by Bush, Nancy
Gretchen nodded curtly. September knew that she was only playing devil’s advocate. That she probably agreed with them, but she didn’t like their highhanded manner. Come to that, neither did she.
D’Annibal said, “So, he’s moving from women he knows, or he picks up in bars, to women who may be more available to him because of their line of work.”
Bethwick stated quickly, “Assumptions this early are almost always counterproductive.”
D’Annibal straightened and September wanted to jump up and defend him, but it wasn’t necessary. The lieutenant could hold his own.
Auggie drawled, from the back of the room, “We’re all on the same side, compadres.”
Donley and Bethwick just stared at him.
“You said he’s escalating,” September reminded them. “And his kills are getting closer and closer together.” Bethwick looked like he wanted to argue, but since September had stated a fact, he let it go. September added, “My partner and I will continue looking for connections between the first three vics.”
“All right.” Donley nodded once. A concession.
Fifteen minutes later they were finished and September went to talk to Auggie who said in a low voice only meant for her, “You took Westerly to the house?”
“Thought you didn’t talk to dear old Dad.”
“July gave me a call. Said you ran out of there with your hair on fire.”
“I’d just found out about Lulu.”
“Also said you seemed a little . . . mussed up.”
September narrowed her eyes on her brother. “We get called into a meeting with the feds and you want to talk about me being ‘mussed up’?”
“Down, girl. Just saying you were with Westerly. Caution is called for. I—”
“Detective Rafferty?”
Both Auggie and September turned at the sound of Agent Donley’s voice. He blinked a moment, apparently realized they were both Raffertys, and amended, “Detective September Rafferty?”
“I’ll see ya,” Auggie said, sliding away. September wanted to grab him by the sleeve and hang on, but there was nothing she could do. She gave him a “This isn’t over” look and turned to the agent.
“Could I have a moment with you?” the agent asked her.
“Sure.”
Donley led the way down the hallway to another room, one whose main purpose was interrogation. He was shorter than Bethwick, with longer hair and though he was in a suit there was something sloppier about him that made September feel less like she was enduring a military inquisition. Probably the point, she decided. Good agent/bad agent. Whatever, she preferred Donley, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to be on her best behavior.
He took a seat at the table and invited her to do the same. She did, reluctantly, though she was beginning to understand D’Annibal’s desire to stay standing. It just felt less . . . subservient.
“I’m not going to waste your time, Detective,” Donley started right in. “You received a personal message from the doer, and we don’t believe you should be on this case any longer.”
September had been half-expecting this but it was a jolt nevertheless. “I wasn’t aware it had been determined that it was from the doer,” she said, borrowing from Auggie and Sandler’s notebooks. It was a complete bluff, but she didn’t want to be pulled off and would use whatever ammunition she had. “The message came on one of my own grade school projects, and I’m still trying to determine how whoever sent it to me got that information.”
“What are you saying? That you think it could be a prank?”
“Whatever it is, I think it’s to the benefit of the investigation that I remain on the case. I’m asking to stay.” She wasn’t quite certain of protocol here; she wasn’t sure he had the authority to yank her off if D’Annibal said she could stay. But whatever, she figured she would just be straightforward and see what that got her.
He lifted his chin and leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about the investigation so far. What have you found?”
Drawing a breath, September explained about the Twin Oaks school connection between Dempsey and Tripp and that Decatur had attended school in the same district, if not the same schools. She brought up the similar ages and descriptions of the three victims, and the fact that they’d been regulars at different bars around the Laurelton area, a possible avenue for the killer to find them. “You say this prostitute—Lulu—was found outside a bar as well,” she wound up. “Do we know anything about her background? Where she went to school?”
“She’s a lot older than your first three.” He gave her a look and she recalled with a faint flush that they’d been less than forthright about thinking they had a serial killer on their hands till now. On the other hand, until Lulu, they hadn’t had the evidence to make that call, whether they were convinced or not.
“Cooke from Portland vice is pulling her background,” he went on, “but at first glance, it appears he picked her because she was a prostitute. Nothing fancier than that.”
“Of course, assumptions this early are almost always counterproductive.”
Donley had hazel eyes with flecks of green. Those flecks seemed to light with amusement for a moment, but he didn’t comment. “Your lieutenant has seen fit to keep you on the case, so . . .”
“I can stay,” she finished for him.
“You can stay. For now,” he added repressively as she turned toward the door.
Sandler was waiting for her apparently, as she hooked up with her as soon as September returned to the squad room. “What’d he say?”
“I’m still on the case. He told me I wasn’t on the case, but he had a change of heart.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Niceness.” She slid Gretchen a sideways smile. “Radical concept, I know.”
She snorted. “Dalton caught the call after the two kids who found the body reported to 911. He’s a putz. And Bethwick can kiss my ass if he thinks I’m helping the feds.”
“See, it’s that bad attitude that gets you in trouble,” September told her.
“You’ve come a long way from the wide-eyed newbie,” Gretchen observed. “Where’s this newfound confidence coming from?”
“I had an epiphany last night of sorts.”
“Yeah? About what?”
September shrugged. She didn’t know how to say that the recognition of how her father’s infidelity had contributed to her mother’s death, coupled with her own undeniable attraction to Jake Westerly, had sprung something loose inside her, something that had just been waiting to be set free. “I think this guy Sheila called Wart is our man,” she said. “I don’t know what the deal is with him going after a prostitute. That’s . . . something else. But this guy knew Sheila, and I think he might’ve known Emmy and Glenda, too. If not personally, through some connection.”
“The prostitute is just a quick fix to bring him under control,” she said. “Let the feds chase that one around, but I’m with you. The other three—he knows ’em, or knows of ’em. They’re specific targets. He goes for the Lulus out there because he’s either losing control, or he’s finished with his targets and has moved on. But the way we’ll get him is figuring out how he knows those first three vics.”
“So, what have we got?” September asked, glad that she and Sandler were on the same page. If nothing else, the FBI agents had brought solidarity between them.
“I don’t know. This school thing . . .”
“I didn’t find the rest of my stuff. Maybe it was thrown out after my mother died.”
September thought about how she’d racewalked from the attic stairs to the front door, ignoring both July’s “Hey!” and her father’s dark frown as Jake followed after her.
Outside, she’d gulped air, realized she was sweating and quivering, and had looked at Jake and said, “I was crazy. That was crazy. I’ve got work to do and I need you to take me home.”
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“Another body. That’s all
I can say. I don’t know any more than that, and if I did, I’m not able to talk about it yet. Take me back to my apartment.”
He must’ve understood she wasn’t fooling around because he did as she requested. She was grateful he didn’t go over their moments in the attic. She needed time to process them herself. Not that she was sorry. Far from it. But she was completely aware that Jake was dangerous to her, not because of the investigation, but because she had a weakness for him. Always had.
As if sensing she was thinking of him, her cell phone rang and when she checked the number she saw it was him. She clicked it off without answering and Gretchen asked, “What?”
“My father,” she lied. “Did I ever tell you that he cheated on my mother, like all the time?”
“No.” Sandler was eyeing her carefully, as if she were a new species of animal, which in a way, she kinda was.
“You know how you know something. You didn’t think you knew it, but you did. You just kinda let it go, and then one day it becomes so obvious you can’t believe you didn’t get it earlier.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“My mother intercepted a note meant for my father from his lover, at the time. There’s no date on it. I don’t have proof. But I know. . . .” She inhaled and exhaled, shaking her head. “My mother was so upset that she was driving too fast and didn’t look out and ran into a truck and that was it. I figured it out last night.”
“And you had a powwow with your father about this?”
“Nope. Don’t need to. Auggie’s right. Best thing to do is stay away from dear old Dad.”
Agent Donley had rejoined Bethwick and they were gathering their reports together and heading out. Auggie was long gone, and D’Annibal was back in his office, glaring at a computer screen as if it held terrible information, but he’d been in that position for long moments and it was clear he was pissed and thinking in his head. September sat back down at her desk. Her head was full of the events of the past few days and she sensed she needed some time to just collect her thoughts and put them in some kind of order. It wasn’t like her to just run on adrenaline, but that’s sure as hell what she’d been doing.
Just before six, George called, “Hey.”
September and Gretchen both looked up. Thompkins was just hanging up the phone and swiveling in his chair, his bulk making the seat protest as if in agony. “I gotta callback from one of the summer school teachers at Twin Oaks, a Ms. Chapel. Looks like she had a sort-of friendship with Glenda Tripp,” George said. “They got to talking one night and swapped stories. Tripp let it be known about her doctor uncle who’s up on charges for practicing without a license et cetera, et cetera, and it comes up that Tripp was a little wild during those formative teen years and had sex with some guy on her uncle’s examining table.”
“Okay,” Sandler said, interested. “But haven’t we all got a few skeletons in the closet?”
“Tripp called the experience ‘sex with a psychopath.’ Said afterward she was weirded out and steered clear of the guy and where her uncle was practicing,” George added with a lift of his eyebrows.
“Got a name?” September asked, knowing already that he didn’t or he would have said so.
“Nope.”
“Did she say where this examining table was?” September asked.
“Conversation didn’t go that far. Ms. Chapel showed a little too much shock and Tripp clammed up. But it didn’t appear to be Tripp’s husband. Sounds like they were married less than a New York minute, but this was before him, apparently.”
“The ex-husband lives on the East Coast,” Sandler said reflectively. “He wasn’t anywhere around when she was killed.”
“We called him. He’s remarried. Said he and the wife were home, but we talked on a cell phone,” September remembered, her heart clutching a little. “Maybe we didn’t follow up enough.”
“Maybe,” Sandler said, frowning. “But it’ll be easy enough to check if he was around during any of the killings.”
“Right,” September said.
“Our doer’s a local boy,” Sandler said with a slow shake of her head. “It’s not the husband, but I’ll check him out some more just to eliminate him.”
“Sounds good,” George said, turning back to his computer.
September asked him, “This incident on the examining table? It would have been thirteen, fourteen years ago?”
“Sounds about right,” George allowed.
“Wonder where Dr. Navarone was practicing then,” September asked. “He moved around a lot, as I recall.”
“Wonder if Tripp’s fuck-buddy was a patient,” Gretchen guessed. “She called him a psycho.”
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. That’s what Sheila Dempsey called everybody when she was a kid,” September said.
“But maybe it does,” Sandler said.
“I’ll ask Auggie,” September decided, getting up and sliding her chair into her desk. “He was at that shoot-out with Navarone and he’s still finalizing things on the Zuma case.” She headed toward the back hallway and the locker room.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The killer felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He was cleaning out the van, at work. He’d cleaned it and cleaned it and cleaned it, but somehow the smell of the whore couldn’t be removed.
He slowly straightened and turned to regard Mel, his drunken boss. Mel’s eyes were red and he was a little unsteady on his feet, but he was still functioning at some level. “Cleaning the van,” he told him.
“Fuck it, man. Get outta here.” Mel waved one loose arm. “Go home. Get some rest.”
He nodded and closed the back doors, glad Mel hadn’t seemed to notice all the extra tools he had in the back along with the bottles of solvents and bleach. He’d already taken off the magnetic signs that said MEL’S WINDOW COVERINGS from both sides of the white van. It was his own van. Mel reluctantly paid some of his gas, but there was no company vehicle, which was fine because he changed the plates for his excursions. He was good at stealing ones with tags that would be good for a while.
Mel wanted him to leave so he had some time alone with the bottle in his office drawer before he went home to the wife, a nagging bitch with a voice that could cut glass.
He drove home with a feeling of anxiety rising. The beat of the beast’s heart was starting to thunder again. How come? he asked himself, slightly alarmed. He’d been able to hold back the beast, contain it, but now it had escaped and was running rampant. The whore had been a good kill, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. Much, much more.
But he had to wait. Had to. He’d waited so long and he needed to draw it out, make it last, stop the laughing.
But the beast wasn’t listening. The beast wanted.
The beast had wanted for a long, long, long time. He’d been afraid of it at first, afraid people could see. He’d shivered in his bed. Had not been able to control his bladder and mistakes had happened. He’d been beaten for those. And then at school he’d wet his pants when the girls had played that trick on him, tried to pants him. They’d covered their mouths with their hands and run away screaming and he’d looked at Nine for help. She’d been nice to him, but she turned away. He could still see the way her ponytail swung in front of him, taunting him. Dark hair with red. And she’d given that report on the ocean. She talked of tidal waves and sea creatures and the anemone with its dark hole and waving fingers.
His erection had been impossible to hide, but luckily he was in the back of the class and neither of the boys on either side of him had given him away to the laughing girls. Laughing and laughing.
His hands squeezed on the steering wheel, his knuckles showing white.
He wanted to cut them all!
Twenty minutes later he pulled into the driveway of his place and looked quickly to the main house. It was quiet. The bitch was maybe sleeping. Pulling to a stop in front of his apartment, a converted garage, he locked the van and hurried inside before he could b
e seen.
He needed her to die, but could not afford to kill her. Couldn’t have it traced back to him and it would be. It would be.
Quietly, he changed his clothes from the gray jumpsuit he preferred to work in, to a pair of brown pants and a sweatshirt. Then he moved back outside, listening for her, then he crept around the back of the main house and found his way into Avery Boonster’s field, turning his face skyward.
The field where he’d killed the whore was several miles away. Too close. He’d killed her too close. He needed to be in the Laurelton city limits and away from here. Take the heat away from himself instead of bringing it near. He hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d only been able to see through the beast’s eyes and the beast was consumed with need, didn’t think things through.
Dangerous.
He stalked across the fields toward the Boonster spread. The sheep looked at him as he approached and then moved away. They didn’t trust him. He’d taken some of them when he was younger and Avery had found the carcasses. Told on him and his father had taken the strap to him with that glint of triumph in his eyes.
He escaped to a place where September Rafferty was his. They were together, but in his dreams she turned on him, opened her black maw and laughed.
He was moved to a different school; a secretive ploy because his father and mother sensed something wrong and they were through with him. The old lady took him in, but her eyes were dark and flat, like his father’s, and she knew he was wrong. Winning her trust became an obsession to him, and he forcefully pushed the dangerous, black thoughts aside, would not listen to the beast’s growls. He pushed thoughts of September aside as well, but he saw the other girls in school who reminded him of her. They didn’t know the beast inside his breast, and they let him draw near to them.
His camouflage worked, at least in the beginning. He could be someone entirely different. He saw Sheila at school and she was so much like September that his thoughts turned to her. He saw her walking through the halls, smiling and joking, always with that moronic Schmidt. He stayed in the background and kept his eyes on them. Once he saw Schmidt slide his hand down to her rump and he had to hurry to the bathroom and beat off. Later, he went hunting for raccoon and squirrel, failing in his quest, and he fought back the screams that tore him inside like razor blades.