Donors Page 8

  The captain said he’d get more officers working the case. We agreed to reconvene in the conference room at six o’clock. We’d go over everything we’d found out during the day and plan our approach for later that night.

  Back in the car, I pulled up the address for St. Mary’s Hospital in Gary. “Okay, from here the hospital is about a twenty-minute drive. We need to get on Grant Street and go south to West Twenty-Fifth Avenue. You’ll turn right there and go about ten blocks. Sounds like a piece of cake.”

  “Speaking of cake, when do you want to break for lunch?”

  “Is it that late?” I glanced at the clock on the radio panel and saw it was eleven forty-five. “Damn, where did the morning go?”

  “Okay, let’s make a quick stop before the lunch traffic begins. I’m fine with a drive-through restaurant, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  Thirty minutes later as J.T. pulled back into traffic on West Twenty-Fifth Avenue, we each had a chicken sandwich and fries on our laps. Our sodas sat in the cup holders.

  “I hope dining in a car doesn’t become my new normal,” I said around a mouthful of roasted chicken and a swallow of soda.

  J.T. nodded. His mouth was too full to talk. I pointed when I saw a six-story brick building coming up on my right.

  “That may be the hospital. Slow down a bit and get in the right lane.” I looked over my shoulder. “You’re good.”

  He clicked his blinker and slipped between two cars.

  “Yep, that’s the place. I can see the sign from here.”

  J.T. turned in and followed the arrows for the visitor parking lot. We finished our meal before we got out. I balled up our wrappers then pulled the visor down to check my mouth and teeth. “Good to go.” I grabbed the folder from my door pocket, and we headed to the main entrance.

  We entered through the automatic glass doors and stood behind an elderly couple at the registration counter.

  “May I help the next in line?”

  I already had my unclipped badge cupped in my hand. J.T. pulled the FBI ID wallet from his jacket pocket. We quietly announced who we were, showed our badges, and explained that we needed to be directed to the lab.

  The receptionist suddenly looked anxious.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, ma’am. We can’t let you wander the hospital on your own.”

  “Sure, I understand.” I panned the room and saw a friendly looking face at a desk near the waiting area. It belonged to the hospital guest volunteer lady. “How about her?” I pointed in that direction. “She can walk with us.”

  “I suppose so. Give me a minute.” The registration woman came around the counter and approached the lady at the desk.

  J.T. and I stood to the side and watched as they spoke with each other and pointed in our direction.

  I chuckled. “Not very discreet, are they?”

  “Nope.”

  After a brief conversation, the registration woman returned to the counter. “Go with her. She’ll guide you to the lab.”

  “Thanks for the help,” I said as she called the next person in line.

  J.T. and I joined the volunteer, Nancy, and followed her to the elevator. She pressed the button to the fourth floor.

  “Here to visit someone in the lab?” she asked.

  I smiled. “Sort of.”

  The doors parted, and she exited ahead of us. “Right this way. The lab is two doors down on the left. Here you go,” Nancy said. “Is there anything else?”

  “That should do it,” J.T. said. “Thanks for your help.”

  I opened the glass door. A tiny area with two chairs against the wall was to our right. Straight ahead, we saw a sliding glass window with a woman sitting in a cubicle on the other side. She glanced up when we entered.

  “What can I do for you?” She pushed the glass to the side and snapped her gum.

  We pulled out our badges again and held them up. “We need to speak to everyone that worked directly with Heather Francis.”

  She huffed. “That’s impossible, they’re working.”

  I smiled. “Nothing is impossible, dear. We need to speak to everyone, one at a time, starting now. We also need a private area to conduct our interviews in.”

  She rolled back in her chair and stood. “Just a minute.” She disappeared around the door behind her.

  “I guess we’ll wait.” J.T. took a seat, and I remained where I was.

  She returned within a few minutes and spoke to us through the opened window. “We have nine people staffed today. Do you intend to speak to all of them?”

  “We sure do, one at a time, like I said earlier.”

  “There’s a small room where the employees keep their personal belongings”—she craned her neck out the window and pointed to her left—“right there. It’s the best we can do.”

  “That ought to work. You can send the first person in, and we’ll try to keep each interview under ten minutes.”

  J.T. opened the door to a room barely larger than a bathroom. Three folding chairs were stacked against the wall. We set up all three and waited. Minutes later, a young woman stuck her head in the half-opened door.

  “Deb said I’m supposed to talk to you?”

  “Sure.” I motioned to the last available chair. “Have a seat.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Heather Francis, but we’ll get to that in a minute. We’ll begin with the typical questions like your name, how long you’ve worked here, where you live, that sort of thing. May as well get that out of the way first, right?”

  “Sure, okay.” The girl fidgeted with her hair, twisting the ends one way and then the other.

  I stared at her with my notepad and pen ready. “You can go ahead and start.”

  “I’m Sara Brady, I’ve worked here three years, I’m twenty-six, and I live at 142 Jackson Street.”

  J.T. stuck out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Sara. Did you work last Friday with Heather?”

  “Um, Friday? Yeah, I was here.”

  “Until when?”

  “I worked the early shift from seven in the morning until three p.m.”

  “So you left before Heather?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  I wrote that down. “Did you share your Friday night plans with each other?”

  “Not really. Heather and I weren’t friends, and I went out with my fiancé Friday night.”

  I tapped my notepad. “Uh-huh. Any reason why you and Heather weren’t close?”

  “No, we didn’t hang in the same circles, that’s all.”

  “Okay, is there anyone in particular she hung out with?”

  “Not that I noticed. She was the gofer, and nobody really paid attention to her. You know, kind of invisible.”

  “Right. That should do it, Sara. Will you send in the next person, please?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She stood and walked out.

  I watched her leave the room then turned to J.T. “Nice girl, huh?”

  The door opened again, and a woman older than Sara entered and took a seat. “Hi, I’m Joan. It’s really sad about Heather.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I saw the segment on the Sunday news.”

  J.T. took over. “Thanks, Joan. Your last name is?”

  “Miller. I’m married and have two teenage daughters.”

  “Did you and Heather talk much at lunchtime or during work?”

  “No, we rotated lunch breaks so half of the staff was always working. Heather was kind of quiet, but her eyes sure lit up whenever she saw Adam.”

  “Adam? Adam who?”

  She chuckled. “Adam Drake, our blood storage and distribution tech.”

  I shot a glance at J.T. and wrote down the name.

  Joan noticed and waved her comment away as if to erase what she had just said. “It was one of those ‘young girl with a crush on a married guy’ sort of things. I’m sure it lasted all of five minutes.”

  “Is Adam working today?”
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  “Yeah, I saw him this morning, but he comes and goes throughout the day.”

  I sighed. “Okay, thanks. Please send in the next person.” I scratched out a note to myself to find and interview Adam Drake too. I watched as Joan walked out and closed the door behind her. “I hope Andrews and Fitch are having luck on their end. These interviews all sound the same.”

  The door opened, and a young man entered and took a seat. “Hi. I hear you’re FBI agents.” He smoothed the wayward strands of blond hair from his eyes and smiled.

  I returned the smile and relaxed for a minute. He seemed pleasant and sincere. I pointed at his head. “What’s your role here? I see you aren’t wearing a hairnet like the others.”

  He touched his hair as if by instinct then tucked the ends behind his left ear. “I file the blood samples in alphabetical order before they’re tested. I don’t actually work in the lab with everyone else. I guess you’d say I’m the guy nobody sees.”

  “Were you and Heather friends?”

  “Nah, I barely knew her. I was usually in the back while she ran around doing menial chores for the techs. We only spoke a handful of times.” He paused and stared at his shoes. “But what they showed on the news about her was heartbreaking. Nobody deserves that fate.”

  “True enough. Did you work last Friday?” J.T. asked.

  “Nope, I only work part-time. I had Friday off.”

  “And nobody in the lab was close to Heather?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure. She talked to the other employees because of her job, but I don’t know if she was actually close to any of them outside of work. Like I said, we didn’t hang out, so I don’t know what went on in her social life.”

  I looked over my notes. “And you live where?”

  “Just off of Second Street, about a half hour west of here.”

  “Okay, that should do it, thanks. Wait, hang on.” I chuckled when he stood. “I completely forgot to ask your name.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I get that often. I guess I’m easy to forget.” His eyes twinkled playfully as he looked from me to J.T. and back to me. He stuck out his hand to shake mine. “The name is Sam—Sam Reed.”

  Chapter 16

  Sam maintained his composure as he returned to the blood labeling room behind the lab. He closed the door at his back and felt the heat spread upward from his neck to his face.

  Now the FBI is involved? This is such crap. The government and big pharma are to blame, along with the bureaucracy bullshit. They’re the reason I have to resort to this madness. I was a normal guy before Mom got sick.

  He paced the room as he talked to himself in a low whisper. “Okay, keep your cool. FBI agents or not, they aren’t going to find out anything. Keeping the girls at home, safely tucked away in the back of the garage, is the answer. Nobody dies and no bodies are found. News of the deaths will eventually fade, and life will go on. People forget these things in time.”

  Sam spent the afternoon planning and plotting his next move. He had to be more than careful. Luckily, Heather was the only girl he had an actual link to, and he had played that well. Pretending he barely knew her seemed to work. The agents didn’t question his story.

  He took a deep breath, shook his strained shoulder muscles, and jotted notes to himself as he thought of his next tasks. He’d buy used chairs from now on and figure out a way to strap the girls still as he drew their blood. He envisioned the process like the one used at blood donation centers. The girls would have to sleep in the chairs, but that was a far better option than death.

  Yeah, I’ll make it work, and I’ll stop at a secondhand store on my way home. They’re bound to have what I need.

  At five o’clock, Sam stood in line with the rest of the hospital employees leaving for the day. When he reached the time clock, he took his card from the slotted holder on the wall, slid it into the machine, and waited for the sound of the punch. Blue ink indicated the time he clocked out. With his time card back in the wall slot, he walked through the lunchroom, turned at a short hallway, and exited the employees’ door to the parking lot. He repeated that same process each and every day he was scheduled to work.

  He sat behind the steering wheel of the van and watched as everyone drove away, happy to be heading home, going somewhere normal, somewhere they could unwind and relax.

  Not me. I’m going home to my own personal hell, but first I have to buy two chairs and have them ready to go. Later, I’ll prowl the streets and grab an unsuspecting victim or two. They’ll accompany me home and find out for themselves what hell is really like.

  Chapter 17

  J.T. and I finished our interviews with all of Heather’s coworkers and acquaintances. We tracked down Adam Drake before we left, and he said he was surprised to learn of the short-lived crush Heather had on him. He laughed it off but admitted he felt flattered that a young woman like Heather would have a crush on someone forty-five years old.

  “I didn’t know her well, but we’d rib each other now and then when we passed in the hallway or ate at the same time in the lunchroom. She seemed like a good kid. I mean, my own kids are nearly her age. I was sad to hear of her death, and I sure feel bad for her family.”

  I handed Adam my card. “If there’s anything else you can think of.”

  He tipped his head. “Sure thing, agents, and I wish I could have been more helpful.”

  I rubbed my forehead as we crossed the parking lot to the cruiser.

  “Got a headache?” J.T. asked.

  “No, I just wish that those interviews didn’t feel like a waste of a full day of work.”

  “Yeah, I understand, but it’s all part of narrowing down the suspect list.”

  I jerked my head toward J.T. and faked shock. “We have a suspect list?”

  “Very funny, but actually I wish we did. At least I’d feel like we were making progress.” J.T. pushed up his coat sleeve and glanced at his wristwatch. “We have fifty minutes before we’re expected back in the conference room. Do you think that’s enough time to actually sit at a table to eat dinner?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m willing to try. Worst-case scenario, they start the meeting without us.”

  Several blocks from the hospital, we found a small diner with a near empty parking lot. That told me one of two things was true—the food was bad, or we were sitting down to eat earlier than most people. I hoped for the latter. Inside, we found a dated restaurant with booth seating against the inner wall and a long dining counter near the kitchen. The place was definitely stuck in the sixties, but it looked clean, and the waitress wore a big smile. She called out for us to sit anywhere we liked. I guess I understood why. Only two people were at the counter, and all of the booths were empty.

  We sat at the booth nearest the kitchen. The waitress would have a short distance to walk, and we could possibly get back to the police department on time. With the menus standing between the napkin holder and the condiments, we had already chosen our meals by the time the waitress walked over.

  “Hi, folks. What can I get you to drink?”

  “I’ll have coffee, but I’m ready to order too. We have somewhere to be.”

  “Sure, go ahead, and I’ll tell the cook to put a rush on the meals.”

  I almost laughed since there wasn’t a backlog of orders waiting to be filled. There weren’t any orders at all. “I’ll have a bowl of clam chowder and an order of fries, and a cup of coffee too.”

  J.T. spoke up. “Make that two coffees, and I’ll have the cheeseburger with fries.”

  She reached for the menus and placed them back against the napkin holder. “Thanks, I’ll have him start your dinners right away.”

  I grinned at J.T. “She’s cute.”

  He looked at her as she walked toward the kitchen. “Yeah, she is. So, did anything stand out to you during the interviews?”

  “You mean like a gut instinct?”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  “Not as far as the people we interviewed, but it seems
weird that Heather didn’t hang out with any other employees.”

  “I thought the same thing.” J.T. pulled out his notepad and flipped through the pages.

  “Something ring a bell?”

  “Odd how Corrine’s folks said she didn’t have many friends, just Mia.”

  I tore the paper seal that covered my napkin, removed the silverware and placed the napkin on my lap. “I think it’s because of their jobs. Corrine was employed at a predominantly male lumberyard, and only one other female worked there. As far as Heather goes, I think it’s because a hospital lab is an intense place to work, and you can’t afford to screw up. I doubt if anybody socialized during work hours. Plus, like they all reminded us, she was only a gofer. I hate it when people think they’re better than others.”

  J.T. caught my attention. “Heads-up, the waitress is bringing our food.”

  I stopped talking for the moment as she set our meals on the table then walked away. “At least they’re quick here. Let’s continue this conversation after dinner.”

  We ate in silence, and to my surprise, the food was delicious. We were finished eating and settled up in less than a half hour.

  As J.T. drove the twenty minutes to the police department, I thought about the case. We had three dead girls that we knew of and another missing. “We have to tighten up this investigation. Hopefully, the detectives will have some news on Molly Davis, the cars, and something that might be of interest on Corrine’s social media page. That’s if the tech department figured out the password. Did we scratch Bobby Lang off the list?”

  “Yep, he isn’t on our radar anymore. We can’t arrest him for being creepy.”

  “That’s true. Let’s not overlook Taylor Dorsey. We haven’t learned much about her. There’s the surveillance later tonight too,” I said. “We’re going to find out more about the cult world than we probably want to know. I’ll admit, that’s a lifestyle I’m not familiar with.”

  “I hear you, partner, and we’ll have plenty of time to go over everything before we leave.”

  Chapter 18

  Sam pulled up a list of secondhand stores on his phone. The nearest one was only four miles from the hospital and in the same direction as home. Their website showed the store was open until nine o’clock that night. Sam made the call. He couldn’t afford to waste time at a store that didn’t have what he needed. The night was going to be busy as it was. He listened as the phone rang.