Consumed Read online

  Beth nodded. “I want to see what we can get on that vehicle. I’m going to give Ball a ring back and see what we can come up with on registered Datsuns in the area.”

  “Can we search by that?” I asked. “I know, as far as DMV records, if you don’t have a plate number or name, you’re pretty much screwed as far as them searching their database.”

  “The twins will get us something,” Beth said. “They’ve got me things in the past that I figured they’d never be able to find.” She pulled out her cell phone to make the call.

  “Fair enough.”

  I dialed the sheriff’s station. The receptionist answered right away with the same greeting I’d heard in my last few calls, asking me if I had an emergency.

  “No, ma’am. This is Agent Hank Rawlings. I’m looking to speak with Chief Deputy Whissell.”

  “Um, I’m not sure if he’s in. Hold on, I’ll try transferring you back to his office. If you get his voice mail, hit zero, and it will bring you back to me. I’ll try putting you through to his mobile phone then.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I held, received Whissell’s voice mail at his desk within a few rings, left a message, and pressed zero to be reconnected with the receptionist.

  “No answer at the chief deputy’s desk,” I said.

  “Okay, yeah, I haven’t seen him all morning, but he’s usually pretty scarce around here on Sundays. Let me transfer you to his mobile.”

  “Thank you.”

  She put me through. The phone rang in my ear nine or ten times before I reached the voice mail on his cell. I left another message that I was looking to speak with him and hung up.

  Tom walked to my side. “What do you need my guys on?”

  I thought for a moment. “Forensics is going to be busy with these two places for a bit before we can go in and have a look around. Let’s see what we can do about getting a news crew.”

  “You want this on the news?” Tom asked.

  “Not necessarily what is going on here. I want them for a different reason, getting the word out that Kirkwood is wanted and finding anyone who knows anything about Kirkwood to come forward. We need to know something about this guy. Right now, we don’t even know for certain what he looks like.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what we can do. Any station that you’re looking for in particular?”

  “Whoever can get here and get it on the airwaves the soonest,” I said.

  “Got it,” Tom said. He turned and walked toward his men.

  Beth left the car and walked back toward me. “Ball says he’ll get the twins going on the pickup truck.”

  “Anything on Kirkwood?” I asked.

  “Not yet. The guy is really off the grid, apparently. What did Whissell say?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I never got him on the phone. The receptionist said she hadn’t seen him. I got put through to his desk and cell phone. No answer at either.”

  “Maybe he’s in that meeting with his superior.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  One of the forensics guys that had gone into the smaller of the two houses stepped from the back door and waved us over.

  Beth and I walked toward him—he wore a white clean suit with a hood and a mask. The man pulled the mask from over his nose and mouth—he was the guy who’d said his name was Eddie.

  “We’re going to need that biohazard team in here,” he said. “This place is bad. We found more human remains in the refrigerator.”

  My stomach turned. I felt another gag coming from the smell wafting from the doorway of the home. “Let me get one of the local agents and find out who we need to call.”

  “Thanks,” he said and rounded the corner back into the home.

  Beth and I found Tom, and we got in touch with the people at the Medical Science building in Nashville—they recommended a private company they work with for the removal of the remains and cleanup of the bodily fluids. Tom made the call to them and told us they’d be out within a few hours.

  Beth nodded toward Carmen, the forensics woman, approaching from the old house. Carmen’s mask hung from around her neck on its straps, and the hood that covered her hair had been dropped. She came up to us.

  “Any idea on who to call around here for mass remains removal?” she asked.

  “Mass?” Beth asked.

  “The padlocked basement. We broke through and went down. First count was over twenty.”

  “Bodies?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Some look like they’ve been there for a while. Years. There may be more that we didn’t see.”

  The status of our investigation wasn’t exactly improving. I ran my hand through my hair and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. “Let me see who I can call.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I glanced at my watch. It was pushing two o’clock in the afternoon. Tom had gotten hold of a Nashville news station that broadcasted throughout the Clarksville area—the news crew was to arrive at the sheriff’s checkpoint at any moment. I pulled out my phone and dialed Ball—that would be the fifth or sixth call we’d had in the last few hours. He answered within a couple of rings.

  “Ball,” he said.

  “It’s Hank again.”

  “Any good news?”

  “I’d be yanking your chain if I said there was. I’m watching a crew of people load body after body into vans like an assembly line.”

  “How many total?” he asked.

  “I think they said twenty-four.”

  “Geez,” he said. “Were there more in the basement of the second house?”

  “Not a one. The only thing odd was an empty hole dug in the dirt floor.”

  “Maybe he was getting ready to bury someone,” Ball said.

  “Maybe.”

  “The company I gave you the name of was right?”

  “Yeah, Safe Disposal. I guess they work with the Medical Science outfit in Nashville. All the bodies are going back there for analysis,” I said.

  “You know that entire place is probably going to have to be excavated. That’s going to get kicked over to the Memphis branch, though—everything will as soon as you and Beth leave.”

  “That’s kind of what I figured,” I said. “Okay, real quick, the reason for the call—did we get anything new on Kirkwood? I have this news team that’s going to be here any minute.”

  “We’re not getting anywhere on him. We even started looking into the utilities on the address. Can’t get anywhere there, either.”

  “Yeah, I saw a generator on the side of the house while I was puking earlier. I’m guessing that’s how he’s getting power to the home.”

  “I’m not going to ask. That chief deputy never got back to you?”

  “No, but I’m about to call him again. Nothing on the pickup truck, either?” I asked.

  “Nothing so far, Hank. It might not be registered, judging by how this guy is.”

  I let out a breath. “All right. I just wanted to check one last time before I go on the air here in a second. I need to get down to the street, where none of this is visible, to do the interview.”

  “What’s the plan there, again?” Ball asked.

  “I just need anyone who knows the guy to come forward. As soon as we have a description that’s accurate, we can distribute it. It would damn well be nice if someone had a recent photo.”

  “Well, like I said earlier, I’ll make sure you know the second we get anything. The forensics team is still working?” Ball asked.

  “Yeah, they said they got a bunch of prints. Once they are done, they’ll head back to Memphis to begin processing everything. They said I should expect a phone call in the morning.”

  “Sure,” Ball said.

  “Okay. Let me go and stand in front of a camera and ask for help. I’m sure we’ll talk in a bit.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I clicked off from Ball and motioned Beth and Tom over.

  “News team?” I asked.

  Tom glanced at his watch. “Sh
ould be any minute. They said two o’clock.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Beth, I’m guessing you want to be the one in front of the camera this time?”

  She furrowed her eyebrows. “Um, no. Zero chance.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I said. “Tom, where were we meeting this news team?”

  “The sheriff’s checkpoint to the south. I figured that is probably about as close as we’d want any media when this is going on.” He nodded toward the men loading bagged remains into the vans.

  “The checkpoint should be perfect. Can you give me a lift down there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, no problem,” he said.

  I hopped in the passenger side of his car, and he started it up and pulled out from the driveway of the property. He made a right onto the road out front and headed down to the checkpoint. The short, half-mile ride was silent aside from Tom saying that he’d never laid eyes on a scene that bad in his life and me grunting in agreement. Tom slowed at the two sheriff’s cruisers blocking the roadway. He and I stepped out and walked toward the deputies, both in uniform. I didn’t see a news van or any other vehicles or any people, for that matter, anywhere.

  “Been quiet?” I asked.

  The deputy on the left, whose nameplate read Nicker, nodded his head, which wore a campaign hat with a badge and gold tassels tied above the brim. “We had a car come through about ten minutes ago. Homeowner that lived up the road here a bit.” He pointed the way we’d come. “We checked out her DL and sent her home.”

  “Nobody turning around when they saw the squad cars?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing,” the other deputy said. His nameplate read Stark. “You guys just doing a checkup here, or…?”

  “We have a news van coming for a quick interview,” Tom said.

  “Oh, okay. We’re off at three. Are you guys going to need us to swap out with another shift?”

  “Yup,” I said. “We need this checkpoint here through the night.”

  Tom and I waited another five minutes for the news crew to arrive. I spent the time trying once again to get a hold of Whissell—I got the voice mails on his desk and mobile phone again. I clicked off and wasted another twenty minutes watching the news crew set up before delivering my thirty-second statement. I kept it short and sweet—we were looking for a man named Richard Kirkwood in connection with a number of homicides. Any information anyone watching could provide us on this man, no matter how small, would help facilitate his capture. That was it, aside from the FBI’s toll-free tip number. We thanked the news crew for coming out, told them they would be the first to hear if we had anything new or a description they could circulate, and headed back to Tom’s car.

  The next few hours on the scene went by at a turtle’s pace. I’d called Whissell another three or four times without getting him on the phone. My final call went to the receptionist—I asked her if she could get anyone at the station who’d ever seen Kirkwood to get in contact with me. Beth and I watched the men from Safe Disposal finish loading the remains into their pair of vans and leave the property. All the severed limbs, as well as the twenty-four bodies, were going back to the Medical Science building in Nashville for processing. I planned to check in there the following day to see if they’d come up with anything—getting identifications on them was another story altogether.

  After the vans left, we watched the forensics team collect evidence for hours, and when they finally finished at roughly five o’clock, we were allowed into the homes to begin looking for anything resembling some kind of a clue as to where Kirkwood could be. The other agents from Tom’s resident agency, as well as the forensics team, gave us a hand searching—after another two hours of digging through junk with our gloved hands, we’d found nothing. The guy had no receipts of anything, no bills, no mail, and not even a home phone we could hit redial on, to get the last number. We even went through his refrigerator, which was mostly empty after the human remains were removed, to see if we could find out where he shopped—again, nothing. I never did ask anyone what exactly was in the crockpot, which had since been turned off—I didn’t really care to know.

  The helicopter returned to pick up the forensics team right before Beth and I left, a few minutes after seven o’clock. The team took everything they’d gathered to begin processing immediately. They said we should receive a phone call in the morning with anything they’d found that could help.

  Beth and I got back to our hotel around eight thirty. We left strict instructions with the second shift of deputies manning the checkpoint, to notify Agent Clifford as well as us if anything out of the ordinary happened. Beth had gone to her room and said she’d be over after a bit. I changed out of my suit, from which I kept catching whiffs of death, and put on a T-shirt and jeans. I sat on the edge of the bed in my hotel room and stared at the television. The news channel I’d done the brief interview with must have contacted the other stations because I caught my face on two different channels. The last time I’d spoken with Ball, he said anything of any substance that came through the FBI’s tip line would be forwarded to Beth and me immediately. I walked to the room’s shelf, which doubled as a desk, sat in the lime-green office chair, and picked up my phone. I needed another investigative mind, in addition to Beth, to bounce a few things off of, so I dialed my old partner, currently the Tampa homicide captain, Carl Kane. He answered right away.

  “So you’re coming next weekend, now?” he asked. “Callie said Karen picked up your plane tickets.”

  “Hopefully. I’m still out here on this investigation but should be back before then.” I spun the chair and kicked my feet up on the edge of the bed.

  “How’s that going?” he asked.

  “Looks like it will be national news shortly.”

  “Get him?”

  “No. That’s the reason for the call. We have a suspect, and judging by the twenty-some bodies we found on his property, it looks like he’s definitely our guy.”

  “Twenty-some bodies?”

  “Yeah, just your typical guy who picks up prostitutes, hacks them up, and eats them. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Kane was quiet for a moment. “Damn, Hank. Where are you at with finding him?” he asked.

  “Well, that’s the problem. He’s a ghost. No phone, no car, no driver’s license, no bank records, no credit cards—we don’t even have a description, just a name and the property he resided at. So, you tell me, what am I missing that will help me find the guy?”

  “Was there power?” Kane asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Did the place have power when you were inside?”

  “Yeah. My guys back in Manassas looked into utilities on the address. We got nothing. I spotted a generator on the side of the house. Guess he was getting power that way.”

  “Hmm,” Kane said. “Friends and family, then. No pictures in the house?”

  “Not a single photo anywhere. Both parents dead. He had a brother that up and disappeared quite a while back.”

  “Well, maybe that’s who is helping him.”

  “So you think he might have an accomplice?”

  “Hell, no way of knowing for sure, but I take it you remember the Carmen Simms and Angel Redding case.”

  “Don’t remind me. I thought that may have been the worse scene I ever saw up until this morning. What I saw today made that house look like a fun park with kiddie slides.”

  Kane grumbled. “I don’t want the details,” he said. “I don’t need any more of that shit bouncing around in my head. Anyway, what I’m saying is when someone has nothing to tie them to society, just like Carmen, it probably means that there is someone helping them—in her case, it was her daughter. I’d try to find that disappeared brother. Either that, or do whatever the hell you can to find out who this guy was in contact with. You try redial on his house phone?”

  A tap came at the door of my hotel room. I walked over, glanced out the peephole, and pulled the door open. Beth stood in the hall, wearing a pair of jeans and a pink-s
triped long-sleeved shirt. Her hair was pulled back, and her dark-rimmed glasses had made a reappearance though she didn’t look as if she was calling it a night. Beth saw I was on the phone and mouthed the words that she would come back.

  I waved her inside and covered the mouthpiece of my phone. “Just a second,” I said. Then I brought the phone back to my mouth. “No house phone, Kane.”

  “Damn, that’s usually a good one. Well, like I said, find who is helping him, and you’ll find him.”

  Beth plopped down in the chair next to the window.

  I let out a breath. “Yeah, we’ll see. I guess I have a couple of things working.” I heard a high-pitched wail come from his end of the phone.

  “What the hell?” Kane said.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “I think it’s the boy screaming. Can’t say I’ve heard that noise come out of him before. One second.” The sounds of him rummaging around shuffled through the phone, then he came back on. “Nope, he’s fine. I think he was just pissed that he lost his binky. All good.”

  I smirked. “I’ll let you get back to parenting. Let me give you a buzz tomorrow.”

  “Sure, Hank. Have a good night,” Kane said.

  I clicked off and walked over to Beth. I spun the lime office chair from the desk and took a seat.

  “Old partner?” she asked.

  “Yeah, he seems to think that someone is helping Kirkwood. If we find his help, we find him.”

  “I’d argue with that if I could,” Beth said.

  I dug one palm into an eye. “Whissell is really starting to piss me off.”

  “He never called back?”

  “No. And the last time I called the station, I told the woman that answered that I wanted anyone who has ever seen or heard anything about Kirkwood to call. Needless to say, my phone hasn’t rung yet.”

  “Want me to try Whissell? Different number. Maybe he’s avoiding you.”

  “Still a Virginia number. I doubt he’s that dumb.”