Chapter 11
Well, well, well, everyone had their little secrets. Melissa uncovered Marc Anthony's secrets with amazing ease and speed. He was a private investigator, a fact she knew and exploited, she always did a check on people who walked into her school. The business background check showed his license was in good standing, he had a good reputation and all the stuff she cared about when she asked him to do the background check. All the stuff she doesn’t care about now.
Now, Melissa wanted to know about the man, not the private investigator, but what drove the man. She found a grave he bought when he was sixteen. She found the grave of an Angela Foster, beloved mother. This must be his mother and the 14-year-old girl buried next to the woman must be his sister. But according to the obituary for Angela, she was survived by her only son, Marc Anthony. Melissa searched for Amee Foster in the newspaper logs. She found a heartbreaking story about a 14-year-old who committed suicide after her mother sold her to different men for drugs. There was a picture of Amee and a younger man Melissa recognized as Marc Anthony. The picture was taken at a community function for the paper and was brought out again when the story was written.
Melissa wiped her misty eyes and printed out the story. Marc Anthony gave the young girl his name. He must have felt very deeply for the girl, so deeply that he hadn’t married, nor had he come close. Melissa closed her computer and started to think about how she would proceed. She found out more than she was looking for, but the information was good. She looked at the coloring of the girl. Amee was blond with light colored eyes, and Melissa looked at herself in the mirror. She looked at her medium blond hair and light green eyes. She could easily pass for what Amee would look like if she were allowed to live. Melissa decided to use that to her advantage.
Melissa sat back in her chair and started to plan her next move. She decided to let her assistant director handle the school for a couple of days and take some personal time. The weekend was coming up and she wanted everything ready.
Melissa wasn’t the only one looking into what Marc Anthony was doing, FBI agent Brandon Row received a tip which pointed to Marc Anthony as the Killing Field Killer. According to this anonymous witness, Marc Anthony was around Casey on the day of her death and he is always around the south side of town where all the other girls have disappeared from.
“OK, we will look into your tip,” Brandon said and hung up the phone. “We may have gotten a new lead.” Brandon told Lloyd who sat at the desk next to Brandon.
Lloyd was used to having his own office but two desks were hard to fit in his office and his chief wanted him to work side by side with Brandon. They were getting nowhere. They were both at odds, had different theories, and couldn’t agree on the next step of the investigation.
“I have a new lead that I think will crack this case wide open,” Brandon handed Lloyd the note. “I just spoke to this informant who said he saw a man named Marc Anthony around Casey Hammond on the day of her death and he is frequently around that area.”
“Marc Anthony Foster?” Lloyd asked as he looked at the note.
“I just have Marc Anthony,” Brandon pointed at the name on the paper. “Is he the same person as this Foster?
“Marc Anthony goes by his first and middle name,” Lloyd muttered. “He is a private investigator. I don’t think he has anything to do with this. Some of these cases go back several years.”
“He could have started early,” Brandon pointed out. “I mean, it is the first real lead we had in a few days.”
“I am thinking that this has to do with a case I have been trying to solve for twenty years,” Lloyd said. “I think the same man who killed Casey Hammond and those other girls also killed Molly Hemsworth.”
“Yeah, I heard about your obsession with the Molly Hemsworth case,” Brandon said, sitting down. “That case cost you your marriage, the relationship with your daughters, and your health. I am sorry that you went through all that. But, these cases have nothing to do with that one. They weren’t even found in the same place.”
“I just have a gut feeling…”
“Your gut feeling is going to waste a lot of our time,” Brandon said firmly. “I didn’t not travel halfway across the state to solve an unrelated case.”
“I don’t need your help solving this case,” Lloyd snapped back. “I can…”
“You haven’t solved it yet,” Brandon said heatedly.
Lloyd narrowed his blue eyes and scowled at Brandon, “I know these people and I know this case. I know Marc Anthony has nothing to do with it, but if you want to chase this down then be my guest. You are wasting your time, but after watching you the past few days, you seem to like doing that. The FBI probably sent you to get you out of the way in Houston.”
“Yeah,” Brandon spat back. “They sent me here to gain some field experience. They trust me well enough to put me here. You might not believe this, but I can help, I am an asset to any team I am on, and right now, we need to catch this guy before he hits again. We haven’t even established a pattern, if there even is one. Which, if there is not a pattern, we are fucking screwed. Now, we need to follow every lead, that means we talk to the mayor himself if we get a reliable tip.”
Lloyd considered what Brandon could bring to the table. Brandon was right, they couldn’t spend all this valuable time fighting and bickering. He was the more experienced investigator who knew the town. Brandon was a profiler. He was, as he pointed out, an FBI asset. Besides, Lloyd saw a lot of himself in the young man; or what he used to be. Hell, this job gets to the best of men, Lloyd thought.
“Foster isn’t going to come quietly,” Lloyd pointed out. “He will be insulted if you bring him in as a suspect. Look, young pup, you might have a lot of knowledge about how to handle the critical thinking of investigations, but you need to gain experience in the interview portion. I guess I got one question.”
“What is that?” Brandon asked warily.
“How good are you at playing poker?” Lloyd motioned Brandon to follow him.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Brandon asked as he got up and walked with Lloyd.
“Everything when you are learning how to interview.”
“Where are we going?”
“First of all, we got to get you into a game,” Lloyd walked to the patrol portion of the station. “Corporal Matthews, this is FBI Agent Brandon Row, he is in dire need of some interviewing training. Can you put together a poker game with the boys? I will make all the arrangements.”
“Do you know anything about the game of poker, Agent Row?” Matthews asked with a sly grin.
“Oh, I know the basics of the game,” Brandon answered. He was about to be taken for a ride and he knew it.
“With or without the sergeant?” Matthews asked.
“Without,” Lloyd said drily.
“Why without the sergeant?” Brandon was genuinely curious.
“He cheats,” Matthews said. “On purpose. He is there to teach us not to trust all the information.”
Later that night on the second floor of a bar, Brandon and Lloyd were sitting at a table with four other police officers who lied like a rug, they bluffed their way through the game. Brandon got the hang of calling their bluffs and keeping his facial expression passive.
“So, FBI, huh,” one of the officers decided to get into Brandon’s head when he realized Brandon was on a hot streak. “Know what we call the FBI around here?”
The other men stopped talking to listen to the conversation. Pain was aptly named. He was a consummate teaser.
“What’s that?” Brandon just looked at his cards. They were playing another round of Texas Hold ‘Em. He was watching the river.
“Female Body Inspectors,” Pain jeered.
The other players started to snicker. Lloyd was the only one who didn’t laugh. He just looked at the cards in play.
“So, we were all wondering, do you do female body inspections or is the agency full of females who do body inspections, and if so, how can we get in on that?” Pain looked at Brandon with a gleam in his eyes.
“Rob a bank,” Brandon said drily. “I call, four aces.”
Brandon won the pot and Lloyd was satisfied that he learned the lesson, even if Brandon didn’t realize it.
“So what was that all about?” Brandon asked as he put $400 dollars into his wallet.
“It was about controlling your emotions, not reacting to the information you are presented with, and learning to listen to cues,” Lloyd said. “You picked up on the cues, didn’t let them get to you and didn’t give away your hand. Keep that in mind when we talk to Marc Anthony tomorrow. The man is a private investigator. He is going to know the rules, just like those guys in there.”
Brandon nodded. He had to admit, he couldn’t go head to head with Marc Anthony half-cocked. Lloyd and Brandon had to come up with a strategy that would allow Marc Anthony to open up his comings and goings without drawing the private investigator’s suspicions.
Lloyd thought the best way to handle Marc Anthony was to treat him as a person of interest. Bring him in and clear up a few things, procedure and all that.
The next morning, Lloyd made the call and Marc Anthony agreed to meet them at the precinct at 10 a.m., which was in just a few hours. Marc Anthony didn’t know what drew Lloyd’s interest to him, but he didn’t have anything to do with Casey Hammond’s death, nor did he have anything to do with the other girls’ deaths. He didn’t want the police to look too closely at his activities; Marc Anthony still had plenty to hide.
“Hey, Lloyd,” Marc Anthony sat down in the chair across from Lloyd, “what is this all about?”
“Just going over all the leads,” Lloyd said evenly. He wanted to make sure Marc Anthony was comfortable. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I worked on several missing persons cases,” Marc Anthony said. “I am trying to understand how my name came up?”
“We got a tip from an informant who said you were the last one to see Casey Hammond alive,” Bradon said with the same nonchalant tone.
“Oh, I see,” Marc Anthony cleared his throat. He had an informant of his own. “We both play in the same pond guys, there are only a few informants who are willing to talk to the police. And, I am thinking the information didn’t come from the usual source.”
“He requested to stay anonymous,” Brandon said simply.
“I don’t think your informant is reliable,” Marc Anthony said. “I wasn’t anywhere near that girl when she was killed. If I was, she would still be alive. It would hurt business if people thought I was capable of what that girl or any of the others went through.”
“Still,” Brandon decided to bluff. “Someone saw you putting something in the back of your truck the night the girl disappeared.”
Brandon noticed a little flicker, he struck something, but Marc Anthony recovered quickly. The man was a good poker player, Brandon thought. Will Marc Anthony see through the bluff, Brandon wondered.
Marc Anthony had to think, when did he kill that slasher? Shorty was involved in that and wouldn’t narc on him. That was after the girl died. Or at least after she went missing. Marc Anthony hasn't spoken to Shorty since the police found Casye’s body. Rumor was Shorty had been getting drunk every night since then. Marc Anthony might have to make an intervention, not just for his sake, but for Shorty’s also.
Marc Anthony decided to break the silence, usually, he would wait out his opponent, but the agent might see that as an admission, “I have an alibi for the night Casey Hammond disappeared. I was on a stakeout, I have the pictures with the time stamps. It is a divorce case. I can get that to you. Are we through here?”
“Yeah,” Lloyd said. “Thanks for your patience and understanding.”
Marc Anthony rose out of his seat and shook both Lloyd’s and the FBI agent’s hand. He made sure he looked the agent in the eyes and maintained his breath and gaze. He needed to check on his farm, confirm that there was no evidence that might cause this duo to look too closely. Marc Anthony walked out and dialed his employee at the farm.
Lloyd watched him walk out and smiled at Brandon, “that was an impressive bluff. What made you think to say he was putting something in the back of the truck?”
“It made sense,” Brandon said. “The bodies were transported from the actual crime scene to the dumping ground. He has a truck.”
“He is nervous about something,” Lloyd said. “Let’s see where he is going.”
Brandon looked at Lloyd, “I thought you said he has nothing to do with this. Besides, he has an alibi.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt,” Lloyd said. “We haven’t checked the alibi yet anyway.”
Brandon shrugged and walked with Lloyd to the car, they saw Marc Anthony jump into his truck and head west, deeper into the hill country.
Melissa pulled out of her shaded spot and followed the investigators. She wondered why they were interested in Marc Anthony. He didn’t fit the profile of the man who killed those girls. He fit a totally different profile.