“Another bad guy?”
“Yes, another bad guy.”
“Can’t somebody else take care of the bad guys for a while so you can take care of yourself?”
“It’s not quite that simple, Charley.”
“Oh,” Charley said with a nod. “You are scared, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say I was scared . . .”
“Um hum. You’re scared all right. Now, Lucy, you need to do this no matter how scary it is. You’ll be very glad you did.”
Lucinda almost laughed out loud at that trite adult assurance coming out of a young girl’s mouth but a glance at Charley’s face saw the intense earnestness there. She knew she had to respond seriously to Charley or hurt her feelings. “You’re right, Charley. I need to feel the fear and do it anyway, right?”
“Yes. And if you need me, I’ll be there. My daddy’s a doctor so I know he can sneak me into the hospital. I can hold your hand and take care of you and everything.”
A tear welled up in Lucinda’s eye. “I know you will, honey,” she said as she pulled into the theater parking lot, knowing the arrival here would shift Charley’s attention away from her and on to the movie.
Charley entertained Lucinda, jabbering about the movie all the way home. When Lucinda pulled the car into the condo’s parking lot, though, she could see the tiredness in the little girl’s eyes. That makes two of us, Lucinda thought. I’m lucky I stayed awake through the movie.
The Spencers’ front door opened before Charley could insert the pass card. “Good evening, ladies. Did you have a good time?” Evan Spencer asked.
“Oh, Daddy,” she said, giving him a hug. “It was a super movie. Can we get the DVD? I want to see it again.” She turned to Lucinda. “Thank you, Lucy.”
Lucinda crouched down to her level. “You’re welcome, Charley. I had a great time.”
Charley leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Lucinda’s damaged cheek. “I love you, Lucy.”
Charley always kissed that side of her face but every time she did, Lucinda was overcome by intense emotion. No one else does that. Even my own sister is careful to bestow a peck on the smooth side of my face. She smiled at the little girl. “I love you, too, Charley. Now you head off to bed. You need to get some rest before that birthday party tomorrow.”
Charley smiled and scampered off, shouting “Goodnight, Lucy” as she went.
Lucinda stood and felt Evan’s hand touch her between her shoulder blades and slide down to the small of her back. She wanted to push him away and snap out something rude. But she knew if she did she risked losing Charley. She wouldn’t look at him because she was certain her negative reaction was flashing across her face.
“You know, Lucinda, if you ever want any adult companionship, I am always here for you,” Evan said.
Lucinda looked at him then. She winced at the soft eagerness in his voice. “Oh, you know me, Doctor Spencer, I don’t have a life,” she said as she eased herself out of his reach and placed her hand on the doorknob. “I barely have time for an occasional outing with Charley.”
“Doctor Spencer? I thought we were beyond that level of formality, Lucinda.”
“Sorry,” she said, donning a rueful smile for his benefit. “I am just beat. I really need to get home.” She turned the knob and pulled open the door. “Thanks again for sharing Charley.”
He reached out and placed a warm palm on the good side of her face.
See, I was right. He doesn’t accept me as I am either. The only time he touches the damaged side of my face is when he is being clinical.
“Anytime, Lucinda. You can see Charley or me any time you want.”
She smiled to cover her irritation at his invitation. The last thing she wanted was to get intimate with a grieving widower who was still in love with his wife – one who would always look at her damaged face on the pillow and wish Kathleen’s perfect one were there. “I won’t forget. Thanks for loaning me Charley for the evening. Goodnight,” she said and quickly slipped out the door and hurried down the hall to the elevator.
Twenty-One
Feeling a little guilty for going out the night before and enjoying herself with Charley instead of working on the case, Lucinda got up early the next morning and headed down to her office. When she walked up to her desk she was surprised to find she wouldn’t be working alone.
“Hey, Ted, didn’t expect to see you here on a Sunday.”
“The Fleming case isn’t letting me get much sleep. I thought I’d come in, look things over and see if it made any more sense to me.”
“Does it?”
“Not yet. At first, it seemed like such a slam-dunk – a husband, a boyfriend, or a jealous woman in love with one or the other. Then I thought an angry parent. But that didn’t seem to go anywhere either. It seemed the more people I interviewed the less I understood. I was hoping to find the key by looking over my interview notes again. I fantasized about wrapping it all up and turning it over to you but no such luck.”
“It’s not making a lot of sense to me either. I do have some suspects but not one that hits me as obvious. In fact, they all feel obscure and unlikely.”
“If you want to think out loud, I’m ready to listen.”
Lucinda laid out her suspect list. “Superintendent Robert Irving is alibied by his wife, but you know how unreliable spouses can be so I can’t scratch him off the list yet. Timmy Seifert is alibied by his mother and his grandmother – both biased, very biased. Then there’s Monica Theismann, in HR. She’s busy gossiping about the victim’s alleged illicit affair with the superintendent. To be honest, I’d kinda like it to be her because she’s so damned obnoxious. But no matter how hard I try, I just don’t see it. She seems too busy playing games with Robert Irving to actually get around to serious direct action. Then, too, Doc Sam thinks we’re looking for a man because of the force involved. I could argue that some women could do the deed but I would think it would have to be someone more athletic than that self-proclaimed sex kitten with her perfectly groomed claws.”
Ted grinned. “Am I detecting a lack of respect for another professional woman?”
Lucinda rolled her eyes and continued. “Then there’s Steven Broderick. No one has seen him since the day of the murder. He came to work that day but not the next. And he hasn’t been in since. Irving couldn’t find anyone who had a clue about Broderick’s whereabouts. He said that Broderick was married when he moved here just before the preceding school year began but his wife moved out of town shortly after they arrived and now he’s divorced. Irving promised to pull the personnel file first thing Monday morning and look for next-of-kin information so we can follow up there. If that doesn’t lead us anywhere, we need to consider a forced entry into his home. But if he turns out to be the person we charge with the crime, that breakin could compromise any evidence on the scene.”
“Despite his suspicious disappearance, you seem to be lukewarm on him, too. Or are you just accepting the reality that actual coincidences exist?”
“Funny, Ted. Not hardly. I still don’t like coincidence. And I don’t think Broderick’s disappearance is a coincidence. I think it is connected to the murder but I get the sense that although he is running from it, he probably had nothing to do with it. Still, why did he feel the need to run?”
“You’ve got four suspects; where do we go from here?”
“I hate even calling them that, Ted. I don’t seriously suspect any of them. We’re missing something. How are you with crime database searches?”
“Pretty good. What do you need?”
“First of all, can you check the parameters of the search that Kristi did for me the other day?”
“Should be able to,” Ted said as he signed on to the computer and then to the program. He pulled up a log of previous searches and found three relevant files. “First she searched Central Atlantic – that’s our region. Then she checked southern, then New England. She pretty thoroughly covered the whole east coast a couple of states
deep.”
“Maybe we’ll have to check the other regions, but first – how specific is the victimology?”
“We have age, occupation, marital status, physical descriptors, education and income level.”
“The physical descriptions – are they thorough?”
Ted scanned over the details. “Looks like it. Can’t see anything missing at all.”
“How about the occupation information – how specific is that?”
“’School district administrator’ is all it says here.”
“Okay. That’s what I thought she was at first but that isn’t exactly accurate. Let’s narrow it down a lot further. If it’s a bust, we can broaden it again. Input ‘Executive Director of Communities in Schools’ and search that.”
Ted ran the revised data, finding no matches in two regions. The third search of the New England region, however, scored a hit – a homicide in Maine. Lucinda and Ted read together about the unsolved murder of another person, in the same position for the same organization, nearly two years ago. Lucinda jotted down the contact information, turned to Ted. He gave her a nod, confirming her unspoken suspicions. She grabbed a phone and placed a call.
A male voice answered. “Violent Crimes Division. Officer Howe.”
“Officer Howe, this is Lieutenant Pierce. I’m with the homicide division in Greensboro, Virginia. I just got a national crime database match with a crime in your area and need to talk to your Lieutenant Mick Trivolli.”
“It’s Sunday, Lieutenant. Trivolli doesn’t sit on a desk over the weekend.”
“How ’bout his home phone, Officer?”
“No, can do, Ma’am. But if you give me yours, I’ll pass it along to him.”
Lucinda sighed, rattled off her phone numbers and sat back, expecting a long wait. The phone rang in two minutes. “Lieutenant Pierce.”
“You have a database match to my Carney homicide?”
“Is this Lieutenant Trivolli?”
“Yes, sorry. But do you?”
“Is Carney your murdered Communities in Schools Executive Director?”
“Sure is. Are we looking at the same method?”
“No. Not that. I have a woman in that same job down here who is a homicide victim. Can you fill me in on the details from your crime scene?”
“Bloodiest one I’ve ever seen, Lieutenant. The perp had to have been covered in it. He slit the victim’s throat from side to side. But the positioning was so disturbing. The vic was flat on the floor with his hands folded on his chest. What bothered me the most were the vic’s fingers. They stuck up in the air at unnatural angles.”
“Oh, man. The fingers? Were they broken?” Lucinda asked.
“Yep. Every one of them.”
“Post-mortem?”
“Yep. Yours, too?”
“Yeah, sure were,” Lucinda confirmed.
“Does that sound as significant to you as it does to me?” Trivolli asked.
“Certainly does. Lucinda thought about the note she’d found but hesitated to mention it. She didn’t want to throw something distracting into the mix. Then again, she thought, if he has a note just like it, that would answer my question, wouldn’t it? “Tell me, Trivolli, did you find any notes at the scene?”
“I don’t know, eh. I don’t know if I did or not.”
“What are you telling me, Trivolli?”
“I found a note there. And I couldn’t connect it to the victim or to anyone else. But I just don’t know if it’s relevant.”
“What did it say?” Lucinda asked. No matter what it said, she was amazed that his reaction to it was so much like her own.
“I found a little spiral notebook sitting on a desk in the room. It was folded open to a page where someone had printed out: ‘I was left behind.’”
Lucinda didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Trivolli said, “Hey, Pierce, you still there?”
“Yeah. Yes, Trivolli. I hope you collected that note as evidence because I’ve got one just like it, right here.”
“Holy shit,” Trivolli whispered under his breath. “Yep, I’ve got it. I just knew this guy would kill again. Damn, I wish I was wrong. You know what else, Pierce? I never thought my homicide was his first. The way he waited for the victim to die. Then broke his fingers and arranged his hands on his chest. It was a terrible scene with arterial blood spurting everywhere and this guy seems unaffected by it. He just waits till it’s done and then moves in to finish things up. This couldn’t have been his first kill. But I found no other matches at all.”
“You were focused on the way the victim died, right?” Lucinda asked.
“Yes. The cut throat.”
“My victim was beaten to death. Yet, I have no doubt that our homicides are connected, do you?” Lucinda asked.
“No. Their jobs.”
“Right.”
“Their fingers.”
“Right.”
“The note.”
“Right.”
“They have to be connected,” Trivolli said.
“We need to work on refining the searches in the database and see if we can find another way to locate more matches. It was the Communities in Schools link that brought your case to our attention. But yours was the only match we got. That detail is not what we need.”
“So it’s not going to be as easy finding any others,” Trivolli acknowledged. “We need to figure out what else the victims had in common.”
“It might help to compare the names of Communities in Schools staff as well as the school district employees. Maybe we’ve got some overlap – a person who was there and is now here,” Lucinda suggested. “I’ve got detailed lists that include social security numbers. How about you? Do you have something we can compare?”
“Not at my fingertips but I know I can get hold of them first thing Monday morning. Can you email me your lists? When I get mine, I’ll compare them and let you know what I find.”
“Sounds like a plan. You take care of that and we’ll alter our search parameters and see if we find anything else on the database,” Lucinda said. She emailed her lists to Mick and stayed on the line to make sure he got them and could open the attachments before ending the call.
She felt satisfied and energized. She had a fresh, promising lead. But the far-reaching implications embodied in the connection to Maine roiled in her stomach, threatening the serious onset of heartburn. She chewed on an antacid and hoped Trivolli was wrong about the magnitude of the problem.
All we have now is two connected homicides. Nothing more. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Twenty-Two
It was so easy to find him. The announcement for the Sunday afternoon Open House led him right to his target’s door. He arrived before anyone else and hid behind the dumpster in the far corner of the parking lot and waited.
He didn’t have a plan. In fact, he might not even make a move today. He’d just wait and see if any opportunity presented itself.
The skin on the top of his skull tingled when he spotted his target, the Executive Director of the local Big Brothers and Sisters chapter, Michael Agnew, stepping out of an SUV. He watched Agnew until he was out of sight, inside the building. The only window on the back wall was a small, high one – probably in a bathroom. The rest of the wall was blank. He smiled – he wouldn’t have to sneak.
He strolled over to Agnew’s car to peer in at its contents. The dark tint on the windows made that impossible. He could barely see a thing. But he did notice that the driver’s door was not locked. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and eased it open. He looked around and, seeing no one in the vicinity, he slipped behind the steering wheel, scooted over to the middle and climbed into the back seat.
He knew staying upright would tempt fate so he slid on to the floor in the space behind the driver’s seat and pulled out his knife. He studied the blade then tested it on the upholstery. The feel of the edge slicing through the leather felt so much like cutting through skin, he shivered from head to toe in ex
citement.
Nestled in position, he wouldn’t be able to see when Agnew approached. He needed a warning. He pulled himself up on to the seat, leaned forward over the front seat and clicked the lock. Agnew will assume that he locked the car before he went inside. When he unlocks it, I will hear it and be ready.
Satisfied, he settled back in place to wait. He listened as cars arrived, doors slammed, voices returned and cars pulled away. Sounds like he’s having a good turn-out for his last event – ever. He giggled at the thought. He knew, though, that he did not have time for levity. Now that he’d seized the opportunity, he needed to make a plan.
Should I kill him right here and leaving him in his car in the parking lot? No. There’s not enough space in here. I might get hurt. I might leave unintentional evidence. Even though the windows are tinted, someone might see something.
I have to make him drive. But where? The inner city where no one cares? Or out in the country where we could get lost in the wide, open spaces? He didn’t really like rural settings but this new car in the worst part of town would draw unwanted attention. They had to head out. He knew if the target was scared enough, he’d cooperate and get them where they needed to go. And if he doesn’t? I’ll kill him, push him out of the way and drive myself.
When the lock thunked open, the excitement was so intense he had to struggle to control himself. He turned forward, checked his grip on the knife and waited for Agnew to get settled into the vehicle.
Agnew tossed a leather portfolio on the passenger seat then climbed in and shut the door. From the back seat, the man sprang up and had the knife at Agnew’s throat before he was even aware he was not alone.
“Start the car,” the man hissed into Agnew’s ear. “Drive out of the parking lot and to the beltway.”
“Whatever you want, man, you can have it. The car, my wallet, my watch, the contributions I collected today – it’s mostly checks but still, it’s all yours. Just let me get out of the car and you can be on your way,” Agnew offered.
“Shut up and start the car.”
Punish the Deed (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 9