Superstition

by Karen Robards

  Mrs. Ferrell reported that she was almost positive she’d seen a man close Marsha’s living-room drapes on the night of the murder.

  This bit of information, when relayed by her mother, had sent Nicky hightailing it over to Mrs. Ferrell’s house for a little girl talk. Neighborly gossip was what Nicky had been after, and neighborly gossip was what she’d gotten. All kinds of good, juicy dirt that when sorted through just might provide a solid lead or two. All it took was the right one, and the monster would be caught.

  Headlights lit up the night, causing Nicky to glance around. A white-paneled van drove past just as Nicky reached the street. As it drew even with Marsha Browning’s house, it stopped. The rear door slid open with a harsh metallic sound, somebody jumped to the pavement, and seconds later, an explosion of popping white lights lit up the night.

  Nicky checked for a moment, watching wide-eyed. She knew those lights: They came from a professional photographer’s camera. More press was on the scene. Marsha Browning’s yard was ringed by crime-scene tape, and there was a cop car parked in the driveway, but as Nicky knew from her own experience, that had never stopped any reporter worth his or her salt.

  The pack was closing in.

  “Hey, get out of here,” Brown yelled, waving his arms as if he was trying to shoo away a flock of pesky birds as he walked toward the van.

  The lights kept popping. The interior light of the police car parked in Marsha Browning’s driveway came on as that cop got out of his car. He was walking down the driveway in a purposeful way when the photographer jumped back in the van and the van took off.

  As the red taillights receded into the distance, it occurred to Nicky that her police guard was staring after the van—which, as far as keeping a protective eye on her was concerned, was looking the wrong way.

  Okay, so maybe she was a little on edge. This did not strike her as reassuring. Time to head for home.

  Pressing the button to unlock the doors, Nicky opened the driver’s-side door and started to slide inside. In fact, she already had one foot in the pale gray footwell and was lowering her backside into the cushy leather driver’s seat when a sudden sound made her glance sideways. She was just in time to watch as the passenger-side door was jerked open. Her eyes widened with horror as a man dropped into the seat next to her.

  Nicky let out a screech and almost fell sideways out of the car before she realized who it was.

  “You really don’t do careful well, do you?” Joe said, grabbing her arm just in time to prevent her from tumbling out onto the pavement. “I could have been—oh, I don’t know—the Lazarus Killer.”

  “Well, you’re not.” Having been hauled upright again and then released, Nicky rested limply back against the seat. Her heart still pounded from fright, and she had to work to keep her voice steady. It took a moment for her to recover at least some semblance of equilibrium. When she did, she pulled her door shut and glanced over at him. With the interior light off, he was little more than a solid presence that seemed to take up an inordinate amount of space in the dark. She could hear him breathing, sense his restless energy, see the glint of his eyes as he looked over at her. For a moment, his profile was highlighted against the lighter darkness outside the window. It was masculine, handsome, sexy.

  Nicky felt her strength returning.

  “Then I’d say that’s lucky for you, isn’t it?” Joe stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth. She could see the metallic flash of the lighter in his hand. “If you want to start the car, I’ll roll down the window.”

  “Fine.” Nicky took a deep breath and started the car. He rolled the window partway down. The flame on the lighter flared for a second as he lit his cigarette. “Hopefully, Lieutenant Brown back there would have stopped any strangers from getting into the car with me. Isn’t that supposed to be why he’s following me around?”

  “In theory. Only, in case you didn’t notice, he got distracted back there.” The tip of his cigarette glowed bright red and the lighter disappeared into his pocket.

  “That’s all it takes. One moment of distraction. Then, boom, you got a murderer in the car with you. Of course, if you lived through it, the story sure would make for must-see TV.”

  Call her slow, but it had taken this long for his tone to percolate through the fright residue. There was a definite edge to his voice. He was unsmiling, his jaw was set hard, and there was a kind of controlled forcefulness to his movements that told its own tale. Nicky knew him well enough by now to recognize the signs. Mr. Police Chief was in a snit again.

  “Did you want something?” she asked. “Or were you just trying to make a point by scaring me half to death?”

  “Oh, I want something. Suppose you start driving and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She could have objected to his presence, she supposed, and even ordered him out of her car, although the chances that he would listen and obey seemed slim, but there didn’t seem to be much point in it. He might be mad about something, but he was still Joe. In a snit or not, he had the power to raise her heart rate and warm her blood and make her go all buttery inside.

  And then, too, with him beside her, she felt absolutely safe—which, under the circumstances, was no small thing.

  “I’m going home,” she said, just to advise him of her destination as she buckled her seat belt and pulled away from the curb.

  “Well, hallelujah.”

  O-kay. Somebody was definitely in a bad mood.

  Except for the police cruiser following along behind, there were no other cars on the street now as Nicky headed toward Atlantic Avenue. Her headlights illuminated mailboxes, trash cans—right, tomorrow was garbage day—and a shining-eyed tabby cat slinking across the road. Beside her, Joe was talking to someone she presumed was Brown on a transistor-sized police radio he had produced from somewhere on his person. Since he was wearing jeans and a dark-colored T-shirt with a dark-colored jacket, she was guessing it had come from his pocket. Or maybe he had been wearing it clipped to his belt.

  “You can go on home now,” Joe said into the radio. “I’ve got things covered here.”

  “Good enough. See you tomorrow,” Brown replied over a sharp crackle of static.

  Then Joe pressed a button on the radio and it went silent. As he tucked it away out of sight, Nicky slowed the car at the stop sign at the end of the street and then turned right, toward home.

  “So, who told you about a lock of Karen Wise’s hair being found in Marsha Browning’s house?” Joe asked, his voice deceptively casual. “That was something I was kind of hoping to keep secret.”

  Nicky sent a sidelong look his way. “You watched the show.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He blew smoke out the window. “So, who told you?”

  “As a reporter, I don’t reveal my sources.”

  “You had to get that information from a cop, and it wasn’t from me.”

  “Just so you know, there are no secrets on this island. Everybody pretty much knows everything.”

  “The thing is, your show is broadcast to an awful lot of people who don’t live on this island. Do you realize how much harm you did to the investigation by putting all that stuff out there? Now the perp knows exactly what we know.”

  “If I hadn’t put it out there, someone else would have. The interest in this is big, and I’m guessing it’s only going to get bigger. You saw that photographer back there. Anyway, I did some good, too. Know where I was just now?”

  “Where?”

  “Elaine Ferrell’s house. She’s my mother’s hairdresser. She watched the program, then called my mother to tell her she had a tip for me.”

  “And that was?”

  “She saw a man closing Marsha Browning’s curtains the night of the murder,” Nicky said triumphantly.

  A beat passed. Nicky could feel Joe looking at her. The cigarette came out of his mouth.

  “You’re telling me she came to you with that instead of the police?”

  Nicky gave a delicate shrug and tried to keep
the smile off her face. “Hey, she knows my mother.”

  The cigarette went back in Joe’s mouth. The tip glowed red. “She get a good look at him?”

  “Yep.”

  “You want to give me a description?”

  “Caucasian, blond or fair hair, slender build, white dress shirt, looked fairly young.”

  “Excuse me a minute.” Joe sounded like he had indigestion. His cigarette disappeared, presumably flicked out the window. Nicky said nothing while he fished out his cell phone and placed a call. When someone at the other end picked up, Joe said, “You interviewed an Elaine Ferrell yet? Lives across the street, a couple of doors down from Marsha Browning?”

  There was a pause, as though whoever was on the other end was checking a list of names.

  “Not yet,” came the reply. It was faint, but Nicky could hear it. “We were planning to get to that side of the street tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, well, I just got word she saw a man closing Marsha Browning’s curtains the night of the murder. Get somebody over there to get her statement.” Joe’s voice was tight.

  “Will do. Uh, it’s almost ten-thirty. Should we wait until tomorrow?”

  “Do it now,” Joe said, and disconnected. Dropping the phone back into his pocket, he cut his eyes toward Nicky. “You learn anything else?”

  “Just gossip. If any of it turns out to be pertinent, I’ll let you know.”

  “You do that.”

  “I told you, we should work together.”

  He made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a laugh. “And have everything we turn up wind up on TV? I don’t think so. You know, keeping the fact that Karen Wise went outside because of static on her phone a secret could have been a big help to us in zeroing in on—what was it you called him?—the Lazarus Killer? Good name, that. Catchy. Bet it wows your audience. Hey, maybe you’ll get an Emmy. But see, up until the point where you told the whole country, not many people knew why Karen went outside: a few cops, you and your family, and—maybe—the killer.”

  Nicky shot him a glance. He had passed the snit stage a while back. Now he was sounding downright mad.

  “This is news, Joe. You’re not going to be able to keep it off TV. Or out of the papers. Your best bet is to use the publicity to generate leads. Take Mrs. Ferrell, for example. She wouldn’t have contacted me if she hadn’t seen Twenty-four Hours Investigates tonight.”

  “We would have gotten to her tomorrow.”

  “Yes, but you have to ask yourself, how many Mrs. Ferrells are there out there you won’t get to?”

  “Sooner or later, we’ll get to everybody we need to get to.”

  “I think the operative word there may be later.” Nicky glanced at him. “Besides, there’s a lot of other information I can get that you can’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “If my mother is able to contact Karen, or Marsha Browning—”

  “Jesus Christ,” Joe said. “No. I’ve had it up to here with the psychic stuff.” He must have caught Nicky’s sideways glare, because seconds later he added, “All right, fine. If your mother manages to make contact with Karen or Marsha, or anyone up there in Woo-Woo Land who knows Karen or Marsha, and if they feel like talking to us folks down here on Planet Earth and telling us something interesting like, I don’t know, who killed them, I’d be happy to be let in on the secret. But so far, that doesn’t seem to be happening, does it?”

  Nicky’s hands tightened on the wheel. “You know what, you need an attitude adjustment.”

  “What I need is for you to stay the hell off TV. I got two women dead and a killer who has promised to kill three. From the way the timetable is shaping up, he’ll be trying again soon. He’s contacting you, he’s following you, we can probably assume he’s getting all psyched up from the publicity you’re giving him. You know how you’re calling him the Lazarus Killer? If he’s a classic serial killer, he’s loving it. He’s feeding off it. It’s making him bolder. And I’m afraid what the upshot of it is, he’s going to be coming after you. To him right now, you’ve got to be looking like the ultimate rush. You might as well be jumping up and down and yelling ‘Come get me.’ ”

  The thought was terrifying, but it wasn’t anything Nicky hadn’t already figured out for herself. “So we need to catch him first.”

  “Honey, there’s no ‘we’ in this. The police department is investigating. What you’re doing is providing entertainment for the bloodthirsty masses.”

  “Fine.” They had reached Twybee Cottage by this time, and Nicky turned up the driveway a little faster than she normally would have. Pea gravel flew out from under the tires, peppering the sides of the Maxima. Lights were on in the upstairs windows, spilling golden rectangles of light over the roof of the garage. As Nicky pulled into the parking area, she saw that the lights were on downstairs, too. “You conduct your investigation, I’ll conduct mine.”

  She parked beside Livvy’s Jaguar, turned off the car, and got out. Joe got out, too. Stalking toward the house, she was aware of him right behind her. At the bottom of the steps, she turned to glare at him.

  “All right, I’m home, I’m safe, and you can go now.”

  He smiled at her. It was a slow, mocking smile that as far as she was concerned put him firmly back in nasty-cop territory.

  “You know, I would, but since all my men are working flat out and I can’t spare anybody to sit out in front of your house all night, I’m going to be spending the night on your couch. I’ve already worked it out with your mom. See, she doesn’t want you getting turned into sushi any more than I do.”

  Nicky stared at him, aghast. Then, knowing that that sounded exactly like something her mother would agree to, she turned around again and stomped up the steps. She could feel Joe right behind her every step of the way.

  JOE OPENED HIS EYES to the smell of coffee. He was groggy, disoriented, and for a moment had trouble remembering where he was. An uncomprehending glance around revealed dark paneled walls enlivened by paintings of Civil War battle scenes, closed gold curtains, a desk, and a pair of big leather chairs on either side of a fireplace. He was lying on a couch opposite them, with a sheet tucked up around his armpits and a pillow bunched beneath his head. Realization struck with a flash: The pillow and sheets were courtesy of Leonora, and he was stretched out on the couch in the study at Twybee Cottage. A glance at his watch told him that it was nearing seven a.m. Until shortly after four, he’d been awake, going over the details of the murders in his mind, cross-checking the files that he’d had Dave—who he’d left in possession of his house—drop off for him. At seven, Bill Milton was supposed to arrive at Twybee Cottage. His alibi had been checked and found good, too, and he had drawn Nicky duty for the day.

  Joe, meanwhile, meant to go home, grab a shower and change clothes, and head over to the Georgetown County morgue. Marsha Browning’s autopsy was scheduled for nine a.m.

  He’d slept in his jeans. Pulling on his shirt and socks and shoes, strapping on ankle and shoulder holsters, he secured his Chief and his Glock and then topped the whole thing off with his jacket so nary a trace of a weapon could be seen. Then he headed for the kitchen.

  The back door was open to let the early-morning breeze waft in through the screen, and the paddle fan was doing lazy rotations overhead. And Nicky was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to her mother.

  Joe checked on the threshold.

  “Good morning, Joe. Want coffee?” Leonora greeted him with a thin smile. She was wearing a zip-up robe in pale green, her hair was slightly squashed on one side, and her face was pale and devoid of makeup. Still, except for the difference in age and weight, she looked enough like Nicky that Joe realized that he could have picked her out anywhere as Nicky’s mother.

  Nicky, on the other hand, was fully dressed. Her bright hair gleamed in the early-morning light that poured in through the windows, and she was wearing makeup and a sunny yellow blouse. What she wasn’t wearing was a smile. In fact, she looked him over with fairl
y obvious dislike.

  “Thanks, yeah, I’d like some,” Joe said.

  “Pot’s on the counter. Help yourself.” Nicky’s first words to him of the morning were uttered in a clipped voice that told him they were still on the outs. Well, fair enough. He headed toward the counter where the coffeemaker waited.

  “Nicky.” Leonora started to rise, her tone making her daughter’s name a reproof. Joe had been around the South for long enough to know that a polite hostess never just told a guest to help himself, especially not in a snippy tone.

  “I got it,” Joe said, and since he was already at the counter, Leonora sank back in her seat, although not without a censorious glance at Nicky.

  “I’ve been trying to convince my pigheaded daughter that she needs to get away from here,” Leonora said as Joe filled an earthenware mug with coffee, returned the coffeepot to its spot, then took a sip of the strong, hot brew. Great coffee, he thought appreciatively—and, more important, he needed the caffeine. Badly. “Maybe you can add your thoughts to mine.”

  “He already did, mother.”

  Joe turned around, mug in hand, and met Nicky’s eyes. “For all the good it did, right? But I’ll say it again, just for the record: I think you ought to take a vacation somewhere until this guy is caught.”

  “Oh, me, too,” Leonora seconded eagerly.

  Nicky gave them both an impatient look.

  “No,” she said. “I know you both think I’m in danger, and I may be. But if this guy wants to kill me, there’s no guarantee he won’t turn up wherever I go, where I won’t be expecting him, so I won’t be on guard.At least here I’ve got twenty-four-hour police protection. And I can help catch him, which is the only way I’ll ever be truly safe.”

  “But Nicky . . .” her mother said in a piteous tone.

  “I’ll be all right, Mama.” Nicky stood up, dropped a quick kiss on her mother’s cheek, and headed for the door. As she reached it, she looked back over her shoulder at Joe. “I wrote out a list of everyone I know who had my new phone number, by the way. Check your e-mail. It’s there.”