by S W Vaughn
“It’s perfect. Thank you so much,” he said, his eyes almost shining as I handed it back. Then he looked around as if he wanted to make sure no one was paying attention, and lowered his voice as he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about writing a book, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” I tried to sound interested. “You should go for it.”
His smile widened impossibly. “Really?”
“Sure, why not?” I said. “You seem like an intelligent guy.”
“Wow. Thank you.” August leaned in close, as if we were suddenly co-conspirators, and half-whispered, “My book is going to be about —”
“Detective North,” a familiar and decidedly flat female voice cut in loudly.
I managed not to wince as I looked into the incensed gaze of Preston Clarke.
August suddenly decided that he had something to do far away from the angry detective.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “I was just—”
“I know all about August’s obsession with your … book,” she said, placing a nasty turn on that last word. “Don’t you think that could have waited? We’re in the middle of a murder investigation here.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t say anything.
“Whatever. Come on,” she said. “The chief wants everyone in the conference room.”
I followed her through the rest of the cluttered-desk area and down a hallway at the back, into a space that looked less executive boardroom, the way they showed police conference rooms in TV shows, and more elementary school classroom. There were a bunch of folding chairs set up more or less in rows, facing a podium at the front of the room. A freestanding whiteboard stood next to the podium, and windows lined the left-hand wall, while on the right, sections of corkboard displayed photos, reports, and sticky notes pertaining to the murders.
Lieutenant Kratt was already in the room, along with August and six uniformed officers. No sign of the chief yet. One of the uniforms caught my eye right away, a big guy built like a linebacker and wearing a confident, the-world-is-mine expression that morphed into calculating disgust when he looked at Detective Clarke, and then me.
I decided to watch out for him. He looked … vengeful.
Clarke went straight to the lieutenant without a word to me, so I headed over to the corkboards. I’d already seen most of the information displayed on them, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. But the last section of board held something different. The photos showed skeletal remains half-buried in the ground. Scant notes indicated that the victim had been a blonde female wearing dark jeans and a green jacket, estimated between fourteen and sixteen years old, and had been stabbed to death on Saturday, May 25, twenty years ago, at approximately 10:30 in the morning. She hadn’t been identified, and they were referring to her as Jane Doe.
The information was an odd mix of vague observation and highly specific detail, especially the time of death — it seemed so strange that they’d have been able to pinpoint not only the date, but also the day of the week and the time of day. Clearly, Jane Doe had been buried in the ground for twenty years and only found recently. But someone knew exactly when she’d died.
“That case isn’t related to the one you’re working on,” Detective Clarke said from behind me in a tight voice.
I turned toward her, and it hit me then that she was a blue-eyed blonde … just like all the victims, including the New York set. She was a bit older than the age range this killer seemed to target, but not by much.
Come to think of it, this Jane Doe they were investigating had been close, too. Young, blonde, killed with a knife.
“Are you sure about that?” I finally said. “That the cases aren’t related, I mean.”
The look she gave me was half insulted, half irritated. Before I could clarify what I was thinking, which was that serial killers usually evolved their methods after their early victims — a theory that, admittedly, I’d picked up from some cop show or another — the phone in my pocket started ringing.
It was the first time I’d heard it, and the ringtone was obnoxious. I’d definitely have to change that.
“Excuse me,” I said awkwardly as I pulled the phone out and turned away slightly. The call came from an 802 area code number, the same as the chief’s, and I answered before I could think through the possibility that this might be someone who knew the man I was supposed to be. “Hello?”
There was a faint pause, and then an elderly man’s voice said, “Would this be that Detective North, then?”
“Yes,” I said with a frown. “Can I—”
“Listen here, Detective, I know something about those girls. The murdered ones,” the old man interrupted before I could finish whatever I’d been about to say. “See, I knew it would happen again, after last night when I saw them come back.”
My frown deepened and I turned back to Clarke, who was watching me with an impatient expression. Maybe she thought I was taking a personal call. “So, you’re saying you have a tip about the murders?” I asked a touch too loudly, just to make sure the detective knew it was relevant. Though I had no idea why this guy would have called Donovan North’s cell phone instead of the station directly. “I didn’t catch your name, Mr. …?”
“Dean. Murray Dean,” the man said almost defensively.
“Mr. Dean,” I said, and watched Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. At least she recognized the name. “All right, what did you see last night?”
One corner of the detective’s mouth twitched slightly when I said that.
I understood why as soon as Mr. Dean explained himself.
“The aliens,” he hissed. “I keep telling the chief. I seen ’em at least four, five times now. All those lights in the sky, in them boomerang shapes, and old Dorfman’s cows — that’s my neighbor, Bob Dorfman — his cows a’bawlin’ like they’re fit to burst. They come for Georgette Reynolds’ daughter, and now for that poor Mathers girl out there.”
Clarke was struggling to hold back a laugh now. She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but she saw my face and the baffled expression I was no doubt wearing. “Aliens,” I repeated slowly.
“That’s what I said! You deaf, Detective?” There was a high-pitched waver in the old man’s voice. “Now, I think you folks out to come out here and have a look over at the Dorfmans’ place.” He lowered to a stage whisper as he added, “There’s some mighty suspicious stuff goin’ on in Bob’s cornfield. Might be crop circles.”
“I, uh…” I sputtered helplessly, with no idea what to say to the crazy old man.
Detective Clarke held a hand out and gestured for the phone. My shoulders sagged with relief as I gladly handed it over.
“Mr. Dean, this is Detective Clarke,” she said into the phone when she took it. “Thanks for calling. Can I just take down your information, and we’ll send someone out as soon as possible?” She paused and looked at me, her eyes glittering with suppressed amusement. “Uh-huh,” she said, and then, “Got it,” without ever writing a single thing down. “All right, Mr. Dean. We appreciate your cooperation. Yes, this might help us out. Thank you.”
She ended the call with a smirk, and then shook her head as she handed the phone back. “Welcome to Landstaff Junction,” she said, putting an extra drawl in her tone. “We’ve got aliens, don’tcha know?”
The others in the room laughed. I guessed they all knew about Murray Dean, too.
“Great.” I returned the phone to my pocket. “Why did he call my cell, though?”
“Because everyone around here has to pitch in and take tip calls from the public.” The voice was Chief Palmer’s, and it came from the front of the room. I hadn’t even noticed her come in. “This is a big investigation, and we don’t have enough resources for a proper tip line. I explained this when I interviewed you, remember? I put your information and direct number up on the department website this morning,” she continued. “Yes, we do have a website. It’s on the internet and everything.”
That
got another round of laughter from the room, and I felt a little insulted. I’d never even hinted that I thought this town had a technology problem. Hell, everybody and their dog had a website these days. But I let it go, presuming that all of this was just a little new-guy hazing and they’d settle down eventually.
Except for Detective Clarke, of course. She wasn’t going to let anything go.
I didn’t particularly like the idea that my phone number was on a public website for anyone to see, but no one else seemed to be complaining about it. So for now, I’d have to go with the status quo.
Couldn’t wait for the robocalls to start flooding the damned phone.
“All right, people, let’s bring it in,” the chief said as she headed for the podium. I followed the small crowd toward the folding chairs until Palmer called out, “Not you, Detective North. Up here.” She gestured for me to join her.
Fantastic. I felt the new kid in school being called up in front of the class. All I needed now was for the chief to say something like ‘state your name and tell everyone here a little about yourself.’
My name is not Donovan North, and I’m not a cop. But I play one in Landstaff Junction.
Unfortunately, what Chief Palmer wanted from me was a lot worse than that.
“Okay,” she said once everyone had taken a seat and commenced staring at us as I stood awkwardly next to her. “I know we all have a lot of work to do right now, so hopefully we can keep this short.” She sent me a sidelong glance with those words. “In case some of you didn’t get the memo, this is Detective Donovan North from New York City.” More laughter. “He’s going to brief us on his observations and what he knows from the investigation down there, so listen up.” She stepped aside and nodded at the vacated podium. “Detective?”
I managed not to sigh as I moved into her place, with no idea what the hell I was going to say to these people that they didn’t already know.
Thanks for the heads-up, Chief.
Chapter Fourteen
Preston
Detective Donovan North was unorthodox, to put it politely. He hadn’t brought any notes with him and he’d started the briefing with a stumbling presentation of the facts of the case, everything they already knew, as if he needed to remind himself what was going on.
But once he’d gotten through Serial Killer 101, he almost sounded like he knew a few things.
Preston watched him step over to the whiteboard, pick up a dry-erase marker and uncap it. “So, we’ve got two victims here — possibly three — and eight in New York,” he said as he drew a large, hasty T on the board and labeled the two columns with NY and LJ at the top.
“What do you mean, three?” The question came from the chief.
North glanced back at her briefly, almost dismissively, and then pointed to the corkboards. “Your Jane Doe, there,” he said. “She’s close to the profile.”
“Hardly,” Chief Palmer snorted. “Besides, we haven’t even been able to confirm the little information we have on Jane Doe, and that case is not a priority right now.”
The chief sent a look at Preston, and she bit back a response. As much as she cared about solving Jane Doe’s murder, it was not the hill she wanted her career to die on. She probably shouldn’t have put as many of the unverified facts of the case as she had on the board. But damn it, she knew what happened all those years ago.
She just didn’t know who was involved. Yet.
North paused for a beat, and then shrugged and went back to the board. “Okay, eight victims in New York,” he said, rapidly writing out a list of all the victims’ surnames — from memory, Preston noted with grudging approval. “And two in Landstaff Junction.” The slight, sardonic emphasis he placed on ‘two’ before he scribbled Reynolds and Mathers in the second column forced a tiny smile from her. At least he seemed to care about Jane Doe, too.
“There are some differences.” North wrote ‘sexual assault’ beside the second column, and then dashed off ‘3-4 mos’ next to the first one. “First, the victims in New York were not sexually assaulted,” he said. “There was also a wider gap between murders, and the last one was six months ago — a longer gap than any of the previous victims. But here we have Reynolds, and then Mathers, with only a month between them.”
“Does that mean something?” Kratt interjected.
“It could.” North stepped back from the board and tapped the marker absently on his forearm a few times. “Because the murders are so similar here, we know there are two likely possibilities. One, this is a copycat killer. Or two, the Kid Glove Killer is now operating in northern Vermont. There’s also a third option, not as likely, but still possible: that the Kid Glove Killer is from this area, and has spent time in New York.”
“That is highly unlikely,” Chief Palmer said. “Someone from this town … what, living some kind of double life, traveling to the city to murder women in his spare time?”
North turned a dry look on her. “Well, Chief, someone from this town has already murdered two women right here, in his spare time, in the space of a month. Do you really think it’s impossible that he’s killed elsewhere?”
The chief had no response to that.
“Anyway, I did say it was unlikely, but possible,” North said as he faced the gathering again. “I would suggest that you all assume we’re probably looking for a copycat, but keep in mind that it may be the real Kid Glove Killer. Try to identify anyone from this area who’s spent significant time in New York City over the past three years, and consider questioning them.”
“You mean like you, Detective?” a harsh voice called out. Henderson.
Preston looked over at the officer a few seats away, trying to communicate her disapproval of his pointless interruption, but his darkly amused stare was focused on North.
And for just a moment, the city detective returned Henderson’s stare with a cold, threatening expression that she’d never seen on anyone before. His face was a stone, his hazel eyes flat and empty, devoid of any emotion.
A killer’s eyes.
Then he smirked, and that terrifying emptiness vanished. “Well, you’re welcome to investigate me, Officer,” he said evenly. “Though I’m sure the chief here doesn’t want to pay you for wasting your time, and the department’s. Maybe you should try to find the killer instead.”
That brought a few laughs. Henderson’s eyes narrowed, and he slumped back in his chair with a scowl.
“That’s all I have for now,” North said as he capped the marker and tossed it onto the whiteboard tray. “Thank you, Chief.”
Chief Palmer shook herself and blinked, as if coming out of a daze. “All right, we’re done here. Dismissed,” she said, and then abruptly pulled out her phone. “Excuse me.” She turned and walked toward the corner of the room, answering the call as she moved away.
Preston stayed in her seat for a moment. She thought about saying something to Henderson, but Officer Ugh had stalked from the room the instant the chief dismissed them — no doubt going to nurse his wounded pride. She was almost happy he’d called North out and gotten humiliated for his efforts.
But she wondered about that look in the detective’s eyes. That cold, blank look.
Just as she stood, deciding that she should probably confer with her so-called partner, Chief Palmer called her out as she crossed the room back toward Detective North. Preston joined them around the podium.
“That was the hospital,” the chief said. “Derrick Coleman is conscious and lucid, so you two should head over there and question him. His doctor cleared the interview.”
Derrick Coleman. The boyfriend who’d found Chelsea Mathers’ body.
“Okay, we’ll go right now,” Preston said, already hoping against hope that Derrick knew something useful. It was a long shot, like everything else in this case, but she’d take it. She looked at North. “You ready?”
“Sure,” he muttered. “Lead the way.”
“Let me know if you find out anything that’ll help,” the chief sa
id brusquely, and then approached Kratt to confer with the lieutenant.
North’s lack of enthusiasm needled Preston, but his briefing had given them the sliver of a possibility for some new leads. She’d try to temper her disappointment. “You don’t mind if we take my car, do you?” she said as she headed out of the room, expecting him to follow.
He did. “Not at all. You’re the native,” he said, and then lowered his voice. “By the way, who was that ape with the smart-ass mouth?”
Preston nearly choked on an unexpected laugh. “Officer Clyde Henderson,” she said. “He’s an ass of a human being, but a decent cop.”
Even as she said it, she wondered why she’d bothered lying. ‘Decent’ was a generous way to describe Henderson’s performance as an officer. He was sub-par at best, at times downright incompetent, and with the recent suspension, she strongly suspected he would either quit or get himself fired soon.
But there was a line, even in a small-town police department. You didn’t bad-mouth your fellow officers. Not unless you wanted the rest of your fellow officers to turn on you and make all your working relationships impossible.
North shrugged it off. “Guess I’ll have to take your word for that.”
She had a feeling he wouldn’t really take her word, and that was fine. He’d figure out what kind of person, and cop, Henderson was for himself soon enough.
They’d just gotten to the bullpen and were heading for the back door when someone called out warmly, “Preston, hello! Do you have a minute?”
She stopped, sought out the source of the words, and saw Anton Fehily walking toward her with a smile. Holding back a groan, she waited until he reached her and manufactured a polite expression. “Hello, Reverend,” she said. “We’re actually on the way out.”
Reverend Fehily presided over the First Baptist Church of Landstaff Junction — as if there might be second or third Baptist churches in this town, and they wanted to make sure they were always first. He was in his mid-thirties, on the young side for a church leader, and he was endlessly, obnoxiously cheerful. Never pushing, but always hinting, that a person such as Preston might find solace in the arms of his Lord.