrived in force and with a relentless intensity.
He kept his windows up as he slowly and carefully drove his SUV through the crowd of reporters, cameras and microphones. The fact his window was up didn’t stop the questions from being shouted, the cameramen from rolling film and the photographers from snapping pictures. He may have conducted a press conference the day before, but Mac had no intention of answering questions again. There was work to do. The congressman’s car had been found.
Twenty minutes from the congressman’s home, the dashboard flasher parting the early afternoon traffic of the beltway for him, he finally let out a breath and relaxed just a little, twenty minutes away from his next destination.
“So will you wait for Congressman Weiss’s wife to find out in the media about her husband’s affair, or are you going to access FBI resources to contact her directly,” Mac inquired whimsically, his eyes raised, a smile spread across his face. “You may not have long. The reporters will figure it out soon enough.”
“Now that’s a thought,” Dara suggested. “But I’ll probably let Mrs. Weiss figure it out all on her own. Now, if she stays with the bastard, I might have a little chat with her.”
Mac laughed.
“You’re awfully lighthearted, given our last victim is likely to be sliced and diced here any minute.”
Mac nodded, “Is she a victim? I mean, is she
really
a victim?”
“No, she’s the Ice Queen, but …”
“We have a job to do. I’m not quitting, but if we fail …”
“You won’t be that disappointed.”
“I don’t know, no, yes, maybe,” Mac replied, shaking his head. “We solved it. We know who the killer is and why he’s doing it. To be honest, I don’t really care about the victims anymore. They were responsible for Rena Johnson’s death and didn’t do a damn thing about it. Not one of them stood up and did the right thing. So they made their bed and now they’re lying in it. Now Gesch and those agents he killed? That’s a different story and I want to put that fucker down for that. If in the process, we could find a way to get real justice for Rena Johnson?
Now that would be satisfying
. In my mind, Gesch, those agents and deputies and Rena are the true victims here.”
Keller and Reilly were waiting for them, standing by a black Cadillac parked in an alley behind a restaurant in Columbia, Maryland, northeast of Washington, DC. The trunk was open and a forensic team was already taking pictures.
“Looks like she was in the trunk,” Keller stated.
“We have some blood,” Reilly added, using his flashlight to illuminate the small specks of blood in the dark charcoal fibers of the trunk.
“This was his exchange point,” Mac answered. “Anyone know what was parked here?”
“We’re on it,” Keller said as he waved Reilly to follow him inside the restaurant.
“So if he rolls out of DC around 2:00
A.M.
, it’s still storming, being careful, following the posted, he’s here around 3:00
A.M.
and it’s around 2:00
P.M.
right now,” Wire speculated. “He’s got eleven hours on us. That’s an awful big radius we have to potentially be looking. He could be anywhere in eight or nine states.”
Mac’s phone rang. “Yes, Director. When?” He looked at his watch. “Yes sir, on our way.”
“What?” Wire asked.
“Senator Richardson.”
• • • •
“Mac, please, please, please behave yourself,” Sally pleaded as Mac parked at the Hoover Building. He and Wire had an audience with Senator Richardson and Director Mitchell.
“No promises,” Mac answered.
The Senate minority leader was not someone known for understanding and patience. What Sally knew was that Mac was not someone who suffered such treatment without biting back.
The mix could be combustible.
“Mac, he’s going to provoke you, he’s going to blame you, he’s going to come after you and he’s very
very
good at that.”
“Let him,” Mac replied, not worried. “I’ve got plenty to fight back with.”
“Look, just let him blow up and then go back to doing your job,” Sally suggested. “If you engage, he’ll make it ugly.”
“For who?” Mac asked. “Me or the White House?”
“Hey, now wait a minute!” Sally exclaimed, annoyed.
“Mac!” Wire warned.
“Whose partner are you anyway?” he asked Wire, a smirk on his face.
“Yours,” Dara answered. “Sally’s protecting
you
, you dumbass.”
“Thank you, Dara,” Sally added sweetly.
“I don’t need protection,” Mac answered, but then veered to safer territory, “Sally, it’ll be fine. I’ll be on my best behavior,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster as they walked into the elevator.
Two minutes later they were admitted to the director’s office.
“Where’s my daughter?” Senator Richardson demanded. No introductions, no handshake, no time to explain, no time for a briefing of the status of the case, no chance for a breath. As Sally warned, the senator had a reputation as a bully and he came right out of the box being one.
“Right now I don’t know,” Mac answered calmly and honestly. “I can explain where the investigation is at …”
“Right now, you don’t know?” the senator replied bitterly, moving into Mac’s personal space. “That’s all you have for me?” The senator then looked to the director, “This is who is running the investigation looking for my daughter?”
“Yup, I’m that guy,” Mac retorted before the director could rise to his defense.
The director gave Mac a stern look and Wire lightly grabbed the back of his arm to get him to step back, but Mac knew there was only one way to deal with a bully. Be an asshole back, regardless of who they were. “But you have one part wrong. I’m not hunting for your daughter. I’m hunting for the Reaper. I’m hunting for Drake Johnson.”
“And what about my daughter? She’s the victim here.”
“If I find him, I’ll find her.”
“I don’t think you understand, McRyan, my daughter is missing.”
“I’m quite aware of that,” Mac answered flatly, his hands on his hips, not shriveling from the confrontation.
“Where are you in finding this sociopath?”
“I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it.”
“Yes, I am. Of course, this meeting only delays from me doing so.”
“Excuse me?”
Director Mitchell jumped in, “I think what Special Agent McRyan is trying to say is …”
“Special Agent? That’s a hoot. There’s nothing special about him,” Senator Richardson blustered and then stuck his finger inches from Mac’s face. “You let my daughter slip through your fingers,” he pointed at Mac and Wire. “Yeah, I know you two met with her yesterday, told her she was a target of this maniac. Where the fuck were the two of you last night?”
“We were watching your daughter. Of course, we were fighting for space with your battalion of private security from Grogan monitoring her movements,” Mac answered. “So let me ask you a question, Senator. Why was it that your daughter had that security detail on her anyway? Because I checked, she’s had that detail on her for at least a month now. Why?”
“She’s on television quite a bit, says some provocative things and receives threats from time to time.”
“I’ve heard that bullshit party line already. She’s said provocative things for at least a couple of years, so why all of a sudden the security in the last month?” Mac pressed.
“I don’t like the tone, McRyan.”
“I didn’t think you would, but answer the question, Senator.”
“Answer mine first you, insubordinate shit. I want to know what happened. I want to know how
you
failed to protect my daughter.”
“Okay,” Mac answered, “But I’ll warn you, you may not like what you hear. First, your daughter was abducted from a townhouse belonging to Congressman Ulysses Weiss. Did you know that?” Mac asked, looking the senator in the eye.
“What of it?”
“Well, she was having an affair with a married man, a married congressman, and it has been going on for months.”
“Does that mean she should suffer at the hands of this madman?”
“If that were all she was guilty of, no.”
“What do you mean if that were all she were guilty of? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Seven years ago, did you own a silver Chrysler Town and Country minivan?” Mac asked, boring in on the senator’s eyes. His face betrayed little but the mention of the minivan caused his eyes to widen. The eyes, the window to the soul, they always give people away.
“Why is that relevant?”
“It’s a simple question, did you or didn’t you?”
“I don’t know if we owned one at one time.”
“Fact of the matter is,” Mac replied, reaching in his backpack, “you did own such a van,” He slid the vehicle registration across the table.
“So? What’s your point?”
“I think the van is why your daughter is in the position she is.” Mac took out the picture of the victims, “Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve seen this picture.” It was what they now called the Picture of Death. “Melissa Goynes, Janelle Wyland, Hannah Donahue, Sandy Faye, who back then was named Helen Williams, Kelly Drew, now a vegetable in hospital, Danica Brunner, Rebecca Randall and a woman named Rena Johnson, the sister of our killer. But you know what the really interesting part about the picture is, Senator?”
“No, what?”
“Who isn’t in it—your daughter.”
“Right, she’s not in that picture. Again, what’s your point?”
“She took it.”
This, Mac could tell, the senator did not know.
“She took the picture in front of this minivan, your minivan. I think this van was the van that struck and killed Rena Johnson seven years ago, on August … 17th …” Mac went slack jawed and strode away from the senator over to the conference table, putting his hands on the table and shaking his head. “Seven years ago … today. No way, is that what he’s doing?”
“McRyan?” the senator pressed.
“Mac?” Wire asked, seeing the look on his face.
“Mac, what is it?” Director Mitchell asked.
Mac turned around, “Director, I need a plane.”
I
t was still a balmy seventy-nine degrees in the countryside outside of Auburn, New York. The humidity was thick in the air, creating a dense pocket of radiation fog on the isolated road.
The Reaper carefully drove along County Road 5, keeping the silver Chrysler Town and Country minivan a good foot or two inside the white line marking the right edge of the road. On his right he passed the long driveway to the long abandoned farmhouse where all of this started seven years ago. The driveway was now blocked with a swinging gate and padlock as well as a large No Trespassing sign.
He’d taken the back two rows of seats out of the van. Lying on the floor, tied up, gagged, yet squirming, was Mychal Richardson.
She wouldn’t have long now.
He passed the yellow diamond sign signaling a tight turn ahead, warning to reduce speed to thirty miles-per-hour.
The Reaper carefully, expertly negotiated the tight turn, a turn he’d made several times over the afternoon and early evening, knowing that fog was potentially, and helpfully, moving in. It also provided him the opportunity to dig the small post hole earlier in the day, the hole that would seal Mychal Richardson’s fate.
Around the tight corner, he pulled ahead another one hundred feet and stopped along the narrow shoulder of the road, just past a small orange flag he’d placed on the shoulder. Stopped, he hit the button to open the rear tailgate of the van.
Lying on the floor in the back, barely clothed in her ripped teddy, arms and feet tightly tied to an eight-foot-long 4x4 wood beam, was Mychal Richardson. The Reaper looked down at Richardson’s face, the resignation in her eyes, tears again running down her dirty, blood-soaked face, small cuts and gashes on her body, her face bruised and battered. She was almost unrecognizable.
Grabbing the top of the wood post she was tied to with both hands, he slid it out of the back of the van. He dragged Richardson ten feet until he reached the post hole. He turned her around so she would face the corner and slid the bottom of the post into the hole until she was upright. Her hands and feet were tied tightly to the post. In addition, rope was tied around her upper torso, waist and thighs, her feet dangling two inches above the ground. She couldn’t even squirm, the bindings were so tight. He removed the gag.
“Somebody help me?! Please somebody help me?!” she wailed, crying.
“Nobody can hear you out here, Mychal,” the Reaper stated coolly. “Nobody. There isn’t a house for three miles. The only house is the abandoned one where the rave took place. It was abandoned then, what do you think it is now? Mychal, out here there is nothing but woods. On a night like tonight, with this fog and the danger of driving, there is nobody out on the roads,
nobody
.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Richardson pleaded.
“It’s far too late for that. Seven years ago, right at this very spot, that was the time to say you were sorry. That was the time to do the right thing and accept the consequences of your negligent act. Instead, you hit my sister with that van of yours and left her for dead. Consider this poetic justice.”
The Reaper left her to scream. He slid into the minivan and pulled forward and did a U-turn in the road and drove past and around the corner.
Richardson screamed, “
Help! Help
!
SOMEBODY HELP ME!
”
• • • •
Mac watched the van disappear around the corner.
“Go, Mac,” Wire exclaimed into his earbud from her perch across the road.
From the edge of the tree line, he sprinted down the short hill and into the ditch.
“
Help! Help
!
SOMEBODY HELP ME!
” Richardson wailed.
“Enough already,” Mac answered dismissively as he climbed the other side of the ditch. “We heard you.”
Mychal turned her head left to see him, “Get me out of here!” she wailed.
“We have a few questions first,” Wire added, coming from the other side of the road, gun drawn, looking back down the road in the direction Johnson drove.
“Seriously?” Mychal wailed. “Cut me loose.”
• • • •
Johnson drove a mile west, slowed and did a U-turn in an area where the shoulder widened. As he turned around, he could see flashing police lights ahead in each lane.
The lights stopped and blocked the road.
“Nooooooo!” Drake raged, shaking the steering wheel violently. “No! No! No! You mother fucker, McRyan! Nooooooo!”
He put his foot to the accelerator.
• • • •
Mac stood in front of her, “Were you driving the van that killed Rena Johnson?”
“What? You’re asking that now. Get me out of here.”
“Mac, he’s coming!” Wire exclaimed, pressing her hand to her right ear.
“Mychal, I’m not going to help you unless you answer my question. Were you driving the van that killed Rena Johnson seven years ago?”
“Are you crazy, get me out of here!”
“I asked a question. Were you driving the van that killed Rena Johnson? I’m not saving you until you answer the question.”
Richardson nodded.
“Yes or no, please.”
“
YES!
Yes, I was driving that van when we hit Rena. Now get me out of here!
”
“Why didn’t you stop? She could have lived.”
“Cut me loose!”
“Answer the question, why didn’t you stop?”
“Mac!” Wire wailed. “He’s coming. He busted through the roadblock, he’s coming. Get her cut loose now!”
“Not yet,” Mac replied quickly, flipping open his knife and then looking to Richardson, “Let me ask this another way. Did you leave Rena in this ditch because you were afraid what would happen to you, your father, what would happen to your other friends with political fathers, if it were found you were drunk, on drugs and hit someone along the road? Were you afraid of going to jail for that?”
“
Yes! Yes! Yes! Now get me out of here!
”
The bright lights flew around the corner, the engine roaring as McRyan and Wire dove down into the ditch.
“Oh my God! No! No! No! No!”
Richardson wailed.
The lights came to a screeching halt, ten feet short of her. The vehicle was a silver Chevy Suburban. A heavyset man jumped out and walked up, a smile on his face.
“Are we good?” Mac asked, pushing himself up and brushing off his clothes.
“We’re awesome,” Auburn Detective Flynn answered with a smile. “He rammed our roadblock, but there were two patrol cars and two Suburbans and all he had was the soccer mom minivan. One could say it was a very poor choice of a ramming vehicle. In any event, he is very banged up but cuffed, stuffed and in custody. Ambulance on the way.” He looked up at Richardson still tied to the post, a shocked look on her face. “So how are we doing here?”
“Excellent,” Mac answered, having hatched the plan two hours ago. He walked up next to Detective Flynn and held up his T-shirt so Richardson could see the microphone taped to his chest. “In the immortal words of Colonel Hannibal Smith, I love it when a plan comes together,” he said as he went to work on the rope around her chest.
“You were recording this?” Richardson exclaimed incredulously as Mac was cutting the ropes tying her to the post.
Mac looked up from cutting the ropes and snorted, “Duh.”
“You set me up!” Richardson wailed. “You set me up!”
“I can’t think of someone who deserved it more,” Wire stated with her arms folded and a smile. “You got off easy. You’re alive, you should be thanking us. I, of course, won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.”
Mac finished cutting Richardson free from the post and eased her down to her feet. “Detective Flynn, this is Mychal Richardson,” Mac stated. “Ms. Richardson, this is Auburn Police Detective Flynn. I believe the detective has something he’s wanted to say for a very
very
long time.”
“Indeed I do,” Flynn replied as he took out his handcuffs and walked behind Richardson. “Mychal Richardson, you’re under arrest for the vehicular homicide of Rena Johnson.”
• • • •
7:12
A.M.
August 18.
Wire pushed the door into the hospital room open. Mac stepped through, followed by Detective Flynn. Drake Johnson lay in the hospital bed, his bruised and battered body tethered to the bed, his hands cuffed to the railing on each side and both legs shackled to the bed posts. Two officers stood post over the end of the bed. Johnson wasn’t going anywhere.
Mac and Wire stood at the end of the bed for a moment and stared down at Johnson. “Officers, if you’ll excuse us for a minute,” Mac suggested. “We have fresh coffee and donuts in the hallway.”
The two officers pushed themselves out of their chairs and left them to it.
“So we meet,” Johnson said with a raspy voice, making no effort to move. He was beaten and battered from the collision of his minivan with the roadblock. The doctors had diagnosed him with a broken arm, four broken ribs not to mention a concussion to go with the cuts and scrapes on his face, all now patched with varying amounts of bandages, butterflies, stitches and staples.
Mac pulled a chair up to the left side of the bed, Wire and Flynn standing at the end of the bed.
“Detective Flynn,” Johnson greeted.
“Drake,” Flynn answered.
“I bet you’re all asking why?”
“I think we all are,” Wire answered.
“They killed Rena. Someone had to get justice for Rena.”
“Justice?” Mac asked, shaking his head. “You call this justice? Is that what Aubrey Gesch was in Pennsylvania? Is that what the lives of six peace officers were the other night? Is that what Wire’s and my lives were in Frederick? You didn’t get justice. What you got was revenge.”
Mac played the tape of Richardson confessing to him.
“I can prove Mychal Richardson was the driver that killed your sister. Now
that’s
justice. You? You’re a murderer of women and you’re a murderer of six law enforcement officers, four of whom were federal agents. Detective Flynn, what’s the sentence for killing an agent of the FBI?”
“I believe it’s death by lethal injection.”
“You killed six women and six peace officers. The only way the death penalty ends up off the table is your confession to all of the murders, every single one. You admit what you did, every single despicable act.”
Drake Johnson closed his eyes, defiant. “I’ll take the needle.”
“Good,” Mac answered. “I’ll be there when you get it.”
• • • •
The FBI plane would arrive in ninety minutes. In the meantime, the case over, Mac and Wire sat in a quiet booth at the Lucky Seven Pub in Auburn. A pitcher of beer, two beer glasses and towering cheeseburgers and a bushel of french fries had their full attention.
“What did Sally say?” Dara asked, pouring more ketchup into her burger basket.
“Are you okay?”
“And once she knew that.”
“That was all she really cared about.”
“No politics, no wondering about what Hannah Donahue or Mychal Richardson are guilty of?”
“Oh, there was more than a little of that,” Mac answered. “I think it’s now official that she’s been corrupted by DC. She said each side got hit.”
They sat in silence, watching some of the news reports as well as clips from Director Mitchell’s brief morning press conference. The director wanted Mac to give a press conference either later today or tomorrow. Mac said he’d think about it. With the case over, his duties to the bureau were over and, looking at the cast still on his left wrist, the exhaustion he was feeling and the lingering headache pounding in his head, he was inclined to fade away from public view. He was flat wrung out. There was nothing left in his tank. He wanted to simply go home and sleep.
With the burger baskets cleared away, Mac sunk back into the booth and slowly sipped his beer. For the first time in weeks, the angst and stress was gone. His mind was calm and he felt some level of peace.
“Did we win here?” Wire asked.
“The case?” Mac asked.
“Yeah, did we win?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mac answered, giving it some thought. “In a case like this, I’m not sure victory was possible. I mean, I came into the case thinking we were after a sociopathic killer, a sadistic whack job who was slicing up women. In the end, the mass killer was a grieving brother incensed that eight women could ruthlessly and coldly leave his sister to die in a ditch rather than do the right thing.”
“Drake Johnson wasn’t a sociopath?”
“No. A sociopath doesn’t care about others. They have charm and charisma, but they think only of themselves and blame others for the things that they do. They have a complete disregard for rules and lie. A sociopath never feels guilt. In this case, who fits that bill?”
“Mychal Richardson,” Wire answered with a nod. “Drake Johnson, on the other hand, had feelings, feelings of love for his sister.”
“He couldn’t handle her death, particularly once he figured out what happened. He went off the rails,” Mac replied. “It’s one thing to be distraught about a loved one’s death and want vengeance. It’s quite another to turn into a mass murderer. He killed twelve people, six women, six law officers, left another woman a possible vegetable and tried to kill yet another. He’s no saint to mourn. He is worthy of very little if any sympathy in my mind.”
“Mental illness maybe?” Wire suggested. “He might get off from the needle because of that?”
“I don’t know,” Mac answered sipping his beer, “Maybe. Or maybe at this point, I just don’t care. The great state of New York, as well as all of the other jurisdictions, will have plenty of time to figure that out. Until they do, he’ll be in a maximum security prison cell. His brain chemistry got screwed up, but he also knew what he was doing. He hunted these women down one by one. He became a brutal cop and then a remorseless human.”
“For that reason, do you think his videotape of Randall will be admissible into evidence?”
“I don’t know,” Mac answered. “I don’t know that they’ll need it for Richardson, although you and I watched it. It matches what she told us, so who knows. I’ll let a higher pay grade figure it out.”