by Lolli Powell
“What’s his name?” Jen kept facing forward. “You never said the son’s name.”
“I didn’t? It was Arthur James. Wayne called him Artie.” He sighed. “Wayne was a skinny weasel, but Artie was a good-looking kid, already close to six feet at fourteen, and well-built, like an athlete. Curly brown hair and brown eyes. And quiet. At first, I thought it was shyness or fear or dislike of the police, which was to be expected, but later I began to think there was something else.”
“Such as?”
“Mental illness. I think the kid was on his way to becoming as twisted as his father. It was the look in his eyes. He didn’t look scared, and he didn’t look shy. He looked calculating. Like he was going through the motions of whatever was going on at the time, but it wasn’t really touching him.”
“Didn’t the courts see that?”
“Apparently not. I tried to convince his social worker that they needed to keep him under psychiatric observation longer, but she wasn’t buying it. Of course, after the foster mother alleged he raped her, the situation changed.”
“Do you think he did rape her?”
“Frankly, no. Like I said, he was a good-looking kid. She was a hard thirty-five, and her husband worked too many hours. I think she persuaded Artie to take up the slack and then got nervous when her husband got suspicious. Again, just a feeling. I couldn’t prove it.”
“So maybe we know our killer’s name,” Al said. “Arthur James Kelty. He’d be what, twenty-nine or thirty now?”
“Thirty.”
“White male, thirty years of age, brown hair, brown eyes, approximately six feet, probably well-built. Now we’ve just got to find him out of hundreds of guys fitting that description. Thanks for your help.”
Will laughed and leaned back in the rear seat. Jen took a deep breath, relaxing just a little now that he was no longer so near her. I’m going to have to stop this, she thought. She had two murders to solve, and she was going to have to work with this man till that was accomplished. If she got weak-kneed every time he got within smiling distance of her, she was going to have major problems.
She tried to concentrate on what she was going to see on Finley Street. It made her feel a little sick, but she figured there was no better libido killer than rerunning the first one in her mind. Police officers saw plenty of bodies during the course of their job, but the battered remains of Carla Edwards had been something else again. Maybe it was the sense of evil, the feeling that something not quite human had done this thing to what had once been a beautiful, young woman.
They caught up to Hawkins and Lonnie as they turned off Lancaster Boulevard and onto Finley. She saw two marked units parked in front of the last house on the right. Finley dead-ended in a small park with a child’s play area complete with swing sets and a merry-go-round providing an incongruent contrast to what Jen knew they’d find inside the house. Hawkins pulled behind the second cruiser, and Al parked their gray Chevy behind him.
Bill Gant was at the front door. He was a pimply-faced rookie with only a few months on the job who still rode with a training officer. He looked ill. Jen squeezed his hand in support as he stood aside to let them into the house.
The front door opened directly into the small living room. It was decorated cheaply, but imaginatively, with wicker furniture and a multiplicity of houseplants. A television sat on a wooden stand that the resident had probably picked up at Walmart and put together herself. Good stereo components were arranged on a wicker etagere beside it. The door into the kitchen was directly across from the front door, and a small hall led from the other end of the living room.
Hank Dennis, the day shift patrol sergeant, stood in the center of the room making notes in his pocket secretary. He glanced up and made a face, pushing his black-framed glasses back up onto his aquiline nose. Hank was a couple of years past fifty, nearing retirement, and today he looked older than his age.
“Hi, sugar,” he said to Jen, nodding to Al and Lonnie, while eyeing the two federal agents with blatant curiosity. “It’s a great way to make a living, ain’t it.”
“Yeah, it’s a dream job. Will Anderson and Donald Hawkins from the FBI.” She gestured to the two agents by way of introduction, avoiding looking at Will. “Hank Dennis.”
The men shook hands. Hank opened his mouth, probably to question the FBI’s presence, but Lonnie cut him off before he got a word out. “Where is she?”
“Bedroom.” Hank jerked his head toward the opening into the hallway. “Nola and Gene are in there. Coroner’s on the way.”
“Who’s been where?”
“Nola and Bill got the call, and I was right behind them. The kitchen door was unlocked. When we got to the bedroom door and saw what was there, we didn’t go any farther. It was obvious she was beyond help. I did a walk-through of the rest of the house, but I haven’t touched anything.”
Lonnie nodded his approval, and the five of them moved into the hall. The bathroom was straight ahead and to the left were two small bedrooms. The door of the first bedroom was ajar. Jen could see cardboard boxes bulging with stored items, an ironing board set up in one corner of the room, and a card table with a portable sewing machine. A single chair was pushed under the table.
The rear room had been the victim’s bedroom. Nola Denniston, Bill’s training officer, was standing at the entrance to the room, her back to it. Her face was solemn and pale, and Jen was reminded of mourners at a funeral. The only difference was Nola’s gray eyes held hints of both anger and fear, emotions that one didn’t usually see at funerals.
“It looks like the same guy,” she said. “His style is pretty distinctive.”
She stepped back from the door.
CHAPTER 4
The room seemed to be painted in blood, dark red and shiny, drying slowly into rust-colored patches. The sheet covering the body and the matching fitted sheet on which it lay were a yellow floral print, the color nearly obscured by the blood that soaked them. The body lay on its stomach, the wrists tied to the vertical posts of the headboard, the head twisted at an unnatural angle. A pillowcase that matched the sheets covered the head, held in place by a black ribbon. The pillowcase had pulled up enough to allow Jen to see the beginnings of a deep slash in the throat.
The victim’s feet protruded from under the sheet. Her ankles had been secured to the footboard of the bed. Just like the other two, Jen thought, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t realized until now that she had been hoping something would be different about this one, that maybe they didn’t have a serial on their hands after all. The rope, the pillowcase, and the ribbon had dashed those hopes for good.
The headboard and the wall behind it were splattered with blood where it had gushed from the severed carotid artery. Jen knew that when the body was turned over, there would be little or no lividity. The girl’s blood had spurted, then trickled out, leaving little to settle to the lowest points.
Jen took a shallow breath, trying to avoid the smell of death, but it didn’t work. She’d known it wouldn’t. When she looked away from the body, she found herself staring into Will’s concerned blue eyes. That concern disturbed her more than the bold desire and cocky flirtatiousness that she’d seen there earlier. She looked away quickly and straightened, unconsciously lifting her chin in a gesture of defiance against the emotions brought on by both the dead woman on the bed and the very alive man standing next to her.
“Did anybody call O’Neill?”
Pat O’Neill was the I.D. Officer. She knew he would have been notified at once. She simply felt the need to do or say something.
“He’s on his way.” Hank had come up behind them in the hall. “The coroner’s been notified, and he’ll probably bring a couple of his people.”
“Who is she?” Al said.
“Her name is Victoria Kaufmann.” Nola said. “She’s a hairdresser at Heads Up in Eastwood Mall.”
Jen didn’t know Nola well, but what she did know she liked. Nola had come on the depart
ment just after Jen had been assigned to detectives. She’d been a nurse for several years before joining the department. Jen had often wondered what had prompted the career change, but she’d never asked.
“Who found her?” Lonnie said.
“A girlfriend,” Hank said. “Name of Sandra Norton. They work together, and the two of them went out last night. When Kaufmann didn’t show up for work, Norton called here and got worried when she didn’t get an answer. She came here on her lunch hour. When Kaufmann didn’t answer the door, Norton started looking in windows. She finally came to that one.”
He gestured toward the open window.
“Then it was flip-out time. The mailman caught her at the corner, running down the street, half out of her head. He had a neighbor call the squad. Before they got here, he got it out of her that there was something wrong here. He came and looked himself, then called dispatch. We talked to him, but he had a schedule to keep so I sent him on his way. He’s coming down to the building when he gets off work to give a statement.”
“What about Norton?” Jen said.
“I guess you’ll get the pleasure of handling that one,” Nola said. “Although it may be a while. I called the E.R. a few minutes ago. She’s in shock, which comes as no surprise, and she’s been sedated. The E.R. doc’s admitting her for observation.”
They heard the front door open and close. A few seconds later, O’Neill came into the hall carrying his photographic equipment and evidence kit. He let out a whistle when he saw the blood-soaked form on the bed.
“We got us a mad dog, don’t we.” It wasn’t a question. “Anybody been in the room?”
“Nope,” Hank said. “The rest of the house, yeah, but not the bedroom. It was obvious we couldn’t do anything for her, so we left well enough alone.”
“Good. No cops with two left feet screwing up the scene. Not that you have two left feet, Nola, but Hank here…”
He began assembling his equipment. He would take pictures of the sheet-covered body but wait till the coroner arrived before going any further. While Pat often did the evidence collection on a murder with the assistance of the detectives, they had decided with the first murder to leave evidence collection to the coroner. That way the chain of evidence would be a little shorter.
“How many of my people do you need?” Hank said.
“If you can spare them, leave me two,” Lonnie said. “Just in case reporters start showing up or the neighbors get too nosy.”
“Nola, you and Bill take care of that,” Hank said. “Nobody gets any closer than the street, understand? Not even on the sidewalk in front of this house.”
“Got it.”
Nola nodded and left the hall. Jen was pretty sure that was a look of relief on her face, and for a second, Jen wished she were back in uniform and doing something as mundane as holding back the press and the looky-loos.
Lonnie went outside to call the chief, and Al stayed in the hall, available to assist Pat if needed. Don Hawkins volunteered to check the perimeter of the house, while Jen and Will donned gloves and began searching the remainder of the house for anything that might be evidence.
It was Will who noticed the damp bath towel hanging on a rod above the tub and the rust-colored stain on the tub’s edge. Jen held a large paper evidence bag open as he carefully slid the soggy towel inside. The paper would allow the towel to continue drying without losing any tissue or hair that might be on it, and because it would allow the towel to dry, any organic evidence that might be on it would not deteriorate.
“He cleaned himself up.” Will’s eyes were hard. “I suppose he didn’t want to risk being pulled over by some nosy patrolman who’d want to know why he was covered in blood.”
Jen eyed the federal agent critically. He had turned pale at the sight of Kaufmann’s bloodied body, and he had not yet regained his color. A muscle twitched repeatedly under his left eye, and his mouth was set in a hard straight line. Again, she wondered what he had left out of the Minneapolis narrative.
“He may have been nude the whole time,” she said. “That way he could simply clean up afterward, get dressed, and crawl back into whatever hole he came out of.”
“I didn’t see any mention of wet towels in the reports on the other two.”
“None were found, not that it means anything. Neither Sams nor Edwards was found until the following evening. If there had been any damp towels, they would have dried by then.”
Jen was relieved to find that it was becoming easier to function around the agent. She still tensed up when he got too close to her personal space, and every time he looked at her, her body temp went up a notch, but at least she could walk and talk. That was a huge improvement.
“Were the bathrooms vacuumed?” he said, referring to a special vacuum equipped with filters that could trap fibers and hair that might go unnoticed by the human eye.
“Yes,” she said. “Nothing found that didn’t belong there.”
“What about the plumbing?”
“No—at least not at Edwards’s apartment. Since nothing of interest was found in the bathroom, we didn’t think it worth tearing up the plumbing.
“Are the scenes still secure?”
“I don’t think the county’s is, but Edwards’s apartment is still vacant.”
Will pulled a worn leather pocket secretary from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and made a note. The pocket secretary looked identical to the kind carried by a few of the older officers. Jen wondered if Will had carried this one when he worked for Minneapolis. It looked worn enough to have been around over fifteen years.
“Considering the mess Artie leaves, I’m sure the management has had the apartment cleaned,” Will said. “But it might pay to get a plumber in.”
He made another note. Jen felt herself getting irritated at the way he was jotting reminders to himself as if he were in charge of the investigation. She fought down the urge to suggest he jot a reminder to himself that, so far, the feds did not have jurisdiction on these particular cases.
“You’re that sure it’s Kelty then?” she said instead.
He smiled, his eyes sad.
“Sorry, but, yes, I guess I am. There’s no proof yet, so I guess I should keep my mouth shut.”
Jen had stayed in the doorway of the small bathroom. Even if she hadn’t been concerned about contaminating the bathroom, she would have stayed out. The quarters were too close for her to comfortably share with the man, so she had hung back while he’d recovered the towel. Now he moved toward her, his gaze holding hers, the corners of his mouth turned up in that half smile. As he looked at her, some of the color returned to his pale cheeks, and he seemed to relax.
But while he relaxed, she tensed up as he closed his hands around her upper arms before she had a chance to step away. Holding onto her, he started to squeeze past her into the hall, his body brushing against hers. Then he stopped. Only inches separated them. They held the position, looking into each other’s eyes, the seconds passing measured by Jen’s heart thudding in her chest, before his smile widened and turned into a mischievous grin.
“Excuse me, Detective Dillon,” he said, “but you’re blocking the door.”
He moved her bodily a couple of feet to the right and eased around her, still holding her arms.
She felt the blood rush to her face but managed to lift her chin and stare defiantly into his blue eyes.
“I thought you were going to call me Jen,” she said and immediately regretted it. Her voice was husky from emotion and lack of breath.
His blue eyes filled with the desire that she had first seen that morning in the conference room. His eyes played over her face, then he reached up and gently touched her chestnut hair. His fingers came away holding a loose strand.
“You have beautiful hair, Jen,” he said softly and teasingly, “ but it looks as if some of it’s liable to contaminate the crime scene. Maybe I should run my fingers through it and get all the loose strands before they fall.”
Jen s
tared into those gorgeous eyes and knew with a certainty that if she didn’t get a breath into her lungs in the next few seconds, she was done for. She would pass out right on the hall floor—no, she would swoon. That was the only word for it. She would swoon at this man’s feet like some Victorian bimbo.
“Thanks for the offer,” she managed to croak and stepped back, grateful that her legs had obeyed her command, “but I think the coroner’s people can separate mine from any others they might find. If they find any at all.”
He grinned at her again before turning and walking down the hall. Breath rushed into her lungs, almost as if he had created a vacuum by moving away from her. She shook her head, dazed, and caught a glimpse of herself in a hall mirror. Her face glowed with a light pink flush, her eyes were shining, and a thin film of perspiration was visible above her upper lip and on her neck. My God, she thought in surprise, I look as if I’ve been making love!
She stripped off her gloves and ran her hands across her neck and above her lip. The talcum from the gloves blotted the shine. She glared at herself in the mirror.
That is enough, she admonished her reflection. You are a thirty-four-year-old police detective, and you’re acting like a kid. There is a woman dead in the other room. You’ve got work to do. So do it.
As she walked down the hall to the living room, she wondered if the insane carnage in the bedroom behind her had something to do with her reaction to the federal agent. Maybe her mind and body were flooding her with hormones in an attempt to distract her from the horror she had witnessed. Maybe it was the same sort of reaction experienced by people who were thrown together in a dangerous situation. That’s all it was, she told herself. Nothing to worry about.
CHAPTER 5
As Jen stepped into the living room, the front door opened. The coroner, Dr. Follett, had arrived with two of his people. Larry Adams was around thirty and tall, muscular but going to flab. Jen didn’t know much about him except that he had joined the coroner’s office six months before and had briefly dated one of the department’s dispatchers.