“I’ve got to talk to some people for a few minutes. Stay here at my desk and I’ll let you know when your parents arrive.”
“Are you going to encourage them to take me home?”
“No. I’m going to provide them with the information they will need to make a decision.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Danni smiled again. She liked this young girl. Stacey had a lot of spunk and tremendous instincts. Danni was certain, however, that Stacey’s parents would take her home. Every parent of a female student at the university was considering taking his or her daughter out of school. After what had happened to this young woman, it was a no-brainer.
They would never be able to live with themselves if they didn’t do it.
Chapter Three
You handled her very well,” FBI Agent Allan Peterson said to Danni when she entered the observation room where some of the agents and detectives were still huddled. Peterson was Danni’s partner on the task force formed to find and capture the killer.
“I wasn’t handling anybody,” Danni snapped. The words were out before she could catch them.
“Whoa! Excuse me,” Peterson replied. Danni realized immediately that her response was uncalled for. Peterson was trying to give her a compliment. The stress was getting to her.
“Sorry. Can we get down to business now?”
“We already have,” Peterson said. “We’re running down the Volkswagen and trying to decide what we’re going to do with the sketch besides giving it to every police officer within a hundred-mile radius.”
“Is somebody actually thinking of sitting on it?”
“Maybe. If he knows we have a good description of him, he might run.”
“And young college students may no longer be killed.”
“Be killed here, you mean. If he’s got the urge to kill, he’s going to continue no matter where he is.”
“That’s not necessarily true. Some serial killers have been known to stop for no apparent reason. If we can interrupt his pattern, he may stop.”
“Danni, we’re not in the hoping business. We’re in the catching business. And if we decide that distributing this sketch is going to cause our killer to run, we’re going to keep it on the down low.”
Danni knew he was right although she hated to admit it.
“And who’s making that decision?”
“The higher-ups,” Peterson replied. “They’re meeting as we speak. Where’s the girl?”
“Sitting at my desk waiting for her parents to arrive. I think they’re going to take her home.”
“Good decision. This guy knows she’s out there. He’s got to take another pass at her if she stays in school. She’s the only one who can identify him.”
Chapter Four
Okay, let’s take this new information and try to develop some leads from it. We’ll meet back here at eight tomorrow morning,” Captain Jeffries said as he dismissed the task force on Tuesday morning. Jeffries was the head of the homicide division at the Apache County Sheriff’s Office, and Danni had known him for over ten years. His appointment as head of the task force was a little controversial since the FBI normally liked to run its own show.
The sketch had been distributed to every police officer in the Oakville Police Department, the Apache County Sheriff’s Office, all FBI agents on the case, and all other law enforcement agencies within a 150-mile radius. That geographical limitation would expand, as would the number and type of people who would receive the information. The decision had been made not to release it to the general public at this time.
The task force had set up a hotline after the third murder and encouraged people to call into it with any information they thought might help. There were two operators assigned and trained to take the calls, which were recorded. They had a series of questions to ask. Two secretaries typed up the recorded questions and answers, which were then divvied up among the task force teams. Every morning after the briefing, Danni and Peterson would go through their allotted interviews and make callbacks if they felt the need to follow up. It was tedious work and, so far, fruitless.
The murders had taken place throughout Oakville over a four-month period of time, and there was no discernible geographical pattern—or any other pattern, for that matter. Some had occurred during the day, some at night. Victims one and four had been killed at separate student-housing facilities on Arthur Road south of the campus. Victim one had been strangled while victim four had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest and abdomen. Victim two was living in a similar complex off Thirty-ninth Street, northwest of the campus. She had been stabbed and eventually choked to death with her own pantyhose. Victims three and five lived in houses with other students: three, a few miles east of town, and five, northeast of the campus. They had both had their throats cut, victim three almost to the point of being beheaded. Two of the victims were blondes; three were brunettes.
Stacey Kincaid was the first coed the killer had attempted to make contact with on campus. He was getting bolder.
Murder number three was the one that hit Danni the hardest because of the sheer brutality. The task force was formed after that murder. Three was the magic number for the FBI to label someone a serial killer. Before that it was just murder and that was a local issue. Although Allan Peterson was on the task force, he had not been assigned as Danni’s partner until recently. He was a tall, handsome blond, not bad to look at, but they were still feeling each other out as partners.
“Anything on the Volkswagen?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s registered to a female student,” Peterson replied. “She parked it at the spot where the victim was attacked but didn’t lock the doors. Said she had no reason to. Nobody would steal a broken-down old Bug. And get this: It had been there for three or four days—she couldn’t remember exactly.”
“What are these kids thinking?” Danni said. “Leave your car in the same spot unlocked for days and expect nothing to happen. I don’t get it.”
“She probably figured nobody would want it—at least, not to stage a murder in. I’ll bet if he knocked her out he was going to hot-wire it and take her somewhere to do the killing. Those old Bugs are easy to steal.”
“You’re probably right,” Danni replied. “So he had to set that whole scenario up. He knew where the car was. He knew the door was open. He put his weapons in there. Then he got some books, put on a fake cast, and waited for Stacey to walk out the front door of Fogarty Hall. He even pretended to open the car door as she watched. Now that’s what I call calculating.”
“Like he was writer, director, and star of his own play,” Peterson observed. “He’s an organized killer all right. No doubt about it.”
Danni knew exactly what Allan was talking about. There were three types of serial killers: organized, disorganized, and mixed. Organized killers were usually very bright and plotted their murders, sometimes very intricately. They were usually male and, in this case, considering the victims, the killer was almost definitely a man. Murders like this didn’t happen in small-town America every day, but they did happen on college campuses from time to time.
“Did you read that information we received last Friday on serial murders that have occurred in the last ten years?” she asked.
“I’ve seen it before.”
“So you know there was someone killing coeds on the campus of the University of Utah two years ago?”
“And two years before that at Florida State, and before that the University of Texas,” Allan replied.
“Any discernible patterns?” she asked.
“They were all organized killers. The killings in Utah and at Florida State, like here, had no pattern or ritual to the murders themselves. And the killer was never caught. He apparently just moved on.”
“Any people we know of who were in Utah and are now here?”
“There was a first-year law student who did undergraduate work at Utah. Somebody already talked to him though.”
“L
aw student? That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s intelligent, but it could.”
Peterson had a law degree and Danni knew it.
“Simply because somebody is a law student and goes to a different graduate school for their studies is not grounds to put them under suspicion,” he said.
Danni had made the remark as a joke, but they obviously did not have the same sense of humor. She let it go.
“Maybe not, but he’s here, so let’s go talk to him again and see for ourselves if he fits our profile in any way.”
“It can’t hurt,” Peterson replied.
Chapter Five
The young man’s name was Thomas Felton and he lived in an apartment on Arthur Road. Luckily, he happened to be home when they came to visit.
“I talked to a police officer the other day,” he told them after inviting them in. “What’s this about?”
Although he was pushing back a little, he didn’t appear angry or defensive. Anybody would ask that question, Danni told herself as she studied the details of his face and compared them to the sketch that Stacey had helped them come up with. He was slim, his nose was straight, and his lips were thin, but that’s where the resemblance ended. His eyes were green, his brown hair was short and straight, and he was clean-shaven. It could have been a disguise, Danni surmised, not ready to let him go on appearances alone. After all, the perp was wearing a fake cast.
“What do you think it’s about?” Peterson asked.
“I don’t know. The other two guys who were here asked me questions about Utah, so I assume it has something to do with Utah and here.”
“Anything else?” Danni persisted.
“Well, the only thing I can think of was that there were some female students murdered in Utah when I was there, and the same thing is now happening here.”
He said it nonchalantly, not a bit ill at ease. A guilty person would probably not make such an honest and open analysis to the police, she thought, although it would have had to be a calculation in anybody’s mind. Maybe he’s smart enough to know that. Maybe he’s a little too relaxed.
“Well?” Peterson asked.
“Well what? It’s true I was in both places. But I went to undergraduate school in Utah and law school here. That’s not unusual, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Peterson replied. “Why did you go all the way across the country?”
“Money, mostly. I came here a year ago and established residency. In-state tuition is a lot cheaper here. Besides, the law school is good and I like the climate.”
“Ever been arrested?” Allan asked. It was a good question to just throw out there to test Felton’s reaction. He didn’t react at all.
“I was arrested once when I was fifteen. They took me down to the station, booked me and everything, and then they found out it was a mistake and let me go.”
“Where was this?”
“Idaho, where I grew up.”
“That it?”
“That’s it.”
Danni made a mental note to check on the arrest record and to compare the in-state tuition rates as she scanned the apartment. It was very clean and orderly and tastefully furnished in autumn tones—browns, oranges, reds—that gave the place a warm feeling. Several framed Monet prints hung on the wall—not a typical student’s apartment or even a typical Florida home.
“You live here alone?” she asked, her eyes noting that there appeared to be two bedrooms. One door was open, the other shut.
“Yeah,” he said, offering no explanation for the second bedroom.
“You wear contacts?” Peterson asked. Danni cringed at the question. Why did he ask that? She forgot about it, however, when her eyes spied a knife on display on a bookshelf in the living room. It was ornate with a curved black pearl handle and a long thin blade, perhaps from the Middle East. Danni picked it up and studied it.
“It’s a nice piece, isn’t it?” Felton asked as he walked toward her.
“It’s unique. Are you a collector?”
“No. That was my father’s. He died when I was young. It’s one of the few things of his that I have.”
As he started to walk away, Danni reached into the small purse she carried with her. A cigarette case fell from the purse right at Felton’s feet. He politely picked it up and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
They left minutes later. Danni had wanted to look around the entire apartment but Felton denied the request. He did it pleasantly and politely just as the two detectives probably would have done themselves if it had been their home. As a law student, he probably knew they had no basis for a search warrant.
“I didn’t know you carried a purse,” Peterson said as they walked toward the car.
“I don’t,” she replied.
Peterson was confused. “And I didn’t know you smoked either.”
“I don’t.”
Peterson was so confused now, his face was visibly contorted. Danni relieved his stress by reaching into the purse and pulling out a plastic baggie. The cigarette case was inside the baggie.
“Now we have a fresh set of prints in case we ever need them,” she said.
Peterson gave her an understanding smile even though he didn’t approve of her tactics.
“What was the contacts question about?” she asked when they were in the car and driving away.
“Well, the girl said the killer had blue eyes. His were green. The only possible explanation for the change in color would be contacts. Why?”
“Just what you said,” Danni replied. “The only possible explanation for a change in eye color would be contacts. You may have tipped him to the fact that we have a description.”
“Come on, will you, Danni? Give me a break. Whoever our killer is knows that his most recent victim got away. Therefore, he knows, or at least he has to assume, that we have some type of a description. Asking Mr. Felton, who, by the way, I believe had nothing to do with these murders, if he wore contacts does not give away anything.”
“You’re probably right about that, but I’m not ready to abandon this guy as a suspect. Did you see that knife?”
“Yeah. It’s nothing like the knife we’re looking for.”
“Maybe he’s a knife collector. Maybe he’s got other knives in that second bedroom.”
“That’s a long shot.”
“I know, but if we’re ever going to catch this guy, we’re going to have to start making some educated guesses and going with hunches because he’s not leaving any evidence behind.”
“Hunches get you nowhere,” Peterson said. “Somewhere along the way he’ll make a mistake. You watch.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Chapter Six
Stacey wasn’t happy with her parents’ decision to take her out of school and back to St. Petersburg with them, but she understood. Before she left, she’d had a long conversation with Detective Jansen.
“Your parents are making the right decision,” Danni had told her. “I have a daughter who is only ten years old, but I don’t want her living here. If I could send her away, I would. Your parents have no choice after what happened to you.
“I know it seems like the end of the world, but we’ll catch this guy soon and you’ll be back here before you know it.”
Stacey had just nodded, but as the days went by, she’d thought about what Danni had said. It made sense so she decided to accept her parents’ decision and not be angry with them. Besides, she still had a lot of friends back home who were going to the junior college, and there were plenty of opportunities for fun.
Saturday night always brought a party and tonight’s party was on Snell Isle at one of the estates on the water. Stacey was standing on the seawall talking to Jason, whose last name she couldn’t remember. Jason had been a few years ahead of her in high school, and she’d had a crush on him for the longest time. Now he was finally paying attention to her, and she wasn’t all that interested.
She had walked out to the seawall to be alone for a few minutes. The grounds were so large she could hardly hear the revelers inside. Jason had followed her a short time later. It was a little awkward since they really didn’t know each other that well. Jason thought the conversation might go a little more smoothly if alcohol was involved.
“Can I get you a beer?” he asked.
“Sure. Make it a light beer.”
He’d been gone only a few seconds when someone else showed up—a tall thin guy with short black hair. Stacey didn’t recognize him from school or the neighborhood.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” the new guy said.
“Yeah,” Stacey replied. “This is perfect Florida weather.”
“Especially out here away from the crowd and the lights. You can really see the stars out here.”
“Too bad there’s no moon,” Stacey added.
“Having no moon makes it perfect,” he said as he inched closer to her. “I just wish I had the luxury of taking my time with you.”
Stacey was puzzled by the remark. As she turned toward him, she started to understand too late. He was next to her now, plunging the knife deep into her belly while capping her mouth with his left hand. The second stab penetrated her chest right into her heart.
“Not so tough tonight, are you, honey?” he said as her body sagged to the ground.
As he walked toward the seawall with two bottles of beer in his hand, Jason wondered where the hell Stacey had gone. Had she ditched him already? He didn’t identify the large dark object lying in the grass until he was upon it. He saw the bulging eyes first, then the mouth agape, and the blood…He dropped the beers and opened his own mouth to scream, but no sound came out. His mind told him to turn and run, but his legs wouldn’t move.
The Lawyer's Lawyer Page 2