Corktown

by Ty Hutchinson

  Katherine took a moment before nodding and answering yes.

  “If he’s innocent, like you say he is, then he shouldn’t have a problem,” I said.

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  I handed Katherine her cell phone. “You can start by calling him.”

  Katherine tried four times and got voicemail with each call. “Please, honey, call me when you get this. It’s important. I love you.”

  I reached over and gently took the phone from her hands. She didn’t resist me. “Think, Katherine. Where would your husband go?”

  Katherine shook her head back and forth slowly.

  “It’s okay. Take your time,” I said. We already had units watching the house and his office at the campus. I wasn’t holding my breath, though.

  Suddenly, her eyes shot upward to the left. She’d thought of something.

  “What is it? What did you just remember?”

  She was hesitant, so I gently held her hand. “You want to help your husband don’t you?”

  “He often likes to drive along Lake St. Clair.”

  I remembered the gazebo Wilkinson had shown me.

  “Anything else? What about a friend’s place? Where does he hang out?” Knowing Preston was working with someone else, we had to be careful.

  “Preston doesn’t have many friends. Lots of colleagues.”

  “Are any of them close to him?”

  Katherine thought for moment. “Professor Burroughs, they’ve known each other for over twenty years.”

  “Does he work at the same university?”

  She shook her head. “He works at the Macomb campus for Oakland Community College, though I think Preston mentioned that he might have retired.”

  I wonder if this Burroughs guy is the other killer.

  Madero got on the phone and started hunting down an address. I motioned for Solis to bring in the uniforms that were waiting outside. They would be providing security while the three of us headed out to the lake.

  I turned to Katherine. “You’ll be safe here with these officers.”

  “Safe from what?” she asked, shaking her head, confused.

  “Safe from your husband.”

  • • •

  Not wanting to hang out with the police, Katherine retired to the bedroom, locking the door behind her. The boys were still napping on the king-size bed. She stared at them lovingly for a moment before kicking off her shoes and taking a seat on the bed. Figuring she was stuck, she decided to join them and rest for a bit. Might as well make the best of it, she thought.

  But first, she gently turned the little one, Jackson, over to his side. She reached down the front of his shorts and revealed a hidden pocket sewn inside. The police were quick to pat her down and confiscate her cell phone, not so much with the little ones. She, of course, had a hunch they wouldn’t frisk her children.

  She removed the tiny, no frills cell phone and laid next to him. She had a plan, of course, in the event of something like that happening. Thanks to Katherine’s neurotic ways, she had prepared the family for a variety of scenarios.

  After Preston ran out of O’Dowd Hall, he called his wife and gave her the heads up about the FBI agent wanting to question him. “Surely they are on the way to the house if they’re not already there,” he told her.

  Luckily, when Preston called, Katherine happened to be on the road, having just picked up the boys from school. She pulled off the freeway and drove into the parking lot of a mall, making her way to the top floor of the parking structure. She removed a bag from the side storage compartment of the vehicle. Inside were the boys’ special clothing.

  Lorenzo and Jackson knew exactly what to do. They had practiced the drill many times. Katherine and the boys were ready by the time they returned home. All she had to do was sit in her favorite chair and wait for the knock at the door.

  Holed up in protective custody, it was time for another plan to go into effect. The grin on Katherine’s face grew wider as she turned on the phone and sent Preston a text.

  67

  The three of us had already started to drip again during our short walk to the car. I badly wanted to peel off my clothes. “Solis, call whoever you need to increase the number of patrols along the lake. We might get lucky.”

  A second later, the beeping and ringing of various cellphones could be heard. All three of us patted our pockets to take our calls.

  “Solis here. Yes, of course. How are you Mrs. Tanner?”

  “Tanner?” I mouthed to Madero.

  “Rick Tanner, the engineer,” he said.

  Everything clicked. She was out of town when we found her husband.

  Solis hung up. “That was Mrs. Tanner. She remembered a realtor had stopped by the house the day she left town. Might be something. I told her to take a picture of the lady’s card and email it to me.”

  I turned to Madero. I felt sorry for the big guy. He had rings under his arms the size of hula hoops.

  “My guy’s coming up empty on Burroughs at OCC. He’s still working on a home address.”

  I wondered if she had lied.

  The two detectives continued to look at me quietly. They were waiting for a report on my phone call. “Oh, that was Lucy texting me.”

  On the drive to the lake, I thought about my hunch—that Katherine was lying. Why would she though? As a mother of two children, the most important thing to her would be their safety. If there were any chance her husband was dangerous, she should want to know.

  I thought about her father, Eddie Bass. Was he a good dad? Katherine was just a little girl when he died, but she seemed to speak highly of him. Probably loved him unconditionally up until the day he drank himself to death, even thought it agitated her when I brought it up that day we questioned her. Could she have lied about knowing what her father knew? She said she had no idea who the RRs were. But what if she lied about that, too? What if everything she said to date was a lie? What if—

  My God! Katherine is the other part of the team!

  68

  “It’s her,” I said. “Turn the car around.”

  Solis looked back at me. “Huh?”

  “Katherine,” I said. “She’s the other part of the team! She has to be. Her father admits to knowing about the RRs. Ellen Scott admitted to knowing Katherine’s father.”

  “Didn’t she say she had never heard of them when you questioned her?” Solis asked.

  “She did. She said her father never mentioned them. But what if she lied about everything she’s told us to date just like she could be lying about Professor Burroughs? I turned to Madero. “You’re guy just called to say he came up empty.”

  He nodded in agreement.

  “Think about it. If her father told her about the RRs and Ellen Scott, she could theoretically blame them for her father’s death. She wanted revenge.”

  “So you’re saying she did all the killing?”

  “She would definitely be involved with the deaths of the RRs. I’m not sure about the others victims dating back to the very first one found in Corktown. Obviously Katherine wasn’t married to Preston back then. He’s the true killer. He killed all those people.”

  “You saying this lady fell in love with a serial killer?” Madero added.

  “Why not? Women do stupid things when they’re in love. Maybe she didn’t know at first, or maybe she had a hunch but made up excuses—”

  “Like an abused spouse.”

  “Exactly. Or maybe she’s just as screwed up as him and has desires but is able to control them. Some killers can do that. I don’t think Preston is one of them, though; the urge would be too strong for him but her—she’s different. I think she’s the brains behind the operation.”

  Madero flipped a switch, and the cry of the siren did its job as cars peeled off the road ahead of us. Solis called the two uniforms watching Katherine and her boys. “I’m not getting any answer from either one.”

  My hunch told me they were already dead and Katherine was
gone. But how often is my hunch right? It warned me earlier. “Madero, how much longer to the hotel?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  She seemed so normal. She was a mother like me. But the more I thought about it, the more I believed it. Katherine was the matriarch of that twisted family business. She knew how to control her husband. Not only did she feed his need, she fed hers.

  • • •

  We exited the elevator and hurried down the hallway. A uniform exited the room just as we got there. He shook his head. “Both officers are down. The woman and the children are gone.”

  Right away, I noticed the blood against the white backdrop of the suite. The first body was slumped over a white linen couch. Another uniform exited the bedroom, pointing back. “The other one is in there.”

  I walked over to the bedroom. Lying in a pool of blood soaked carpet next to the left side of the bed was the second officer. Both had their neck slashed. How did she pull this off? How? She had two kids with her. Is this the new definition of supermom?

  I walked back into the sitting area, shaking my head.

  Solis threw out a theory. “Okay, maybe she lures one of our guys into the bedroom—her kid’s sick or something like that. He bends down to check out the kid, that’s when she comes up behind him and slashes his neck.”

  “You were the one who frisked her. Did you miss the knife?”

  Solis shrugged, realizing the hole in his theory.

  “Even if she somehow got rid of one in the room,” I motioned, “I find it hard to believe she overpowered the second one. He would have been looking right at her as she exited the room.”

  “Maybe she had help,” Madero added.

  “Preston,” I said.

  “How? We disconnected the phone in the room and confiscated her cell phone.”

  Thinking back to my supermom thought, what would she do? She was the brain of the family; she would have planned for this. Would she have used her children? “Were the children searched?”

  Solis and Madero looked at each other before looking back at me. I already knew their answer.

  “She used her kids. She must have—probably hid stuff on them like a cellphone or even a weapon. She took a chance they wouldn’t get searched. She then gets a hold of Preston, tells him where they are, and they orchestrated a double killing.”

  “Everyone has an ID on Preston. They wouldn’t just open the door and let him waltz right in,” Solis said.

  I stood quietly for moment, wondering how I would use my kids to get out of that situation. “Okay, I’m riffing here, but assume Katherine figured out a good reason to get one of the officers into the bedroom. He enters and the two kids exit at the same time. One immediately runs over to the other officer to distract him while the other runs to the door to open it.”

  I walked over to the door to the room. “Solis, pretend you’re the officer; you’re sitting on the couch.”

  Solis walked over to the couch and sat down.

  “Okay now, you see the little boy run to the door. You get up to stop him, but before you can, the other boy jumps on you to play. While you’re trying to pry this boy off of you, the other one opens the door.”

  “Should I stand up?” Solis asked.

  “What would you do if a little boy jumped on you?”

  “I’d pull him off and stop the other from opening the door.”

  “Okay, you get the kid off of you fairly quickly. You stand up and make your way over to the door, but the other boy opens it before you reach him. In comes Preston. Before you can respond or draw your weapon, he’s moved across the room.”

  I walked to where the blood splatter first appeared on the carpeting. “This is where he cuts you and pushes you back, still attacking until you fall on the couch, bleeding to death. In the meantime, she deals with the uniform in the room.”

  “That’s a lot of assumption,” Madero said, “but it seems plausible if she actually coached her kids to play a role in her sick game.”

  “Never underestimate a mother’s ability to make everyone fall into line.”

  The two detectives flashed me a look of confusion.

  “She’s supermom. She cooks, cleans, raises the kids, and plans the murders. She coached them—trust me.”

  Solis’ phone beeped. He pulled it out of the hip holster he wore and punched a few buttons. “Got the photo of the Realtor’s card.” He turned his phone around. The person smiling on the card was Katherine Carter.

  69

  The worst had just happened. Katherine and Preston had gone into hiding. That doubled my worry lines; they were extremely good at disappearing. They were the type that hid in plain view, but you wouldn’t know it until you found them. That’s how they avoided capture the first time around. What’s the saying? If it ain’t broke?

  If Reilly got wind of it, I knew all bets would be off, and a convention of agents would descend on Detroit. I didn’t want that. The fighting, stubborn, and hardheaded side of me wanted the case all to myself.

  Obviously Katherine had plans for her family to disappear when we showed up at the house. With Ellen Scott finally dead, she had reached her goal of eliminating all five RRs. She’d had her revenge.

  But what about Preston?

  His brain was wired to kill. It had needs and there was no changing that. I doubt he had the desire or the means necessary to stop cold turkey and turn into a simple soccer dad. From my knowledge, cold-blooded killers like Preston didn’t work that way. They couldn’t contain their wants. How on earth would Katherine keep him under control? How did she do it in the past? Katherine had proven back in that room that she could not only kill, but she could orchestrate a plan to kill. I batted the thought around before striking another aha moment.

  “She feeds him,” I blurted out.

  Solis and Madero looked at me.

  “She’s feeding him victims. That’s how she keeps him under control.”

  Solis scratched the back of his head. “You mean like an animal, with scheduled feedings and all?”

  “Yes. Like any woman, she knows her man better than he knows himself.”

  Madero rolled his eyes.

  “Trust me, men have pretty simple desires. It’s not hard to control someone when you know what buttons to press.”

  Solis shrugged. “I’ll bite. So you’re saying she knew how long he could go without a kill before he went apeshit?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Days, weeks… maybe a month. She had to know. Preston was a dangerous man. In a dire situation, he would take one of them if he had to.”

  “But she wouldn’t let that happen, right?” Solis asked.

  “No, she would never put the two boys in a situation where she couldn’t protect them. Plus, she’s a control freak. I bet no one in the family made a move without her knowing about it—better yet, allowing it.”

  “So she feeds him,” Solis repeated.

  I shifted my weight from heel to heel. “Even though they’ve gone underground, Preston won’t stop killing. Somehow, they’re able to keep doing it without anyone knowing.”

  The detectives stared at me.

  “She needs easy prey,” I said, breaking the silence. “A bountiful supply of victims. Where would she get them?”

  “Runaways,” Solis said.

  “Drug addicts, prostitutes,” Madero continued.

  I snapped my finger. “That’s it. Easy. Plentiful. And the best part: No one will miss them if they go missing.”

  But what did they do with the bodies? I had a hunch the Carter residence held our answer.

  70

  Madero proved to be helpful by securing a search warrant in under an hour from a friendly judge. Our plan was to toss every square inch of that house. I didn’t care if Katherine was supermom; everyone makes mistakes. I was banking on it.

  Solis and Madero started on the main level. I headed upstairs, straight for the master bedroom. I wanted to know how Mr. and Mrs. Serial Killer lived.

&n
bsp; They had a typical room. It was spacious, with wall-to-wall carpet and a custom walk-in closet with built-ins. In the center of the room, a king-size bed had half a dozen throw pillows neatly arranged on it. Off to either side were a couple of sitting chairs. The en suite had a separate bath and shower, dual vanity, and a toilet. So far, nothing stood out as odd. Except Preston had more hair product than any man should be allowed to have.

  Katherine had a separate makeup vanity in the corner of the room. I sat on the crushed velvet seat and skimmed the top of the table. Everything was neat and in its place. Nothing uncapped, uncovered or unscrewed—the complete opposite of my bathroom counter. She was so perfect.

  Her taste in makeup was a little of everything. Her jewelry was nice—not out of this world, but Preston had been generous. Katherine owned one bottle of perfume, Chanel. I remembered smelling it on her when we first met.

  In the walk-in closet, I half-expected to find something creepy, something that screamed “horror couple.” But I didn’t. She even had great taste in lingerie. I closed the drawer and made my way to the end table near the bed. I could tell she slept on the right. The left side had a larger dent in the bed.

  I opened the tiny drawer. Customized woodwork. I noticed the pink rabbit first. Sheesh, how much more perfectly boring and stereotypical could they be? They killed people for Godsake.

  I grabbed a tissue from a box on the table and used it to push aside the toy. Under a few pieces of paper, I discovered a tiny leather-bound booklet. Using another tissue, I removed it from the drawer and flipped the cover open.

  Bingo!

  71

  Written inside the book were dates going back at least five years. Next to each date, in the same neat penmanship, were GPS coordinates. What have you been up to, Katherine?

  I headed to the basement where Solis and Madero were. “I found something interesting,” I said.

  “So did we,” Solis replied. He and Madero were standing next to a butcher-block table large enough in size that Madero could lie on it.