Eleven (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

Jack and I were making our way back to Salt Lick. Jack had his window cracked, but it did little for easing the second-hand smoke billowing from his mouth. By the end of the probationary period maybe I’d have lung cancer. Life could be unfair like that. While Jack would live to see a hundred, I’d be dead by thirty.

“How are you coming with the twit thing?”

“Twitter.” I corrected him again. Here is where the generational gap drew a darkened line of distinguishing those from the dark ages and those who were hitched to technology. “We know he goes by The Redeemer, but just for the heck of it I searched for users with the handle Redeemer in it. Most of them are churches. There’s a newspaper.”

“Maybe Bingham belonged to one of those churches.” Jack directed the hands-free system to dial Nadia Webber.

Nadia worked out of our home office in Quantico as a technical analyst.

She answered on the second ring.

“I need to you get together a list of the churches in the area around Salt Lick, take in all of Bath County. I believe there should be a list of about thirty, according to the good Sheriff anyhow. I also want to know if any are of Catholic denomination or go under the name of Redeemer.”

“Of course.”

“Give that information to Zachery.” Jack hung up and turned to me.

“I can see his history.” I had clicked the link to his profile on Twitter. “There’s not much here. His last tweet—”

“I like twit better.”

I’m sure he did.
“Was two weeks ago,” I paused for a second. “The file says he’s on Twitter every morning, but I guess he doesn’t have a lot to say? Or maybe he sends personal messages and deletes them afterward?”

“What was his last tweet?”

“He quoted a scripture.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“You don’t believe in God.”

He sucked in on his cigarette and crushed the glowing butt in the SUV’s ashtray. He didn’t say anything.

I studied Jack’s profile for a second. “Bingham’s last tweet said, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

“I hate it when cases cross over like this.” Jack put up his window, but I kept mine lowered. “Now we’re not just dealing with a psychopath and narcissist, we’re likely dealing with a religious fanatic. They’re the worst kind.” He looked over at me. “Welcome to the FBI.”

I worked down through the list of Bingham’s two hundred followers, curious what they were tweeting and where their interests lay.

“How do you know so much about this Twitter anyway?”

I glanced at Jack not sure whether to explain.

“You have an account.” He pulled around a slow-moving tractor and headed down the side road back to the
hell house
.

“I used to.”

“You still do.”

I turned to face out the window and watched the cows in the field. A few of them were lying down. Rain was coming.

“Kid?”

“I don’t use it much.”

“Hmm.”

“I started it as an experiment.”

“Uh huh.”

“You don’t believe me? That’s all right. I just thought I’d see how many I could get to follow me.”

“How many?”

I looked down at Bingham’s following.

“Not as much as the psycho killer I take it. Maybe you need to spout scripture.”

This man made me pull on every portion of self-control. He could never know why I had started on Twitter or the people I connected with online.

“You’re part of a knitting club. Not many sign up with Tweeter?”

“Twitter,” I corrected him again, “is the site where when you share a brief message, it’s called a tweet. What’s so hard—”

Jack’s lips curled upward.

“You’re testing my limits.”

“Not hard to get there either, is it?” Jack’s face turned serious as he parked the SUV and took his keys from the ignition. “If you’re not secure with who you are, this job will eat you alive.”

“It’s—” My words stopped there. My eyes were on the screen. “Jack.”

“Yes.” He stuck his head into the vehicle through the opened door.

“He just twitted. I mean tweeted.”

“So much for just ten in the morning.” Jack tapped the clock on the dash. Two in the afternoon.

I read off what Bingham had shared.

“What the hell is confess, repent, respect the authorities, and vengeance is mine supposed to mean?”

“I believe they’re a bunch of scriptural verses melded together. He’s ordered a hit on me.”

“You’re over-reacting.”

“He told me that I would need to confess my sins to be forgiven. He went further to say if I didn’t I would be punished. He’s identifying me with his—,” I searched for another word, but couldn’t conjure one. “—his apprentice, whatever you want to call it. I don’t think he expected them to carry on his work or even to get a partner along the way for that matter, but I definitely believe he knows who it is.”

Jack activated the hands-free and connected with Nadia again. “Work your way through Bingham’s followers, get together a list of names, IP addresses, and track these people down to a hometown.”

“I’m working on it, sir.”

“And also track down the family of Travis Carter, Bingham’s sister’s in-laws.”

“Of course.”

“One more thing. Check the system again. See if you can find any more addresses associated with Lance Bingham. For some reason I believe there should be more than two.”

“I’ll get this information to you as soon as I can.”

“Make it even faster than that.” Jack disconnected the call.

“So you know what IP addresses are but don’t know what Twitter is?”

Jack had passed me a glance before he got out of the SUV.

CHAPTER 8

We headed back inside the house where the unspeakable murders had taken place. Chills ran through me as I realized the man responsible no doubt fantasized about my life ending in the same manner.

Jack led the way down the stairs to the cellar and I wasn’t sure I had the fortitude to go underground again. Despite being chilled from fear, sweat dripped down my back.

We stopped in the cellar to speak with Royster, the CSI with the allergies. He possessed a dislike for Jack as evidenced by the scowl that formed when he saw him.

“You guys find where the concrete door lined up for certain?” Jack asked.

“Of course.” The CSI spoke to me. “From the burial side it was covered with packed dirt. Once it was removed, it revealed cinder blocks that were stacked to create the barrier.”

“Made it simple. Then all he had to do was smear concrete on the other side,” I said.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” The Chief Coroner, Harold Jones, came up from the passageway. He and his assistant were carrying out the remains of a victim.

“How many more to go?”

Jones stopped by Jack, still holding onto the stretcher with the body. “Quite a few. The remains are aged and require a delicate touch. And there’s been a lot of trace evidence to collect and catalog for the investigators. It all takes time.”

“What do we know for sure?”

Jones nodded to his assistant, and they set the body down.

Jones’s face paled, as he spoke, “He tortured them over a period of time. He took time with them. The wounds were inflicted at different stages. There’s only a slight variation and someone with less experience may not have even noticed. Open it up, Jacob.” His assistant opened the bag and Jones pointed at the incisions. This body was older and had decomposed significantly, but there was some skin left on the torso. “This victim is male, estimated remains are six years old. But like the most recent vic his rate of decomposition was slowed by being buried and protected from the elements. Anyway, see here how the abrasion is less evident than this one, and so on.”

I didn’t see it but took his assessment. “Over how long of a period do you think he tortured them?”

Jones looked at me. “Over a period of at least ten to twelve days.”

“Eleven days.”

“Yes.” Jones gave me the look that said, that would be the number between ten and twelve.

Jack patted his shirt pocket and pulled out his cigarette pack. The CSI watched his every movement and seemed ready to stop him should he actually light up. Jack stuck an unlit one in his mouth, let it perch there and turned to me. “Like I said OCD.” It bobbed as he spoke.

The longer we were in the cellar and not going down the ramp to the tunnels, the better my breathing leveled out. “So what’s this guy’s fascination with the number eleven? We figure that out, and we’ll be on our way.”

“I told you. It’s the coinherence symbol.” Zachery came up from the passageway with Paige behind him.

“We still don’t have anything to prove that—”

I was interrupted by the ring of Jack’s cell phone.

He answered and backed away a few steps. “And when can we expect the photos...okay.” He hung up and all of our eyes were on him. “That was Moore,” he looked at me. “The warrant came through already, and they’re working on scanning the wallet photos. They’ll be forwarded to us shortly.”

“There’s also something else you might be interested in knowing, Agent.” The coroner’s sharp eyes focused on Jack. “Upon closer examination, the victims were still alive when their intestines were removed.”

I choked on my saliva and coughed to clear it.

“And not that I’d have to tell you, but based on the killer’s pattern, the next victim would be male.”

Zachery’s focus was on me. “Something wrong there, Pending?”

“He believes Bingham threatened his life.” Jack smiled in the smug way only he could.

“I fail to see how that’s funny.”

“It’s not funny per say, but it’s entertaining. What would make him want to kill you?” Zachery slipped a hand into a pocket.

I passed a glance to Paige, but she was looking at the body.

“He wants Slingshot here to confess his sins.”

Paige’s eyes shot to mine and pain surged through them. It was the same look she gave me when I told her it was a mistake, that I was a married man, and that I loved my wife. What were the chances that I’d be assigned to her team? I had hoped to never see her again.

“Sins? Do you have any, Pending?”

“Well, if that is all, I’ll be getting back to work, Special Agent Harper.” The coroner not amused by the banter, bent to lift the stretcher. “Jacob.” His assistant lifted the other end.

The coroner and his assistant left the cellar, heading for above ground while the CSI disappeared down the ramp.

Jack pulled out his lighter, flicked it, and put it back in his pocket. “How did you guys make out with the neighbor?”

“He’s still bitter. Says that Bingham is one crazy son of a bitch.” Paige put a hand on her hip above her holster.

Jack’s lips suctioned on the cigarette as if it was lit and he were taking a drag. “It seems Bingham likes to go by the name of The Redeemer.”

“That makes sense now. Nadia called with a list of churches, said that you told her to call, and she specifically mentioned there weren’t any named Redeemer in the area,” Zachery said.

“It’s his Twitter name, but there’s a reason he picked it.”

“Maybe he considers himself a savior of sorts?” Paige offered. When we looked at her, she shrugged.

“With Bingham being on Twitter there’s a good chance the unsub already knows about the find and us.” I relayed Bingham’s last tweet and the mention of secular authorities.

“He tipped the guy off,” Zachery said.

“But he might not know all the details and he doesn’t know that we know about Twitter or even him necessarily—” Jack’s ringing cell interrupted. He answered. “Okay...how are you making out with everything else...as fast as you can.” He hung up and looked at Zachery and Paige. “So what all did Nadia tell you about the churches?”

“Like the Sheriff said earlier, there are quite a few in the county. We have the names and locations now. Paige and I can go check them out, see if Bingham was a registered member with one of them.”

“Visit the priests, elders, or whatever they call them. Start here in Salt Lick first, work your way out. Also speak to more of the neighbors, find out what they have to say about Bingham.” Jack held up his phone and addressed me, “And you and I, well, we’ve got the address for Travis Carter’s mother and she lives right here in Salt Lick.”