“Riley said she was respected for her work in the community,” Bennett reminded me.
I nodded. “Most people go into counseling because they want to help others, but some go into it for the wrong reasons.”
We sat beside each other, my mind turning over the possibilities a mile a minute. I thought about cases I’d read where a social worker had a savior complex and committed a crime because of the need to save the world. Was it possible that Joan believed she was saving the world by killing women who struggled with prostitution and drug addiction?
Bennett interrupted my thoughts when she pointed to the dash clock. “It’s almost three a.m.”
“Sorry, time has a way of getting away from me,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I know spending your evening at Gary’s Girls wasn’t something you really wanted to do.”
Bennett shrugged. “I’ve always been curious about what goes on inside Gary’s. Now I know.” She gave me a shy smile. “Besides, I knew you would keep me safe.” A nervous giggle escaped her.
I said, “I want to see more of you, Bennett, after the case is over.”
“I’d like that.”
Bennett’s soft smile filled me with incentive to get this case solved, and fast.
Chapter Thirteen
Day Four: 5:51 a.m.
My cell rang over and over until its vibration knocked the phone off the nightstand. I reached over the side of the hotel room bed. My hand finally grabbed hold of the cell just under the bed frame.
“Hansen. We got him.”
“Sanders?” I pushed myself up and cracked open my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Wayne Bernard Cooper. Our serial killer.”
I shook my head, trying to wake up. Was I hearing Sanders correctly? “It’s a man?”
“Fits the standard profile to a T, Hansen. Cooper is a white male, age forty-five, no record, and delivers some kind of specialty filtered water for a company out of Las Vegas. He drove his delivery truck through Wallace Lake on his way to Columbus four times a month.”
“Drove? He’s no longer with the company?”
“No, he’s dead. Cooper’s body was found shot this morning. That woman you all have been looking for, the topless dancer? She shot him dead in Millard, Kentucky. I’m on my way there now.”
“Wilma Henderson? Kentucky?”
Sanders chuckled. “I know it’s early, but keep up, Hansen.”
I listened incredulously as Sanders filled in the story for me, or at least, Henderson’s version of the story. Cooper had been a regular visitor to Gary’s Girls and offered Wilma Henderson a large sum of cash to accompany him on a delivery to Kentucky. Apparently, the two left directly from the bar late Wednesday night. Henderson’s cell was dead, and she didn’t have time to go home for a charger. She didn’t contact anyone and broke the number one rule of sex workers—always give someone you trust your whereabouts when out with a john.
The trip went well until it was time to head back to Wallace Lake and Cooper didn’t want to go. He’d gotten drunk at a bar with Henderson. She continued to nag him to drive back, and when he didn’t, she attempted to drive in her inebriated state. She ran the rig into a wooded section at a rest stop where the two had pulled off. Cooper, enraged and with a gun, attacked Henderson and told her she would die like the other girls. They fought hard until he got his hands around Henderson’s throat and choked her. She kicked him until he released her, and then once more in the jaw, breaking it. He dropped the gun. She grabbed it, firing over and over again. Henderson then used Cooper’s cell to call 911.
“She’s dehydrated and banged up pretty bad,” Sanders said. “She’ll be in the hospital a few days. Media already caught the story.”
I knew that the rode-hard look of Henderson and her supposed heroic deed would draw in the press. Soon the tabloids would be fascinated with her.
“Cooper had all kinds of newspaper clippings and pictures of the four women found in the Powell River. We also found a woman’s jacket in his cab with Betty Geiger’s state ID in the pocket. Remember, she was one of our first victims in the case. Our guess is that it was only a matter of time until he killed Henderson, too, and then dumped her body at the Powell River on his way back through town.”
How could I have been so…off? So much for my dad’s declaration that my gut was my greatest investigation tool. “What other evidence did you find in Cooper’s truck?”
“An extensive kill kit. Hatchets, shovels, zip ties, handcuffs, knives, you name it. It all fits, Hansen.”
“All of that was found in his possession? It sounds planted.”
“They’ve looked into it, Hansen. Cooper wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, you know. It checks out. The Wallace Lake ME is on her way now to examine Cooper’s body and the evidence in the truck.”
“Bennett is working the case?” I asked. “I’ll meet you as soon as I can get to Kentucky.”
“No,” Sanders said. “Stay in Wallace Lake and close up the case files. Complete the follow-ups and records. Check out of the hotel tomorrow, and let’s meet at the office Monday morning.”
I argued once again that the killer we were looking for might not be Cooper. “I talked to a bartender last night. There’s more to look into here, Sanders.”
He ignored my protests. “No more investigation. It’s over, Hansen. Take that last swim before you check out of the hotel. You deserve it. And be happy for once, would you, please? The bad guy is dead, and there will be no trial. The world is safe from Wayne Bernard Cooper.”
Chapter Fourteen
Day Five: 1:30 a.m.
The television filled the hotel room with background noise. I found a channel doing a marathon of old Law and Order episodes, a sad attempt to fill my loneliness. I sat down hard on a chair while everything spun around me. Drinking usually brought on spells of missing Rowan and sent me into the pit of feeling sorry for myself about the breakup. I was missing her and had to convince myself over and over calling Rowan wasn’t a good idea.
I’d had too many tequila shots with the Wallace Lake PD at Gary’s Girls. Gary himself hosted a celebration for law enforcement and for Wilma Henderson, the heroine of the hour, for ridding Wallace Lake of the serial killer. There had been a strip show or two and all the free-flowing beer we needed to fuel the loud celebration. The collective mood of the bar’s crowd was celebratory, even joyous at times, for all but one person I came across—Rhonda the bartender. She avoided me all night until I cornered her at the side of the bar.
“Can we meet?” I asked. “You name the place and the time. I’ll be there.”
She looked around, wide-eyed, fearful.
“I need to know what you meant. We both know this isn’t over. Where should I be digging, Rhonda?”
Her dark eyes were suddenly wild, almost feral. “I can’t.” She pushed past me and into a crowd of overweight middle-aged men who’d all had too much to drink and wanted to get way too friendly with her.
The bar TV had been set to a local station, and I had to stand below it in order to hear the breaking news. Wayne Bernard Cooper’s photographs splashed across the screen, images taken from his Facebook account, as the reporter detailed what little information they had. Captain Riley had given a formal press conference where he declared very little: Cooper appears to be involved with the murders at Wallace Lake. Reporters yelled out questions about the murder kit and materials found in the cab, but Riley evaded the questions. Even with Cooper dead, I was certain we had to be careful about blaming him without enough evidence. Away from the camera and press, though, local law enforcement and even Sanders considered the case closed. Cooper had been dubbed the Wallace Lake serial killer, and possibly one with many victims from other areas of the Midwest. Police departments all over Cooper’s trucking routes scanned their cold cases for murders that matched his MO.
Wilma Henderson’s image filled the screen as the female reporter talked about the brave prostitute, followed by cri
me scene recordings and past news broadcasts of the victims found along the Powell River. And then there was Harvey, caught by a gaggle of reporters in the police department parking lot. Microphones were shoved into her face. Instead of backing away from the press coverage as we’d all been trained to do, Harvey leaned in to it. She smiled and flipped her bangs away from her eyes. She enjoyed every moment of her filmed no comment.
“Cooper. That motherfucker.”
I turned to find a waitress unloading a tray full of empty beer steins behind the bar.
“That he is,” I said. “Do you recognize him? Has he been in here before?”
She put her fist on a hip and examined me a second. “You a cop?”
“Got me.” I smiled.
“Figured.” She wiped her brow. “Yeah, I’ve seen him. Not often. One of the townies serviced him a few weeks ago.”
I handed her my card. “Pass this along to her. I’d like to talk. She’s lucky to be alive, huh?”
“We’re all lucky to still be breathing in some way or another,” the waitress said and loaded up with a fresh round of beer for the crowd.
Now, in the hotel room, I held my spinning head and took a deep breath to gather my bearings. I caught sight of the murder board, which needed to come down soon since I was leaving the hotel in the morning. I’d contemplated taking it down earlier because it wasn’t really working for the case any longer, but the deconstruction of it felt so definitive. The act itself declared that all questions were answered and the case was closed.
I still had questions. Rhonda had them, too. We couldn’t be the only two; everyone else, it seemed, simply turned a blind eye to those nagging discrepancies. It would have been nice to talk these questions over with Bennett, but she was staying in Kentucky to examine Cooper’s body and until his truck could be thoroughly examined.
I leaned over to untie my boots and almost fell off the chair. I was drunker than I’d realized. Suddenly, a cop’s knock rapped on my hotel door, that familiar confident pound of knuckles.
Through the peephole, Detective Alison Harvey smiled at me, her arm around a bottle of rum and a two-liter of Coke.
“I thought we could hang,” she said as I let her in the room. “Celebrate a little more before you have to go.”
“I’m still drunk from Gary’s,” I said. When she passed by, the smell of liquor followed her. I understood Harvey’s appeal and why women fawned over her. Attractive and built, there was a lot to look at.
“Me, too,” Harvey said. “It’s a celebration, though. More liquor is in order. Nice room, by the way.”
I’d only been in the hotel a few nights, but it already felt more comfortable than my place in Columbus. I wasn’t ready to go back to that depressing grunge of an apartment building full of neighboring college students.
Harvey put the bottle on the desk and smacked her forehead. “I forgot glasses.” She held up a wrapped plastic cup. “I guess we’re stuck with these.” She flashed her perfect white smile and laughed a little too long. Like me, Harvey was beyond intoxicated.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and took the plastic cup Harvey handed me with a lot more rum than Coke. She’d taken me for a hard drinker; Harvey didn’t know I was a beer girl through and through.
“Cheers,” I said, tapping my plastic to hers.
Harvey sat down beside me and took a drink. “Cheers to closing the case. You don’t seem pleased about it.”
I shrugged and tried not to notice her muscular body or the heat of her next to me. “Cooper is dead—how is that justice?”
She swished the liquid around in her cup. “I can tell you think there’s something more here.”
“Yeah.”
“Everything was inside Cooper’s cab.”
I turned to get a better look at her. “That’s just it—everything was in his cab, even antifreeze. Wouldn’t long-haul truckers need bottles of antifreeze for winter driving? I’m not saying Cooper is innocent of crimes, but what if he didn’t kill the four women we’ve been working with?”
Harvey finished her drink off. “It’s over, Hansen.”
“There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
I finished off my drink in one large gulp. “The tattoo. Cooper doesn’t have it anywhere on his body and there is no drawing or replica of it in any of his belongings.”
Harvey got up to refill our glasses. “Maybe the tattoo doesn’t mean anything.”
“Come on,” I said. “You only want to believe that.”
Harvey shrugged. “Cooper might not have had the tattoo on him, but he was known to have been with at least two of our four victims. How much more of a connection do you need?”
I shook my head in frustration. The cases of our four victims and that of Wilma Henderson weren’t connected, but I couldn’t put into words exactly why I felt that way. The high level of alcohol singing through my veins didn’t help.
Harvey handed me a refill and noticed the murder board.
“Whoa.” She stood before it. “You’ve been working hard.”
“Too bad the board hasn’t helped me much with the case.”
Harvey stood in front of the board, her fingertips grazing over the photographs I’d posted of the Heart to Heart flyer and each of the individuals we’d worked with. The noise of Law and Order filled the room. When she turned back to me, her eyes had teared up.
“Harvey, are you okay?” I moved closer to her.
“Alcohol makes me emotional.” She blinked hard a few times and cleared her throat.
Strands of hair had come loose from my braid and fallen around my face. Harvey reached out and tucked a patch of dark hair behind my ear. She let her fingertips graze my cheek before she pulled away. The sudden warmth of her touch sent a shot of desire through me like electricity, waking up every cell in my body.
Once I caught my breath, I asked, “What are you really doing here, Harvey?”
“I’m not sure,” she finally said. “I guess I wanted to make sure everything was okay between us. You know?”
I wasn’t completely clear on her meaning. We’d had a rocky start, yes, but since then we’d worked well together. She wasn’t entirely to blame for our bumpy start, either. It was the job of a rookie to make mistakes, and I had made an entire lifetime of it.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand you want to rise up the food chain. We all do. Just be careful of who you trample along the way. Shit has a way of coming back around in our world.”
Harvey stared at her hands as if I’d scolded her, and popped her knuckles.
“And stay away from those cameras.”
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes were wet again. “I just wanted to learn how to use my instincts like you do.”
I shrugged. “You might be better off without it. Sometimes gut instincts are nothing but reckless.”
Harvey apologized again, the alcohol speaking through her.
“No need for apologies.” I sat beside Harvey, curling my arm around her shoulders. “We’ve got a bottle of rum to get through in this celebration, right?”
Harvey wiped her eyes and lifted her chin. Her intent gaze held mine while our lips were no more than two inches apart.
I could look away, I told myself. I could tell her to leave and stop this before it happens.
I didn’t move. And Harvey didn’t look away.
*
The morning sunlight blasted through the hotel curtains, and the familiar cleaning cart rumbled past the door. I heard Housekeeping knock a few rooms down. I tried to roll over, but my body felt leaden. My tongue might as well have been glued to the roof of my mouth, and as I turned my face away from the harsh sunlight, a searing pain shot from above my right eye toward the back of my skull.
Shit. I drank way too much.
I concentrated on slowly opening my heavy eyelids as images of the night before flashed across my mind. The celebration at Gary’s. The tequila shots. The cheers for law enforcement from the
topless dancers. There had been free lap dances. Then there was the hotel and the rum. And Harvey.
She was there in bed beside me, the sheets pulled up to her lower back, her naked shoulders spread wide against the mattress. I jumped out of the bed and wrapped a blanket around myself when a sudden burst of nausea sent me running to the toilet.
When I came back to the room, Harvey was sitting up. She finger-scrubbed her short hair. “You okay?”
I wound the blanket around me tighter. I sat on the edge of a chair, my world spinning. “You need to leave, Harvey.”
“Why?”
Harvey finally got out of the bed to search for her clothes when I didn’t answer her. She stood in front of me without the least bit of concern to cover herself. “Look, we both had too much to drink. It was a crazy case, you know? We were just blowing off steam.”
On some level, Harvey was correct; I definitely was blowing off steam and the celebration got out of hand. That happened sometimes, when I drank. I’d had a few one-night stands, and while inebriation always played a large role in them, I’d never hooked up with someone I worked with. I watched Harvey pull on her pants and shirt, knowing this wouldn’t be the last time I’d see her. Ohio’s law enforcement community wasn’t that large, which made it likely we would run into each other again somewhere down the road on another case. While I couldn’t remember much of what we’d done together the night before, sudden flashes of memory told me we’d done way too much. There had been her strong hands and hungry mouth trailing over the ridges and valleys of me, her hips rocking against mine, and my open invitation to it all.
“It’s okay, Hansen.” I watched Harvey lace her high-tops. “This will stay between us. Besides, you’re leaving today.”
My thoughts flashed to Rowan. I could hear her telling me the night we broke up, I can’t take the emotional reactions, Luce, the emotional behaviors that destroy you. Destroy us.
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