The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series)

by Steffen, P. M.

  “Nicolette cut these out of the lab record,” Sky said. “I found them hidden in her apartment. They might be important. I don’t know yet.”

  Magnus inclined his head toward her and his voice softened. “Are these detectives giving you plenty of space? They’re not tying you down with busy work?”

  Sky shook her head.

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  The kindness in the Chief’s voice made Sky feel weepy. Did she have everything she needed? If she gave Magnus an honest answer, she might say No, I have nothing. My baby is dead. The man I love is seeing another woman. My life is an empty shell and I’m just going through the motions.

  But Sky couldn’t say those things. That she was even thinking them in the conference room of the police station struck her as a bad sign. “I’m fine,” she lied.

  “Good.” Magnus grew gruff. “Now make something happen,” he swung his finger to include the detectives in his threat. “Or think ‘FBI’.” He marched out of the conference room.

  “Think he’ll really bring in some agents?” Axelrod’s face brightened.

  Kyle gave the rookie a pained look. “This groupie mentality toward the bureau really must stop, Axelrod. Please don’t make me hurt you.” He glanced at Sky. “Darling, let’s review this timeline.”

  “Nicolette broke up with Ellery after the bar closed, around two o’clock Sunday morning,” she said. “We haven’t talked to anybody who saw her after that.”

  “Just my point.” Kyle leaned over the pictures and covered Ellery’s face with his hand. “Templeton was the last person to report seeing Nicolette alive.”

  “Nicolette’s roommate says she was cheerful about the breakup.” Sky pushed Kyle’s hand away. “Why was she cheerful?”

  “Because she wanted the break up?” Axelrod suggested.

  “Maybe Nicolette was already sleeping with someone else,” Kyle said. “That’s the only time you’re happy to end it with your current partner.” He gave a rueful smile. “Sadly, I speak from experience. Three marriages’ worth. And counting.”

  “Fine,” Sky said. “Let’s assume Nicolette was seeing another man.”

  “Mr. Viper?” Jake mentioned the name from the slip of paper.

  “We can’t find anybody who knows him.” Sky made a mental note to bring the name up with Francois Duquette.

  “Nicolette broke it off with Templeton,” Jake said. “That gives Templeton motive.”

  “But Ellery was glad to end it. He said Nicolette was too clingy.” Sky studied the timeline. “Let’s say Nicolette hooks up with the killer, they spend Sunday night together, have sex, go for a post-coital run.”

  “Running after sex?” Kyle sighed. “That’s not what I’m thinking about after making love.”

  “A night run gives him the perfect opportunity. And the fog was an added bonus.” Sky thought about the logistics. “They run on Comm Ave, Nicolette’s favorite loop. Just before they reach the Johnny Kelley statue, or maybe just after, if they’re coming from the west, they take a detour and jog along the east side of Bullough’s Pond.”

  “Past the kids,” Axelrod added.

  “Noah’s fishing behind the boat house. Doesn’t see or hear anything,” Sky said. “Molly is baiting her hook. She hears Nicolette laughing. She looks up, both faces are in shadow, both wearing hoods. Molly watches him pull Nicolette away from the water, they run north on Dexter. The killer must have strangled Nicolette just moments later. Not fifty yards from where those kids were fishing.”

  Sky found this nearly as unsettling as the murder itself. What kind of person would carry out such an act with children so near? “It takes enormous pressure to obstruct arterial flow in the carotids,” she reasoned. “We have someone very strong. Very aggressive. Very angry.”

  “Angry?” Jake seemed skeptical. “Convince me.”

  “Remember,” Sky pointed to the crocodile tattoo. “The killer was carrying a knife.”

  “A sharp knife,” Kyle added.

  “Yes,” Sky agreed. “Sharp enough to slice off a patch of skin.” She looked at Jake when she spoke. “But he killed her with his hands. He looked into Nicolette’s eyes and strangled the life out of her. He was angry.”

  “About the pregnancy,” Jake suggested.

  “Maybe. Or maybe she didn’t know she was pregnant.” Sky wondered what Nicolette was laughing about as she ran past Molly. Was it an innocent laugh? A girlish laugh? An ugly laugh? So many possibilities.

  “A killer who didn’t leave much behind,” Kyle said.

  “Because he planned the murder.” Sky followed the contours of the inked crocodile as she spoke. “The killer has some familiarity with police procedure. It was so clean. And he’s proud of his work. Arrogant.”

  “What are you getting at?” Jake said.

  Sky looked past him, toward the grainy image of Nicolette’s battered face. “This guy’s no virgin. He’s killed before.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Skylar Winthrop Stone.” Francois Duquette spoke Sky’s name and flashed a demure smile from behind the counter of Duquette’s Newton Centre hair salon. “Only grandchild of Isabel Crowninshield Winthrop. You probably don’t remember me, mon petit. But I certainly remember you.”

  “Sorry.” Sky gave the older man a polite smile and wondered if he’d always worn eyeliner and blush.

  “Not to worry. It was such a long time ago.” Francois fingered the ribbed collar of his beige Burberry polo shirt and sat a bit straighter. “Sometimes, when your grandmother was feeling too unwell to come to the shop on Newbury, I would go to her lovely Back Bay home.” He gave a patrician sniff. “She simply would not allow anyone else to touch her hair in those days. I could do anything. An up-do for evening, a simple blunt cut, it didn’t matter. Her hair was so thick, so malleable …” His watery eyes focused on Sky. “I see you’ve inherited that mane. Lucky girl.” His manner changed abruptly. “But you are here about Nicolette, of course. The poor darling was so jubilant, so alive. Just a trim and a few highlights, I remember it quite vividly.” His voice lowered. “I don’t like to toot my own horn, but redheads do require that special touch.”

  “Did Nicolette confide in you, Francois?”

  “That girl held her cards close, but she did sometimes tell me things …” Francois fluttered his eyelashes, shook and checked two understated gold bracelets, and worried a gold set ruby necklace until it just peeked out from the plaid placket of the Burberry shirt. It was a practiced gesture, calculated, Sky guessed, to catch his audience’s eye and invite a compliment.

  “What a beautiful necklace,” Sky said, slipping a salon business card into her pocket.

  “Oh,” Francois swooned, “I can’t tell you what it means to hear those words from a Winthrop.” He inclined his head toward her and whispered, “Your grandmother’s jewelry. Well, words fail me.” A slow wave of his hand revealed a delicate diamond pinky ring set in gold. “I sometimes dream of that sapphire and diamond necklace.”

  Sky took little interest in jewelry and couldn’t remember the piece. She shrugged.

  “Perhaps she’ll leave it to you, ma chère.” The hairdresser gave his head a small shake. “Sky – you don’t mind if I call you Sky? Your eyes are a perfect match for those sky-blue sapphires.” Smiling at his own remark, Francois patted his jet-black hair, lightly hand-checking his toupee to make sure all was well up there. His silent eye contact with an employee sporting an asymmetrical hair cut prompted the smartly turned-out young man to scuttle behind a gold curtain and return with a tray of hot tea and lemon wedges on a porcelain plate.

  “Come with me, Doctor Stone.” Francois pronounced her name for the apparent benefit of the entire room and led Sky past a line of hairdressers tending to women in various stages of wash, cut, and blow-dry. “I’m stealing you away. I want you all to myself.” Francois leaned into her and pressed his mouth to her ear. “N-O-K-D,” he whispered, gesturing to the room at large.

  Sky shoo
k her head, she didn’t understand the acronym.

  “Not our kind, darling,” Francois whispered, mincing his way ahead of her. He held the door and Sky walked into a room covered with flocked wallpaper that undulated in black and white heart-shaped waves. It reminded Sky of sixties op art.

  “Mon sanctuaire,” Francois said, shutting the door. “You have no idea how draining it is to deal with every Desperate Housewife that waltzes through my door searching for reinvention.” He placed a hand high on his forehead. “And les femmes d’un certain age, do not get me started.” He lifted a hot pink accent pillow from a sling-back chair and plopped down. “If one more menopausal beast with a Chanel Reissue 2.55 offers details of her latest hot flash, I may be forced to kill myself.” He gave the pink lampshade a slight adjustment and fluttered his lashes at Sky. “Now, let me look at you.” Francois stared at her so long that Sky wondered what the man could possibly be thinking.

  “Your grandmother must be so proud. You have Izzy’s eyes, you know.” He used her grandmother’s nickname. “And you have her lovely, long neck.” Francois placed a ringed hand against his chest and lifted his chin. “The sign of a true aristocrat.”

  “I don’t see my grandmother much.”

  “Oh?” Francois sipped his tea, but Sky could feel his mind working over this factoid with an interrogator’s intensity. “You have beautiful hands, ma chère,” he said. “Such slender, delicate fingers. I don’t see a wedding ring …”

  “No,” Sky said. “Tell me about Nicolette.”

  Francois repositioned himself in the chair and crossed his legs. “She was excited during her appointment, talking a mile a minute. What is that word you psychologists use? Manic. Yes, Nicolette was manic. Going on and on about how different her life was going to be when she ‘hooked up’, I believe that was the phrase she used, with some gentleman. He had an unusual name.” Francois scanned the ceiling in an effort at recall. “Viper, that’s it. Mr. Viper. She appeared to be madly in love with him, said he was rich and powerful. And a great lover.” Francois leaned toward Sky with an odd look on his face. “But that girl had not a single piece of jewelry from him. I do believe that’s the true measure of affection, don’t you?”

  “Did Nicolette mention Mr. Viper’s first name?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say where he lived?”

  “No.”

  “What he did for a living?”

  “No.”

  “What kind of car he drove?”

  “No.”

  Francois brightened. “Nicolette did say Mr. Viper was going through a difficult time, that all would be revealed soon. She was apparently sworn to secrecy. I worked on her for over an hour just to get that much out of her.”

  Francois stood and walked to a ski-shaped coat rack where a floor-length fur hung. The hairdresser stroked the coat and gave Sky a wistful look. “My dear, seeing you brings back so many memories of your grandmother.” His hand moved up and down the pelts with a sensual intensity. “There was a time when Izzy Winthrop ran this town. Not politically, of course. But the social scene? Izzy must have chaired every important organization in Boston in her day. Charitable or otherwise.” He gave a wistful sigh. “But it was so much more than simple noblesse oblige. One is born with le sens de style or one is not. It cannot be purchased. Isabel Winthrop’s sense of style, her virtually unlimited funds …” He paused. “Your grandmother and Boston were never a good fit. Her towns were New York, Paris.” He chuckled. “Boston bluebloods are a frightfully frumpy lot. Your grandmother was as a diamond among lumps of coal. When Isabel Winthrop walked into a room other women simply disappeared.” He shrugged. “Such is the synergy of exquisite beauty and fabulous wealth.”

  Sky listened to the aging hairdresser’s reminiscences with bemused interest. She knew her grandmother had been a great beauty, she’d seen the pictures, the paintings. But style and power? By the time Sky was old enough to have any sense of either, her grandmother seemed impossibly old, numbingly outdated.

  Still, it suggested an idea on how best to manage the problem of what to wear to the rapidly approaching Four Seasons fundraiser. How long had it been since she’d seen Izzy? A year or more. Maybe it was time for Sky to pay her grandmother a visit.

  Francois fingered his ruby necklace. “If you want to know the dirt on anyone, just ask an old queen. We know where all the bodies are buried.”

  The curious remark caught Sky by surprise. “Do you still see my grandmother, Francois?”

  “No.” He looked away. “We had a falling out many years ago.”

  Sky waited.

  “It was around the time your grandfather died.” Francois’s voice grew tight and his eyes darted around the room.

  Isabel Winthrop – Izzy to her friends – had done her best to instill in Sky her own fanatic certainty regarding the superiority of the Brahmin blood line. Izzy took her self-imposed role as the historic nub of the East Coast establishment to heart, and worked Sky’s nerves every summer with her claim to genetic advantage.

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as Sky liked to say (her word for the relatively modest five-bedroom of Monk’s parents in Iowa City), Sky’s paternal grandmother, Mary Margaret O’Hara Stone, born and raised in Meridan, Kansas, tried to inculcate Sky with the relative supremacy of her own ancestors, who came from pioneer stock.

  ‘That weak-chinned, inbred east coast gene pool? There are consequences when cousins marry, for heaven's sake. Which they did for nearly three hundred years. Maybe even still do.’ Sky’s Kansas grandmother would raise her eyebrows in distaste. “Any recessive traits remaining after fifteen hundred miles in a covered wagon were dispensed with during the homesteading.’ She would fix Sky with a steely look. ‘The best thing your mother ever did was marry your father. Hybrid vigor.”

  Sky smiled to think of it, the two women so convinced of their respective genetic advantages.

  Sky was familiar with Isabel Winthrop’s cruelty, and her habit of cutting people out of her life who disappointed or angered her. It was clear that Francois had suffered Izzy’s ire. Sky decided to offer the man a confessional leg up.

  “My grandmother can be difficult.”

  Francois gave a nervous giggle and fiddled with the collar of his shirt. “Isn’t that the truth, mon petit? Your grandfather had been so ill.”

  Sky remembered the summer her grandfather, Dudley Whipple Winthrop – Whip – took sick. He was a kindly, playful man who wore shabby khakis and delighted in driving an ancient green Cadillac with dented fenders. One day a friend of Sky’s dropped by just as her grandfather was leaving and pointed out, “He looks homeless. Good thing he has money.”

  When Whip became bed-ridden the house in Back Bay took on the gloomy quiet of the sick room.

  Francois continued. “Izzy was nursing your grandfather herself. That woman was a saint. I would come to the house every Thursday to give her a trim, as I’d done for years. One afternoon I got there a little early. I walked in on your grandmother, in the summer kitchen …” His voice trailed off and he stood with his back to Sky. “Izzy was fixing Whip’s lunch tray,” he paused. “She was spooning something into a bowl of chowder. I watched her from the doorway. She looked up and saw me …” Francois’s voice quivered. “Izzy just smiled and put a finger to her lips, as if to say ‘This is just between us.’” His narrow shoulders slumped. “Your grandfather died a few days later. Izzy changed salons. I never worked on her again.” He pivoted on Gucci loafers and faced Sky. “I know she was doing the right thing, putting poor Whip out of his misery. But why cut me off like that? After all our years together?” Francois edged closer to Sky’s chair and shot furtive glances her way, like a child waiting for absolution.

  Sky had a sense of unreality. Did this stranger just suggest that Izzy poisoned her grandfather? Francois appeared oblivious to the implications; the hairdresser’s only concern seemed to be his unfair banishment from Isabel Winthrop’s universe.

  Sky considered her opti
ons. Interrogate Francois and find out what it was, exactly, that Izzy had put in the chowder? That could be a tricky business, a distraction from Nicolette’s murder. First things first, she thought. Whip would have to wait.

  “I’m attending a fund-raiser at the Four Seasons tonight, Francois.” Sky pointed to her hair. “Could you squeeze me in?”

  “The Diamond? Mais oui! It would be a privilege. Just like old times.” He seemed to forget the subject of Isabel Winthrop and put a saucy hand on his hip. “The Boston Globe will have a society photographer there, without question. Have no fear. Francois will make sure you’re the princess of that ball.”

  He ran a practiced eye over Sky. “I must have time to do this right. Wash, cut, full foil. Hot stone massage, just to make you feel good. Eyebrow wax, of course. Manicure, pedicure.” He peered at Sky’s face. “Complexion like a Georgia peach, no worries there.”

  It seemed a daunting list to Sky. Her self-care regimen during the year on Nantucket involved a quick shower and maybe painting her toes once a month.

  But Francois was giddy with anticipation, and made Sky promise to return by four o'clock. “It really would be best if you could bring your evening clothes with you, ma chère.”

  The oil portrait rattled behind the driver’s seat as Sky drove the Jeep toward Boston. She checked with Kyle on her cell and gave him directions to the salon. “Pick me up, nine sharp.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Kyle sounded grumpy. “And what’s that knocking sound?”

  “I’m on Beacon Street, headed to Back Bay. That knocking sound is my past, come back to haunt me.”

  “How enigmatic of you, darling.” Kyle paused. “Why Back Bay?”

  Sky steered the Jeep into rush hour traffic. “Because Cinderella needs something to wear to the ball.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sky parked on the corner of Beacon and Charles and lifted the collar of her trench coat against a nasty wind. She dawdled along the bricked sidewalk because she’d forgotten how much she loved this neighborhood – the gas lights and Greek revival row houses, the lion-head doors and secret gardens, the ancient elms.