Catch up on the previous chapters here
FBI agents who lived in normal neighborhoods probably didn’t have much in the way of extra security, because otherwise they would’ve moved into some sort of gated community, or bought a house behind a high wall, but Hillier’s house was normal, according to Google maps. He accessed that on a library computer that someone left signed in, because even though he didn’t believe in fate, he believed in seizing the moment.
It was a Craftsman house, which meant it looked like every other Craftsman house, and Hillier hadn’t painted it anything interesting, either. Beige and white. Maybe two shades of beige, which was a waste of paint, really. If you couldn’t tell the difference from the end of the block, what was the point?
He didn’t know the neighborhood. It wasn’t a cul-de-sac, so at least it was believable that he could drive past it without completely standing out, but what he really needed was to scope it out almost continuously. Before he got in—he already figured he’d need to get in—he’d have to know the habits of the people who lived there.
Most people were predictable. Predictable, and oblivious. You could follow them—say, back to their dorms—at night, and they just saw some guy out jogging or whatever. They didn’t look for your face, especially if it was the face of a guy who usually went jogging through campus. They just assumed you belonged there as long as you acted like you did.
Private homes were another matter. He could pull up in his van and wear his shirt with the logo and greet whoever opened the door with the wrong name, but then they’d see the logo on his pocket and on the van. Neighbors might notice. Their doorbell cameras would certainly notice. Then Ben would have to keep up the charade long enough to supposedly realize he’d been given the wrong address, and maybe he’d be able to sit in the van on the phone for a while, but all that would get him was the face of the person who answered. It might even be Mrs. Hillier, or what if they still had kids at home?
Okay, back up. Think. He sat in a corner of the library, books spread out around him, and turned a page every so often, but his mind wasn’t on any of this. He just didn’t want to leave without knowing where he was going next, because having an epiphany on the road and needing to pull a U-turn or do anything that would make people stop and notice him was a bad idea. Where to go from here?
After nearly half an hour of flipping pages, Ben saw someone return today’s paper. It wasn’t anything special, but this just proved his line of thinking: movement draws the eye. And then his gaze drifted further to the table with the real estate insert. It was a long shot, but he often pulled into driveways of empty houses, and sometimes the agents forgot, or the new owners weren’t on time. Really, he should’ve looked while he had the computer under someone else’s data, but you couldn’t think of everything at once. He got up and grabbed the insert, hating the feel of the cheap paper and the ink that would come off on his fingers, but this was explicable enough: it was just the deep-clean guy, with too much time on his hands, trying to drum up new business.
A deep-clean guy who’d taught himself how to pick locks for those instances where the new homeowners completely forgot their keys and were just so grateful you were able to get inside and do your thing without having to reschedule or charge extra. But those between-people homes didn’t have all the security he was sure an FBI agent would. Hell, if Ben had bugged his own house …
Especially an FBI agent willing to go rogue for his son and—shit, he’d almost thought daughter-in-law. She couldn’t be, deep in his heart he knew she couldn’t be, but if that was the way she had to get along … to preserve herself … Weren’t FBI agents supposed to fight sex trafficking?
He pulled the little notebook from his pocket and jotted down a couple addresses. They weren’t exactly in the area, but they were close enough he could’ve taken a wrong turn or attempted a shortcut. He’d only be able to go pass the Hillier’s once today, but if anyone ever went back to track his phone—which he’d take with him while he went in the van—they’d be able to trace a wandering route between houses for sale, and stops if they were empty so he could note down the realtor’s number and maybe even actually call them later.
Checking his watch, Ben realized this wouldn’t happen today. He’d have to go home, plan out his drive, and set up one of his button cameras on the proper side of the van to catch a better view of the house than he was liable to get. Of course the best thing would be getting into a house across the street and leaving a camera trained on Hillier’s, so he could start tracking people in and out, but he had to take what he could get. Could he stage an incident and, say, run down the mailbox across the street? In his sedan, maybe. Leave a note, come back later, and replace the post … with a small camera already installed …
Someone would notice. The owner or the mailman would have to notice. A lens in a post would be far too obvious, and he’d have to manage some sort of fancy carpentry to get the battery and the rest inside. At least houses and apartments had places you could hide things—in lamps, behind socket plates, above the panels in dropped ceilings, just to name a few—but the mailbox idea wouldn’t work. And he couldn’t just buy an old used car, wire it up, and park it across the street until it got towed.
Ben gathered up his books and let his thoughts keep chipping away at it. He didn’t mind the bad ideas, because at least they were ideas. You had to encourage your brain to keep working, to keep sending up possibilities, instead of criticizing yourself for being unhelpful. If you did that, the process shut down, and you were left with nothing. Better to let the ideas flow and sort them gently, without scolding yourself, so they kept coming.
And he’d have all night now to let that process unfold. He’d go home, get out his map—his paper book of maps—and start finding locations and planning routes. He’d be his own MapQuest and write things out turn by turn on a piece of paper he could burn later. This wasn’t unusual. Ben didn’t like using his phone for directions, because that meant killing his own personal sense of direction. The more you relied on your gadgets to do things for you—remember things, or know things—the less your brain actually worked.
It was nice to have technology as a backup, but that’s not how people used it these days. They decided their brains didn’t have to work because their phone would know it for them, and that meant they left trails for anyone with the know-how to follow. Ben didn’t particularly like cop shows, but he knew enough to recognize that. So yeah, someone would be able to track his work phone on the cell towers to show that he’d gone from the region with the library to the one where his house was, but … that was it.
If you stuck with your brain most of the time, and pen and paper when it was necessary, you could always burn the paper afterward, and the only one with full access to your brain was yourself. He’d even skimmed some chapters about interrogation back at the library, before putting the books on the return cart, to refresh himself on how to make sure that stayed true.
Of course, you could be your own worst enemy there. You could, for example, decide to turn your diary entries and real-life experiences into a novel, and send that novel out for lots of agents to read—or at least the first 10 pages of that novel—and then revise the whole thing into the version that so many advance readers had read already and the rest of the world would read soon, and realize that some FBI agents had already read it, and that they’d come to some very wrong conclusions that were going to foil your whole plan.
You could do that, and then you ended up back in your den again, pen and paper in hand, as you tried to come up with a way out of it.
Initial interview, Lida-Rose Elizabeth Dawson with Officer Melissa Jacobson, May 24, 2019
LD: Mart’s contract says he has to be at school until 3:28, so he was, but then he already had his bag in the car, so he texted me and drove over.
MJ: Okay. And he got to your apartment when?
LD: Like 5:20. Traffic … I was keeping an eye on the time and everything, so it was a little later than I thought, but … Heidi …
MJ: Please continue.
LD: We … she was out in the living room, you know, teasing me. She really likes all the talk shows, so that’s what she had on: Maury, that kind of thing. Which I usually don’t watch, so she’s teasing me, you know? Oh, is this what it takes? But … I mean, I was dressed, and I had my purse and everything, so when he texted me from the parking lot I just … left.
MJ: You left her there in your apartment, on the couch, watching television?
LD: Yeah. She said something like “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” which … it’s classic Heidi. Because she wouldn’t do anything, but she was trying to be funny. Trying to … make a connection.
MJ: So the last time you saw her was approximately 5:20pm this afternoon.
LD: Yeah. Hang on, it’s—yeah, his text was 5:21.
MJ: Right, thank you. So what did you and Martin do then?
LD: Uh. I kissed him, but … Heidi wasn’t supposed to be gone until later, you know? So we got into his car, but we had to figure out where we wanted to go for dinner. Someplace we could hang out long enough, you know? So she’d be gone by the time we got back, and we didn’t have to …
MJ: Sexile Heidi?
LD: Well. She was already leaving. So. Yeah, that was … that was the plan.
MJ: Where did you go?
LD: TGIFriday’s. We kind of—he said he was in the mood for a burger, and we didn’t want to go someplace fancier, you know? Where it’s more expensive and you feel bad about drawing it out, because it’s smaller, and busier, so … TGIFriday’s.
MJ: Did either of you pay with a credit card?
LD: Did …? Yeah, I did. And—here, yeah. The receipt.
MJ: Do you mind if I get a picture of this? Thank you. So now … you went directly back to the apartment after you left the restaurant?
LD: Yes. It was late enough. She should’ve been picked up and on her way. But …
MJ: But?
LD: Well, we usually texted each other about that kind of thing. If we were going somewhere, who we’d be with. You know … just in case …
MJ: Sounds like you were looking out for each other.
LD: I mean.
MJ: Take your time.
LD: We tried. But … she didn’t text me about leaving. I figured maybe she was just happy to be going off with her friends, you know? Hey, have you talked to them?
MJ: I’d like to focus on getting your statement just now.
LD: Right, but … I mean, you have to have a code to get into the building, and I didn’t see anybody hanging around out front or anything.
MJ: Tell me about what happened when you got back to the apartment.
LD: We, uh … we were in a hurry to get inside. We were … making out, and … there wasn’t anyone at the front door, or anyone in the hallway, because we weren’t paying attention and would’ve run into them, so … uh … I opened the apartment door, and there was that nightlight on in the kitchen, because we always just left that plugged in, but that was it, except …
MJ: You’re doing just fine.
LD: I’m not, actually, but okay. I stumbled over something, and I think I swore, and Mart laughed and said he’d better turn the light on before I broke my neck, so he went back to the door, and …
MJ: He turned on the light?
LD: Yeah. It’s right there, and the kitchen light was bright enough for him to see that, and …
MJ: What was it you’d tripped over?
LD: Heidi’s arm. The hand and forearm, together. Still attached to … each other.
MJ: How did you know it was Heidi’s?
LD: She’s got that tattoo. She just got that tattoo. It’s basic. That’s what she calls it: basic. The whole “I am greater than my highs and lows” thing. Like, she calls it basic, but it means something to her.
MJ: What did you do then?
LD: Um. I think I screamed. Mart grabbed me and pulled me back, I think so I wouldn’t throw up on it. The arm. And with the light on … the doors were open into her bedroom and the bathroom. Mine was still shut, my bedroom door, but the other two … there was blood. And … something sticking up out of the tub.
MJ: Who called the police?
LD: Mart did. He pulled me out into the hall, and shut the apartment door so nobody else would see, and he’s the one who called. I just … I was shaking too hard. I collapsed against the wall, across from the door, and just … went down. I don’t think I fainted, but … other people came out, though. To see. Because they’d heard me.
MJ: Did any of them go into the apartment?
LD: No. I think a couple of them tried the door, but it was locked. And my keys were inside. I still had my purse, but my keys were inside.
MJ: Did you stay in the hallway, within sight of your apartment door, until the police showed up?
LD: Yes.
MJ: Did Heidi have a boyfriend?
LD: No. I’ve never known her to date anyone.
MJ: And what about her friends?
LD: The ones picking her up? She said she knew them from high school. I’ve got their names in a text.
MJ: Yes, that’s good, but what about her other friends? People we can ask about her?
LD: Her other …? It’s me, Kelsey, and Ashley. And the other two are dead. God, they’re all dead.
Chapter Twenty – coming January 20
Rebecca Frost 