Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

  He covered his face. He was crying.

  This Keith didn’t enjoy at all.

  Krista pushed a box of tissues across the table to Jerry. He used several, to wipe his eyes and blow his nose. His embarrassment embarrassed Keith.

  His voice came back softer. Less shrill. “My folks came home around eight, eight fifteen. I was just finishing up a movie—Red Sparrow. Jennifer Lawrence? They yelled down and said they were home. I answered. I yelled up that if they wanted to watch something with me, all it would cost was Mom making some popcorn.”

  “Did they take you up on that?”

  He nodded. Swallowed. “Yes. They’ll tell you as much. You won’t have to prompt them in any way. It’s the truth and that’s how they’ll tell it.”

  “What did you watch together?”

  “Game Night. It’s. . . really funny.”

  “Netflix?”

  “Blu-ray. I can’t prove that last night’s when we watched it, or even that we watched it together. But that’s the truth, too.”

  Keith exited and asked Maggie to get him the numbers of Jerry’s parents at their various places of work. She provided that, Keith made the calls, and when Krista emerged from the interview room, leaving Jerry behind, Keith told her he’d verified Jerry’s alibi.

  She shrugged. “I believe him. Let him sit awhile. He was crying again.”

  “For himself or Jasmine?”

  “I’d like to think for Jasmine.”

  “But you don’t really.”

  “No.”

  Maggie, at her window, called over to Krista, “The Illinois crime scene investigator is waiting in your office, dear! Hope it was all right to just send him in like that.”

  “Thank you, Maggie,” Krista said. “That was fine.” Then she motioned to Keith to join her.

  He did, saying, “You let Maggie call you ‘dear’? Aren’t you the chief?”

  “Yes. And at least I’ve broken her of calling me ‘honeybunch,’ if you’re wondering about my ability to maintain discipline.”

  Deitch was the only officer in the bullpen. Keith nodded to him and he nodded back, looking frazzled.

  Keith asked her, “Everybody else at the crime scene?”

  “Or home grabbing a couple hours’ sleep,” she said. “I worked everybody all night, canvassing South Main. Needed to catch the apartment dwellers before they went to work, and see if anybody heard or saw anything.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nice to know you can scream on Main Street and nobody notices.” Or maybe cares, he thought.

  In the office, just inside, Eli Wallace was seated at the mini conference table at right, his arms folded, his body leaned back, eyes closed. The African American CSI in the blue jumpsuit was snoring softly, his thick mustache riffling in the self-created breeze.

  Keith said, “Kind of a shame to wake the little darling.”

  Eli’s eyes popped open and he shook his head, clearing it, and said something rude to Keith that should never be spoken in front of a man’s daughter, especially if she is chief of police. Keith and Krista laughed and sat at the table, her opposite the CSI, Keith next to him.

  “Put in a long night, did you?” Keith said.

  “Might say that,” Eli said. “Anyway I wasn’t relaxing in a hospital bed being waited on, like some people I know. How you feeling?”

  “Not bad. Excellent drugs. Wrapped up like this, I look twenty years slimmer. Your team about done?”

  He nodded. “Rest of the work’ll be at the lab back in Rockford. We’ve recovered some items that might be useful.”

  “Oh?”

  Eli nodded. “We checked the trash bins. Plenty of those to go through.” He gave Krista half a smile. “You guys keep your little town nice and clean for the tourists.”

  “Part of why they keep coming back,” she said. “Find something interesting?”

  “Two somethings. A hooded raincoat, black, with plenty of blood spatter. Not much doubt the source of the latter. Also a butcher knife. Blood-smeared. Almost certainly the murder weapon.” Eli shifted in his seat. “You’ve got a problem, Chief.”

  Krista said, “You think?”

  “I think. This appears, strongly—as if I have to say it—to be the same perpetrator. The stab wounds this time are mostly on the back. The previous homicide, of course, the blows came from the front. Same is true of the Clearwater homicide.”

  Keith said, “A shift in MO?”

  “Not really. Blood trail on the stairs—wrought iron and wood, alongside the corner building—indicate the incident began at the landing. The killer was waiting outside the victim’s apartment, tucked in the recession of the doorway. The first blow caught her in the left arm.”

  Krista said, “She saw him and reacted.”

  The CSI nodded. “And fled, running down the steps. The killer pursued and caught up with her and the attack came from behind. Knife plunged deep, half a dozen times. A savage assault, like the Lund woman.”

  “Right there on Main Street,” Keith said. “With a high risk of potential witnesses.”

  Eli tapped his nose—the “on the nose” gesture. “That’s the other obvious aspect here.”

  Krista frowned. “What is?”

  Keith sighed and said, “The killer is devolving. Accelerating. Six months between the first and second kill. Three days between the second and third kill. Precision planning for the first two kills, more on the fly for this one.”

  The CSI was nodding. “There’s a real danger to the community. You need to call in the state police investigators. And Major Case Assistance. ASAP.”

  Krista said nothing.

  Keith said, “We’ll give that serious consideration, Eli. Thanks. You heading back to Rockford now?”

  Eli frowned a little. “You changing the subject on me, Keith?”

  “Maybe. Where we go from here is the chief’s call, and I’ll consult, of course, which is my job. You’ve done yours and we appreciate it.”

  Keith stood, smiled, extended his hand and Eli, his expression wary, shook Keith’s hand, then stood himself.

  “Oh-kay,” Eli said. “And, yes. I’ll be in Rockford. I hope you don’t need me. . . I’ll let you know our results.”

  Eli closed the door behind him.

  Keith said to Krista, “You should eat. I’ll take you to lunch.”

  She was studying him. “You want to talk, don’t you?”

  “I want to talk.”

  But they didn’t talk on the way to Otto’s Place, which would still be open for lunch for another twenty minutes. He was thinking and so was she. In the few days since Astrid’s murder, the number of things they had to consider had accumulated into a dizzying spire of suspects, suspect alibis, and an increasingly out of control madman.

  Otto’s wasn’t busy. They hung their coats up, found a corner table, then ordered bowls of turkey-and-black-bean chili and glasses of iced tea. Now they talked.

  Keith asked, “What does Jasmine’s murder mean to this investigation?”

  Krista thought for a moment, then said, “She’s not from the Class of ’09.”

  He shrugged. “She was at the reunion.”

  “But we think the motive of the killings lies in the past. And the first murder was six months ago. Was Jasmine a cold-blooded, coldhearted attempt to throw us off the track? To muddy the waters with. . .”

  “Blood,” he finished. “Maybe. And to provide us with a good suspect in Jerry Ward. My suspicion? This is a premeditated killer. He or she will have established that Jerry would be home without an alibi. That the parents would be away, stranding Jerry without a car. The lack of a car, however, was something we might well dismiss—a killer can always find a way to get to a killing.”

  “But Jerry’s mom and dad double-crossed our killer,” she said. “They came home early. They in fact spent the evening with their son, and are not likely types to cover for him in a situation like this.”

  Keith frowne
d, shook his head. “Was trying to frame Jerry enough of a motivating reason? Certainly confusing the issue alone, to maybe throw us off some, wouldn’t inspire it.”

  She leaned toward him. “What made the killer, so careful, so controlled in the planning of these acts, suddenly take a risk like striking in public? On Main Street of all places?”

  “That’s the only silver lining in this very dark cloud,” he said, with a tight smile. “It means we’re getting close. It means the investigation has lit a fire under our quarry.”

  Krista’s eyebrows went up. “So who was Jasmine in all of this? What marked her a victim?”

  “When we answer that,” he said, “we’ll know who we’re looking for.”

  Their tea came.

  Krista smirked humorlessly and said, “Don’t you think we can rule Chicago out? And even if we’re wrong to do so, we’re covered—your friend Barney is networking with Booker. With luck those two creeps who jumped you will sell out who hired them.”

  “Don’t count on that,” he said. “Even today, the Outfit is scarier than anybody in law enforcement.”

  He sipped the tea. His phone vibrated in his pocket.

  “Speaking of Chicago,” he said, looking at the caller ID.

  REBECCA CARLSON.

  He excused himself and went outside.

  “Hi,” he said. His breath was visible in the cold; he didn’t care.

  “Hi yourself. Are you okay? Are you in the hospital? Did you break anything important?”

  “Yes. No. And nothing important except your heart.”

  She laughed at him. “Heal up and come see me.”

  “How did you know about this?”

  “You’re in the news and I am the news. Listen, my news is that I’ve connected with a researcher of Astrid’s.”

  “On the sexual predator story?”

  “No, the Daniel Rule Meets the Mob exposé. My pretty nemesis had some good stuff. I’m picking up where she left off, and my ex has agreed to let me, and to air it when I’m done. Of course, I’ll need to talk to you, since the two Salerno guys sitting in the Galena jail are your handiwork.”

  “Maybe, but my bruises and broken rib is theirs. Don’t get yourself killed like Astrid.”

  “You don’t really think the Chicago end of this is what caused that, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Neither does my daughter, and she’s smarter than both of us. But people have been known to die in Chicago under sketchy circumstances.”

  “Really? I try not to cover unhappy news like that. Ciao.”

  “Did you really just say ‘ciao’?”

  She laughed. “I did. Aren’t I just the worst?”

  Rebecca clicked off. He smiled at the phone and clicked off, too.

  When he got back to their corner, the chili had come. He broke some crackers up and dropped them in. Had several spoonfuls of the stuff. Great. The simple act of eating something that tasted good seemed like such a privilege, suddenly.

  Krista, between spoonfuls, asked, “So I need to call the big boys in, huh? Like Eli says?”

  “No, and not the big girls either. Not today. This is a key time for you, honey. This is the first big thing that’s come along since you made chief.”

  Obviously surprised and pleased by this, she said, “Right, and I don’t want to screw it up. Many more dead bodies on Main Street and they’ll take me down on littering.”

  He dropped his spoon and took her hand. “You need to step up. We’re close. Very close. If we haven’t wrapped this up by tomorrow this time, yes. By all means. Call Major Case Assistance. Call whatever cavalry you want. But right now, we have another shot at this.”

  “We do?”

  He nodded. “Have your people assemble all the suspects. Do it at the Lake View Lodge, in the banquet hall again, if it’s not in use—Landry will cooperate. And I want his wife there—she’s been slippery. We need Frank and Brittany Wunder. Your friends Josh and Jessy. The Braggs. Everybody else has alibis that seem to hold. But if we don’t shake the killer out of this bunch, we can try again with the others—Jerry, Chris and Tyler, Ken Stock and his wife, Alex Cannon and the entire Chicago Outfit. Can you make that happen, honey? Can the chief of police gather the suspects?”

  “Like Charlie Chan?” she asked.

  “Just like Charlie Chan.”

  She shrugged. “Okay, Pop,” she said, and started in on the rest of her soup.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Krista found David Landry not only cooperative but eager to please, again maybe trying too hard. At any rate, the Lake View Lodge manager had the banquet hall set up as she’d instructed—at the far end where the band had played, four round tables were arranged with as much space left between them as possible. At the other end were two more tables, one at far left, the other far right.

  Each table had plastic water glasses and a pitcher of ice water. No alcoholic beverages would be served this time around.

  As Krista and her father stood facing their guests, Frank and Brittany Wunder were seated at the far left table; the Braggs at the next; then Landry and his wife, Dawn; and, at far right, Josh and Jessica Webster.

  With dusk approaching, the tall windows onto the lake were letting in not streaming sunshine but the gloom of a dying overcast day, the skeletal vastness of trees blotting out the horizon.

  Their guests wore the apparel of business or home—Frank in his Buick salesman mode, a sport coat and tie, Brittany in an oversize pink sweater and black leggings; the Braggs still in their coaching togs; David in a gray suit with darker gray tie, Dawn almost matching in a gray skirt with white blouse; Josh in his blue sweatshirt hawking his popcorn shop and Jessy in a navy suit and light blue silk blouse.

  Krista and her father made a slightly off-key pair, she in her standard police chief uniform, Glock 21 on her hip, he in sweatshirt and jeans.

  No need for many preliminaries. Krista had decided to call them personally, since these were all friends or friendly acquaintances. She’d again said they’d be recorded, but that this was voluntary, and informal. She would stop recording anytime they wished to go off-the-record. They could refuse now, or accept the invitation and leave at their own discretion.

  Now, as she faced the group—each couple at their own table to discourage conversation—Krista felt she should repeat something she’d already made clear on the phone.

  “You are not suspects,” she said, technically true. “You are not even what we would call persons of interest. Everyone here is aware of just how many people were in this room on reunion night, who will all have to be talked to several times, in increasing depth.”

  Her father, looking from table to table, said, “We are only in day four of the Astrid Lund investigation. Consider this exercise part of our process of elimination.”

  Jessy, not surprisingly, spoke up. “There was a second murder last night, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes,” Krista said. “A young woman named Jasmine Peterson.”

  No surprised reaction followed. The word had clearly gotten around.

  Jessy asked, “Is the same person responsible?”

  “It would appear so, but we are in very early stages of that inquiry.” Her eyes roved from face to face. “We are a small department—a dozen of us including myself and a civilian employee and our consultant here. That’s why your help and cooperation are so vital.”

  Pop said, “We’re going to talk to you individually.” He gestured to the corner tables behind him. “We should be able to move quickly. We encourage you to be frank. And I’ll be frank with you—we have reason to believe several of you have withheld useful information, or have been self-serving in what you’ve told us so far.”

  A murmur rose from the small group.

  “Keep in mind,” Krista said above it, “that only the person responsible for Astrid Lund’s murder. . . and presumably Jasmine Peterson’s. . . has any reason to fabricate.”

  Jessy, not hiding her irritation, said, “Isn’t that a nice way t
o say ‘lie’?”

  “If you have secrets,” Pop said, “that pertain to Astrid, revealing them would be helpful. . . and do know that unless giving those secrets a public airing bears upon putting a killer away, we will protect your privacy.”

  Everyone looked quietly alarmed. Krista didn’t mind—she wanted them to understand what was at stake, though they might feel they’d come here under slightly false pretenses. Things were ramping up, and the phone call summoning them with words like “voluntary” and “informal” might seem now to smack of bait-and-switch. Too bad.

  Pop said, “Frank, would you join me?” He gestured behind him to the table at the other end, by the tall windows.

  Krista said, “Brittany?”

  And gestured to the other table at that end.

  “In the meantime,” Pop added, as Frank Wunder rose and lumbered forward, “we’d like you all to reflect on anything involving Astrid that you may have seen at the reunion—any conversations you witnessed her having that may have looked at all. . . confrontational. Thank you.”

  Keith said, “Frank, I believe you said you didn’t speak to Astrid reunion night.”

  The roughly handsome onetime jock sat back hanging his head some. Those close-set, hooded green eyes and the several-times-broken nose gave him a rugged handsomeness but also made him look slightly stupid.

  “I think I told you,” Frank said, “there were some hard feelings between her and me. Astrid.”

  “Even after all these years?”

  He was looking at the tabletop. “Some things hurt a long time.”

  “Like what, Frank?”

  Now the eyes came up, still hooded. “I will tell you something if you turn that damn thing off.”

  The car salesman was indicating Keith’s phone on the table, where the field interview app had been utilized.

  “Okay,” Keith said, and paused the recording.

  “I went with her awhile. You know that. We used to make out. We were. . . it was prom. We, uh, wound up in the back seat. I’d had some beers. She hadn’t. We were parked out in the boonies. I got out and peed, and then we got in the back, like I said, and it was getting hot and heavy.”

  “Okay.”

  The eyes lowered again. “I had trouble.”