Morris tried to be quiet so he wouldn’t wake Natalie as he stumbled out of bed and slipped on a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt. He grabbed his cell phone and keys, and when he opened the bedroom door he fought to keep Parker from charging into the room. The dog let out an impatient yelp and jumped up and tried to lick him in the face.
“I know, buddy, I’m late this morning. No excuses. Let’s get you outside.”
The word outside elicited several excited grunts from the bull terrier, who proceeded to race down the stairs. Morris badly wanted coffee right then, but that would have to wait. He made a quick pit stop for himself, then continued on to the front door where he found Parker waiting with his leash in his mouth. This was their morning ritual: a tug-of-war before Parker would let go. This time Parker gave up the leash right away.
They were a block away from home before Morris turned on his cell phone. When he checked the text messages, a coolness filled his head as he saw that there was a long string of them from Doug Gilman at the mayor’s office. The first message had been sent an hour ago, and read “Call me right away. It’s important.” The next three were similar, except that “important” had become “critical.” Before Morris could read any more of them, his phone rang. The caller ID showed Los Angeles Mayor’s Office.
This had to be about a horrific murder. That was the only reason Gilman would be this anxious to get ahold of him. Morris considered not answering the call and simply sending Gilman a text reminding him that MBI was no longer taking on homicide investigations. Instead, though, Morris tapped on the answer button. Before he could say anything more than, “I’m sorry, Doug—”, the mayor’s deputy assistant interrupted him, asking if Morris had seen his text messages.
“I was just going through them when you called.”
“You haven’t seen my last text?”
“No, not yet.”
“Before you say another word, take a look at it.”
The world around him grew uncomfortably quiet as Morris scrolled through the messages. He stopped walking and ignored Parker’s impatient tugging on the leash as he found the message that read: this is what was found pinned to the victim. A photo attached to the message showed a business card dotted with two drops of blood. The card read: To Morris Brick: I’m just beginning—R. G. Berg, Serial Killer Extraordinaire.
“You said there was a victim?” Morris asked, his voice sounding tinny and unnatural to his own ears.
“Half of one, anyways.”
Gilman gave Morris the details he had, and Morris agreed to meet him where they had found the victim. Or at least where they had found a part of the victim.
Chapter 7
Charlie Bogle handed Mark Sangonese, Karl Crawford’s boss at Samson Oil & Gas, a paper bag holding a large coffee and a cinnamon roll, both of which Bogle had bought at a local bakery ten minutes earlier after calling Sangonese to ask what he would like. Sangonese grunted out his thanks. He showed a guilty smile as he said, “If my wife knew I was eating this, she’d kill me.”
Sangonese was a chunk of a man in his late fifties with iron-gray hair that had been cut short so that it resembled a bristle brush. Bogle pulled a chair up to Sangonese’s cluttered desk and took a coffee and a blueberry muffin for himself from a second bag.
“What do you think happened to Karl Crawford?” Bogle asked.
Sangonese’s smile fell flat from his face. “No idea,” he said.
“Did his disappearing surprise you?”
“Yeah, I’d say so. Karl had been a model employee. In all the time he worked here, I don’t think he called in sick even once.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well,” Sangonese admitted with a shrug. “Karl worked exclusively in the field servicing wells. I’d see him in the office every blue moon, not much outside the office, and he wasn’t a talkative type.”
“So you don’t know whether he held extremist views?”
Sangonese looked surprised by the question. “You suspect he did?”
“No. I’m only trying to figure out what happened to him. If he was a survivalist or white nationalist or something along those lines, it would give me a few ideas of where to start looking for him.”
“I never heard anyone mention something like that about Karl,” Sangonese muttered. “Never heard that about anyone working here.”
Bogle took another bite of his muffin and chewed it before sipping more coffee. Sangonese fidgeted in his chair, but that was because of the tone of the questioning, not because he was lying. At least Bogle was pretty sure of that.
“Anyone here he might’ve confided in if he was having marital or financial problems?”
“I can’t think of anyone,” Sangonese said, frowning. “Field maintenance technicians, like Karl, might come into the office half a dozen times a year. It’s a good job if you like solitude, but it’s not one that encourages camaraderie.”
“Would Crawford always be alone at these wells?”
“Usually. I’m on the road one week every month doing spot checks, but I’ve got seven other field service technicians, so every month I might’ve been at two of the wells Karl was servicing. During those times Karl and I wouldn’t be gabbing all that much.”
Bogle consulted his notes before remarking that the police report stated that Crawford went to the first well he was scheduled to service that day, but didn’t show up at the second.
“That’s not a hundred percent right,” Sangonese said. He finished the last bite of cinnamon bun and used the paper bag to wipe his hands clean, then crumpled and tossed the bag into a trash can. “Karl could’ve shown up at the second well. All I know for a fact is he didn’t service the well.”
“What you really know is that he didn’t sign the log,” Bogle said.
“No, I know more than that. If he had opened the well’s casing, it would’ve sent our computer tracking system a signal. That didn’t happen. So Karl could’ve shown up there, but something might’ve happened to him before he could do any work.”
That perked Bogle’s interest. “What about security video?”
Sangonese said, “We don’t outfit wells with cameras. There hasn’t been a need. If the wells are tampered with, we’ll get a signal and we then send out a security team.”
“How often does that happen?”
“It hasn’t yet.”
Bogle sighed as he considered all this. It would’ve been helpful if the wells had security cameras. He asked, “Who knew Crawford’s schedule that day?”
“I did. My secretary. I can’t say about anyone else.”
“How do you decide which wells get serviced?”
“A combination of routine scheduling and remote monitoring.” Sangonese cleared his throat and added, “Over the last six months we’ve been upgrading our wells with more sophisticated software to better detect when maintenance is needed.”
Bogle stared at his notes again. He was running out of things to ask, and none of Sangonese’s answers were helping him come up with any new ideas.
“Can I look at Crawford’s company email account?”
Sangonese’s thick lips curled into a frown. “I’m not sure Karl’s email is still active. Let me check on that, and I’ll get back