This can’t be happening.
It can’t.
There must be some mistake.
He raises the phone to his ear again, hand trembling.
“I’m in a private spot now, Frank. I need you to repeat that for me.”
On the other end of the line, Santiago coughs, clears his throat. “I said, we ID’ed the strands of hair that were found in Carla Barakat’s hand….”
The first time Santiago said that, Neal responded, “I didn’t know you’d found strands of hair.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Frank replied.
Then he told him whose hair it was.
Now Neal is asking him to repeat it, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe, until he does.
He must have heard wrong the first time.
He must have.
“The hair belongs to Lucinda Sloan.”
Thoughts whirling, Neal takes a moment to regroup.
He knows Lucinda. He loves her like a daughter, believes in her.
He’ll accept that her hair was clenched in the fist of a dead woman. He has no choice. There’s no way around it. But there’s got to be a reasonable explanation.
Of course there is.
“She was on the scene, Frank.”
“Yeah. No kidding.”
“No, but we already knew that. The fact that her hair—”
“She denied having gone anywhere near the body, or even into the house,” Frank reminds him with exaggerated patience. “But somehow, she told my investigators to look in the bathroom, and guess where the body was?”
“She’s a psychic!” Neal responds, not nearly as patiently. “For the love of God, Frank, you know that. You worked with her yourself.”
“DNA doesn’t lie. Looks like psychics do.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You and I both know there are plenty of possible explanations for the hair being found on the scene.”
“Like?”
“Come on, Frank. Circumstantial evidence. Do we really have to do this?”
Santiago starts coughing on the other end of the line.
“Are you all right?” Neal asks.
Santiago ignores the question. “Lucinda said she’d never been inside that house before. Never.”
“Yes. Because she hadn’t.”
“Yet she had the victim’s bloody ring in her possession.”
“It’s a set-up. The hair, the ring…She doesn’t know how the ring got into her apartment. And she turned it over to you immediately. Why would she—”
“Her hair was in the victim’s fist. Inside the house.”
“Frank—”
“Before you get up on your circumstantial soapbox, yes, I know there are ways for that to happen that don’t involve her crossing the threshold herself. Let’s say a strand of her hair could have, for instance, been left on her pillow one morning. Let’s say her lover brushed against it, got it onto his clothes, carried it into the house where his ex-wife lives.”
“Randy isn’t Lucinda’s lover, Santiago,” Neal snaps even as he wonders if “wasn’t her lover” might not be more accurate phrasing.
He’s positive the two of them were platonic a month ago. Well, if not positive, at least pretty sure.
Now—they’ve been spending an awful lot of time together. Neal’s been in their company. The old sparks are flying again.
But that means nothing in the context of this murder investigation. Nothing at all.
If he honestly believes Randy and Lucinda were platonic a month ago, though—and if he buys that they haven’t seen each other since August—how did her hair get into Carla’s hand?
“So you and Lucinda—you’re good friends, right, Neal?”
“Absolutely.” He debates the wisdom of mentioning that she’s under his roof at this very moment, downstairs washing the dishes with his wife.
“She’s in the habit of telling you about her love life?”
“No,” he admits. “Not really.”
It’s just like the first time Neal was third-wheeling around with the two of them, Randy and Lucinda, a few years back. Now, as then, he doesn’t ask Lucinda any questions, and she doesn’t tell him anything beyond the basics: Randy is coming to go to a movie tonight, or Randy and I went shopping yesterday.
“But,” he tells Santiago, “that doesn’t mean I believe for one instant that Lucinda and Randy were involved with each other when Carla was killed.”
“You don’t.”
“No.”
“It might interest you to know that on February 23rd, the day Randy flew back from Tahoe, the two of them spent the night together.”
“I already knew that. I’m the one who told her to stay, because of the weather. She stayed in his room; he stayed on the couch.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me,” Neal bites out. “How do you know any of this?”
“You don’t think we had a squad car patrolling the streets after a woman was slaughtered in that neighborhood?”
Okay. Of course they were patrolling.
“Lucinda’s car was there all night, parked in front of the house Randy’s renting.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It doesn’t mean anything for a woman to spend the night with a former lover who’s just learned that his wife has been murdered in cold blood?”
“The Barakats were separated, and Lucinda is one of Randy’s closest friends.”
“Who hadn’t seen or had any contact with him in months. Yet she showed up out of the blue on the day his wife was murdered?”
“She’s—”
“A psychic. I know, Bullard.”
So now they’re on a last name basis.
Fine.
“She’s been helping us with this case, Santiago. She’s the one who figured out that those numbers we had were the latitude and longitude of Beach Haven.”
“We were working on it. We’d have come up with it. Anyone could have.”
“Why would she have let you know about it, though, unless she wanted to help?”
“To throw us off her trail more quickly.”
“And the Ava Neary connection? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Exactly. What does that have to do with anything?” Frank sounds smug. “Smokescreen.”
Through clenched teeth, Neal asks, “Look, why don’t you just come right out and tell me what it is that you think Lucinda did.”
“I think she got into that house using the key that was so conveniently hidden under the mat, and I think she killed Carla Barakat.”
“Because…”
“Because she wanted Carla’s husband all to herself.”
“They were separated.”
“But not divorced. Maybe she was worried he’d leave her and go back to Carla. He did once before, didn’t he?”
So he’s done his homework. How did he find out?
“Randy and Lucinda were never a couple,” Neal tells him.
“Never a public couple. There’s a difference.”
“Look, you’re going down the wrong path, Santiago.”
He’s seen it happen before.
Not long after he made detective back in the mid-eighties, Neal encountered his first serial killer: the Frankford Slasher. For a good five years, the shadowy figure raped and murdered victims in the blighted northeast neighborhood.
Officially, the case was solved: an arrest was made; the suspect was convicted—for just one of the murders, and based on damned skimpy evidence, as far as Neal is concerned. He wasn’t involved; by then, he was off the case and onto something else.
But to this day, he remains convinced that the real Frankford Slasher evaded capture while the investigation focused on someone who, while he might have murdered the victim in question, could very well have had nothing to do with the rest.
“I’m going down the wrong path?” Frank Santiago echoes. “I’m looking at the people who had a connection to the
victim. How is that the wrong path?”
That, of course, is what you do first in any murder investigation.
But there are other factors at work here.
“This was no crime of passion, Frank. I’ve worked on a number of serial murders, and—”
“And so have I. And so has Lucinda. We’re all experts, agreed?”
“I didn’t say—”
“Who better than an expert to pull this off?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Someone who knows how a serial murderer’s mind works. Someone who went to a lot of trouble to make it appear that Carla was a random victim. Right down to figuring out the longitude and latitude of Beach Haven, like that’s the reason Carla was murdered—just because she was there.”
“I think you’re wrong. I know you’re wrong. It’s not just about Carla. According to the second set of numbers we got and that package that was sent to Lucinda, we should be looking at Chicago.”
87.7
41.9
“We have been looking at Chicago. There hasn’t been a similar murder there.”
“That we know of.”
“The CPD is on it. They combed their files. If any case in Chicago history came close to our killer’s M.O., don’t you think we’d be on it and so would they?”
“Yes.”
“Good, Neal.”
Ah, they’re back to first names. Frank Santiago must think he’s coming around to his way of thinking.
Like hell, he is.
“Why did you call me to tell me this tonight, Frank?”
There’s a pause. “To give you a heads up that we’re bringing her in for questioning and you, too.”
“I’m a suspect, too?”
“You’re a witness. You need to be there.”
“When is this going to happen?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Tomorrow?”
A hesitation. “I’m not sure yet. I’m tied up early in the day.”
“Does Randy know this is going on?”
“Randy is not assigned to this case.”
“I realize that. But the victim was his wife. And the woman you’re about to interrogate is his friend.”
“Interview. Not interrogate. There’s a difference.”
“Does Randy know about this?” he repeats.
“Not yet. And it’s not up to you to tell him. Or her, for that matter.”
That’s true.
It doesn’t mean he won’t…but he has to weigh the consequences.
Neal rakes a hand through what’s left of his hair. “You know, it could still happen, Frank.”
Santiago doesn’t ask what could still happen. A good investigator follows all the threads—conversational and otherwise.
“Hypothetically, yes,” he agrees. “But—”
“There’s always a cooling off period.”
“Granted. Thirty years is a bit much, don’t you think?”
“Thirty years?”
“Since Ava Neary.”
“That’s not what I meant.” And you know it.
“Look, this case couldn’t be more different from Ava Neary’s. No one made it look like Carla Barakat slit her own throat, okay?”
“An M.O. can change over the years, Frank. You and I both know that. The signature doesn’t, but the M.O. might. The murder victims she saw in that scrapbook—”
“So-called murder victims she said she saw,” Frank interjects.
Neal ignores him. “They were all young and pretty, with long hair. So was Carla Barakat, and—”
“You’re reaching, Neal.”
Yeah, he knows. He can’t help it.
Frank’s on the wrong path, dammit.
“At the very least, you should be looking into those suicides,” Neal tells him.
“Which suicides? The only person who saw this scrapbook is Lucinda Sloan, and she claims it disappeared.”
“I saw it, and it did disappear.”
“But you told me you never saw what was in it. You don’t have any information on these supposed murder victims.”
“Lucinda gave you two names she remembered.”
“We checked them out. They are two very sad cases of women who killed themselves many years ago.”
“So you talked to their families? You made sure their deaths weren’t suspicious in any way?”
“We checked them out,” Frank repeats. “Without something more to go on…What else do you expect me to do? Your friend plucks two names out of the past and expects us to reopen investigations into their deaths? This isn’t even our jurisdiction.”
“But—”
“Listen, Neal, trust me, if this does happen again—if this so-called serial killer strikes again using the same M.O.—I’ll be on the first plane to O’Hare, but…”
Neal sighs. “But what?”
“That’s not going to happen. Because there is no serial killer.”
Frank hangs up the telephone and allows the painfully suppressed fit of coughing to overtake him, along with a rip tide of self-reproach.
What the hell did he just do?
He shouldn’t have called Neal. Of course he shouldn’t have.
He leans back in his chair, trembling, sweating cold.
Folding his arms across his wheezing chest, he feels pain as the movement tugs the latest scar there.
His ego got the best of him, dammit. His ego, and his weakening physical state, and his personal grudge against Lucinda Sloan.
Thanks to her, no doubt, both Randy and Dan Lambert have recently asked him—on separate occasions—about his health. When he assured them that he was fine—just getting over a touch of pneumonia, as he’d said all along—he could tell neither believed him.
Because of Lucinda Sloan.
She knows, just as he thought. She knows, and she told his colleagues.
What right does she have to delve into his personal business?
What right does she have, for that matter, to walk free?
When the DNA evidence came back, he gloated.
No longer does the psychic have the upper hand.
All right, so he should never have called Neal Bullard just now, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
He let his personal agenda get in the way of his professional one.
Dammit. This could have serious repercussions. His judgement is going to pieces.
Dr. Rubin said to anticipate that. Said that now is probably the time for Frank to wind down his career.
But I’m not ready to give up.
I’m not ready for any of this.
Frank massages his throbbing temples with his fingertips.
He screwed up royally.
What if Neal tips off Lucinda Sloan, and she bolts?
Or what if you’re wrong about her?
He tries to ignore the nagging voice, just as he’s been doing for weeks now.
What if he really is going down the wrong path?
What if that guy who contacted him a few weeks ago was onto something?
Victor Shattuck.
Frank had swiftly Googled the name before he even took the call. He found out that Shattuck was a retired FBI agent, like he claimed—and also that he was writing a book about a decades-old unsolved serial killer case.
Frank promptly dismissed him as a publicity hound.
So why did he take the call anyway?
Because it’s what you do.
You examine every possible avenue.
You listen to every possible lead, no matter how unlikely.
It would really be reaching to think that a long-dormant—or probably dead—murderer would resurface now. Especially here. The entire county sees a handful of murders a year at most. What are the odds that this bucolic island town would be the scene of two separate serial murder cases in a matter of months?
Then again, there was so much press about the first case…. Is it so hard to believe that it attracted unwanted attention from a killer?
&
nbsp; Yes.
Damn right, it’s hard to believe.
About as hard as it is to believe that Lucinda Sloan happened to show up at Carla Barakat’s doorstep because of a psychic vision…
Even though she does have a way of knowing things she couldn’t possibly know?
Frank sits up abruptly, wondering why he’s even bothering to question any of this.
There isn’t a decent detective in the world who would give her paranormal, intangible so-called explanation the benefit of the doubt over solid DNA evidence.
As far as he’s concerned, they need look no further.
She’s guilty as hell.
If he had his way, he’d haul her in here right now. Arrest her.
But there’s procedure to follow, and paperwork to do….
And, yes, the morning’s ordeal to get through.
Filled with dread, Frank covers his mouth with a handkerchief and gives in to another fit of coughing.
When it’s over, the handkerchief is spattered with blood.
Lucinda’s BlackBerry rings as she walks the last stretch of slush-pooled sidewalk toward her building, carrying a couple of bags filled with groceries she bought when she got off the subway.
Erma’s home-cooked meal tonight—culminating in a sour cream coffee cake, still fragrant from the oven and swirled with crumbly sweet streusel—reminded her that her own cupboards and fridge are shamefully bare. And the Bullards’ parental insistence that she try a salad reminded her that she really does need to eat more healthfully now that she’s in her thirties.
So much for that.
She went into the store intending to shop the perimeter—fruits and vegetables, dairy and poultry. She wound up in the aisles and came out with chips and soda, Ben and Jerry’s, Oreos, and a busload of Easter candy.
Juggling the bags, she reaches into the pocket of her parka for the phone, certain it’s Neal.
Maybe he’s got something on Isaiah Drew.
Or maybe he’d gotten information earlier, when he took that phone call upstairs, but didn’t want to say anything in front of Erma.
He’d been awfully subdued when he returned to the kitchen, quietly eating dessert and letting Erma do all the talking.
That wasn’t unusual in and of itself, but something was wrong.
Lucinda even asked him about it at the door.
“We’ll talk in the morning, Cin,” was all he said, looking weary.
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