“If I’m right Steckel wasn’t his first trophy. He graduated Oberlin nine years ago, making him thirty-one or — two, meaning fifteen or sixteen at the time of the first Ohio shooting — Wiebelhaus. Violent acting out often starts in adolescence. And often a sexual component is there. If we can find a connection between Flick and Wiebelhaus and Steckel, we’ve got a whole bunch of bricks for the wall.”
“Unbelievable,” he said, sitting in my desk chair and taking a long time to exhale. “I go to sleep and produce night-music, you reinvent the wheel. Okay, let’s learn more about this scholar but I need to do it by the book, don’t want to mess up the evidence chain. Ergo we use my computer, not this one. Since you’re a wizard, wanna beam me up to the station?”
Without waiting for an answer, he charged past me, through the house and out the door.
I hadn’t run this morning, settled for following his long strides.
He drove to Butler Avenue way too fast, had barely shut the Impala’s driver’s door before he was charging through the staff lot, continuing across the street, and flinging open the station door.
He pressed past the civilian clerk’s greetings with a wave. Cursed violently because the elevator was engaged and made rare use of the stairs, then sped toward his office where, flushed and panting, he jammed his key into his lock as if it were a lethal weapon.
Remaining on his feet, he logged in using his police I.D. and got onto NCIC. At first glance, unaware of my presence as he typed viciously.
No hits on Cameron Flick. He sank down hard enough to make his chair squeak and growled like a bear in pain.
Social Security records were more agreeable. Flick had received a card at the age of eighteen, and that led to his birthdate and birthplace.
Thirty-one years ago, Vantage, Ohio.
I said, “The town where Leonard Wiebelhaus was shot. It’s a hamlet so there’s a good chance Wiebelhaus was known to Flick. Maybe intimately, as in stepfather.”
He said, “Blended family gone to hell? Thank God it’s an unusual name.”
He plugged Wiebelhaus into the SSA records, came up with two names.
Crystal Jo Wiebelhaus, thirty-six, Akron, Ohio.
I said, “Right age for a sister.”
Felicia Sue Wiebelhaus, sixty-nine, still in Vantage, Ohio, living in a trailer park.
He said, “Right age for a mommy. Let’s see if she and Leonard ever made it formal.”
The couple had obliged, obtaining a marriage license twenty years ago at the Lorain County Probate Court in Elyria, Ohio. Second try for both. Felicia’s previously registered surname: Flick.
Milo sat back, breathing hard. “You royal-flushed again. Screw crime control, let’s catch a flight to Vegas.” He rubbed his face. “Stepdaddy, who better to hate.”
I said, “When Felicia married Wiebelhaus, Cameron was eleven. My guess is they didn’t get along, maybe even to the point of Cameron being abused. Cameron endured it until he was fifteen then made his move. He’d be in a great position to know where and when Leonard would be hunting pheasants.”
“If Felicia suspected she never said.”
“Maternal protection. Or Wiebelhaus had been rough on her, too. Or she was scared of Cameron. In any case, we’re talking a smart kid who planned well and got away with murder at fifteen, which is pretty intoxicating.”
“He convinces himself he’s an untouchable genius.”
“And he is objectively smart,” I said. “Great math skills, a low-income townie getting into Oberlin.”
He said, “Then he kills the janitor six years later and earns himself another notch? That makes me wonder if all that good self-esteem led him to do others in between or before ours. But let’s dial back to the here and now. Assuming Flick is our button man, how would the actual contracting go down? The families know him as a helpful tutor, why would they think he’d be willing to hunt humans?”
“Maybe they didn’t until he found a way to let them know.”
“How would it work its way into a conversation? Keisha’s doing great with equations and by the way I can take care of ol’ Jamarcus? Big risk, Alex. All he’d need was one solid citizen ratting him out.” He smiled. “Unless getting the prodge into college outweighed all that.”
I said, “There is another possibility. There were no conversations between Flick and the parents. No contracting, period. What if Flick took it upon himself to defend his students?”
“Mister Math decides it’s kind to be cruel? C’mon, Alex.”
“If Flick had been abused by his stepdad and was proud of how he’d set things right, why not? The earliest California murder we know about is Whitney Killeen. It’s not unusual for tutoring sessions to venture beyond subject matter. We know that Rhiannon Sterling had high praise for Flick. What if she’d complained to him about all the terrible stress her dad was going through because of a horrible, unfit bitch of a stepmother intent on depriving Daddy of access to his darling two-year-old? If she painted Whitney in a bad enough light, Flick could’ve been inspired to come to the rescue. Just like he did for himself at age fifteen. I’m not saying a normal person could slide into murder that easily. No doubt Flick enjoys shooting people and I will bet there’s a sexual component to it. But he needs some sort of justification. Once he got it from Rhiannon, he stalked Whitney, found the right time and place, did the deed.”
“He’s a rescuer but leaves a two-year-old in a boat?”
“Maybe he was planning to pluck Jarrod out of there and drop him somewhere safe. Then the neighbor showed up first and made Flick’s life easier. In any event, it would’ve been at least Flick’s third successful kill and really fed his ego. And his libido. So when Keisha Boykins — smart, sweet, chronically ill — came to him upset about Jamarcus Parmenter, it would’ve felt like another golden opportunity to be noble.”
“Or Gerald and Kiki somehow connected with Flick to do Parmenter. Ditto O’Brien, who’d worked for Gerald.”
“Parmenter’s a possibility as a parental contract but so far O’Brien’s relationship with Boykins was brief and tangential and we have no evidence there was any conflict with Keisha. I know how you feel about coincidence but this one wasn’t necessarily huge, because O’Brien worked security all over town. So I still think his murder was more likely related to the Culver City victim. A case that was never pursued criminally, giving Flick yet another level of self-justification.”
“Murder for fun rationalized as a good deed.” He shook his head. “If there was no criminal charge, how’d this brother — you know I can find his name — learn O’Brien had attacked and dumped his sister?”
I said, “I’ve been wondering the same thing and now I’m going to try to find out. Got a spare office?”
Chapter 38
My workspace: the same large interview room, expanded visually by solitude.
The two whiteboards, wiped clean and free of images, had been pushed against a wall. I sat at the long table and pulled out my phone.
Milo stood in the doorway for a second before closing it.
Lee Falkenburg said, “Hi. What’s up?” Tight voice; guarded.
I said, “Things have changed and I really could use more information. I’ll do everything I can to protect your source. But without me, the police may get there first.”
“Why do you say that?”
“A suspect has been identified and there’s a good chance he’s got a connection to the Saucedo case. We’re talking multiple murders, Lee.”
“Oh God. What kind of connection?”
“In confidence?”
“Of course.”
“There’s a link between the suspect and Vicki’s brother. I’ve told the cops my assumption the brother wasn’t criminally involved and I’ve withheld his name but it’s only a matter of time before they identify him.”