Lunch was brought in by some efficient person who suddenly appeared from the secret passageway and quietly set the food and drinks down on a table against one wall, then quietly disappeared.
They seemed to have exhausted just about every lead and angle possible by midafternoon. But there was one person who hadn’t presented his findings yet—Bishop. The others sat back and the room went quiet as his notes from the prison interview with Finney, the Kentucky Ripper, filled the screen.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“A few days ago,” Bishop began, “Bryson requested that I look into Leviathan Finney in relation to this case. The reason is obvious. Ms. Ray was abducted two years ago by a man who carved an X on her stomach, just like the Kentucky Ripper did to his victims. But since that same man abducted her again, and Finney is in prison for the Ripper’s crimes, the question is whether Finney is the real Ripper or a copycat. The reason that matters is that if he’s a copycat, then it’s possible that the man who abducted her is the Ripper. Knowing that provides a lot more data to use to find this man. But we don’t want to send ourselves, or the police, down the wrong investigative path. So it was important to figure out whether we could rule in her abductor as the Ripper, or rule him out.”
He typed a few buttons on his tablet, then a table of dates, names and comments appeared on the screen.
“Those are the Ripper’s victims,” Teagan said.
“They are,” Bishop agreed. “Along with the dates of their abductions and murders. I created this table to keep track of what Finney was supposedly doing at the time of each abduction or murder. It’s his alibi list, basically. Or it was supposed to be. When I checked through court transcripts, the alibi information was rather thin. His lawyer didn’t present much of a defense. Regardless, I dug as deep as I could in the time that I had. And then I went to the psychiatric hospital where Finney was being held before being deemed fit enough to be placed in the general prison population. I spoke to his doctors and was able toconvince them to share information to help with my victim/alibi matrix.”
Teagan blinked and shot Bryson a look, but he didn’t seem fazed by Bishop’s last statement. As far as she knew, doctors, especially a psychiatrist, would never disclose that kind of information about a living patient without a warrant. She wondered what Bishop had done to “convince” them to talk.
“After that,” Bishop continued, “I spoke to Finney, for hours.” He highlighted a handful of rows in the table on the screen. “After piecing together witness statements from the investigations, court transcripts, what his doctor said, and then interviewing people to corroborate what Finney told me, these four rows are the only ones where I couldn’t positively alibi him out. But even these I’m fifty-fifty on.” He sat back and glanced around the table, apparently finished speaking.
Teagan looked at the others. Brielle was furiously typing on her laptop. Han was swiping through screen after screen on his, as if searching for something. And the guy in the Stetson, Dalton, had jumped up from the table and was standing off in a corner on, of all things, a wall phone. She hadn’t seen one of those in years.
At her questioning look, Bryson asked, “The phone? Most of Camelot is a giant Faraday cage.”
“Fair a what?”
“Faraday. Electronic signals can’t get in or out. We have to use dedicated landlines. It’s for security. Even the computer tablets are hard-wired through the table to the main computer.”
She thought that seemed like total overkill, but didn’t really care at the moment. What mattered was that she was completely lost. “Why does everyone else seem to understand whatever Bishop just said about Finney? I’m confused.”
Bishop remained silent, apparently content to let someone else explain.
Bryson took her hand in his. “To sum it up, he was able to prove, maybe not court of law proof, but proof to us, that Finney couldn’t have killed most of the victims that he’s accused of killing. He had solid alibis that either weren’t presented at trial or weren’t known at trial. There are only a few that Bishop couldn’t speak to. Which goes to say that you were right all along. Leviathan Finney very likely isn’t the Ripper. But he’s not a copycat either. He was set up. Framed.”
“By the police?”
“Doubtful. Most likely the real killer, to take the heat off.”
“An innocent man is in prison. That sucks.”
“We’ll contact one of the Innocence Project groups to look into his case.”
“Already did,” Bishop chimed in.
“Great,” she said. “I guess. But what does all this mean as far as finding the guy who abducted us? Are you saying he’s the real Ripper?”
“It’s a definite possibility, highly likely actually. The police never linked your case with the others in spite of the signature X because the Ripper was already in prison. But now that we know the Ripper was never caught, all of the murders attributed to him have to be reexamined in relation to your abduction. This is a huge break. There’s an FBI field office in Jacksonville. Once our team brings them up to speed on this development, they’ll be back in the game, looking into your case and reopening the Ripper investigation. Obviously there are formalities, like convincing JSO to call them in to help. But Mason will get that done. Just a matter of time. The number of people working this case is about to quadruple, easily. With some of the brightest law enforcement minds around. They’ll catch this guy in no time.”
Dalton returned to his seat. The others turned their attention toward Bryson.
“What about you?” Dalton asked. “Any theories about who this guy might be?”
“A few,” Bryson said. “It’s been bothering me that he was able to abduct Teagan two years ago without anyone seeing him. She was apparently drugged. She thinks she remembers him injecting her right after he accosted her on the path. After that, her memory is blank until she woke up at the shack. But that path through her neighborhood is well-traveled. And the entrance to the path on both ends is in even busier sections of the neighborhood. It seems far-fetched that he could have led or carried a drugged woman from the path without anyone seeing her. Which is why I called Mason early this morning and asked him to have our Seekers in Jacksonville re-interview everyone who lives close to that part of the trail and ask very specific questions.”
“Like what?” Dalton asked.
“Like whether he could have loosened a section of fence like he did behind the Brodericks’ house and taken her through the opening to someone’s backyard. From there, if he did the same trick he pulled with us, he could have gone through someone’s home while they weren’t home and into their garage where he had a car waiting. Then, all he had to do was drive out of the subdivision. There’s a guard shack at each of the two entrances. But the cameras only record people coming in, not going out. If he came in via the subdivision behind The Woods, like he did recently, he wouldn’t be on any of the guard gate’s cameras.”
Teagan raised her hand.
Bryson smiled. “You don’t have to ask permission to speak.”
