Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) (26 page)

“Kentucky, checking in,” another voice said, “We’ve just arrived at a church about 4 miles east of your
location. I think it’s a Catholic Church. Seems locked up and quiet, but the dogs are acting weird. They seem to be picking up a lot of ground scent. But they are going in circles and whining. Never saw them act like this before. Something’s really confusing them, it’s like the scents are wound in a circle 8. We’re going to wait and see what they do with it. There’s definitely something going on here. We checked the outside of the building. No signs of a break-in. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s here, but there’s something fishy going on. There’s a three car garage on property, but it seems only two are in there now. Maybe the priest is away.”

“S
ee what the dogs come up with, check back in 5 over,” Chester told them.

“Yes, Sir,” was the response.

At the church, Ricky and Lucy, two excellently trained, black and tan German Shepard dogs on loan from the Pennsylvania State Police, were moving between a small door at the back of the building and the garage. Noses to the ground they kept tracing and re-tracing their steps widening their circles by inches with each pass. Police were examining the outer door with flashlights. They opened the garage doors and went inside with the dogs, one of them sniffed around the front bumper with special interest. Then they lifted their noses seeking scent in the air. Then the dogs went back to the church and focused on a window near the back door, but the police could see nothing wrong with the glass. The dogs, who had been litter mates, had been a working pair for years. Nearly identical except the male was larger, they now sat together large pointed ears inclined forward and scrutinized the building with their dark amber eyes. Above in the curtained turret, the three killers peered down at the dogs and held their breath.

“Shit,” Jake muttered, when he saw the dog near the bumper.
“That’s where I changed shoes. That big one is a smart bastard. Maybe I should shoot him.”

“
Don’t shoot him, Jake. Just wait and see what happens,” Slim warned. Now that they were on the run and Slim had shot Earl Raines, he seemed to have regained Jake’s trust. Now he was the ‘old Slim’ and he was back in Jake’s good graces. The power pendulum had swung again. Jake needed him more and that gave Slim both power and confidence.

From their perch they saw the officers on their radios, but could not make out their words.
Another team now joined the search and moved into the adjacent woods. The German Shepherds, however, were focused on the church. They wanted to catch the people the police were chasing. They wanted to track them and find them. They seemed to grasp the big picture. The Shepherds sat resolutely on guard. They were certain that this was the right place. Their handlers knew to respect their dogs’ instincts and stayed still as they stared at the side of the church, ears tilted forward, eyes scanning. In the dim dawn, Ricky saw a shadow through the curtain hanging in the turret. He issued one bark and sat staring up at the window. His handler immediately squatted beside him and stared up at the same spot.

“What is it boy?” he asked the dog. Ricky emitted a low growl
, refusing to take his eyes off that spot. High above the three killers eased themselves down to the floor and crawled backwards away from the window. Dog and handler stared at the window some more, but nothing else moved. ”I don’t know boy, nothing’s happening now,” he said to the dog. 

Ricky was resolute. He saw something. He smelled it. Someone was up there. The lead officer came over and talked with the handler. They decided to leave Ricky where he was ‘on guard’ and take Lucy to
patrol the other side. Lucy walked to the door where the broken glass had been repaired and raised her nose to the repair. Her handler noted her interest, but again he saw nothing unusual, maybe it was a repair, but it looked old and the snow seemed uniformly choppy. He marked her interest in his notebook called Lucy off to find something else. She started a broader search of the grounds around the church, ending up on the opposite side of the church staring at the third floor turrets. “She’s focused on the same part of the church as he is,” her handler reported to the team leader. “There’s something up there.”

Kentucky team leader called Chester. “We’ve got to get into this church,” he said. “No question about it, something’s hinky over here.
”

“
You can’t just break into a church, especially without proof that the killers are in there. We’ll have the Vatican on our ass! Call the church, see if someone answers,” Chester said, “and I’ll call the West Virginia Diocese.” The team Leader dialed the phone number listed for the church. A recording came on. “You have reached
Our Lady of the Angels
” the message said, “No one is available right now to speak with you. Please leave a message at the sound of the beep and have a blessed day.” He left a message with his cell phone number and asked to be called right away. Chester called the local archdiocese and found out that Father Mitchell Wallington of
Our Lady of the Angels
had left for a 5 day vacation and was due back late tomorrow afternoon. The only other people with keys to the church were the church secretary, whose name and number he was given and the Woman’s Auxiliary Floral Committee who provided fresh flowers every week. No, the Bishop did not know their names or phone numbers and he did not know when the women brought in fresh flowers, but he would have his secretary look for that information and get back to the officer. He offered his prayers for the brave officers who were hunting these killers and said he would pray for their safety. Chester then called the number for the church secretary, but there was no answer.

Kentucky team leader called back. “No answer at the church. I don’t know what to think, Sir, it would be a good place to hide, but they could be anywhere. I hate to waste resources on this one location based on a dog. But Ricky is one of the best police dogs in the country. His handler tells me he’s never wrong about a thing like this. He
says we should breach the door and search the premises.”

“
Well we can’t break into a church because a dog is focused on a window,” Chester answered. “It could be anything up there, I just don’t know.”

“Sir, the dog handler is insistent. He says this dog knows his business and thinks we should breach the church and see what’s up there.”

“That’s all well and good,” Chester replied “but it’s my ass on the line with the Vatican. We need more proof before we breach. Search outside again find me something, a footprint, a weapon …something. Come up with anything hinky I’ll call the Bishop myself. If we have to we’ll go to court and get a warrant. In the meantime, keep trying to get that secretary, maybe she knows what’s up on that third floor.”

The killers crouched down and listened hard. They were desperate to peek out the side of the blanket they’d strung up across the window, but were afraid that the dog would see them. “That’s one smart bastard,” Jake said referring to the dog, “I ought to just shoot him…”

Slim and Custer lurched forward with objections,
“You can’t shoot the dog, for Christ’s sake, the cops are on our ass as it is.”

“
I know, I know,” Jake mumbled, “I just want to, is all. I know I can’t do it.”

They crawled across the room and peeked out the window on the other side. They saw the other Shepherd patrolling the side of the building. For a moment, she stopped and looked up in their direction. She sensed they were there. She stood stark still, listening, sniffing and
staring at the window. Her handler noted her interest and did nothing to distract her. It seemed to him this was probably the same room her team mate was focused on.

He picked up his hand
set and called his team lead, “Lucy’s stopped on the other side of the building. Staring at a window on the third floor, could be the same room as on the other side of the church. I think there’s something up there. Both dogs are alerting to that area.” The Team leader thought about this for a while then called Chester, “How are we doing getting into this church? I’ve got both dogs alerting to the third floor of this church.”

“Let me call the Archbishop, again,” Chester said.  The Team waited for him to call back. Ricky sat and watched the high window. Lucy sat on the other side and watched an identical window. There was silence and no movement.

From their position, the killers could see into the woods behind the church and could see police moving in the distance. “I think I faked them out,” Jake whispered, “I changed clothes and threw them off my scent.”

“
That was real clever, Jake,” Custer said. He was terrified that they were going to be shot at any minute. Jake had led them into a trap. He was a crazy bastard, completely out of his mind. He didn’t care what happened to them; he only cared about what he wanted. Custer looked at Slim and thought how much things had changed since they left the cabin. That was their first dumb move. Since then, the old Slim was back. He was his old ruthless self. Back to being buddies with Jake, again. Shooting people! That depressed Custer. He thought when Slim was more on his side he had a chance to get away. Now that the old Slim was back, he was screwed. There was no way he could get out on his own and no way that
this
Slim was going to want to go with him. He shot Earl Raines with probably 30 cops a few feet away. Slim got off on stuff like this…the excitement, the thrill of the chase. Outsmarting the cops! Hell that’s what Slim lived for. He loved this shit.

When he peeped out the window and saw all those cops, Custer thought he should just run outside and give himself up. Surrender to the cops and stop all this craziness. Then he decided against it. Jake would shoot him in the back before he made it out the door. He looked over at Jake, hyped up like he was on drugs. Full of excitement! He was tense and scared, sure, but he loved this game of chase. It’s what he lived for, that and all the stuff about
those girls. Those are the things that made Jake tick.

The three of them peered out the side window and
saw the other dog staring up at the window. Jake cursed and snuck back across the room to see if the big police dog was gone. Jake crept up to the curtain and slid the edge away just slightly so that his right eye could peep through the slit. Ricky’s amber eyes met Jake’s blue one. The dog barked one single sharp bark and instantly his handler stared up at the window just in time to see the curtain move slightly. “I think they’re up there,” he shouted, “I saw something move.”

“We can’t break into a church, Man,” the other officer objected.  “
Besides, I didn’t see anything up there, maybe it was a breeze or something. These old buildings are full of drafts.” He pressed redial on his phone to see if the secretary had returned home. There was no answer.

“Chester,” he called, “how about
sending a squad car over to this secretary’s house. We need to get into this damn church.”

“In a minute,
Kentucky, we have an emerging situation,” Chester’s voice came back.

“We’ve got to hide,” Jake said urgently, “they’re going to break in here any minute.” Custer and Slim started looking around at the walls and paneling.

“Sometimes, these old buildings have secret passages in them,” Custer said, “I saw it in a TV show.”

“Well, Smart Ass, find us a passage,” Jake jeered. He was scared now. He had
hoped they’d be able to hang out here for days. Anxiously, the three of them started pressing and pushing on the walls in the priest’s room, the hallway and other third floor rooms. They jumped when they found a hidden doorway with a ladder up to the bell tower. Quickly, they grabbed their stuff and one after the other climbed up the ladder to the bell tower. The wind had picked up blowing snow off the trees. It swirled and howled as they emerged alongside the large church bell. They inched past it careful not to touch it. That would be all they’d need. Ding dong! Great way to hide!

They had no real idea what they were going to do now that they were on the roof, but as luck would have it, a huge oak tree spread its branche
s across the roof of the church and Jake thought if the police breached the building they would climb into the tree and get away. The howling wind and blowing snow added extra cover for them as they crept over to the edge of the roof, lay flat on their stomachs and peered at the police congregating on the church parking lot.

Police were waiting for orders to enter. Either Chester would say to break down the door or a squad car would arrive with the secretary and unlock the door. Either way, the team was going in to search this church. Time passed and nothing happened. Then the police radio buzzed and everyone rallied round. They had just gotten a call and that demanded immediate action.
The killers watched in amazement as the police hurriedly closed down their working site, piled their dogs and equipment into their vehicles and sped away from
Our Lady of the Angels
, siren’s blaring.

She was nervous as a cat in a roomful of Rottweiler’s. Hands shaking, she sat at the computer issuing, and re-issuing, the pre-determined subject line signals. ‘Google Search’ meant there was breaking news and ‘Plan a Hawaiian vacation’ meant get out of town. She had to reach her. She was desperate. Gina was in trouble. Big trouble! The news was all over town. Her fingers flew over the library computer’s keyboard as Edna Goodwin alternated between subject line messages and pressed send. She and Gina had always kept in touch this way. They felt it was their only safe way of communicating with each other. She had to tell Gina what was happening. She needed to talk to her but a phone call was too risky. The best she could do was to communicate the urgency of the situation and get her to check the internet for information. The Raines family had been investigated, the killers had gotten to the farm, Earl Raines was dead, Hattie in the ICU, the FBI was at the courthouse slogging through thousands of old court records and Reggie/Gina’s cover was about to be blown. This was the worst scenario imaginable! Edna Goodwin knew Gina had to be warned.

T
hree years ago, she had traveled to Illinois and met with Gina in an out of the way restaurant. It took them weeks to set up the meeting, to find a suitable location and to hide their tracks so no one could follow them.  The two of them spent hours talking over dinner and coffee. She learned about Gina’s work and her life. Gina Reynolds had become a remarkable young woman and she had developed a good life for herself. There had not been much in the way of a social life but Gina seemed to want it that way. She felt as long as Jake was alive he’d try to find her. Right or wrong, she firmly believed this, and she felt that people close to her would be in danger if he ever did find her, so she remained a bit aloof, cultivating few close friends. Gina’s isolation heightened Edna Goodwin’s feeling of responsibility. More than anyone, she had rescued her and she had to make sure she was alright.

Rhoda Eades sat across the room watching.
They were in this together. Rhoda had been staring at the same newspaper page for nearly 20 minutes, watching for trouble.  Neither of them knew if the killers were computer savvy or not. They didn’t know if the killers would know how to track them on the library computer. But they thought when word leaked out about the court records all their names would be public knowledge and they could be tracked down. The women believed that as long as the killers were running around the woods, they would not be fooling around with computers but TV was another thing entirely. They couldn’t be sure what the killers knew or who might be helping them. They worried about their own safety out in the open using a public library computer. They agreed to take turns on the computer issuing the different messages so that no one in the library would get suspicious. In the meantime, the one acting as ‘watcher’ would look for any odd activity among the people milling around. The ‘watcher’ examined everyone who entered the library. Edna had called Rhoda as soon as school was cancelled that morning. Although the FBI man on the TV announced that killers were loose in the community, he didn’t specify exactly what had happened. The rumor mill, however, was full of information. Her friends who worked in the courthouse and at the police department had called and filled her in. Yes, it was the Raines family. Yes, it was that nephew the family had raised. Yes, it was the killers of all those young blonde girls that they’ve been looking for all these weeks. Edna and Rhoda felt sick. Deeply invested in Reggie/Gina’s rescue, they had been the ones to house her, initiate the ‘emancipation’ process in the court and use the domestic violence underground network to rehouse her in out-of-state foster care. They cared about her and wanted to protect her. They also were just a bit worried about themselves. What if the killers found out who they were? What if the killers tracked them down to find out where Reggie was? They knew that if that happened they’d be killed, probably horribly. They also knew that they would eventually tell the killers what they wanted to know. They were realistic enough to know that. 

So they typed
emails and in the body of the emails they wrote ‘breaking news’. Usually, Gina responded to her emails immediately, within minutes, even if it was just ‘ok’ on the subject line. But, now there was no answer and they couldn’t understand that. Had Gina run already? Was she hurt? The killers were here in Hurricane so Gina should be safe yet they couldn’t understand why she was not answering. Email notifications went directly to her iPhone which issued an alert. Usually Gina saw it within minutes and responded in some way unless she was in surgery or something. Edna just couldn’t imagine what was going on. She was terrified for her; she still thought often about little Reggie Lee Raines and remembered her as she was that morning on her doorstep. Beaten, bloody and shaking in the frigid morning air, a lost waif with no one to help her. Mrs. Goodwin had known her from school, of course, but, not as well as she later came to know her. Reggie Lee was a good student, never any trouble, polite and kind to the other students. She often came to sit in her office and talk about college and what courses to take. Mrs. Goodwin always knew this girl had secrets, dark and horrible secrets. But, you couldn’t push a girl like Reggie. Mrs. Goodwin thought she’ll tell me when she gets ready. In the meantime I’ll just be here for her. She would welcome the girl warmly each time she came by and push whatever work was on her desk aside to talk with her. It was clear early in the process that the girl was not coming to talk about her schooling. She just needed someone kind to talk with - somewhere safe to be. Mrs. Goodwin was going to provide that for her.

It was easy to care about
the girl. She was so sweet, polite and alone. Not to mention lovely. People were just drawn to her. She emanated an energy that was hard to resist. Although she and Rhoda had helped dozens of young girls who were in trouble and needed to use the Woman’s Shelter network to escape their situations, Reggie Lee had captured their hearts. And look at the success she had become. It was a miracle, really. She had been neglected and abused, and yet she was kind and generous and had been able to use her brilliant mind to achieve academically and professionally. She had done beautifully with her foster family, gone to college and even became a doctor, a specialist, a wonderful, famous one. She had accomplished so much it was just amazing. Of all the doctors in the world, she was one of a few assigned to help those poor twins in Chicago. What kind of injustice would it be if her dedication to sick babies led to her discovery and death? That was exactly what they thought could happen. Her success would be her undoing.

In Hurricane, the situation was spinning out of control. The police
for sure now knew her identity and knew who the killers were pursuing. They would be seeking her too to protect her or set up a trap for the killers. Edna was terrified that the police would inadvertently lead the killers to her doorstep. And all this news coverage, about the conjoined twins, the media was sure to get wind of it. That was only a matter of time before chaos reigned, Edna thought. She and Rhoda had just switched places. She was wandering up and down the American History Aisle when she noticed a tall man with hunched shoulders who kept glancing at Rhoda. He would look at her and look down at his hands. He seemed puzzled. He then started walking up and down the aisles. He’d pick up a book here and there and look at it, but none of the books held his interest. They were props. He was looking for someone. Through her years as school counselor Edna had developed good people sense and she had a sense about this man. She ‘knew’ he was looking for her. The man didn’t make sense... he was out of place and odd. He wore an old brown hat and had a green plaid scarf around his neck. He kept one hand in his pocket; the other hand held against his chest clutched something he kept peering at from behind his wire rimmed glasses. His eyes wandered between his hand and the computer terminal where Rhoda sat. She could see he was puzzled. Edna didn’t know the man, but she knew he was watching Rhoda and she was not who he expected to see. He was expecting to see her, a grey-haired white woman not a large black one. Keeping her back to him and her head down, she studied his reflection in the library windows. Who he was, she could not imagine. He was not one of the killers posted on TV. He was not the police. Who he was, was a mystery to her. Maybe he was a contract killer. Yes, that must be it. A contract killer had come to the library to kill them.

She had to warn Rhoda. Their pre-arranged ‘get out’ signal was for her to go to the librarian’s desk and
loudly ask for a copy of
The History of American Federalism
by Warren Browne. When Rhoda heard her ask for that book, she was to erase their work, log off the computer and go into the Ladies Room and wait for Edna to join her. Within minutes the women were huddled in the back stall whispering. The man was definitely watching them and they were in a panic. Should they call the police? If they did, wouldn’t they have to explain what they were doing? Would the police figure out their involvement? Could they get away with saying some man was watching them? The man would just deny it and they’d be left on their own. And then, of course, there was the not insignificant problem that EVERY policeman in the whole area was out looking for the Parkland Killers. Edna thought the cops had bigger problems than two old biddies getting paranoid in the public library.

They were discussing how to
get out of the Ladies Room and away from that man in the brown hat, when they heard the door open; they froze. They felt a cold presence enter the room. No footsteps sounded. There was absolute stillness in the room. They gripped one another in terror waiting for a bullet to pierce the metal stall door. Even without peeping through the slits in the door frame, they knew that the man had entered the room. They heard the sound of a trash can being moved in front of the door. Softly with a slight European accent the man said, “I have come to help you. The signal from that computer has been traced. You may be in danger. Those who are looking for her may be also looking for you. You must meet me outside the back door. I am near the place where they put the trash. I am driving a Honda, it is grey. Do not delay!”