The 7th Victim

by Alan Jacobson

  “Also a first,” Del Monaco said. “And now he might be drinking the vic’s blood. These are all very significant variants.”

  Vail held up a hand. “Unless this vic holds special significance to him, like we said before. That still makes the most sense to me, Frank. As to the change in MO, he had a different situation here.” She turned to the others, focusing mostly on Robby, to explain: “Some offenders will case the place to see if there are any boyfriends or husbands or roommates they have to worry about. If there are, and the offender still wants this victim, he’ll take out the male first and then go after the intended target. We saw that with Danny Rolling in Gainesville. If Dead Eyes scoped the place, and I bet he did, then he’d know Linwood wouldn’t answer her own door like the other vics did.”

  Quiet settled on the room for a moment. Sinclair asked, “She’s married, right? That shipping guy?”

  “Yeah,” Bledsoe said. “He’s been overseas. Chief was going to notify him.”

  “Maid lives in the servant’s quarters out back,” Manette said. “She’s had the flu past few days. She ordered take-out for Linwood, it was delivered around five. She went back to her place and passed out. Didn’t hear or see nothing. I gotta follow up with the delivery guy, run his sheet, see if he’s got any priors. And get proof of his whereabouts after he left.”

  “Where’s Hancock?” Vail asked.

  “Office in the back, it’s his base of operations,” Sinclair said. “Didn’t want to talk. Couldn’t get him to say shit.”

  Manette turned to Bledsoe. “You want me to go get him, Blood?” She winked. “I think he’ll listen to me.”

  Bledsoe nodded. “We need him to talk to us. Let’s do it out in the living room, let the crime scene guys finish up in here. We’ve . . . seen enough.”

  “Got that right,” Sinclair said, following Bledsoe out of the room.

  HANCOCK SAT DOWN heavily on the couch, his tie pulled loose to one side and his hair a frazzled mess. His eyes were glazed and his movements heavy, as if he had been drinking. Manette brought up the rear and tipped back a phantom cup, confirming that their compadre had, in fact, been dipping into the sauce.

  “Well, lookee what we got here. A fuckin’ party. Well, fuck me. So glad y’all could make it.”

  “We need to ask you a few questions,” Sinclair said.

  “Cops already asked me some questions.” His bloodshot eyes wandered around the room.

  Manette, who sat opposite Hancock on an identical sofa separated by a coffee table with espresso-swirl granite, said, “We know you’re pretty upset about the senator.”

  His head whipped over to her. “Shouldn’t I be? She was good to me. And I just lost my fucking job.”

  Vail frowned, stretched her neck up toward Robby’s ear. “That’s why he’s all bent out of shape. Two hundred K and benees down the drain.”

  “Yeah, and look at all the protection it got her.”

  Manette threw Vail an angry glance, then turned back to Hancock. “Look, you’re the security guy here. It was your job to look after the senator’s well-being. Where were you when—where were you tonight after six o’clock?”

  Hancock’s eyes found Vail. “It’s all your fault. You got her all upset and she wanted to be left alone.” He turned back to Manette. “I went out for a drive.”

  Vail felt everyone’s gaze shift to her face, awaiting an explanation. “I was here earlier,” she said, “around six. I’d just found out that the senator was my—my biological mother.” She glanced over at Robby, hoping to find a sympathetic face. “I came by to talk to her about it.”

  Del Monaco snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “How’d the conversation go?” Sinclair asked.

  “She was a rock. She didn’t say a whole lot—”

  “They argued,” Hancock shouted. “Vail wanted to know who her father was, but the senator wouldn’t tell her. Vail was pissed off.”

  Vail banded her arms across her chest. “I left around six-thirty, I think. I was upset, I went for a drive. When I got home, Bledsoe texted me.” She waited for more questions, a grilling, an interrogation. But everyone was quiet.

  Bledsoe’s Motorola sung Beethoven’s Fifth. He fumbled with the handset and walked off.

  “I’ll leave you all alone for a few minutes,” Vail said, “so you can talk.” She spun and followed Bledsoe out of the house.

  THE FRONT DOOR CLICKED CLOSED. The silence continued, except for the shuffling movements of crime scene technicians who continued to move about, taking photos and transporting evidence from the bedroom to their vehicle. Finally, Hancock spoke. “Vail’s got no alibi.”

  “But Karen Vail’s not a killer,” Robby said.

  Hancock reached into his sport jacket and pulled out a brown cigarette.

  “Not one of them stinkers,” Manette whined.

  Sinclair touched Manette’s arm and leaned close to her ear. “Let him go. May help calm him down, sober him up.”

  “But it’s some Turkish herbal shit in there. It’ll stink this place up, I won’t be able to breathe.”

  Hancock’s hands were trembling slightly. Robby watched as he maneuvered the lighter in front of his lips, the flame missing the tip. Hancock put his left hand in front of the right, as if one tremor would cancel the other and get the cigarette lit. He finally succeeded.

  Sinclair pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Manette. “Here’s a filter.”

  She pushed his hand away. “No thanks.” She waved her hands in the air to disperse the smoke. “What else you got on Vail?” she asked Hancock.

  Hancock sucked in a long drag, blew it out his nostrils. “She beat up her husband, put him in the hospital. She’s got a violent streak.” He flicked the ashes into a baby blue and opal colored porcelain vase on the coffee table. “Here’s how it went down. Vail is depressed. She’s got problems with her ex, and her son is in a coma. She finds out her mother isn’t her mother after all, and she starts snooping around. Somehow she discovers the senator is her real mother. She comes here to confront her, to find out why she pawned her off like an old TV. Vail gets on her case, so the senator asks her to leave. Vail throws a fit, a loud one. I’m worried she may assault the senator, just like she did to her ex. So I step in and show Vail the door. She storms out, drives away, and parks. She comes back on foot and waits nearby.”

  Hancock took another puff and rubbed at his right temple, the trail of smoke zigzagging as his hand moved back and forth over his skin. He blew a haze into the air and continued. “The senator’s very upset and wants to be alone. I try to help, but she tells me to leave. Vail waits till I drive away, then comes back in and whacks her. Makes it look like a Dead Eyes kill, which isn’t hard to do because she knows this shit so well she could recite it in her sleep.” He leaned back on the couch, his gaze resting somewhere on the floor.

  After a moment of silence during which everyone seemed to be digesting Hancock’s theory, Del Monaco spoke up. “But it doesn’t exactly match Dead Eyes. If she was staging the scene, she’d want to follow it to the letter. So there’d be no doubt.”

  Hancock blew a plume out the side of his mouth. “She can’t control herself. Rage takes over. Overkill, because of the personal connection.”

  Del Monaco bobbed his head about, as if to say he couldn’t completely rule out Hancock’s assertions. Robby remembered reading about overkill in the binders Vail had given him: it was a term used to describe excessive violence found at a crime scene, usually as a result of a soured personal relationship between the assailant and his victim.

  “And she’s got no alibi,” Hancock added.

  Robby stepped forward, stopping a few strides from Hancock’s feet. He rested his hands on his hips and looked down at Hancock. “Neither do you. And you could’ve staged the scene just as well as Karen could’ve.”

  “Yeah, but here’s the thing, Mr. Roberto Enrique Humperto Hernandez, or whatever the hell your names are.” He look
ed up and blew some smoke in Robby’s face. “I don’t have a motive.”

  Robby swatted it away and looked at Sinclair. It was a look that begged him to intervene before Robby slugged him in the face and caved in his skull.

  “Robby, honey,” Manette said, taking the hint. “Let’s chat over here for a moment.” She stepped forward and grabbed him by the crook of his elbow. She pulled him close and he reluctantly craned his neck down to her level. “We don’t know what happened yet. So he may be a suspect, but he’s our only witness, too. Let’s not piss him off before we get a chance to ask him some questions.”

  Robby knew she was right, but his hand was still curled into a fist. And he was ready to use it. “Fine. Ask your questions. I’m going out for some air.”

  ROBBY JOINED BLEDSOE in the middle of the circular drive. Bledsoe hung up his phone and stood there, nodding his head slowly.

  Vail, coming up from behind him, acknowledged Robby. “So are they raking me over the coals?”

  “Just Hancock.”

  “Well,” Bledsoe said, “I think we’ve got something on Mr. GQ.”

  Robby and Vail looked at him, anticipation raising their brows.

  “That was the chief. Gave me something he thought we could use. Seems that Linwood was helping herself to some dessert on the side.”

  “An affair?” Vail asked. “With Hancock?”

  Robby turned toward the front door. “Now that I can use.”

  “Hold on,” Bledsoe said. “We have to decide how to use this. We need to poke around a little bit, get our ducks in a row.”

  “Asshole is trying to pin this on Karen, smug on account that she had a motive and he didn’t. Now we know he might have one. Scorned lover. She wants to call it off, he refuses.”

  “Husband needs to be looked at,” Vail said. “We sure he’s overseas?”

  “It’s being checked, but they reached him at his hotel in Hong Kong, so I think his alibi is pretty damn strong.”

  “Unless it was a contract job,” Robby said. “Hubby wants her out of the picture, hires someone to take her out.”

  Vail shook her head. “Contract jobs are impersonal. Bullet to the head and it’s over. None of this bloody mess to the face and breasts.” She turned to Bledsoe. “Maybe forensics will give us something. I say we wait on nailing Hancock to the chair until at least tomorrow. We might get something else to use on him.”

  Bledsoe nodded. “I’ll ask the lab to put a rush on trace. Meantime, we wait. Okay?”

  Robby curled his mouth into a frown. “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Go home, get some rest. I’ll post a uniform, make sure no one goes in or out of the place when we leave. Including Hancock.”

  “Especially Hancock,” Robby said.

  BLEDSOE WALKED BACK IN, Vail at his side. His brow was furrowed and his hands were shoved into the pockets of his overcoat. He stopped beside Hancock, took a seat on the couch. “I know this is a tough time for you. I’m sorry you had to be the one to discover the body.”

  Hancock leaned back on the couch.

  “You said the senator had asked you to leave the house. What time was that?”

  He squinted as if blinding sunlight was bathing his eyes. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Around seven. Maybe a few minutes after. I wasn’t looking at the clock.”

  “And when did you get back?”

  Hancock shrugged, looked across the room at the grandfather clock, as if he were calculating the time by working backwards. “Around eight-thirty.”

  Manette consulted her notepad. “Nine-one-one was placed around eight-forty-five.”

  “Then it was closer to eight-forty-five,” Hancock said, his hands turning palm up. “Look, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone. I’ve had a really crappy night.”

  Vail glanced at the bloody trail in the hallway and thought, Eleanor Linwood could say the same thing.

  forty

  The doctor stood between Karen Vail’s legs, which were spread wide and resting in stirrups on the birthing table. She had been in labor for six hours, the hospital gown matted down to her slick skin with so for six hours, the hospital gown matted down to her slick skin with so much perspiration it appeared as if she had just stepped out of the shower.

  Deacon stood by her side, wiping her forehead with a cold, wet cloth, occasionally feeding ice chips into her mouth.

  “Ahhh!” Vail bore down, grabbed the edge of the table, and swore under her breath.

  “You can do this, honey,” Deacon said by her ear. “I know it hurts. Try to breathe through it, like we practiced.”

  “Ahhh!” Vail winced, then gasped and said, breathless, “Fuck the damn breathing.” She brought her right hand up to her large, contracted abdomen, then winced again.

  “It won’t be long,” the doctor said calmly. “The head is crowning. In a minute I’m going to have you push. Not until then. Okay?”

  All Vail could manage between clenched teeth was a groan.

  Deacon wiped her forehead, leaned close to her ear. “Hang on another few minutes, just another few minutes. Our son’s almost here.”

  “Okay, Karen, here he comes,” the doctor said. He pushed his rolling stool away with a flick of his foot, then reached out and placed his fingers atop the baby’s crowning head. A nurse came up alongside and pressed a button on the adjacent monitor. “Go ahead and push,” the doctor said. “We’ll have him out in a jiffy.”

  Vail bore down, the strain lifting her torso off the bed. “Ahhh! It burns, it burns!”

  “He’s just about through. That’s it, that’s it . . . all right!” The doctor guided the baby’s shoulder through, then straightened up, his face a wide grin. “Congratulations.” He handed the baby to the nurse, who wrapped the child in a small towel and placed him on Vail’s chest. “Do you have a name?”

  “Jonathan Taylor,” Deacon said, stroking his baby’s soft cheek.

  “Jonathan Taylor Tucker, I like it. . . .”

  VAIL’S EYES OPENED, locks of hair pasted to her face, thoughts of Jonathan tickling her mind. Her alarm clock glowed 4:35. She looked around, oriented herself, then began crying. Reliving Jonathan’s birth, she agonized over the life she’d had, the good-natured man Deacon once was, the joy of bringing her son into the world. How different things were now. As tears rolled onto her pillow, Vail scolded herself for never taking the time to appreciate what she had, when she had it.

  She made her way into the family room and picked up a photo of Jonathan as an infant. She touched his face, then held the frame to her chest, hugging it, as if the warmth and love could somehow move through the still photo and invigorate his spirit.

  “Please wake up,” she whispered.

  Vail sat in the family room, sipping hot chocolate and waiting for the sun to rise. The Today Show droned from the television. She watched the small digital clock in the corner of the screen tick away, figuring she would go to the hospital as soon as visiting hours began.

  Go there and do what? What could she possibly accomplish by sitting at Jonathan’s bedside? To talk to him, in case he could hear her? For someone whose work revolved around analytic logic, the concept of talking to a comatose mind seemed designed to comfort those who needed something to cling to. But she realized she was now one of those people. She had to believe Jonathan could hear her, that he could know she was near . . . because if it was true, then there was hope. And as long as there was hope, she could get through the day.

  At seven thirty, she walked into the kitchen to refill her mug. Before she could pour the hot chocolate, her doorbell rang. She squinted at the clock and wondered who it would be this time of morning. She walked to the door and saw a large, dark figure standing on her porch. Robby.

  “You’re here early.”

  Robby walked in and gave her the once over. “You look like you didn’t sleep last night.”

  “Not true. I slept about four hours.”

  Robby smirked, then reached out and touched her hair, pushed
it off her face and behind her ear. A gentle brush, a tentative, nonthreatening gesture to test the waters. “You doing okay?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve had better years.” She wanted him to reach out and take her in his arms, to hold her and tell her it’s all going to be all right. She needed his company, his strength, his support. They stared at each other, her mind willing him to reach out to her. Instead, he stood there, seemingly reading her face like a closed book. You usually know what I’m thinking. Why can’t you sense my thoughts now?