by V. K. Sykes
She almost veered toward him, curious as to what he was studying so intently on his screen. Sports scores? Off-track betting? Yeah, she was that cynical, sad to say.
At the last second, she lost her nerve and swung left into her cubicle. But sneaking a glance at him proved impossible to resist. She soaked in his broad shoulders and chest that stretched the fabric of his shirt. His long, muscular arms and big hands, flexing over the keyboard. And his handsome, chiseled face—and chiseled was the only word for it—as he gazed narrowly at his screen.
Calice. The way he set her hormones buzzing should be illegal.
She gave herself a mental beat-down and glanced at a document someone had shoved on top of her keyboard. As soon as she spotted the initials NCAVC, she scooped up the report and started to speed-read.
The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime had responded with surprising efficiency to the questionnaire she’d submitted. The report detailed how the NCAVC computer had come up with two other unsolved homicides involving wives of baseball players. One in San Antonio three years ago, the other in Portland, Maine in July of last year. Amy’s heart rate spiked as their serial killer’s body count shot up from three to a possible five.
She let loose a string of Quebecois swear words that had more to do with excitement than anger.
No doubt drawn by the unmistakable sound of foreign language cursing, Poushinsky sauntered up, followed rapidly by Beckett. Amy asked Poushinsky to round up the rest of the squad to meet in the small interview room.
“Did you read the NCAVC report?” she asked Beckett as Poushinsky strode off.
He frowned. “Of course. It came in just after you left—almost half an hour ago.”
Startled, she paused in gathering up her papers. “And?”
“Way different M.O. in those cases.”
He waited patiently for her to finish gathering up her papers, then followed her to the interview room. She pushed open the door and took the chair at the head of the rectangular table. Beckett sat down next to her.
“The first thing we need to do,” she said, “is check whether any of those San Antonio or Portland players are playing in this area now.”
“Already done,” Beckett answered. “I got on the Internet as soon as I read it. And the answer is no. At least they’re not on a roster of an FSL team this year.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “I guess that would have been too easy.”
“It’s not surprising. San Antonio and Portland are both Double A teams. It’s not common for a Double A player to end up with a Florida State League Single A team.”
Amy nodded an acknowledgement, scribbling his info on the report. As she wrote, she could practically feel Beckett’s eyes probing her, though he didn’t say a word. His scrutiny made her self-conscious, but she appreciated that he could keep his mouth shut.
Another possible explanation struck her. “It could be a former player from one of those cities who quit or retired and relocated to Florida.”
He pursed his lips just enough to convey skepticism. “Maybe. But don’t you think the killer would have had to play for both San Antonio and Portland? And I checked on that. There was one pitcher who was traded from the San Diego organization to Boston’s. But he’s still playing in Portland this year. We can check his whereabouts on the nights of our murders, but I’ll be damned surprised if he was in either Lakeland or Jupiter. The Portland team doesn’t go anywhere near this part of the country.”
Poushinsky held open the door for Scarpelli, Ryan, and Washington. Ryan looked weary but Washington bounced in with all the energy of a young and keen guy. Scarpelli looked her normal, composed self, tough and yet attractively feminine. The detectives took seats along the sides of the table, Scarpelli next to Beckett. When Beckett gave her a friendly smile, Amy felt a surprising and unwelcome twinge of annoyance.
She shook it off. “We’ve got a couple of things to talk about. First, the victim in Martin County from this morning has been identified as Ashley Rist. Her husband, Tyler, plays for the Jupiter Hammerheads.”
Scarpelli visibly winced.
“Is anybody surprised?” Poushinsky said.
No one spoke, but even Washington didn’t look so bouncy now.
“So,” Amy continued, “we’ve got the wife of a Lakeland player a month ago, and now two murders of Jupiter wives on consecutive days. Martin County is rushing the autopsy so we should know in a matter of hours if the M.O. matches ours and Polk’s. I doubt if anybody here is betting against it.”
“Lethal injections again,” Poushinsky said grimly.
“No doubt.”
Amy segued into briefly elaborating on the findings of the autopsy report and her discussion with Kelli Robinson on the method of death. Every face in the room reflected the same horror and rage she felt.
“Okay, people,” she said when she finished with the autopsy report, “I know we’ve barely started with the Cardinals, but it’s critical now that we get on top of all the Hammerheads and their wives and girlfriends. This is priority one, so I’m asking Jenn, DeSean, and Adrianna to head straight up to Viera. I want to know the whereabouts of every one of those players between midnight Wednesday and seven this morning. If it turns out you need more bodies to get that done fast, call me and I’ll arrange it. Detective Dale has offered assistance, too.”
All three gave her a nod. All looked grim and determined.
“Poushinsky and I are going to continue the follow-up on the Carrie Noble leads, including the Cardinal players.” She paused, fixing each of them with her gaze in turn, including Beckett. “Only twenty-four hours between the last two murders, and we have no reason to believe our killer is going to take a break. I’ll clear it with the sergeant, but I think it’s safe to say we do all the overtime we can handle.”
Beckett tapped the table with his index finger. “Panic must be ripping through that team. If I was one of the married players, I’d get my ass back home in a minute. In fact, the Hammerheads really should postpone the next few games. Give the players a chance to get home and make sure their women are protected.”
He sounded like a soldier, or a cowboy from the Old West, but his words somehow eased the twisted knot in Amy’s gut. Fear must be cutting a swath through the wives of the players, but with a husband like Beckett, a woman couldn’t help but feel safe. Sheltered and, well…protected was the right word. She wondered what it would be like to have a man like that, one who would be completely devoted to—
Ryan’s voice interrupted her uncharacteristic train of thought. “How many of the Jupiter players have wives or live-in girlfriends? We don’t know, right? Well, let’s find out right now, and get a deputy or one of the local cops in front of every one of their houses or apartments.”
“Good thinking, Jenn,” Amy said, irritated that she hadn’t already thought of that. She had to get this distracting fascination with Beckett under control. “I’ll talk to the captain. Even if we can’t spare that much manpower, I’m sure we can do regular patrols.”
“We’ve damn well got to find the manpower,” Ryan snapped.
Amy nodded. “Agreed. But right now we have to talk about the NCAVC report.” She summarized it in a few terse sentences, assuming they’d all read it while she was at the M.E.’s office.
“So,” she concluded, “the homicides in San Antonio and Portland both involved wives of minor league ballplayers. The cause of death in San Antonio was a gunshot wound to the head, while in Portland it was blunt force trauma from a baseball bat. Obviously, completely different M.O.’s from the three murders in this state. And, before you ask, Beckett already checked to see if any players from those teams ended up anywhere close to our area. The answer is no.”
“The report didn’t mention any rituals, either,” Scarpelli added. “No carvings. No cut-up pictures sent to the husbands.”
“We don’t know that the photo is a ritual yet,” Washington said. “Maybe it was a one-off thing with Krista Shannon.”
“You got it.”
“It doesn’t sound like there’s any connection, but I want you all over it, anyway.”
As Poushinsky nodded, Amy turned to Beckett. “Beckett, I want you to contact the general manager or whoever the hell is in charge of those San Antonio and Portland teams and get exact information on where every one of those players ended up. I’ll get Cramer to email them a request that they cooperate with you, if that becomes necessary. I don’t care if a guy only played one game there. I want to know where he went next, where he went after that, and for damn sure where the hell he was on June twenty-eighth and July twenty-ninth.
Beckett nodded. “No problem.”
Amy shoved the report back in the file folder. “Adrianna, could you keep me posted on everything that happens in Viera, please?”
“Of course,” Scarpelli said.
Amy picked up her papers and stood. “Thanks, everybody. We’re done here. Now, I need to brief the captain and sergeant.”
“Hold on, Robitaille,” Cramer said as he and Sergeant Knight appeared in the door of the meeting room.
Puzzled, Amy greeted them. “We were just finishing up, sir.”
Cramer looked fierce. “Sit down, Robitaille. This won’t take long.”
Crap. Something was obviously wrong. Knight looked like he wanted to be nowhere close when Hurricane Cramer made landfall.
Amy glanced at her squad. The other detectives managed to convey the impression of naughty schoolchildren summoned to the principal’s office. They shifted their eyes downward as if to say “it wasn’t me.” Beckett, on the other hand, seemed mildly amused.
Cramer glowered at them. “Anybody here care to venture a guess how many calls I got from the media today? No? Well, I stopped counting after the first dozen. And I’m not talking just local media, either. Goddamn CNN, Fox News, AP—they all got hold of the story.”
“As soon as we released the name of our victim, the local paper figured out she was Matt Noble’s wife,” Knight added in a calm voice. “Then they put it together with the Lakeland murder and bingo. Now they’re all over the Martin County case, assuming the Jane Doe there is another baseball wife. We’ve pretty much got the start of a media frenzy over a serial killer who’s murdering the wives of baseball players.”
“I just heard from the Martin County lead detective,” Amy said. “The victim is the wife of another Hammerheads player.”
Cramer looked even more pissed off, if that was possible. “Hardly unexpected. We’ll talk more about coordinating all the investigations later. What I want to talk about right now is the fact that damn near every politician is the county is climbing all over my ass. The West Palm mayor told the sheriff he wants us to hold a press conference first thing tomorrow morning. To calm the waters, as he put it. To reassure the public.” He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “Good fucking luck with that one. But we can’t say no to the mayor, or he’ll call the damn press conference himself. And that would not help our investigation.”
“At least the San Antonio and Portland murders don’t have an obvious connection to the three down here,” Amy said. “Maybe we should get that out before some reporter digs up those cases and inflates the story to five baseball murders.”
Cramer’s glower eased a bit. “I agree. I read the report. You’re already following up with both the San Antonio and Portland forces?”
“Yes, sir. And with the teams. It’s a priority to find the current location of every single player on both teams.”
He nodded, more steam dissipating. “Good. I’ve already got Media Relations setting up the press conference for nine tomorrow. Robitaille, as lead investigator, you’re going to be out front on this.” He glanced around at the others. “The rest of you don’t need to be there unless you want to. I’ll say a couple of words at the beginning, and then I’ll introduce Robitaille and Beckett.”
Amy frowned, surprised that the captain would want Beckett at the press conference. Talk about fueling the media fire.
Cramer’s brows went up. “You got a problem, Robitaille?”
She wiped her face smooth. “No, sir.”
“Good. Prepare your statement, and have it on my desk before you leave tonight. We’ll touch base in my office at eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Captain. Scarpelli, Ryan and Washington won’t be there for sure. I’ve asked them to leave for Viera right away to start interviewing the Jupiter players.”
“Good.” He started to turn away, but then gave her a sardonic look. “And try to play nice tomorrow, Robitaille. I’ve heard you have a knack for eviscerating reporters.”
Only the intellectually and ethically challenged. Then again, that covered a lot of reporters she knew. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Cramer nodded and headed back to his office. Knight gave Amy an apologetic half-smile and left for the Floor.
Amy blew out a hard breath and glanced around the table at the detectives and Beckett. Nobody moved. She could have sworn she saw sympathy in their eyes, even Ryan’s.
“Let’s get back to work,” she said, “and catch this son of a bitch.”
Amy rose and strode quickly back to her desk, her mind churning with frustration. The last thing she wanted to be doing tonight was preparing for a press conference. Yes, it was an unwelcome interruption, but it worried her, too. She’d made statements and answered questions at press conferences before, but never in a case as high profile as this one was becoming. This media briefing wouldn’t be about providing cold facts and details to the usual small press corps jaded by endless numbers of homicides, most of which flowed from the drug trade or domestic disputes. Tomorrow’s dog-and-pony show would be to reassure the public that they weren’t about to be mowed down by some homicidal maniac.
The fact that the murder victims were all wives of baseball players might make some women breathe a sigh of relief, but Amy doubted that most would feel any sense of complacency. She sure wouldn’t. There was no reason to feel sanguine; no reason to be confident that the next victim—and God she hoped there wouldn’t be one—would also be a player’s wife. They didn’t know enough to make that kind of assertion.
Reassure the public? Sure, she’d tell them that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office would be working night and day with the municipal police forces and the FBI to apprehend this killer in the shortest possible time. What else could she say? That she’d promised on her sister’s grave that every last ounce of her blood, sweat and tears would be devoted to putting the son of a bitch behind bars or in the ground?
Sighing, she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her throbbing temples. Now that would be a hell of a sound bite.
20
* * *
Friday, July 30
7:00 p.m.
One quick look at Kellen’s warpath scowl had told Luke that somebody in the room was about to take a bullet train to hell. The detectives’ faces—including the irascible Ryan’s—had dropped the second the captain walked into the meeting room.
All but one. Amy Robitaille had met her boss’s glare with a steady gaze. When Kellen had let loose with his rant about the press, she’d been the one to respond in a clear voice.
The woman had some high-gauge steel in her spine, no doubt about it.
She’d be able to handle the press jackals, probably chewing them into small pieces while smiling like a petite angel the entire time. But preparing the press statement was obviously another matter.
Luke had watched her from across the Floor as she tapped away, on and off, at her keyboard, squinting in concentration. A couple of times she’d printed out a page and read it over, only to ball it up and fire it into her recycle basket while muttering French curses. The written word
didn’t seem to come easily to her. If he was reading her right, Detective Amy Robitaille was a lot more at home on a firing range than at a computer workstation.
Not only that, the fucking press statement was about to blow up his plans for Robitaille’s evening. If she was as much of a perfectionist as he suspected, he’d be waiting half the night for her to finish.
Luke had spent the past hour researching the San Antonio and Portland players, double checking that he’d accounted for every one of them from the years in question—even the guys that had only been in those cities long enough for a cup of coffee before being traded, promoted or demoted. A guy named Zach Griffin was the one and only possibility, but he’d pitched for the Portland Sea Dogs in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania the night of Krista Shannon’s murder.
And with such totally different M.O.’s in play, Luke’s doubts that there was a link between all five murders escalated. Still, it was weird. Ballplayers’ wives were hardly abducted and killed on a regular basis.
A growl from his stomach reminded him that it had been too long since he’d eaten. Luke decided to give Robitaille another hour, and after that, he’d go get dinner himself and try his luck with Detective Intense another night.
As he glanced up at the institutional clock at the other end of the Floor, Pushy hung up the phone and rose from his desk. After a yawning stretch, the lanky detective donned his jacket and ambled down the aisle that separated his row of cubicles from Robitaille’s. Grateful for any excuse to get out from behind his cramped desk, Luke stood and joined them. If Pushy had news, he might as well hear it firsthand.
Robitaille didn’t look up but raised her right hand, palm out, as Pushy approached. Judging from her knitted brow, she seemed to be in the midst of an overdue creative burst at the keyboard. As Luke looked down at her jet black hair, a little damp and curling at the temples, the image of a terrier jumped into his mind. One of those little black Scotties, maybe. Cute and tough as all hell, and ready to take on anything, no matter how big.