Lethal Confessions

by V. K. Sykes

  “You called the police, right?”

  Yamada dropped his eyes toward the floor. “Not immediately, I regret to say.”

  Amy had to suppress a groan. “What happened?”

  “In retrospect, I suppose I should have called the authorities before confronting Kozak. Instead, the Director of Human Relations and I met with him and his union representative. As I said, he denied our charges—rather unconvincingly—and we terminated him. Security immediately escorted him from the building. After further discussions at the senior management level the following day, the hospital’s director of security contacted the police.”

  Amy figured she knew what was coming next. “Do you know if the police arrested Kozak?”

  Yamada shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. “I was told that when they attempted to locate him for questioning, they were unable to do so. Of course, we never saw him again at the hospital.”

  What a cock-up . “This was the Stuart city police?”

  “Yes. I believe I still have the investigator’s card, if you’ll give me a moment.” He rose and left the room.

  “Damn,” Beckett said, giving her an incredulous look.

  “The morons let a murderer walk away,” Poushinsky snarled.

  Amy shook her head. “Hold on, guys. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Yamada returned quickly and handed her a business card. Detective Lonnie Foreman, Criminal Investigations Unit, Stuart Police Department.

  Amy shoved it in her jacket pocket. “Mr. Yamada, how long did Kozak work in your department?”

  “Ten months or so. He seemed to be a fine young man. Extremely bright. Polite. A conscientious worker.”

  “Do you recall where he was previously employed?”

  “Yes, I reviewed his file quite thoroughly in preparation for confronting him. After he finished his training program at a technical institute in Maine, he worked at a chain drug store.”

  Her pulse raced. “Portland, Maine?”

  “Yes.”

  Yes.

  She worked to keep her voice calm. “It sounds like Kozak is quite young.”

  “Twenty-six at the time we fired him.”

  “You said he’d worked for you for ten months. That would mean he was hired last July?”

  Yamada touched a hand to his lips, pondering the question. Growing increasingly impatient, Amy wanted to jump up and shake the answer out of him.

  “Yes, Detective. I believe it was near the end of July. But I’d have to see the file again to confirm the exact date.”

  So, Kozak might have still been in Portland until sometime in July. Rita Ramirez was murdered on July 1st. “I presume someone at the hospital checked his references?”

  “Of course. That’s Human Relations’ job. Kozak got an excellent reference from the Portland pharmacist, as well as from several of his instructors at the institute. He didn’t have a great deal of experience, but we were short-staffed at the time and anxious to fill the gap. Kozak impressed everyone in the interviews. I might add that he also did exceedingly well in his three-month trial period. So, we offered him permanent employment.”

  “Is there a photograph in his employment file?” Poushinsky asked.

  “I should think so. In fact, his ID card might still be there.”

  “We’ll need to examine that file, Mr. Yamada.”

  “Of course. I can put you in touch with the Human Relations Department. I’m sure they’ll assist you.”

  “In the meantime,” Amy said, “could you describe Kozak’s appearance?”

  Yamada nodded. “Probably the most notable thing about him was that he was very physically fit and muscular. Something of a workout fanatic, he claimed.”

  Amy made a note. “Yes, but how about height and weight, hair and eyes?”

  “Oh, perhaps five feet nine. Not particularly tall, certainly. I’m not good at guessing weight, but he was neither thin nor heavy. His hair was very dark and cut short in one of those modern cuts. I’m afraid I don’t recollect the exact color of his eyes, but they were penetrating. I remember that from the day we confronted him. His glare was actually quite unsettling.”

  “Anything else? Scars? Tattoos? Birthmarks?”

  Yamada thought for a moment. “Yes. Now that you’ve jogged my memory, he had several tattoos on his arms. You hardly ever saw them, though, because he always wore a white lab coat. We all do.”

  “Can you describe the tattoos?”

  “I don’t pay attention to that sort of thing.”

  Amy wasn’t surprised. Tattoos were ubiquitous these days. She barely noticed them herself anymore. “Mr. Yamada, would you happen to know if Kozak was a baseball fan?”

  He looked offended again. “Good Lord, I have no idea. I don’t socialize with my staff. You could ask one of the other technicians, or my secretary. I’ll give you a list of their names. There are only eight staff in the department. Kenton’s a small hospital.”

  “We’d appreciate that. Their phone numbers, too, if you have them.”

  “Of course.” Yamada pulled out a pen from his jacket pocket as well as a small, leather-covered book. Apparently no smartphone for this dude. “Do you really think Kozak could have murdered all those young women?” Yamada asked as he began to copy from his book.

  Amy schooled her features to show no reaction. “All we know is that he stole one of the types of drugs used in the murders. The fact that he didn’t steal the other two could be significant. Or not.”

  Yamada pursed his lips, frowning, as he continued to write. “Sodium thiopental and potassium chloride are not terribly difficult to obtain, Detective. He wouldn’t have had to steal those. But I always assumed Kozak stole the drugs in order to sell them. The opioids would fetch a very good price on the street, of course, but the pancuronium is something of a mystery.”

  Amy took the list from Yamada, then stood and thanked him for his cooperation. Poushinsky and Beckett followed her out to the car.

  She stopped before getting in, not bothering to hide her excitement. “One, Kozak’s a good fit with the profile,” she said. “Two, he was probably in Portland at the time of the Ramirez murder. Three, he stole one of the lethal injection drugs. We need to go full out on this one, guys.”

  Poushinsky nodded. “Absolutely. But why would he swipe the narcotics? To sell on the street?”

  “Could be,” Amy said. “It’s possible he was just a retailer. Stealing meds and selling them. Still, the Portland connection is huge. Poushinsky, can you get on top of that right away? Start by calling the hospital’s H.R. department. Get the name of that training institute.” She fished the card Yamada had given her out of her pocket. “I’m going to track down Detective Lonnie Foreman and see what he can tell us about Mr. Kozak.”

  38

  * * *

  Monday, August 2

  6:25 p.m.

  Lonnie Foreman wasn’t hard to find, even in the crowded restaurant. A Stuart Police Homicide sergeant had given Foreman’s cell number to Amy, and she’d reached the detective at a Ruby Tuesday’s in north Stuart. He was obviously in the middle of dinner with a female companion—probably his partner from the looks of her—when they arrived. Amy and Poushinsky took the two empty chairs at his table, while Beckett borrowed a chair from nearby and squeezed in between her and Poushinsky.

  Foreman introduced his partner, Marcie Waldo, and Amy introduced Poushinsky and Beckett. Foreman got the wide-eyed look that Amy had come to expect from Beckett fans. Waldo, a blonde a couple of years older than Amy, blushed as she shook Beckett’s hand. Amy’s gaze darted to Waldo’s ring finger. No diamond, but there was a gold wedding band.

  And why the hell would I start looking at women’s fingers when they make eyes at Beckett?

  She pulled her attention back to business. “Thanks for meeting us so quickly, Detective Foreman.”

  “No problem, and call me Lonnie.” In his early fifties, Foreman had an avuncular smile. “You guys want anything to eat? Dri
nk?”

  Amy shook her head. “No thanks,” she answered for everyone. They could grab something later.

  Foreman nodded. “We’ve only got about a half hour, then Marcie and I have to be at a community policing meeting up the road.”

  Amy flipped open her notebook. “Let’s get at it, then. Kenton Memorial Hospital reported to you that Brett Kozak had stolen several drugs from the hospital pharmacy, including Pavulon, which is a drug commonly used in the death row lethal injection cocktail.”

  Foreman looked disgusted. “The hospital called us the next day, after they fired the guy. Dumbasses. A patrol car was dispatched to his apartment as soon as we got the call, but of course he was long gone by then. We got a warrant, and when we went in, it was obvious he’d packed up and left. We put a BOLO out on his vehicle, and a trooper found it the next morning, abandoned at a rest stop on 95 in Georgia. Kozak just disappeared. After a few weeks we closed the file, like we do with small potatoes stuff.”

  “Yeah, but those potatoes look a lot bigger now,” Beckett said.

  Waldo gave them a placating smile as she lifted her thin shoulders in a shrug. “Who knew?”

  “Kozak was a strange case,” Foreman mused. “I probably wouldn’t remember much about a file like that, but the guy’s background caught my attention.”

  “How so?” Amy asked.

  “For one thing, he spent time in juvie for assault, robbery, and drug possession. Then, when he was eighteen, he and another guy knocked over a liquor store and beat the owner half to death after the poor guy pulled out a baseball bat. That got Kozak a stretch in state prison.”

  “Sounds like a real sweetheart,” Poushinsky said.

  “All that happened in Maine?” Amy asked.

  Foreman nodded. “Portland, though the prison’s up the coast.”

  Beckett jumped in. “But he went back to school to get training as a pharmacy technician, so it sounds like he must have straightened himself out, for a while, doesn’t it?”

  “He got parole early, partly because of good behavior, but mostly because he found religion in prison, I suspect.” Foreman laughed. “That seems to happen a lot in the joint.”

  Amy didn’t find it funny. Fake religious conversions were a growing prison problem all over the country, especially in the south. “Then what happened?”

  “Like Luke said, he enrolled in a technical institute near Portland and came out with a pharmacy technician diploma. He got a job right away at a drug store, then moved here the next year and got hired by Kenton Memorial.”

  “The hospital obviously didn’t do a criminal record check.”

  “I guess not. You’d think they would, wouldn’t you? I mean, especially when an employee gets to handle narcotics.”

  Unless Kozak managed to alter his record. Yamada had said the guy was apparently something of a computer genius. Or maybe he bribed an employee in H.R. to cover up his record.

  “A lot of balls got dropped on this one,” Amy said. “But this could be our guy, Lonnie. The wife of a baseball player was murdered in Portland on July 1st last year, a few weeks before Kozak moved away. And he was sure close enough to commit all three murders in this area. How far is Lakeland from Stuart? A couple of hours?”

  Foreman nodded. “Yeah, and he wasn’t much more than a stone’s throw from the two murders in your neck of the woods.”

  “Time for another BOLO,” Amy said.

  39

  * * *

  Monday, August 2

  9:40 p.m.

  Luke’s legs ached, his gimpy right knee screaming for mercy. He’d been riding around all over hell’s half acre crammed in the back seat of Robitaille’s car. He probably should have kicked Pushy out of the front seat at some point, but the lanky cop would have suffered as much in the back as he did.

  Still, the discomfort and outright pain had been worth it. They’d made good progress, easily the most since he’d signed on. Unearthing Kozak had lit a fire under all three of them. He’d felt it all through dinner at an Italian restaurant in Jupiter, where they toasted their good day with a few glasses of a nice wine he’d bought. Robitaille and Pushy were practically vibrating in their chairs. Two seasoned pros intently focused on the hunt.

  In the middle of the meal, Pushy had taken a call on his cell phone from the woman who ran the records office at the Southern Maine Technical Institute. After the meeting with Foreman, he’d tracked the woman down and insisted—politely, he’d claimed—that she return to the school right away and comb through the records for Brett Kozak. Barely more than an hour later, she’d called Pushy back with the information they needed.

  Kozak had graduated from SMTI with a pharmacy technician diploma. His file indicated that he had been in prison prior to that, but had been paroled after serving less than half his sentence. After volunteering with a number of community organizations, and armed with strong references from them as well as the authorities at Maine State Prison, the institute had admitted him to a full-time program of study.

  At first, Luke thought Kozak’s history didn’t fit with his idea of a serial killer. But Robitaille had reminded him that serial killers often appeared completely normal, holding down good jobs and generally acting as upright members of their communities. And Kozak did have a record of violent crime before allegedly straightening himself out.

  Even after the relaxing meal, Robitaille was still taut with energy. When she braked in the parking lot at HQ, she left the car running with her hand on the gearshift. Pushy jumped out and headed to his car, which was parked a row over. When Luke didn’t move, Robitaille glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes questioning.

  He got the message. Get moving, pal.

  He would. But first he had some business to conduct with her.

  “I’m not leaving quite yet,” he said in a quiet voice. He got out and climbed back into the front seat.

  Robitaille’s body language almost always radiated intensity, but the way her slender hands gripped the steering wheel, she looked ready to rip it right off the column.

  “I need a favor,” he said.

  A flicker of surprise crossed her fine-boned features, and she seemed to relax. “Yes?”

  “Remember that little girl I’ve been visiting at the Children’s Hospital? Alicia Trent?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve been lining up friends and celebrities to visit her while she’s waiting for surgery, and I figure she’d really enjoy meeting a detective. Especially one of the female persuasion. You haven’t got any spare time—I know that, Amélie. But it would mean a lot to the kid if you could get down there for even half an hour.”

  She let out a tiny sigh, dropping her hand to her lap. When finally she turned toward him, Luke saw, in the fluorescent glow of the parking lot lights, that her eyes had softened.

  “Of course. No problem,” she said in a gentle voice.

  Luke smiled, relieved out of all proportion. “That’s great. I really appreciate it. You’re going to love Alicia. Just let me know when you can make it, and I’ll go down with you.”

  She offered a faint smile. “I’ll look forward to it. But, frankly, I’ve never been very good with kids. Just ask my sister.”

  Luke didn’t believe that. “But your nephew loves you within an inch of his life. He was all over you last night before dinner.”

  She laughed. “Cooper knows who butters his bread. What I lack in auntie skills, I make up for with goodies his parents won’t buy him.”

  “That’s what aunts and uncles are for,” Luke said, envying her. He’d never have a nephew.

  “Toys and ice cream cones,” she said. “And commiserating when Mom and Dad are meanies. But you know what the best thing about it is, Beckett?”

  He shook his head. How could he?

  “Being able to enjoy the kid and then make your escape back to peace and quiet. That’s something parents can never do.”

  He blinked, surprised. “Sounds like motherhood isn’t too high on your
list of priorities.”

  She suddenly looked achingly sad. “I don’t want to be my mother. Motherhood almost wound up killing her, and I’m not that strong. Not in that way.”

  Luke merely nodded, even as he fought an impulse to pull her into his arms. Robitaille must have watched her mother descend to the depths of hell after her daughter was murdered. She clearly didn’t want to talk about the death of her twin, and he was determined to respect her privacy. If that meant not talking about it, that’s what he would do.

  “I understand,” he said, sad for her, and strangely for himself, too.

  She seemed to shake it off, morphing back into the scrappy cop. “Yeah, well, then you’re better than my parents. They’re still fixated on my so-called biological clock. Maybe you could straighten them out for me.”

  “I’d better take a pass on that, Detective,” he said with a little chuckle at her jest. “I’m thirty-six. They’d probably tell me to take care of my own damn clock.”

  She laughed, a genuine, sweet sound. “So they would, Beckett. So they would.”

  Luke couldn’t hold off anymore. “Amélie,” he said in a low voice, slipping his hand behind her neck. He leaned into her as he gently brought her head toward his. He half-expected her to give him an elbow smash to the jaw.

  Wonder of wonders, though, she didn’t. She closed her eyes as he drew her toward him, parting her lips on a sigh as he claimed them. Still, her nearly rigid body unconsciously communicated her need for control.

  He traced the outline of her lips, probing with his tongue as she held the flat of her palm against his chest. Despite the half-hearted resistance, she soon opened to his insistent demand and their tongues met in a hot, wet embrace. Luke stroked the back of her neck and ran his fingers through her fragrant hair as he lost himself in the sweet softness of her.