“Your friends have dogs?”
“They raise German shorthaired pointers and always have a pack.”
“What about Zack? I can’t hide in Marathon forever.”
“I’m going to have Special Agent Daniels arrest Zack for being a pedophile.”
“She’ll do that for you?”
“I’m sure I can talk her into it. You need to jump into your car and get on the road right now. Call me when you get to Marathon and are at Captain Pip’s. Does that sound like a plan?”
“It sounds like a great plan.”
“One more thing. Special Agent Daniels is going to need evidence so she can arrest Zack. Can you remember any other devices that he used to store his porn?”
“I sure can. Zack had an iPad that he kept locked in a desk at his apartment. He told me that he used the iPad for work, only it never left his place. I’m certain that’s where he keeps most of his dirty pictures and videos.”
“That works. Now, get out of there.”
“I’ve got one foot out the door.”
“And call me when you get there.”
“I will. Thanks, Jon. I knew I could count on you.”
He ended the call and stared into the darkness, hoping that Karissa would be safe. A tapping sound broke his concentration, and he went to the slider. Daniels stood on the other side of the glass wearing a triumphant look on her weary face. The DMV database had come through, and he pulled back the glass and stepped inside.
“You found our killers,” he said.
“They were the second-to-last names on the list, if you can believe that,” she said with a tired laugh. “You were right about their driver’s licenses being like a trail of bread crumbs. They’ve moved around a lot, and every time they relocate in a new state, they get new licenses.”
“How long have they been in South Florida?”
“They both got their Florida driver’s licenses on the same day seven years ago. Did I mention that they both have criminal records for being perverts?”
“You have their rap sheets?”
“Yes indeed. Want to see them?”
“I do. Before you show them to me, I need to ask a favor.”
“Let me guess. You want me to arrest your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.”
His face grew warm. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Let me rephrase that. You want me to arrest your soon-to-be girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. What have you got on him?”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“You care about her. I could hear it in your voice when you answered her call. And she called you because she trusts you and knows she can depend on you. Sounds like the start of a beautiful relationship.”
Daniels was reading the situation wrong. He kept his personal life and his work separate, and didn’t date women he met during investigations, even if he found himself attracted to them. His mission was to serve and protect, not sleep with. He decided to move on and said, “Her ex-boyfriend’s name is Zack Kenny and he has an iPad in his apartment filled with porn of young girls. I can give you the address.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thank you. Can I ask another?”
She lifted an eyebrow suspiciously.
“During my investigation, I stumbled across some dirty cops stealing cocaine from the sheriff’s office property stockade and selling it on the street. I can’t go directly to the sheriff’s office with the information without revealing my source, and that would put his life in jeopardy. I was hoping you could help me out.”
“Do you know how they’re getting the coke out?”
“It’s pretty clever. The thief is using the coke to train a drug-sniffing dog, then he’s switching it with flour before returning it to the property unit.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
He followed her through the apartment to the study. His hunch that the Hanover killers were male nurses had paid off. It was a satisfying feeling, but it didn’t match the elation that he knew Special Agent Daniels was experiencing. Not only was she about to capture a pair of elusive serial killers, she was also going to bring to justice the two men who’d tried to abduct her when she was a college student. He couldn’t think of a more satisfying outcome and looked forward to experiencing it with her.
On his desk was a pile of papers she’d printed off his laser printer. She triumphantly handed him the top two sheets. “Our killers’ names are Jack Butler and Brandon Rhoden, and they both worked as ER nurses at Dartmouth-Hitchcock during the time of the Hanover killings,” she said. “These documents are their work history, courtesy of my HR friend at the hospital.”
He studied the two pages. Butler and Rhoden had started at the hospital at the same time, and they’d left their jobs at the same time as well. He strained his memory and realized they’d left their jobs three months after Daniels’s failed abduction.
“Did your HR contact know if they quit, or if they were fired?” he asked.
“My contact said it was by mutual agreement. She said that they both showed a lack of compassion for patients in need of critical care.”
“Are they sociopaths?”
“That would be my guess.”
From the pile, she removed two sheets that were paper clipped together and handed them to him. The logo at the top of the first page said NCSBN, which stood for National Council of State Boards of Nursing. “I contacted the NCSBN to see where Butler and Rhoden went next,” she said. “The NCSBN keeps data on every registered nurse in the country and has five million active names in its database. They spent a year working at a hospital in Dayton, Ohio, another year at a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, and then stints in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, and Houston, with each job never lasting longer than twelve months.”
Atlanta and Houston were two of the three cities where the killers had dropped off film of their female victims to pharmacies to be developed, the third being Fort Lauderdale. The circumstantial evidence against Butler and Rhoden was building.
“Moving is expensive,” he said. “Is there any way to find out why they didn’t stay for more than a year at any of these hospitals?”
“Not easily,” she said. “It’s personal information, and those hospitals won’t release it without a court order. I’m sure it was for the same reasons as Dartmouth-Hitchcock. The staff realized they weren’t normal, and they were pushed out.”
“But the staffs didn’t report them, so Butler and Rhoden continued to find work.”
“Correct. As I’m sure you’re aware, people in the medical profession are loathe to turn on bad doctors and nurses, even when they’re monsters.”
“You mean like Michael Swango.”
“Exactly. Just like Swango.”
Dr. Michael Swango was living proof that the medical profession did not know how to police itself. Over a span of seventeen years, Swango had been instrumental in the deaths of several patients, first while working as an ambulance attendant, then as a doctor. He had poisoned numerous patients and coworkers, yet had managed to keep his license and was employed as a doctor overseas at the time of his arrest by the FBI.
“Now here’s the good stuff,” Daniels said.
In her hand was a rap sheet, courtesy of the National Crime Information Center. NCIC documents were instantly recognizable due to their distinct dark font and logo being prominently stamped on the top of every page. He traded her the NCSBN documents.
“That’s Rhoden’s arrest record,” she added.
He studied the page. Rhoden’s journey to the dark side had started in Dayton, where he’d been arrested for accessing child pornography off a computer at the hospital where he was employed. His second arrest had occurred at a hospital in Asheville, where he’d also been caught downloading illegal images of kids. He’d been a good boy in Atlanta and Baton Rouge, but then got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in Houston, where he’d been arrested for attempting to procure sex with an undercover cop posing as a teenager in a chat room, also on a hospital computer.