The cop had come alone.
It didn't take long to find the man's car. He knew the cars usually parked on the block, and he found it down the block and used the cop's keys to drive it to his house with the lights off. He drove it up the driveway to the side of the house, and from there on it was the same as with the women. He had wrapped up the cop in a sheet, and dropped him into the trunk. As an afterthought he put the man's badge and ID back because he didn't need them. It never even occurred to him to take the gun.
He changed his clothes and drove the cop as far away from his house as he could think, to South County. He stopped the car by the side of the road and just walked away. He walked until he came to a street where he could catch a bus. It took him most of the night to get home, and when he arrived he just sat in the living room, still dressed, and waited for daylight. When the sun came out he went and bought a newspaper.
What was he supposed to do now?
52
As requested, everything that was on Jackson or in his car was brought to the office-even the sheet he was wrapped in.
"Why would he leave the sheet?" Keough wondered.
"Maybe he knows there's nothing on it to give him away," McGwire said.
Keough checked the sheet and didn't find a monogram, or a laundry mark.
"See?" McGwire said.
"No," Keough said, shaking his head, "he left it because it never occurred to him to take it back with him."
"Why not? Is he that dumb?"
"I don't know if he's dumb, or just not smart."
McGwire blew some air out of his mouth.
"How could he be stupid and get away with these murders?"
"Because he's been lucky up to now, Cap. Look at last night. He drove Jackson's car all the way to South County and just left it. After that he had to walk a ways before he could take a bus or catch a cab. Nobody saw him."
"How do we know that?"
"We don't, for sure," Keough said, "but let's have county send a couple of cars out there to canvass the area. I bet we don't find anybody."
"You're saying that this guy has just been lucky?"
"Look at what he's done," Keough said. "He's gone back to malls where he's already grabbed somebody. That's not smart. He let a couple of witnesses see his face, so that we now have a sketch." Keough reminded himself that there was still another sketch to pick up.
"So he's been leaving witnesses alive."
"Right."
McGwire ran his hand through his thinning hair.
"Then he is dumb-and lucky… but his luck's got to run out."
"Maybe it did," Keough said, "last night. Jackson found him."
"Unlucky for Jackson," McGwire said.
"Of course," Keough said, "but if Jackson found him, then he can be found."
"Maybe he'll move."
"I doubt it," Keough said. "That's not the feeling I get from him. I just don't think this is going to scare him away.
There won't be anything in the paper to frighten him. He's going to think he got away with it."
"But… surely he won't go out and grab another woman?"
"Yes, he will," Keough said. "That urge has to be getting greater and greater."
"The urge to kill?"
Keough nodded.
"But he has killed."
"A man," Keough said. "He's killed a man. It's not the same thing."
While he was talking Keough was going through the stuff that had been dumped on one of the desks. The lab had already gone through it.
"I wonder what the FBI is doing?" McGwire said.
"Twiddling their thumbs, I hope."
"Maybe we should let them know what's going on."
"Not yet, Cap," Keough said. "Let's let them sit at the malls a little longer. Maybe I can find something…"
"Like what?"
"I don't know," Keough said, fingering Jackson's ID case. Keough backed away from the desk, frustrated.
"There's nothing here. Which desk does Jackson use?"
"That one," McGwire said, pointing to the other desk.
Keough went over to it, sat down, and began going through the drawers.
"You're good at this, aren't you?" McGwire asked.
"I like to think I am," Keough said, continuing to search the drawers.
"Jackson was good, but too arrogant about it," McGwire said. "How come you're not?"
"Arrogant?" Keough asked. He looked up at the McGwire. "You mean, since I'm from New York?"
"New York's got nothing to do with it," McGwire said. "I was just wondering."
"I think I had the arrogance knocked out of me," Keough said, going back to his task.
"By the Kopykat case?"
"You read the book?"
"Yes," McGwire said.
"Yeah, well, maybe that had something to do with it. Hello, what's this?"
"What?"
Keough pulled a 9x12 inch brown envelope from the center drawer and put it on the desk. He reached in and pulled out some newspaper clippings.
"How do we know that has anything to do with the case?" McGwire asked.
"We don't." Keough upended the envelope to see if anything else would fall out. When it didn't he started going through the clippings.
"What are they?"
"Pages," Keough said, "whole pages, folded in half, not clippings."
"From what paper?"
Keough turned one page sideways.
"The Riverfront Times."
"That's one of those giveaways-"
"I've seen it around since I've been here," Keough assured McGwire.
The captain moved closer and looked over Keough's shoulder.
"What are they?"
"They look like ads… for clubs… Are they strip clubs?"
He held one of the pages up for McGwire to look at.
"Oh yeah," he said, "those clubs are across the bridge, in Sauget, Collinsville, even Brooklyn."
"Brooklyn?" Keough looked up, surprised.
"You didn't know there was a Brooklyn, Illinois?"
"No."
"Sure," McGwire said, "it's full of those adult bookstores and video shops… you know, the one with the booths in the back? Also a few clubs. It's the center of the adult entertainment community around here."
"What about this side of the bridge?"
"In Missouri? Don't make me laugh. They resisted riverboat gambling for a long time, even though it would bring tons of jobs with it. You think they're going to go for topless joints?
"Is there anyplace in Missouri to buy these movies?"
"Ah, I see those commercials at night for one of those kinds of stores, but mostly they're in Brooklyn."
Keough continued looking through the ads. There was a big photo on one of the pages of two adult film actresses who were set to appear at one of the clubs together. Not being a student of the adult film scene he was unaware they did that. He thought the girls in the clubs and the girls in the movies were different. Now he knew there was some crossover.
"Cap, was Jackson into this sort of thing? Adult videos, strip clubs?"
"Naw, I don't think so," McGwire said. "He was pretty much a prude when it came to these things. Took being a father and husband seriously, you know?"
"Then why would he have this stuff?" Keough asked.
McGwire shrugged. "Who knows?"
"Was he working on some vice business?"
"No," McGwire said, "Ken was our homicide man, period."
"Then this stuff has to do with a homicide," Keough said, "and the only one he was working on was the Mall Rat."
"How's this stuff connected to our Mall Rat?" McGwire asked.
"I don't know," Keough said, "but I know where to go to ask."
***
Once again Keough decided not to try to get in touch with Steinbach. That would only alert the FBI that something was brewing. Certainly, they must be aware of Ken Jackson's death, but there was no reason for them to connect it with the search for the serial killer-not
unless Steinbach made the connection and spoke up.
Keough had learned years ago that a detective had to rely on hunches. He had a hunch that he should follow up these newspaper ads without giving the FBI a chance to get in his way. If he came out of today with nothing to show, then he wouldn't mind sitting down with them and brainstorming. He had a healthy respect for the FBI. There were plenty of agents who knew what they were doing. There were not enough agents, however, who reciprocated. He felt that simply by virtue of being an FBI agent, a certain degree of arrogance crept into the picture.
Keough didn't think of himself as arrogant. Maybe other people did-maybe everyone in St. Louis did, since he was from New York-but he thought of himself as a good detective who ought to follow his hunches wherever they led him.
And right now they were leading him to Brooklyn, Illinois, a place he previously had never even heard of.
53
He'd left a message with the captain for him to give Steinbach, and he asked that McGwire not do it in front of the two FBI agents.
"Why do you want to keep this from the FBI?" McGwire asked him.
"Just until tomorrow, Cap," Keough said. "I want to move on this myself before we bring them in on it. I just need the rest of today."
McGwire had finally agreed, since Keough had more experience as a detective than he did, despite the difference in rank. Keough had come to respect McGwire more for the man's reaction to the killing of one of his men- and turning the investigation over to him was a main part of that. McGwire was not about to let his own ego get in the way of catching a cop killer. He decided that utilizing Keough's experience was better than trying to deny it, or top it, because of his superior rank. In truth, McGwire was an administrator and had never been a detective.
"But tomorrow we take the FBI into our confidence," he'd added before Keough left the office.
"Agreed," Keough said.
***
McGwire had arranged for Keough to get into Ken Jackson's house while no one was around, as Keough had requested. Keough was putting off going across the Mississippi to Illinois and the strip clubs and adult bookstores until later in the evening, when there would be more people to talk to and show the sketch to.
Keough spent an hour inside Jackson's house. The man kept an office there, but had very little in the way of files. As spare as his desk was at work, it was sparer still at home. In the end there was nothing in the house that could help, and Keough had to go back to the newspapers he'd found in the man's desk at work.
He still felt the only reason Jackson would have kept them was if they were important. After all, Jackson kept very little in his desk.
Keough took the newspapers home with him and saw his message light blinking three times at him. He hoped one of the messages would be from Steinbach.
He pressed play and listened.
Beep.
"Joe, it's Valerie. Please give me a call when you get a chance. Thanks."
Damn. He hadn't had a chance to call her back.
Beep.
"Hey, partner, it's me. Nothing much happening at the mall. Thought I'd check in with you. See you at the office."
Obviously, that message had been left earlier in the day.
Beep.
"Jesus, just heard about Jackson. Captain McGwire gave me your message after the FBI left. Boy, are they pissed. I'll meet you where you said. See you then."
Keough checked his watch. He'd told McGwire to have Steinbach meet him at Culpepper's again, but that wasn't for two hours, yet.
Keough went into the kitchen, skirting some boxes in the hall that he still hadn't emptied. For the most part everything he'd brought with him had been put away somewhere, but there was still some things that didn't have a place.
He pulled a Pete's Wicked Ale from the fridge and sat at the table with the newspaper pages. He shuffled them and turned them over to see if maybe there wasn't something he was missing. There wasn't, that he could see. All they had in common were the ads from the strip clubs and adult stores, so he felt he had no choice but to drive over there and see what he could find out. Now that Steinbach had returned his message, he knew they could go together, or split up to cover more ground. He'd discuss it with his partner at dinner.
He thought a moment about Ken Jackson's murder. He certainly hadn't liked the man much, but he was sorry as hell that a fellow cop was dead. In New York cops took this sort of things personally. It would be interesting to see the reactions of the other cops in town.
He had to admit that he still was not comfortable with his life in St. Louis. He wasn't ready to pronounce the experiment a failure, yet, but he hoped things would change within the next few months. He needed a little more stimulation in his life. It was an awful thing to admit but up to today he hadn't felt the kind of adrenaline rush he'd felt while going through Jackson's desk and finding these newspapers, not even while he and Steinbach were chasing the killer the day before. Hadn't that turned out great? And now that the FBI was involved they'd probably be calling the shots on the serial case-unless he could come up with something across the river. Even if they took the case over, however, he still had a connection because he was running the investigation of Jackson's murder. No matter what the FBI said, that was a local case.
He finished his beer and decided to answer Valerie's call before she started to think that he was avoiding her. He also had to decide what he was going to do about the Sanders case, now that Jackson was dead and no one else was working on it.
A check of the clock told him she'd probably still be at work, and he called her there.
"Joe," she said, sounding very glad to hear from him, "I'm glad you called before I left."
"Is something wrong?"
"No, I-I just wanted to tell you that we've placed Brady with another family."
"That's great. Where do they live?"
She told him. The neighborhood meant nothing to him, but he didn't ask where it was.
"Joe?"
"Yes?"
"Is something wrong? You seem preoccupied."
"You'll read about it in the newspapers eventually," he said. The body had been found too late for it to make the papers that day. "We lost a man."
He explained it to her and she listened in silence until he was done.
"I'm so sorry," she said, finally. "So you're in charge of this case?"
"Yes."
"What about the man who's killing the women, and the babies?"
One baby, he thought, but he didn't correct her.
"I think they're connected."
"Really?"
"Jackson was working on it at the time of his death."
"And you think the same man killed him?"
"I think so," he said. "At least, I'm going to work on that premise."
"Can you-would you like to, um, do something, or would you rather be alone?"
"I'd love to do something, but I'm going to be working tonight." He decided not to tell her that he was going to be going to strip clubs that night. It didn't seem the kind of thing you should tell a woman who was interested in you-or who you were interested in.
"We've got some leads we have to follow up," he said, "and I need to talk to my partner. I haven't seen him all day."
"Of course," she said. "I, uh, hope I'll be able to see you fairly soon. I mean, I know this case will take up a lot of your time…"
"I promise," he said. "I'll call you soon. Good news about Brady," he added, before she could respond. "Are they a nice family?"
"Yes," she said. "I interviewed them myself."
"Good," he said. "I hope the little guy is happy. I haven't given up on his case, you know."
"You haven't? In spite of everything?"
"I'd still like to know what happened to his parents," he said. "I think he'll need to know, won't he?"
"I think so," she said. "And there's something else I think."
"What's that?"
"That you're a pretty great guy."
"I thought you knew that already."
She laughed and said, "I suspected, but now I know for sure."
"Glad to hear it," he said. "Well, I've got to go back to work."
"Me, too," she said. "I'll talk to you soon."
" 'Bye, Valerie."
He hung up and checked his watch. He certainly would rather have been doing something with her than meeting Steinbach at Culpepper's. There was still a hell of a lot to do, though, before he could do even think about his private life.
He went upstairs to shower before meeting his partner for dinner. He was also aware that he'd probably be talking to a lot of women that night. He didn't want to do that in the same clothes he'd been wearing all day.
54
They talked about the FBI stakeout of the malls and Jackson's murder over dinner at Culpeppers. Steinbach explained that nothing had happened all day.
"Connors was cool," he said, "real patient, very professional. Her partner, though, that Hannibal, he was real antsy."
"What was the mood when they finally called it off?" Keough asked.
"Except for Hannibal everybody took it in stride. Agent Connors said she'd see us in the morning at the office. She's really sort of okay, Joe."
"That's good. We'll have to explain Jackson's murder to her," Keough said, "if she doesn't see it in the newspapers first."
While neither man had been crazy about their dead colleague, Ken Jackson, Steinbach had worked with him for several years and had been shocked at the news of- and conditions surrounding-his death.
"I can't believe it," he said. "He always acted like he was indestructible."
"I've know a lot of cops like that," Keough said. "They usually find out the hard way that they aren't."
"He found out the hard way, all right."
Keough explained to his partner his theory about the killers being the same.
"Well, it makes sense to me," Steinbach said, "but what if we work that angle and we're wrong?"
In the Shadow of the Arch Page 20