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 to you.” He gave his watch an impatient glance. “We’ve been at this for fifteen minutes now. I need to get back to work.”
Bogle pushed his chair back and got to his feet. When he reached the door, he turned back to Sangonese and gave him a hard look, trying to determine how truthful he’d been. If Sangonese felt any unease at this, he didn’t show it.
Bogle said, “If you think of anything that could help, please call me.”
Sangonese’s expression turned dour. “I can’t imagine what that would be,” he said.
Chapter 8
Star Wax was a two-year-old wax museum on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood that competed with the Hollywood Wax Museum, their gimmick being replicas of scenes from newer Hollywood movies. Morris had to circle the area before finding a parking spot three blocks away. It was only ten minutes to nine, but the sun was already bright in the sky, and he shielded his eyes from it as he made his way to the wax museum. He had picked up coffee on the drive over, but it had done little to stop the dull throbbing behind his eyes. The heat from the sun, though, felt good on the back of his neck.
Word hadn’t spread yet about a dead body being found inside the museum, but with the official city and police vehicles parked out front, as well as the uniformed officers barricading the front entrance, a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered. Morris squeezed his way through them. He knew one of the patrolmen standing guard, and after a quick few
