Vicious: The Faces of Evil Series: Book 7

by Webb, Debra

  Jess couldn’t wait until the county saw the bill for that one. Police business was like most others these days, trying to find ways to cut costs. “So we were right about Templeton and Burgess not being able to fight back.”

  “You were right,” Sylvia corrected. “You pointed out the fact that neither victim fought their restraints. Good catch, Harris. I gave you full credit on the orders for testing. Now I won’t have to listen to my boss complain about my decisions.”

  Jess flashed her a fake smile. “That was thoughtful of you.” What a friend! “You have the cause of death on Thomas yet?” She’d said earlier that the triple stun gun hit hadn’t been the culprit.

  “Drug induced asphyxiation. They gave him too much of the Curare.”

  Hayes checked his cell. “I’ll take this in the corridor,” he said to Jess as he backed out the door.

  Her thoughts were on the Curare. The ways the Vance sisters may have gotten their hands on the drug ticked off in Jess’s mind. Making it was risky business, but it could be done.

  “So you’re staying at Dan’s now?”

  Jess frowned at the ME. “What? Yes. Just until we get this Spears thing under control.” She wasn’t about to feed the rumor mill.

  Sylvia peeled off her gloves and headed for the sink. “Gina and I have a bet on how long it’ll be before the two of you are married. I think I might win.”

  “Is that a fact?” Jess checked her cell, wished she would get a call, too. Where the heck was Hayes?

  “Are you going to be one of those over forty women who start having babies right away?” Sylvia tossed a paper towel into the trash. “You don’t want to let all those eggs shrivel up and die and, of course, we wouldn’t want vaginal atrophy to set in. Women like us are behind the curve, Harris.”

  Now she was just fishing. If Jess weren’t standing here already pregnant, she would have been offended. Maybe she was anyway. Dammit. But she gave Sylvia grace. After all, her husband had left her for a younger woman who immediately gave him a child. What they needed was a subject change.

  “Officer Cook seems to be quite smitten with you.”

  The abrupt change of subject startled the ME, but she quickly regained her mental footing. “I’m aware.”

  “He’s young and naïve.”

  Sylvia smiled. “He is young. I don’t know how naïve he is.” She inclined her head. “Get to your point, Harris. Do you have an issue with older women dating younger men?”

  “Absolutely not.” Jess held up her hands. “It’s just that he’s on my team and I don’t want any work issues cropping up.”

  “You have my word there will be no issues.”

  “Good. Cook is a nice guy. Don’t break his heart.”

  Sylvia smiled. “It’s not his heart I’m interested in.”

  Hayes poked his head in. “We have to roll, Chief.”

  Dread pooled in her belly. “We have another murder?”

  Hayes shook his head. “The lab found traces of linseed oil, vermilion and cinnabar in the bleached blond hair from the Homewood house.” At Jess’s look of confusion he added, “Elements commonly found in the oil paint artists use.”

  That was the best news Jess had heard all morning. Maybe it was coincidence that Selma Vance had paint in her hair. Maybe Ellis had never laid eyes on her or her sister before today. But now Jess had an excuse to push him a little harder.

  109 Broadway, 12:30 p.m.

  The tail she’d put on Ellis had lost him. Of course, rather than coming to the gallery as he’d said, he disappeared. Ellis was not here or at his home. He was not answering his phone. He was gone. Dammit.

  Now what she needed was evidence. She couldn’t put a BOLO out on him without some way to connect him to the crimes or some aspect of this investigation that suggested he was in danger.

  She had zip on the guy, except for two uniforms and a detective wasting time out here on the sidewalk waiting for a search warrant to be inked. Jess was ready to explode.

  Dammit all to hell!

  Hayes’s phone rang. Jess held her breath while he took the call.

  “Thank you,” he said to the caller, then he put his phone away. “Warrant’s signed. We can go in.”

  The door was open in under a minute.

  “There’s a second floor,” Jess said as they entered the gallery. “We don’t want to miss anything.”

  The two uniforms rushed ahead to get to the stairs. “Lieutenant, I’ll look around down here. See if there’s a hidden storeroom or a basement around here.”

  Hayes gave her a two-fingered salute and headed toward the rear of the gallery.

  Jess checked behind the paintings hanging on the wall. She lifted them away just enough to ensure there were no hiding places. Then she moved on to the sitting areas. A few minutes were required to check for any thing hidden under the sofa and chair cushions. She did discover a small office, but the desk and a lone file cabinet were locked.

  Looked like they were going to need a locksmith.

  “Chief!”

  She followed the sound of Hayes’s voice. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “Found a storeroom.”

  Jess followed him to the back of the gallery where Ellis had been speaking to the visitors from Montgomery. A massive painting of Birmingham, three or four feet wide and six or seven feet in height, hung at one end of the room. Hayes pulled the painting away from the wall. To her surprise, it was hinged like a door.

  Jess moved closer to the room he revealed. The light inside was already turned on. The space was set up like a small gallery. The walls, ceiling and floor were black. On those black walls were a dozen or so paintings. Savage death scenes from someone’s gruesome imagination were captured on the canvas. At least she hoped it was only their imaginations.

  Her breath caught when she spotted one of Logan Thomas. The image was just as she had found his body in the bedroom of Dan’s old apartment. In the painting, the view of downtown Birmingham was framed in the bedroom window. She moved back through the paintings she’d just viewed, looking for landmarks, until she found one that showed what appeared to be the Eiffel Tower in the distance outside a window.

  “We need photos of these paintings sent to the detective in Paris.” Some of these could very well depict victims from the murders he had told Lori about.

  “Chief.”

  Hayes was at the far end of the room staring at a painting she hadn’t reached yet. He glanced at her, and something in his expression told her he’d discovered something significant. Before she realized she’d taken a step, she was moving toward him.

  The painting was of her… asleep in Dan’s bed. The tufted headboard, the paisley comforter, the crystal lamp on her side of the bed…

  Dan was there, too. Blood was everywhere, all over the covers. She forced her mind to wrap around the rest of what she saw. Dan’s chest had been pried open and inside there was nothing but a dark empty void where his heart should be.

  An image of the headstone Dan had told her about jumbled into the mix of horrible scenes in this room.

  She leaned closer to get a better look at the bottom right hand corner of the painting. Her heart thumped harder as she read the artist’s signature. Selma. Jess straightened, took a deep steadying breath. “Lieutenant, let Detective Wells know we have sufficient evidence for the search warrant of the Vance home. She and Sergeant Harper are to conduct that search immediately.”

  Her chest felt so tight it was almost impossible to take a breath. Keep it together. “Also, have a BOLO issued for Ellis. Let Agent Manning at the local Bureau office know we have a potential international suspect they’re going to want to talk to. Immediate action is necessary since Ellis is a flight risk.” She stared at the painting. “I think maybe he has considerable experience slipping away from trouble.”

  Hayes was already talking to someone. Lori probably. Jess needed to call Dan and Gant. Her entire being felt numb now. They needed a crime scene unit at Dan’s house. Someone had been
watching them there.

  A new kind of fear planted firmly, deeply inside her.

  17

  Dunbrooke Drive, 2:40 p.m.

  Crime scene unit folks were exploring every room in Dan’s house. Jess sorely wished she had picked up a bit before she left this morning, but she’d had little sleep and her mind hadn’t been on housekeeping.

  Then again it rarely was.

  Now everyone would know what a slacker she was around the house. Funny, her office and notes might look chaotic to others but were actually highly organized. Maybe she could convince all those sifting through her things right now that this was in reality a carefully choreographed order.

  She imagined most of those prowling through Dan’s house wondered why she was living here. At this point, the rest of the department and the mayor could think what they would.

  Spears had made it clear what his intentions for Dan were. Her heart ached, the fear crushing it against her ribs. She could not let that happen. Her stomach clenched, reminding her that there was even more at stake now. She could not allow Spears to catch her off guard.

  Besides department personnel, Dan had called in a friend who worked in security systems. Benton Thompson helped out the BPD in situations like this. Between Thompson and their own tech wizard, Ricky Vernon from the lab, they usually found their way around any issue involving electronics and the World Wide Web. Add to the horde, Jerry Griggs the supervisor from the security company who monitored Dan’s house, and it was a regular circus around here.

  “Got something here!”

  Hugging her bag like a lifeline, Jess followed the voice to the guest room. Dan came in right behind her. Thompson was on a ladder digging something from the ceiling above the bed near the light fixture. Tiny flakes of drywall and finishing compound dust fell onto the covers. Ricky Vernon held an evidence bag ready as Thompson dropped a white object hardly larger than a nickel into it.

  Jess’s brow puckered, adding more wrinkles to the ever increasing number already there. “Is that a camera?”

  Beside her Dan said nothing, his expression dark with fury.

  Thompson climbed down from the ladder. “An eyecam. Smallest one I’ve seen in this kind of setting. Typically they’re black. Someone had this one designed specially to incorporate into white ceilings. Wireless, built in transmitter. I can only guess at the range and other capabilities until I’ve had a chance to test it.” He looked to Dan. “But I can tell you it’s uber high tech. Whoever planted this could potentially be watching you from most anywhere, across the street or across town.”

  Jess felt sick. She had slept in this room.

  “We have another one in here!”

  The voice came from Dan’s bedroom—the one they shared. The bottom dropped out of her stomach though she shouldn’t be surprised. The painting had captured the bedroom in far too much detail to hope the invasion into their privacy hadn’t extended there.

  A chorus of shouts followed. The eyecams were in every room. How long had Spears been watching? How many times had they discussed work and him, dammit, in this house?

  As if that weren’t bad enough, this and the painting suggested the murders this week were all connected to Ellis and Ellis was connected to Spears.

  That reality settled heavily onto her shoulders.

  “How did he get into my house without triggering the alarm?” Dan demanded, his frustration now aimed at the men from the security company.

  “I think we have that answer for you, Chief.” Griggs led them through the house and out the kitchen door.

  Jess’s legs felt too heavy and uncoordinated. The whole scene was far too surreal. They would be checking her apartment next.

  Beyond the porte-cochere, Griggs gestured to the end of the house. All Jess saw was the vent that allowed airflow in and out of the attic. She was certain there was a more technical term but it escaped her just now. Another guy, from the security company Jess deduced, was examining the vent.

  “The vent’s been removed recently,” the guy on the ladder shouted down to Griggs. “Some of the screws are missing. Whoever did it was in a hurry to get out of here when he finished.”

  “We should have one of our forensic techs have a look before you go any further,” Dan said. He shook his head, disgusted.

  Within half an hour, the attic had been designated a crime scene.

  Someone had entered via the vent in the gable end of the house. A video surveillance system, including a signal booster, had been put into place that monitored every room in the house including bathrooms. A wave of revulsion washed over Jess.

  She wandered back to each room and had another look. As careful as those removing the cameras had been, they still left a bit of a mess. Who had cleaned up that mess when the cameras were installed?

  Did Dan have a maid?

  If she remembered the white dust they might be able to narrow down when the cameras were installed.

  She located Dan and pulled him away from the huddle of those discussing how to properly secure his home after such a breach. “Do you have a maid?”

  He nodded. “She comes in once a week.”

  “You should call her and ask if she noticed anything unusual like that white dust? That could give us a time frame for when the cameras were installed.” Knowing Spears, he arranged for the work to coincide with the cleaning lady’s scheduled workday.

  “There may not have been any detectible residue left behind,” Thompson said, joining their conversation. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop but a system this high tech was most likely installed by someone who knew what he was doing. The tool he used to make the necessary opening in the drywall probably had a vacuum attachment. I doubt you would’ve noticed whatever trace amounts of debris he left behind.”

  So much for that theory.

  The sound of her cell phone ringing tugged Jess away from the conversation. Lori’s image appeared on the screen. Jess moved into the only room that was clear, the hall bath and closed the door. “Did you locate the sisters?”

  They needed to find those two women before anyone else was lured into their trap. The surveillance details at her sister’s home, Dan’s parents’ home and Mr. Louis’s home were on heightened alert. The same alert had gone to the detail at Wanda’s house. Jess couldn’t forget her no matter how often she had wanted to in the past.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection and cringed. Too bad it wasn’t Halloween, she’d fit right in. Then again, maybe it was. Spears had certainly turned her life into a nightmare.

  “No one has seen either of the Vance sisters since Saturday night. Apparently once they started their killing rampage, they closed everyone out.”

  Their faces had been plastered all over the news. If they were still in Birmingham, hopefully someone would spot one or both soon.

  “We’re in the Vance home now,” Lori went on. “There’s an art studio behind the house. Apparently the daughters inherited their interest in art from the mother. And guess where she took classes?”

  “Paris?” Jess wilted onto the closed toilet lid and let her bag slide to the floor. Of course, the mother’s age was right. “Ellis was her teacher or a fellow student.”

  “I think maybe he was a whole lot more than that.”

  Jess perked up. “Ellis and the mother had an affair?”

  “I think so. I’m still combing through things but I found several photos of Mr. and Mrs. Vance with Ellis. The way Ellis looks at Mrs. Vance, it’s more than friendship. None of the photos I’ve found so far are recent. I’m guessing they were taken twenty or more years ago.”

  “We need to talk to the mother.”

  “There’s more.”

  Jess slipped a shoe off and rubbed at her aching foot. “You heard from the detective in Paris again?”

  “Actually, I just got a call from the wife of that Boston reporter I told you about.”

  Jess reached into her bag for her pad and pencil. “Did she recall something about that murder Ellis witnesse
d?”

  “She did. Her husband, Steve Cooley, died of cancer just two years ago. His death was slow and painful. One of his last requests was to speak with the brother who survived the sister’s murder.”

  “Did the brother agree to speak with him?” Anticipation burned through Jess.

  “He did but Cooley never repeated the conversation. He didn’t even bring it up again until the night he died.”

  “This is the reporter who insisted there was a cover up? Why the hell would he let it go?” Dumb question, Jess. Knowing you were living your final days would assuredly change ones perspective. She kicked the idea that Spears had insinuated that Dan’s days were numbered out of her head. She refused to let that idea take root.

  “The same,” Lori confirmed. “He didn’t share a word until the night he died when he told his wife he’d been right all along.”

  Jess’s hopes fell. “But what does that mean?”

  The door opened and the officer coming in jumped when he saw Jess. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Jess gave him a perfunctory smile. “There’s another one that way,” she told him in case he needed to use the facilities.

  Face red, he nodded then closed the door.

  “Cooley never believed the father killed his daughter,” Lori continued. “He was convinced the brother did it and the father covered for him.”

  “What was the father’s motive?” It was true that parents often covered for their children but this was taking it to the extreme. The father’s first instinct would have been to protect his remaining child and his wife from the threat—even if the surviving child was the threat. The father killing himself took him completely out of the equation. Not the natural reaction of a parent hoping to protect his child.

  “She didn’t say much about the father,” Lori went on, “Cooley’s theory revolved around the brother and Ellis.”