“Save,” Charley corrected. “He wants to save as many women as he can before he dies.”
Sam frowned as he surveyed the room, making notes. “You still plucking that one note?”
“Until something better comes along,” Charley told him.
She turned her attention to the woman who had called in the homicide. Laura Brigham’s housemate had come home from a date that had ended particularly badly. All she’d wanted to do was to grab a container of ice cream from the freezer and curl up in front of the television set. She’d almost walked right on top of Laura’s body. Her throat was raw from screaming.
Charley looked at the woman with compassion, remembering how she’d felt six years ago. As if everything was surreal, because she just couldn’t be seeing what she thought she was seeing.
“Is there anything missing?” Charley asked gently.
Rachel Fox looked as if she was going to break down again. Her eyes kept darting to the body on the floor and then back again. She wrung her hands helplessly. “I can’t—I don’t—”
Charley slipped an arm around the woman. Rachel flinched then relaxed, or attempted to.
“Think carefully,” Charley said to her, her voice as gentle as if she were speaking to a child. “Take your time. Can you think of anything? Anything at all? You never know what might help us find this guy.”
Rachel shook her head, and tears slipped down her cheeks. She stole another glance at the body on the floor, then quickly looked away. But then she forced herself to look again. She pointed toward her housemate. “Her cross,” she said hoarsely, wiping away fresh tears.
“You mean the one on her forehead?” Nick asked.
“No, no, the one she wore.” Hysteria mounted in the woman’s voice. “She had on a tiny cross. Never took it off, not even in the shower.” Rachel pressed her lips together. “She was very proud of it. I think her boyfriend gave it to her. Oh God—”
“You’re doing fine, Rachel,” Nick soothed. Charley stepped back, letting him take over. This wasn’t about one-upmanship. It was about getting the serial killer. And Nick seemed to have a calming effect on the woman. “Boyfriend?” he asked.
Rachel nodded numbly and her breathing began to grow erratic. “Yeah.”
“Do you have his name?” Nick asked.
But Rachel shook her head. “Laura is—was very secretive about it. I thought I knew who it was, but…” Her voice trailed off.
“Who did you think it was?” Charley asked in a coaxing tone.
Rachel’s eyes had grown large, as if the horror was finally sinking in. Her distress seemed to grow by the moment. “Her boss,” she said.
Red flags went up. Their killer was staying true to form. Charley exchanged looks with Nick. “This person you suspect,” she pressed, “would you happen to know if he is married?”
Rachel nodded her head. The next moment, Nick reached out to catch her as she fainted.
Charley had moved out of the way just in time. “Good hands,” she said to her partner.
Holding Rachel in his arms, Nick looked around for somewhere he could safely place the unconscious woman without contaminating the crime scene. The sofa looked like the safest bet and he crossed to it.
“Just knowing the signs.” He carefully placed Rachel on the sofa. “My sister looked like that just before she passed out. She was pregnant at the time,” he added before Charley could ask for details.
Charley waved the M.E. over. “This one’s alive.”
“It’s been so long, I’m not sure I know what to do with live ones,” Dr. Rose Morales cracked.
Charley and Nick got out of the medical examiner’s way. “Any more in your family?” Charley asked him, her curiosity stirred by his reference to a sister.
“A brother,” he replied absently as they moved back into what had turned out to be the main crime area. Raising his voice, he addressed the group of people methodically combing through the scene. “Anyone find a tiny cross?”
Several of the crew shook their heads. “Found a jewelry box in the bedroom,” Jack offered, walking into the living room. He held it open as he rummaged around the small wooden box. “Doesn’t look as if there’s a cross in here.” He held the box out to Charley in case he’d missed the item.
She looked quickly and shook her head. “It’s not in here.”
“If the victim was never without it she might have lost it in the struggle,” Nick ventured.
Charley scanned the room. The crime-scene investigators attempted to go through everything without contaminating the evidence. The living room looked to have been the setting of some sort of intimate party. Two empty champagne glasses stood on the coffee table. “What struggle?”
Bill nodded as he surveyed the area as well. “She’s got a point.”
“Maybe that’s his souvenir,” Nick said suddenly. “Every nutcase takes something so that he can relive the moment. So far, nothing’s stood out up until now. Maybe our Sunday Killer takes a piece of the victim’s jewelry.”
The moment her partner said that, something clicked inside of Charley’s head. In her mind’s eye, she could see her sister. When she’d walked in that awful night, Cris was lying on the floor as if she’d suddenly decided to take a nap. At first she’d thought that Cris was either playing a trick on her or had passed out. Until she realized that her sister wasn’t breathing. Not a hair of Cris’s head was out of place, she looked that natural.
But the cross their mother had given each of them the first day of elementary school, the cross Cris always wore because she was superstitious, wasn’t there. Charley’s grief over her loss was so overwhelming it hadn’t hit her until just now.
Some Special Agent, Charley mocked herself.
“Not just any piece, a specific piece.” Her voice had taken on an edge of excitement. The others turned to her. “A cross. The guy takes a cross. Maybe that’s even how he selects his victims. He doesn’t just kill someone having an affair with a married man, he kills them for defying God. Because they should have known better. He takes the cross they’re wearing and replaces it with one he carves into their skin, symbolically their soul.”
“Sounds like you’re on to something,” Sam agreed.
“Sam, Bill, Jack, go back through the files and see if you can find some mention of the victims missing a cross. If it’s not in the reports, maybe you can question their families, their friends,” Charley instructed.
“Where does that get us?” Bill wanted to know.
“Hopefully, a step closer to catching our serial killer.” Charley turned to several of the other team members. “You know the drill. Canvass the area. See if anyone saw or heard anything. Maybe someone was walking their dog at the right time to spot our killer. We’re due for a break.” And then she looked at Nick. “C’mon, you and I have a dentist to see.”
Nick followed her out of the house. She heard him laughing to himself. “This’ll be a first.”
She opened the driver’s side of her car, motioning for him to get in. “What do you mean?”
He glanced back at the car he’d driven over here. He was going to have to come back for it later, he thought. But maybe that would give him some time to poke around after everyone else was finished.
“I always hated going to see the dentist,” he told her, getting in. “This will be the first time a dentist is going to hate seeing me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHARLEY SHOOK her head. “He’s not the one.”
She was referring to Laura Brigham’s lover. The man on the other side of the one-way mirror. The moment they had walked into Dr. Dennis Washburn’s office, identifying themselves, he’d seemed incredibly nervous to them. So much so that they politely suggested he accompany them back to the Bureau’s field office.
It wasn’t that she thought the man was the Sunday Killer, but there was the outside chance the dentist had used the recurring scenario to his own advantage. To camouflage his getting rid of a mistress who had prove
d to be too much of a liability. A copycat killing. It wouldn’t have been the first time, Charley thought.
But after several hours in which she and Nick had tag-teamed each other, taking turns assaulting Washburn with question after question, she was fairly convinced that all the man was truly guilty of was bad choices.
“I don’t think he’s our guy, either,” Nick agreed. Standing beside her, he studied the man sitting in the next room. Washburn looked like a man on the verge of an anxiety attack. The only thing he was really afraid of was that his wife might find out about his affair. He seemed unconcerned over the death of his mistress. “Washburn’s a poor excuse for a human being, but I don’t think he killed Laura Brigham.” As he slanted a glance at Charley, his mouth quirked. “Still would have liked to have nailed him for principle’s sake.” Charley raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry and he added, “Never liked dentists.”
Charley shoved her hands into her pockets. Trying to deal with her frustration over yet another dead end.
“What makes you say Washburn’s a poor excuse for a human being?” She agreed with him a hundred percent, but she wanted to hear his reasons.
“Because he cheats on his wife,” Nick said simply. He had no burning desire to commit to anyone, but marriage meant something. It did not mean you got to tomcat around. He frowned at the blond-haired man. “He’ll probably pad his bills once he gets his hooks into the practice.”
Charley allowed her curiosity to take her a little further. “Think he would have married Laura Brigham then?”
Nick laughed shortly. “Not a chance. He would have moved on to another woman by then. The only one the bastard is loyal to is himself.”
Charley nodded. “You know, Special Agent Brannigan, you surprise me. I do believe you have some sterling qualities going for you.”
He looked at her, mentally taking just a momentary respite from their gruesome business. Damn, but his partner got better looking every day. Even with the onset of an overcast sky, Charley Dow was a beautiful woman.
The smile that graced his lips was an open invitation. “Maybe I could give you a further tour sometime.”
Charley heard herself saying, “Maybe,” knowing that she sounded as if she was carrying on a mild flirtation. Exercising her sexual muscles with nothing short of smooth nonchalance. Inside, however, was a whole different story. Inside she felt like a garage sale inside of a tornado. She was just grateful the man possessed neither X-ray vision nor the ability to read minds.
Because he’d boasted of being able to read body language, Charley made doubly sure that hers gave nothing away.
Getting back to her first priority, Charley turned to another member of the task force, who had been watching the door for them in order to keep the dentist from suddenly leaving.
“Cut the good doctor loose, Eli. And tell him not to go forth being fruitful and multiplying anymore.” She caught the odd look Nick gave her. “The Sunday Killer got two for the price of one this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just got the M.E.’s preliminary report. According to her, our latest victim was three weeks pregnant. I doubt she even knew.” The moment the word pregnant was out of her mouth, she remembered what he’d told her weeks ago. “Have any more dead rabbits turned up on your doorstep?”
“No,” he replied with a cold finality that closed the subject, if not for good, at least for now.
Nick didn’t add that there were irritating calls, hang-ups mostly now, that continued at a steady pace. Nor did he tell her that it was really starting to get under his skin.
He’d finally broken down and called the phone company to change his unlisted number. Twice. Each time, the caller had gotten it. He still had no idea how he’d managed that. Someone working for the government might have been able to track down the number changes, but Sean Dixon was not the kind of man to be hired by a government office. Not with a prison sentence in his background.
Of course, if he’d stolen someone’s identity, that changed everything. He could even be working for the phone company, which gave Dixon access to any new number. He’d debated just leaving the ringer turned off on his phone. But that was not an option since the Bureau might try to get in touch with him via the landline.
For the time being, because most of his hours were taken up by the serial killer investigation, he couldn’t look into tracking Dixon down. The guy was smart, Nick thought. Smarter than he would have believed Linda’s brother to be. Dixon was obviously paying for everything with cash, eliminating a paper trail. Finding him was going to be a bear.
SHUT OUT by her partner and shut down in her immediate investigation, Charley started to head back to her desk. The plan was to plow through everything for the hundredth time, searching for that elusive something, the one clue that she and the others had overlooked.
Charley had taken exactly two steps when her cell phone begin to ring. Or rather, play “Tara,” the theme song from Gone with the Wind.
She paused to dig the phone out of her pocket, then placed it against her ear. “Dow.”
“Charley, I’m standing in Valentine’s Pawnshop,” she heard Bill say. She felt her adrenaline accelerate. “I think we just got lucky. Some of the pieces of Rita Daly’s jewelry turned up. Including her cross.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m holding the insurance photos right next to them,” he confirmed.
Finally, something. “Hot damn. Give me the address, Bill.”
Beside her, Nick stood silently watching as she scribbled on her notepad.
“‘Hot damn?’” he echoed with an air of amusement and incredulity the second she terminated her call. “Who says ‘hot damn’ anymore?”
“I do,” she informed him tersely, slipping both the phone and her pad back into her pocket. “Get your running shoes on, Special Agent Brannigan. We’ve got ourselves a bona fide potential lead.”
He fell into step beside her as they headed for the elevators. “Like all the other so-called leads?”
She didn’t blame him for being skeptical. They were getting jaded and burned-out. It was hard keeping up momentum and enthusiasm when everything kept leading them back to the starting point.
“This time I think we’ve got a little more to work with. Some of the mayor’s niece’s jewelry has turned up at a pawnshop.” She’d saved the best for last. “Including the cross she usually wore.”
They got into the elevator. The gunmetal-gray car was empty. She glanced at her partner. Nick looked less than enthusiastic about the news.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“I heard.” Nick pressed for the ground floor and frowned. “Something doesn’t smell right,” he told her. “A serial killer keeps his trophies, that’s the point of them. He wants them around to help him relive his ‘greatest hits’ list. He wouldn’t go and try to pawn them.”
“Maybe our serial killer never read the manual.” She resented the man raining on her parade. This was the first decent lead they’d had to follow up since she couldn’t begin to remember when. “One step at a time, Brannigan. One step at a time will eventually get us there.”
“That all depends. If our destination’s Japan, the trip will take us ten years. Not to mention we’d need to learn how to walk on water.”
She grudgingly admitted that Nick had a point about the cross being a trophy. Maybe the man had accidentally included the necklace in the lot he’d brought to the pawnbroker. She didn’t know, but for now, this puzzle piece might give them a clearer picture.
“I’m guessing that in your high-school yearbook, they didn’t vote you as most optimistic, did they?”
Humor curved his mouth. “The word realist was bandied about.”
Realist had its place. But so did other things. “This job operates on hope, Special Agent Brannigan. Hope and a prayer.” The elevator doors opened on the ground floor. “And a damn good forensic unit,” she tagged on as she got out. “Let’s go.”
&nbs
p; Nick got off behind her, sidestepping two people who hurried onto the same elevator car. Charley was walking toward the rear of the building in what amounted to double time. For a little thing, she could really move. He lengthened his stride to catch up.
“Lead on, MacDuff.”
Heading for the parking lot where she’d left her vehicle this morning, Charley never broke stride. “That’s actually ‘Lay on, MacDuff.’ The rest of the line goes, ‘And damn’d be him that first cries, Hold, enough!’”
Nick laughed, shaking his head. “Being with you is a constant education, Charley.”
Still ahead by a step, Charley flashed a grin at him over her shoulder. It found an unexpected target in his gut.
Nick chose to ignore it for the time being, because they had work to do. But he promised to do a little exploring the very first opportunity he found.
THE INSIDE of the pawnshop smelled of old memories and dust. Charley wrinkled her nose the moment they walked in. Her allergies were going to be unforgiving, she thought. But it would be worth the suffering if they finally got a break. Any kind of a break.
Bill started filling them in. “I’ve already asked Mr. Valentine here for the surveillance tape for that day. The items were pawned yesterday afternoon.”
Jeremy Valentine appeared to be nervous. There were large sweat stains beneath each armpit, spreading across the light blue material of his shirt. It was not the sweat of an honest man. Charley’s guess was that the man probably dealt with stolen goods on a more or less regular basis. But that wasn’t of any interest to her right now.
She took out her wallet, holding up her shield. Beside her, Nick followed suit. “Good afternoon, Mr. Valentine. I’m Special Agent Dow, this is my partner, Special Agent Brannigan.” The man squinted intently at both IDs, then straightened and nodded. “Do you remember who sold you the items in question?”
In reply, Valentine produced the slip he had already located from a jumble of receipts when Bill had asked him the same question.
Sundays Are for Murder Page 16