Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

“You sound skeptical.”

  Lou grunted. “I am.” No man who filled his apartment with life-sized dolls was completely normal. Maybe Lancaster could fool a soft touch like Gaines, but Lou saw things more clearly.

  CHAPTER 25

  Kali squinted against the glare of early morning sun and crossed the street without waiting for the walk sign. Eight-thirty and already the block was closed to traffic in anticipation of the noontime rally. A pair of Port-A-Pottys sat on the corner nearest the freeway. Closer in, the sponsors were setting out orange cones and stringing wire for the sound system. Energy filled the air, accompanied by a flurry of activity.

  The event had initially been billed as a protest of capital punishment, with the late Dwayne Davis as poster boy, but Kali had word that it had grown to encompass a demonstration against police corruption and a show of support for Tony Molina, Owen’s arch rival in the upcoming primary. This being the Bay Area, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find exotic dancers, animal rights’ crusaders and the extraterrestrial support league staking out a piece of the action as well. Especially given the nice weather.

  She wove her way through the crowd-control barricades and took the elevator up to her office. The yellow tulips were still on the credenza behind her desk. She hadn’t gotten around to tossing them, after all. With the open petals and arching stems, they looked like something out of an Impressionist painting.

  They were just flowers, she decided. Lovely flowers at that. Tulips were among Kali’s favorites. She could understand why she’d reacted so negatively at first, but at the same time, she chided herself for doing so.

  Kali dug around in her desk drawer until she found the note that had accompanied the arrangement. In retrospect she was flattered that Nathan had cared enough to send them. And a little ashamed of herself for ignoring him.

  Kali checked her watch. Eight forty-five. If Nathan wasn’t yet at work, he’d find her message when he arrived. A message was often easier than conversation anyway.

  He’d told her he worked for Global Investment, but hadn’t said which office. Kali tried the Oakland office first, and when she had no luck there, she dialed San Francisco. When that got her nowhere, she pulled out the yellow pages and tried offices in Walnut Creek and Pleasanton before asking if there was a company-wide directory.

  “I’m looking for an employee named Nathan Sloane,” she told the woman. “I don’t know which branch office he’s in, however.”

  “Let me check.” The woman put her on hold, and Kali sat through a recorded sales pitch for the company, as well as two renditions of “Your call is important to us; please stay on the line.”

  Finally the woman again picked up. “I don’t find a record of anyone by that name.”

  Kali was sure he’d said Global Investment. “He’s new there,” she explained. “Would there be a different list he might show up on?”

  “We’re computerized,” the woman said. “Unless he was hired this morning, he’d be in the master directory.”

  Maybe she’d misunderstood the name of the company. “Thanks. I appreciate your looking for me.” Kali tried directory assistance next, looking for a home number. There were numerous Sloanes, but no Nathan and no N. An unlisted number? She might have pursued the matter further if Owen hadn’t dropped in just then.

  “Did you see what’s going on out front?” he asked.

  “Setting up for the rally?”

  He nodded, and sank into the chair opposite hers. “I don’t know what in the hell they think they’re doing.”

  “Angling for some major media coverage, from the looks of it.”

  “It’s bad enough there’s a killer terrorizing the city, but to dredge up Davis and the Bayside Strangler murders. . .” He pressed his fingertips together and shook his head. “It serves no purpose except stirring people up for the sake of controversy.”

  “I don’t know that it’s just for the sake of controversy, Owen. But it is too bad they had to drag politics into it.”

  “This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to avoid.” His voice rose in anger. “I thought if we took an aggressive position on these murders, we might take the wind out of their sails.”

  “We’re talking about a single demonstration,” Kali reminded him. “By next week, no one will remember what it was even about.”

  “Wrong. Molina’s people will make sure they do.” Owen gave an irritated sigh. “These murders couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

  “Especially for the two victims.”

  Owen winced. “Okay, so I’m tripping on my own ego. It’s just that it’s so unfair. They’re making me the scapegoat.” He rubbed his palms on his pants legs, took a breath and sat back. “I sound like Alex, don’t I? Thinking only of myself, moaning that things aren’t going my way. And my response to him has always been ‘get over it; no one said life was fair.’“

  Kali smiled. Owen was as ambitious as any politician, but what set him apart and endeared him to his supporters was this ability to step back and see himself objectively. “It’s not over until it’s over. Once there’s an arrest, this will all be history.”

  “I sure hope so.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  When Owen left, Kali finally got down to work. She made a few calls and confirmed that Robert O’Dell was still behind bars in Arizona. Of the identified suspects in the Bayside Strangler murders, that left only Barry Silva as a possible perpetrator of the recent crimes. Kali hit the computer to see what she could dig up on him. Not as much as she’d hoped, despite the search techniques she’d learned in a continuing education class for lawyers. And nothing that helped her determine if Silva warranted further attention.

  It would be helpful if she could find a common thread in Anne Bailey’s and Jane Parkhurst’s lives. Each of them had somehow crossed paths with the killer. And not just at the moment of their deaths. The killer had known Anne was from Texas; he’d taken a photo of Jane Parkhurst at her own home. He’d chosen them, individually and specifically, as his victims.

  When she’d worked in the DA’s office before, Kali had tried a case involving a string of home burglaries. The defendant had cased the houses, and the victims, when he delivered newly purchased mattresses and bed sets. Once the police had determined what the victims had in common, zeroing in on the culprit had been easy. Kali recalled reading about other, similar cases. The trick was finding where the victims’ lives intersected with the killers.

  Which brought her back to Barry Silva. He worked at a gas station. Just the sort of place where two otherwise separate lives might overlap. Had Jane Parkhurst purchased gas at Silva’s station? Had Anne? Kali had no trouble envisioning effervescent Anne chatting, in passing, about her childhood in Texas.

  The Mobil station where Silva worked wasn’t convenient to either woman’s house, but that meant nothing, Kali reminded herself. While most people had a preferred station or two, everyone occasionally bought gas at other locations as well.

  Kali picked up the phone, called Anne’s husband at work and was told he was no longer employed there. She started to try the house, then had a better idea. The noise from outside, amplified by loudspeakers, made her antsy anyway.

  As she left the building, she stayed to the fringe of the gathering crowd. Several of the demonstrators carried placards bearing photos of Anne Bailey and Jane Parkhurst with the caption Bayside Strangler strikes from the grave. It annoyed Kali to see tragedy exploited. The photo of Anne was particularly hard for her to take. The sense of loss was like a sharp stab to her belly.

  Did the protesters honestly believe Davis was innocent? And if the rally was really a demonstration against capital punishment, why bring Anne and Jane Parkhurst into it? The whole thing reeked of political manipulation.

  Toward the back of the assembly, she passed a bearded man hawking Jack Jackson’s book. That she found even more disturbing. The event had taken on a circus-like quality. She got into her car feeling prickly and agitated.

  <><><>


  Kali pulled up to the curb in front of the house that had been Anne and Jerry’s just as Jerry and another man emerged through the entry door carrying a dresser. She had spoken to Jerry only once since that morning three weeks ago when he’d shown her the yellow rose, and she felt a twinge of guilt now that she hadn’t called more often to see how he was doing.

  Jerry and the other man were loading the dresser into the back of a pickup truck already crammed with furniture when Kali approached. Jerry’s expression registered surprise. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She put the question aside. “How have you been?”

  Jerry’s laugh was harsh. “I’ve been better. I see from the TV you’re working with the cops now.”

  “More accurately with the district attorney.”

  “They thought I killed her.” Not surprisingly he sounded angry.

  “Friends and family are always suspect.”

  “No, not always.”

  The other man muttered something about rope and went back into the house. Jerry pushed the dresser flush against the side of the truck. “I guess I’m off the hook in light of the second murder. At least no one’s accused me since it happened.” He paused and wiped his forehead, suddenly suspicious. “That’s not why you’re here, is it?”

  “No.” She stepped out of his way as he shifted an upholstered chair farther to the back of the truck bed. “Are you moving?”

  “Just getting rid of some stuff. There are too many reminders of Anne in the house.”

  Kali would have thought that might be a comfort, but apparently not.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he said, his tone softening. “I get nothing from the cops.”

  “They’re working on it. They seem fairly certain that Anne and the second woman were killed by the same person.” A thought floated across her mind. “Anne didn’t know Jane Parkhurst, did she?”

  “The cops asked the same thing. I never heard the name before.”

  “Parkhurst was a real estate agent. Could Anne have been working with a real estate firm?”

  “We were already living apart. Why would she want another place?”

  “Just asking.” Anne had never mentioned to Kali that she was house hunting either. “Did Anne have a regular gas station?” Kali asked.

  Jerry frowned. “What is this, twenty questions?”

  “I’m looking for ways she might have crossed paths with the killer.”

  “You’ve got a suspect who works at a gas station?”

  “No suspects, just idle speculation.”

  He’d finished rearranging the bed of the pickup, and now began tucking the blue crew-neck tee into his jeans. “I don’t know where she usually bought gas, probably some place near here or the office. I could check through the credit card statements if you’d like.”

  “That would be helpful. Keep an eye out for a Mobil station in the vicinity of Ninety-eighth Avenue.”

  “Okay. It was usually Shell or Chevron, though, I’m pretty sure about that.” He laughed. “And it had to be one of those auto-pay stations. It drove her nuts to wait in line to deal with a real person.”

  Kali understood. She felt the same herself.

  Jerry jumped down from the truck bed. “I’ll give you a call when I’ve had a chance to sort through the receipts.”

  “Thanks.” She hesitated. “I called your number at work. They said you’d left the company.”

  “Yeah. I finally had it with that place. I’m thinking I’ll take six or eight months, maybe do some skiing, some traveling, and then look for a job that suits me better.”

  Kali wondered if it was Anne’s life insurance policy that provided Jerry his newfound freedom. She had a fleeting thought that the detectives might have been too hasty in dismissing him as a suspect. “Sounds like things are working out well for you,” she said, not accusingly but with a certain reserve that couldn’t be easily ignored.

  “Nothing is going to bring Anne back,” he said, looking at her levelly. “And nothing is going to stop me from missing her. But since I can now afford to quit a job I’ve hated for years, I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Do you?”

  “No, I guess not.” But she left with the uneasy knowledge that Jerry had wasted no time in turning Anne’s murder to his advantage.

  Back in her car, Kali tried to think how she could learn if Jane Parkhurst had frequented Silva’s Mobil station. Again, credit card statements would help. She made a mental note to contact Jane’s parents, then decided getting a court order would be quicker. In the meantime, she’d take a look at Jane Parkhurst’s house and neighborhood.

  Kali had no sooner rung Jane Parkhurst’s doorbell, on the off chance a friend or relative was at the house, when she caught sight of a woman with colorful green hair tottering across the street. Mrs. Greene, no doubt. Kali had assumed the detectives were exaggerating when they talked about the green hue of her hair, but if anything, they’d failed to do it justice. It was a color you might find on a Berkeley teenager, and even then you’d do a double-take. On a woman who looked by all other attributes to be in her early seventies, it was a real jolt.

  “Are you a reporter?” Mrs. Greene asked, hobbling up the walkway with the use of a cane.

  “I’m with the DA’s office.”

  “Ah, then you might be able to help me. I haven’t seen my sketches in the newspaper.”

  “Your sketches?”

  “The ones by that police artist fellow. I saw a suspicious man around Jane’s house, you know.”

  Kali nodded.

  “Don’t they usually do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Run them in the paper. So if anyone out there recognizes the man—”

  “They do that sometimes,” Kali explained. “But not always.” And only when there was an accurate eyewitness observation of a person reasonably considered to be the perpetrator of the crime.

  Mrs. Greene studied Kali for a moment. “I was just making some tea,” she said finally. “Would you like some?”

  It was information Kali really wanted, and she’d take it where she could get it. “I’d love a cup of tea,” she said.

  Mrs. Greene ushered Kali into a kitchen so dated it might now be called stylishly retro. The countertops were tile—teal and black, the stove an old Wedgwood. The table where Kali sat was of chrome-trimmed yellow Formica of the sort she remembered fondly from her grandmother’s house as a child.

  “Did you know Jane Parkhurst well?” Kali asked, watching Mrs. Greene pour boiling water into a china teapot emblazoned with pink roses.

  “We were neighborly. I’d pick up her mail for her when she went on vacation, borrow eggs or sugar if I ran out. But we weren’t close friends.”

  Not the sort of relationship that invited confidences, but people sometimes said things in passing that later proved important. “You don’t happen to know the kind of gas she favored, do you?”

  “Probably the expensive stuff. She drove an expensive car.” Mrs. Greene handed Kali a cup and saucer. Desert rose, her grandmother’s pattern. “Sugar?”

  Kali shook her head. “I’m fine. I meant the brand of gas. Shell? Mobil?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  Not surprising. Kali herself couldn’t have answered the question about her closest friends. “Do you know if she was out in the vicinity of Ninety-eighth Avenue recently?”

  “Being in real estate, she got around quite a bit I imagine. But Ninety-eighth Avenue is kind of far out. That wasn’t really her area. Why? Is it about her murder?”

  “I’m just trying to retrace her steps,” Kali said. Silva was a long shot anyway. It wasn’t likely either of the victims had been at his station, much less both of them.

  “Something like this,” Mrs. Greene said, “it really shakes you up. Jane was a nice woman and she led a quiet life. You don’t expect someone like that to get murdered. It goes to show, you just never know.”

  “You never do,” Kali agreed, looking fo
r a way to politely extricate herself from what she could see might become a long afternoon.

  Mrs. Greene rubbed at a spot on the table with the sleeve of her sweater. “There used to be an older woman lived next door to us when I was growing up. Real grandmotherly and sweet. She’d invite us kids over for cookies and ice cream and homemade fudge. Turned out she’d butchered her husband some years earlier and kept him in the freezer. He was there all that time.”

  “My God, right there in the house? What a shock that must have been.”

  “More for my poor mother than us kids. We just wanted to know if her husband was in the same freezer where she kept the ice cream.”

  “Was he?”

  She laughed. “I doubt it, but I don’t know for sure. My parents were all very hush-hush about the whole thing.” Mrs. Greene picked up the teapot. “More tea?”

  “I think I’d better be going. This was lovely, though, thank you.” Setting her cup on the counter, Kali caught sight of a business card. Clear View Windows. A name she recognized. “Have you used this company?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I want to wait for the rainy season to pass before I call.”

  “That’s funny, I’m doing the same thing. A friend of mine recommended them highly.” A friend who was now dead. Kali felt a lump forming in her throat as it did whenever she mentioned Anne’s name.

  “Jane used them too,” Mrs. Greene said. “That’s where I got their card.”

  Kali’s pulse skipped a beat. There it was. The connection they’d been looking for. A current of excitement made her skin tingle. A window washer would have ample opportunity to find out about the occupants, either from papers left lying about or by talking with the women themselves. It fit so perfectly, it almost took Kali’s breath away.

  “Don’t call yet, Mrs. Greene. I’ve just remembered someone who had a bad experience with them.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Kali tried calling Bryce Keating from her cell phone the moment she left Mrs. Greene’s. When she didn’t reach him, she returned to the office, where a sidewalk littered with discarded placards and fast-food wrappers was all that remained of the rally. She was relieved the approach to the building was clear; her mind was already unsettled enough.