Catch a Killer

by Kris Rafferty

Jack’s mind whirled with whys and wherefores for Hannah’s defense of Ferguson, all of which he wanted to dismiss, but found he couldn’t. “We can’t ignore evidence, Hannah, no matter how much you like the guy.” Yeah, that was jealousy tinging his words, and he hated it, not that he thought Hannah was interested in the guy. Not anymore, anyway. But the detective certainly gave the signal he’d be receptive to a relationship with Hannah. Or anything with Hannah.

  “Charlie.” Hannah seemed intent on ignoring Jack. “How many prints were found on the page?”

  “All we need is one.” Charlie put his empty glass on the desk. “And one is what I found. A perfect thumbprint.” He turned to the lieutenant. “I don’t know if this means anything, but it’s also the first stanza altered by a victim’s DNA. Something to think about. It had Buntle’s bloody fingerprints all over it.” Charlie made motions that he was about to leave. “I’ll have an official report on your desk in the morning. Right now, though, I have to go home. I’m finishing a twenty-hour shift and need a shower. Some sleep.” He left without another word.

  Jack felt sick. Personally, he barely knew Ferguson, but the people he’d interviewed about him, his record in the Army, at the BPD, all of that didn’t lie. Hannah was right. Something was off. Ferguson couldn’t have fooled them all. But the evidence couldn’t be ignored, either. “He’s strong enough to have lifted Buntle into the tomb. He had inside information on the case as liaison detective. It was his thumbprint, Hannah. Right now, short of new evidence coming to light, he’s looking good for prime suspect.”

  “No. This is a chain-of-evidence mistake,” Hannah said. “I know it. Or something equally stupid that we haven’t figured out yet.”

  Pepperidge nodded. “We’ll investigate. That’s what we do. But we have a responsibility to put aside loyalties and seek out the truth, Cambridge. If this is a mistake, we’ll find out.”

  “Except,” Hannah said. “He’s innocent and we’re wasting time.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jack said. “You hope it, but don’t know it. Keep that in mind, please.” He hated that he sounded unfeeling, but she had to stay on task. “He’s the first real suspect we’ve had since the killings began, and he’s looking good for it. He knows you enough to recognize your letter to the advice column. Do you remember confiding in him? Or if not confiding, maybe letting slip some information? Maybe over drinks after work?” Just the idea of that hurt, but Jack needed to know.

  “What the hell are you suggesting?” Hannah stood, meeting Jack’s suspicion head on.

  “Maybe he followed you home.” Saw you with Ellen was the implication. Jaw set, looking for a fight, Hannah was furious. He refused to back down. These were all reasonable conjectures. “Should we really ignore this evidence because you like the guy?”

  Pepperidge sipped his scotch. “Other than the obvious reasons, Hannah, why do you think he’s innocent?”

  “Poetry.” She spit the word at Jack, and made him feel like he’d done something wrong. “Ferguson hates poetry, hates the idea of it. He’s not our guy, but someone wants us to think he is. I want to know how the perp got Ferguson’s print on the page.” Hannah took another sip of scotch and slammed the glass back on the desk, sloshing the remaining liquor.

  “Maybe the perp got careless,” Jack said, still not willing to abandon hard evidence over hope. “Maybe Ferguson got careless.”

  Hannah scowled. “Screw you.” She turned her back to him. “Lieutenant, bring Ferguson in, but don’t tell him what’s going on. He’s a good man. If he knew what you two were thinking, we could lose him, and we need him on this case. He figured out we had a serial killer. Remember?”

  Pepperidge frowned. “You know that’s a strike against him, Cambridge. Right?”

  “And if Ferguson is half the detective I think he is,” Jack said, “he’d be agreeing with me.” Hannah was completely blind to even the possibility of Ferguson’s guilt, but she was right about one thing. They needed Ferguson here, in interrogation, and he could care less if the detective was offended. Jack wanted to know how his fingerprint got on the killer’s note.

  Chapter 20

  A half hour later, feeling warm and sleepy from the scotch, Hannah was relieved to see Ferguson walk into the darkened incident room. She’d convinced the lieutenant and Jack to allow her to speak with the detective alone first. They’d agreed to wait in Pepperidge’s office. If, and this was Jack’s requirement, if she had her gun drawn and hidden, but at the ready. They’d agreed having the Glock in her top drawer was adequate only if she left the drawer ajar.

  “Ferguson.” She waved him over. Her desk lamp illuminated his face, giving his pale skin a ghostly hue, which made her think she must be quite a sight with her pale hair and even paler skin. Ferguson’s smile was soft, and his eyes inviting. If Jack hadn’t come back to her, Hannah could see a world where she would have dated him, maybe made a life with him. The detective was a good man, and she refused to believe he could kill in cold blood.

  “Hey, Hannah. What’s up?” He looked around the room, peering into Pepperidge’s office. “What are those two talking about?” He sank into the chair next to her desk and folded his hands on his belly. “It’s late.” The implication that this had better be good was there, but she knew it was all show. He was a smart guy. Something was going down and he knew he was in the middle of it.

  “There’s been a development. Charlie found forensic evidence linking the murders to a suspect.”

  Ferguson’s stress faded in a blink of the eye. He leaned toward her, his eagerness pushing aside his earlier unasked questions. “About time.”

  “It’s your fingerprint. They found it on Buntle’s stanza.” Not a flicker of anything. Just stillness. Then his body relaxed into his chair and his expression grew guarded.

  Without turning his head, he glanced over his shoulder toward the lieutenant’s office. “Whose idea was it to make you point man?”

  “Mine.” He nodded, as if he agreed with the decision in a purely academic way.

  “If I’m your perp, what’s to stop me from leaping over this desk and killing you?” He didn’t hide his hurt, or his anger. Hannah lifted the gun from her drawer and placed it on the desktop.

  “Let’s not play games. Talk to me,” she said. This was his chance to clear up any misconception so they could continue the search for the real killer.

  “And say what? That I have no idea how my print got there?” He shook his head. “I didn’t touch the paper. I’m not a rookie. And I’d have to be three sheets to the wind to touch a piece of solid evidence linked directly to the perp.”

  He didn’t touch the paper. Crap. “Forensics says otherwise, so unless you’re thinking someone stole your prints and transferred it to the paper, we have a problem.”

  “Doesn’t seem like a problem from where you’re sitting,” he said. “You have a prime suspect now.”

  “It’s a huge detour, Paddy. I’ll have to figure out how the perp framed you before I can get anyone to look for someone else, so spill it. Did you touch the evidence?”

  “No. I didn’t.” He waved Jack and the lieutenant into the incident room. “You two might as well come out so I don’t have to repeat myself. The answer is no,” he said, “I am not the Mercy Killer. I’ll take a polygraph, whatever.” The lieutenant and Jack approached. Hannah discreetly holstered her gun.

  “I don’t think you’re our perp,” Hannah said.

  Ferguson indicted the lieutenant and Jack. “Who gave the order to watch my house?” He smirked when he saw Jack’s surprise. “This is my turf. Those patrolmen have my back. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

  “I gave the order. Would you have done anything differently?” the lieutenant said. Ferguson shrugged.

  Jack stood next to Hannah. “How’d your print get on the stanza?” he said.

  “I don’t know.” Ferguson e
xchanged glances with Hannah.

  She nudged the stanza toward the detective. It was in its plastic evidence bag, logged and signed out from the evidence locker. “I want you to look at it, really look at it, and tell me if you recognize the paper.” Ferguson acted as if he didn’t want to touch the bag. He glared at it, as if the paper were the one framing him, and not the perp, who was too connected for all their peace of mind. “Pick it up, Paddy. Look at it.”

  Jack gave her a look, which she supposed meant he didn’t like her using the detective’s first name. After a repressive glare, Hannah ignored him and opened the clear plastic evidence bag herself, using a Kleenex to prevent leaving prints behind. It smelled of dried blood and had grown brittle.

  Grudgingly, the detective peered at it. Then he tugged Hannah’s wrist to the side to put the paper directly under the desk lamp. After a moment, he released her and sat back in his chair. “It looks like regular copier paper to me. The type I see every day coming out of Vivian’s printer.”

  Pepperidge leaned, peering at the paper, and slipped on his reader glasses to peer some more. After a moment, he sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”

  Hannah wasn’t willing to give up. “We need Charlie to tell us where this paper came from. There must be types of copier paper. Maybe we could—”

  “Stop,” Jack said.

  Hannah wasn’t willing to be put off. “No, I’m right on this. We need—”

  Ferguson shook his head. “The only copier paper I’ve touched in the last year has come from that printer.” He pointed toward Vivian’s desk. Hannah blinked, her mind racing in a million directions. She exchanged confused looks with Jack, who figured it out first.

  “Our perp has access to this room,” Jack said. “It doesn’t clear Ferguson, but it widens the suspect list. A list we’ve already alibied.”

  “Ferguson’s alibi checked out, too, but here we are,” the lieutenant said. “He’s the only one whose print is on the paper. Other than the victim’s. Does this mean we’re supposed to add Vivian to our suspect list?”

  That never occurred to Hannah. “Of course not.” Then suddenly she wasn’t so sure. All the circumstantial evidence that damned Ferguson now damned anyone who had access to Vivian’s printer. “It could be the cleaning staff. The mail room people. Anyone who has access to this room.”

  “This is bullshit. Our perp is playing us,” Jack said.

  “Finally,” Hannah said. “You’re seeing reason.” If they couldn’t trust each other, there was no way they’d catch the killer.

  “We need the team on this,” Jack said. “I’ll call Deming and Gilroy.” He glanced at Ferguson, his mind made up, but his reluctance evident. “You call Vivian.” Everyone exchanged worried glances while the calls were made. Jack got through to Deming and Gilroy quickly. Ferguson kept getting Vivian’s voice mail.

  “She’s not answering,” Ferguson said.

  Pepperidge swore. “Find her and get her in here. Keep it quiet. This has the potential to blow up in our faces.”

  “Hannah and I will go to Vivian’s house.” Jack indicated the exit, trying to rush her out of there. She instinctively wanted to oppose his high-handed attitude, but she was anxious to find Vivian, too. She had a bad feeling in her gut, so she handed the evidence bag back to the lieutenant, and caught Ferguson’s glance. He was watching her, revealing more regret and longing than she was comfortable seeing. It didn’t take a genius to see he’d written her off as a lost cause, and she wished she could argue the point.

  But she loved Jack. Dammit. She did. For better or worse, she loved Jack.

  They left the building quickly. The chill of the night air got her trembling. Rather, that’s what Hannah blamed it on. She was nervous, and everything felt off. Maybe it was the scotch. Maybe it was the meeting they’d just had. Whatever, Vivian AWOL was making her nervous.

  She kept calling Vivian, and reached her voice mail again and again. She called her again when she hopped into Jack’s Camaro, and again when they were blocks from her apartment. The tech didn’t answer her doorbell, or their repeated knocking. Close neighbors didn’t know where she was, so Hannah’s unease grew stronger. It was late. Jack was scowling as they got back into his car.

  “Where the hell is she?” He didn’t put the keys in the ignition, so it made Hannah think he was willing to wait for Vivian’s arrival.

  “She’s the type to stay home watching chick flicks, or read a book. This late, she should be home.” Something was wrong. “Maybe we should go back,” she glanced behind her, studying Vivian’s front door through the car’s rear window. “We should break into her apartment. Maybe she’s unconscious.” Or worse.

  “Not without a warrant.”

  Hannah adjusted herself in the passenger seat to face him, uncomfortable with his tone. “A warrant? Why?”

  “What’s the next stanza?” he said.

  Hannah shook her head, irritated that he was changing the subject. That’s when she noticed more than a few drapes pulled aside, revealing residents watching them from nearby apartment windows. “My life is insane,” she mumbled.

  “The stanza, Hannah.” They were both allowing the obvious to remain unsaid. It was paper from Vivian’s printer. If Ferguson looked good for the perp, why not Vivian? Was her ladylike attitude a ruse hiding the evil of a serial killer? Hannah didn’t want to believe it.

  “I refuse to believe she’s the perp.” She sank deep in the car’s seat.

  “Hannah.” He shook his head in amazement. “You have to separate your feelings from the evidence. She is, or she isn’t. The evidence will decide this, not our feelings. Recite the stanza, word for word, please. If she is the perp, she’s probably using it right now to kill someone.”

  At first, she thought she’d misheard him. Then she slapped his arm. “You’re crazy!”

  “Hannah. The stanza.”

  “Fine!” She was so upset, she couldn’t access the stanza from memory, so she pulled it up on her phone and read it. “‘Seven more loves weep night and day, Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night, Around my couch with torches bright.’” She dropped her phone to her lap, and glared at Jack. “You can’t think Vivian is our killer. She’s skittish, romantic, couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Our perp is skittish, romantic and doesn’t watch as the victims die. She uses a poem to dictate their deaths.”

  Hannah scowled. “You thought Ferguson was the killer no more than a half hour ago.”

  “He’s still a suspect. They all alibied at the times of death, but the perp isn’t at the crime scene at the time of death, so we’ve been alibiing them for the wrong time frames.”

  Hannah folded her arms over her chest, glaring out the car’s windshield. “Vivian isn’t the Mercy Killer.”

  “Let’s find her and prove it.” He obviously wasn’t in the mood to argue, and Hannah was overwhelmed with the possibility that he might be correct. The perp knew her, and there wasn’t anyone in her life who she’d look at and think, yeah, you could be a serial killer. She was beginning to think Jack was correct. She had no business being on this investigation, because of all the team members, Vivian knew her the best. If she was the killer, Hannah should turn in her credentials.

  The drive back to the precinct seemed to go on forever as Boston’s streetlights cast ominous shadows over parked cars lining every curb. It was a sea of cheap Fords, Chevys, and a smattering of Hondas rusted by harsh New England weather.

  “Try not to allow this to upset you,” he said, glancing at her. He seemed angry, but she knew that was just how Jack acted when he thought she was upset. It upset him for her to be upset, so he got angry. Ugh. Men.

  “Do you know what your problem is, Jack? You lack faith in people. You left me because you couldn’t believe I loved you. You didn’t trust me or my feelings.”

  He nod
ded, making no attempt to deny her accusation. “You never said you loved me.”

  “Would that have made a difference?” She watched his expression closely, but he kept his eyes on the road, his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Well, Vivian will be cleared. Ferguson, all of them. They’ll all be cleared. Again. I have faith.” Jack needed to have his head shuffled. He was so wrongheaded about the simplest things, and if they ever stood a chance of having a future together, he needed to change his ways.

  “Until then,” he said, “we need to find Vivian, so recite the poem again.”

  Hannah repressed a primal scream at his obstinacy, but decided that in his tiny, messed-up way, she kind of saw how he was right. Kind of. Clearing Vivian freed them to find the real killer, so clear her they would. She opened her notepad on her phone and read the stanza aloud. “‘Seven more loves weep night and day, Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night, Around my couch with torches bright.’” Hannah bit her lower lip, worrying the symbolism, struggling to see how it could help them. “’Around my couch with torches bright,’” she repeated. “Seven.”

  “‘Seven more loves weep night and day.’ What the hell does seven have to do with anything?” Jack said. Hannah thought the poem sounded strange coming from Jack’s mouth. He had such a masculine tone and clipped cadence, he made it sound as if he were reciting Ikea instructions.

  “‘Round the tombs where my loves lay.’” Hannah arched a brow. “Sounds like us, doesn’t it? You were dead, as dead as someone in a tomb, and I wept night and day.”

  “This is not about us.” Jack took his eyes off the road long enough to throw her an anxious look.

  “Isn’t it? I was targeted because of you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t true. No one had known about her and Jack. It was the baby she’d feared losing, her and Jack’s baby that put her on the killer’s list. That’s what her letter had focused on. She’d been positive she was about to lose her baby.