by Kate Morris
“Yes, Victor told me. I warned him about her.”
“What do you mean?” Lorena asked.
He took a deep breath and said, “If a woman will cheat with you, she’ll cheat on you. It’s whorish behavior if you ask me. I wouldn’t want her.”
“Right,” Lorena said.
“What do you think was the real reason she didn’t want Hailee visiting you in California?” Jack asked.
He shifted his weight in his seat and didn’t answer. Jack’s phone buzzed. He took it out and read the message from Craig. It was a police report from Interpol on Christof Neumann, who was arrested in Germany three years ago for sexual solicitation of a minor.
“I don’t know. Elizabeth is a suspicious busy-body. She’s a pain in the ass. She’s not one to judge. Look at how she ended up with my brother. She’s basically a whore.”
He was glad that Christof didn’t know he was the ex-husband. It gave them an edge. As much as he didn’t care for Elizabeth, was the victim of her adultery, he still never called her a whore. She was a cheater, committed adultery, but to Jack, she was still a human being and didn’t deserve such contemptuous words used against her. ‘Whore’ was a word that Trix liked to throw around, though, and now Neumann was using the same, crude term.
“What about Germany?” Jack asked, breaking into their conversation about Elizabeth.
His face drained of blood and paled.
“Germany?” he repeated.
Jack looked down at his phone and read aloud the charge. “Care to explain?”
“She looked older. She was just a prostitute I met. I thought she was twenty-something. That’s what she told me. I think it was a set-up.”
“You like young girls, you take a lot of bikini shots of your niece, got a record of multiple assault and battery charges, and now your niece- who you seem a little obsessed with- has gone missing,” Jack stated. There was no sense in false pretenses and niceties anymore. He didn’t miss the quick side glance from Lorena next to him. She wasn’t happy about this.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Christof declared, red-faced and angry. He stood, nearly tipping over his glass.
“We’re done here. You want to accuse me of something? Make the arrest. I’m done talking to you assholes,” he said and stormed out.
“Jack!” she hissed beside him.
“Sorry, but it wasn’t like he was gonna admit to anything,” he said.
“Yeah, but I wanted to push him on the night Hailee went missing. I wanted to figure out how long he was with her before Elizabeth got home the day before. It seems to me that she usually got home from work around five-ish or so. That could’ve allowed Christof two or three hours alone with his niece. He would’ve known the same pattern would happen the next day, too.”
“I know, but we’ll never know what happened. What we need to do now is account for where he was the day she went missing and the day before.”
“Let’s get home so I can study our notes,” she said and waited for Jack to let her out of the booth.
“I’ll drive,” he offered as she coughed. “You call Craig and get his team working on these timelines and alibis. They should be able to track his Houston flight, too.”
She did so, and Jack pulled in to an all-night, roadside diner outside of Vancouver where the only other vehicles were three semis and a mini-van. Lorena finished her call, and they went in where Jack ordered coffees for both of them while she used the restroom. A few truck drivers were parked at the counter eating pie, so he ordered the same. If truck drivers were eating pie, it had to be good.
She sat down and said, “What’s this? Where’s my fries?”
Jack chuckled, and Lorena did the same.
“Peach, right?” he asked for confirmation of her favorite.
“Yes, thanks,” Lorena answered with a disturbed frown.
They sat quietly in a corner booth, ate their pie, and reviewed their thoughts on Christof. Jack was left with more confusion than before they’d interviewed him. He seemed now like a very viable candidate.
It was one-thirty a.m. by the time they reached his houseboat again. Jack was beat. Without preamble, he collapsed onto his back on the sofa while Lorena got to work. His phone buzzed.
“We’ve got confirmation on the Houston flight. He went through security at six a.m. that morning,” Jack told her and watched from his prone position as she wrote it on the whiteboard next to Christof’s profile.
“The information on the meeting in Vancouver will probably have to wait till morning when they come in at that Centron company,” Lorena said as she scribbled in her notes.
“He had plenty of time to go over there when she got home from school and take her. She definitely would’ve gone with him, too. She trusted him.”
Lorena shrugged and rolled her neck, “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he was a pervert for her, then she wouldn’t have trusted him at all. Girls can tell that kind of thing, even if he wasn’t molesting her. She would’ve sensed that he was sexually attracted to her.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Girls know these things, so if Elizabeth is right and Christof was attracted to his own niece, he could be up there on the suspect list.”
“Now we’ve got three,” Jack said.
She nodded but paced the room for a while looking at the whiteboard. Then, like Lorena usually did, she left without saying where she was going. She came back a few minutes later dressed in yoga pants and his hoodie again and plopped down in a chair opposite him. Knowing her as he did, she probably forgot it was his and put it on without looking at it.
“Something still doesn’t click with this mess,” she said.
“What about it?”
Lorena shook her head and rose again, the pacing ensuing.
“What do you got, chief?”
She shook her head, “I can’t put my finger on it. I don’t know.”
“Think it was Professor Plum with the candlestick in the kitchen?”
Lorena nodded, coughed and said, “Yeah, something like that.”
“You should get some rest, Evans,” he scolded.
“So should you,” she came back on him.
Jack dragged his notes over and looked at them while remaining on his back and putting one arm behind his head.
Her phone rang, and Lorena answered it. “Yeah, sure. Jack, is it okay with you if Craig comes over? He wants to pow-wow with us over the evidence.”
“Heck yeah. Bring beer,” he joked with a wink.
“Yeah, right. You’re already about to fall asleep. Yes, Craig. Come over. We’re working on it right now.”
Ten minutes later, their friend arrived as he and Lorena were in the middle of a disagreement.
“I brought beer,” he announced and held up a six pack of bottles. “I heard you in the background, bud.”
“Thanks,” Jack said and popped the lid off of one.
“I’ve got some news on Basil Kovak,” Craig said, took a beer for himself, and placed the rest in the fridge. “Also on the hair samples.”
“I hope you’ve got something big,” Lorena said.
“Basil has an alibi for the day Hailee was taken,” he told them as he snapped the lid off of his own beer.
“He said he was working at the orchestra getting ready for some concert coming up,” Lorena said.
“Not exactly,” he said. “He was, however, meeting with a person on Craigslist who sold him some vampire paraphernalia.”
“What the hell’s up with the vampire shit?” Jack asked.
Craig shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Guess it’s his thing. He does role-playing, performs mock vampire rituals and scenes with other larpers.”
“Larper? Is that a term for vampire weirdos?” Jack questioned with air quotes.
Craig laughed. Lorena did, too. “No, it stands for Live Action Role Play. They’re people who get together, sometimes in parks and pretend they’re…�
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“Wait, like dress-up?” Jack asked with doubt. “Seriously? People seriously go out in public dressed like vampires?”
“Uh, yeah, pretty much. Medieval knights, vampires, super-heroes, Harry Potter. Whatever gets their rocks off. Anyway, Kovak does this vampire larping crap with other vampire dorks. Two came forward to offer up an alibi for him for the day that Hailee was taken. Supposedly they were reenacting some vampire shit or something at his barn. He does role-playing with other idiots out there.”
“What about the bones and teeth we found?” Lorena asked.
“Mostly all fake. Some of the teeth were real, but he said he purchased them online or in pawn shops that specialize in the macabre.”
“What?” Jack asked disbelievingly. This was getting crazier every second.
“Yeah, guess he bought them from people who needed the money. I can’t imagine normal people selling their teeth for money,” he told them. “We’re testing them just to be sure. And his hair didn’t match the one we found.”
“So, Kovak’s out,” Lorena surmised impatiently and stood again to begin the pacing routine. “That leaves us with Neumann, who’s now on the list, or Kyle Archibald, who we already know stalked the other girl who was killed.”
“His connection to Hailee is weak, though,” Jack said. “And Jeremy Titus, the feds’ main suspect, didn’t pan out, either. Plus, that idiot couldn’t even get away with petty crime. He’s no mastermind of this caliber.”
“I would agree with that,” Craig said.
“And Archibald was obsessed with Stephanie, not Hailee. Plus, he didn’t have a lot of time to kidnap her before he clocked in at work,” Lorena said.
“So far, Archibald’s hair didn’t match, either. And it really was just a cat carcass in his yard and animal blood on his face.”
“Are we back to suspect zero?” Jack asked rhetorically.
Craig sighed and linked his hands behind his head, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Looks like it.”
“Let’s go over the list again. We might’ve missed someone,” Lorena suggested.
Jack stood and walked over to the whiteboard, “What’s with the sick fascination with teeth? And why the hell did he give that baggie of them to you if they’re so important to him?”
“I think he wanted to give them to me as a gift, to share his work with me.”
“Gee, thanks, sicko,” Jack said. “Couldn’t have just sent roses or some corny poetry?”
“Guess he appreciates the value of good dental care,” she said.
Jack joked, “Could’ve sent a tooth x-ray instead of the actual teeth.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll look into Neumann’s alibi of the meeting and the flights,” Craig said.
“And I’ll talk to my ex again,” Jack said.
Lorena’s phone chimed, and she glanced at it. “Jack.”
He knew from her tone that it was Trix again. She walked over and sat beside him. Craig joined them.
It seems Hailee did not enjoy our little game this evening. She is very upset. If you displease me again, Detective Evans, I will be sending you the coordinates of where to pick up her body.
“Son of a bitch,” Jack swore vehemently under his breath. “If he…”
“He won’t,” she said firmly. “Not yet, at least. Hailee’s his bargaining chip, his link to communicating with us. If he kills her, he’ll have to find another girl who isn’t a hooker willing to get into his car with him.”
I will tell you something about myself, then you must reciprocate. I graduated at the top of my class in college and worked in Chicago before coming to this dreary city.
Why did your father kill your mother?
“Jesus, he just doesn’t stop,” Jack said with disgust.
“No,” Lorena agreed.
He sighed. “Look, we can turn this over to the feds and leave. You don’t have to do this anymore, Lorena. This is asking too much of you.”
Craig’s phone rang, so he hit the speaker button.
“Jasper, burning the midnight oil?” he asked.
“Sir, we just got a trace off that last text,” his co-worker said.
“Are you freaking serious?” she blurted.
“It’s out in the boonies, up north of Vancouver. I’m sending the team right now. Keep him texting with you. It came from a different phone number than the other. I think he might’ve screwed up and texted from his personal phone.”
“Got it. I’m on it right now.”
Craig disconnected.
Lorena looked at Jack. “Crap, what do I say now?”
“Try to get in his head. It’s what you do.”
Lorena nodded and thought for a second.
My father was a lot like you, I suppose. He did not value human life. He killed my mother for the same reason you murder women now.
She hit ‘send’ and regarded Jack. She opened her mouth to say something, but he shook his head.
“Don’t. You don’t have to explain any of it to me or Craig. If it’s a lie, I don’t care. If it’s the truth, same response. None of this is anyone’s business, not even mine.”
Lorena nodded painfully and furrowed her dark brow. Less than a full minute later, the phone buzzed again.
This is much better. We’re communicating. Your father sounds like an erratic man motivated by passion. He was careless. I am not. I can watch a woman for months without making a single muscle in my body move towards taking her. It’s called control, and I exercise it in all matters of my life. Unlike your father, I won’t kill my own wife. She is loyal, not as much as my Golden Retriever, Lucy, but a close second. My wife is dull but not worth the effort. Besides, a man needs his alibis, as it were. I am going home now. My work here for the night is complete. I never really cared much for Hailee’s uncle.
“What?” Lorena said with confusion. Then her phone buzzed again, and a media file came over. It was a photo of Christof Neumann dead, presumably stabbed to death and very badly tortured. “Oh, my God.”
She handed over the phone and went to the window that overlooked the water. It was dark, so she couldn’t have been looking at much. Lorena ran her hands up and down her arms through the sweatshirt as if she were cold. He looked down at the phone. Even Jack gasped at the macabre picture of the man they’d just interviewed as a potential suspect.
Chapter Twenty-five
Lorena
Why would you kill a man you don’t know? I don’t understand. Please, explain this to me. Christof Neumann was a good person.
“I don’t know if he’s gonna give you the real reason or not, even if you are taunting him with calling Neumann a ‘good person.’ We all know, Trix included, that Christof was probably a pervert and definitely an asshole,” Jack said of her return text.
“I know,” she said. “But he doesn’t realize I know this. I want him to explain why he thinks Christof was worthy of murder by him.”
They waited for nearly ten minutes while Craig made a lot of calls. Finally, they realized they wouldn’t get an answer. She said, “Damn.”
“His phone pinged right outside of Vancouver. He used a different number this time,” Craig told them. “The local sheriff’s on the scene already. Someone called it in, too. Guess he got Christof alongside the road, if you can believe that. His car was still sitting there with the lights on and the engine running.”
“Must’ve followed him and convinced him to pull over,” Jack speculated, to which Lorena nodded.
“So, I think we’re to assume he knew her uncle?” Craig suggested.
Lorena asked, “What if he didn’t? Maybe Hailee threatened him with Christof, that her uncle would hurt him if he didn’t let her go or that he would never stop looking for her.”
“Maybe,” Jack said unconvincingly.
Lorena looked up and said, “What’s on your mind?”
“What if he knew him, though?” Jack asked. “It seems like he did. He said he never really liked him, as if he knew him already… or
had known him for a while.”
“True. But what if this guy is someone she trusted enough to confide deep secrets to? What if her uncle was a pervert for her, and Hailee told someone that? Who the hell would she have told this to, if not the music teacher or a shrink?”
Jack shook his head and rose to look at the whiteboard again.
“I’ll be back,” she said, leaving the room.
Lorena went to the bathroom and let Jack handle forwarding the picture of Hailee’s dead uncle to Craig’s phone so that he could get his team on it. She felt sick, a little nauseous, the peach pie churning like acid in her stomach but didn’t want to admit it to her partner. They’d just spoken with Hailee’s uncle. Now she almost felt bad about being so hard on him, being accusatory. What if they’d been wrong and he was a nice guy? That was doubtful, but he was innocent until proven guilty of something. And, although she knew it wasn’t true, Lorena felt like this was her fault, this murder of an innocent man. She’d thought he might be Trix, had been ready to make accusations about the possibility of impropriety in his relationship with his niece. It was hard to admit, but she may have been wrong.
After splashing water on her face, Lorena returned to the living room to find Jack sitting there.
“Are we going to the scene?” Lorena asked. “Where’s Craig?”
Jack shook his head, “No, and he left to meet with his team and go to the site. He said just to let the feds process it. If anything pops up that rings bells or gives us forensics, Craig’ll call. You should hit the sack. Get some rest. You’re sick, remember?”
She shook her head and said, “I don’t have time to be sick. We need to start over. We need to look at the men she had in her life that could’ve garnered enough trust that she felt like she could tell him about her uncle. Either that, or we’re missing something in that Neumann family. If Trix knew Christof, then he obviously also knew Hailee since he kidnapped her. Perhaps it really is just a bad business deal with the Neumann family. Maybe Trix already was a serial killer, but he also knows the Neuman’s and wants revenge for something they’ve done to him in business. I feel like we’re missing something.”
“Like we did with the entire gender of our killer in the Gingerbread case?”