Page 10 of Fear for Her Life

After interviewing many convicted serial killers, she’d concluded that once they’d stepped over the line and begun their murderous spree, none of them could be rehabilitated. Even those who had spent a long time in prison began killing again the moment they were released. After interviewing some of the most notorious serial killers at various state prisons, she’d written a series of books on the subject using the actual serial killers as a reference. Surprisingly, all she’d interviewed had been enthusiastic to be listed in her books. All wanted to be remembered for their crimes. Their egos being such as they were, the frightening fact she discovered was that they all wanted to be the best.

Jo grabbed a pen, went to the whiteboard, and turned to Jenna. “Eduardo Souza isn’t a psychopath in the normal sense of the word. He kills for power and removes anyone who stands in his way. His fortune is endless, and from our recent investigations, so is the army of people he has behind him. The chances of taking them all down is about as possible as counting the stars in the sky.”

“So we will never be free of him?” Jenna ran a hand down her face and sighed. “I can’t believe he’s gotten out of prison.”

Jo fully understood the ramifications of having Eduardo Souza running loose again. “You can be assured the DEA is moving on him as we speak. One thing is for sure, Souza isn’t running around Stanton Forest. We detected an unauthorized helicopter in the area around the time of the bus wreck. From the direction of the gunshot wound found in the driver of the prison bus, the shot could only have come from above. This would indicate that Souza escaped in a chopper and he would be long gone by now.”

“Okay, so we’ve got three serial killers wandering around Stanton Forest.” Jenna glanced at the notes on her tablet. “The warden gave me the names I sent you. What do you know about them?”

Jo wrote the three names on the whiteboard. “We have Mason Margos, known as Ice Pick. I figure his name is pretty explanatory. He is a good-looking charismatic man, tall and muscular. He picked up women in bars, drove them to a secluded place, and hacked them to death with an ice pick. When I spoke to him, he said the reason he killed them was because he took offense at the way a woman looked at him.”

“So how did you manage to conduct the interview? You had to look at him?” Jenna stood, went to the counter, and poured them both a cup of coffee. “Did he become aggressive with you?”

After adding Margos’ characteristics to the whiteboard, Jo sat down and sipped her coffee. “As you are aware, psychopaths always need an excuse in their minds for murdering someone. His excuse was that, when he picked them up in bars, they all looked at him with appreciation and chatted as if he were their best friend, but when he got them alone in his vehicle and drove them somewhere to be intimate, they became afraid of him. He didn’t like women looking at him as if he’d frightened them.”

“So he murdered them with an ice pick?” Jenna turned her cup around in the tips of her fingers. “What a horrible way to die.”

Vividly recalling the interview with Margos, Jo shuddered. “The crime scene photographs were gruesome. Because he didn’t like the way they were looking at him, he attacked their eyes. Most of them were outside the vehicle at the time, so he managed to convince them to go with him into a secluded place. We discovered the bodies in forests and in parkland, behind buildings and in alleyways.” She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “We’re talking about multiple murders. I believe he murdered well over twenty women that we know about. He is very well respected in the prison by the other psychopaths. It’s unusual for psychopaths to follow anyone—all are individuals and they don’t like to share kills—but I guess even in a prison someone has to be the boss. So Margos would be in charge of the other two prisoners who are missing, both of whom are equally as dangerous as he is.”

“Who else have we got?” Jenna sipped her coffee.

Jo stood and added notes to the whiteboard. “The information that the warden gave you about these men is accurate. Sebastian Callahan, known as the Silent Strangler, is more of a stalker. He puts the blame on the women he kills by saying that they dissed him. Being rejected is a reason many psychopaths will kill. It often stems from childhood, when they were humiliated at one time or had a parent who made a habit of embarrassing them in public.” She glanced at Jenna. “Then we have Carl Romero, known as the Blue Man. His excuse was that if a woman invited him into her home, he had the right to rape and murder her. So he showed up at the front door of his victims dressed in blue coveralls and we believe told them there’d been a gas leak in the building.” She sat down and lifted her coffee cup and sighed. “When I did a background check on him, I discovered his mother was a sex worker. So he often saw men coming in the house wearing coveralls. For a small child, he probably witnessed things he couldn’t understand and it triggered his psychopathy.”

“What chance has the prison guard of surviving these men?” Jenna peered at her over the rim of her cup. “She is only small and in her early twenties.”

Just the thought of a woman being alone with these three men churned Jo’s stomach. “I’d say she has a ten percent chance of survival. It will depend how long she is useful to them and how much power Margos can exert over the other men. Any one of them could flip out and kill her. The good thing is that they’ve been in prison for a long time and will be in some type of control. In prison, they couldn’t just kill anyone at their leisure like they used to. It’s as if while in prison they go into some type of remission due to being confined and away from the triggers. The problem is we have no idea how long it will last because usually when psychopaths are released from custody they kill again.” She sighed. “Her only hope is that she doesn’t cause friction between them or accidently trigger one of them. If she does and they kill her, just witnessing the murder will set them all off. It will be a bloodbath.”

ELEVEN

Jenna checked the clock and pushed back her chair. She collected a legal pad from her drawer and looked at Jo. “Do you want to sit in on the interview with Little?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jo stood and followed her down to the interview rooms.

After setting up the cameras and going through the usual procedure before taping an interview, Jenna looked at Little across the desk, who stared back at her with a belligerent expression. Sam Cross sat beside him flicking through notes he’d made earlier. It hadn’t been the chop shop that interested Jenna. She wanted to know just how deep Souza had infiltrated Black Rock Falls. She placed her legal pad on the table and then looked at Little. “How long have you been involved with Eduardo Souza?”

The prisoner looked taken aback and his eyes grew wide. He moved around restlessly in his chair flicking glances back and forth toward her and his lawyer. Jenna kept her gaze fixed on him. “Well, it’s a simple question.” She sighed, acting bored. “The two drug addicts who kidnapped me have spilled their guts, so why don’t you make it easy on yourself?” She stared him down. “I’m not interested in the kidnapping or the carjacking. In fact, it would be a conflict of interest as it was my car involved. Your friends have both informed the DA that they work for Eduardo Souza. The DA has been in a good mood today and it would be in your best interest if you explained your connection to Souza before we make inquiries and then discovered just how deep you are in his organization.”

“I’m not deep in his organization.” Little gripped the edge of the table. “You do know that he’ll kill us if he discovers we’ve spoken to you?”

Twirling the pen in her fingertips, Jenna leaned back in her chair nonchalantly. “Then you’ll need some type of protection, won’t you? Your friends have already given up Souza, and knowing his reputation as I do, he won’t give you a pass on this, so maybe you just need to tell us what you know. If we believe your life is in danger for testifying against him, we can place you in witness protection.”

“Testifying against him?” Little’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Are you insane? I’d never make it to court. He has people everywhere. You don’t honestly believe that he contacted me or the others personally, do you?”

Finally getting somewhere, Jenna shook her head. “No, I don’t. He was in prison at the time. Just tell us what you know. Maybe start at the time his organization made contact with you and asked you to create a distraction, and we’ll discuss the chop shops later.”

“Stop right there.” Cross glared at Jenna. “If you continue with this line of questioning, everything my client tells you will be thrown out of court due to a conflict of interest.” He leaned forward. “The questioning was to discover how Souza was involved in the chop shops. This is starting to get personal and overlap into your case. I can’t allow it.”

“For me it isn’t.” Jo leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “I’ve been requested to take over this case and will conduct the questioning. Start from the beginning. What is really behind everything that happened to Sheriff Alton?” She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers on her forearm and then uncrossed her legs and slammed one hand down on the table. “It’s already out that you and your pals have squealed. As an FBI agent, my word that you’re willing to testify and need protection goes a long way. We know creating a diversion is only part of the plan. What else do you know?” She eyeballed him. “Think now, what you answer could mean the difference between walking out of here unprotected with a fine, or testifying in court and being protected for the rest of your life.” She narrowed her gaze. “It would be nice to start over, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe.” Little turned to look at Sam Cross. “Is she just yanking my chain?”

“No, she wouldn’t be able to do that in a recorded interview.” Cross shook his head. “Everything discussed here is on record. This is why it’s recorded and videoed, so it’s obvious if anyone is putting you under duress. She is offering you a way for a new life. The witness protection scheme is very safe and it has never been infiltrated.”

Biting her bottom lip, Jenna held her breath as Little leaned back in his chair thinking through the proposition. Convinced there must be more to the story than the escape, she willed him to open up. Eduardo Souza didn’t do favors for anyone. He must have another angle. Whoever contacted Little must have given up more information to make the pot sweeter. She exchanged a glance with Jo, mentally urging her to continue to push for answers. Keeping quiet was difficult. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him.

“Well, Mr. Little, I haven’t got all day.” Jo gave a frustrated sigh. “Do you have a story to tell or are we just wasting our time here?”

“I don’t have too much to tell you.” Little shrugged and cast his eyes down on his clenched hands resting on the table. “I was given the five thousand to give to Don Riley and I got the car. I would have made big bucks on the Mustang, so for me it was a good deal and worth the risk. What Riley didn’t tell you is that this was all organized on the run. It wasn’t his idea to carjack you and bring the car to me. His job was to stake out your ranch and then follow you if you left home. When you left the ranch alone, Riley made a call to his contact, who’d already paid him to stake out your place. The plan to carjack you and bring the Mustang to me was planned when you stopped in Louan.” He sniggered. “You don’t figure Don Riley is smart enough to plan that out on his own, do you?” He brushed the back of one hand under his nose and shook his head. “You’re correct, this was planned as a diversion to keep your deputies occupied and away from the county line. What you don’t know, is the only reason Souza left the other prisoners behind is so they would keep the deputies occupied and maybe kill them if the opportunity arose.”

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