The Next Victim

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Michelle reached for the sketch. “Too bad we don’t have more to go on.”

  “Yeah, even one little break would be nice.” Nothing had turned up despite a thorough search of the area. And they’d yet to find anyone who saw the body being dumped. They didn’t even have clothing or jewelry to trace.

  “So we just sit on our hands and wait?” Michelle asked.

  “If you’ve got any suggestions, feel free to share them.”

  She grinned at him. “When have I ever not shared my suggestions?” It was something of a joke between them because Michelle was much more vocal than Erling.

  He managed a feeble smile in return. He liked Michelle, and she was a good partner, but he wasn’t in a joking mood.

  “And I actually do have an idea,” she said, more seriously. “Remember the tattoo on her back? It’s an unusual design. If she’s local, maybe we can track down the artist and get an ID that way.”

  Erling nodded, though he thought the prospects of success were slim. “Give it a try,” he said.

  “Oh, and one of John O’Brien’s sisters came by again today. Kali. She’s an attorney, it turns out. She had more questions about her brother’s death, and also about Sloane Winslow’s murder.”

  Erling felt his stomach knot. “What did you tell her?”

  “About the murders, not a lot. It’s technically still an open case, after all. About her brother, there wasn’t much to add to what we gave her yesterday. When the coroner’s report comes in, I’ll make sure she gets a copy.”

  Michelle’s response had been on target. Erling felt himself relax a little. “I imagine they’re having a tough time of it.”

  “Right.” She turned to go. “Have a good weekend. See you Monday, if not before.”

  That was also a joke. They’d see each other before Monday only if they got called in for another homicide. This time Erling didn’t even attempt a smile.

  “Monday it is,” he growled.

  <><><>

  Mindy was on the computer in her room when Erling stopped in to greet her. As always, and especially in the years since Danny’s death, the sight of his daughter filled his heart with bittersweet love and pride. The loss of one child made the other child all the more precious. He regarded her quietly for a moment.

  Mindy complained that her softly rounded face and small mouth made her unattractive. Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton—they were beautiful. Erling didn’t see it that way at all, and it saddened him that Mindy couldn’t appreciate her own unique and very real loveliness.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said, without taking her eyes from the computer screen. “How’s the body business?”

  “Better now that the weekend’s here. How was your day?”

  “I’ve got a huge paper due Monday, and a test the same day.” She groaned. “Good-bye weekend.”

  “The professors just sprang both on you at the last minute, I suppose.”

  “Ha-ha. I can’t spend all my time studying.”

  He blew her a kiss and closed the door behind him when he left. It seemed like only yesterday that she and Danny had raced to him for a hug when he returned from work each evening, then peppered him with the news of their day. Now Danny was gone forever and Erling was lucky if he got thirty seconds of Mindy’s attention. He felt an ache in his chest that radiated deep into his soul.

  Children weren’t supposed to die. But growing up, he reminded himself, was part of the natural cycle. Mindy was a young woman now. Her life no longer centered on her family. Still, if he had the power, no question he’d turn the clock back and do it all again.

  Deena was standing at the sink tearing lettuce for the salad. “Hi, honey,” she said, tossing the greeting over her shoulder.

  The second member of his family to greet him with her back turned. Not like the early days when she’d flown into his arms. “Can I help?”

  “You can put a pot of water on for the pasta.”

  Erling gave her a peck on the cheek. “Were the gremlins good to you today?”

  “The gremlins are fine. It’s their parents that I sometimes have trouble with.”

  “What happened?”

  “Just the usual ‘my kid can do no wrong.’”

  “We were probably just as obnoxious when our kids were young.”

  “We? How many parent-teacher conferences did you attend?” Her tone was teasing rather than bitter, but the words called up past arguments and Erling felt himself grow defensive. He’d been working, for Chrissake. Logging in long, hard hours to pay the rent and put food on the table. But he knew, too, that if that clock somehow got turned back, he’d do it differently this time.

  Deena handed him the pasta pot and gave his butt a playful pinch. “Fill it about two-thirds full.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  “And if you really want to be helpful, you could set the table.”

  Erling put the pot of water on to boil, then got out three woven straw placemats. What did it mean that Kali O’Brien had returned with questions about Sloane’s murder? Nothing, he told himself. She was a grieving sister who’d just learned that her brother was a killer. Of course she’d have questions. Anyone would. Especially a lawyer.

  And that was what concerned him. He didn’t want her poking around trying to discredit his case. He didn’t want her running to the media with cockeyed stories of alternative killers.

  He just wanted the whole thing to go away.

  Sloane was gone from him forever. In his mind he knew she’d been gone months ago, but his heart wasn’t so rational, and in the ten days since her death he’d felt the pain of losing her all over again. The anger he felt toward John O’Brien boiled in his blood every day. He was glad the bastard had gotten sloshed and ended up at the bottom of his pool. It was no worse than he deserved.

  But Erling’s pain and anger were mingled with relief. So far his secret had escaped detection. As long as John O’Brien remained tagged as Sloane’s killer, Erling’s affair with Sloane would stay hidden. The last thing he needed now was a nosy relative looking to save her brother’s reputation. A nosy lawyer relative.

  “Honey?” Deena was at the stove, stirring the marinara sauce. “I forgot to tell you—your optometrist’s office left a message confirming Monday’s appointment. You need to call and let them know you’ll be there.”

  “They’ll have gone home by now.” He hated the practice of confirming a confirmation, but it seemed to be standard these days.

  “They’ve got voice mail.”

  Erling hit caller ID to return the call. Inadvertently he hit the up arrow, rather than the down arrow, taking him to the top of the list, twenty-five calls ago. And he felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to his chest.

  Two days before she’d been killed, Sloane Winslow had called his home number.

  Had she left a message that Deena had forgotten to tell him about? What if she’d spoken with Deena directly? He recalled Deena’s curious interest in the case. Was that because she recognized the name?

  Erling’s pulse raced. Beads of perspiration formed at his temples. What had Sloane wanted? What did Deena know? And with a meddling lawyer in the picture, how likely was it that Sloane’s phone records would come to light?

  Chapter 13

  Kali placed a call to Sloane’s ex-husband, whose number she’d copied from Sloane’s cell phone, and left a message. Then she took her glass of wine out onto the shaded patio, where she watched the play of light from the setting sun reflected on the Catalina Mountains. The evening was warm but not unbearable as it had been the previous night. Or maybe she was simply getting acclimated.

  The rugged beauty of the desert was impressive, but it didn’t soothe her like vistas of the Sierra or even the expanse of the San Francisco Bay she could see from her own back deck. In the desert, Kali felt isolated and exposed. Especially out here where John lived. She knew there were houses around, but from where she s
at now, none were visible. There was no hum of human activity in the background, either. No neighbors’ voices, no car doors banging or dogs barking.

  Despite the heat, Kali shivered and wished Sabrina were there with her.

  Her gaze slid to the pool, which she’d been deliberately avoiding until now. How ironic that John had ended up drowning in a backyard pool. At their mother’s insistence, all of the O’Briens had learned to swim at an early age, but none of them were serious swimmers. Sabrina had always preferred flirting on the sidelines and absolutely hated to get her hair wet. Kali liked to cool off in the water, and she’d sometimes swim a lap or two, but she found anything more than that tedious. John was not big on exercise of any sort. Even with a pool of his own, she doubted he made much use of it.

  She tried to picture how it might have happened. John coming out to enjoy the night, just as she had. Only it would have been much darker then, his balance and judgment impaired. Somehow he’d lost his balance or slipped and ended up face down in the water, too inebriated to save himself.

  How could he have been so stupid? Booze and drugs—didn’t he know better?

  Anger choked back the tears that had begun to sting her eyes. But it wasn’t just anger at John. As long as she was meting out blame, she had to look at herself, as well. Why had she cut him off during that last phone call? If she’d taken the time to listen to him, would he have felt the need to numb himself into a stupor?

  Or to take his own life?

  She bit her lip. No, she wasn’t going there, no matter what Reed suggested. Not John. His death was a terrible, wasteful tragedy brought on by his own carelessness. But it was accidental. It had to be, or the burden of her guilt would be too great to bear.

  Regret was difficult enough.

  Kali was seized by the sudden desire to get a sense of the man others saw in John. She wasn’t about to box up his belongings without consulting Sabrina, but she could do a first cut and at the same time learn a little about her brother.

  She wandered inside and poured herself another glass of wine, then looked around the kitchen. John favored high-quality cookware and appliances, no surprise there. His cupboards were sparsely stocked but neat, his dishes and flatware simple but elegant. Not the sort of thing you picked up at Target. A bottom drawer held dish towels, including two that their mother had embroidered many years before. Kali remembered her sitting in front of the television every evening, sometimes embroidering, sometimes knitting, her hands never idle. John must have gotten them from Sabrina after she and Kali had cleaned out the family home following their father’s death. They’d made a separate pile for John when they had divvied things up, but Kali hadn’t paid much attention to what had gone in it. As usual, she’d stormed through the process of settling the estate without much thought to either of her siblings. Although, to be fair, neither of them had offered to help.

  Moving on to the living room, she examined the CDs in the rack by the sound system. Jazz, country, and modem classics like Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. She wouldn’t have pegged John as someone who listened to country, but their dad had been a big fan and maybe that had influenced John’s taste. He had only a couple dozen DVDs: Band of Brothers, about World War II; three seasons of The Shield; and a small collection of what looked like porn movies. She wouldn’t have pegged him for that, either.

  She browsed the bookshelves in John’s den—popular fiction, history, the classics, an economics text, and a few self-help books. She pulled a couple down at random to see if there were other photos tucked between the covers. There weren’t.

  But in one of the desk drawers, she did find a box of loose photos, mostly family pictures from their childhood. On top were more recent photos: Sabrina’s family; holidays; and several of Kali, including one John had taken during his last visit when they’d climbed Mt. Tam. She’d been impatient with him that afternoon, telling him to wait for another time to snap her photo. A time when the wind hadn’t mussed her hair and she’d had a chance to put on lipstick. Now she’d give anything to go back and relive that moment, just to see her brother again.

  The ring of her cell phone saved her from further self recrimination. When she saw from the display that it was Bryce, she experienced a flutter of pleasure that was quickly quelled by uneasiness. She’d told Bryce only that John had died—not that he’d stumbled drunk into his own pool and drowned, nor that he was the prime suspect in a double homicide. And although it was foolish, Kali was hesitant about laying it all out now. She feared it might taint her by association. She hated that she felt that way— that she was betraying John by being embarrassed, and Bryce by not trusting him.

  “Hi,” she said into the phone, still breathless from the dash to dig it out of her purse.

  “Hi, yourself.” His voice was soft, like the caress of a summer’s breeze, and she felt her skin tingle in spite of her nerves. “How are you holding up? You haven’t called and I’ve been worried.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s been so much going on.” Although she had managed to call Jared to check on things at the office. What did that say? she wondered.

  “What happened with John? Was it an auto accident?”

  “He drowned,” Kali said. “In his backyard pool.”

  “In the pool? Couldn’t he swim?”

  She closed her eyes, as if that would make the words less real. “Booze and Xanax. Too much of both.”

  “Oh, Kali, I’m sorry.” Bryce seemed to be searching for something more to say. Offering condolences for an automobile accident was certainly a more straightforward matter.

  “But that’s only part of it,” she blurted out. In for a dime, in for a dollar. “He was a murder suspect. In fact, the police were close to arresting him. I think that’s probably why he was trying to reach me. And why he binged on drugs and alcohol.”

  A beat of silence, and then Bryce asked, “Who do they say he killed?”

  “Two women.” Kali filled him in on the details. “Sabrina isn’t having any of it. She’s sure the cops are wrong. But I think . . . I mean, I worry . . .” She took a breath. “What if he actually did it?”

  “You think he could have?”

  “I don’t know. Part of me says no way. He’s my brother, after all, even if he was sometimes a bit of a jerk. But there’s evidence suggesting he did. And I know what a temper he had. I don’t want to believe it, yet I can’t rule it out.”

  “Jeez, you must be torn up inside.”

  The caring she heard in his tone brought tears to Kali’s eyes. “I’m okay.”

  “No one would be okay in those circumstances.”

  “Well, maybe not okay, but I’m . . .” She wiped her cheek. “He tried to reach me. All that time we were in the mountains. Maybe if I’d returned his call sooner . . .”

  “You want me to come out there?” Bryce asked.

  “Here?” She was both surprised and touched. The emotionally supportive Bryce was new to her. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to have him share the ugly parts of her life up close and personal. “That’s sweet. There’s really nothing for you to do, though.”

  “I could be there for you. That’s something.”

  Touché. That hadn’t even crossed her mind. “I’d like that,” she told him. “I’m just not sure, what with the funeral and Sabrina being here and all”

  “Sure. I understand.” But his tone said he didn’t.

  Kali wondered what was wrong with her that she wasn’t more eager to have him close.

  <><><>

  With all that was on her mind, Kali worried she might have trouble sleeping, but the minute her head hit the pillow she was out like a light. She was still half asleep the next morning when she heard what sounded like the bang of a door closing in another part of the house. She shot awake.

  “Sabrina?”

  There was no answer.

  Kali was sure she’d heard a sound. She swung herself out of bed. Her heart was racing. What now?

  Confront the intruder head
on, or hide here and hope he never found her? In either case, she didn’t want to meet up with him wearing only her pink and white shorty pj’s. She pawed through her suitcase for a skirt and sweater, which she threw on over the pajamas. If only she hadn’t left her cell phone in the kitchen.

  She looked around the sparsely furnished guest bedroom for some way to defend herself but came up empty-handed. Finally, she said a silent prayer and tiptoed to the hallway.

  She thought she could hear someone breathing.

  “I have a gun,” she called out, hoping the lie wasn’t blatantly transparent. “Whoever you are, get out now.”

  “Don’t shoot! Please. I not know anyone home.”

  The voice was female, older, with a Spanish accent.

  Mindful of a trick, Kali approached cautiously. A round-figured woman in her late fifties hovered near the coffee table in the living room. She held her hands over her graying head. “Please, no shoot.”

  “Who are you?” Kali demanded.

  “Graciela. I work for Mr. John.”

  At the crack of dawn on Saturday morning? “Work for him, how?”

  “Around the house.” The woman was eyeing Kali’s empty hands, no doubt looking for the gun.

  “He passed away a few days ago,” Kali told her.

  “Si. I find him.” Graciela lowered her head and crossed herself before raising her hands again and giving Kali another skeptical look. “You police? Reporter?”

  “I’m his sister, Kali.”

  “Oh, I am sad for you.” Graciela started to reach a plump arm for Kali’s hand, then pulled back uncertainly.

  “Why are you here?” Kali asked. “And you can put your hands down.”

  Graciela looked embarrassed. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her blue cotton sweater. “I don’t mean to cause trouble. I return something.”

  Kali waited silently.

  “The day your brother die, it was a bad day. Very much happening. Many, many people, police”—she made a sweeping gesture with her arm—”and here,” she said, placing a hand over her heart, “I feel bad.”