Chapter 22

Darrell and Schrödinger tossed and turned on the pull out couch all night long. Finally at 5 am Darrell got up, went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. He trudged into the washroom then later he made up the pull-out couch and placed the blankets on top on the cushions. Schrödinger growled at every step of the process. When Darrell was finished, Schroeder laid on top of the folded covers as if to show his contempt for the entire night of discomfort. When Mrs. Conrad awoke at 6:00 am, Darrell had breakfast started and coffee waiting for her. Darrell was no cook so he made due with what he had. Mrs. Conrad looked rather pleased with the meal placed in front of her.

“The last time a man made me breakfast was just before dear Mr. Conrad passed. This is such a treat.” The older woman sat down and let Darrell serve her. The two of them ate in silence and when they were done, Mrs. Conrad, placed her hand on top of Darrell’s hand and squeezed it...

“Deary, you worry too much and don’t have enough fun. You know I feel as if you are my own son and I worry about you. Something has got you in its grips my dear boy and I don’t like it one bit. You need to finish this assignment and take a nice long vacation. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am. I promise when this case is over you and I will take a cruise to the Caribbean. What do you say to that?” Darrell joked a little with the woman who had become a surrogate mother to him.

Mrs. Conrad blushed and smiled, “Whatever you say my dear; now go catch those bad guys and make me prouder than what I already am.”

“Yes ma’am!” is all Darrell could say. With that he went and had a fast shower, dressed, then gave Mrs. Conrad a quick kiss on the cheek and headed out to the office.

When he arrived he noticed that Gayle wasn’t there. He thought for a moment and then remembered that she had mentioned that she wouldn’t be in early today. He hung up his jacket and sat down and looked at the papers on his desk. Darrell looked at his empty coffee mug and decided to go and fill it up before digging in to the paperwork that was spread all over his desk. After taking a couple of sips of coffee Darrell sorted the papers into piles on his desk and before long he had a small spot on his desk big enough for a pen and a small notepad of paper. Darrell then decided to go to the IPK task force room and check on the rest of the case. The absolute silence paired with the empty room made for a chilling moment. He let go of the door knob. The door closed and the click of the lock chilled Darrell to the bone. All he could see were the pictures of the girls faces, both when they were alive and after they had been killed. They seemed to be staring back at him. In the pictures of the girls when they were alive they were smiling, looking at him with happiness in their eyes. Darrell thought to himself, “Why don’t parents and loved ones give the police pictures of the missing with scowls or pictures of them in more natural poses than the typical ‘school’ photo?” Of course Darrell knew the answer; the parents or loved ones wanted to remember their missing loved ones in happier times. They didn’t want to think of them missing, in pain or suffering.

Darrell looked over the picture boards that were covered with details. It seemed as though the FBI had come up with a few more ideas than he and Gayle had. At this point the more the merrier. Perhaps with more ideas floating around the more likely they would be able to catch this maniac killer. As Darrell followed the details around the room he noticed one thing they all had in common; they had all come from the inner city.

The door opened and Darrell jumped. He had been deep within his thoughts. Darrell spun around and saw that it was one of the young FBI agents.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” the FBI agent said to Darrell

“That’s OK; this case has made me pretty jumpy. Have you figured out anything that we don’t know yet?”

“I’m not sure; I’m a researcher, so I’m not exactly up-to-date on this case.”

“Oh. OK, thanks.”

Darrell walked toward the door then turned and nodded to the agent and left the room. When he got back to his desk, Darrell looked at the one piece of paper he knew he wanted to see. He wanted to make sure that all the girls were from within the inner city limits. If they were Darrell knew that he had a zone that they could concentrate on. The dump site was just outside the inner city area. No one knew why it was chosen, other than it wasn’t close to any buildings on the property.

Darrell’s’ phone rang and when he picked it up he knew it was going to be a bad day. It was the captain wanting to meet with both himself and Gayle. The captain wanted them to show up in his office not this instant but 10 minutes ago.

Darrell trudged to the captain’s office and when he got there, he knocked on the door then entered. The captain looked at Darrell and spoke very quietly. “Where is your partner, Detective Darker?”

“Not sure sir.” Darrell spoke.

“Well I have a complaint about someone’s skills following people.” Darrell, looking stunned asked what the Captain was speaking about.

“Well Darrell, it’s like this. I got a phone call from Randy Collins and it seems that Detective Adams was following him last night. He mentioned a few things like harassment, civil liberties and threatened a law suit. So I’m going to make this crystal clear. You tell your partner that unless she wants to be busted down to a Traffic Cop she better stop harassing suspects. This isn’t organized crime and I do not tolerate that kind of bullshit!”

Darrell shook his head and agreed to everything the Captain had said. He promised to have a word with Gayle. On his way back to his desk he saw Gayle appear out of thin air. He bolted over to her, grabbed her by the arm and took her back into the elevator where she came from. After the doors closed he stopped the elevator.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Darrell said to Gayle.

“What are you talking about Darrell?”

“I’m talking about you following Randy Collins last night. I just got my ass reamed out over the whole situation. The Captain isn’t happy and basically told me that if you do that again he’s going to bust us both down to traffic cops!”

Gayle looked at Darrell and didn’t know whether he was serious or not. She figured he was by the look on his face, but nonetheless stared at him a little longer waiting for his expression to change. It didn’t, so Gayle took Darrell seriously and then started to explain why she had followed Randy Collins. Darrell shook his head and restarted the elevator. When it opened he walked over to his messy desk and sat down. Gayle followed him, looked at Darrell’s desk and then her own. His was a disaster, hers was organized and clean. Gayle sat down and watched Darrell for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Gayle asked.

“I’m just looking to see where all the victims came from. I’m hoping to see if there is a pattern somewhere. Or a common thread.” Darrell kept staring at the map while he talked to Gayle.

“Don’t the FBI guys already have that all mapped out in the Task Force room? Let’s go over there and look, it will be easier.” Gayle got up and grabbed Darrell. Darrell didn’t notice earlier when he was in the room, but that didn’t surprise him; he was looking at the pictures not at the location maps.

When they walked in the room, the few FBI agents that were there were pouring over different aspects of all the girls’ lives. Darrell looked around and saw what Gayle described as the locater map and looked at it. There were circles and triangles and little orange flags all over the map of the city. Darrell looked perplexed; he glanced around the room, and then called over one of the agents that were close by.

“Can you tell me what all this means?” Darrell asked as he pointed to the map.

One of the younger Agents came over and nodded to Darrell and Gayle.

“Sure, everyone has a natural roaming ability. This is hard wired into each of us. These blue circles are things and places we walk to, the red circles are places we use transportation to get to; cars, buses or train, then the green circles indicate all the places that the girls visited that are outside their natural circles. Does that make sense?”

Darrell looked at the map in a totally different way. He saw what the agents saw. “Sure, just one more question.”

“Sure thing, if I can answer it.” The agent responded.

“Is there anyplace that every one of the girls visited?”

“Not any specific place. Just this area that is overlapped by all the circles.” The agent answered. He shook his head and then went back to what he was doing before Darrell distracted him.

Gayle continued to stare at the map and kept thinking of what made these girls appropriate targets. They came from different backgrounds, and had different ethnic backgrounds. But she and the Whisperer were getting satisfaction by killing them. Gayle was deep in thought when Darrell pointed to something on the map.

“What is this place?” Darrell asked.

“Huh? I….I don’t really know.” Gayle stammered.

They both looked on the map key and saw that it was a hospital. This place seemed to be in the center of a few of the circles. Before Darrell could even ask the question an agent came by and gave him a sheet of paper.

Darrell read it and then gave it to Gayle to read.

“It’s a clinic now, but only two of the girls have been treated there.” Gayle looked at Darrell after she read the printout out loud.

“What kind of clinic?” Darrell asked. No one answered him; it seemed he wasn’t heard.

Again Darrell asked “What kind of clinic? Anyone?” Darrell had an idea and he needed to know what kind of clinic that those two girls attended and why.

“God damn it people! I am asking a simple question, what kind of clinic?” Darrell was impatient at the best of times but when he was asking a simple question and was ignored he got upset even quicker.

Gayle looked at Darrell then looked around the room. There was only one person other than herself, who was paying attention to Darrell.

“Dammit! I’ll do it myself!” and with that remark Darrell walked out of the Task Force room and went to his desk. Gayle followed at a stunted pace. He looked at the map and then found the name of the hospital so he could search it on the internet. He despised the computer but he needed to find a name and an address so he could check out this place.

Once he got onto the search engine he wanted, he typed in the name of the hospital. After a blip or two the computer showed the link.

St. Marks Catholic Hospital and Recovery Clinic is now called St. Michael’s Family Planning Center.

Darrell wrote down the phone number and then the address.

In a gruff voice he spoke at Gayle “You coming?” Darrell was actually disinterested in the answer she would or would not give. Darrell walked out and Gayle quickly followed him.

After Darrell had been driving for a few minutes he began to calm down. Gayle felt it was safe to speak so she asked a simple question, “Do you think we have something to work with?”

Darrell looked briefly at Gayle and said as earnestly as he could ,

“Something is eating at me, and I think this clinic has everything to do with our case. I don’t know for sure but I have a hunch, and my hunches are rarely wrong.”

Gayle looked at Darrell for a few minutes and then swallowed hard. She knew that soon he would have answers, whether she was ready for them or not.

Darrell and Gayle pulled into the parking lot of the Family Planning Clinic and just as Darrell had imagined, there were protesters holding up signs of aborted fetuses and other disturbing images. No one in their right mind would ever want to look at them, let alone walk by them.

The two detectives got out of the car and walked past the protesters into the clinic.

“You sure know where to take a girl to make her feel special Darker.” Gayle chided. Darrell looked at her and gave her half a smile “Ya so I’ve been told!”