I added the photograph of Samantha and her assistant, Hurley. Back to the lover angle. It didn’t matter if they’d been having an affair or not. It mattered only what Ben believed.
At the top of my collage, I placed the picture of Lucy on the swing. And in the very middle, I thumbtacked a piece of paper with the alphanumeric 02XX56XX15XP written on it, along with the hazmat train identification number, UNMACWAT21.
Below those two alphanumeric strings I wrote in red, Find the killer, find Lucy.
I picked up the Macallan and stepped back from the wall, wondering what, if anything, tied all of these together. My mind created imaginary lines from the land to the woman’s photo to the Davenport children and back. Ghostly links traced themselves in my mind, then broke apart each time I looked more closely.
What had Ben found?
Frustrated, I drank down half the scotch and stared at the number. Why had the killer added all the Xs?
In railroad terminology, an X represented one of two things: It was the universal symbol for a crossing. Or it meant a crossbuck sign. The crossbuck was the most basic type of crossing alert. It consisted of two slats of wood or metal crossed at the middle, and was posted at all so-called passive intersections—those without gates, bells, or flashing lights. It had been designed to resemble a skull and crossbones so that when people saw it, they’d think immediately of danger.
“You’re playing with us, aren’t you?” I said aloud to the killer. “Whoever you are, whyever you’re doing this, you want see if we’re smart enough to figure it out.”
Maybe . . . an idea sparked. Maybe he’d played with the cops somewhere else, too. Killers like this one didn’t usually go from zero to ninety. There were signs along the way.
I sat on the floor and opened my laptop again. Clyde wandered over and joined me, his weight a reassuring presence against my legs. I knew Cohen and the FBI would have checked their criminal databases for similar crimes. But I had access to something different.
I logged on to the DPC server and pulled up the folder containing the terrorism briefings and incident reports we received, along with the daily news bulletins. The bulletins included general train news from all across the country, covering all railroad lines, passenger and freight alike. In addition, there was a list, put together by and for railway police, of all crimes committed on or against railroad property.
I started with the newest files and worked backward to 2001, which was as far as I could go without accessing off-site storage. My search on keywords like homicide, murder, unexplained deaths, and the letter X led me down a macabre trail of trespass and demise. I scrolled through the myriad reports of fouled tracks and stalled cars and derailings. People who’d stumbled onto the tracks and died there. Or been trapped in boxcars or gotten sucked into a train’s draft. College kids who goaded each other to jump a train and then lost a limb for their daring. Worst of all were the murders, many unsolved but likely perpetrated by members of the Freight Train Riders of America or one of the other gangs that preyed on their fellow rail riders.
Then a report popped up detailing a homicide on railroad property that had occurred last March—four months ago. As I read, a cold hand seemed to come and rest against my neck, as if the killer had walked into the room.
The incident had occurred in the city of Columbus, Ohio. A forty-year-old man had been found murdered in a boxcar, and the door of the boxcar had been spray-painted with a large black X. The bulletin offered little more, so I pulled up digital archives of the local newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch. The man had been beaten and tortured over a period of days. After death, his body had been wrapped in heavy plastic and left in the car. He’d been discovered by IPC railway agent Jim Norton.
The ghostly hand tightened around my neck. Hiram Davenport was from Ohio. Could there be a connection? I stood and looked at the clock—it was the middle of the night in Ohio. No help for it. I called the IPC dispatch, identified myself, then asked for Norton’s phone number, assuming he still worked for the railroad.
“He’s on call tonight,” the dispatcher said. “Want me to patch you through?”
There was a God. “Please.”
A minute later, a man came on the phone, his voice rough with sleep. “Special Agent Norton.”
“Agent Norton, this is Agent Parnell with Denver Pacific Continental. Sorry to wake you. I’m calling about an incident that occurred on IPC property last March. You found the body of a man murdered in a boxcar. The death might be linked to a case I’m working in Denver. I’ve got the incident report, but I’m hoping to learn any additional details.”
“Give me a sec.” There came a long enough pause that I thought he’d put down the phone and gone back to sleep. Then he said, “I’ve pulled up my reports on the computer. Give me a minute to find it.”
I waited, the seconds ticking on an imaginary clock.
Then, “Okay, I’ve got my report up. What do you want to know?”
“Was the man identified?”
“Yup. William King. He was an accountant in a previous life, but he’d been homeless for a couple of years. I’d seen him around, chased him off the property a few times. It was sad, him ending up like that. His mom used to work for your railroad. DPC.”
I jumped to my feet, startling Clyde, and went to the counter for pen and paper. “You have a name and phone number for her?”
“It’s here somewhere.” A pause. “Here it is. Betsy King.” He rattled off a phone number, and I wrote it down.
“Was the case solved?”
“Nah,” he drawled, then yawned. “Police investigated, but there weren’t any witnesses and there was nothing forensically useful on the body or at the crime scene. They finally decided it was gang related. I’ve been half waiting for something like it to show up again. You said you’re in Denver?”
“That’s right. Was there anything about the case that wasn’t in the papers?”
“Yup.” Another yawn. “There was one thing. Cops kept it quiet. I never did understand what it meant.”
“What was it?”
“Killer wrote a number on the side of the car, above the body. I’ll tell you what it was if you can hold on. I’m scrolling through the report now.”
I paced the room with a sudden surge of energy. My mouth tasted of metal and the chill had spread from my neck across my shoulders.
“Here it is,” Norton said. “02XX56XX15XP. You got something like that?”
Adrenaline flooded through me like I’d just been hooked up to an IV of the stuff.
“We do,” I said. “We’ve got something exactly like that.”
CHAPTER 16
Scientists say that when we recall something from our past, it isn’t as simple as taking out a photograph from an album. Because it isn’t the original memory we pull up. Rather, it’s a slightly different version of that memory—a memory of a memory. With each retrieval, the memory is altered.
Our past is made up of unwitting deceits.