Chapter 50

Dean held off the task force meeting until Phil and Brian got back. When they walked in, the room smelled of stale burgers and french fries.

"It is about time yall got here." Dean said. " Did you get them?'

Brian handed over the Jame's family bible and the receipt. After the interview with Watts he called Dean on a hunch and gone back for them.

Dean opened the bible. "Tell them." he said and nodded to the room. With the exception Of Juan Gomez and Lexi Kay, everyone on the task force had assembled. But tonight, everyone was sitting. The fun had worn off.

Brian took a seat too. " The sheriff who worked Christie's disappearance  said there is a rumor once that Brandon might have a  older sibling. The first page of the Jame's Bible is missing. I thought the lab should look at the next couple pages, see if there are indention's from something that might have been recorded on the missing page."

"And the receipt?"Dean asked studying it.

"It was in the kitchen drawer. It is for diapers. The ink is faded, so I can't read the date. But it is folded up with another receipt for gas from 1976. The date stuck in my mind because gas was only .59 cent a gallon."

Harrison frowned. " 1976 is_

"Two years before Brandon was born." Brian said. " So if the diaper receipt is from the same time....." He finished with a shrug.

" Any word on Chadborne?" Phil asked.

" Not yet." Dean said . She doesn't drive, so there is no license. We are checking Boise for a friend of the family member who might have a picture of her. And I have people trying to track down her doll sales that might have been made to her husband. I don't hold out much on that score the collection she is selling now could have been in his family's attic for years. As for Damien we have cleared his wife, she was with a neighbor all day Wednesday, the day he died."

Brian nodded. No surprise there. As charming as Damien's wife was, everyone knew Brandon had killed him.

"What was missing from the store?"

"A shot gun and a .22. and," Dean added. "There was one drawer that had been broken into, the lock jimmied. We don't know what was in it."

"Silencers." Harrison speculated. " That's why no one heard a shot at the church."

Brian closed his eyes. Guns with silencers. That would change everything.

"Have a file," Dean said, pushing a folder his direction and another toward Phil. " Harrison looked up the attorney who handled Colleen Jame's will. It wasn't just the acreage and the house Brandon inherited. His mother added codicil, leaving something for Brandon buried near the edge of the river. He go it on his twenty first birthday."

"That is the day he killed Gloria." Brian said straighting up. "What was it?"

"We don't know," Dean answered. " But a team will go look along the river in the morning. It has been a long time..." He came forward in his chair, hands on the table. "What I wanna know is, "Why now?  Brandon has been out of prison for over a year. What made him finally decide to kill Damien? If he and Damien had a history, say, Damien knew something about Brandon from childhood... Maybe his sisters disappearance... then why wait all this tim to knock off Damien?"

" Because Damien's disappearance isn't about Brandon's childhood." Brian said studying the photo's he had stuck to the white board earlier. "Its now. Somehow. Damien is the link between preparations Brandon has been making for all these months and the start of it."

"The start of what all?" Harrison asked

"The Chivy." Stard said as if Brian's theory fit perfectly. Everyone looked up at her. " It means chase or hunt. It is the root of his name. Reporters in Seattle used it as a hook for their stories and dubbed him The hunter. But It is the chase he likes not the kill." She caught a nod from Dean and stood up, sliding her own stack of papers across the table for distribution. "We have found two other unsolved cases in which women were stalked  and then vanished. I spent the day talking to their families and the authorities who handled their cases."

Brian straighted. "What?"

"They happened after Gloria Michaels, But before Brandon moved to Seattle. You were gone, Brian. Anthony Russel was dead. And the bodies were never found, so there was no reason to connect them to the Michael's murder."

"Son of a bitch."

"They actually looked at the cases during Brandon's trial in Seattle, but the gun shot to Chaney's back seemed inconstant with the work of a serial sexual predator. The DA focused on a execution style killing, by the man called the Hunter."

Brian stared. Two more after Gloria Michael's? After he had put the murder on Anthony Russel and left the country, left his family, left everything? "Who are the others?"

"Roxy Markel. She lived in New Jersey. Her parents say she was terrified before she disappeared, had been getting calls like Sarra Jane for weeks. Are you scared yet? Let me hear your voice."

"In New Jersey, though?"

"She traveled twice a year to panama city for business conferences. Stayed at Brandon's hotel he was working at."

"Oh God."

" And Marie Patton, a cellist. She played with a string quartet and went to college here  to do some sort of residency for the music school."

"And stayed at Brandon's hotel?" Phil asked.

Stard nodded. Brian felt like he had been sucker punched.

"Ten." Harrison said, "If we count Damien and the two current missing women, plus the two with have been gone for years, that is ten people."

"Not including Brandon's little sister." Phil said. "And his mother."

"His mother?" Dean asked.

" The sheriff we just spoke to says it looks like suicide, but Brandon was smart enough to pull that off. The baby is gone so there is nothing to do there, but we could exhume the mother and grandfather. May be worth a shot."

Dean nodded and made himself a note as a woman with short curly blond hair cracked the door. "This just came from Agent Bright from Seattle sir. He says an employee at the Hampton hotel remembers one of Brandon's trips to Dallas on fourth of july.. One of the cross checks shows a antique exhibition there on the same day."

Brian's brows went up.

"We knew already he went out of town for long weekends," Harrison said. "You think it was always Dallas?"

Brian was startled. "I still attend certain antique exhibitions. usually on long weekends or holidays." Sarra had told him the first day they met. "It was antique shows."

Silence pulsed through the room for five seconds it took that to sink in. Then quietly Phil said. "Shit," and Dean put his pencil down.

"That is where he met Chadborne." Dean said

Brian was aware of his heartbeat. He reached in his pocket and dialed Sarra. " Can you think back to July, to an antique exhibition in Dallas?" He checked the page they just received. "It was held at the Hilton Northwest_"

"Sure." Sarra said. "That show was sponsored by Curtis Lee. He always gives a bash On Fourth of July."

"Did you go to it last summer?"

"No I was going to but Abby came down with strep, Hannah went instead"

Close enough. Brandon wouldn't have had any way of knowing if Sarra canceled. "Are there others, big holiday sales or shows that someone would know you would attend?"

"Pretty much every holiday there is something somewhere. Someone from Fosters goes."

Brian nodded to Dean, who shuffled to a specific page and handed it to Brian, pointing at the dates Brandon had taken off.

'"Sarra, where was the biggest collection of antiques dealers last memorial day?"

It took her only a second. "Chicago, Chris Haddock does an early American furniture sale every year at the convention center. On fourth of July there is the show in Dallas, and at labor day." She continued without being asked. "There is a Victorian exhibition in San Fransisco."

"Did you attend those shows?"

" Yea, with Hannah. Oh no not  the San Fransisco one," She corrected herself. "That was just with Evan not with Hannah."

"Was Mrs Chadborne there too?"

'Actually," she said her voice growing cautious, That is where we first met. In San Francisco."

And she had gotten the first phone call from Brandon that Monday Night, labor day. Brian tried to control the thundering in his chest. "Is there some sort of registration for those events, or is it open to the public and anyone can go?"

"There open to the public, but there are always mailing list, records of purchases, that sort of thing, Brian what's going on?"

"Hang on baby, Don't go to bed,I will fill you in when I get there. Everything is OK." He hung up looked at Dean. " She didn't go to the one in Dallas but was planning on it until the last minute. On memorial day and labor day when Brandon was taking long weekends she was at sales in Chicago and San Francisco."

"OK." Dean said already looking at Harrison. "Check the transportation from Seattle to those cities on those weekends. I know he didn't leave us any plane tickets, but look anyway, trains buses even the records of car jacking or hitch hikers during those times. Get a list of everyone who attended those shows. And look for Chadbornes name."

Phil stood up."If he has been watching Sarra for that long. What has he learned?"

"Everything." Stard said." what her interest are her, who her friends are, where she is most vulnerable."

"Abby" Brian said his heart breaking.

"No". Stard said " he can't know where she is. And even if he did, he wouldn't go for her yet. It would end too soon. He will save her daughter for last."

The Ice thickened, Brian felt like a player running in the field in the middle of a game. without knowing the game rules or the opponent. It was the open that couldn't be seen.

He had thought. "Would Brandon want credit for what's happening?"

"Alot of serial killers like the idea that they are smarter than the authorities." Stard had said. "they like to watch themselves on tv.:"

"So what if we send Jerry with a press release, saying we have gotten a phone call from the stalker?"

"The hunter." Stard said  snapping her fingers. " Call him the Hunter, it will piss him off that we pegged him wrong again. He will want to us to know what he is capable of."

"Fine." Brian said. "Let Brandon James hear on t.v. that someone has taken responsibility for one of the murders."

"He is too smart to fall for a news break about it." Harrison said  coming to the edge of his seat. "Had to make it looked like it leaked, something we never meant to have let out."

"Then bypass Jerry," Phil said. "Leek it to a network reporter, and let the Bureau be seen running around trying to plug it up."

Dean closed his eyes, picturing the public relations falling out. No Doubt.

"I can do it." Brian said. " So it doesn't come from within the ranks."

Dean rubbed his chin. Not happy. "OK you and Stard put it together. But then get back to mrs Jane. or see if she can remember running into Brandon or Chadborne at any other exhibitions. Can we make her home, work, cell phone ring to all of ours, give it to Sarra so she can answer it herself."

Harrison said. "Might take me an hour depends on who is the phone comapny now.:"

"Wait." Brian protested. "I thought agent Lexi was picking up those phone calls. I don't want Sarra having to talk to that bastard again.'

Dean gave him a look meant to dissolve grown men into their shoes. " Tough. And while you are at it, teach her how to keep him on the line long enough for a trace. Yes Brian." He said following Brian's thoughts. "It means you will have to tell her about agent Lexi."

Brian cursed. He and Stard had talked about it, decided not to lay that on Sarra, too. Stard shrugged.

No choice now.

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