The Butterfly Murders

by Jen Talty

  “There is this one nurse,” Shane said. “She’s new to the transplant unit. I think I remember her saying she worked in the ER, which means she’d know about patients being put on life support waiting to donate. Maybe she’s on duty. She seemed like the talkative type.”

  “Sounds like you want to flirt with a nurse for information.”

  “Why, Kara Martin, are you jealous?”

  “Maybe a little,” she said, holding up her forefinger and thumb. “You actually sound excited to go talk to her.”

  “Not excited to talk to her,” he said. “But I feel like we’re finally making progress.” He pointed to the exit sign of the medical building. “Across the street and then red elevators to the seventh floor.”

  As soon as they stepped through the doors, the wind blew her coat open. She felt Shane’s warm hand on the small of her back. She glanced over at him and arched her brow.

  “Seriously? No one’s around.”

  “It’s not professional.”

  “Neither is making out in a parking lot with each of us having a gun on our hip. And by the way,” he winked, “my mother’s Bunco friends saw us.”

  “Wonderful,” she said. “Speaking of being caught, I think—”

  “Kevin got up to use the bathroom and saw you heading out the door. I’ll have a talk with him tonight. See how he feels. But you owe him another NHL battle. He’s not going to let you off the hook.”

  “I hate it when you do that.” She pushed the button on the metal post, waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street. The sun was bright, which was rare, but it was still biting cold.

  “I’m not redirecting the conversation,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to my son about my feelings for you. He has a stake in our relationship, and just because he saw you leave doesn’t mean he won’t want to see you. It just means I need to talk to him and see how knowing you spent the night made him feel.”

  “And if that feeling is negative? What then?” The light changed, and they headed across the street with quick steps.

  “Then you don’t spend the night again,” Shane said. “But I doubt that’s the case. The way he casually mentioned to me that he saw you leaving so early—”

  “What did he say?” Her pulse went wild with concern.

  “He was more concerned about whether you would be getting breakfast and if you were coming back.”

  “I see.” It was hard to keep from smiling.

  “I do need to talk to him and find out how he really feels about me having a girlfriend, having my girlfriend around, a lot, and make sure his needs are being met…as well as mine.” He looked over at her as he opened the door to the hospital. “He and I are a package deal.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I’m concerned about what having me spend the night could do to him.” She followed Shane through the lobby and down a long corridor.

  “I don’t think it’s done anything negative to him. I heard him say something to Theresa about it and he was giggling. I couldn’t hear everything, but I did hear him say how much he liked you. Then you showed back up and we didn’t have time to discuss it further. I will tonight. Right before the epic hockey battle.”

  “Your son is as irresistible as you are.”

  Shane pushed the elevator button. “That’s twice you’ve told me I’m irresistible in twenty-four hours. I’m going to remember you said that later tonight.”

  As soon as the elevator doors closed, and he and Kara were alone, he grabbed her, shoving her up against the back wall, and meshed his mouth with hers. It wasn’t a pretty kiss. But it was effective.

  “What the hell was that about?” she asked, wiping her swollen lips. Her breath was raspy. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  He shrugged. “Making sure I’m really irresistible.”

  The elevator dinged and jolted to a stop. The doors opened and no sooner did Shane step foot in the hallway than he saw Tina, the new nurse, standing at the other end. She smiled. “What brings you by?”

  “I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me,” he said. “This is Special Agent Kara Martin.”

  “I’ve seen you on the news.”

  “Is there someplace we can sit down?” Kara asked.

  “Sure.” Tina pointed to an empty lounge, which looked like it had a coffee machine and some snacks along with a table. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “That would be great,” Kara said.

  Tina poured three cups, placing them one by one on the table off to the right side of the room.

  “How difficult would it be,” Shane started, “for someone to find out which deaths led to organ donation?”

  “Well, medical records are private, but most people tell their family, friends, co-workers. We protect the rights of all our patients, but as you know it’s the donor who remains completely anonymous, except in some rare cases.”

  “What would those cases be?” Kara asked.

  “Mainly kidney transplants from parent to child, sibling to sibling, friend to friend,” Tina said. “But some people want to know, or their families want to know, and then extensive counseling is done. It’s rare that the information is given out.”

  “Do you keep donor records at the hospital?” Shane asked.

  Tina leaned across the table. “You’re not seeking information on Kevin’s—”

  “No,” Shane said. “We’re working on a couple of homicides and trying to find out how someone might obtain information about transplant recipients and donors.”

  “Ah, the Butterfly Murders.” Tina leaned back in her chair. “United Network for Organ Sharing keeps all the records, and they’re sealed.”

  “Nothing remains in the hospital?” Shane asked.

  “We keep records, but donor records are duplicated and then assigned numbers. That’s how we reference them.”

  “Do you ever teach or do anything at the medical school?” Kara asked, noting Tina seemed to be left- hand dominant when she stirred her coffee.

  Shane gave her a sideways glance.

  “No,” Tina said. “Why?”

  “Did you hear about some cadavers going missing?” Kara asked. “A few months back.”

  “I saw on the news that one was recovered,” Tina said. “What does that have to do with your murder case?”

  “We don’t know,” Shane said. “Just checking all angles.” He stood. “Thanks for your time.”

  “Glad to help,” she said. “Let me know if you have any other questions.”

  * * *

  The last thing Shane wanted to do was have Kara spend the night at the hotel, but he needed to talk to his son, alone. Kevin was happy she’d come over for dinner and played video games, and he did seem disappointed she’d left relatively early. Shane took that as a good sign.

  He sat in his small makeshift office between the dining room and living room, while Kevin was upstairs finishing his homework. Shane filled out the paperwork for more warrants, specifically the names in the last year of organ recipients and donors in the Rochester area. He also wanted to know who had died on a Thursday in the last year. Not all of them would be donors, but it would help the search. Deaths were public records, so obtaining them would just be time-consuming.

  His phone buzzed. A text from Kara.

  u r being unreasonable

  He laughed and texted back.

  told u, not talking to u until I get a pic

  He set the phone down and opened Kara’s email about the FBI profile, which listed the perp as being male, between 35 and 50. A professional. Held a good-paying job. A bit of a loner, but mastered social situations. Possibly married. A recent trigger set him off, but the tendencies were always right under the surface. Of course, the profile now needed to be tweaked since they were possibly looking for a woman; female serial killers were an entirely different kind of murderer.

  The floorboard at the top of the stairs creaked. Shane closed his laptop and moved to the family room.

 
“You wanted to talk to me?” Kevin asked, already in his pajamas. He had his mother’s eyes, her smile, and her gentle soul. It was hard not to look at him and see his late wife, and all the things Shane had loved about Janet.

  “All your homework done?”

  Kevin nodded. “Also took my meds.”

  “Have a seat.” Shane sat in the recliner while Kevin plopped himself on the sofa. There were moments that Kevin seemed like a little boy, and other times he carried himself with an air of maturity that even a thirty-three-year-old detective didn’t possess.

  “This sounds serious.” Kevin sat crossed-legged, his elbows on his knees, fists holding up his face, scrunching his cheeks. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No.” Shane didn’t know where to start. He and his son had many serious conversations over the last two years, and Shane had always tried to be as honest as he could without giving the boy more than he could handle. “What do you think about Kara?”

  Kevin bolted upright, dropping his hands to his lap, and smiled. “She’s cool. I like her.”

  “So do I.”

  “Duh,” Kevin said. “That is soooo obvious it’s almost gross.”

  Shane smiled. “I want to have her around a lot more.”

  “You mean like stay over again?”

  “How did you feel when you saw her this morning? Did it upset you in any way?”

  “No,” Kevin said. “You’re a lot less uptight when she’s here, which makes things easier.”

  Shane laughed. “I like having her with us, but when this case is over I’m afraid she has to go back to D.C. How does that make you feel?”

  Kevin’s smile faded. “I’d miss her.”

  “I’ll want her to come visit. Maybe come up for a holiday or two. I’d like us to go visit her on long weekends. Some vacations. Maybe take a vacation together. Would you like that?”

  “So, you’d have a girlfriend who lives seven hours away?”

  “I like her so much that I’d be willing to try that, but only if you’re willing to try it, too. We’ve never talked about me dating someone. I didn’t expect I would be any time soon, but then Kara showed up.”

  Kevin continued to sit up tall, his face somber and serious. He held Shane’s gaze like a man. “I like Kara, too.”

  “I promised you I’d be honest,” Shane said as he moved swiftly to the sofa, putting his arm around Kevin. “You and I are a team, and no one will come between us.”

  Kevin rested his head on Shane’s shoulder. “I miss Mom.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about Mom lately,” Shane said. “She’d be so proud of you. You’re a lot like her, you know?”

  Kevin nodded. “I like Kara so much I feel bad that when she’s around it makes not having Mom here a little easier.”

  Shane could hear the tremble in his son’s voice. “I feel bad sometimes, too. No one can replace your mom. There is nothing we can do to bring her back. But we can honor her by living our lives. Being happy. Because, at the end of the day, all she wanted was for you to be healthy and for us to be happy.”

  Kevin looked up, water welling in his eyes. “Kara makes you happy?”

  Shane swallowed his breath and it felt like someone had just sucker-punched him. “There isn’t anyone in the world who could ever be more important in my life than you. Not even Kara, but I do feel a bit happier when she’s around.”

  “She makes me happy, too.”

  “I care very much for Kara. She understands that you come first in my life. Before her. She also cares a great deal about you, and if she didn’t I wouldn’t bring her around. She’s got to be able to put you first, and I believe she can.”

  Kevin wiped his eyes. “I like being with Kara. She’s easy to talk to. Fun. And you’re a lot less neurotic when she’s with you.”

  “That’s a big word.” Shane chuckled as he ruffled his son’s hair. “I suppose I am.”

  “So, she coming back tonight?”

  Shane shook his head. “I’ll see if I can get her to stop by for breakfast before work.”

  “That would be nice.” Kevin wrapped his arms around Shane’s shoulders. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too. Now let’s both shut off all the lights and go to bed.”

  Shane made sure all the doors were locked while Kevin turned out all the lights but the one going up the stairs. Kevin was beyond being tucked in, so Shane said his goodnight and then closed Kevin’s door. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket. Only one text from Kara.

  I’ll meet u in ur dreams…

  “You’ll see me now.” He closed his bedroom door, and clicked on the TV as he propped himself up on his pillows. He opened Facetime, calling Kara.

  He could barely see her face when she answered.

  “I hate this.” She was lying on her side, her head resting on a pillow.

  “What are you wearing? I can barely see you.”

  “Because all the lights are out, and no, I’m not turning any on. I’m tired.”

  “Still haven’t told me what you’re wearing.” A light flashed across behind her and he heard noise in the background. Her beautiful face filled his screen.

  “If you must know, a T-shirt and your boxers.”

  “That’s hot.”

  She smiled. “How’d things go with Kevin?”

  “He’s a very insightful young man.”

  “You’re just figuring this out now?”

  “He wants you to come over—”

  “For breakfast. I know. He texted me right before you called. I told him only if he turned his phone off and went to bed. He hasn’t texted back.”

  There were so many thoughts floating through Shane’s brain. But the one that struck him the hardest was that if Janet were still alive she and Kara would really like each other.

  “We’ll make this work,” Shane said.

  “One thing at a time,” she said. “Sleep well.”

  “Only if you join me in my dreams.”

  Chapter 21

  SHANE HATED BRIEFINGS almost as much as he hated press conferences. He glanced around the small conference room. Captain Morrell leaned against the doorjamb, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking none too happy. Kara and Foster leaned against the windowsills on the other side of the room. Pollack, Benster, and three other detectives sat at the table, looking disheveled and tired, as they’d been out half the night following a few leads while working their own cases. Jones took his place next to Shane, in front of the whiteboard, corkboard, and wall of images. Shane disliked these kinds of briefings because it was a rehashing of things they already knew, a slew of questions they didn’t have answers for, leaving them no better off than when they started.

  “I’ve put Doug on the far wall.” Shane pointed to the other side. “He’s involved with Emily, but not any of the other murders.”

  “We also put Haughton there, since we can only link him to Emily so far,” Kara said.

  “What about the religious whack jobs?” Benster asked.

  Kara rose and tapped the back wall. “The one from Kentucky is still a suspect. One of my team members has eyes on him. No movement and no record of him coming into New York, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have someone doing his dirty work. However, we need to consider that our perp is someone in the medical field, or at least had some training. And is left-handed,” Kara said.

  “I got word this morning,” Shane interjected, “that the judge granted us partial access to donor records of our victims,” Shane said. “I glanced at them. All died on a Thursday, but not all of them in Rochester.”

  “But,” Jones started, “all of our recipients had their transplants in Rochester.”

  “We’ve been pulling deaths on Thursdays in this area so we can interview family members about organ donation, but if the donors are from all over the place, it makes things more difficult.”

  “Excuse me,” a uniformed officer said, standing at the door, holding an official confidential envelope. “This ju
st came for Agent Martin.”

  Kara strode across the room, exuding power. She thanked the officer and opened the envelope. Shane waited patiently as she scanned the documents.

  Jones, on the other hand, couldn’t wait. “What is it?”

  “I had our analyst check for missing cadavers around the country. I’m shocked by the numbers,” she said. “I also had her look at all open missing person cases in the Rochester area in the last year.”

  “How many cases?” Pollock asked. “

  “Too many,” Kara said. “But we need to go talk to the family members and see if any of them had a transplant in the last year.”

  “Anything else?” Shane asked.

  Kara shook her head, nose still in the papers.

  “Where are we on the soccer connection?” Shane asked.

  “Nowhere,” Pollock said. “Doesn’t connect all the victims when we add in the case from Boston. Even Iris is a stretch for that connection.”

  “I’d say that’s a dead end,” Foster said.

  “Agreed.” Shane nodded. “Then we focus on the organ connection.”

  “So, let’s address the elephant in the room,” Foster said. “It’s Thursday. Thursday means something to our killer. If he hasn’t already killed today, or a Thursday weeks ago, then we’re looking at another homicide by morning.”

  “If our theory is correct,” Shane said, doing his best to remain impartial. As if his son wasn’t a heart recipient. “We have only four organs left, and I requested a list nationwide of all donors and recipients of those four organs.”

  “We already know one of those recipients,” Morrell said.

  The room fell silent for a long moment. The tension was palpable. The implications deafening.

  “Foster,” Kara started, “why don’t you and Jones pound the pavement with these missing person cases? Shane and I will dig through public records for deaths on Thursdays.”

  “Pollock and Benster,” Shane said, doing his best to cover his annoyance. This was still his case, not the FBI’s. While he wanted her help, he didn’t like how she hijacked that call-in front of his boss. Not because he would have done anything different; just, it was his call. “Take a break, then connect with Jones, splitting the rest of the list.”