by Karen Rose
He cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, did you get a rundown on the Seattle case? Was anyone arrested for those murders?”
“I’ve got a call in to the commander of the precinct that handled the case, but it’s still early in Seattle. We checked the Internet archives of the local Seattle papers in the meantime. They say they arrested a William Parker, but there was no record of a conviction. We didn’t touch this guy except to escort him in for questioning. We did see a rental car agreement out in plain view, so we looked at that. According to the rental contract he’s Neil Davies of Seattle, Washington.”
“When did he sign the contract?” Liz asked.
“Monday morning.”
“Of this week?” Steven asked.
“Yep. So he wasn’t here when either girl was abducted. Or he hadn’t rented his car by that point,” Chambers amended.
Steven looked at the man sitting in the chair inside the interview room. His face was hard, as if he were angry. But more than angry. More like he was poised to explode any minute. “Was he carrying any other ID, Lieutenant?”
“No. Said his wallet was in the gym bag in the backseat.” “And was it?” Liz asked.
“Haven’t looked yet. We wanted to wait for you to make sure we didn’t break any new search and seizure laws we hadn’t heard about yet,” Chambers grumbled and Liz scowled.
Steven smiled at Chambers’s sarcasm. “Did you find anything else in his car?” he asked.
“Just the gym bag,” Chambers answered. “We wanted to wait for Liz before we checked the trunk. My boys didn’t want any trouble down the line.”
“Well, we’ll take a look after we’ve chatted with Mr. Davies,” Steven said, then gestured to Liz. “Shall we?”
The man looked up when Steven and Liz entered the room, but made no move to rise.
Steven looked at him, tilting his head in an exaggerated fashion. “You were looking for me?”
The man’s dark eyes narrowed. “I was looking for the detective in charge, yes.”
Steven refused to be ruffled by the challenge in the man’s voice. “Then you were looking for me. I’m Special Agent Steven Thatcher.”
“Umm,” the man said sarcastically. “North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. Glad to see you could take a break from soccer games and the runaway roundup to take an interest in this case.”
“I try to squeeze in an hour or two between golf and fishing,” Steven said dryly, pushing back his temper. He pointed to Liz. “She’s Assistant DA Johnson. So now that we’ve performed the social niceties and you know who we are, why don’t you tell us who you are?”
“You have my ID.”
“We have your rental car contract and your photo album.” Steven dropped the folder on the table. The pictures slid out, the “after” pictures on top. Davies didn’t flinch. Not one little bit.
Cold bastard, Steven thought. It was hard not to flinch at those pictures. “Your rental car contract says you’re Neil Davies. From Seattle. As”—he pointed a careless finger at the pictures—“were these girls, surprisingly enough. So how long have you been in Raleigh, Mr. Davies?”
“It’s pronounced Davis. Welsh name. Silent e. Since Monday morning.”
“So says your rental car contact.”
“So says my flight itinerary.”
Steven pulled a chair from the table and sat down. “What line of work are you in, Mr. Davies?”
Davies sneered. “Are you truly as big an idiot as you appear to be?”
Steven blinked. Whatever this man’s problem, he’d made it very personal. “I don’t know who peed in your Wheaties today, but I don’t think I like you, sir.”
Davies bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “Feeling’s mutual. Did you run my ID?”
Steven shrugged. “I don’t know. I just got here. Had to cut my doubles game short.” He stood up and walked over to the window and tapped on it. “Let’s take a look at the bag, Lieutenant.”
Chambers brought it in and dropped it on the table with a thud that echoed off the cheaply painted walls. “There you go.”
Steven pulled on a pair of plastic gloves before unzipping the bag and reaching in. “One pair of socks. One pair of running shoes.” His brows went up. “One gun.”
“Registered,” Davies snapped. “If your computers are modern enough to check.”
“They are,” Steven said softly. He really, really didn’t like this guy. “And one wallet.” He opened the wallet with Liz looking over his shoulder. “Neil Davies. Good driver’s license picture.” He looked up at Liz. “Mine has me looking like a biker dude or a serial killer.”
Liz smiled.
Davies rolled his eyes. “There’s another wallet in there.” “Okay,” Steven said, game. In went his hand and out came another wallet, and . . . he blinked.
“Terrific,” Liz muttered.
“I’ll be damned,” Chambers said.
Slowly Steven opened up the wallet to reveal Davies’s shiny detective shield. Seattle Police Department. Annoyance bubbled up and he didn’t bother to push it back, especially when he saw the smirk on Davies’s face. “And you’d planned to mention this when?” Steven asked, tossing Davies’s shield to the table.
“When you asked,” Davies said smoothly. “I tried to talk to you Monday night, but you were too busy cheering the home team.”
Steven sat down again and stretched his legs out in front of him, feeling his cheeks heat and his temper boil. He bit back the words he really wanted to say. “Well, I can’t help but notice you’re a little out of your jurisdiction, what is it—Detective?” Davies nodded and Steven nodded back. “We also couldn’t help but notice you carry pictures of other people’s children in a folder, but you don’t carry the normal complement of smiling children’s portraits in your wallet.”
“I don’t have any children,” Davies said, just as smoothly, but Steven detected resentment.
“Well, that’s a shame. I happen to love mine. Because of soccer games and despite runaway roundups. Now, let’s talk about these photos and the purpose for your visit to our fair town. I take it you suspect there’s a link between your cheerleaders and ours.”
Davies inclined his head, not quite a nod. “I do.”
“So who was William Parker?”
Davies smirked. “So you do have a computer.”
“We do.”
Davies uncrossed his arms for the first time since Steven and Liz had arrived. He leaned forward and pushed the photos apart with one finger, lining up all the “after” pictures edge to edge. “William Parker did this.”
“Then why isn’t he in a Washington state prison?” Liz asked and Steven saw the first real emotion other than anger or sarcasm pass across Davies’s face. It was pain.
“Because the SPD fucked up,” Davies said, looking at the pictures as if imprinting them on his memory, although Steven suspected they already were. “Evidence wasn’t handled correctly and the defense attorney petitioned it thrown out.” He shrugged listlessly. “A judge agreed.”
“You were primary?” Steven asked quietly, all posturing gone from the question.
Davies flicked a glance his way before returning to the pictures. “Yes, I was.”
“And you want justice this time,” Liz finished.
“Yes, I do.”
Steven picked up one of the pictures by its corner, respectfully. “I have one of these. By noon I’ll probably have two. The psychologist on my team believes he’ll be on number three before the end of the week.”
“He’s escalated,” Neil murmured.
“So how do I keep my bulletin board from being covered with pictures like these?” Steven asked. “You wouldn’t have come across the country if you hadn’t believed William Parker was here. Where is he?”
Davies took the picture from Steven’s hands, just as respectfully. “Under your noses.”
“I don’t know any William Parkers.” He looked at Chambers. “I assumed you ran a list.”
&n
bsp; Chambers nodded. “I did. We have ten William Parkers in the Raleigh-Durham area. Knowing a little more about him would be a big help,” he added wryly.
Davies huffed a mirthless chuckle. “You know him, all right, but not as William Rudolf Parker.” He reached into the pocket of the shirt he wore beneath his sweater and drew out another picture, this one a snapshot. “Here he is.” He tossed the snapshot on the table where it landed on top of the photographs of the four mutilated corpses.
Steven’s heart stopped as the face in the snapshot registered.
“Holy Mother of God,” Chambers breathed. “Kid in a freaking candy store.”
“Who is he?” Liz asked with a frown.
“You know him,” Davies said to Steven. “Don’t you?” Steven’s heart kicked back into motion. Into overdrive. He picked up the picture, his hand trembling. The face in the snapshot was younger, but he recognized the dark eyes, the surly mouth that even then wore a smug smile. He looked up at Davies and swallowed. “Yes, I do. And you’re right, I don’t know him as William Parker.” He looked up at Liz. “This is Rudy Lutz. He’s the quarterback at my son’s high school.” And the one directing all the malice against Jenna, he added to himself, a shiver of fear racing down his spine.
Liz sat down hard. “Shit,” she said.
Thursday, October 6, 11:00 A.M.
After an hour they were able to pretty much piece together the checkered history of Rudy Lutz, a.k.a. William Rudolf Parker. The evidence the SPD had gathered had been strong. Davies swore no mistakes had been made. But something went wrong just the same.
“So his first victim was his girlfriend,” Liz said thoughtfully.
“So much for puppy love,” said Chambers, looking at the photo with distaste. The girl had been strangled, sexually assaulted, then stabbed. Repeatedly. “What a sick bastard. And he was only fifteen at the time?”
“He went for older women,” Davies said dryly. “And apparently they went for him. Every girl he murdered met him away from her house so there was never any evidence of forced entry.”
Liz pushed the folder away. “How’d you catch him, Neil?” Davies’s cheeks darkened under the black stubble of his beard. “After we found the last victim, a kid called in and said he’d heard Parker in the locker room the week before boasting that he’d fucked her.”
“Gina Capetti,” Liz said quietly.
Davies’s lip curled and again Steven saw pain in the man’s eyes. “We had forensic evidence from Laura Resnick, his first victim. Semen sample. We brought Parker in, he had an alibi, but it wasn’t airtight. We found witnesses who’d seen him with Gina Capetti and were willing to testify. Judge ordered him to give a blood sample. DNA matched the semen found in Laura Resnick’s body. We arrested him, but because he was fifteen, they let him be tried in family court.”
Steven frowned. “Four vicious premeditated murders and he goes to family court?”
Davies shrugged. “He had a very . . . lenient judge.”
“So you go to family court, what happens?” Lieutenant Chambers asked.
“Everything’s set up, then the defense moves to have the semen evidence stricken.”
“Because?” Liz prompted.
Davies’s lips thinned. “Because they said the evidence had been stored inappropriately.”
Nobody asked how or by whom. It didn’t really matter at this stage.
“And without the semen evidence you had no case,” Liz finished.
“We couldn’t tie him to Laura Resnick, the first victim, so the whole case crumbled like a house of cards. Parker walks away, free as a bird. His whole record is sealed. But the community knew what he’d done. His parents had tried to keep his name out of the press, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Crowds gathered, some threw bottles, most just picketed. Parker Senior’s import business suffered. Nobody wanted to do business with the father of a monster like William. Senior had to declare Chapter Eleven, sell the house. They moved away, then just disappeared.”
“It’s hard for a whole family to just disappear,” Liz observed.
“Mrs. Parker’s father is a multimillionaire.”
They all nodded, well aware of the power of cold, hard American cash.
“Lutz is the maiden name of Mrs. Parker’s paternal grandmother.” Davies looked frustrated. “I thought for a while they might have left the country. Gone to Switzerland or France.”
“Not if they wanted their son to play football,” Steven returned and Davies nodded.
“As I recall, that’s what Parker Senior was maddest about,” Davies mused. “He didn’t care that four girls were dead. That every bit of evidence pointed to his son. He cared that William wouldn’t get to play high school football and get picked up by the college scouts.”
Steven sighed. “So his parents take him out of Seattle, then pop up as new residents to Raleigh-Durham, erase a year from Rudy’s age, and have ‘fourteen’-year-old Rudy start high school all over again with a whole new set of girls to choose from,” he said, punctuating the word in the air.
Lieutenant Chambers huffed his disapproval. “Like I said, kid in a freakin’ candy store.”
Liz rubbed her forehead. “You all do realize that none of this is proof Rudy had anything to do with Lorraine or Samantha.”
“Not yet,” Steven said grimly. “But now we have some place to look.”
At that moment a uniformed officer came in with a note. “Agent Thatcher? Your admin assistant has been trying to get in touch with you all morning. She says it’s urgent.”
Steven looked at his cell phone, frowning. It was on, but the signal bars were down to one.
“You won’t get any reception this deep in the building,” Chambers said. “Pain in the ass.”
Steven pointed to a phone in the corner of the room. “But that one works.”
“If I remembered to pay the bill,” Chambers said sarcastically.
Steven placed the call, listened to Nancy, then turned to the group with a sense of grim despair. “They found Samantha.”
“In better shape than Lorraine?” Liz asked.
No one even assumed she’d still be alive. Correctly so. “Marginally.” Steven rubbed the back of his neck. “But that was the good news.”
No one said anything, every one of the faces saying they knew what was coming.
“The bad news is that now we have a victim number three.”
“Oh, God,” Liz murmured.
“Who?” Chambers demanded.
Davies looked grim.
“Her name is Alev Rahrooh,” Steven said. “Sixteen. Cheerleader. Went to yet a different high school. No sign of forced entry. Davies, I’ll want to confirm your story with your LT in Seattle. Procedure of course.”
Davies raised a brow. “Of course.”
“Then we’ll need to choose which site to see first. Door number two or door number three.”
NINETEEN
Thursday, October 6, 4:15 P.M.
CASEY STOWED HER OVERNIGHT BAG IN THE XK 150’s tiny trunk and slammed it closed. “I feel nervous about leaving you right now. I can cancel my trip if you want me to stay.”
Jenna dangled her car keys from one finger. “I’ll be fine. Tell her, Lucas. I’ll be fine.”
“She’ll be fine,” Lucas echoed obediently and Casey stuck her tongue out at him.
“Polly Parrott will say what you tell him. I say I have a bad feeling about this.”
Jenna shrugged. “The way I see it, if you’ve got the car, they can’t hurt it.”
Casey pointed to the hood. “Your Jaguar thingy is missing.”
The hood ornament. Adam had looked for a long time to find just the right one to complete his restoration. “It was gone yesterday morning before I left for school. I called Officer Pullman to report that, too.” That the school hellions had invaded her home parking lot still left her blood cold. “Casey, go on now or you’ll get stuck in rush-hour traffic.”
They frowned at each other until Casey huff
ed a disgusted sigh. “Oh, all right.” They traded keys and Casey got in the car, still looking worried. “Call me if you need me.”
As she drove away, Lucas asked quietly, “How are you, Jen? I know yesterday was a shock.”
“I’m fine. Really,” she insisted when he looked unconvinced. “Although I am wondering why they took a day off. No problems in my classroom all day today.”
“Maybe the surveillance camera deterred them.”
Jenna’s eyes widened. “You put up a camera? Where? When?”
“In the far corner of your classroom where you’ll catch anyone coming in the door. Yesterday, after we’d gotten rid of your piñata. I’ve ordered a few outside models we can mount to the light posts here in the parking lot.” He looked annoyed. “And you’re welcome.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Thank you, but you might have told me. Now I have to worry if anyone saw me picking my nose or straightening my nylons.”
Lucas’s teeth flashed in a grin. “I could sell either of those on video and get rich quick.”
She smacked him in the arm. “Take that back or I’ll tell Marianne.”
“She’ll just be mad she didn’t get a starring role. You know what an exhibitionist Marianne is.”
“No, I don’t,” Jenna answered primly, then met his eyes, sobering. “Thanks, Lucas.”
He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Do not go into the school by yourself. Wait for me and I’ll walk you to your classroom.”
She swallowed hard. “Do you think they’ll stop?”
His face darkened. “Is Rudy playing this weekend?”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Then they won’t stop. That’s why I put the camera in. I want hard evidence we can use to expel those juvenile delinquents and I’m tired of waiting for Blackman to be a man and do it himself.”
“Thanks, Lucas. Go home and make dirty videos with your wife. This is Thursday, so I get to kick the crap out of whoever’s unlucky enough to be my sparring partner tonight.”