by Lolli Powell
“The coverage is going to have to stay,” Lonnie said. “The chief is getting antsy, and the sheriff will probably have to pull some of his people before many more days go by, but I don’t see any other choice. The minute we pull off, he’s bound to go after one of them.”
“You think he’s trying to wait us out?” Al said.
“Probably. He’s not stupid. He knows as well as we do that economics won’t allow surveillance indefinitely.
“There’s a couple of things in our favor,” Will said. “For one, the list hasn’t grown any longer.”
Chief Buchan and the sheriff had met with the two men who owned and published The Eye. When the situation was explained to them, the men had readily agreed to hold publication of all divorce announcements until after the killer was caught. Jen wondered if the men had realized that might mean they’d never publish them again.
“And the other?” Al said.
“Something is driving him to kill. He won’t be able to wait forever. He killed three women in one week, one almost every other night. Now he’s gone for nearly two weeks without killing any. He won’t be able to last much longer. He’ll make a move, and we’ll be there.”
“He may have moved on,” Jen pointed out. “Like his father—if he is Arthur Kelty.”
“If he has, we’ll know it eventually.” Will shrugged. “Until we do, we need to operate as if he’s still out there.”
“Can you convince Buchan to keep the coverage?” Al asked Lonnie.
“I don’t think it will be too difficult. After all, it’s only been a couple of weeks. We’d look pretty bad if we pulled off that quickly and something happened.”
“Sorry I’m late.” Don Hawkins entered the room. “Did I miss anything?”
“Just a lot of bitching and moaning,” Al said.
“I just came from the office. Some of our background checks are in.” Don waved a folder at them. “So far Cochran checks out. Our agents showed photos of him to former employers and landlords, and he’s who he says he is.”
“How far back did they go?” Jen said.
“Ten years. They’re still checking, but it’s going slower the further back they go, so they sent us what they’ve got. If he’s Kelty, he assumed the Cochran identity longer ago than that.”
“What about the others?” Will said.
“Larry Adams checks out for the last six years. It’s going slow because he’s moved around more. Holiday checks out for the last fourteen years, so it looks like our mailman is who he says he is.”
Jen smiled, relieved that her only witness to the hit-and-run was clean.
“So the check on him is complete?
“We’ll take it back another year or two, just to be on the safe side, but essentially, yeah, I’d say it’s done.”
“The Bureau really moved on the checks,” Lonnie said. “It’s been less than two weeks.”
“Sometimes Uncle Sam comes in handy, doesn’t he?” Don grinned, and everybody laughed.
“So what are we doing today, boss?” Jen said.
“I’ve arranged for repeat interviews with everybody connected with the case.” A chorus of groans met his words. “I know, I know, it’s not as glamorous as on TV, but if anybody’s got a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”
No one did.
CHAPTER 48
He slept well and woke refreshed. Stretching languidly, he rolled over. The pictures were on the nightstand where he had laid them weeks ago. Now he held them up and relaxed against the pillows. The eyes of the man who had caused his father’s death looked with lust at the woman next to him in the newspaper photo, confident and unaware that by dawn tomorrow, they would both be dead.
He had spent most of the last two weeks learning their routines by heart. He’d already known quite a bit about Dillon, but he needed more details now that the federal agent was in her life. It had been simple to start a conversation with the boy while he rode his skateboard in front of their apartment building. Children were so trusting.
He nearly cried when the boy told him how he hoped his mother and Anderson would marry one day, knowing the futility of the boy’s dream. It saddened him to know that the boy actually thought it would be a good thing if Anderson stayed in his life. He would free the child from both of them. He’d toyed with the idea of taking the boy with him when he moved on. It would be fitting that he passed on his own father’s lessons to someone who could continue the family legacy, but he had reluctantly dismissed the idea. If the boy was younger, it might work, but at his age, he was already ruined.
The child had provided some useful information. He’d told him about the old lady named Ada who watched him when his mother neglected him. It was a valuable piece of information of which he’d not been aware. One weekday while the boy was at school and his tramp mother and Anderson were at work, he saw the old lady leave and took advantage of the opportunity to gain access to her apartment. The lock was ridiculously easy to pick. He had no doubt he could pick the lock on Dillon’s apartment just as easily, but a quicker method of entry was desirable. Father had taught him long ago how to duplicate a key, and the equipment to do so sat waiting in his basement. The old lady had the key to the Dillon apartment conveniently marked and hanging on a hook in her kitchen, and it took only a moment to make an impression.
Finally, last night he had done a walk-through although he hadn’t gone inside the apartment building. Aware that he might be watched, he’d left his car parked and had walked in the darkness to a rental car. It had been raining lightly, but he didn’t mind getting a little wet. There was no such thing as being too careful, not when he was this close. He was ready.
His eyes drifted over Dillon’s seductive body. She was excellent bait. He looked again at his enemy’s face and smiled. He couldn’t wait to see the man’s expression when he saw what was going to happen to his new love.
After a few minutes, he laid the picture down and sat up on the edge of the bed. He was wasting time. After all, there was no need to look at pictures now. By the end of the day, he’d be looking at the real thing. He needed to practice the phone calls, so that his voice wouldn’t reflect his anxiety. In a way, the calls were the most important part of his plan, for without them, he could go no further.
Seven hours later, he stood on a side street opposite the police station. He knew she was still inside. He’d called earlier and asked for her, quickly hanging up when he heard her voice on the other end of the line. Hearing her had given him a thrill that he found hard to describe, and he knew that doing her would be almost as pleasurable as doing Anderson.
He looked at his watch and saw that the hands had not moved since the last time he’d looked. He swore softly. He had to calm down. It would be a while yet. If he kept this up, he would become unduly anxious, and that could lead to mistakes.
He caressed the watch. Father had given it to him shortly before he was captured. There was an engraving on the back. To Artie from Father was all it said. Just that, a straightforward message, no love or good wishes, just that. He treasured the watch, never missing a day of wearing it. It was an accurate timepiece, too, and it was only fitting that he wear it today when time was of the utmost importance. It was almost as if Father were here with him, directing him in the hunt of this most dangerous game. The watch was his good luck piece, his talisman, and he read its face hungrily, urging it to move its hands, to hurry up the time, before he went mad with the waiting.
CHAPTER 49
Jen looked up as the door to Lonnie’s office opened. Will stuck his head in and motioned to her. He had been called out of the interview a few minutes earlier to take a phone call, and one look at his pale, drawn face told her the call had not been good news.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said to Carla Edwards’s mother.
The woman nodded.
“What’s wrong?” she said, as soon as the door closed behind her.
“I just got a call from Riley Hospital in Indianapolis,” Will said
. “It’s my little girl. The youngest, Christina. She’s been hit by a car.”
“Oh, no! How bad?”
“The nurse who called said at least a broken leg. He said they’re still doing tests and x-rays. I’ve got to go on over there. Can you get a cruiser to run you home?”
“Of course I can. Don’t worry about it. Did you talk to Gloria?”
“According to the nurse, she’s there but asked him to call me so she could stay with Christina.” He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. “I’ll call you and let you know what’s happening.”
Jen watched as he hurried out the door. Saturday, at their picnic, the chubby-cheeked six-year-old with the coal black hair and the big blue eyes had made a good start at worming her way into Jen’s affections. Now Jen said a silent prayer that the little girl would be okay, and they would have a chance to build on that beginning.
***
Brandon answered the phone in his hands on the second ring.
HO, he texted Matt to hang on, fone call.
“Hello?” he said.
“Is this Brandon Dillon?” a slightly familiar male voice asked.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Who’s this?”
“This is Officer Hensley down at the police department. Your mother asked me to give you a call.”
“Mom did?” Brandon was puzzled. His mother usually made her own calls to check on him or called Ada. Suddenly a frightening thought occurred to him. “Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no.” The officer on the other end of the line laughed. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. No, your mom asked me to call you because she’s short on time. She wants you to meet her and Special Agent Anderson at the Oxbow. Do you know where it is?”
“Sure, I know where it is.” Brandon had eaten there with his mother on several occasions, usually special ones like Easter. “She wants me to meet her there?”
“That’s what she said. She said to use the money from your bank—said she’d pay you back—and call a taxi when you’re ready. Let me give you the number. She said she or Agent Anderson would call the taxi company and let them know it was okay to take you.”
Brandon smiled as he jotted the number down.
“The reservations are in Agent Anderson’s name. She said to tell the hostess that when you get there in case they haven’t arrived yet.”
“What time should I be there?”
Brandon ignored the WRU message that popped up on the screen. Matt could wait.
“She said to tell you as soon as you could make it. And to look nice, that it was a special occasion, a kind of celebration.”
“A celebration?”
Brandon hoped the celebration was for what he thought it might be. Maybe Mom and Will were going to get married. He grinned and crossed his fingers, mouthing a silent yes!
“That’s what she said. You gonna be able to make it?”
“Oh, sure,” Brandon said nonchalantly. “No problem. Tell her I’ll be there.”
He disconnected, and for a few seconds, allowed himself to do a happy dance. He started to head for his bedroom to get ready, then remembered Matt.
G2G he texted the shorthand for “got to go,” ignoring the question mark that popped up on the screen a second later. He’d explain it all to Matt later, when—hopefully—he had some good news to share. As he hurried to his room, he decided to wear his good suit, the one he’d worn to the funeral home. If this was the celebration he hoped it was, he wanted to look his best so Mom would be proud of him.
He hesitated in front of the bathroom door, wondering if he should take a shower, then decided against it. He wasn’t all that dirty, and Mom had said to hurry. He made the call to the cab company, and no more than a minute after he took up a position by the front door of the apartment building, the taxi pulled up.
Brandon had never ridden in a cab before, and he found the experience exhilarating. He promised himself that when he was grown, he would take cabs everywhere—or maybe Ubers. It made him feel rich and important to be driven about by a total stranger, and he was disappointed when the cab slowed and pulled to the curb in front of the Oxbow.
“Here we are,” the driver said, putting the cab in PARK and flipping the lever on the meter. “That’ll be five-fifty.”
Brandon carefully counted six dollars out of the money that his mother kept hidden in the pages of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. There had been forty-three dollars in all, one twenty, one ten, two fives, and three ones, put back a few dollars at a time for minor emergencies. His mother had said to use the money from his bank, but since he wasn’t sure what a cab would cost, he’d decided to take the money from the emergency stash as well as the ten dollars and fifty cents he had in his bank. He’d had no idea what a cab would cost, and he was relieved that the money more than covered it. He handed a five and a one to the driver.
“Keep the change,” he said, waving his hand like it was nothing.
The driver looked at the money and grunted. Brandon opened the door and got out. It was just starting to get dark, and a light mist was beginning to fall.
CHAPTER 50
He let himself into the apartment, quickly closing and locking the door behind him. He leaned against it, his heart pounding loudly, and tried to slow his breathing. He must get control of himself before she arrived. Jen Dillon might not be as easy to overcome as her friend had been.
He looked around the living room. He saw signs of her everywhere. From the pictures on the walls to the choice of plants to the magazines on the coffee table, he could tell that she lived here. Her presence was so strong he could almost smell her. He was reminded of the tracks and scat left by animals he had hunted in the wild before Father began training him for more challenging prey. Animal or human—all prey left their sign.
As he moved from room to room, deciding where to make his first move, he became aware of another presence. He noticed it first in the bathroom where the bottle of aftershave sat on the little shelf above the basin and the third toothbrush hung from the holder. In her bedroom, he saw the male clothing hanging in the closet, a robe thrown carelessly across the chair. He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring at the scent of musk, and smiled. He was in the lair of his enemy.
He heard a door open in the hall, and a second later, someone knocked on the door. He jerked at the sound, his nerves stretched taut as piano wires.
“Jen, it’s me.” It sounded like an old woman, probably the one from across the hall. She knocked again.
She must have heard him open and close the door and thought Dillon was home. If no one answered, she might call the police, thinking a burglar was inside. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the old woman. That was why he’d gone into her place when she wasn’t home. But now she’d left him no choice. He moved toward the door as she called out again.
***
Brandon ordered another Coke, settled back in his chair, and looked around. The Oxbow was filling up rapidly with the dinner crowd. Several customers looked at him curiously. He enjoyed the attention, pretending for a few moments that he was a rock star, loaded with money and used to the ways of the world.
Then his attention wandered from his daydream and back to the question of where his mother and Will were. They’d left word with the manager to watch for him. She’d told him that Will had said they would be along as soon as possible. Something big was going on, and he hoped again that this would turn out to be an engagement celebration.
He couldn’t recall ever having consciously missed having a father. He had vague memories of him, and of course, he had pictures of him and newspaper clippings about the things he’d done as a policeman. He’d made a scrapbook of them, and when he and his friends talked about their parents, he would drag out his scrapbook and show them his father.
He had a second scrapbook, too—one of his mother—that he showed his friends. She did more exciting things than most of the kids’ fathers. She was strong, and she took good care of him, but it had re
cently occurred to him that there was no one to take care of her. He tried his best, but he knew it wasn’t enough. He was just a kid, and she needed a man. He knew that instinctively, just as he knew instinctively that Will was the right man. He smiled, thinking how rad it would be to have an honest-to-God FBI agent for a dad.
The waitress set his Coke on the table. The restaurant was filling with food smells, and his stomach rumbled. He looked at his Timex and hoped they’d be along soon.
***
The interviews had been no more enlightening the second time around. As the door closed behind Carla Edwards’s ex-husband, Al threw his pen down on the desk in disgust.
“This entire day has been a waste of time!” he exploded. “A friggin’ waste!”
“But we didn’t know that till we did it.” Jen flopped into a chair and stretched.
“Yeah, sure. The hell with it. I’m calling it a day. I don’t care if anybody else is waiting to see us or not.”
“Edwards was the last.” Jen stretched again, reaching for the ceiling. “I’m with you about calling it a day. I’m beat.”
She had started for the door before she remembered she didn’t have her car.
“Would it be out of your way to give me a lift home? Will had an emergency and had to go to Indianapolis. His youngest daughter was hit by a car.”
“Is she okay?” Al looked concerned.
“I don’t know. I certainly hope so. She’s only six.”
“If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.” Al shook his head. “Sure, I’ll run you home. Let’s get out of here.”
The last remnants of daylight were fast disappearing, and a light rain was beginning to fall as they hurried to Al’s car. It was a cold and wet fall evening, and she was tired, both in body and soul. She was looking forward to her warm apartment and an evening with her son.