Dead End

by Mariah Stewart

  “Sheridan hates the FBI, you know.”

  “I know.” She grinned. “But it’s going to make him look really good if he can hold a press conference and assure the county movers and shakers that he’s brought in the best the feds have to offer to take this killer down.” She pounded her fist lightly on the table for emphasis.

  Evan laughed at her attempt to mimic the D.A.

  “That’s all good for tomorrow’s agenda, but no more shoptalk. Tonight is ours, and I want to enjoy every minute of it with my girl.”

  “Well then, let’s eat up and head home early.” She smiled and toyed with her fork. “The night, as they say, is still very, very young…”

  11

  “Dr. McCall, I’m surprised to hear from you so soon.” Art Sheridan had grabbed the phone as soon as he heard who was on the other end of the line. “Should I be encouraged?”

  “A little optimism is always good,” Annie replied. “And in this case, warranted. I have the lab results from the Bureau. I’d like to go over them with you. When would be a good time?”

  “How soon can you get here?” He sat up straight in his chair, hopefully anticipating a break in this god-bloody-awful case. Praying for one.

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  “You’re still in town, then. Terrific. I’ll be waiting. Okay if we have Chief Malone and Detectives Crosby and Weller in on this?”

  “Certainly, whomever you feel you need. You might want to include the three agents the Bureau sent up as well,” she replied. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The D.A. buzzed for his secretary without bothering to hang up the phone. “Lois, I need Malone, Crosby, and Weller here in fifteen minutes. No excuses.”

  He stood and went to the window to look out. Those damned news vans were everywhere. Outside the courthouse, in the parking lots, down the side streets. He knew a press conference was overdue, but he had nothing, not one bone to toss to the reporters who badgered his every move once he stepped out of the safety of his office. They followed him home, had even followed him to his son’s softball game last night. He knew he owed them, but wasn’t about to speak until he had something real, something legit. He’d seen too many D.A.s make asses out of themselves on television by calling conferences when they had nothing to talk about but yesterday’s news. He wasn’t going that route. Never let it be said that Arthur M. Sheridan wasn’t smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others. When he called the press in, he’d have something solid. End of story.

  Still, he was hoping that day was close at hand. He was up for reelection in November and was looking forward to blowing out the competition, a man he’d gone to law school with and had never liked.

  “Sanctimonious ass,” he muttered to himself. The mere thought of his rival always brought out the worst in him. Now, he would be just the type to call a premature press conference just to get his pretty face on national TV one more time. Well, Sheridan wasn’t going to play that game.

  The D.A. just hoped that whatever the FBI had was something he could use, and use now. The pressure was mounting daily. Even his wife had gotten into the act, since their children attended the same private school as one of the victims.

  “Honestly, Art, I’m afraid to show my face at Northgate. Everyone wants to know what you’re going to do about this monster who killed the Fuhrmann girl. Everyone’s scared.”

  “Everyone should be scared,” he’d told her at the time. Christ, like we’re dragging our feet here…

  “What’s going on?” Chris Malone stuck his head through the doorway.

  “Come on in. Where are Crosby and Weller?”

  “Crosby’s on his way in, Weller is right behind me.”

  As if on cue, Jacqueline Weller tapped on the door, then entered without waiting for an invitation. She was tall, plain, humorless, and a decent detective with lofty ambitions. She’d been at the job three years longer than Evan and had earned the respect of everyone in the county. Those who knew such things whispered her name as a possible successor for Sheridan once he moved up the ladder.

  “Jackie, take a seat.” Sheridan motioned to the five matched chairs that had been arranged in a semicircle around his desk. “We’re going to be joined by Detective Crosby and the profiler the FBI sent us. Apparently, she’s received the results from their lab and is eager to share with us. I’m hoping she’s going to be bringing us good news.”

  “I suspect she’d merely fax it if she didn’t have something solid,” Malone observed. “She doesn’t seem to be the type to waste her time.”

  “May I come in?” Annie rapped on the door much as Jackie Weller had done.

  “Dr. McCall.” Sheridan walked from behind his desk to greet her. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to have you back here so soon. I’m hoping you have something good to share with us.”

  “I think I do.”

  “Have you met Detective Weller?” The D.A. smiled. Next to the petite profiler, who was always meticulously dressed, Weller looked like an unkempt Amazon. Sheridan wondered if Crosby knew just how lucky he was.

  “I have. How are you, Detective?” Annie offered her hand.

  “I’m hoping I’ll be better once we hear what you have to say.”

  “Were you able to get in touch with Agents Cahill, Hoffman, and Muller?” Annie asked pointedly.

  “Ah, no. I thought, since time was so short, I’d let Detective Weller here pass along whatever information you might have.”

  “I see,” Annie said.

  “Ah, here’s Detective Crosby.” Malone tilted his head in the direction of the door, where Evan stood.

  “Come on in, Evan. We’re just about ready to start. Take a seat there”-Sheridan pointed to the remaining unoccupied chair-“and let’s see what Dr. McCall has for us.”

  “I think you might want to copy these so everyone has their own.” Annie held up the folder containing the lab reports.

  Malone left his seat and reached for the folder.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he told her, and left the room.

  “Just so you know”-Sheridan addressed Annie-“I’m treating these murders as two separate cases. We’re going to work on the assumption that we do in fact have two different killers. Detective Weller is going to be in charge of the Schoolgirl Slayer killings; Detective Crosby will lead the investigation of the unidentified victims. As far as the public is concerned, however, this is one case. Maybe if this second killer thinks he has us fooled, he’ll get careless.”

  He turned to Evan.

  “Just remember this was your idea, when Jackie solves the big case and gets all the publicity.” Sheridan’s idea of a joke.

  “Jackie brings that guy in, she is more than welcome to the publicity.” Evan turned to her as Malone came back into the room. “Hey, this case could make you a star.”

  “Right,” she said without smiling. “And the book deal could make me rich.”

  Before anyone could comment on that, Malone started passing out the lab reports.

  “Dr. McCall, if you’d like to start…,” Sheridan said.

  “Just a few things of note,” Annie told them. “First of all, we have recovered several areas of trace evidence. On all your victims, Detective Weller, the lab found traces of maroon carpet fibers. The fibers were matched to carpeting used by several auto manufacturers-specifically Ford and GMC-between 1992 and 1999.”

  “Any particular models?” Weller asked.

  “No. They used this pretty much across the board. But we’re checking to determine if this color carpet was used exclusively with any exterior colors. We’ll narrow it down as much as we can. In the meantime, there is more…” Annie turned to the next page in the pack. “On these same victims, the lab found snippets of grass.”

  “Grass?”

  “Grass, Chief Malone. Green grass. Which fits quite nicely with our theory that the killer is a laborer. I understand you’ve narrowed the field down a bit, Detective Crosby?”

  “We’ve dete
rmined that three businesses were common to all of the victims. Green Briar Country Club, Sweet Summer Pools, and Davison’s Lawn and Garden. All employ workers who would come into contact with mowed grass.”

  “Wait a minute, I thought this was my case,” Detective Weller said crisply, the only animation she’d shown since she arrived.

  “It is, as of this morning,” Evan responded pleasantly. “I went through all of the businesses and services the victims might have had in common last night. I found that some were used by two or three of the victims’ families, but only these three were utilized by all of them.”

  Jackie Weller turned to Annie.

  “Anything else that pertains to my case?”

  “Actually, I think the rest of the report is pretty much self-explanatory. Most of the remaining trace I’d like to address right now concerns the three unidentified girls.”

  “If I might be excused, then?” Weller looked at the D.A. “I’ll need to talk to the agents who came up yesterday, fill them in.”

  “Of course. Go right ahead.” Sheridan nodded. “Just keep in touch. We’ll want to know the minute you think you have a viable suspect.”

  “Will do.” Detective Weller grabbed her bag, said her good-byes, and left the room in a blur.

  “Now, what else do you have for us?” The D.A. turned his attention back to Annie. “You said you have information pertaining to the other girls?”

  “Hair from three different men and a dog.”

  “Three men and a dog?” Malone leaned forward slightly to look at her, his brows raised.

  “Right. Pubic hair from two of the men, head hair only from three. Dog hair from an as-yet-unidentified breed. The lab is still working on that.”

  “So three guys are involved; only two had sex with the girls?”

  “Looks that way. The hair we found on all three victims is the same. Same three men. Same two pubic hairs.”

  “So what’s this other guy doing, watching?” Malone frowned. “With his dog?”

  “Don’t know. But the third man has been close enough to the vics to leave a little bit of himself with each of them,” Annie told him.

  “Any other trace? Carpet fibers like the others?” Sheridan wanted to know.

  “No carpet, no fabric fibers of any kind. I’m wondering if he wrapped them in plastic before he transported them from where they were killed to the place where they were left.”

  “Maybe that’s the third guy. Maybe he just moved the bodies.”

  “You said the lab was still working on the dog hair. Can they even determine the breed of dog?” Malone asked.

  “It will take a little longer to get a match, but yes, they can. Of course, it may well be that the girls came in contact with the dog someplace else. No one’s saying a dog was on the scene. The dog could have belonged to the girls. The evidence just tells us that at some point, all three of these girls came in contact with the same dog, or with something that had dog hair on it.”

  “Three guys-one of whom may or may not have a dog-two of whom rape and murder these three girls, while another guy only handles the bodies, maybe only to move them?” Malone rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyone else think that’s odd?”

  “There is one other thing,” Annie told him. “All three of these girls had dirt under their fingernails and in the tiny creases of their feet. Dirt with the same composition. We’re checking to see if the dirt samples check out with the areas where the bodies were found, but I’m betting they don’t. We already know that the girls were killed elsewhere and dumped where they were found. There’s no evidence of struggle, nowhere near the amount of blood there’d have been if their throats had been cut right there at the drop site. So they must have been taken someplace, someplace where they were raped and murdered, then moved to these other areas where they were found.”

  “Someplace where they would be easily found. Posed, like the other girls, their shoes missing.” Sheridan noted.

  “That little detail is key,” Evan reminded them. “Since no one knows about the shoes…”

  The statement hung there between them.

  “Okay, let’s accept the fact that someone near to the investigation is involved in this.” Sheridan finally broke the silence. “From here on out, no information about these unidentified girls gets released to anyone, unless I personally approve it. Let’s keep a lid on all of it, from the fact that it’s a different killer to the very real possibility that someone in or close to law enforcement could be the killer.”

  “Honest to God, Art, don’t you think that’s a stretch? I can’t believe any one of these cops-” Malone began, and the D.A. stopped him.

  “I can’t believe it, either, Chris, but the fact remains that someone is leaking information, and we’re going to have to deal with that.” He turned to Evan. “Give this the best you’ve got, Detective. Find whoever killed these girls. And if it’s a cop, God help him. I personally will nail him to the wall.”

  “I’ll hold him down.” Malone nodded.

  “Well then, since we’re all in agreement on that point, let me just add that I’m still waiting to hear about the tattoos,” Annie told them. “I think if we can match them to other similar tattoos, we’ll be on our way to identifying the girls.”

  “How much longer do you think before you have something?” Sheridan asked.

  “I can’t estimate how long it will take,” Annie said. “I’ll check in later today with my office to see if anything has turned up.”

  “One thing.” Evan spoke up. “About the tattoos. I’d like to keep that from the press, too. Actually, I’d like to keep that from everyone who is not in this room.”

  “I agree.” Sheridan nodded without hesitation. “There are four of us here; how many people working on this at the FBI?”

  “One,” Annie replied.

  “And the M.E. knows about them,” Evan reminded him.

  “That makes six people,” Sheridan said. “If this gets out, it will only be because one of us six let it out.”

  “You think it’s that important to keep it under wraps?” Malone asked.

  “I think it could prove to be. I think the less we talk publicly about this second killer, the better off we’ll all be.” The D.A. stood, signaling the meeting had come to an end. “Let him think he’s fooled us.”

  “Anything else? Dr. McCall? Anything else to add?” he asked.

  “I think we covered it all today.” Annie stood also and gathered her notes from the end of the desk. “You have my card if you need to get in touch with me. My cell phone number is there. You can also get to me through one of the agents assigned to the other case. Agent Cahill can always find me.”

  “We’ll look forward to hearing whatever you find out about those tattoos.” Sheridan opened the door for her, and she stepped into the hall. “I assume you’ll give the information to Detective Crosby.”

  “As soon as I have something to give him.”

  Annie and Evan walked to the stairwell together, careful not to walk too closely to each other.

  Once they were outside the building, she asked, “Where are you headed now?”

  “I thought I’d take a ride out to visit the places where my three girls were left.”

  “May I go with you?”

  “Sure. May not be much to see, but sure.”

  “I can call Will from the car. I wanted to check in with him, just in case he’s got something to tell me.”

  “I want so badly to solve this one, Annie,” he told her as they walked down to Fourth Street, where he’d parked his car. “Jackie can have the big-profile case, she can have the publicity and all the glory. I’ll be more than happy if I can find out who these girls were and what happened to them.”

  “What about the book deal?” she teased.

  “She can even have the book deal.” He smiled. “Someone has to make it right for these kids. I’d like it to be me.”

  “And the possibility that a cop is involved has nothing to
do with your wanting this case all to yourself.”

  “It won’t be all to myself. I’ll have help if I ask for it. But yeah, if a cop’s involved, I want to bring him in.”

  They turned the corner on Fourth and crossed the street to Evan’s car, which he unlocked with the remote. He opened Annie’s door for her, pausing to nuzzle the side of her face.

  “You smell good,” he whispered.

  “Now, Detective,” she said sternly. “What would District Attorney Sheridan have to say about such a public display of affection?”

  “He wishes he were me, don’t kid yourself.” He kissed her neck.

  “Save it.” She smiled as she slid into the front passenger seat. “I’ll be here at least until tomorrow.”

  “Yippee.” He slammed the car door and walked around to the driver’s side. By the time he opened the door and got behind the wheel, she was holding the phone to her ear.

  “Hey, Will, it’s Annie. Got anything for me on those tattoos yet?”

  Evan started up the engine, but she put a hand on his arm, silently asking him to wait. He turned off the engine.

  “Can you send me all this via fax to… Evan, what’s the number of the new fax machine at your house?”

  He told her and she repeated the number for Will.

  She listened to Will for a few minutes longer, then said, “Would you repeat that?”

  She scribbled quickly on a piece of paper she found in her purse.

  “And you’re sure?” She hesitated, then said, “I wish I could remember why that sounds so familiar. I guess it’ll come to me. Give me a call if you find anything else. And thanks, Will. This is great. I owe you. Yeah, another one…”

  “He’s identified the tattoos?”

  “He found several other similar victims in Chicago. Three girls, all Hispanic. Cause of death was different from yours, though. These girls all died from gunshots to the head. All from the same gun.”

  “More executions.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, when he first said it. I’m wondering if these girls of yours would have been shot had there not been a serial killer in the same general geographic area. Making the kills look the same could have been simply a way to camouflage the hits.”