Death Notice

by Lolli Powell

  The surprise was evident on Cochran’s face, and a thin sheen of perspiration popped out on his forehead.

  “A week ago?” he repeated, stalling for time.

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe I might have been.” He nodded rapidly, as if his memory had just returned. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I did stop by to see if Vicki wanted to go for a ride.”

  “Did she?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I never got around to asking her. I changed my mind and left.”

  “Our witness says you sat there until she came to the door. Our witness says Ms. Kaufmann looked upset at seeing you and slammed the door. Our witness says when that happened, you peeled out of there like your tail end was on fire.”

  Cochran glared at them for several long moments, his knuckles white where he gripped the arms of the chair. Finally he seemed to get control of his anger, although it was still visible in his eyes and tense posture.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Vicki and I had a fight a couple of weeks earlier. That’s why we hadn’t gone out. I stopped at her house that day to try and talk to her, but I never got up the nerve to go to the door.”

  Jen doubted lack of nerve had anything to do with Cochran not going to the door. He’d probably been waiting for the mailman to get farther up the street before he made his move.

  “When I saw how she acted when she saw me, I got mad and left.”

  “What did you fight about?” Jen said.

  “She blew me off. I’d been taking her out, spending money on her, and she suddenly decides I’m not the kind of guy she wants to see.”

  “Now why would she decide something like that?” Jen didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm in her voice, and Cochran’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her. He’d picked up on her tone, just as she’d intended him to.

  “She was a tease.” He stared hard at her. “I bet you know the type. The kind that leads a guy on till he starts wanting something in return for his investment, then tells him to take a hike.”

  How, Jen wondered, staring in amazement at the man, could someone so physically attractive be such a slime? And was misogyny the worst of his character flaws, or did he possess more dangerous traits?

  “You don’t like it when a woman resists your charms, is that it?” Jen leaned forward, her eyes boring into Cochran’s. “Does that make you angry, Mr. Cochran?”

  “What do you think?”

  Cochran returned her stare. He seemed to have forgotten that Al and Will were in the room. His voice had dropped to almost a whisper. In that whisper, Jen thought she heard the hint of a threat.

  “Where were you Monday night?”

  He continued glaring at her for several moments, then relaxed and leaned back in his chair, a smirk on his face.

  “In bed,” he said in a mocking tone. “Regrettably, alone.”

  “So no one can confirm you were there, can they?”

  “And no one can confirm I wasn’t.”

  He stared at her for another few seconds before turning to Al, dismissing Jen as of no importance.

  “If that’s all the questions you people have,” he said, “I’d like to get back to work.”

  “That’s all for now.” Al stood. “We might call you again if we think of something else.”

  “Sure.” Cochran stood and held his hand out, first to Al and then to Will. He continued to ignore Jen. “I’ll be glad to help, although I don’t know how I can.”

  “Sometimes a person helps without even realizing it,” Al said. “If you think of anything that might interest us, give me a call.”

  He handed his card to Cochran, who looked at it, glanced at Jen, and then looked away. He nodded and left the room.

  “Got your dander up a little, did he, Dillon?” Al was smiling.

  “I think Jen got his dander up even more,” Will said. “You brought out the real Steve Cochran, I think.”

  “Did I? I’m not so sure.” Jen shook her head. “I don’t think he was telling the truth about not knowing Carla Edwards.”

  “He did look a little shaky when you showed him the picture,” Al said. “I think we need to dig a little deeper on him.”

  “What do you know about him?” Will said. “Is he from the area?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jen said. “I remember hearing scuttlebutt around the building that the newest sanitarian, which would be him, had come from out of state.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Al said. “Do you think he could be Arthur Kelty?”

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “He doesn’t look familiar to me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s been a long time, after all. Artie was just a kid, and I didn’t spend a lot of time with him back then either. Saw him when we arrested his dad and that was it. But what I’m thinking is that Artie would have to support himself somehow. For all we know, once he disappeared, he could have taken on a whole new identity and a whole new life.”

  “Even to the point of going to college under someone else’s name?” Jen said.

  “Why not? It’s not that difficult to create a new identity in this country. There’s always been plenty of fake ID for sale in every big city, and now with computers, hackers can get in and enter records and a history and the person can get ‘real’ ID. Once a person’s got that, the rest would be easy. For that matter, Artie wouldn’t even have to go to college. Those records could be created, too. All he’d have to do is read books to learn enough to fake it.

  “And there’s a more sinister way,” Will continued. “Find someone no one would miss—a homeless man of the right age, for example—and steal his identity. After getting rid of him. Then move somewhere else and become respectable.”

  “Whoa!” Al said. “I hadn’t thought of that. If it were done young enough—like late teens or early twenties—no one would be likely to notice gaps in employment or education.”

  “You got it,” Will said. “Think of all the runaways in the country, especially in the big cities. If the families hired someone to look for them, they might find the impostor, but in too many of these cases, the families give up. Or they can’t afford to hire someone or don’t care enough to look in the first place.”

  “So if Kelty could be posing as a solid citizen,” Jen said, “he could be just about anybody.”

  “Anybody with brown hair and brown eyes who’s around thirty,” Al reminded her.

  “Boy, that sure narrows it down! Add to that the fact that anybody can dye their hair and get different colored contacts—or switch from male to female, for that matter—and I don’t think we’ll have any trouble picking him out of a crowd.”

  Al and Will laughed at her disgusted expression, then Al grew serious.

  “Do me a favor, will you, Dillon?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go a little easier on these guys. We don’t know when we might be talking to the one we want. I don’t like the idea of you making them squirm the way you did Cochran and maybe making yourself a target in the process.”

  Will looked surprised. He turned to Jen, his concern evident.

  “Al’s right,” he said. “Often serial killers focus in on a cop assigned to their case or a reporter covering it.”

  “I’ve got a job to do,” she said, “and I’m going to do it. Besides, if I attract the killer’s attention, maybe that will make him easier to catch.”

  Will and Al glanced at one another. Jen turned away before they could look back at her and see that what she’d said was mostly false bravado. The fact was, she didn’t want the killer focused on her any more than they did.

  At that moment, the conference room extension buzzed. Al picked it up.

  “Sure, send him over.” He hung up and turned to them. “Ron Wilson’s here.”

  “What do you want to bet,” Jen said, “that he’s got brown hair and brown eyes.”

  Wilson turned out to have blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. He had been born in the county and had spent his entire
life in the city. Even if he hadn’t projected the nice-guy persona that he did, he couldn’t be Arthur Kelty. Of course, Jen reminded herself, they couldn’t take for granted that their killer was Arthur Kelty.

  CHAPTER 18

  Wilson was unable to tell them much about Vicki that they didn’t already know. It was obvious he had never gotten over her. How, Jen wondered, had Vicki Kaufmann passed over this man in favor of the one she married? Then she remembered her own poor judgment at that age.

  When they finished with Wilson, Will and Jen both managed to hang back, fumbling with their papers, while Al escorted the man to the door of the detective section. She looked up and met Will’s eyes.

  “Could I talk you into dinner?” he said, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upward in that smile that warmed her from head to toe.

  Only if you’re the main course, she thought, then mentally shushed herself. Those kinds of thoughts will only get you in trouble, Dillon.

  “I don’t think I’d better.” She looked down at the pile of reports in her hands. “I need to spend some time with Brandon.”

  “I’d be more than happy to buy him dinner, too,” Will said. “In fact, I’d like very much to meet him.”

  She looked at him critically. He looked like he was telling the truth, but some men pretended interest in a child in order to get what they wanted from a woman. Her instincts told her that wasn’t the case with Will, but then, could instincts be trusted?

  “You might at some point,” she said, “but I’d still like to take a rain check.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “I won’t push. But I won’t give up.”

  “I don’t want you to.” The words popped out before she could stop herself. For a second, she seriously considered biting off her traitorous tongue.

  They stared into one another’s eyes and then he took a step toward her. Jen’s body—as traitorous as her tongue—took a step toward him on legs that felt like rubber.

  “I guess that about does it for today.” Al blustered into the conference room. “Not much else we can do for now. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not getting any guilty vibes from any of these guys we’ve talked to. I hate these kinds of cases.”

  A guilty look passed over Will’s face. For just a moment he looked like a teenager who’d been caught in the back seat of a car with his pants down. He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

  “What?” Al looked from one to the other. “What’s so funny?”

  “Not a thing,” Jen said.

  “Who said anything was funny?” Will assumed an innocent expression.

  “If you don’t want to let me in on the joke, fine.” Al shrugged, pretending indifference. “So, do either of you comedians have any ideas on what we should do next?”

  Jen was amazed at Al’s obtuseness. He was a good detective, able to intuit when a suspect was lying, but he seemed clueless to what had passed between Will and her. She was glad it was him and not Lonnie who’d walked into the conference rom. He would have picked up on the vibes immediately.

  “I might see if Jamie will go to The Factory with me tomorrow night,” Jen said, trying out the idea on the two of them for the first time. “Will and I stopped there in an official capacity. What I’d like to do is go back with another woman and mingle. See who, if anybody, crawls out from under a rock.”

  “Do you think that’s safe?”

  Jen could see from the expression on Will’s face that he’d spoken before he’d thought. Now concern for her safety was mixed with concern about how she was going to react to his protectiveness. It was nice that he realized he’d stepped out of line, but still, she was irritated.

  “It’s a public place,” she said. “I think Jamie and I can handle the danger.”

  The last was said with more than a little sarcasm, and Al winced.

  “Uh-oh, Anderson, now you’ve gone and done it.”

  “I didn’t mean you couldn’t handle it.” Will tried to smooth over his faux pas, but Jen wasn’t having it.

  “I know what you meant,” she said, “and I don’t appreciate it.”

  “Don’t you think you’re overreacting to what I said?”

  “Am I? Would you have said the same thing if Al had told you that he and Lonnie were going to spend an evening at The Factory?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” Will said, “this psycho doesn’t pick on middle-aged, gray-haired men.”

  “Hey, watch it.” Al was grinning, obviously enjoying the exchange. “You’ll hurt my feelings.”

  Jen took a deep breath, trying to control her anger. Would it ever change? For the decade she’d been a cop, she had experienced either male protectiveness or male criticism. She knew Will’s concern was on a more personal level, but it still angered her. She’d been right to avoid getting involved with him.

  “Look,” she said, striving for a reasonable tone of voice. “Jamie and I will both be armed. We’ll have a portable radio in the car in case we run into trouble on the way there or back, and of course, we’ll have our phones. I’ll let Dispatch know when we get there and when we leave. Okay?”

  Will looked at her, making no attempt to hide his concern. She could see him weighing his options and coming to the conclusion that he had none. He shrugged.

  “I guess it will have to be, won’t it?” he said.

  CHAPTER 19

  The man who used to be Arthur Kelty threw the paper on the end table and leaned back in the recliner, closing his eyes to rest them. Across the dark screen of his eyelids, he could still see the image of the man standing by the cruiser parked in front of the scene of his latest kill. The picture had been taken the day before, but it had been too late to make the Tuesday edition. Now it graced the front page.

  The young police officer who had been first on the scene of his father’s capture was no longer the fresh-faced man he remembered. In fact, he was surprised that he’d recognized the mature FBI agent as the man who’d ruined his life. But in spite of the years, he had recognized the same strong jaw, the same intense eyes—black in the newspaper photograph but blue in real life. The hair had streaks of gray in it now, but it was the same thick hair that had spilled out from under the young officer’s cap as he’d held his service revolver on his beloved father while he writhed in pain from the dog bite.

  He curled his hand into a fist and slammed it down hard on the arm of the recliner, imagining it was his fist slamming into the young officer’s throat. He should have jumped him when he’d had the chance. Big baby that he’d been, he’d been stricken at the sight of his injured father and had run to his side rather than protecting him from the more serious danger posed by the policeman.

  His father had never forgiven him, and he’d never forgiven himself. He’d tried for years to forget his failure, as he’d tried for years to live a quiet life that wouldn’t attract the attention of the authorities. In the end, he was his father’s son. He missed his father, and he missed the hunt. Before six weeks ago, he’d only killed on his own once, and that had been out of necessity. He’d needed a new identity so he took it.

  He’d been living on the streets in New Orleans then, and when he met the boy who looked enough like him to be his brother, he’d seen it for the opportunity that it was. He’d befriended the boy and learned that he had a drug problem. He’d already run away numerous times, and it didn’t take much to convince the kid they should go to California. “Bring ID and as much money as you can,” he’d told the kid, “and I’ll get us a car.” The gullible idiot had followed his instructions to the letter. Two hours after they’d left the city, the kid and the stolen car were at the bottom of a swamp in western Louisiana, and Artie was on a bus headed for Illinois with a new name. He’d been proud of himself at the way he’d planned and executed his mission, and he was pretty sure Father would have been proud of him as well.

  A few months later, he befriended another kid who introduced him to a group of teenage hackers, and for surprisingly little money and
some good weed, they’d accepted the challenge of creating him a new identity, one complete with a high school diploma, a birth certificate, and a driver’s license. He became the new person, established a life for himself, and stayed under the radar. For a while, he was content.

  But as the years passed, the desire for the hunt had grown along with his rage. When he finally indulged that desire, he’d known there was no turning back. It was the only way he could prove to himself and to his father’s memory that he wasn’t a coward. That would have been enough, but now he had the opportunity for more. Now he could avenge himself—and his father—against the man who’d ruined their lives. This time he wouldn’t fail.

  He glanced back at the newspaper photo, at the woman standing next to his enemy. Detective Jen Dillon had become a part of this. He’d seen the way the FBI agent had looked at her. She meant something to him, and that was his weakness, his Achilles heel. He would make his enemy suffer as he had suffered. He would give Jen Dillon the treatment he had given the others, and after his enemy had suffered the unspeakable loss of someone he cared for, then—and only then—he would kill him.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Prince Charming is here, and he’s got waffles.”

  Jen forced her eyes open and squinted at Brandon. He was dressed for school and was standing by the bed with a tray in his hands.

  “Morning,” she mumbled.

  She struggled to prop herself on the pillows. She felt leaden and foggy, unable to think clearly or even move without difficulty. She decided she must be getting too old to spend half the night fantasizing about what it would be like to make love to a particular FBI agent. Of course, it wouldn’t be a fantasy if she weren’t worried about the effects of any relationship on the child standing before her. He had to come first, and that was the way she wanted it.

  “What’ve we got here?” She reached for the tray.