“I’m happy for that much, sir. And I’ll keep you up to date on my progress.”
“Start now. Tell me about this suspect of yours.”
“Basil Havoc,” Mark said. “Of the several possible suspects I’ve considered, he’s number one.”
“Saw his name in your files — remind me.”
Mark shifted in his chair, sat forward. “When David Elkins didn’t talk to the media right away, after the murders of his family? Reporters started zeroing in on the people around him in his life. Somehow they found out Akina Elkins, not long before she was killed, had started studying gymnastics under this guy Havoc. Guy was quoted in one of those stories. ‘She’ll be missed, sweet girl...’ ”
“The typical twaddle. But how does that make him a suspect?”
“It doesn’t, but you see — I knew Jordan Rivera when we were kids, and I remembered that she used to study gymnastics. Turns out she studied with Havoc.”
“You knew her?”
“Yes. We were in high school together.”
Two hands came up in a stop-right-there gesture. “This thing better not be personal, Pryor. Was Rivera your steady or some shit?”
“No! No. She was just a classmate.” Not exactly a lie.
“So knowing her a little made it possible to talk to her?” Kelley asked. “And she told you about Havoc? What, at the nuthouse?”
“No, no sir. The last I heard she was still in St. Dimpna’s, and essentially catatonic.”
“Then how...?”
“I reached out to some mutual friends from those days, and they say she studied under Havoc. Just briefly. She quit the lessons, in fact, not long after starting them.”
“Why?”
“That I don’t know. Yet.”
“So what’s the gymnastic coach’s story?”
Mark sat back. Crossed an ankle over a knee. Suddenly he was feeling damn near at ease with the captain. “Havoc has a pretty darn impressive background.”
“How impressive?”
“How about ’92 Olympics impressive?”
“Olympic star, huh? From the USA?”
Mark shook his head. “United Olympic team.”
“What the hell is that?”
“After the Iron Curtain fell, the nations in the Russian bloc couldn’t get individual teams together fast enough, so they joined forces. Havoc is from Moldova, one of twelve countries that made up the United team. He got a silver medal, then came over here. It wasn’t long before he settled in Cleveland and started his gymnastics center.”
Kelley was nodding slowly, clearly interested. “Where’s Havoc now?”
“His school is still going here in Cleveland, but Havoc himself travels quite a bit.”
Kelley rocked awhile. His eyes were moving in thought. Mark said nothing. Waited for his boss to process the information.
Finally the captain said, “So, your suspect knew both families. I like that. Did he have any connection to the Sullys in Strongsville?”
“No, sir. Not that I’ve found so far.”
“You got anything else suggestive about him?”
Mark nodded, and gestured toward the file. “In 2008, the US Women’s Gymnastics Championships were in Boston. Around that time, a family was murdered in Providence, Rhode Island.”
“Boston’s in Massachusetts,” Kelley reminded him.
“Yes, but Providence is only about an hour’s drive from Boston.”
Kelley frowned. “Do you know for sure that Havoc was in Providence?”
“No,” Mark admitted. “I’ve seen footage from the championships, definitely putting him in Boston during the week the Rhode Island family was killed.”
“Have you talked to the Providence PD?”
Mark wanted to be careful here. He was about to admit contacting another jurisdiction for information that might pertain to at least two, now maybe three, local cases, none of which were his.
Finally, he said, “Yes, sir. I realize I may have overstepped, but yes.”
Kelley grunted. “We’ll skip me tearing you a new asshole and go straight to what you found out.”
“Okay. The detective there said they wrote it off as a home invasion gone south. The parents and a fifteen-year-old adopted son were shot with a nine mil.”
“Were they mutilated?”
“The Providence guy didn’t say so, and I didn’t ask.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I figured he would have mentioned it had they been. Or if that was the case, and they were holding it back, I didn’t want to send up any alarm bells.”
“That might ring back in Cleveland, you mean? And let your captain know you’re ‘overstepping’?”
Mark swallowed. Uncrossed his legs. “Something like that, sir.”
But Kelley had already moved on. “What kind of gun was used in the Elkins murders?”
“Nine millimeter.”
“Possible connection, then.”
“Possible connection, yes.”
“A lot of nine mils in the world.” The captain nodded toward the general world outside his office. “There’s a jungle full of fuckin’ Glocks out there, you know.”
“Oh, I know, sir.”
Kelley nodded toward the file before him. “I just skimmed this. Is there anything else that ties Havoc in?”
“Well, in 2010, when the US Women’s Gymnastics Championships were in Hartford? Havoc was there, too.”
“Why, was a Hartford family murdered?”
“No, but a family in the Bronx was.”
“Yeah, and getting from Hartford to the Bronx isn’t exactly from the earth to the moon. I get the drift. Go on.”
Mark did: “Family of six, all shot, the adults mutilated.”
“Slashed?”
Mark nodded. “Two hours from Hartford, an easy drive.”
“Nine mil?”
“Yeah,” Mark said. “The parents dealt in illegal substances, so it got attributed to them angering the wrong crowd.”
Kelley rocked some more. Gently. Eyes moving again. Then: “So none of these bullets has ever been compared with another?”
“No, sir. No one’s connected these crimes.”
“You would think the FBI computers would have done the job.”
“You would think. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Kelley chuckled dryly. “And that’s why you keep pesterin’ my ass? Because you have connected these crimes.”
“Right, sir. And, well...”
“Spill it.”
“...you are in a position to ask for comparisons of the bullets in these cases. Whereas I am just—”
“A worthless shit-for-brains rookie, yes, I know, with the weight of a gnat that just landed on an elephant’s ass.”
“I was just thinking that, sir.”
That actually made Kelley chuckle.
The pair sat silently for a while as Captain Kelley mulled his options.
“The foundation you’re pouring for this house of horror isn’t strong enough to hold up an outhouse, you know. And don’t tell me you were just thinking that.”
“Not strong enough yet, sir, no.”
“Well, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you turn out to be Sherlock the Fuck Holmes and you’ve uncovered a serial killer that the FBI, in all its power and prowess, missed. If those bullets match, they’ll take over all these cases so fast, you won’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
“I don’t have any problem with the FBI taking over for me,” Mark said, raising his palms as if in surrender. “They are certainly better equipped for it than a crap-for-brains rookie.”
There was a somber aspect to Kelley’s expression that reminded Mark, improbably enough, of a minister or priest. “You just want this guy caught.”
“And stopped.” He sat forward again. “If I’m right, Captain, this monster has killed over a dozen people in the last decade, and that’s just the ones I’ve been able to find. There’s no telling how many there are, really.”