The tall detective’s phone rang and he stepped out into the hallway. Kent was pretty damned certain it wasn’t because he couldn’t hear the call.
* * *
Nicole followed Kent out into the hallway just as Ruben shut his phone. She felt like she could finally breathe again. She could only image what Yvent felt like.
“I just talked to the detectives that were working victim number two’s case,” Ruben stated. “Her boyfriend is an avid hunter. Well-versed in using a rifle, handgun and hunting knife.”
“His alibi?” Nicole asked.
“Supposedly, at the time of victim two’s death, he was out drinking with buddies, but no one could remember them at the bars they said they had been at.”
“So, possibly good old boys providing a false alibi?” Yvent proposed.
“You’re all kidding right?” Kent said. “That some hillbilly committed these crimes?”
Ruben’s jaw clenched like it did whenever he was around Kent. “He’s a viable suspect.”
“Yeah, right,” Kent said, shaking his head.
“Are they bringing him in?” Nicole asked. Ruben nodded. “Alright. At least let’s go to the barn and rule him out.”
Kent didn’t look any too happy about it, but there were times when you had to do straight up police work. Your due diligence. Not exactly Kent’s specialty.
CHAPTER 7
Ruben sat across from the suspect, Jasper Harkenson. It was like he was wearing a hick costume, right down to the checkered flannel shirt and cowboy hat. There was a ring of sweat at the scalp line. The guy lived in a trailer park with his aunt and five cousins.
As much as Ruben hated to admit it, Kent seemed right. The concept that the guy spitting tobacco into an old Sprite can could have pulled off four murders was becoming more and more ludicrous. Plus, the word from the exhumation just came through. Annabelle, as well, had been injected with fly eggs.
“The skanky bitch had it coming to her,” the man said. “Annabelle was whoring around. No wonder someone wanted her dead.”
Nicole leaned forward. “You do realize that your statement gives you motive?”
“Please, I’m dating Chastity now. She’s seven years younger than Annabelle and a whole cup bigger. Plus, she’s fun.”
“And the other women that were murdered?” Nicole asked. “Where were you on March 13th?”
Jasper spit into his pop can. “I told you already, we were out huntin’.”
Nicole pressed him, though. “But you said you were too drunk to know what time you arrived or left the camping grounds.”
“Being shit-faced isn’t a crime,” Jasper countered with a laugh. “Otherwise, I’d be in for a life sentence.”
Ruben wanted to punch the insufferable man, but that wouldn’t look very good, now would it? Besides, the ranger was well aware of Jasper and his yahoo friends. They routinely hunted outside of season and took more than the law allowed. They were even implicated in a hit-and-run last season, so the ranger knew them not only by sight, but by their truck’s broke-ass transmission. The ranger put them getting to the campsite by 7pm and leaving at 11am the next morning. Well within the TOD timeframe. So being total dicks confirmed their alibi.
“What did you mean by Annabelle was whoring around?” Nicole asked.
Jasper shrugged. “I just heard through the grapevine she was dating someone.” He held out his hand. “But don’t bother asking, because I don’t know his name, address, career, or his car’s license number.”
Ruben studied the hick. Now would have been a perfect time to try and throw them off the scent. He could have offered up a completely reasonable suspect right then. Yet he’d thrown away the golden opportunity.
But Jasper had means and motive. Could this moron really have planned such an alibi, then snuck out of the campsite to commit the murder? As the guy tapped his keychain with a confederate flag on the table, Ruben seriously doubted it.
This guy was the type to strangle someone barehanded. Or find his girlfriend in bed with another guy and shoot them both. No elaborate set up. No forensic countermeasures. Just straight-up crimes of passion. At some point, this hick was going to end up in jail, just not for these killings. And the skill to acquire a variety of different fly eggs, then carefully inject them into his girlfriend’s abdomen? Not so much.
However, they had to do their due diligence and be absolutely sure they could rule Jasper out. Ruben tried to get comfortable in his chair. This could take a while. And it didn’t help any that he knew that Kent and Yvent were behind the one-way glass, watching this train wreck of an interview.
* * *
Yvent scrolled down his email. “The other two friends are backing up Jasper’s story. Although their alibis are remarkably vague, yet consistent.”
The profiler next to him nodded. “They’re too stupid to come up with anything else.”
Stupid or wasted, Yvent thought.
“Ask him about Annabelle’s taste in music,” Kent said into his mic. Nicole repeated the question in the interrogation room.
The profiler was using the interview not to suss out the suspect, but to mine for information regarding the victim. Clearly, Kent was still trying to figure out how the women were related.
Unfortunately, Jasper took little interest in Annabelle. The guy couldn’t name a single song she liked.
“How exactly did he meet Annabelle?” Kent asked in her ear. She repeated the question.
For the first time during the interview, Jasper squirmed. The guy clearly had some experience in an interrogation room. He’d been picked up for half a dozen juvenile offenses when he was younger. All petty stuff. Tagging. Vandalism. Fighting on school property. Since then, he’d been hauled in for bar fights and drunk and disorderly.
Plus, clearly, he didn’t do this crime, so why should he be worried?
But now, with that simple question, the guy was squirming in his seat, pointing his toes toward the door, his hands in his lap. Kent was on to something.
“I…” Jasper said. “I met her at church,”
“Church?” Nicole repeated. “You’re kidding me?”
The guy shook his head. “After my last arrest for that scuffle at Duke’s bar, my aunt told me I either started attending her church, or she’d kick me out.”
Jasper lowered his eyes, fiddling with his keychain.
“Okay, but why date Annabelle?” Kent asked into his mic.
Once Nicole had repeated the question, Jasper answered. “My Auntie May said I either got a good girl, or she’d take back her truck.”
Kent smiled. The profiler knew something. Something that Yvent couldn’t possibly understand yet. That kind of pissed him off. He’d chosen Kent as his mentor and had to pull a thousand strings to make this internship happen, but the experience had turned out to be as exasperating as it was educational.
He went back to his phone to look over all of his documents on the case. “But the other three victims didn’t even attend church.”
“That’s not the point, kid,” Kent stated. “I don’t think the killer found his victims at church, but a religious upbringing is a major key in the case. You honestly don’t see it?”
Yvent had to shake his head, as much as he resented it.
“We have an extremely emotionally immature killer who somehow coaxed at least three extremely shy women to his killing grounds. Where did he get that skill set?”
“It wouldn’t be work. He could be highly proficient at his job without having any emotional IQ.”
Kent nodded. Which, Lord knew, he should. The profiler was a walking example of someone with a high IQ and grossly low EQ.
“Ah, but church,” Kent said. “Church teaches you social manners. At least the superficial kind. Saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. Using the term ‘ma’am.’”
Yvent nodded. It did make sense. “Social graces can take you pretty far with women.”
“My guess is that if we dig deep enough, the victim’s fr
iends are going to say that the victims had too high an expectation for their men. They expected the door to be opened for them, chivalrous stuff like that.”
“For the guy to pay the dinner bill?”
“Exactly.”
“This guy is preying on these women’s traditional values.”
Yvent looked to Jasper. No wonder Annabelle had only dated the guy for three weeks. Even though he went to church, he certainly didn’t have any of the characteristics a good church girl would be looking for.
“I’ll have the unis re-interview the friends for the victim’s dating habits,” Yvent said as he sent the text. Then he noticed the time. “I’ve got to get going.”
“You’ve got a lead?” Kent asked.
“No,” Yvent said with a shake of his head. “It will be sunset soon, and I have to get home before then.”
Kent frowned. “You do realize that serial killers don’t observe the Sabbath?”
Yvent had heard this a thousand times during his schooling. How he could never be an FBI agent and a devout Jew. He’d had to threaten a lawsuit just to get into the academy.
“I’ll be back on the clock at sunset Saturday,” Yvent said. It nearly killed him to take the next twenty-four hours off, but he had promised his mother. And since her death eight years ago, he had kept it. Up until now, his choices had not impacted his work. Now, though, in the real world with real criminals, Harbinger wasn’t all wrong.
But he could remember the feel of his mother’s hand in his. The tears streaming down both of their faces when he made the promise. It was his promise to God and to her to keep their traditions alive.
He couldn’t start making compromises now, or he’d never stop.
And he really needed to get going, otherwise he’d have a hell of a long walk to his house if the sun set before he drove home.
“And no technology, right?” Kent asked. “No email or texting?”
Yvent nodded. As a matter of fact, he would need to walk to the synagogue in the morning. This was why most orthodox Jews lived in the same neighborhood. They had to so that they could walk to temple.
“I must live as my ancestors until the Sabbath is over.”
“Shouldn’t you have long curls and a hat or something?” Kent asked.
Even though Yvent was pretty sure the profiler knew the difference, he still answered the question as he had a thousand times before. “You are thinking of Haredi, most associated in the media with the diamond trade.” With a sigh, he continued. “There are many, many orthodox Jews who are not a member of that sect.”
“Well, you better get off then,” Kent said. “But don’t expect to get the collar if you aren’t around when I catch the guy.”
While not exactly supportive, Yvent would take it. “Tomorrow evening then,” he said as he headed out.
* * *
Kent dispassionately watched the train wreck of an interview unfold. There was something profoundly beautiful about watching an interrogation through the one-way mirror. So much about character was revealed. Not about the suspect—although sometimes that was helpful. However, Kent preferred to do his questioning outside the box. If he really was honing in on a suspect, he’d far rather interrogate them in their comfort zone. Once they were in the box, their defenses went way up.
No, Kent meant about clues to the interviewers’ character.
Poor Ruben had so wanted to prove Kent wrong. His initial body language was all confidence and aggression. Ruben had been leaning forward, hands balled into a fist on the table in front of him. His questions had been spit out like nails.
Within five minutes, Ruben had leaned back, relaxed his hands, and was basically throwing softball questions at the guy. His feet were even pointed to the door. The detective had checked out of the interview long ago. His shoulders were slouched, and several very telling glances to the two-way mirror told Kent that Ruben knew he was wrong, again. That must suck.
Nicole, on the other hand, was still trying to make something of the interrogation. She’d never seemed intent on proving Jasper had killed Annabelle. Instead, she had properly aimed her questions at revealing Annabelle’s character. Although Kent was not quite sure if Jasper here could pick up on any true habits of his ex-girlfriends. Beyond her bra size and the time of the month to avoid her, Jasper was a bit of a dead end.
So Kent’s mind wandered to the trophies. They had to make some kind of sense to the killer. Why, then, couldn’t he discern the reasoning?
As the voices droned on from inside the room, Kent sank deeper and deeper into the killer’s mind frame.
* * *
Nicole cocked her head. Kent hadn’t chimed in over the last few minutes. And, to be honest, she was a little lost. About the only thing they had figured out definitively during this interview was that Jasper was a douche.
She hated to admit it, but she found herself flailing a bit without Kent’s whispering in her ear. Had he left? Or was he about as bored with this interview as she was? The odor of stale beer and weed was only making it worse.
“Tell us more about Annabelle. You said she wasn’t fun. What does that mean?” Nicole asked.
“She didn’t drink or smoke weed,” Jasper said, his eyes darting between Ruben and Nicole. “And sex? You’d better turn out the lights and not have beer breath.”
No great surprise there. Still, Jasper had dated the girl for three weeks, so he must have something to add to the victimology. Some insight that would help them hone down the suspect pool. Otherwise, this hour was simply time she was never getting back.
Nicole glanced to Ruben. His eyelids were at half-mast and his lips in a half-pout. He so wanted Jasper to be involved. If he spent half of the time he spent pushing against Kent in helping the profiler, they might actually catch Wallflower before he kills again.
The thought brought Nicole’s resolve back. This interview couldn’t just be about running through the motions. The killer selected Annabelle for a reason, and Nicole needed to find out what that single special something is.
“Where did Annabelle like to hang out?”
“Stupid book clubs and helping out at the Boys and Girls Club,” Jasper said, as if helping underprivileged youth was somehow abhorrent. How had Annabelle ended up with this guy in the first place? Of course, they’d only dated a few weeks, but really? How did this relationship get past the first date? Jasper shrugged. “Plus, she was all into bike riding. The bicycle type. She said it brought her closer to nature. Whatever.”
“Had she mentioned anyone new after you two broke up?” Nicole asked. She was certain that Kent would have more germane questions to ask, but at the moment, he was silent and Ruben looked like he was halfway to clocking out already.
“Do you really think I listened to her while we were dating, let alone afterward?” Jasper asked. “Can I go now, or do I need to call my aunt?”
Ruben sighed next to her. They both knew there was no point in questioning the hick any longer. As much as Nicole wanted to make a silk purse out of this pig’s ear, it just wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes all you could do was get out while the getting was good.
“You may go,” Nicole said as she shut her folder.
* * *
Kent leaned up against the wall as Ruben and Nicole exited the interrogation room. “Well, the only good thing about that interview was that it was so boring that I got some good thinking in.”
“And?” Nicole asked.
She was so cute when she was behind the curve. “I’ve been trying to make sense of all the trophies. Trying to boil them all down to one pathology.”
Captain Glick walked into the observation hallway. “Where’s the kid?”
Both Nicole and Ruben’s head swiveled, searching for Kent’s intern.
Kent shrugged. “He’s got all of that Jew-y stuff to do.”
Glick grunted. “I get it, but I don’t get it. How does he think he’s going to survive in law enforcement? Taking every Friday to Saturday night off?”
>
“Just because his electronics are turned off doesn’t mean his brain is,” Kent said.
Which surprised Nicole. He was actually supportive of Yvent’s religious practices? That certainly did not sound like Kent. The “Jew-y” remark was more in his ballpark.
“You were about to be brilliant?” Ruben said, with only a tinge of bitterness leaking into his tone.
“Ah, yes, my deep thoughts,” Kent said. “I think our serial killer is a churchgoer.”
“Why?” Glick asked.
“His social skill set. I think he got it from church.”
“How does that help us, though?” Ruben challenged. “We’ve got over five hundred religious organizations in the city. How does that narrow down our suspect pool?”
Kent shrugged. “It doesn’t, but it does help in my victimology. He is looking for girls he could, under other circumstances, bring home to Mommy. Or Auntie.”
“Again, I’m not seeing how this helps,” Ruben stated.
Nicole wished that Ruben could see how he looked when he decided to face off against Kent. It was not a pretty sight. Nitpicking at every single word of Kent’s was just making Ruben look petty. And since Kent usually ended up right, it also made Ruben look a little thickheaded. Which he was, around Kent.
“I think I also resolved our questions about the trophies,” Kent said.
Nicole wasn’t even aware they had any questions about the killer’s trophies, so this was news to her. Ruben’s look of surprise seemed to indicate he hadn’t even thought of it either.
“Come on. A purse, a toe ring, a lock of hair, and now a piece of skin? Does no one else find that weird?” Kent challenged.
Again, Nicole hadn’t even given it a second thought. Although now she was kicking herself for not thinking harder about the killer’s choice of trophy. The trophy usually was the best indicator for the serialist’s underlying motive. The emotional reason he committed the murders.
“Besides becoming more intimate, they don’t make a whole lot of sense,” Nicole admitted.
“Exactly,” Kent said. “But I think that is because we’ve been looking at them the wrong way.”
The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection) Page 41