Run (11 page)

Once back in my car I drove for a few minutes before pulling over and grabbing a map. Looking at my notes from our conversation and the map of Atlantic City I was able to narrow down the area. I had about a
six-block area that could contain the warehouse Linda followed my suspect to.

When I got back on the road
it was after 6:00. I wanted to take some time to think about and process the information I had so far.

______

I followed my nightly ritual of attempting to find a place to stay by avoiding traffic cams. After circling and driving I finally found a place I felt was relatively safe. I followed my nightly ritual of locking doors and windows.

Once I was barricaded in
, I looked over my notes from the day. I felt a picture starting to come together. It was a little fuzzy still. A little unclear, but I could see it coming together. After listing the information I had found so far, I laid down.

A
s I was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to me that I had not heard from Jack.

Chapter 15
: April 7, 5:30am – 5:30pm

The next morning I woke
up early and packed up the room and my car. I made another call to Jack. It went straight to voice mail.

Other than my visits yesterday
, I had been rather separated from the world. While I was figuring out my game plan, I put the news on in the background.

Looking at what I had so far I thought the best course of action was to go to Atlantic City and
try to trace the footsteps of the killer. Based on my conversation with Linda the day before, I thought I knew some of what he did or where he had been.

I was just making my plans when the words
“Philadelphia FBI” coming from the TV caught my attention.

I grabbed the remote and turned the TV up. An attractive brunette with a serious face was standing in front of the FBI office I had visited just
a couple weeks ago.

“The FBI is not at thi
s point releasing any details of the event. What we do know is that one agent is wounded and another agent is currently suspended.”

So far they were not telling me what happened.

“The events of the last few days have left many people questioning security. Local citizens are questioning how an agent was able to access private information unrelated to any open case. The actions of the agent in question will be fully investigated.”

The attractive brunette
segued back to the main reporter. A few platitudes were exchanged and the next story was opened.

I don’t know how or why I was convinced the agent in question was Jack.
I was though. I knew, somehow I just knew. Somehow Jack, trying to help me … Jack, questioning what was going on, had led to him being pushed out of the case, and his career in danger.

I turned the TV off and tried again to call Jack. Voicemail. Frustrated and worried
, I packed the car and within half an hour I was on the road headed toward Atlantic City.

_____

I took a small detour on the way to Atlantic City to stop by a library. I had so far avoided libraries, but I thought they might have more easily accessible information related to warehouses in my search area. Within an hour I had obtained more information than I would have thought. I found listings of several warehouses, lots, and investment properties. I pulled up a map of Atlantic City and mapped out the locations of the properties I had found. Then I looked at where Linda had first seen the man. With what I knew of Linda’s path following (a man who in my estimation was likely) the killer, I was able to limit my list to four properties.

After my library visit
, I headed into Atlantic City. I figured I had a few hours and a good chance to get all of these properties looked at today. What exactly I expected to find out by looking at the properties I don’t know. Even if I identified the property he used, I didn’t really know what that would tell me.

Despite
my lack of conviction that I was on the right path, at least while I was looking for the property I was doing something, and something was infinitely better than nothing.

The first property was a bust. The second no longer existed. The third looked possible, but somehow not right.

I was starting to feel a little frustrated. It had been three hours of driving and looking, stopping and walking around a place just to decide I needed to move on.

I had just pulled up
to the fourth and final place when my phone rang. Since the list of people who had that phone number could be counted on one hand I jumped to answer.

“Hello, Jack?”

“Hey Char,” his voice sounded tired, worn.

“Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I’m okay. I’m on suspension, but I am okay. What have you been able to find out?” Obviously, he didn’t want to talk about what happened.

“I
haven’t been able to eliminate anyone else as suspects since we last talked. I am taking a slightly different route. What happened?”

“Someone tipped my boss that I was looking at classified files and employee records. Privacy laws frown upon that sort of thing.”

“Did you tell your boss about me? What we are doing?” The idea of anyone else knowing I was out here looking for a killer made me nervous.

“No I didn’t mention you. I told him I was looking into a cold case. He didn’t take it well when I wouldn’t tell him more.”

“I’m sorry, is your job in trouble?”

“I will be
fine; to be honest, I am more worried about you. I can’t help but think that whoever this guy is he used an opportunity to remove me from a position where I could best help.”

“You think he is the one who reported you to your boss?”

“I do.”

There was dead silence. Whoever this monster was
, he had some power and some influence.

“Tell me where you are
. I think we should stick together.”

Despite
everything, I was afraid to tell him where I was located. I had been alone so long; I had been fighting this battle on my own. I wasn’t sure I was ready to give that much trust to someone else. I planned to put him off. I planned to evade, maybe to meet him the following day or something. No one was more surprised than I was when what came out of my mouth was …

“I’m in Atlantic City. I think I found something. I think I might know more about this guy.”

What? Where did that come from? I certainly didn’t plan on telling him where I was.

“I was planning on heading west and finding a place to stay somewhere
probably in Gloucester County.”

What are you doing? Stop talking
.

“Okay. I am going to leave Philly now and head in that direction. I’ll call you when I get closer and we can meet up.”

“Okay.”
At least I had stopped talking
.

“And Char?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

When I hung up the phone, I was plagued with a strange feeling -- a mix of anticipation and foreboding. I wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was the fact that for the first time since this began there was another person who knew exactly where I was. Maybe it was the idea that I had made plans to meet with someone and give them all the information I had so far. Maybe it was the warehouse my car was currently parked in front of. Either way, action had served me well so far, where sitting in the car would get me nothing.

I got out, got Max
’s leash and a flashlight, and headed to the warehouse with Max at my side. I walked around the building twice without seeing anything out of the ordinary. It was just an abandoned warehouse in a not great area. I was not far from the Route 30 Bridge. From here the smell of fish and ocean could be detected when the wind blew. The warehouse was somewhat isolated. The properties around the warehouse were blank lots or equally abandoned buildings.

I didn’t see anyone around or any easy way to enter the warehouse. On my third pass around I stopped by a back door. The door was padlocked, but the lock was old and rusted. A quick look around showe
d me that I was alone. I pushed on the door. It didn’t move.

On one of my books I had done some
Internet research on breaking locks. (The Internet is the greatest thing that ever happened to writers). Padlocks can be almost unbreakable unless they are hit in the right way at the right place. In order to be accurate in my writing I had even practiced breaking locks at home. I didn’t have a hammer, but I found a good sized rock that I thought would work. If I hit the top part of the lock with enough force the lock would open. The first time I had tried this it had amazed me that it worked. This time I was glad that I had a strategy.

A few blows to the lock with the rock in hand and the lock broke. I was in.

Once inside
, I switched on my flashlight and began to look around. I haven’t been in many warehouses, but I guess this one was pretty typical. Trash, beer bottles, and candy wrappers were thrown around on the ground. The remains of equipment from whatever this warehouse used to hold were lying on the ground. I am not a huge fan of rats, so evidence that some sort of rodent had made this warehouse its home made my skin crawl.

Max
was silent and still by my side. He followed my lead, but made no attempts to wander away and explore. Maybe he felt the heaviness of this place the same as I did. I had no concrete evidence, only my gut, but I was convinced this was the place.

I wandered through that warehouse for about 45 minutes. I found rope, glass, more trash, and machinery. When I left the warehouse I had gained nothing. No miracle evidence. No smo
king gun. While I figured or I thought I had found the place he killed Leslie, I had no way of knowing that for sure. Even if I did know for sure, I wasn’t sure what that told me about finding this guy or knowing where he was going next.

_____

When I got back to the car there was a missed call on my phone. I didn’t recognize the number but I figured it had to be from Jack. I didn’t have any voice mail set up so I had no way of knowing.

I tried to call the number back, but it just rang
. If it was Jack he would have to call again. I started to head back inland.

I was almost to Deptford before my phone rang again.
I quickly looked for a place to pull over. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over for talking while driving. I picked up the phone and said a quick “hold on one second” before I pulled over.

Once safely on the side of the road
, I took a deep breath and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello
?”

“Charlotte?” The woman’s voice on the phone was tentative and questioning.

“Yes, this is Charlotte.”

“Hi, this is Linda
, we spoke earlier today. I remembered something, I don’t know if it will help, but you said to call if I remembered anything else so …” I honestly had forgotten I had given her my number.

“Yes
, Linda, thank you, any way you can help is appreciated. Let me just grab my notebook.” I scrambled with one hand while holding the phone up with the other. “Okay, go ahead.”

“That day that I saw the guy
… he was wearing a ball cap, remember?”

“Yes
, you mentioned that.”

“Well I remembered that the hat was dark, like a navy color with light lettering on the front. You had me thinking about that day so I
Googled dark hats and white lettering.”

“Yes
?”

“
Well I am not sure, but I think he was wearing a Navy hat. The pictures that I saw they looked the most, I don’t know, right. Does that help?” Navy, could that mean he was in the Navy?

“
Yes, yes, Linda, thank you.”

We said our goodbyes and I again encouraged her to call me if she thought of anything.
I wasn’t sure what a Navy cap meant. But as with all of the information I had gathered so far, I noted it down. I figured later this evening when I was ensconced in a motel I would try to get it all down, put it all together. I had just started to pull out when my phone rang again. For someone who had only spoken with a handful of people in the last couple of days, I sure was popular.

This time the call was from Jack. We were about twenty minutes from each other.
After a short conversation we made plans to meet up in about a half an hour at a diner.

Chapter 16
: April 7, 5:30pm – April 8, 4:43 am

We met at the Freeway Diner. It was about 5:30, we met
, walked in together, and got a table all without saying a word. I had my notebook with me. I hoped that the random pieces of information I had gathered would make some sense. Despite wanting to talk about the case, neither of us said a word until after we had ordered. It was surprisingly comfortable.

When we did start talking
, we didn’t talk about the case. Maybe we both just needed some normal human interaction.