Chapter 26

When Gayle finally returned to the precinct, she was greeted with a sour look on Darrell’s face.

“What took you so long? I thought you weren’t going to be that long?”

“I ended up being a little longer than I thought and then I ran home to change. What has happened?” Gayle seemed a little upset.

“Nothing, really, but I thought we were partners. It just seems lately that I am doing all the work and you are along just for the view.” Darrell glared at Gayle then slammed a drawer and got up and stormed off to the task force room.

Gayle watched Darrell stomp off. She had not seen this side of Darrell and for the second time in a day she had been reprimanded. She decided that she was going to find out what Darrell’s bad mood was all about and she followed him to task force room.

When she walked in, all the agents were busy and Darrell was looking at one of the maps hanging up. Gayle walked up to Darrell and tapped him on the shoulder.

“What was all that about out there?”

“Sorry.” Darrell spoke quieter than before, “This case is getting under my skin. I’m so close to figuring things out, yet I still can’t get it. I am frustrated. Plus someone broke into my house last night and I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

Gayle stared at Darrell. She didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry Darrell.”

Darrell looked over his shoulder at Gayle.

“What can you say? There really is nothing to say. When something gets under your skin, it’s there until you can figure it out. So do you have anything to add to this?” Gayle followed Darrell’s finger toward the map. He had put color coded push pins on the map he was staring at.

“No, I don’t think so.” Gayle said quietly.

“The clinic is a big thing; all the victims were patients at that clinic. Our perp obviously knows these women personally, is casing the place or knows someone who works there. And why are they being dumped at Mr. Collins’ Industrial Park?” Darrell looked at Gayle with a somewhat dumbfounded look on his face.

“I don’t know Gayle, I just don’t know.” Just as Darrell was going to walk away from the map he had color coded, Agent Frie came over.

“We have a list of all the patients that have used the clinic in the past 5 years.”

“FIVE YEARS?!” Darrell snorted, “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, THAT WILL TAKE FOREVER TO GO THROUGH!”

Gayle put her hand on Darrell’s arm to try to calm him down.

“Why five years?” Gayle asked.

“We will start with the current year and work our way back. We will see how far we need to go back before we get what we are looking for.” Agent Frie responded.

“And what are we hoping to find?” Gayle asked.

Darrell was standing in between these two women and listened to them talk.

“We are hoping to find a common thread, someone who worked with all these women, someone who drove them to the clinic, someone who was in the room when their abortions were performed. There is a link smaller than just the clinic, and these lists that we have will hopefully find the link fast.” Agent Frie turned around and walked back to where she had originally been.

Darrell and Gayle watched the Agent walk away and then looked at each other and both shrugged.

“I’d prefer banging on doors. I feel like I am doing something, rather than looking at maps and pictures.”

Darrell walked out of the task force room and back to his chaotic desk. As he sat down, he looked at each pile of paper and then looked at the small empty spot and a thought suddenly occurred to him. Darrell stood up and hurriedly walked back to the task force room. As he barreled in, he looked over at Agent Frie and as he got to her, he asked

“Do we have a list of all employees and volunteers and their addresses?”

Agent Frie looked at Darrell and went over to a stack of bankers boxes and looked down the sides.

“Here are the employee files for the past five years and volunteer files.” Darrell grabbed the bankers box labeled Employee Files and went over to an empty desk. As he opened the box he saw the first file from 2007. He grabbed it, pushed the box forward and put the file folder on the table. Darrell breathed deeply and then opened it up. He scanned through the first page and decided that he needed to find a way to be able to cross reference all the years as well as doctors, nurses, and whomever else the clinic employed. Darrell went and got his full page pad of paper and a couple of pens. When he got back there was another banker’s box on the table marked ‘Volunteers’.

“You’ll just have to wait.” Darrell spoke to the Volunteers box.

As he went through the first file folder he didn’t notice anything familiar but there was a lot to go through yet. As Darrell went through each file folder he started to see a few familiar partnerships. Certain doctors worked with certain nurses only and certain anesthesiologists only worked with this particular doctor or that particular nurse.

As Darrell’s pages started to fill up, he didn’t notice that Gayle was doing the same thing with the Volunteer box.

When Darrell had finished his box he had five years of Doctors, Nurses and assorted other professionals listed. Darrell put the last file folder back in the box and then put the box back with the others in the room.

When Darrell returned to the table he noticed that Gayle was compiling similar lists to his.

“When did you sneak in here?” Darrell asked Gayle.

“Only about an hour ago.”

“So what have you come across?”

“Well, certain people only work with certain people and most of the volunteers only last about 6 months at this clinic. That is something I am interested in asking someone at the clinic about. Their turn over is very large.” Gayle looked at Darrell after she finished speaking.

“I found a similar pattern with employees. That the staff members seemed to only last about a year or at most a year and a half.” Darrell said to Gayle.

The tension between the two had ended a while ago, and neither of them mentioned it again.

While Darrell was busy looking over his lists, Gayle finished hers. Gayle returned the Volunteers box to the pile that she thought it had come from and when she stood next to Darrel she said,

“So now what, Boss?”

“Well,” Darrell said “I guess we just keep on compiling lists, and then create a master to see where the connections are.”

“I have a better idea! Why don’t we use those tech geeks to do all this work for us and we can get down to banging on doors. I personally would like to go walk the industrial park again, see what might be so attractive to the perp. What do you say Boss?” Gayle waited for Darrell to say something.

“Stop calling me Boss! And sure, we can do that. Who do we talk to in tech to get this done?” Darrell waited for Gayle to answer him but then he saw that she was already on the phone to the tech department.

When the two detectives arrived at the industrial park they each took a side and started to walk it. Darrell felt that there was nothing much to see, the perp did things so precisely and left only what was necessary. However this did get him out of the office, away from his desk and it gave Darrell time to clear his head and focus his thoughts. Gayle was on the other side of the lot and when Darrell looked at her she seemed like she was memorizing every rock and stick that was on the ground. Darrell went back to looking at the ground; something was digging at his brain, if only he could figure it out. It was making him miserable.

Gayle walked the opposite side of the lot with precise steps and she was sure to anyone watching it would look like she was doing a carefully choreographed dance. She was sure that this little look-about would let things get muddier for her partner and it would open up opportunities for her teacher. Ever since she was a little girl Gayle had had a fascination with the dead; the dead called to her. As she grew animals and insects took her anger and fury and they always ended up dead. When she decided to become a police officer, after her first year she chose to go into Organized Crimes. That was where Gayle flourished. She was a rising star. She always seemed to know where the next hit or next drug deal gone bad was going to be, the boys in the unit called her “ESPG.”

Little did they know, it wasn’t any extra sensory perception that she had, she lived in the seedy underworld in her time off and worked lots of clubs that were owned by the people she was hunting during the day. When Gayle met her teacher, she was down in the Morgue looking at one of the Mafioso that she had cornered and killed, when the teacher noticed that she had an intense fascination with the dead body. The teacher asked her if she wanted to watch the autopsy and with an almost gleeful ‘yes’ she watched and took mental notes about what was where and how to remove it and listened to her teacher explain how things came in and out of the body laying in front of them. After the autopsy, the teacher looked at Gayle; he knew the answer already but asked her the only question that mattered.

“Are you a religious woman, detective?”

She replied in a whisper “Yes. Mormon, but I stopped practicing years ago.”

The teacher asked Gayle to come out with him for coffee in the park, the same park where they met rarely. At the end of the conversation the teacher learned what Gayle wanted known about her. The lie was how Gayle’s family were fundamentalists and lived in a compound in Utah. At fourteen Gayle left the compound. Instead of marrying a fifty six year old man with six wives, she took her future into her own hands and decided that no matter what she was not going to ever be like her family. From that point forward, Gayle Adams was born. As she had no birth certificate she had to use the social services that were available in the new state she had hitchhiked to, and then, with the appropriate paperwork and in the hands of a foster family she worked hard, got excellent grades and became a police officer. Her singular focus astounded her foster family and her friends. This is what she wanted - Detective! There were a few road bumps but overall this was her calling. As she walked the lot she was proud of how easy that lie was and then she regained her focus and looked over at Darrell.

“You find anything?” She shouted.

Darrell looked up and shook his head.

Darrell thought to himself, ‘What did she hope to find? There must be a reason.’ Darrell pondered on this thought for quite some time. Just as he was about to give up the hunt, he saw it.

“Gayle, over here!” Darrell yelled. He was excited, he pulled a rubber glove from his jacket pocket, picked the object up and brought up to his eye level. Gayle arrived and looked at the object.

“This is what you called me over for?” Gayle growled at Darrell

“This could have been dropped at anytime and you think you have a gold mine? It’s a glove!”

“Yep, it is! It’s a man’s leather glove. And I doubt just anyone dropped it.” Darrell spoke at Gayle as if he was teaching her a valuable lesson.

Darrell put the glove in a big plastic zip lock bag and put some tape on it.

“You see Gayle; this could be the lead we are looking for.”

“Or it could be a red herring!” Gayle retorted back.

“Gayle?” Darrell asked “How long since you got a good nights sleep?”

“I’m not sure, probably two or three days. Why?”

“I’m not sure about you, but I think after WE drop this off at the lab, WE should go home and get some sleep.” Darrell emphasized the WE so Gayle would understand that it wasn’t just her, it was both of them.

Gayle nodded and thought that after the day she had perhaps a nice sleep would do her well.