Without Sin (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  It was a good theory, she said. The bureau guys were already looking into threats against the judge’s life. Apparently, there had been a lot of them over the years. Letters, crank calls, things left on the doorstep: that sort of thing.

  And Dandridge and her husband had compiled a list of names – all the people they could remember who had reacted badly. The people who had done the crime, but pitched a fit when they found out they’d do the time. The family members who had threatened to get even with the judge that sentenced their loved one, or upheld their sentencing, or prosecuted them before that. It was another long list.

  She thanked me for calling. But I could tell I hadn’t given her anything she hadn’t already considered. Because in her mind, it was just one of a slew of theories.

  In mine, I was certain. I had been looking for patterns, so hard I’d been willing to invent them. But there was a pattern here all along – a pattern, and an anomaly.

  Patterns didn’t lie. People weren’t random.

  I made a new board, not focused on the granular details of each specific case. This was the twenty-thousand foot view. The bare facts view, where patterns could emerge.

  I looked at the gender of the victims.

  Martinez – female.

  Anderson – male.

  Welch – male.

  Dandridge – female.

  Fleming – female.

  Cooper – male.

  Dorn – male.

  Keats – female.

  There was a kind of pattern: A-B-B-A, repeated twice. But I didn’t read much into that. Fleming – the second A – had been a fluke. She’d been the response to the copycat killer. Maybe the killer had planned a female victim, and maybe he hadn’t.

  I didn’t know and I didn’t have enough information to make any kind of informed speculation. Nor did I read too much into the fact that, so far anyway, the victims were a balance of males and females. I was counting targets, not dead people. If I counted the dead instead, excluding Dandridge and including Terri Lange and the kids, the balance so far was female heavy. If I counted targets only and allowed that Dandridge’s husband might have been one too, it swung male heavy.

  Not enough data to make any kind of assumptions.

  I didn’t have data on kill locations, either. Presumably, Martinez, Anderson and Andy had been killed somewhere remote, maybe out of town. But that was an assumption. The other victims had all been targeted wherever they happened to be at the time.

  There was not a pattern so much as a trend in where the bodies had been discovered. Martinez and Anderson had been discovered outside the town. Andy had been dumped in a parking lot in town. Every killing after them, starting with Lange and the Dandridge kids, occurred in town. There was no movement of the bodies, no elaborate prework involved in the staging. Whatever happened, happened at the scene of the crime.

  Another change in behavior, again starting with the Dandridge hit.

  I put up a note for the rhymes, too. I still stood by my earlier conclusion. There might have been all kinds of complex psychological implications for the switch from handwritten to ink stamped notes. But the simplest explanation was that his victims knew they were death notes.

  Telling someone to write their own death note would provoke all kinds of hysteria: tears, desperate pleas, abject terror. Plus there would be logistical problems. He might have been able to intimidate someone scrawny like Anderson, or petite like Martinez. But Andy would have been harder. So would a bunch of cops.

  So I included the note, but, barring a reason not to, I opted for the simplest explanation. Occam’s Razor.

  I was getting somewhere, now. I had trends and patterns. I had consistent behavior, and changes in behavior. I had an unfortunately large data set to work with, considering the circumstance.

  I could start looking for meaning in the data.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I spent a long time searching Dandridge’s name, looking again for some kind of link, something I’d overlooked the first time. But the truth was, I would have had more luck finding a needle in a haystack.

  She’d been involved with too many cases. There were plenty of high-profile ones, with dangerous criminals and angry families. There were trial lawyers who hated her, and defendants who despised her.

  But for all the headline grabbers, it could just as easily have been an obscure case, a quiet psychopath.

  So I came back to the change in dumping grounds. I sent Clark a text message that evening. How long had Anderson been dead before they found him?

  That’s not being released at this time, she said.

  Which I could have read into, since there had been no such need for discretion with the other victims. But I chose not to; the other vics hadn’t been dismembered, so there were certainly other factors at play.

  But Anderson had been missing for six months. Which didn’t give me any kind of definitive timeline either. His family said that that was normal.

  It did give me a window, though: sometime in the last six months.

  He was found after Martinez. He was considered victim number two in the nursery rhyme killings narrative. But that didn’t really mean he’d been killed after her.

  If I was right, if the serial killer persona was a cover for a specific target, I suspected a good deal of planning had gone into it. So Mason might have actually been victim number one. He might have been the trial run, the proving grounds.

  And he might have been dead for the full six months, in pieces in a freezer somewhere while NRK wrapped up the rest of his preparations.

  But there was something else I found as I examined the patterns of the killings. It went back to the nursery rhymes.

  Mary Ann Cotton, Humpty Dumpty, the sandy boy, and the farmer’s wife – they’d all got their own rhyme. Sometimes a full one, sometimes only a stanza. But their rhymes referred to them and only them.

  Not so with Dandridge. Ladybird’s poem referred to her and her kids. And she wasn’t the only one. The cops shared a rhyme too.

  Maybe that was a coincidence. Maybe it was some sort of inadvertent tell, a final slight to his real targets. Maybe I was reading too much into it.

  But I put the cops’ names into a search engine, starting with the first vic.

  I found James Ryan Cooper’s birthday, and stories from his friends and family. I saw his mom’s social media profiles, all covered in family photos. I found a story about him performing CPR at a local diner, and saving a heart attack victim. I saw comments from people who said he’d gotten nothing more than he deserved for wearing the uniform he did. I saw comments from people who said Kennington had lost one of her finest.

  But I didn’t find a reason to kill him.

  Dorn was another story. He’d been a thirty-plus year veteran of the force. He’d busted gun runners and drug dealers, murderers and rapists, thieves and arsonists. He’d busted dirty cops and corrupt city officials.

  There didn’t seem to be a crime around that he hadn’t faced, and he hadn’t been afraid to make enemies. Not in the mayor’s office. Not in the police department itself. Not among the wealthy and powerful.

  He’d arrested a CEO’s son for rape his first year on the job. His tires had been slashed after that, by person or persons unknown. Anonymous threats had been mailed to his wife’s office at work.

  He’d arrested Mayor Ballantyne the next year, for driving under the influence – after which point the department’s budget had come under fire for the duration of the mayor’s term.

  He’d arrested fellow officer Bernard Thurn a few years later, on a slew of charges: everything from excessive use of force to planting evidence on a suspect. He’d earned the ire of a lot of the other members of the department, who saw him as a traitor.

  None of it had stopped him from doing his job.

  He was Dandridge all over again, with a list of enemies a mile long. Which made it more likely that he’d been a target, but less likely that I’d ever figure out why. I put a star by
his name on my board and moved on.

  Keats proved to be somewhere in between the other two cops. She had more experience than Cooper, and less than Dorn. She’d put away her share of bad people, some of them very bad.

  But she hadn’t been at it as long as I’d been alive. So I figured maybe I had some kind of shot of figuring out who the killer was, if she’d been the target.

  Man plans, and God laughs. That’s how it seemed, anyway. Because I wiled away quite a few hours, and came up with absolutely nothing. Or rather, so much that it might as well have been nothing.

  I saw mug shots of child molesters and spousal abusers she’d put away, rapists and child abusers. I saw men who had beat and killed their wives, women who had beaten, scalded, stabbed and even run over their kids.

  Some of them were out already. Some were still in prison. Some had families who were glad they’d been taken off the streets. Some had families who insisted they were innocent. Most of them looked capable of all kinds of violence, but none of them looked capable of the kind of planning the nursery rhyme killings would require.

  I still didn’t have enough. On some level, I felt like I was close. But I was missing something, or I’d overlooked it. Something that tied all of it together.

  It came to me in my sleep. Or rather, it came to me because of my sleep. I had the dream again. Or, the memory; it was less a dream than recollection of a video.

  The video. It happened intermittently lately. Sometimes I’d dream of Andy and Roxanne, of the foster homes and the interminable years. Sometimes I’d remember the video.

  Grayscale. Flames. Death. Women and kids. Screaming. Jumping to their deaths.

  I woke up panting and covered in sweat, the images seared into my consciousness. It was the kids who triggered the thought, the kids and the fire.

  I was thinking about the Dandridge kids and the Dandridge fire, which led my mind to the nanny, Terri Lange, and how she’d died. She’d been shot with a gun traced to a crime states away. A completely different modus operandi. A different killer, probably.

  Which meant someone had brought that gun from somewhere in Mississippi all the way to Kennington. Maybe there’d been an intermediary, or two, or three. But eventually, it found its way here.

  The first killer pawned it, probably for a lot less than it was worth. It had been used in a crime once already. Getting rid of it would be the primary objective.

  Then someone had driven it out of state, maybe all the way here, maybe not. Maybe it had taken a longer, slower route north. Either way, it had wound up in Kennington.

  And then someone had used it, maybe not realizing it had been used in the commission of a crime before. Maybe not realizing using that gun upped the stakes. It wasn’t just a local matter anymore. Now there was the federal angle. Crimes had been committed in multiple states.

  The local department couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was bigger than they could handle on their own. So the FBI had got involved.

  A new complication in an otherwise perfect murder scheme. NRK wouldn’t have been happy. Maybe, he would have been so unhappy he’d kill whoever sold him the compromised weapon.

  I thought about Jason showing up, looking white as a sheet and worrying that I’d killed Travis over the truck and firebomb. Ludicrous, of course. I’d have gone to the cops if I had doubted the efficacy of my efforts so far.

  But the cops were a viable route for me. Not so much for a serial killer. A pissed off serial killer might just ply his trade.

  I’m pretty sure he sells stolen cars and illegal guns too. That’s what Jason had said about Travis. That was the talk.

  I sent Clark a text message. Just after 4 AM. I figured she’d be awake already, if she’d even been asleep. I said, The places you were looking at to track NRK’s gun…one of them was a car shop on Hemlock street, right? Owned by a guy called Travis?

  This time, she replied within a minute. How did you know that?

  Long story.

  We need to talk.

  We agreed to meet at a coffeeshop by Kennington Nature Park called Espresso at the Park. It opened earlier than any of the other coffee places in the area. It opened at five-thirty in the morning, to accommodate the early morning runners and joggers, the folks who got up before the rest of the world for coffee and exercise.

  It was my idea to meet there. She asked if I was alright with it, ‘all things considered.’ By which she meant Andy’s death, of course. He’d been found by the dumpsters at the park. On the other side of the massive public land, opposite where we were meeting. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt something about the spot.

  But I said it was fine. I needed coffee. I’d only got a few hours of sleep after work, and my mind wasn’t going to shut down for anything. Not now. Not anytime soon.

  I’d been to the coffeeshop in question, but I didn’t remember anything about either the place or the coffee. Which meant it had been alright, but only alright. Anything worse, and I would have remembered; anything better, and I would have remembered.

  There was a parking garage across the street. There wasn’t much parking at the nature park or most of the businesses in the area. There was none at the shop – just a few spots on the road outside. But there was plenty in the garage, and most of it was empty now.

  Five-thirty in the morning on a Thursday. Too early and still too dark for normal people to be up and about, especially with a serial killer on the loose. Too late in the week for the go-getters to go on burning the candle at both ends; even they needed to sleep some time.

  I parked and headed over to Espresso at the Park. There was one car on the street in front of the building. A pale Prius. Clark wasn’t there yet, then.

  That was okay. I’d order a coffee and get myself situated. Take a deep breath and get over all the stuff I was pretending I didn’t have going on at the moment: the tightness in my chest, the weird edge to my breathing. The thoughts floating around in my head.

  Was Andy still alive when they got here? Did he know what was coming? Was this park the last place he drew breath?

  I pushed open the coffeeshop door. A strong smell of espresso hit me, and subtler scents followed. Herbs, spices, tea.

  There were handmade soaps and hand creams on shelves directly ahead of me, and jewelry and shawls too. There were signs advertising organic products and fair-trade practices, locally sourced ingredients and sustainable farming practices. The menu was written in chalk and promised dairy and gluten free alternatives to everything.

  The girl behind the counter glanced up as I entered. She looked a little surprised. Pleasantly, I think – like maybe she hadn’t expected a customer right after the shop opened. Like maybe business had been slow lately, with a serial killer dumping bodies at the park, and this was a good sign.

  “Good morning,” she called.

  I nodded back at her. “Morning.”

  Then, I noticed a figure to my right, tucked into a table by the far window: tall, thin, dark hair and tired eyes. Detective Clark. She’d gotten here before me after all. On foot, apparently, since I hadn’t seen her car in the parking garage or on the street.

  I nodded to her too, and then up to the counter. The menu matched the general feel of the place.

  The drinks had all kinds of earthy, natural additions. I could get lattes with rosemary, ginger or cinnamon. I could get coffee lattes with rose or lavender, hibiscus or elderflowers. I could get tea lattes with even more flowers and herbs.

  I could order a concoction that had ginger and turmeric and nut milk, if inflamed joints were a concern. I could get a variety of CBD-infused so-called zen lattes if I so desired. I could substitute almond, cashew, coconut or soy milk as desired, if dairy was a concern. I could get decaf and half-caf versions of everything, if caffeine was an issue.

  The food followed the same pattern, with breakfast sandwiches that had cheeses and vegetables I’d never even heard of before, in combinations I wouldn’t have imagined. There were meatless ver
sions of everything, and the lunch menu was heavy on edamame, avocado, spinach, and toasted walnuts.

  All of which explained why I didn’t remember the place. Not that I had anything against foods like that. I was sure they were fine. But I was also not curious about putting the assumption to the test.

  “What would you like?” the girl at the counter asked.

  “Uh…dark roast with whole milk, please. Large.”

  “You got it.”

  I paid and she poured me a steaming hot mug and added milk, until it was a dark, muddy brown. Then I carried it to Clark’s table.

  She smiled at the sight of the giant mug, and the predictable brew inside. She was drinking something pink, with a leafy pattern on top. It smelled faintly floral. Some kind of tea, I assumed. Maybe rose or hibiscus.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I take it by your 4 AM texting you haven’t been sleeping great either?”

  She was still smiling, a wry, ironic kind of expression. I smiled too. “Not particularly,” I admitted.

  She nodded and took a sip of the pink drink. “I’m avoiding coffee,” she explained, noting my gaze. “I’ve hit the upper limits of safe caffeine consumption. I’ve got to keep myself awake through alternate means.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “Tell me about it. I walked a mile to get here. Didn’t do a damned thing. But this is alright, actually. Rose and hibiscus latte, with clover honey sweetener. Different, but I’d have it again. Provided coffee wasn’t an option.”

  I harrumphed quietly into my own mug, and took a long sip. It was good coffee: rich and bold, and scorching hot. Just the way I liked it.

  “So,” she said, “I suppose you know why I wanted to meet.”

  “Because you can’t wait to hear my latest theory?”

  “Because you’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “Ah.”

  “How do you know about Travis? And what do you know about Travis?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Other than that he owns a car shop, and he loaned Jason some money.”

  She groaned. “For fuck’s sake. He was the guy?”