by S W Vaughn
There were more people in the conference room now than the last time. Every officer, the whole lab staff, even Vonda from the front desk. The chief had taken the podium, with Kratt on one side and me on the other, facing a small sea of tense, worried faces.
“Okay, everyone, settle down,” Chief Palmer said, even though no one had been talking. She waited a beat, and then continued. “You all know that we have a very serious problem here. This town has always been a safe place, a peaceful place. But right now, the public is scared. They want answers. They deserve them. And we’re the ones they’re expecting to give them those answers. Everyone understand that?”
A ripple of murmurs went across the room.
“Good. Now, with this latest incident, we’ve got to step up our game,” she said. “We’re going to need more patrols out there, so I’m moving the schedules up to shift and a half rotation.” She held a hand up as another wave of muttering broke out. “That means everybody, including the brass. And Vonda, I have Jesse McCallum coming in to cover the second shift on the desk, starting tonight.”
Vonda grunted in what sounded like dismissive approval.
“Also, I’m assigning three of you officers to help the detectives out with phone calls and background checks,” the chief said. “August, that’s you and two more. Up to you who you want to pull into this.”
“Got it, Chief,” August said promptly.
Chief Palmer blew out a sharp breath and gripped the sides of the podium. “We need to make some progress here, people, and we need it fast,” she said. “Now, I’m going to have Detective North here give a few pointers on where you should start focusing your efforts. Detective?” She stepped aside.
I moved into place and took a minute to gather my thoughts. This was going to require a little bit of creative blustering. Basically, I had to lie with confidence.
Because I knew the truth. I just couldn’t give it to them straight without screwing myself.
“Okay. Bear with me now, because this is going to sound a little crazy at first. Not that things aren’t crazy already,” I said, and got the nervous laughter I’d been hoping for. “What we have is four murder victims. Eleanor Schilz, Chelsea Mathers, Lynn Reynolds, and Diamond Schilz.” I counted off each name on a finger, ending with four held up. “We know that these two, Mathers and Reynolds, were killed by the same perpetrator,” I said, pointing to the middle two fingers. “Both Schilz murders were vastly different, in time frame and methodology, from each other and from the Mathers and Reynolds cases. But my theory is …” I lowered everything but my pointer finger. “The same person killed all four of them.”
Instead of muttering, I was met with gasps and protesting voices. A lot of disbelief, skepticism, and at least one sneering ‘city people’ comment. I held up both hands and slowly patted the air until they went quiet again.
“I know. I did say crazy, right?” That got a few more laughs. “Hear me out, though,” I said as I moved over to the cleared whiteboard and picked up a marker.
I wrote Diamond Schilz on the board. “She was killed twenty years ago,” I said. “We know how and where, thanks to Detective Clarke, but not who. The killer was disguised at the time.” I caught Clarke’s eye and thought I saw faint appreciation there, but I couldn’t be sure. “Now, that’s a long time between murders, but I still think it’s the same killer, for two reasons.”
On the board under Diamond’s name, I wrote:
-Sloppy first
-Kid Glove Killer
I gestured to the first point with the marker. “Serial killers typically refine their processes with every victim, and the first kill is the sloppiest,” I said with every confidence that I wasn’t regurgitating detective show logic. “Diamond was stabbed to death, not tied down and tortured, but the primary weapon was a knife. The killer evolved his technique from there.” I moved the marker to the second point. “And went on to take more victims in New York City, before returning here to continue the spree.”
“So you’re saying this is the Kid Glove Killer,” Kratt interjected. “Not a copycat.”
“I’m saying it’s more likely that the original killer changed hunting grounds, than it is that someone who’s lived their whole lives in this town suddenly decided to murder his neighbors in the same way some lunatic from the city was doing it.”
Murmurs of approval met my statement. They didn’t want to believe it was someone they knew carrying out these vicious crimes.
“What about the differences, the sexual aspect?” This from the chief.
I nodded. “Again, evolution. The killer is honing his methods.”
Actually I was stuck on that part, too. It didn’t make sense, especially if it was the same killer. But I had to sound confident.
“Okay,” Chief Palmer said slowly. “And the shooting victim?”
“Eleanor Schilz.” I wrote her name on the board across from Diamond’s. “No knife, no torture, no connection, right?” I said. “Except sometimes, a serial killer will change his M.O. completely, and it’s usually for one of two reasons.”
Again, I added two points beneath the name:
-Personal connection
-Opportunity target
I’d taken this stuff straight out of Donovan North’s book.
“First, the personal connection,” I said. “This is when a serial killer wants to target someone he knows, but also wants to make sure the authorities have no reason to suspect him during the course of the investigation. If he kills a personal connection using his signature, he stands a much higher chance of being caught. So he changes the signature, usually by going in a completely opposite direction from his typical M.O. In this case, gun versus knife, and fast versus slow.”
Several heads nodded along while I spoke.
“And then there’s the opportunity target,” I said, gesturing with the marker. “Maybe he’d planned to take this victim with his usual M.O., but for whatever reason, he didn’t have the time or the tools available when he encountered the victim. So he takes the kill anyway. Opportunity targeting often occurs when a serial killer missed a previous chance to take the victim.” I drew an arrow from Diamond’s name to her mother’s. “He might have wanted to kill Eleanor Schilz years ago, but she was arrested and sent to prison before he could.”
More nodding. They were warming to the idea. Which was total bullshit, since I knew exactly why the killer had taken Schilz out the way he did.
But at least I’d have them on the right track.
“So, here’s what we’re looking for,” I said, and started a new list on the board.
-Male, 30 to 50 years old
-Intelligent, possibly arrogant
-Childhood abuse or trauma
-Has spent time in NYC (preferred, but not required)
-Outwardly friendly & easygoing and/or ladies’ man
-Familiarity with town
Not a half-bad profile, if I did say so myself. I was hoping to cover all the bases with that parenthetical aside after the NYC point, because the addition of sexual assault to the victims here still threw me. It was possible he wasn’t the original Kid Glove Killer.
But the same guy had definitely murdered all four of these women, and only one of them had deserved it.
“Okay, that’s all I have,” I said when I finished writing.
Someone started clapping. I thought it was August, but it didn’t matter because a few more joined in, and then almost everyone. There was even a cheer or two.
If I was a blusher, I would’ve turned bright red.
“Well done, Detective,” the chief said when the noise died down, and then turned to address the troops. “All right, people, you know what you’re looking for,” she said. “Get out there and find it.”
The room cleared relatively quickly. I waited, planning to be the last one out so I could regain my bearings before I went to my desk, but one person stayed behind.
Detective Clarke.
She wandered slowly to the front
of the room and stopped in front of the board, looking fixedly at the writing instead of me. “This is really good work,” she said, almost to herself, and finally turned to face me with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been acting … strange,” she said. “It’s just …”
I held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain,” I told her. “Whatever it is, I get it. This case sucks from every angle — and all I want is to see this guy taken down. Nothing else matters.”
She beamed relief like the sun. “Me, too,” she said. “Should we get to work, then?”
“Absolutely.”
I knew something was still bothering her, but she’d set it aside fully this time.
Hopefully she’d leave it there long enough to catch a killer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Preston
For the first time in weeks, Preston felt a glimmer of confidence. They were going to find the killer. All she had to do was ignore her misgivings about Detective North and focus on the case.
She found that she could do it, too. It was a matter of choosing the lesser evil. North was lying about something — maybe, probably — but he wasn’t out there murdering people.
She’d take the liar over the killer. There was no contest, really.
With August and another officer calling the church list that North had started on earlier, and two others dispatched to Holly’s House of Hair to check out that possible connection, Preston was tackling the gruesome task of reading the medical examiner’s report on Chelsea Mathers, just completed this morning. The official cause of death was listed as ‘trauma,’ because there were simply too many injuries to point to just one that had killed her.
She couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, what this girl had endured before she died.
As she read through the coroner’s long, clinical description of the injuries, her thoughts turned to the single consistent marking on all the victims, the one carved into their right shoulders. She’d never been able to determine a reason for that. Maybe her partner had some ideas.
She looked up at North, seated at the desk across from her and poring over the scant canvassing interviews from the Schilz shooting as if there was a test he’d have to pass later. For a moment she tried to imagine him in New York, a detective assigned to cold cases and background tasks, the same kind of grunt work they had the officers doing here, while his colleagues worked high-profile murders and brushed him off and laughed at his book.
If she viewed it that way, she could see why he might have fudged his credentials to get the job here.
And clearly, he wasn’t stupid.
She coughed to get his attention, and he jerked his head up with a guilty look in his eyes, like she’d caught him watching porn. A smirk tugged at her lips. “Got a minute, North?”
“Yeah, sure.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. Exhausted, like the rest of them — so he’d probably been falling asleep. “What’s up?”
“I was just wondering.” She tapped a finger on the M.E.’s report. “What’s your theory on the X?”
His brow furrowed for a moment, and then the light bulb came on in his eyes. “Oh, you mean …” He traced an X on his own shoulder with a finger. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s got to mean something to the killer, right? It’s the only consistency. Whatever it means is probably personal, but it’s hard to pinpoint without knowing … well, who the killer is.”
Pretty much what she’d been thinking. “If we can figure it out, maybe it’ll help us find him,” she said as she flipped through the stacks of reports on her desk, looking for the crime scene photos. “Let’s brainstorm. What could it be?”
North nodded, grabbed a notepad and pen. “Well, there’s the obvious. The letter X,” he said as he scribbled. “Might stand for something, like a name. Xavier? Xander? Not a lot of X names. Or maybe X marks the spot?” He wrote something, crossed it out.
Just then, Preston uncovered a photo of Chelsea Mathers, lying at an angle under the transcribed witness statement from Derrick Coleman, the X on her shoulder visible. Except when it was slightly tipped, it looked less like an X.
He crossed it out.
“A cross,” she said aloud, turning the photo around so North could look. “It could be a cross.”
North leaned forward, and his eyes widened. “Yeah,” he said. “It could be.”
They shared a look, and she knew they were thinking the same thing.
Reverend Anton Fehily.
Her desk phone rang, jerking her out of the moment. The line from the front desk was flashing. “One second,” she said to North, and picked up the receiver. “Hey, Vonda.”
“Detective Clarke, you have someone up here who wants to see you,” the receptionist said, her tone bordering on annoyance. A voice said something in the background, and Vonda sighed. “Alone. He wants to see you alone.”
Preston could practically hear the woman’s eyes rolling.
“All right, thanks. Be right up,” she said, and hung up the phone.
North looked at her. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. I just have to go out front for a minute,” she said as she pushed her chair back and stood. “Listen … can you call over to the Baptist church, see if Reverend Fehily is in today? I think we should talk to him.”
He was picking up the phone before she finished speaking.
She headed for the front end. There was a man on the other side of the counter, standing near Vonda, who looked over when she came up. “Are you Detective Clarke?” he asked.
The man was in his late fifties or early sixties, tall and stoop-shouldered with thinning hair and a thick salt-and-pepper mustache. He wore a long white lab coat over slacks and a button-down shirt, and a bronze name tag on the breast of the coat read Neil Glasberg, and beneath that, Pharmacist.
Glasberg. The place across the street from the Schilz house, where no one had been home during the canvassing.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Can I help you, Mr. Glasberg?”
“How did you … oh,” he finished with a glance down at his nametag and an almost prissy expression of distaste. “I’d like to speak with you, Detective, but not with that city fella around. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
She’d never realized how deep the anti-city sentiment ran through this town until Detective North got here. It was ridiculous, when you stopped to think about it. “We can go outside, if that’s all right with you,” she said.
“That would be fine.”
She lifted the counter, walked to the entrance, and held the door open for him. When he walked out, she followed into the bright morning sunshine and crossed the front walk to the benches that lined one side. “Would you like to have a seat?” she asked.
“No. I’m just on a break, and I have to get back to work soon,” he said with a vague gesture down the street. She guessed that he worked at the Green Hills pharmacy, since she used the Kinney’s and she’d never seen him there. He did seem familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. “I just thought I should tell you … well, I heard about that Schilz woman.”
Preston nodded and encouraged him with a gesture to go on. When someone came to the police to report something, it was always better to let them talk, and hold off on asking questions until after they finished.
“The thing is, we heard something last night, the wife and I,” he said. “A lot of shouting. And I’m sorry to say, it was that Baptist minister up the house, carrying on with that awful harridan.”
Her heart stopped, and she decided to ask questions after all. “You mean Reverend Fehily,” she said, just to make sure.
“Ayuh, that’s the one.” Mr. Glasberg frowned severely. “Loud enough to wake the dead, those two.”
“Do you recall what time you heard the shouting?”
“’Course I do. Woke us up, didn’t it?” He shook his head, as if she was an idiot for presuming that Mr. and Mrs. Glasberg were not in fact dead when the shouting started. “It was a quarter past
ten in the evening,” he said. “Decent folk know to keep the noise level down after nine, so that working people can get their rest.”
The stern tone he used, almost threatening, suggested that Mr. Glasberg was the type to let his wife — and any children they might have — know in no uncertain terms what he thought about people making noise after nine while he was trying to sleep.
She felt sorry for his family.
But she nodded along with him, and when he finished, she said, “Did you hear what they were saying? Any idea what the altercation was about?”
“Young lady, my wife and I are not the type to listen to other people’s conversations,” he said stiffly. “We most certainly did not hear what they were saying.”
Right. And if he didn’t hear the argument, Preston was sure it wasn’t from a lack of trying. “Do you know when it stopped?”
“Oh, they carried on something fierce, for almost an hour,” Mr. Glasberg said. “Right up past eleven. There’s no accounting for the manners of some people, and him being a man of God. It’s shameful.”
She’d been hoping he would add: Oh, and then there was a gunshot. The nerve of some people, shooting folks after nine when I’m trying to sleep. It wasn’t going to be that easy, though. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
The pharmacist looked left and right, as if making sure no one else was listening to his conversation the way he never would to anyone else’s. “I’ll tell you this, Detective,” he said in a low voice. “I doubt there’s a single soul in this town who’ll shed a tear at that woman’s passing. If that minister killed her, they ought to make him a saint.”
At least they could agree on something.
“All right. Thank you, Mr. Glasberg,” she said. “I’d like to send an officer out to your house, to get a statement from your wife. Is she there right now?”
A coldly forbidding expression settled on his face. “My wife does not answer the door when I’m not home,” he said, and she heard the unspoken addition to that statement: at least, she’d better not. “It’s not safe. Especially these days.”