Suicide Serial (7 page)

The only thing that could be used to identify the place was a large neon sign in the front window that was now off, and read, “Pantino Bob’s”. Every weekend these places filled up with local students from the college. There was a dedicated police presence every night of the week to keep things in check, but the police did not patrol the area, and instead mostly hung out around their patrol cars parked up in the main intersection in the middle of the action.

What interested Jake the most were the tiny surveillance cameras that had been mounted on the telephone poles a few years ago. There had been a shooting death in the area, and the public demanded that cameras be installed as a way to hopefully reduce crime. Jake banged loudly on the front door of the establishment, but no one answered. Most of these places did not open till much later in the day, so Jake wasn’t very surprised.

He and Stacey strolled up and down the sidewalk, looking into the alley ways, but found nothing special. The man running the cash register at a nearby gas station didn’t remember hearing anything unusual from the night clerk or manager.

“I’m willing to bet we can get some good footage of what happened to Emma Fisher from those surveillance cameras,” Stacey said, scanning the street.

“I’m with you on that. This one right here looks like it’s pointing right at the entrance to Pantino Bob’s.”

“Let’s head to the office and start pulling records. I’ll call video forensics on the way so they can start getting stuff together for us to take a look at. I don’t think it will take them long, everything’s digital now.”

“Remember to thank the taxpayers at the next town hall,” Jake managed with a hoarse rasp, attempting to laugh. “Let’s grab something to eat, too. I could barely stomach that hospital food, and I’m starving.”

“As long as you’re paying, moneybags,” Stacey shot back, as she started up the cruiser and pulled away.

They were back at the precinct within the hour, munching on soggy fries and draining the last bit of soda from the cheap disposable fast food cups. A video forensics technician came in as they were finishing lunch and set a few freshly-burned DVD. He looked like he was busy texting someone on his phone.

“That’s everything on the street camera near the club you asked about between about one o’clock a.m. and four o’clock a.m.,” the tech said, “The quality is not too bad. I hope this helps you guys out.”

Jake slapped his hands together and told the tech, “Appreciate it, Ron. I have a good feeling about this.”

“You’re welcome.”

With that, the tech left the room, still glued to his phone.

“I swear, that’s all I ever see that guy doing,” Jake said. “I can’t stand pushing all those little buttons. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.”

Stacey giggled and replied, “You’re just getting old, Jake. People now a days don’t have to spin a crank around and ask an operator to connect them anymore, in case you were wondering.”

“Hardy har har,” Jake mumbled, crumpling up the empty bags and chunking them in the garbage. “Ok, partner, lets load these videos up and find our boy.”

Stacey placed the DVD into the player and positioned the screen into place. With a few presses of a button on the control panel, the screen came to life with slightly grainy black and white video. The camera that taped this footage had indeed been placed so that it looked directly over the exit of Pantino Bob’s. They watched as various club patrons exited the building, usually in groups, and continued on their way. After about fifteen minutes, they observed a skipping, curly-haired girl bound out of the club with a large group of other girls. They were laughing and goose-stepping down the street, apparently drunk and having a great time.

“There’s Kristen and her sorority sisters,” Stacey mentioned.

They continued to watch the screen. None of the people on the video so far resembled Emma or the suspect. Stacey skipped ahead whenever no people could be seen on the video. Around the three o’clock mark, they saw foot traffic begin to pick up and more people begin to exit from the club. Ten minutes later, they watched as Emma Fisher stumbled out the front door.

Jake and Stacey were transfixed, staring at the screen as they intently watched every move the young girl made. She was staggering around in high heels and playing with her phone. She started leaning over, appeared to drop it, and unceremoniously face-planted right in the middle of the sidewalk.

Then they saw him. The man was a perfect match physically to the suspect. He was big, looked to be fairly tall, and was even wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt. The footage was not perfect and had no sound, but it showed them what they needed. The man rushed over to the girl and helped her up. He held her arm to steady her while they briefly talked to each other. After a few more moments the two figures on the screen walked off together down the sidewalk.

Jake pounded the desk with his fist, “That’s him! I know that’s gotta be him! Hot damn! You see that Stace? Pull every camera record from the entire street and tell the chief to call in every warm body in this place to start reviewing footage! I want to know where they went and if we get lucky we can get a look at this guy!”

Stacey picked up the phone to contact the chief and the pace of the investigation quickly became a frantic race for answers.

A few hours later, there was a light knock on the office door. “We got somethin’. Check it out, guys,” Detective James Andrews announced as he waved everyone over to one of the TV screens. It was one blurry still-frame of the suspect, as he passed in front of an ATM camera that was located on the other side of the street around thirty minutes before the abduction.

The photograph revealed that he was a clean-shaven white male with his hood pulled up, blocking most of his face. He had his hands in his pockets and was walking in the opposite direction from the club. The time stamp on the video was labeled, “0230 HRS.”The detectives printed out a blown-up version of the photograph. With the larger image and a bit of photographic manipulation to enhance it, they finally had a picture of the man they believed to be responsible for the deaths. He had a wide chin and possibly dark hair. The eyes could barely be made out, but they were large and staring forward. It wasn’t perfect, and could have been just about anyone, but it was the best lead they had so far to the suspect’s identity.

“Something about him seems familiar,” puzzled Senior Detective Shawn Garraty.

Stacey looked a bit perplexed for a moment, but shook her head in agreement.

Jake said, “It’s definitely him. Same hoodie as the other night and everything.”

Jake pointed his fingers in a “V” at Andrews and Garraty and asked, “You guys mind running through the mug shot database? Maybe we can figure out who this guy is, if he has a record. I know it is not a lot to go on, but we have to try.”

For hours the WPD homicide detectives exhaustively searched through every mug shot, driver’s license, and sex offender database in the county. They had barely begun to scratch the surface when Stacey walked in with another stack of DVDs containing camera surveillance of the downtown area from the night of the murder. Stacey beamed as she passed out a few of the DVDs to the team.

“I got up with owners a few more businesses and ran back downtown to gather up some more footage from their own private security systems,” Stacey said, and smacked a DVD with a bright green label into Jake’s hand, “Looks like there might be some more footage that can show up at least which direction they headed after they went off camera. This guy might be a student and living on campus. If they head off that way, then we’ll know.”

The team of detectives continued their search. It had been 18 hours since the murder of Emma Fisher. The atmosphere in the homicide department was tense and mostly quiet as the detectives pored through the mountain of video footage. Andrews and Garraty had already laid out over 2 dozen profiles each on possible suspects that had criminal records and looked vaguely like the man in the photograph, but were admittedly running out of steam.

Occasionally the phone would ring and a caller would offer up some information, but none of it matched with what they already knew. Going public with a high-profile case like a serial killing can often help bring in leads, but in this case, it was only slowing things down. Jake was frustrated with taking phone calls as he loaded up the next DVD.

The DVD contained footage taken by security cameras from the pizza place on the farthest corner of the block. On the DVD there was more footage that had been taken of the far end of the street, overlooking a crosswalk that led to the university and a small parking lot in the distance. Jake’s eyes widened as he watched for a moment, and then shouted out, “Come here, guys! I got some more video of them here.”

The team gathered around and watched as the man and girl on the screen walked across the street into the deserted parking lot and entered an older-model Buick. They sat inside for a moment, and could be seen for a few seconds before the interior light in the car went out. Then the car started as the brake lights illuminated. The driver turned on the head lights, backed up, and spun out of the gravel parking lot heading in the direction of the town commons. Unfortunately, the camera was too far away to get a number off the license plate.

“Looks like an old Buick, uhm…Regal? I think,” said Detective Garraty. “Maybe a 1992, or 1993. I’m not totally sure. It’s been a long time, but I used to have one...at least until my freaking ex-wife claimed ownership.”

“Let me guess. Another trophy she claimed from your divorce?” ribbed Detective Andrews.

“She got the house, the car, and the dog. All I got was a swift kick to the nuts.”

Jake was both elated and frustrated at the same time. “Damn it, he took her straight to the town commons park to murder her. I was really hoping to catch them walking onto campus first or something. I had a feeling this guy was a student or something, too.”

Stacey fingered her hair out of her face and said, “At least we know what he’s driving. Let’s see what we can turn up about that vehicle.”

Stacey kicked out her feet and wheeled the chair over to her desk and pulled up the DMV database on her computer. She plugged in information on the Buick for a general model and year county-wide search. She clicked to mouse one last time and pressed enter to complete the query.

“Let’s see, Jake. The DMV reports eighty-four matching vehicles for the entire county.”

She began to click through the owners and addresses beside each vehicle tag in the database. “No. No. Uh-uh. No. Hmm,” Stacey said and frowned.

“Whatcha got?” Jake asked.

Stacey sighed as she replied, “Well, most of the matches are older folks. Some of them have had these cars for years and never sold them. Most of the vehicles that are listed here are not registered to anyone younger than forty-five years old. Our guy looks to be in his twenties. The small handful of owners that match that age range don’t look anything like our suspect.”

Fingers pressed against his chin, Jake thought for a moment and said, “Let’s see. Narrow it down to Caucasians only. Good. Now narrow it to owners within five miles.”

The number at the top of the screen changed from eighty-four to seven. Jake bit his lip and continued to give instructions, “Ok, now let’s bring up driver’s license photographs of the registered owners of these remaining seven vehicles. I got a hunch our boy is still living at home with Mom and Dad and doesn’t live far from campus.”

Stacey exhaled a quiet, “Oohhh,” and started bringing up the driver’s license photos. All of them were older folks, some men, some women. The last photo in the list came up and Jake and Stacey sat in stunned silence. The photo was of a man, seventy years old, with a head full of wavy white hair. He had thick white eyebrows, eyeglasses, and a jaw line that matched the suspect perfectly. What stood out to them even more than that was the name listed under the photograph: Fredrich Gerhart Engel. He was well-known in Winchester as the Professor of Game Theory at the university and a three-time world champion chess master back in the seventies.

Stacey pushed herself back from the computer. “That guy’s a legend around here, Jake.” She put one hand on her chair and the other one on her now-cold cup of coffee. She had a look on her face like she had seen a ghost.

Jake thumbed his chin and pointed at the screen, saying, “I remember his kid now, I think. Been a long while, though. A neighbor caught him feeding antifreeze to their dogs or something like that. Turned out a lot of pet owners had animals that had to be put down because they had been poisoned. He confessed to the whole deal and spent some time in Juvie and later up in the Middleton Psych Ward.”

Jake leaned back against a desk nearby and crossed his arms. “Whole thing got disappeared, though. His old man got some big-shot attorney to toss out the criminal records since he was a juvenile. Was before my time as a detective. Hell, I was barely out of high school. Only reason I even remember it was because it was so bizarre and made the news.”

Jake looked over at Stacey, who was still sitting quietly, looking pale. “Stacey, what the heck is it? You look spooked. Did you know this guy?”

Stacey turned to Jake and pushed her chair away from the desk. She stood up, placed her hand on her forehead, and said, “Yeah. We lived next door to them most of the way through school. They were all a little strange and kept to themselves mostly, but the kid, Henry, always scared me.”