Drained, page 15
“Yeah, I made a call to the development department, and they are putting it together as we speak.”
“Sure. Just make sure the agent has everything he needs,” Brett said.
“Yeah, okay. Um, one second, Mr. Bailor.”
Brett could hear him speaking with someone in the background.
Tom came back on the phone. “Sorry about that. Michelle just came in. It looks like we have another two agents here now with another subpoena.”
“For?” Brett asked.
“I haven’t looked at it yet.”
“I’ll come down. See you in a second.” Brett hung up and stood from his desk. As he walked toward his office door, he heard a knock, and the door opened.
Carrie, his secretary, stood in the doorway with his cup of coffee. She held it out toward him. “Mr. White and one of his colleagues are here.”
Brett gave her a confused look as he took the coffee.
“From the charity, your twelve o’clock,” Carrie said.
“Can you reschedule them? It sounds like there is something going on down in legal that needs my attention.”
“They’re sitting in the waiting area, sir,” Carrie said.
He let out a puff of air and slid past her in the doorway. Brett walked to the waiting area, where the visitors had taken seats.
“I’m Brett Bailor,” he said. “I just wanted to come and personally apologize. We’re going to need to reschedule the meeting we had set for today. There’s something urgent that requires my attention.”
An older man with short white hair and a mustache sat with one leg on top of his other knee. A portfolio folder rested on his lap. “Oh, um, well we needed to get this taken care of before the fundraiser this weekend,” Mr. White said.
“Again, I apologize. Maybe my secretary can reschedule something for tomorrow.”
Brett stared at the man and the woman beside him, hoping they would accept the rescheduling and leave.
The woman stood. She appeared to be in her sixties and annoyed. She had short blond—obviously dyed—hair and wore a tan pantsuit. “We drove three hours. This should only take a minute.” Her tone of voice had a ring of authority, as if she was used to getting her way.
“Sorry. Again, I apologize,” Brett said.
“Mostly, we just need your signature on this pledge,” she said. “I guess we could work out the rest by phone.” She tried handing Brett the portfolio that she’d taken from Mr. White. She flipped the cover open and pointed to where he should sign.
“I’d want to look over the paperwork. I just don’t have time at the moment,” he said.
“For a signature?” she asked. “Are you serious? You’ve already seen the paperwork.”
Brett clenched his jaw. The woman was trying to strongarm him. That was something he wouldn’t stand for—not in his place of business. He tried to remain professional though his mind was envisioning beating her to death where she stood.
Brett cracked his neck from side to side. “Ma’am, what came up requires my immediate attention. I’d like to reschedule. If we can’t, I guess we’ll just have to decline. Now, you can see Carrie for an appointment if you’d like, but I must be going.”
He left for the elevator—he had more important things to worry about at that moment. Brett rounded the corner and thumbed the elevator button to take him downstairs. He boarded the elevator and stepped out on the forty-sixth floor—legal. He walked down the hall and entered the office.
Brett noticed people he assumed to be the federal agents, two men and a woman, sitting in the waiting area. He continued past to Tom’s office, rapped his knuckles on the door, and entered.
“Are those the feds in the waiting room?” he asked.
“Hard to miss,” Tom said.
“And the second subpoena?” Brett asked.
“It’s for the same thing but on a different woman. A Jasmine Thomas.”
Brett nodded.
“One of the feds that just showed asked if he could speak with someone in the website-development department as well. I figured I’d let you field that.”
“Sure. Get together everything they’ve requested. I’ll go and speak with them regarding the site.”
“Okay. These names on the subpoenas—they are homicide victims. I recognize the one name from the news coverage,” Tom said.
Brett put on his best look of confusion. “I haven’t been watching local coverage in a bit.”
“Yeah, big news. Serial killer.”
“Serial killer, huh? Well, let’s get these agents everything they need.”
“Sure. The guys should have all the transcripts for them shortly.”
Brett nodded and left the office. He walked to the waiting room and stood before the seated agents, quickly taking them in. The two men wore suits and looked the part of federal agents, and the woman who sat between them was dressed for business and attractive. Brett clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m Brett Bailor, founder of Classified OD. My guys are working on getting everything you requested now. It should just be a bit. I was informed that one of you had a couple of questions regarding website development?”
The fed seated on the left stood. He appeared a few inches over six foot and wore a black suit with a white dress shirt and a navy-blue tie. His hair was short and dark, and his face had a bit of black-and-gray stubble.
“Agent Hank Rawlings,” the man said. “These are Agents Harper and Andrews. I did have a few questions regarding how profiles for your users are handled.”
“Sure, I should be able to answer those questions for you,” Brett said. “I’m also the lead website engineer.”
“Founder and engineer?” the other male fed asked.
Brett nodded. “I built the site and the company from the ground up. I don’t want someone else tinkering with my pride and joy.” Brett looked at the agents, but none of them responded. His eyes came to rest on the brunette female agent. “Why don’t you guys come with me to the conference lounge down the hall—a little more comfortable. I’ll have someone from legal bring everything to us as soon as it’s set. It will be a little more private to talk as well if you have some questions.”
Agent Rawlings nodded and motioned for Brett to lead the way, so he did. Brett walked the group down the hall and into a large office filled with executive chairs surrounding a circular table. After sitting the agents down, he asked, “Water, coffee, soda? I can have whatever you’d like brought.”
All three agents declined.
“Did you speak with another agent on the telephone the other day?” asked the fed named Rawlings.
Brett gave Agent Rawlings his attention. “I did. The agent I spoke with the other day, he didn’t really give me the specifics of what information he was requesting.” He paused. “The man who heads up the legal office said that he recognized the names on the subpoenas as two murder victims that have been all over the news. Was this the information that the other agent was referring to?”
“It was,” Agent Rawlings said.
“I wish I would have known that. Forget subpoenas and the legal department. I sure as hell won’t let my website be a place to facilitate things of that nature. What can I do to help?”
“Release all the documents you may have for each victim,” the woman agent said.
“Absolutely. That goes without question, whatever you need. Do you know for certain that they were all users?”
“We have a good idea that they were,” she said.
“Sure. Why don’t you give me the names, and I’ll have someone get you everything you need. As far as the profiles, what were your questions there?” Brett looked at the agent named Rawlings and waited for a response.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Andrews, Beth, and I entered a small conference room back at the Chicago FBI office. Mr. Bailor, at Classified OD, had searched each woman’s name for us and provided us with everything they had. He informed us that once users deleted their profiles, they were gone for good. Aside from holding past users personal information becoming a privacy-related issue, he explained that the company simply couldn’t retain every user’s information after they quit using the site—doing so would take up too much space on their servers, costing the company excess money. We wouldn’t be able to get anything on Jasmine Thomas even though we had evidence on her computer that she had had an account, at one time, on the site. Mr. Bailor also let us know that the company didn’t keep records of account termination dates.
We took seats around the table, where Andrews dropped the file box Mr. Bailor had given us. He opened the top and pulled the smaller files from within.
“So we just got Monica Whickham, our latest victim, and Rebecca Wright?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Andrews said. “Nothing on the others, unfortunately. Looks like there are a fair number of transcripts in here, though.”
“Well, let’s dig in. See if we can find a smoking gun somewhere,” Beth said.
“How do we want to do it?” Andrews asked.
“Write down all the user names Monica and Rebecca were in contact with. If we find a match between the two, well, that’s our lead,” I said.
“Are we just digging through these and trying to find messages that are from the personals section?” Andrews asked. “It looks like each of these pages have what segment of the website they came from listed at the top.”
I motioned for him to hand me some of the transcripts. “Everything. Personals and everything else.”
“Sure,” Andrews said. He divvied up the transcripts, handing Beth and me each a stack and then taking a pile for himself.
I looked down at the sheets of paper—they belonged to Monica Whickham.
Beth leaned over, tucked her brown hair behind her ear, and looked to see which woman I was working on. “I have her too.”
“Have who?” Andrews asked.
“Monica Whickham,” Beth said.
“Oh. Yeah, looks like it’s about fifty-fifty on transcripts between the two women. I have transcripts from her as well,” he said. “We’ll get her done and then move on to Rebecca Wright.”
Beth nodded but said nothing.
My eyes went back to the sheet in front of me. The date on the top corner of the first message was from two weeks prior. The information on the page was oriented with outgoing messages on the left and incoming messages on the right. I pulled out my notepad and jotted down the user name of the person she was exchanging messages with—the conversation topic was an inquiry about a sale of a vehicle, which matched with the segment of the site that the message had come through. She appeared to be looking to buy a used car, due to the fact that the next few pages of messages were of a similar topic—her inquiring about the vehicles and trying to arrange times she’d be able to view them. The responses included a few addresses and first names. I wrote them down.
“Anything from the personals?” Beth asked.
I scratched the side of my cheek, feeling stubble that needed to be shaved. “Not yet. Looks like she was trying to buy a car, from what I’m seeing here.”
“And rent a new apartment,” Beth said. “These sheets look like they’re all from the website’s housing and for-rent section.”
“I have some back and forths here that are from the personals section of the site,” said Andrews. “I have three different users that she was corresponding with. A Mike Money Twelve; a Writeguy, with a W for write; and a Lady Killer Seventy-five.”
Beth and I both looked up at Agent Andrews.
“Lady Killer?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Think it’s that obvious?”
“It would be pretty bad if it was. Keep looking,” I said.
“Sure. I’m writing the handles down. The Classified OD owner gave us a profile sheet for each person included in each correspondence. The real names for these guys should be in there,” Andrews said.
I went back to my stack of papers and continued writing down user names. We finished with Monica Whickham’s transcripts in about an hour. The bottom of my pile of papers had some messages back and forth that had come through the personals section. The LadyKiller75 handle was the only person she had been speaking with in my stack of transcripts. Apparently, they were getting to know each other. The man asked about her family, brothers and sisters, where she worked, religion, and things of that nature, and she asked him about similar topics.
Nothing from Beth’s pile of transcripts had anything other than Monica searching for an apartment or trying to buy miscellaneous items—she apparently had used the website to buy everything from shoes to furniture. Between Andrews, Beth, and I, we created one long master list of every user name she had contact with. Then we moved Monica’s files off to one side and began on Rebecca Wright.
Andrews again went through the process of splitting up the transcripts and handing them out.
I took my stack of papers and glanced at the first sheet—the messages had come from the personals segment. I flipped through the first couple of pages, looking to see if any of the names matched up with the three we had on Monica—they didn’t.
Before I flipped to the fourth page, Beth piped up. “Lady Killer Seventy-five.” She slammed her finger down to the name on the page. “Both women spoke to him.”
I leaned back in my office chair and ran my fingers through my hair. I nodded to Andrews. “Dig up the guy’s profile sheet before we get any further into this.”
Andrews dug through the file box and brought out a separate file. He began flipping through the papers, which I assumed to be the profile sheets. The stack of papers looked about an inch thick. Beth and I waited, watching him as he flipped from one page to the next.
He stopped and yanked a paper out. “Got it.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
Andrews set the paper down on the desk before him. He ran his finger down the page and then spun it so it faced Beth and me.
“The guy’s name is Jeff Mercer,” Andrews said.
“Give an address?” Beth asked.
“No, let me go run the name and pull his information. I’ll be right back.” Andrews took the sheet and left the conference room.
I grabbed my notepad sitting next to me on the table and began flipping through pages.
“What are you looking for?” Beth asked.
“I’d written some names down. Hold on.” I flipped through my notepad until I found my notes from the interviews with Jasmine Thomas’s mother and my notes from the interview with the family of Kennedy Taylor. I found the page and ran my finger down the notes. “Here we go.” I stared at what I’d written and shook my head.
“What?”
“Jasmine Thomas’s mother mentioned the names Tom and Mark. Cassidy Taylor mentioned the name Rick as far as potential suitors.”
“None of which are Jeff,” Beth said. “But then again, we have no proof that this Jeff Mercer ever was in contact with the other women other than Monica and Rebecca.”
I nodded. “Would have been nice to have a Jeff written down.” I started through the transcripts in front of me, looking for a message from the LadyKiller75 handle. I didn’t find one. “Is he signing his name to those messages?” I asked.
“Um.” She looked over the sheet in front of her. “Yeah. It says Jeff.”
“Look and see if it does in the messages to Monica,” I said.
Beth reached across the table and picked up Monica’s file, which we’d set aside. She thumbed through the papers until she found one containing messages from our guy. “Says Jeff again.”
“Okay.”
“Think he was using different names or something?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Could have been.”
The door of the room opened a moment later. “We have four by that name in the area,” Andrews said. He slapped a sheet of paper against his hand. His mouth turned up into a smile. “But one of them lives in Aurora.”
“Really?” I asked.
He nodded. “I passed Agent Toms on my way back in. He told me Agent Bower was still in the area. I called him up and told him to grab whoever was still out there and go try to pick this guy up. I guess this Mercer works at a tire shop in that area. So if he’s not at home, maybe we can catch up with him at his work.”
“Where would he be brought? Back here?” Beth asked.
“Yeah. We have interview rooms downstairs. Bower is going to call me back as soon as they locate the guy,” Andrews said.
“Perfect,” I said. “Let’s get into all of his messages with the victims and see what we can pull out. Look for anything mentioning meeting up, asking where they live, things like that. We need to find out if we can put these two with this guy around the time they went missing. It will give us some ammunition if we get him in here.”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Andrews said. He slid out his chair and took a seat.
We dug back into the transcripts from the messaging.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Andrews got the call just before we finished up going through the messages back and forth between the victims and Jeff Mercer. Bower and another agent had picked the guy up from his work and would be back at the FBI office any minute. The dump site for Monica’s body and Rebecca’s car was between the guy’s home and the automotive shop where he was employed. However, looking at the correspondences between Monica, Rebecca and Mercer, the content of the messages didn’t look as though either woman had ever personally met with the man. We did see phone numbers exchanged with Monica, yet we still didn’t have her cell-phone records from her carrier to see if they had actually been in contact. We cross-referenced the number he’d given Monica with all of the other victims’ phone records that the bureau already had—we didn’t find a match.
Andrews and I sat in the observation room next to the interview room where Bower would lead Mercer when they arrived. The observation room door opened, and Beth walked in.
“What did Ball say?” I asked.
“Not much. He was in a meeting and could only talk for a second. I told him we had a potential that we were about to interview. Basically, he said keep doing what we’re doing and he’d call after his meeting for a full update.”
