by Kate Morris
Jack chuckled and said, “Yeah, sure. Let’s go look at a corpse in the rain. Maybe you’ll catch pneumonia.”
“I’m fine. I’m not a ninety-year-old woman, Foster. I’ll be just fine.”
“What’d you think of Moreti?”
“It’s not him,” she said. “He’s a real dick, but he’s not our killer.”
“Agreed. Back to the drawing board,” he said and followed her from the room. “We’ve got a few good candidates. Archibald’s still on the top of my list. Craig said the feds are digging hard into his background and checking his work alibi.”
“I’m not sure about Archibald, either. He was obsessed with Stephanie, but his link to Hailee is pretty much non-existent.”
Jack nodded and said, “Yeah, we don’t have a connection between them. He claims he’s never heard of her. I don’t know. He could be lying.”
“Where he works is nowhere near Hailee’s home or school. He didn’t and wouldn’t have moved in the same crowds, never did work at her house, doesn’t have a kid in her school. I have no idea where the connection to her would be unless he chose her at random to completely throw off the murder investigations and screw up his profile.”
“Random? He doesn’t seem to do random.”
“Exactly,” Lorena said and sniffed again.
They rode to Kelley Point Park with Craig, who flashed his badge which got them admitted onto the scene. The woman was down by the water again, clothed in dowdy garments that looked like they belonged in a movie from the 1950’s. One foot was missing a shoe. The other was covered in a red, low, vintage style high heel.
“Where’s the other shoe?” Jack asked rhetorically and made a note.
Lorena was off on her own again. She wandered away, and he let her go. She usually did this anyway. He watched the M.E. as he worked on the body, examining it for evidence and collecting microscopic fibers from her arm. Craig was talking to his bosses. There seemed to be so many.
Jack stood back out of the way and considered the drop spot. It was relatively private but not completely secluded, not like the other places where he dumped bodies. This was bold. It was risky.
He joined Craig under the white canopy where agents were running information through computers and hustling their investigation. Everyone wanted this man found.
“She’s only been dead about twelve hours…” Craig said.
“You should run a search for stores that sell that brand of shoe online,” Lorena said beside Jack, startling him. She was a sneaky little thing. “I think they might be the same brand as the last ones. I’m not sure if he’s seeking out that specific name, or if they just make retro shoes.”
“We’re also looking for the other one,” Craig noted.
“It’s odd that one is missing,” Jack said.
Lorena added, “He made a mistake. It may be his first. He may be getting sloppy. I think he dropped her over there.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Craig said.
“I looked around, you know, for that shoe. I found it under a bush. I also think he dropped her and then knelt to look for the shoe. There are impressions in the soft ground that seem to be indicative of that happening.”
She led them from the tent to show him and Craig what she meant. Sure enough, the forensics team was processing the shoe, measuring, taking notes and the usual. And there was a definite disturbance of the ground, as well. An impression, deep and rounded in the mud, a sliding or skidding in the grass. He must’ve tripped, slid or just got tired and dropped her.
“Great find, Detective Evans,” one of Craig’s bosses said to her. Jack wasn’t sure which one he was, director, deputy director- who knew? The guy had a lot of supervisors. As usual, Lorena didn’t like the praise, so she just nodded and walked away, talking to Jack.
“I think he’s getting sloppy. This was a rush job, not like him. He plans, schemes, stalks, takes his time. This was none of those things. He rushed to get rid of her so that he could tell us where to find her.”
“Why do you think that is?” Craig’s supervisor asked as he tagged along.
“Trying to impress me. That would be my guess. He thinks he’s doing something marvelous, stupendous as if I have never seen anything as great as what he can do.”
“That’s an eerie thing to do if you’re right, Detective,” his supervisor said. “Let me know if he makes contact again.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and the three of them walked away on their own.
“It also might be because you’re drawing him out,” Jack suggested. Then he turned to Craig, “Did she show you the new texts?”
“Yes, and she told me the plan. I don’t think it’s a good idea to meet him tonight. We need to set up a perimeter and…”
“No!” Lorena blurted. Then she lowered her voice, “No, he’ll know if we have agents posted in the area. He’s not stupid. He’s smarter than the average emotion-driven killer. For all we know, he’ll put a drone in the air to monitor the area.”
“Then don’t meet him at all,” Jack argued.
“I agree with Jack,” Craig said. “If we can’t have a whole team there, then you shouldn’t go. This man is dangerous, Lorena.”
“If I don’t go, he could get angry and kill Hailee. He could tell us to find the next body, and it will be her. Is that what you want?”
She’d put them both in their place with this one question. She was right. Jack didn’t want him retaliating against Lorena for not showing up by killing Hailee. They had no reason to believe that she was dead yet, and Jack didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.
Craig asked, “I’ve got a team working on the name Michael and every graduate for the last thirty years from the University of Florida. Think he’s telling the truth?”
“Probably not. It would be too easy,” Jack said.
“I don’t know,” Lorena disagreed. “I’m not so sure about that. I think he wants me to know who he is.”
“Right before he kills you,” Craig said.
Jack felt nauseous. He swallowed hard and frowned at their friend’s comment.
“Sir,” a tech said, approaching Craig. “We’ve got the victim’s name and information.”
They all three went to the table under the tent again where agents were laying out paperwork on the case. Her name was Shannon McInturf.
“Nineteen,” Jack said. “That’s young for him. I thought Hailee was younger than most of his vics, but this girl’s young, too.”
“Worked at Wet and Wild,” Craig said.
“That’s a strip club,” one of the other agents said. “’Bout four miles from here.”
“He’s trolling strip clubs and prostitutes,” Craig said.
“They make the easiest targets,” Lorena commented as she busily took notes in between wiping her nose.
“She’s been arrested for prostitution, petty theft from a department store about a year ago, and drugs. Not much other than that,” Craig told them.
Lorena quickly jumped in, “Let’s move fast on this. I want to head to that club right now.”
“I’ve got a crew I can send, Lorena,” Craig offered.
“Make sure you have them show a picture of Archibald. If he was stalking this young woman, we need to know that. We need to make that connection,” Lorena ordered.
“Yes, we will.”
Craig walked away to put together a team.
“I hope that club has video cameras,” Jack said to her.
She chuffed and answered, “I doubt it. He’s too smart to hang out in places like that.”
“We got Juliette that way. Remember? The bar where she and her co-workers went that night? She thought it didn’t have CCTV, but it did.”
Lorena walked away, her eyes glazed over as she stared off into the distance. “He’s smarter than she was. It means he’s older, much older, and way more experienced. Juliette was only in her twenties. He was in college before Google. He’s been around. He probably grew up in the M
idwest or the Northeast, but he went to college in Florida and now lives somewhere near here. He took a job out here because it probably offered more money or he started a company here because it was growing so quickly.”
She was thinking out loud, so Jack let her go. This was the way she worked, and he knew not to interfere when she was in this type of fugue state.
“He works in some sort of career that involves the public because he said he worked with the public and performed a service they couldn’t do for themselves.”
As she rambled, Jack consulted his notes. Everything she said was spot on so far.
“He dresses them in matronly clothing because they remind him of his mother. He found flaws in her, probably sided with the father that killed her, who died in prison because he killed her. He takes a tooth from each victim because he wants to rebuild a perfect woman. What’s the obsession with the teeth? That one I don’t get yet.”
She turned and faced Jack. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Maybe he’s everyone’s worst nightmare. Maybe he’s a dentist. That’s scary enough.”
She smiled and nodded. “I want to talk to Neumann’s brother. Let’s see if we can’t track him down.”
They left Craig to catch a ride with his co-workers, and he stated that a team was already headed to the bar to check out their latest vic’s last place of employment, the strip club.
Jack drove them to meet with the cello instructor, who’d agreed to talk without a lawyer. People couldn’t teach themselves how to play the cello. Technically it was a service and one that someone provided to the public. He wondered if the immigrant music instructor had an obsession with teeth and women who dressed like they were from a different era.
Chapter Twenty-one
Lorena
Jack’s phone rang as he drove; he looked at it, groaned and hit the speaker button.
“Hey, Keagan,” he said to his youngest sister.
“Jack! Finally,” she said excitedly. “I’ve been trying to call you for the last few days. Good thing it wasn’t an emergency.”
“If it was, I’m sure you would’ve left a message. You’re on speaker. Lorena’s with me.”
“Awesome! Hi, Lorena!”
“Hi, Keagan. What’s going on back in Cleveland where it doesn’t rain every second of the day?”
“It’s raining!” she said with a light laugh, one Lorena had heard so many times.
“Irony,” Lorena commented.
“I guess so. Hey, I’m glad I got you, too,” she said. “I wanted to know if it was okay if I picked up Gracie tomorrow night to go to the movies with Bree and me.”
“Tomorrow’s a school night, though,” Lorena said.
She laughed again. “Only if you’re making her go to school on Saturdays now.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Lorena apologized. She wasn’t sure what day of the week it was anymore. “Sure, you can take her with you. As long as it’s not anything R-rated, of course.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a girly, chick flick movie. She’ll love it,” Keagan told her.
Then she talked to Jack about his pathetic lack of a love life and told him that they wanted to set him up with someone that went to the gym the sisters all joined a few months ago. Lorena tuned them out mostly. She sat in the FBI rental SUV and stared out at the rain and felt melancholy that she wasn’t going to be home to take Grace to see a movie. This case was dragging on entirely too long. She felt like crying and getting on a plane, but that wouldn’t bring someone else’s daughter home to them.
“Unless you and Lorena have made progress out there all alone on your houseboat…” Keagan hinted.
“Hey! I told you guys about that. Cut it out!” Jack warned angrily.
“Party pooper,” his little sister teased.
He disconnected a minute later, telling her that he loved her, of course. He always said things like that to his mother and sisters. It was sweet. Lorena envied his family life.
“What did she mean about…” she started.
“Nothing. They’re just being annoying,” he said with a scowl. “It’s something they excel at, so they do it to excess and with very minimal effort.”
“Matchmaking?”
“Always,” he said glibly.
She smiled. “They’re just looking out for you. They want you to be happy. Maybe they’d be happy if you got back together with your ex. By the looks of it this morning, it might happen.”
“Never,” he said quickly. “No, that’s not going to happen. I’d never trust her again.”
“It sure looked like you still have feelings for her.”
“That was a momentary lack of reason and good judgment, just one of many that I’ve had where Elizabeth is concerned.”
“Maybe it’s because you still love her. It seems to me that she isn’t happy with her husband. You might have a chance of getting back together.”
“When people get divorced, the feelings just sort of shut off eventually.”
“Really? But you obviously loved each other before or you wouldn’t have gotten married.”
“It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been through it, Evans,” he said.
“Try.”
Jack hit her with a testy expression, but said, “It’s like a wound. You have a bandage on it. You know it’s gotta come off, but it’s gonna hurt like hell. You delay it. You baby it. You pussyfoot around it. Then it gets ripped off for you, and you feel relieved. That’s what my divorce was like. It was painful. We weren’t very happy anyway, but I didn’t believe in divorce. I wanted to work on the marriage. Elizabeth obviously didn’t and ripped off the bandage. I was devastated, but I think part of it was ego that she cheated on me. Then I was angry. Then depressed. Then it just sort of all became a fog. My feelings dissipated, and I felt nothing at all after a few months. You know what I mean? You’ve been through break-ups before, right?”
“Not really. I haven’t had a whole lot of experience in that department. I took on Grace when I was in my very early twenties, so it wasn’t like men my age were wanting to get involved with that situation. I had a few boyfriends, but nothing worked out. Plus, as soon as I started on the force, that kind of killed my free time. It was all about Grace or work.”
“Still is. You need to get back out there. You’re too young.”
“So are you, Foster,” she reminded him.
“Nah, not that interested. The burn is still too fresh. I just want to work and spend time with my family for now.”
“Someday,” she said.
“Maybe,” he retorted. “But you should date. You are young. Grace is getting old enough to understand.”
“I know. She says the same things a lot lately. She’s starting to sound like Keagan.”
“They’ve been hanging out too much lately!”
She snorted. “I think so.”
Lorena thought about her love life. There was a boy in college that she liked, but he hadn’t appreciated the fact that so much of her time was going into her studies. He also didn’t understand why she wanted to be a cop. He was working on his masters in biology and was planning on moving to California after they graduated. He wasn’t the kind of person who would’ve stuck around anyway. It was just easier this way. She could focus on work and Grace, which was all she had time for anyway. And besides all that, she didn’t exactly have great relationship role models growing up. It ruined her in the trust department.
Jack pulled into a small diner and ordered take-out since Lorena didn’t feel like sitting in the restaurant. Truth be told, she just wanted to sleep the rest of the day, but that wasn’t going to get her home to Grace any sooner. So they ate in the car and stared out at the rain.
“I think you’ve got my bag,” she said.
“Nope,” he answered with a grin.
“What the heck is this?” she asked as she unwrapped her food. She’d placed a request with him for a cheeseburger and fries.
“Turkey pita with a side of chicken noodle s
oup,” he answered as he ate his own burger.
Lorena groaned. “You know, I think I know what I want to eat. I didn’t order this, Foster.”
“I know, but you need more than the usual helping of grease and salt to help you kick this cold. That turkey is good for you. Chicken noodle soup, mom approved. And I got you orange juice instead of soda.”
Lorena glared at him. Jack smirked.
“Eat,” he ordered.
She opened the lid on her soup to allow it to cool and tackled the turkey pita. It wasn’t entirely terrible, but it wasn’t a burger with bacon and cheese and barbeque sauce dripping from it, either.
“What do you think about this music teacher?” she asked him and drank some of the orange juice.
“He was listed as a once-a-week appointment in her planner. He’s been teaching her since she moved here from California over eight months ago or thereabouts.”
“That’s a lot of close contact,” she said.
They discussed their suspect list and the musician, comparing them. Then Jack drove them east of the city and out into the wilderness to the man’s home. It was located in a neighborhood where most of the properties were situated on about five acres. They didn’t have the privacy of Archibald’s, though. Many were absent of seclusion and thick groves of trees. If the man was kidnapping and killing women, then he was doing it at night when all the other neighbors were in bed. Plus, his home was literally all floor-to-ceiling windows that would not offer much privacy once the lights were on inside at night.
Lorena was surprised when a young Asian woman who was in her late twenties answered the door.
“Hello, I’m Mrs. Kovak,” she said, greeting them. “Come in, Detectives. My husband is just finishing up on a call.”
She showed them into a formal sitting room where a shiny, black lacquered grand piano rested on the light hardwood floor. A cello, a violin, and other music paraphernalia littered the room. This must’ve been where he gave lessons. It came with a fantastic view of the backyard. It was a considerably more private view than she’d initially thought as she looked out the wall of windows. There was a two-story barn in the backyard with a fenced-in pasture containing three horses.