Page 24

She and Sarah Webb had spent the morning buried in the digital footprints of the White Whale Club, and Sarah – to her credit – had given Ella everything she needed to unearth the names and addresses of every member. When she’d arrived at just after eight, she had three USB sticks of solid gold.

Emails, text messages, cell numbers, profile photos pulled from their encrypted app.

Sarah sat across from her with her hair pulled back in a loose bun.

The woman had abandoned her usual professional appearance; no lipstick, casual clothes, and rings beneath her eyes from what must have been an all-night research session.

Ella couldn’t help but admire the dedication.

Sarah might have irritated Ripley, but she’d proved herself indispensable this morning.

They’d already been through everything Sarah had brought, and they’d unearthed ten real names.

Along with Sarah, that made eleven numbers of this club, which Sarah had confirmed was correct.

Ella had given the results to Ripley, who’d taken them to the Pinellas Office’s IT team to see if they could verify these identities with their technical magic.

There were still a few members of the group that Sarah had yet to meet.

Ella looked over at her whiteboard, where she’d condensed everything down into manageable chunks. She’d organized by name, age, gender, their white whale of choice and whether they were still among the living or not.

FRANK SULLIVAN (DECEASED), 73, MALE, JENNIFER MARLOWE.

DIANA JEWELL (DECEASED), 54, FEMALE, FERRYMAN.

SARAH WEBB, 45, FEMALE, BEACHSIDE BURIALS.

AUGUSTUS ‘GUS’ PETERSON, 50, MALE, TAMPA BAY RIPPER.

MICHAEL brOOKS, ??, MALE, BLACK CANDLE MURDERS.

ELLIOTT VANCE, 38, MALE, NIGHTSHADE POISONINGS.

HAROLD DEMPSEY, 63, MALE, LAKE NESBO MASSACRE.

JEREMY QUINN, 55, MALE, JACK OF HEARTS MURDERS.

TRACY BELLWEATHER, 40, FEMALE, THE DEATH SCULPTOR.

GARETH DAVIES, 42, MALE, APARTMENT 16 KILLINGS.

CLARA FINCH, 29, FEMALE, THE HEART COLLECTOR.

She took her glasses off and rubbed the grit from her eyes. Too much screen-gazing with a side of coffee was a recipe for a headache. ‘Jesus, I need new glasses,’ she said, fully aware she’d said it every week for three years.

‘What do you think?’ Sarah asked. ‘Anything stick out to you?’

‘Not really. Some of these cases I’ve never even heard of, and I thought I’d heard them all.’

‘Yeah. These are the obscurest of the obscure. Most of our members are either current or ex-law enforcement, so some of the details never left the precinct’s drawers. You know how it is.’

‘Sure do. Who’s the Jack of Hearts?’

‘Killed a woman by sawing her in half.’

‘Christ.’

‘Yeah. My theory is that it was a failed illusionist who took out his frustrations on a woman that resembled a magician’s assistant.’

Ella made a note to look further into it. She had to admit that the case had a hook. ‘Was there any evidence for that?’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘But when the details are sparse, sometimes you have to fill in the details yourself.’

Ella glanced to make sure Ripley wasn’t eavesdropping. If she’d have heard that, Sarah might have a few less teeth right now. ‘You ever do that with your books? Make stuff up?’

‘No. I maintain journalistic integrity when it matters, plus my publisher is pretty strict.’

‘Who’s your publisher? One of the big five?’

‘It’s the big four now, but no. It’s an independent pub called Scarecrow Press. My boyfriend runs it. My books are the only thing keeping his business afloat.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Indie publishers are struggling.’

‘Why did you go with them and not one of the big ones?’

Sarah cocked a brow, like Ella had just asked her to explain quantum physics. ‘The big pubs get thousands of submissions a day, and true crime books aren’t all that anymore. Especially ones that don’t have endings.’

Ella pondered that for a second. Stories without endings. Ella shook the thought off before it consumed her and turned her attention back to the whiteboard.

‘So, everyone in your group knows everything about each other’s cases?’

‘Close enough. We try not to send sensitive documents to each other like police reports, but the details are usually extracted and discussed, so it wouldn’t take a genius to piece entire stories together from our email exchanges.’

‘And do any of your group members creep you out?’

‘Far from it. You’re profiling this killer as a male, correct?’

‘Correct. The direction of the bullet that hit Frank had a downward slant, meaning the unsub was taller than him. And I’m not saying a woman couldn’t decapitate someone, but she’d need to be freakishly strong.’

‘Noted. Well, that gives us,’ – Sarah counted the names on the board – ‘six suspects, right?’

‘Right. Gus, Michael, Elliott, Harold, Jeremy and Gareth. We need to interview all of them before the day is out, because our unsub’s killed twice in two days. Even if he’s mimicking other people’s M.O.s, he’s probably already developed a taste for murder. He’ll be itching to do it again.’

The door banged open hard enough to rattle the table. Ripley stood there clutching a manila folder like she wished it was someone’s throat. Her eyes swept the room in that cop way that cataloged threats, then bypassed Sarah entirely and locked onto Ella.

‘Tech boys finished their first pass.’ Ripley kept one foot in the hallway as if the office might be contagious. ‘Most of it checks out. Real people, real addresses, real digital footprints. Except one.’

‘Who?’

‘Michael Brooks.’

Ella turned back to the whiteboard.

MICHAEL brOOKS, ??, MALE, BLACK CANDLE MURDERS.

‘Ah, Mr. Question Mark.’

‘You’ve got everyone’s ages except his. Why?’

‘Because the database spat out loads of people named Michael Brooks. We couldn’t work out which one he was.’

Ripley gestured to Sarah. ‘What about you, Ann Rule? You can’t help us narrow it down?’

‘No. I’ve never met Michael.’

‘What? Never?’

‘No. He didn’t come to the meetings. He only ever emailed. Diana might have met him, but I don’t know.’

‘I doubt she did, because according to the IP address these emails came from,’ – Ripley brandished a few crumpled pieces of paper – ‘Michael Brooks did all of his communication from Palm Harbor Library.’

The hairs on Ella’s neck did their warning dance. She grabbed Michael Brooks’ file and spread the contents across a clean section of table. There wasn’t much. Just a cell number, email address and printouts of the few messages he’d sent.

‘The library?’ Sarah scrunched her face. ‘Who uses the library to send emails these days?’

‘Michael Brooks, apparently. Do we have any pictures of this guy?’ Ripley asked.

‘No. I don’t know what he looks like.’

‘Check the social media machine,’ Ripley said.

Ella spun back to her laptop and typed in Michael Brooks’ email address. One result came up.

‘Got him.’

Ripley moved closer. ‘What’s he look like? A creep?’

The profile picture screamed stock photo. It showed a young man with artfully disheveled hair and glasses that probably didn’t have lenses. The kind of generic handsome that came free with picture frames.

‘He doesn’t look like anything. This is a stock photo.’

‘What’s his profile say?’

Ella began scrolling. The profile was created 18 months ago. No location, interests or employment listed. All of his posts were private too. There were three visible pictures, all glossy stock photographs of landscapes.

‘It doesn’t say anything. This is what my friend Roadrunner would call a digital Halloween costume.’

‘A what?’

‘Just enough to give the illusion of a real person.’ Ella spun to Sarah. ‘Maybe to infiltrate a secret group without giving away their identity.’

Ella felt the familiar burn of recognition light up her synapses. She jumped back to the printouts in front of her and began dissecting Brooks’ messages:

M. Brooks – July 14 @ 16:22: Gus, read your notes on the Tampa Ripper victimology again. The geographical clustering is tight, but did anyone map potential exit routes based on tide times for the bay? Just a thought.

M. Brooks – August 22 @ 16:59: Frank, incredible dedication on the Marlowe case. That eyewitness account of the car seen leaving Dolphin Lane – was the make/model ever definitively confirmed, or just ‘dark sedan’? Records from ‘76 must be patchy.

Ripley moved closer. ‘What are you looking at, Dark?’

‘My brain is doing that thing where it knows something before I do. Look, Brooks directly asked Frank about the case.’

‘He asked a lot of questions,’ Sarah added. ‘Always probing.’

‘You’re not kidding.’ Ella found only a passing reference to Brooks’ own white whale, in response to a message from another member.

T. Bellweather – March 10 @ 11:23: Michael, you’re quiet about Black Candle. Anything new shaking loose on that front?

M. Brooks – March 11 @ 16:42: Afraid not, Tracy. It’s a frustratingly cold trail. Limited physical evidence, as you know. Still digging through old newspaper archives. More dust than diamonds so far. Anyone have tips on accessing pre-digital state police reports?

Ella noticed a pattern. Deflection. Always deflection. He never offered specifics, never presented theories, never showed the obsessive dive the others did. He used some obscure case as his membership card, nothing more. He wasn’t trying to solve it; he was using it as cover.

Ella shuffled the pages again, laying them flat. Then she saw it. Not in the content, but something else.

‘Wait a minute. Look at that.’

Sarah and Ripley leaned in. ‘What?’ they asked in unison, to which Ripley immediately took a step back, probably not comfortable realizing just how similar to the author she really was.

Ella pointed out the timestamps of each message. ‘He sends every email between 4 and 5 PM.’

‘Pull your calendar up, Dark.’

She did, then caught onto Ripley’s train of thought. She checked the dates of Brooks’ emails against the calendar.

Tuesday, Oct 15, 4:03 PM.

Thursday, Oct 17, 4:48 PM.

Tuesday, Oct 22, 4:11 PM.

Thursday, Oct 24, 4:05 PM.

Tuesday, Oct 29, 4:26 PM.

A pattern. Precise. Predictable. Unlike the scattered, obsessive posting of the others who seemed to fire off messages whenever a thought struck them, Michael Brooks had a schedule.

‘Looks like Michael Brooks is a creature of habit. Every email comes on either a Tuesday or Thursday, within the same hour slot.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Ripley said.

‘And what day is it today?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘Which means if our friend keeps to his schedule, he’ll be at the Palm Harbor Library in a few hours.’

‘Time for a stakeout.’ Ripley pushed off from the doorframe. ‘Come on, Dark. We need to prep the library, get some officers on the outside.’

‘Small team,’ Ella cautioned. ‘Two officers max, plain clothes. If he catches a whiff of law enforcement, he’ll disappear.’

‘What about me?’ Sarah asked. ‘I could help. He doesn’t know me on sight. I could position myself near the computers, act as eyes inside.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ripley said, at the exact moment Ella said, ‘That could work.’

The partners exchanged looks. Ripley hissed, ‘She’s a civilian.’

‘She’s also our best connection to the group,’ Ella countered.

‘She doesn’t know what Brooks looks like. None of us do. We might as well take a chimpanzee.’

‘But I’m the only person he knows. What if we miss him? If Brooks sees me, there’s a chance he might talk to me.’

Ripley huffed. Her eye roll said that she was wrestling with the fact that someone she hated had made a good point.

‘Fine. But if you see something suspicious, tell us. Don’t be a hero.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Like I said, I can’t do what you do.’

Ella was on her feet. She didn’t like this tension between Sarah and Ripley, but you didn’t have to like your teammates, you just had to co-operate and win the gold.

‘Alright, we need to be in place within three hours. Let’s start organizing.’