by David Archer
“It's me, Kim, it's Sam. Apparently Beauregard wanted to tell me something, so he decided to take over driving for a bit.”
“Beauregard? Was it about the case you're working on? He's been telling me I needed to call you, but I've been busy.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I guess Beauregard got tired of waiting for you to not be busy. If he asks, I got the message and I'm doing all I can with it.”
Sam ended the call, and then allowed himself to look at Jackie. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Don't even ask.”
Jackie's eyes were very wide, but she didn't say a word for a long moment or two. Finally, Sam could tell that she’d held it back as long as she could. “Beauregard? Who on earth is Beauregard?”
Sam shook his head. “As crazy as it sounds, Beauregard seems to be an old Confederate war ghost. He and my mother-in-law are pretty chummy, and sometimes he sends me messages. The bad part is that, so far, he's never been wrong and he's saved my life on more than one occasion.”
Jackie stared at him. “I believe in ghosts,” she said. “I've seen them, more than once at a crime scene.” She shrugged. “I haven't ever had one of them talk to me, or tell me who killed them, but I've seen them.”
“Okay, can we just not make ghosts a topic of conversation? It's really not something I want to talk about right now.”
“But what did the ghost say? Did he tell you who the killer is?”
Sam shook his head. “No,” he said. “According to Beauregard, I already know the killer, but I have to figure out who it is for myself.”
Jackie sat in silence for a moment, then shrugged again. “Well, best of luck, I guess.”
17
The food arrived, and they talked about less serious things as they ate. Then Sam got another call. This one was from Karen Parks, asking him to come down to the station and observe her questioning of Marcy Osgood. “I don't want her to see you, you can just watch through the mirror glass, but I want you to let me know if you think she's hiding anything. You've already talked to her, so you might have a better sense of when she's being deceptive.”
“No problem,” Sam said. “I'm not that far away, I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”
Sam traded cell numbers with Jackie, and said goodbye, walked out to his car and headed for the station. Observing an interrogation didn't strike him as something truly productive, but Karen had done him favors in the past, so he didn't want to turn her down. Besides, if Marcy cracked and confessed, Sam wanted to be there to hear it.
As he drove, Sam thought about Beauregard's message. If the old spook was right, then Carlos's killer had struck before. Sam tried to recall any similar killings, but failed. If only Beauregard had been able to give him a lead on what other victims the killer might have had, it could have made figuring out which of his acquaintances he was trying to identify much easier.
Beauregard says I already know the killer, Sam thought to himself, and the killer has killed before, and will kill again. I guess that's what he meant when he said that if I figure it out, I can save lives. If I can stop him, there won't be any future victims.
He kept thinking it over all the way to the police station, and was still letting it roll around inside his head as he slipped into the observation room. Marcy and a lawyer—it was Carol Spencer, a lawyer that Sam knew well—were already seated at the table. Karen was in the observation room when Sam entered.
“Okay, I'm going in,” she said. “If you hear anything you think I should know about, grab one of the uniforms and tell him to get me.”
Sam nodded and Karen left the room, closing the door behind her. It was dark in the observation room, which was what made the one-way glass work. Sam could see through it perfectly, but on Marcy's side it was nothing but a mirror.
Sam saw Karen enter and take a seat. The voices came through a speaker over his head, picked up by hidden microphones in the room.
“Mrs. Osgood, Ms. Spencer, thank you both for coming down so quickly. I've actually just got a few questions, Mrs. Osgood, regarding your relationship with Carlos McAlester. I've spoken with Sam Prichard, and he has shared with me the things you told him. I just need to get them on record for the police department.”
“Okay, I guess,” Marcy said. The attorney sat beside her, but didn't say a word.
“All right, Mrs. Osgood, you told Sam Prichard that you and Mr. McAlester had been having an affair for about a year? Is that correct?”
“Well, when I thought about it afterward, it was probably more like maybe a year and a half, or a little less than that. It went on for a while.”
“Was it a serious affair? Were you and Mr. McAlester thinking of being together permanently?”
Marcy shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “It was just a physical thing, just about sex. I don't, um, I don't always get what I need at home. Not that that's an excuse, I don't mean that, I just meant that was why it got started. Carlos was attractive and I was lonely. It just sort of happened.”
“So, neither of you ever wanted anything more?”
Marcy glanced at Carol Spencer, but the lawyer simply grinned and nodded. “I probably had fantasies about something more permanent, and if he had ever asked, I probably would've been willing to leave my husband. I'm just being honest, here. It was just wishful thinking on my part, though, and Carlos never brought it up at all. I wasn't the only woman he was having fun with, so I'm sure he didn't want to have to give up his other extracurricular activities.”
“And do you know who any of those other women might be?” Karen asked.
Marcy shook her head. “No, I'm afraid I don't. There was one girl I've seen going in his back door a couple of times, but all I can tell you is that she had black hair, and she was taller than me, too. I have no idea who she was.”
Karen nodded, and went on with her questioning. Marcy told her basically the same things she had said to Sam, and he didn't pick up on anything that might have indicated she was being deceptive. The entire interrogation took only about an hour, and then Marcy was allowed to leave.
Karen stepped back into the observation room. “Any comments?” she asked Sam.
Sam shook his head. “No, her story didn't change much. She offered you the information that the affair lasted longer than she had first told me, but that might've simply been because I caught her off guard when I asked about it. To be honest, she's pretty believable. I'd have to say I'm moving her down my list a little bit. Now if only I knew who’s in the slots above her, maybe I'd have something.”
Karen sighed heavily. “You don't have any leads? Granted, this case isn’t high priority, but it irks me to have a killer running loose when we don't have a clue who it might be.”
Sam hesitated for a second, and then gave a sigh of his own. “I got—well, let's call it an anonymous tip a little while ago. Somebody told me that Carlos's killer has killed before, and implied that it was more than once. They also said he's going to kill again, and if I can figure out who it is, I might save lives.”
Karen just looked at him for a moment. “Are we talking about a serial killer, here? I wonder what would have put McAlester on a serial killer's hit list.”
Sam shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “I've tried to think of any other murders that might fit the same MO, but I've drawn a blank. Any ideas?”
“No, but let's go check the computer. Maybe we'll turn something up and generate a lead.” She turned and walked out of the room, and Sam followed her to her office.
She scanned through all of the open cases involving stabbings, but didn't find anything that seemed genuinely similar. In order to look at them more closely, she printed the crime scene reports on about a dozen of them, handing half of them to Sam to go through while she looked through the rest.
Fifteen minutes later, they put them all back in the stack. Neither had noticed anything that might create a pattern, so Sam was more confused than ever.
“How sure are you of your tipster?” Kar
en asked, and Sam grimaced.
“I can tell you that he's never been wrong before, at least not as long as I've known him,” he said. “If he says this killer has killed before, I'm going to tend to believe it.”
Karen snorted. “I wish I had an informant I trusted that much. All the ones I know spend more time trying to shake me down for money than giving me information I can actually count on.” She picked up the stack again. “Well, let's look through these one more time. I don't have any other options to go on.”
This time she gave Sam the stack she had looked through before, while she took his. Still, neither of them saw any pattern in the way the killings had been carried out. There was nothing in any of them to indicate that more than one of them might have been the work of a single individual.
“There just isn't anything here, Karen,” Sam said. “If we're dealing with a serial killer, then it's one who’s smart enough not to use the same technique twice.”
Karen nodded her head. “True,” she said. “And to be honest, if there was a pattern in any of these, I'm pretty sure CSI would've spotted it. Most of these were handled by Jackie Porter, and she's one of the best crime scene techs we've ever had. If there was a pattern, I think she would've noticed it.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, she's good. I actually got to work with her a bit the other day, at the McAlester house.” When he saw Karen's face, he held up both hands to ward off the reaming he knew was about to come. “Relax, relax, she made me put on the booties and gloves, and wouldn't let me touch anything. I didn't contaminate the crime scene, I promise you.”
“I didn't figure you would,” Karen said, “but there are rules about letting civilians into a crime scene. I won't say anything this time, and I guess I do trust Jackie's judgment. Still, you might have mentioned that before.”
Sam looked at her quizzically. “Wait a minute, I thought Jackie told you. It was just before she called to tell you that little Charlie couldn't possibly have heard his father scream. I was the one who tested that with her, I was in Charlie's room while she screamed in the living room to see if I could hear her.”
Karen shrugged. “She knows the rules, she probably didn't mention you because she didn't want to get herself in trouble. Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. I just want to figure out what it is your informant is trying to tell us, or tell you. How do we tie this killing to others in the past?”
“I wish I knew. It would make my life a lot easier right now. So now, we've got to figure out who this is. My informant says this killer isn't done, and I don't want any other people dying because we failed to do our jobs.”
Karen agreed, and Sam got up to leave the office. He made his way to the station and out the door, and had almost made it to his car when his phone rang again. The caller ID said it was his mother's number once more, and he groaned.
“Yes?”
“Sam, it's Mom. That stupid freaking ghost is at it again! Hang on a second, he wants to talk to you.”
Sam waited, and then that strange voice came through the phone. “Samuel, you are running out of time. You have to hurry, because they're too old. The shock alone could kill them.”
Sam's eyes went wide. “What? Who are you talking about? Who's too old?”
“What?” It was his mother-in-law's voice once again, without the strange timbre that marked a visit from Beauregard. “Sam? Oh no, is he up to it again?”
“Yeah, he is! He said something about me running out of time, and that someone is too old. Any idea what he's talking about?”
“No, Sam, I'm sorry. He probably doesn't know any more than that himself, he doesn't always get things clear. I'm sorry, but if he tells me anything more, I'll call you right away.”
“Yeah,” Sam said bitterly, “you do that. Meanwhile, I got to try to figure out who is about to die from shock!”
Sam ended the call and got behind the wheel, his mind racing in an attempt to make sense of the cryptic message. He quickly recalled everything Beauregard had told him, and tried to make it all fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
I already know the killer, even though I don't know who it is, he thought. The killer has killed before, and is going to kill again unless I stop him. And I have to hurry, because I'm running out of time, and somebody is too old…
Sam suddenly froze. “Too old?” Sam said aloud. He fired up the big engine and shoved the shifter into first gear. His tires left black marks on the parking lot of the police station as he roared out onto the street. There was only one possible connection to this case where the words “too old” might come into play.
Sam drove like a maniac, the Corvette sliding around corners at more than fifty miles an hour, then hitting a hundred and twenty on the straightaways. He was weaving in and out of traffic like a formula race driver, and trying to dial his phone at the same time.
Karen didn't answer until the fourth ring. “Sam? What…”
“The Howdens!” Sam shouted into the phone. “They're the old couple who lived across the street from Carlos's house! I think something is about to happen to them, can you get any units down there right away?”
“I'm on it,” Karen yelled back, and the phone went dead.
Sam didn't slow down. It was almost a half hour drive from the station to the Howden residence normally, but Sam made it in just over ten minutes. He slid to a stop at the curb in front of their house and all but flew out of the car.
It was midafternoon, but the old couple was not on their front porch as they usually were. Sam rushed as quickly as he could up the walk and the steps, and then pounded on the door. “Mr. Howden? Mrs. Howden? It's Sam Prichard, are you here?”
From somewhere inside the house, Sam heard a muffled scream, and he yanked the storm door open. He tried the knob but found it locked, so he threw himself against the front door as hard as he could. It took three tries, but finally he broke the lock and the door flew open. “Mr. Howden? Where are you?”
There was no screen, this time, but he heard a groan toward the back of the house. He snatched his Glock from its holster as he made a hobbling run across the living room and down the hallway. There were several doors, and he tried each of them with his left hand, the gun gripped tightly in his right.
Each of them seemed to lead to an empty room, and Sam moved as quickly as he could to the next each time. He was about to open the last door in the hallway when he heard the groan again. It was coming from behind the door, so he braced his back against the wall beside it and reached for the knob to throw it open.
Nothing happened, so he peeked around the doorframe. Mr. Howden was lying on a bed, and he had obviously been struck in the face. There was blood around his mouth and nose, but he was alert and conscious, and holding out a hand toward Sam. Sam stepped inside, checked behind the door and in the closet, then turned to the old man.
Mr. Howden had a frantic look on his face. “She—she…”
“Where is your wife, Mr. Howden? Where is she?” Sam asked, and the old man pointed toward the back wall. Sam spun around to look, but there was nothing there except the closet he had already checked. He looked back at the old man.
“Out…back,” the old fellow gasped out. “Shed…”
“Okay, stay right here, I'm going to go find her. I'll be back, just wait.” Sam stepped back into the hall and yanked open a door that led into the kitchen. He had ignored that room before, because he didn't see anyone in it, but now he hurried across it to the back door that led into the rear yard.
There was a shed in the yard, all right, and Sam hurried out toward it, his gun held at the ready. He listened at the door of the shed for a moment, then snatched it open.
Mrs. Howden was lying on the floor of the shed, just in front of a potting bench. A very large clay pot had been shattered over her head, and she was bleeding profusely. Sam quickly felt for a pulse and found it, then whipped out his phone and called 911. As he told the dispatch operator to send an ambulance to the address, he heard sirens coming down the st
reet and knew that Karen's uniform patrols had arrived.
A half-dozen officers stormed the house, and two ran into the backyard. Sam yelled for help, and one of the officers hurried over to the shed. Between the two of them, they managed to move the shattered flowerpot fragments away from the old woman, and Sam held onto her hand until the paramedics arrived six minutes later.
“She was in pretty rough shape,” one of them said to Sam as they loaded her into an ambulance. “As bad as she's hurt, and as hot as it was in that shed, it's a wonder she's even alive at all. We got her stable at the moment, and we'll get her to the hospital ASAP.”
“What about her husband, in the house? He was hurt, too.”
“Yes, but not as badly as his wife. We got another ambulance on the way right now, they'll take care of him.” The paramedic climbed into the ambulance and shut the door behind him, leaving Sam standing there.
Sam turned and hobbled back into the house, and went to the bedroom where Mr. Howden was still lying on the bed. One of the officers had gotten a wet cloth and wiped some of the blood from his face, and it looked to Sam like he might have a broken nose, but probably nothing more serious than that.
“Mr. Howden, can you talk?” Sam asked, and the old man nodded vigorously.
“I got a split lip and a sore nose, but I can talk. Did you get her?”
Sam nodded. “Yes, your wife is on the way to the hospital. She's hurt, but I got a feeling she's a tough old bird, and I think she'll be back to keep you in line.”
The old man shook his head. “I know she'll be okay, you can't kill that old broad,” he said. “I mean the bitch who did this! Did you get her?”
Sam's eyes went wide. “You're saying a woman did this to you? Do you know who it was?”
Mr. Howden shook his head. “I never seen her before, but Genevieve said she was one of the women who used to go over to see Carlos. I couldn't see her face, because she had one of them stockings down over it, but she was a real tall gal with black hair. I know that, because some of it was hanging out at the back. She said we were too nosy, and she had to shut us up. She hit me and dragged me back here, and wanted to know where Genevieve was. I said I didn't know, but then she heard Gen calling me from the shed.” Tears were coming from his eyes. “She went out there to put some flowers in the pot, she wanted to put them over in front of Carlos's house. What did we ever do to this woman?”