Before He Harms

CHAPTER SEVEN

They were fortunate in that it was a Saturday and most of the cars within the neighborhood were parked in driveways or opened garages. They arrived back in the Plainsview neighborhood at 3:10, parking in the same spot they had met Sheriff Burke. It was a sunny March afternoon, not quite chilly but certainly not warm either. Regardless, Mackenzie did not expect to have much of a problem finding people to speak with.

“You take the right, I’ll take the left,” Ellington said as they got out of the car.

Mackenzie nodded, knowing that most partners opted not to take the split-up approach. But she and Ellington trusted one another on a level that allowed for this. It came not only in their strong work partnership, but from the bonds of marriage as well. They separated without any fanfare and took their respective sides of the street.

The first house on Mackenzie’s side was a no-brainer, as a mother and her daughter were in the front yard. The daughter was maybe six years old, pedaling a Little Tikes tricycle up and down the sidewalk. The mother was sitting on the porch, scrolling on her phone. When Mackenzie approached, she looked up and offered a smile.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Her tone indicated she did not want to help at all, especially if Mackenzie was selling something.

Mackenzie got a little farther away from the little girl before she pulled her badge and introduced herself. “I’m Agent Mackenzie White, with the FBI. My partner and I are scouring the neighborhood to see if we can find out any information on the hit-and-run from two nights ago.”

“Nope,” she said. “I told the cops the same thing. The way they tell it, they think it happened after midnight, and everyone in my home is asleep by eleven.”

“Do you happen to know who found the body?”

“Not for sure. There’s all sorts of rumors circulating and I don’t know which ones to believe. After a while, I just topped paying attention to them, you know?”

“Any of it coming from people you would trust with information like that?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, thanks for your time.”

She turned away and gave the little girl a wave as she made her way to the next house over. She knocked three times but got no answer. She received the same result at the third house. The fourth home was different. The door was answered right after she rang the doorbell.

Mackenzie found herself looking at an older lady, maybe just a little shy of sixty. She was carrying a bottle of Pledge and a duster. Some ’70s rock was playing behind her; Peter Frampton, if Mackenzie’s rather impressive musical knowledge was correct. She was clearly distracted by her cleaning, but greeted Mackenzie with a smile anyway.

“Sorry to bother you,” Mackenzie said. “I’m Agent White, FBI.” She flashed her badge and the woman looked at it as if Mackenzie had just performed a magic trick. “I’m canvassing the neighborhood to find any information I can on the hit-and-run that occurred on your street two nights ago.”

“Oh, of course,” the woman said. And just like that, her cleaning was forgotten. “Have you found who was responsible?”

“Not yet. That’s why we’re here, trying to find some leads. Did you happen to see or hear anything that night?”

“No. I don’t know that anyone did. And that’s the scariest thing of all.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, it’s a very peaceful neighborhood. But we’re also sort of out in the middle of nowhere. Sure, Salt Lake City is less than twenty miles away, but as you can see, we don’t really have that big-city feel out here.”

“What sort of gossip has been circling?” Mackenzie asked.

“None that I’m aware of. It’s too dark of a thing to talk about.” She took a step through the doorway, closer to Mackenzie so she could speak in a conspiratorial tone. “I get the feeling that most everyone in this neighborhood believes that by not talking about it, the whole thing will just go away—that everyone will forget about it.”

Mackenzie nodded. She’d worked cases in several towns like this. However, she also knew that it was in those small neighborhoods where gossip tended to plant its roots and really start to grow.

But as her trip down the street continued, she wasn’t so sure that was going to be the case in Plainsview. There were two basic attitudes among the residents: those who were irritated with the FBI visiting because they had already spoken to the police, and those who were genuinely afraid for the state of their neighborhood now that the bureau was involved.

The eighth house she came to was rather unremarkable. There were no flowers in the flowerbeds, just used up mulch that had long ago gone discolored. While there was furniture on the porch, it was also in a state of disrepair, one of the chairs festooned with cobwebs. Two houses shy of the first intersection in the neighborhood, it didn’t quite stick out but Mackenzie guessed that some of the older property owners might frown upon this home.

She knocked on the door and heard the slight shuffling of footsteps inside. Another ten seconds passed before anyone came to the door. And when they did, it was opened only a crack. A young woman peered out, her dark eyes taking in the sight of Mackenzie with the sort of scrutiny that suggested she was a suspicious woman.

“Yeah?” the young woman asked.

Mackenzie showed her badge and ID, instantly getting a strange vibe from this woman. Everyone else had opened their doors wide, yet this woman looked as if she was using her door as a shield. Perhaps she was one of the residents who had opted for a reaction of absolute fear in response to the murder.

“I’m Agent White, with the FBI. I was hoping to ask you some questions about the hit-and-run that occurred here two nights ago.”

“Me?” the woman asked, confused.

“No, not just you. My partner and I are going door to door to ask all residents. Please forgive me for asking, but you look a little young. Are your parents home?”

A quick flicker of irritation crossed the woman’s face. “I’m twenty years old,” she said. “I live here with my two roommates.”

“Oh, my apologies. So…do you recall anything interesting about that night?”

“No. I mean, from what I gather, it happened very late. I’m usually asleep by ten or eleven.”

“And you heard nothing?”

“No.”

The woman was still not opening the door all the way. She was also speaking quite fast. Mackenzie didn’t think the woman was hiding something, but she was behaving in a way that made Mackenzie start to wonder.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Amy Campbell.”

“Amy, are your roommates home?”

“One of them is. The other is out running errands.”

“Do you know if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary on the night of the hit-and-run?”

“They didn’t. We all talked about it, trying to figure it out. But we were all asleep by ten thirty that night.”

Mackenzie nearly asked to come inside, but decided not to. Amy was clearly freaked out about the situation and there was no sense in making it any worse. As the tense moment passed between them, Mackenzie caught motion behind Amy. Another woman was walking down the hallway and taking a left into another room. She looked to be about Amy’s age and had an angular face. Her hair, which appeared to be brown, was up in a messy bun. Mackenzie almost asked who this was but sensed that if she did, she might lose any traction she was building with Amy.

“How did you hear about the murder?” Mackenzie asked.

“From the police. They came by, doing exactly what you’re doing, that morning.”

“And you told them exactly what you’re telling me?”

“Yes. Honestly, I saw nothing. Heard nothing. I wish I could help because it’s just awful…but I was asleep.”

It was in that comment that Mackenzie detected some emotion. Amy was either sad or in a state of despair about something—which made sense, given what had happened on her very street just two nights ago. Still, she was acting much stranger than anyone else she had spoken with. Mackenzie reached into her inner coat pocket and took out one of her business cards. When she handed it over to Amy, the young woman took it quickly.

“Please call me if you or your roommates happen to think of anything—or if you even hear some of your neighbors mention anything strange. Can you do that?”

“Yes. Good luck, Agent.”

Amy Campbell quickly shut the door, leaving Mackenzie standing alone on the dirty porch. She walked back down the porch steps slowly, thinking a few things over.

A twenty-year-old renting a house in a neighborhood like this…that’s sort of strange. But if she has roommates, there could be a chance they are college students at some college in Salt Lake City. Maybe it’s cheaper and nicer than on-campus housing.

While the whole situation did seem a bit strange, she had to remind herself that a brutal murder had happened on this street. People were going to handle it differently—especially college-aged girls who knew the victim had been right around their age.

Mackenzie worked it all out in her head as she stepped back toward the street. As she did, she passed the two cars sitting on the little concrete slab that was Amy Campbell’s driveway. They were both rather old, one being at 2005 Pontiac that looked like it might fall apart the next time it hit a pothole.

Before heading further down the street. Mackenzie took her phone out. She typed in Amy’s name and the address for future reference. It was just a hunch but more often than not, Mackenzie’s hunches paid off in the end.

She tucked her phone back into her pocket and headed further down the street to knock on more doors.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Eight minutes and three houses later, Mackenzie’s trek of the Plainsview subdivision was interrupted by a phone call. Sheriff Burke was on the other end, his voice somehow rougher through the phone. He had one of those expressionless voices that made it pretty much impossible to tell what sort of mood he was in.

“Just got a call from the forensics lab. They didn’t find any sort of hidden signature under the UV light. But they did find a partial thumbprint that did not belong to the girl.”

“Any results come up from it?”

“Yeah, I just ran it. The print belongs to a guy named Todd Thompson. I’ve got an officer running a check on him right now.”

“So, no signature at all…which means there’s a good chance the license is legitimately made.”

“Still makes no sense. The name on the license matches nothing in our records. Neither do her fingerprints. If the picture on the license didn’t look almost exactly like her, I’d say she stole it from somewhere.”

“I suppose we could run a search for women who placed reports in regards to losing their purses or licenses in the last month or so.”

“We already did that on the first day. Got a few nibbles, but nothing panned out. We also tried to…hold on, I’ve got an officer here with results on Todd Thompson. Gonna put you on speaker, Agent White.”

There was some shuffling, a clicking noise, and then another voice. This was a female voice, just as stern as Burke’s but with more emotion. There was excitement in her tone as she perhaps suspected what she was saying might very well lead them toward the end of this case.

“A basic state records search shows that Todd Thompson is a native of Salt Lake City. He’s fifty-three years old and—get this—works at the DMV.”

The DMV connection certainly shed new light on the bizarre driver’s license. Mackenzie could nearly hear the clinking of gears in her head as it all came into place.

“Got a home address?”

“I do. I’ll scan this report and send it to you as soon as we hang up.”

“Perfect.”

They ended the call and Mackenzie looked down the street, back the way she had come. The site of the hit-and-run was now out of sight, about six houses down and on a completely different block. She looked over and saw that Ellington was one house ahead of her. He was currently speaking to an older gentleman through an opened door. She was pretty sure he’d be more than happy to end this door-to-door task.

She hurried across the street to give him the latest update as a chilled afternoon breeze swept through the neighborhood.

***

According to the report Burke and his officer sent over, Todd Thompson had a few minor dings on his record. Two unpaid parking tickets (which Mackenzie found somewhat funny, considering his occupation), and a charge of aiding a breaking and entering from nearly thirty years ago. Other than that, Todd Thompson looked squeaky clean. Except for the fact that his thumbprint had been lightly placed on the presumably fake driver’s license of a woman who appeared to have no identity.

Mackenzie shared all of this with Ellington as he drove them into the city. She also shared her peculiar encounter with Amy Campbell. As it turned out, it was the most interesting visit out of their combined nineteen homes. Ellington agreed that Amy’s mood could have simply been a reflection of a woman her own age being killed less than a thousand feet away from her front door.

By the time they entered the city and were headed for Todd Thompson’s residence, they both felt that this could be the visit that sealed the case. Mackenzie did not say anything out loud about it, but she was anxious to get back home. The single call from her mother had upset her more than she was willing to admit and she suddenly felt foolish for thinking her mother would be able to keep a child without somehow making it all about her.

Night was just beginning to fall when Ellington parked the car in front of Thompson’s apartment building. He lived in one of the nicer areas of the city, the apartment building located on a corner that looked out over a small park and a square where it looked as if farmer’s markets and crafts fairs were set up on the weekend. As they entered, a few of the vendors were just finishing packing up for the day.

When Mackenzie knocked on the door of the second-floor apartment, she wondered how many doors she had knocked on today. Eleven? Twelve? She wasn’t sure.

“One minute,” a man’s cheerful voice called from the other side. When the door was finally opened, they were greeted by not only a middle-aged African American man, but the smell of Thai food as well.

“Are you Mr. Todd Thompson?” Ellington asked.

“That’s me,” he said. He looked confused at first, but when he saw both agents reaching for their badges, a look of understanding fell across his face. Seeing that expression, Mackenzie realized that Mr. Thompson had been expecting this visit for quite some time.

“We’re with the FBI,” Mackenzie said. “We’re looking into the murder of a young woman about twenty miles north of here. Given that your fingerprint showed up on her license, I’d appreciate it if we could come inside.”

Thompson nodded, stepping aside and allowing them in. Now, more than ever, Mackenzie was sure he had known this day was coming. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem all that scared. This was further proven when, after he closed the door behind them, he immediately went to the small table in the kitchen and sat down behind his Thai takeout.

“Forgive me for saying so,” Mackenzie said, “but you don’t seem all that upset to have the FBI showing up at your door.”

“With proof that you handled a now-dead woman’s driver’s license at that,” Ellington added.

“When was she killed?” Thompson asked. He did sound sad, and his eyes started to grow distant as he ate his dinner.

“You honestly don’t know who we’re talking about?”

“No. But I know about the licenses.”

“Plural?” Mackenzie asked.

Thompson took one last bite, then dropped the plastic fork into the food and slid the plate away from him. He sighed deeply and looked at the agents with sad eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s probably quite a few of them floating around.”

“You’re not making sense, Mr. Thompson,” Mackenzie said. “Why don’t you tell us why your thumbprint appeared on a dead woman’s fake license?”

“Because I made it. Though I used a powder when making them that was supposed to keep my prints off of them. You use UV?”

“We did.”

“Shit. Well, yeah…I made the license.”

“At the DMV, I assume?” Mackenzie asked.

“Yes.”

“Did the young woman pay you for it? The name on the license was Marjorie Hikkum.”

“No. It’s always the same woman that pays for them.”

Mackenzie was starting to get irritated with the cavalier nature in which Thompson was explaining things. She could tell by the way Ellington’s jaw was set that he was getting mad, too.

“Mr. Thompson, please explain what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’ve been doing it for about three years now. This woman comes in, pretends to have some sort of issue, and slides me some money. Five hundred bucks per ID. A week later, I give her what she asked for.”

“You understand how highly illegal that is, right?” Ellington asked.

“I do. But this woman…she’s trying to do some good. She gets these IDs because she’s trying to help those girls.”

“What girls?” Ellington asked, almost barking the question.

Thompson looked at them, confused. It took him a moment to understand what was happening and then he gave them an apologetic look. “Damn. I’m sorry. If you were here asking about the IDs and a dead woman, I figured you probably already knew. The IDs I make are for women that manage to escape that crazy-farm on the other side of Fellsburg.”

“What crazy-farm?” Mackenzie asked.

This question made Thompson look genuinely worried for the first time since they had knocked on his door. He made a slight grimace and shook his head softly. “I don’t feel right talking about it. Too much power up there, you know?”

“No, we don’t know.” Though she did remember McGrath stating that there was some sort of religious community in the area, which was one of the reasons the local agents were jumping at the case.

“Well, Mr. Thompson, I hate to play it this way,” Ellington said, “but you already fessed up to making fake IDs. If we wanted, we could arrest you for that and make sure you spend at least six months in a federal prison. Depending on who you sold them to, it could be worse than that. However, if you can let us know about the women these IDs are for and it helps us with this case, then we can sort of wave that away. We’d insist that you stop creating fake documents at a government facility like the DMV, but that would be it.”

Thompson looked a little embarrassed that he had even fallen into such a trap. The pained look on his face dissolved into a defeated grin. “Any way you can keep my name out of it?”

“Unless there are extenuating circumstances, I don’t see why not,” Mackenzie said. “Are you afraid someone may seek some kind of revenge?”

“With these people, I just don’t know.” When he saw that the agents still had no clear idea of what he was talking about, he sighed again and went on. “This woman comes in and buys the IDs. She gets them for women that are trying to escape the Community. They use them to get back on their feet—just some small thing they can possess that helps them start a new life. A normal life.”

“What’s the Community?” Ellington asked.

“A religious commune about fifteen miles on the other side of Fellsburg—about forty minutes away from here. A lot of people know about it, but no one really talks about it. When they do, it’s either in a joking way or in a spooky campfire sort of way.”

“Any idea why women that join this Community would need to escape it?”

Thompson shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. And that’s the truth. Honestly, I don’t know much more about the place than anyone else you’d pull off the street. I just make and sell those IDs.”

“You know nothing about what they practice?”

“Rumor has it that it’s some sort of polygamist cult. Some of the men are supposed to have like three or four wives. They’re supposed to very religious—very Old Testament wrath-type stuff.”

“And what about this woman that buys the IDs from you? What do you know about her?”

“Not too much. When she came in and asked if I wanted the side gig, one of the things she said was that I couldn’t ask questions. I thought it was bullshit but then she slid me five hundred bucks. And look…I’m damn near sixty and still in debt. I can’t pass up that kind of money.”

“You don’t even know her name?” Ellington asked.

“No. Sorry.”

“Can you describe her?”

“She’s on the younger side. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty if I had to guess. Attractive. Brown hair, wears reading glasses.”

“Anything else you can think of?” Mackenzie asked. “Anything at all.”

“I caught a glimpse of her car one time. She’d only been in three times. The second time, I hurried out to the front lobby a few seconds behind her. I watched her leave through the front glass. She hurried across the parking lot and got in her car. An old red one, a sedan, I think.”

“Does she schedule her meetings with you?” Ellington asked.

“Nope.”

They continued talking, but Mackenzie only heard parts of it. She was still hung up on something Thompson had said. An old red one, a sedan, I think.

There had been an older-model red car in Amy Campbell’s driveway. A Pontiac. Typically, Mackenzie would call it nothing more than a coincidence. But Amy had been acting strange—scared and suspicious. It was certainly worth paying her another visit.

“Mr. Thompson, thank you very much for your time,” Mackenzie said. “We’ll let the IDs slide, but you have to stop making them.”

“You said a girl is dead, right? And she had one of my IDs?”

“It seems that way.”

“Then I’m done. There’s no amount of money worth getting involved in something like that.”

Mackenzie and Ellington made their way to his door. Ellington gave Thompson one of his business cards with instructions to contact them if he saw that woman again or if she tried to get in touch with him somehow. They left him looking slightly upset, perhaps mulling over the fact that the only item on the dead woman had been one of the fake IDs he’d made.

“So what did you realize?” Ellington said as they hurried back to their car. “You ended the conversation quickly and had that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The one you have on your face right now—like a kid that has just spotted one more present hiding away under the Christmas tree.”

“His description of the car. An older red sedan. There was one parked in the driveway of one of the houses I visited. Amy Campbell…and she was nervous. Very suspicious and didn’t even hint at inviting me in.”

“Looks like we might have our first lead.”

“Maybe,” Mackenzie said.

It felt right, but given the nature of the case and the way Amy had been behaving, she thought they might need to take a few extra precautions to make sure it wasn’t just a coincidence. She hated to waste time in such a way, but in the back of her head she also reminded herself that there was a chance the Community could be involved.

Though she had never experienced it herself, she had read case studies and reports of other cases where the introduction of a religious group into the case made the entire thing a ticking time bomb. And if she could avoid that, Mackenzie was more than willing to take some extra time-consuming steps.