Sinnerman

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Maddie leaned forward and took my hands in hers and rested them on her knee.

  “You want to know something?” she said. “I’m proud of you.”

  “For what?”

  “I violated about a hundred traffic laws on my way here, and the whole time all I could think about was how I was going to break the news to you that this creep could be back, and then I get here and you’re calmer than I am.”

  “I’ve had time to deal with it,” I said.

  “Well, if it’s him, we’ll know soon enough.”

  I leaned toward Maddie.

  “Oh it’s him alright. He’s back—and he’s killing again.”

  CHAPTER 3

  My front door rattled like a herd of elephants prepared for a stampede were pressed against it.

  “What the hell?” Maddie said.

  I stood and Maddie shot up from her position on the sofa and stepped in front of me.

  “Allow me,” she said.

  She walked to the door and glanced out the peephole.

  “Solicitors?”

  “Worse,” she said. “Reporters.”

  “News travels fast.”

  “How do you want to handle this?” she said.

  I walked over to the door.

  “If I don’t talk to them, they’ll just hound me until I do.”

  She raised her pointer finger in front of my face and wagged it in a swirl pattern.

  “Oh no you’re not,” she said.

  “Maddie, I’m fine. I can deal with it.”

  “So can I,” she said.

  And with that she twisted the knob on the door and flung it open and then walked out and slammed it behind her. I pulled back the curtain in my front entrance and got ready for the show to begin.

  “Listen up, people,” Maddie said. “Sloane won’t be giving any interviews today or any other day. And you all should be ashamed of yourselves for being here. She doesn’t deserve to have to relive what happened in the past so you all can have some silly little story for your five o’clock news or your paper. You’ve got ten seconds to back the hell off her property or I’ll call the cops. Your choice.”

  The stunned crowd remained unmoved until Maddie began the countdown.

  “Nine, eight, seven…”

  A male reporter segregated himself from the pack and approached her. His pants were baggy and he was in serious need of a belt, and the t-shirt he wore looked like he’d used it for a napkin—multiple times. He sized her up and snickered and then turned his palm up and held it out like he was a traffic cop that had just initiated a halt in movement.

  “Look lady, you can’t do nothin’, and we don’t have to leave,” he said. “If you don’t get out of the way, I’ll move you. We’ve got every right to be here so why don’t you turn your little rah rah buffalo stance around like a good little girl and go back into the house and get Miss Monroe for us, okay?”

  He’d just made a big mistake and he didn’t even know it. Maddie yanked her cell phone out of her pocket and pressed some numbers and spoke loud enough for those who were brave enough to remain to hear.

  “Chief Sheppard, this is Madison. I’m at Sloane’s and we’ve got a situation. A bunch of reporters have blocked her front entrance and she can’t get out. They have also taken to yelling obscenities since she won’t come out of her house, and I’m worried about her safety.”

  The reporter’s forehead wrinkled in about five places and he shouted, “What the…you little liar!”

  Maddie paid him no mind and continued.

  “Thanks, I’ll expect them in ten,” she said, and then she ended the call and shoved her phone back in her pocket and gave the man the Maddie special—an icy stare with everything on it.

  “What’s your name?” she said to him.

  He failed to respond and instead, he backed out of the driveway in a brisk manner and turned toward the street.

  “Your name,” she said, louder. “What is it!”

  He pretended like he didn’t hear her and kept on truckin’. She reached in her pants pocket and pulled out a bill and hoisted it into the air.

  “Twenty dollars for the person who gives me his name right here, right now.”

  The remaining crowd scattered like there was a one hour clearance going on at Macy’s and within a matter of seconds most of the onlookers were gone, except for one. She wasn’t dressed like the other women in their uptight skirts, suit jackets and nude nylon stockings with colored pumps that looked like they’d been in their closets since the eighties. She wore a simple short-sleeved sweater and a pair of jeans and aimed her eyes toward the ground while she spoke.

  “His name is Tim Wallace,” she said. “Will you tell Miss Monroe I’m sorry if I’ve upset her by being here?”

  I opened the front door.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  She looked up and over at me.

  “Kelly Price.”

  “How long have you been a reporter?”

  “This is my first assignment. I don’t even have a list of questions like everyone else. I just wanted to talk to you. They already have the paper set to run tonight, but I was told if I could get a statement from you of any kind, they’d move things around somehow and put you on the front page. I just have to be back there within the hour.”

  I motioned with my hand and she walked over to me.

  "Come inside for a minute,” I said.

  I glanced at Maddie, and she looked back and nodded and stayed in position. I couldn’t have asked for a better protector of the realm.

  I closed the front door and turned to the reporter.

  “Let’s sit for a minute,” I said.

  She walked over and sat on the edge of the sofa, and I positioned myself in a chair across from her. Lord Berkeley scampered around the corner and, sensing there was an intruder in his midst, brandished a mouthful of clenched teeth.

  The reporter folded her arms over her knees and leaned back on the couch.

  “Your dog—is he umm, going to attack me?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “He just wants you to know he’s aware of your presence.” I patted the corner of my chair with my hand. “Come here, Boo.”

  He hopped up on the chair and rested his head on my thigh but didn’t take his eyes off the intruder.

  “Who do you work for?” I said.

  “The Park City Beat. They wanted me to write an article about your sister so I drove over to talk to you, but I had no idea so many people would be here.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll give you the article you want if you agree to print one thing for me.”

  She smiled and reached into her shoulder bag and retrieved a pen and a pad of yellow-lined paper.

  “Name it.”

  “To be honest, I’m not interested in an article that rehashes what I went through a few years ago,” I said. “I want you to send a message to the killer for me.”

  Her eyes widened like they’d been propped open with toothpicks.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,” I said.

  She bobbed her shoulders up and down.

  “Alright then, what do you want to say—do you want to address him directly?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell him this: I’m coming for you, and this time, I won’t stop until the only life you have left is behind bars.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Maddie had left and turned her post over to Nick who entered the house with a displeased look on his face.

  “I’m coming for you, you’re kidding me—right?”

  “I hoped Maddie would keep that to herself,” I said.

  He slid his hand into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open.

  “I assume they haven’t run the paper yet since that girl was just here a few minutes ago,” he said. “One quick call and I can have it taken out.”

  I shook my head and pla
ced my hand over his phone and pushed it down.

  “It stays,” I said.

  “Are you trying to put a target on your back?”

  “If that’s what it takes to get his attention, then yes,” I said.

  “Even if that means you’d put yourself at risk?”

  I sighed. He was in one of those moods where it didn’t matter what I said. He couldn’t be reasoned with, and it almost took more effort than it was worth to try.

  “Maybe it would be best if we didn’t talk about this right now,” I said.

  Nick walked over to me and placed both hands on the sides of my shoulders and looked me square in the eye.

  “This guy is out there killing women, and he could be anyone. Hell, he could be your next door neighbor for all you know. We don’t even have any good leads yet. All you’re asking for is trouble.”

  “I’m asking for justice, and I thought we both wanted that—for Gabby and all the other victims. This creep has gotten away with a slew of murders. He walks free while the women he murdered live in eternal unrest inside a coffin, knowing the man who killed them is still out there. They’ve been robbed, all of them, from the opportunity of a full life. And if I have even the slightest chance to catch the guy this time and send him straight to hell, I’m going to take it.”

  “You shouldn’t be anywhere near this. You’re too emotional. Can’t you see that?”

  “It’s too late for that,” I said. “I was involved from the moment he took Gabby from me.”

  Nick shook his head.

  “By the end of the week I bet we have a dozen guys on this, not to mention the FBI. That’s why it would be best for you to let us do our job.”

  “Don’t you mean it would be better for you?” I said. “That’s what you believe, isn’t it? Just because you’re a detective doesn’t mean you have the right to make decisions for me.”

  He grimaced and detached his hands from my shoulders and then walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal out of the cabinet and a glass. He poured himself a drink and took a nice long swig and then hammered it down on the counter. The glass made a ringing sound when it hit and a portion of the liquid flew up into the air and sloshed down on the counter. I wanted to say: I’m not cleaning that up, but I didn’t.

  After a minute of silence where Nick downed the rest of his drink and I tried not to focus on the liquid that had spread in two directions and trickled like a diminutive stream toward the edge of my counter, he looked over at me and said, “I understand your feelings for the guy, or the lack thereof, and you have every right to hate him for what he’s done—no one disputes that. But if you go after him on your own, you’ll put yourself at risk and I can’t allow that.”

  He couldn’t allow it?

  “Maybe you should go,” I said.

  “I just got here.”

  I grabbed my keys off the counter.

  “Then I’ll go. It’s been a long day. I need some time to think.”

  He started to say something, but it was too late. I was already out the front door, and it had shut itself behind me. And for the first time in ten minutes I remembered what it felt like to breathe again.

  CHAPTER 5

  In the years that had elapsed since Gabrielle’s death, not a single day went by when I didn’t think of her or him, whoever he was, and though I hated the fact that the killings had resumed, him being back on the prowl gave me the second chance I needed; once again he was within my grasp. The first time around I was too wrapped up in my emotions with the loss of Gabby to concentrate on catching her killer. I left it to the homicide unit to do that, and I thought they’d come through and find the piece of trash responsible for the brutal killings. But they didn’t, and I wasn’t about to let that happen again. Not this time.

  I hopped out of bed and walked to the front door and opened it. The morning sun blasted its rays across my face, and I held my hand in front of my eyes to shield myself from it while I reached down with the other and retrieved the paper. I shut the front door and carried it to the kitchen. Lord Berkeley trotted past me and yawned and then went over to his water bowl and peered in. When he didn’t see what he wanted, he stuck one paw in the bowl and moved it back and forth which produced a sound like a quarter being dropped into a glass jar.

  “Your mommy is going to be the talk of the town today,” I said to him.

  He looked at me and then at his bowl and then back at me again. His only concern seemed to be whether what I just said had anything to do with him getting what he wanted, now. I gripped his bowl in my hand and topped it off and set it back down. He did a few spins to show his eternal gratitude and then buried his face in the bowl and savored his reward.

  I made some tea and pulled the rubber band off the paper. It fell open, and the headline of the day was revealed for all to see in bold capital letters:

  SISTER OF MURDER VICTIM GABRIELLE MONROE VOWS REVENGE!

  It was a bit on the dramatic side, but the paper had done its job. The headline was followed by an article that chronicled the events in the order in which they happened three years earlier. The past had come back, and I’d been given a second chance. I leaned back in my chair and smiled. Ready, set—go.

  CHAPTER 6

  The day was halfway gone when I walked through the double doors of the Park City Police Station. Rose looked up from the reception desk when I entered and grinned.

  “Sloane, it’s great to see you. I’ve had you on my mind all day today.”

  “Good to see you too,” I said.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  It had been less than eighty hours since Sinnerman’s latest victim was captured and killed, and the main thing on everyone’s mind was how I was dealing with it. I’d started to feel like a wounded puppy—but I put on a brave face and smiled because in the end, I knew they meant well.

  “I’m just fine Rose,” I said. “I appreciate your concern. Is Coop around?”

  She wrinkled her nose and made a face like a foul odor had just wafted into the building.

  “For a smart girl, you sure like to take your chances,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “Is he here?”

  She pointed in the direction of a side room which housed computers and the like.

  “If you follow the scent of Old Spice you’ll smack right into him,” she said.

  We both laughed, and I thanked her. She nodded with the crazed look still cemented on her face but said nothing.

  Coop was alone when I snuck into the room, and his face was positioned about two inches away from the computer screen. He was eyeballing some photos of women, one of whom was my sister. I stood inside the doorway and knocked on the wall a few times to get his attention. He jerked his head up and swung it around and then pressed a button on the keyboard. The screen went black. He made a barely audible grunt noise and turned his head away from me.

  “Nick’s not in here,” he said.

  “Nice to see you too,” I said. “I’m not here for him.”

  Coop and I had a history, and most of it wasn’t good. Earlier that year he’d come to my rescue and I thought we’d reached a turning point in our relationship, but it didn’t take long for things to get back to the usual snarky attitude we had for each other. He didn’t respect my line of work and therefore had little use for me. And no matter how hard I tried to be civilized, I never managed to get my foot in the door long enough to maintain a decent relationship with him either.

  “What do you want?”

  “I think you know,” I said.

  He shook his head back and forth.

  “I can’t talk about the case and you know it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t talk to you about it,” he said. “Besides, you’re the big shot PI. Aren’t you supposed to be able to figure this stuff out on your own?”

  Back when the killings first started, Coop was lead detective on the case, and I imagine he still lost sleep over the fact that he never caught the elusive Sinnerman. Th
e guy was the only one I’d ever heard of who’d slipped through Coop’s elongated fingers. And even though he pretended not to care a stitch about me, I was sure he felt he’d let me down. My sister’s killer was still out there, and he could have stopped him, and not only had he failed in his mind, now he had to deal with an even harsher reality: women were dying again. I never held it against him—the whole of the blame resided with one individual, Sinnerman himself, and there wasn’t anything anyone could have done. If there was one thing I knew about Coop it was that there wasn’t a detective on the planet who worked harder than he did.

  “Has he made contact with you yet?” I said.

  “What makes you think he will?”

  “Because he did before. You were the only one he communicated with a few years ago. And I figured since he chose you the first time, there’s no reason he wouldn’t do it again.”

  “Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t. What’s it to you?”

  I started to wonder what the hell I was thinking trying to communicate to him at all.

  The sound of papers shuffled behind me.

  I circled around and saw Nick who had inhabited the space that surrounded the copy machine in the corner of the room. He had a stack of papers in his hand, like he needed to make some copies, but he didn’t—he just stood there. “What are you two talking about?” he said.

  “Nothing,” Coop and I both said in unison.

  “If that’s true, there’s no need to stop just because I’m here.”

  The interesting thing about his comment was that I had a hunch Nick saw me enter the room and found a reason to come in after me so he would know what I was up to.

  Coop stood up from his chair. “She was just leaving,” he said.

  Coop had the height of a basketball player and was the size of a pro wrestler, which wasn’t bad for someone old enough to be my father.

  “I wasn’t finished with my questions,” I said.

  “I was,” Coop said, and he exited the room.

  “What did you think you were going to get out of him by coming here?” Nick said.