The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) Read Online Free PDF

Winston Peet, except he understood well enough now that such pronouncements were meaningless.
    It was food tampering that formed the basis for Leeds’s reign of terror. The poisoning of baby food, soda, frozen dinners, over-the-counter medications, and candy had led to the deaths of forty-one individuals from coast to coast. The killer’s preference for chocolate bars led the tabloids and rag sheets to christen him the “Candy Man.” The Ferryman became involved after a mother from Peekskill, New York had died in full view of her children while munching a candy bar.
    The FBI had been able to pinpoint thirteen sites in ten different states where the tampered goods had been purchased, no particular pattern to discern among them. Department, convenience, grocery, as well as drug stores—the Candy Man was apparently choosing the points from which to distribute his death with uncharacteristic randomness. Kimberlain read the files over and over again until the crucial piece fell into place.
    The Candy Man wouldn’t be satisfied merely with depositing his poisoned products on the shelf and leaving. His satisfaction would lie in being present to watch his victims purchase the product, maybe even tear off the candy wrapper on the way back to the car. That was where the pleasure of the act for him lay. Without the witnessing, his deed bore no purpose.
    The Candy Man had worked at the stores, damn it, all of them!
    The FBI had fingerprinted each and every employee at all of the sites and hadn’t drawn a single match. But Kimberlain knew that lacquer could be painted over someone else’s fingertips, allowed to dry, and then carefully peeled off. With a little bit of glue at the right time, anyone could have new prints long enough to fool any check. So Kimberlain carefully read the transcripts of the interviews the bureau had conducted with all the employees at the thirteen sites. He had the Candy Man pegged by the time he had finished the batch from the fifth site. Calls the next morning to all thirteen confirmed that the man in question had indeed left his job almost immediately after each incident. Different names, social security numbers. No pictures.
    Behavioral science obtained detailed descriptions of the clerk in question from the stores. Not surprisingly to Kimberlain, they were wholly dissimilar outside of general size. Different eyes and hair color; a limp in one, a stutter in another. The Candy Man would never let anyone see his true self.
    There was enough in the descriptions, though, to form a general composite. Within three days the rough sketch had been sent to every store manager in the country, and two days after that the call came in.
    The Candy Man was in Key Biscayne, Florida, working as a checkout clerk at a Winn Dixie supermarket. Kimberlain was face to face with him in line when the FBI closed in with guns drawn.
    Five hours later, three Evian bottles were found to be poisoned. The Ferryman cringed as he thought of this monster ringing them up with a smile on his face, saying “Have a nice day,” while he placed his victim’s shopping bag in the wagon.
    The Candy Man was later identified as Andrew Harrison Leeds. Leeds pleaded no contest and was sentenced to The Locks following psychiatric evaluation. That should have been that, but gazing into his snow-cold eyes from the checkout line, Kimberlain felt certain that product tampering was only the tip of Leeds’s hellish iceberg. Indeed, the findings Kimberlain made during the months Leeds had spent in The Locks made him count his blessings that the world would never hear from this monster again.
    But it would now, and not just from Leeds either. Eighty-three others had found their way out with him, out once more into the world they had once terrorized and would terrorize again. Eighty-three, plus Leeds …
    The prospects made Kimberlain’s flesh crawl.
    The man hidden amid the trees of the Cape Stone waterfront watched the launch approaching the dock.