‘Okay, enough with the vagueness. How many are we talking about?’ Vicki demanded.
‘Well,’ Leighton sighed. ‘How many seats are there on a coach?’
‘I’m not sure - twenty-eight plus the driver?’
‘Then, we’re possibly looking at twenty-seven killers on a mobile crime scene.’
Vicki’s face paled, and she felt much as she had done on the day her parents had shared their secret divorce.
‘How is that even possible? I mean, could there even be that many in the entire country?’
Leighton nodded slowly. ‘It varies year to year, but the FBI estimate at any given time there are roughly fifty serial killers active in North America.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Back in 2009, a bunch of us from homicide were given a presentation by two agents at Oceanside Precinct. They revealed something called the Highway Serial Killer initiative.’
‘What was that?’
‘Something dreamt up by the Bureau. It involves a small office in Washington, where a bunch of analysts gather info on victims and suspects, hoping to locate some of those fifty. They hold details on hundreds of murder victims.’
‘And you didn’t connect this to Laurie’s disappearance?’ Vicki’s voice raised to a crescendo.
‘No, most of the victims are either prostitutes or addicts. People with what the feds call a “high risk lifestyle.” I don’t think your friend falls into that category. She had a steady job, her own home, and no history of substance abuse.’
‘And yet, she became a victim. So, what’s different now?’
‘I believe the killers aren’t just interested in “high risk lifestyle” victims any more. Many serial killers are thought to be possibly truck drivers, because so many victims are found near major routes.’
‘My God, why don’t the public know about this?’
‘At the time, it was never publicised outside of official circles. But, now, the information is out there for anyone who’s interested, the thing is, no-one really wants to know. Believing in monsters makes it kind of hard to sleep at night. I should know. You start to listen to every noise, wondering if that creak outside the bedroom door was the cat, or some guy with a long blade and roll of tape.’
‘We have to stop them,’ Vicki said, with a sense of dawning horror. ‘Or at least try.’
28
It had taken less than three hours for Leighton’s small dining room to be transformed into a crude investigation headquarters. A creased old California road map, weighed down in each corner by a bottle of Gold Peak Iced Tea, had replaced the table cloth. Leighton had used silver dollars to mark Barstow and Oceanside.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘our next step is?’
‘We should look at a missing persons’ website.’
‘I don’t have a computer,’ Leighton said in an apologetic voice. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I have my iPad on the back seat of my car.’
Vicki vanished out of the door, letting a breath of warm night air sweep through the apartment.
Vicki returned a moment later with a glowing tablet gripped securely in her hand. She then perched on the edge of the sofa, and began tapping her fingers purposely on the small screen.
‘Type in NAMus,’ Leighton suggested. ‘There are others, but that one should provide the most detail.’
Vicki looked up at him accusatively. ‘I thought you were technophobic?’
‘Yeah, but I’m not an idiot. We had to use basic websites to do our job.’ He wandered into the kitchen.
‘Okay.’ Vicki glanced back at the screen. ‘I have the site opened here. How should we search them?’
‘Geographically, then by date, descending from the day Laurie vanished,’ Leighton said, as he returned with a glass jar of silver coins taken from a cupboard in the kitchen.
‘I thought we could use coins to mark each case.’
‘Sure,’ Vicki said, with a small shrug.
As Leighton unscrewed the lid of the jar, Vicki tapped on the device again, then her eyes widened. ‘God, I never realised there were so many.’
‘Welcome to America,’ Leighton said in wry tone.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Get to the map.’
‘What have you got?’
‘Female, aged twenty-four?’
‘Last known location?’
‘Needles.’
Leighton placed a silver coin on the map, ‘Okay, next?’
‘Male, thirty-one, ’
‘Location?’
‘Laughlin.’
As Leighton placed the third coin on the map, the doorbell rang, and he instinctively turned his head in alarm. No-one ever came calling on him after business hours. He glanced at his jacket draped over one of the dining chairs. His holster was concealed beneath it like a sleeping pet.
‘It’s okay. I’ll get it.’ Vicki grinned.
‘What?’ Leighton made to stand up, but she hurried by him, patting him reassuringly on the way.
There was a murmur from the hallway, then Vicki returned carrying two flat cardboard pizza boxes.
‘What’s this?’
‘I reckoned it was my turn to buy you dinner,’
‘Nice thinking. When did you phone?’
‘I didn’t. I ordered them on my pad, old timer. Now, we have one Margherita and one Veg Deluxe, You happy to share?’
‘Definitely. I suppose advancing technology has some benefits. Like sending Frankenstein to the drive-thru?’ Leighton laughed at his own silliness, and fetched some plates from the galley kitchen. Then, because the table was taken, they sat on the floor of the dining room, and shared the warm food.
‘So,’ Leighton said, as he pulled a triangle of pizza out of the box, ‘we have three missing persons, within a thirty mile radius, over, what, a four week period.’
Vicki nodded. ‘Is that unusual, I mean, from a cop perspective?’
‘Well, from a cop perspective,’ Leighton narrowed his eyes to convey mock meanness, ‘I think it’s pretty unusual. Unless that thirty-mile radius happens to cover somewhere with a high population density, like New York.’
‘If it’s significant, what’s our next move? Should we go report it now?’
Leighton thought of his ex-boss and how receptive he would be with him showing up at the precinct with the woman he was accused of harassing.
‘No, I doubt they’d care. Firstly we need to find out if any of these other missing persons took a trip on a silver bus.’
‘But the site’s is dead. How do we find out?’
‘Ah, that will require good old fashioned police methods.’
Vicki frowned. ‘You mean, we need to eat doughnuts and ignore abductions?’
‘I mean, we could go to the last place they were seen, and speak to friends and family.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah - people respond better to questioning from a male-female team.’
‘Ah, so I’m a prop?’ Vicki said, as she separated a couple of slices fused together by melted mozzarella.
‘An entertaining prop, but I’ll cover your lunch, only this time, we take the train.’
‘Like I did on the last trip?’ Vicki couldn’t help reminding him, but smiled when she saw Leighton’s expression shift to guilt.
‘Hey,’ he said, moving to get up, ‘you want a beer to wash down that pizza?’
‘Sure, that it be great,’ Vicki said, but then realised he had only eaten one slice of pizza to her five. ‘It’s okay, Leighton – I’ll get it. You stay there, and catch up.’
Vicki wandered through to the neat kitchen, and was intimidated by the range of copper pans and utensils neatly suspended around the place. She opened the refrigerator, and pulled out two bottles of Coors.
‘Where’s your bottle opener?’ she called.
‘In the drawer, next to the icebox,’ Leighton replied, sounding like he was chewing.
Glancing down, Vicki found there were drawers on either side of the refrigerator. Rather than disturb Leighton’s eating again, she decided to make an educated guess. Opening the drawer on the right side of the icebox, she immediately regretted it. A deep pile of photographs lay in front of her. They provided multi-coloured snapshots of a lost life - the four year old girl standing on a faded lawn next to her kneeling father, he in uniform, and she wearing his hat; her first day of school, waving to the camera from the window of the yellow school bus; a blurry Christmas morning, with a girl standing in The Lion King pyjamas and clasping a stuffed lioness; a smiling ten year old holding a tin cup, with red ribbons attached to it. One of the most crumpled photographs was of a small girl gently cupping her hands to hold a small falcon. Her eyes were wide with wonder and concern. Beside the pile of photographs were two bottles of Zolpidem sleeping pills. One of them looked half empty. Closing the drawer, Vicki felt like an intruder.