Her Last Call (Arrington Mystery Book 2)

by Elle Gray

  Amy comes in and drops off some coffee and pastries, looking at Blake reverently. When she found out Blake is an FBI agent, Amy nearly lost her mind, doing everything but falling to her knees and genuflecting. Amy wants to be Blake in the worst way possible.

  But as she sets the tray down, Blake doesn’t even look up. She’s so immersed in the books; she’s oblivious to everything around her. I’m not sure she even knows I’m sitting here with her. I give Amy a wave and a silent thank you as she backs out of the Fishbowl with a smile and a thumbs up. As much as I’ve tried to resist it, I have to admit that I’m growing pretty fond of her.

  Finally, Blake sits back in her seat and rubs her eyes. As if she really is noticing the tray on the table for the first time, she fixes herself a cup of coffee and takes a long swallow, though it has to be cool, bordering on cold by now. She pops a pastry in her mouth, then washes it down with another slug of the cold coffee.

  “This guy is a walking contradiction,” she starts.

  “Two sides to him,” I reply. “Like Jekyll and Hyde.”

  “Exactly. The savage side of him— Hyde— is responsible for the frenzied stabbing,” she muses. “The Jekyll side of him, the side that’s cool, calm, and in control, is responsible for the surgical precision of the heart removal.”

  Even though I’ve already posited this, I’m glad to have it backed up by somebody of Blake’s skill. Not that I thought I was wrong, but it’s nice to be validated by somebody I trust and respect as much as Blake.

  “The precision of the cuts tells me the guy’s either a doctor or somebody with surgical training,” I add. “Not just general medicine, but a specialized skill like cardiothoracic surgery.”

  She nods. “Gotta be. The cuts and the removal are too clean to be anything but somebody with those skills.”

  I grab my coffee mug and stand up. Sliding my free hand into my pocket, I start to pace the room, letting my mind spin it all out.

  “Is it possible they could have learned it from a book? Or YouTube?” I ask, just to see if Brody’s theory held any weight.

  She bursts into laughter, clapping her hands and rocking her head back. I stand there for a couple of seconds, utterly dumbfounded, as her laughter eventually fades. She looks up at me, that small grin still touching her lips, and her eyes twinkling mischievously.

  “Is that one of Brody’s theories?” she asks.

  I shrug. “It’s always good to cover all bases, no matter how unlikely, right?”

  She nods. “It is. And I shouldn’t have laughed,” she says as another choked giggle spills from her lips. “Let me say, it’s technically possible, I suppose. Somebody could be some surgical prodigy and learned how to do it in a book or online. But let’s just say the likelihood of that happening are about as good as holding a winning lottery ticket while being struck by lightning and being eaten by a shark at the same time.”

  “So what you’re saying is, it’s possible,” I quip dryly.

  She laughs. “About as possible as you learning some humility for once in your life.”

  “You wound me, Blake.”

  “Someone’s gotta.”

  She turns back to the tablet, swiping through some of the reports, pursing her lips as she mulls it over.

  “Okay, so, given the precision of the removal, I’m comfortable saying this guy has worked as a heart surgeon,” Blake says.

  “Or maybe still is,” I add.

  She nods thoughtfully. “That’s a chilling thought,” she remarks. “Saving lives by day, cutting women open by night.”

  “I had the thought already, and I’ve been poking around a bit,” I tell her. “It narrows the suspect pool down to several dozen heart surgeons in the city.”

  “It’s a start,” she replies. “Our guy is also still young and fit enough that he can incapacitate a victim. So the older surgeons in the city we can probably strike off the list. Say, sort out anybody fifty-five and older?”

  “Well that’s ageist of you,” I comment with a snicker.

  I sit down and bang out some commands on my tablet, and a moment later, the image on the monitor on the wall switches to ID photos of three older men. All of them over the age of fifty-five, but still pretty fit. These guys all probably know how fragile the heart is and take extra precautions to care for their own.

  “I’ve already been doing some initial vetting—”

  “You mean Brody has,” she interrupts. “You’re an absolute moron with a computer.”

  I laugh. God, it’s good to have Blake back. I look over at her, then pointedly look at the screen to reinforce my point about not being able to rule out the golden oldies just yet. She just grins at me.

  “Fine. Brody’s been doing some initial vetting, and I don’t think we can rule these guys out just yet,” I tell her. “We haven’t found anything yet to exclude them.”

  “Probably because your profile is incomplete.”

  I nod, acquiescing the point. “That’s true.”

  “Then let’s nail this down, and we can start excluding suspects,” she says. “Let’s take a real fine-toothed comb to it.”

  “Okay, here’s what I figure. I have a consultant who tells me—”

  “Oh, you’ve got consultants now, too?”

  “Well, it’s Marcy. She said he’s not like your typical incel internet troll guy who hates women. His rhetoric and methods are different from most, leading us to believe he’s not a young guy.”

  “Good observation. I’d agree, given the evidence.”

  “If I had to guess, we’re most likely looking for a white male in his forties,” I say. “The frenzied stabbing could mean he’s impotent—”

  She holds up a finger. “Not necessarily,” she says. “The duality of the crime— the frenzy and the precision— tells me he may just give into fits of rage that have nothing to do with sexual performance. This is one angry man.”

  “Okay, that’s fair.” I nod in agreement. “I’d figured he left them naked as a means of a final humiliation. One last violation.”

  “And the lack of sexual assault could relate to how he views these women,” she adds. “Disposable. Garbage. Like he can’t lower himself to be inside of them. In his mind, they’re dirty. Unclean.”

  “Which is, of course, how he views his trigger.”

  I’m glad to know that more or less, Blake and I are walking in lockstep on this profile. I’ve always thought he viewed his trigger— the woman who ignited this fury inside of him— as garbage so much lower than him. The thought that he views them as unclean and that he can’t lower himself to force sex on them adds another layer to this. To him.

  “Exactly,” she nods. “Your consultant is right. This isn’t borne out of some larger ideology of hatred. Generally, that manifests in a singular action: a spree shooting or a terrorist attack. No, this is a reaction to a very specific and personal grievance. Probably about someone who looks like, well...”

  She points to the photos. All five victims have nearly the exact same features. Brown hair. Brown eyes. They could be cousins.

  “Ex-girlfriend? Ex-wife, you think?” I ask.

  She nods. “Something like that. I’m guessing he must have felt betrayed by her. Probably caught her in the act of cheating or something. And he considered it a blow to his manhood or his sense of self that she cheated on him. So he lashes out.”

  “That would explain the level of violence he unleashes on these girls.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “And the hearts… it’s symbolic of what he feels was taken from him,” I say.

  “Smart insight.”

  I lean back in my seat and steeple my fingers in front of me, letting my mind continue to work. There are still holes that need to be filled in all of this, but it feels like it’s starting to really come together.

  I get up and step to the whiteboard on the wall. Grabbing a dry erase marker, I jot down the pieces we think are concrete facts so far: White Male. Early to mid 40’s. Heart Su
rgeon… former or current? Trigger is white/dark hair/dark eyes. Hearts are symbolic. Romantic grievance— cheating? Well-read and articulate. Jekyll v. Hyde. Organized.

  “His crime scenes read as blitz attacks, but I would almost guarantee that he’s lying in wait for them,” Blake says, her eyes fixed on the board.

  “Forensic countermeasure?”

  She shakes her head. “He knows their routines. Knows when they’ll be alone.”

  “He’s stalking them.”

  She nods. “I think you’re right about that. I think he knows their routines so well; he knows when they’ll be vulnerable. This last girl…” her voice trails off as she consults the reports on the tablet. “Bethany Stoops. She was out on a jog. He waited until she was near that copse of trees, where he could step out and snatch her up.”

  “All five crime scenes are similar. They were all taken in places where there was ample cover for him to lie in wait, then ambush them,” I confirm. “So they’re not exactly blitz attacks. It’s a planned ambush.”

  “This guy is smart,” she says. “And creepy as hell.”

  “These ‘lessons’ he’s preaching about,” I say. “Those must tie into the initial trigger. He talks almost incessantly about deception and dishonesty.”

  “I’d think so.” Blake calls up the email Marcy received and reads the quote from it aloud. “A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.”

  “He obviously sees his trigger as a ‘craftsman of destruction’,” I note.

  “Right. But my question is, what have these girls he’s killed done to him? What lies have they told him?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know, but he obviously feels they’re deceiving him somehow.”

  Blake runs a hand through her hair, her eyes still fixed to the monitor, moving back and forth as she reads and re-reads the letter again and again. I feel like she’s on the verge of something but is playing it close to the vest for now. Probably until it’s more fully formed in her own mind. I can understand that. I tend to do the same thing.

  “Okay, so I’m thinking it’s not likely this guy is hanging out with twenty-something-year-olds. I don’t know many twenty-somethings who’d hang out with a forty-something, and I’m positive Stella wouldn’t,” I say. “So their paths had to intersect by chance at some point, somewhere. The question is where?”

  “That’s a very good question,” she says, eyes still focused on the screen. “Which means it boils down to this one initial, probably brief, intersection. That initial meeting is everything to our guy. He fixates on it long enough to hold that rage while he stalks them and kills them. Could be days at a time. Weeks. But that one initial interaction is all he needed to justify his rage.”

  “What could they have done, in such a brief intersection, that would have done that?” I ask. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  She shrugs. “It only has to make sense to him,” she states. “The offense is probably minuscule— in fact, it’s probably only something in his own mind— but it sets him off. It transforms him from Jekyll into Hyde.”

  Blake’s phone chirps, and she looks down at it and frowns.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “My mother,” she sighs. “She wants me over for dinner tonight.”

  “Then you better get over there.”

  She shakes her head. “I feel like we’re getting somewhere here. Like we’re gaining momentum,” she says. “I don’t want to want to stall this out. I’d rather keep working.”

  I get to my feet and step over to Blake, pulling her out of her chair. She tries to wiggle away but laughs.

  “You’re on vacation. And you haven’t seen your mom in months,” I tell her. “Go forth and make merry with her. She’ll be glad to see you.”

  “But all of this—”

  “Will still be here in the morning,” I assure her. “We can pick it up tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” She sighs dramatically and shuffles to the door.

  She turns back to me and smiles, and I can see that familiar charge in her eye she gets when we’re on the right track. When she’s closing in on a bad guy. Her energy is infectious. I can feel it too. I think we’ve got a pretty solid read on our guy. Now it’s just a matter of applying what we know as we cull through our pool of suspects.

  “Okay, so I’ll be back in the morning then,” she groans. “I love my mother, but I’m really not in the mood for a lecture about how I’m living my life all wrong, and how I need a man to sort me out.”

  I laugh. “If you keep putting this off and don’t go to your mother’s place now, I’m going to give you that lecture instead.”

  “And then you’ll be given a lecture on how to catch these hands.”

  She turns toward the door, but I stop her, and she turns back to me.

  “Oh, and just so you know, I’m getting a lot better with computers,” I tell her. “I’m making a conscious effort.”

  “So you’ve graduated from computer moron to computer idiot?” She grins. “Congrats.”

  “I hate you,” I say with a laugh. “I hate you so much.”

  “Yeah, you keep tellin’ yourself that.”

  I haven’t laughed this hard or this much in a long time. It really is good to have Blake back. Now I just need to make sure she’s back here where she belongs on a more permanent basis.

  Twenty-Eight

  Kamagawa Tea Gardens; Ballard District, Seattle

  I got the call from Marcy at six-thirty this morning, and the good feelings from hanging out with Blake yesterday have evaporated. Right now, I feel as cold and grim as the sky overhead. But I’m fine compared to Marcy. She looks rattled. Really rattled.

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  She bites her bottom lip so hard I fear she’s going to draw blood. “I’m really not,” she replies. “But I’ve got a job to do.”

  I study her closely, curious. Something happened to her, and she’s not telling me what it is. Marcy isn’t shaken easily, but right now, she looks like she’d jump out of her skin if you said “boo” loud enough.

  “What’s going on, Marcy?”

  She looks up at me. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Is it nothing?” I ask. “Or something you’ll tell me later?”

  Marcy lets out a heavy sigh. “Both. Something. I don’t know,” she snaps. “Just… let me do my job.”

  She turns and stomps off into the crowd. Yeah, something’s definitely going on with her. I watch her for a moment, more than a little curious, and see her chatting up one of the guys working the tape. Her posture and the smile on her face are flirtatious. Marcy is a pretty girl, and she not only knows it, but she’s unafraid to use it to get what she wants.

  “Hey, whatever it takes,” I chuckle softly to myself.

  We’re standing outside the Kamagawa, a Japanese tea garden here in Ballard. Yellow tape has blocked off the entrance and there are uniforms scattered about. I see a black SUV parked off to the side of the lot and guess that Torres is already here. The high wall surrounding the garden keeps me from seeing anything going on inside.

  I don’t need to see though; I can already guess: there’s a sixth body in there. I’m shocked there’s a sixth victim so soon after Bethany. I hadn’t expected that he’d hit again so soon. The cooling-off period between Bethany and this victim was days, not weeks, which alarms me. The guy is speeding up.

  I also have to wonder how Marcy heard about it before anybody else.

  I watch her at the tape, skillfully pumping the uniform for intel, and a thought crosses my mind. One I’m not particularly comfortable with. Given her attitude this morning, and how jumpy she is, I’m guessing the killer contacted her somehow. He touched base with her to let her know what he’d done. It makes sense, given his previous communication, so maybe he was feeding her this story in an attempt to get her to publish it.

  But that doesn’t explain why she’s j
umping at shadows and is snappish this morning. No, we already knew he was trying to get her to document his murder spree. It has to be something else. He said something that took her feet out from under her. But what was it?

  “Arrington, what are you doing here?”

  I turn to find myself staring into the eyes of Detective Lee. Again. And he looks even less enthused to see me now than he was last time. Something I wasn’t sure was possible.

  “Fancy meeting you here, TJ,” I say.

  “Funny. What are you doing here?”

  I let out a deep breath and frown. He’s got no more love for Torres than I do. I think, like a lot of good cops, TJ would love nothing more than to see the Deputy Chief taken down a few pegs. But is that enough to take him into this circle of trust? And if so, how far do I let him go? Will he open up to me if I tell him some of what I know?

  He’s played hard to get to this point, but can I crack that armor if I’m more forthcoming? Chances are, probably not. But who knows? And it’s not like I have to actually give him anything substantial. Unless he shows me his, I’m definitely not showing him mine. I’m not sure if he’s at a point where he wants to play ball, but I can try.

  “Listen, I got a tip about this,” I tell him. “I heard it’s the sixth in a string, a string that includes Stella Hughes.”

  His eyes narrow, and I see him tense. He glances around, either looking to see if Torres is close by or to see if anybody’s close enough to eavesdrop. I’m not sure which.

  “Where did you get that?” he asks, pitching his voice low.

  I look at him, slightly surprised. He’s obviously not one of Marcy’s alleged five hundred thousand readers. What’s more curious to me, though, is that Torres didn’t see fit to mention it to his task force. After he came in so hot to my office, I figured he would have bludgeoned everybody with it until he found the leak. But he didn’t. That tells me he’s looking for the leak quietly and doesn’t want word of it to leak to Commissioner Gray before he finds out who it was. I wonder what he’d say if he knew Gray himself is one of the leaks he’s looking for.