“This lady’s with me.” Chief Shelton guided me to a table in the corner. “What the hell are you doing here, Skerritt? We’ve had the third murder in a week. You should be on the street, tracking down a killer.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“You think the killer belongs to this club?” He looked as if I’d just alleged that the pope was an atheist.
“I didn’t say that. Richard Tillett’s a member here. His patients are rapidly turning up dead. I have a few more questions for him, that’s all.”
Shelton leaned across the table and hissed in a low voice, “Dammit, Skerritt, you’ve got to be more discreet. The man has a reputation to uphold.”
“Not if his patients keep dropping like flies. What do you want me to do, Chief? Sit at the station and twiddle my thumbs until I can question him in the privacy of his home?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Time, and time is running out. When I started this case, I had a list with seven names, one of them dead. Now three are dead, there’re four names left, and they’re all Tillett’s patients.”
“Okay, but keep it low-key, will you?”
For a man dressed in fire-engine red slacks and a green-and-red-checked shirt, he had a lot of nerve asking me to tone it down. “I’ll be the picture of propriety.”
Tillett and three other men appeared in the doorway to the bar. The chief laid a restraining hand on my arm, then jumped up and strode across the room. He returned with Tillett in tow. “I’ll leave you two. I’m sure the detective won’t take much of your time, Rich.”
Tillett took the chair the chief had vacated. “George said you wanted to bring me up to speed on the Wainwright and Morelli murders. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Too early in the day for me, thanks. Have you heard the morning news?”
“I overslept and just made my tee-off time.” He seemed more at ease than he’d been a week ago.
“There’s been another murder.”
He stiffened and his smile faded. “Who?”
“Peter Castleberry.”
“Bloody hell.” Fear flared in his pale blue eyes. “How?”
“The important question is when. Last night between seven and ten. Where were you during that time?”
Fear expanded into panic. His rate of breathing increased, and his glance flicked around the room, as if searching for an escape route. “I don’t have an alibi.”
“You had to be somewhere.”
“At the office.”
“Alone?”
“Paperwork. What with insurance and Medicare, I’m never caught up. I worked from six until almost midnight.”
My beeper sounded. I looked around for a phone and saw the chief glaring at me from the bar. “I’ll be in touch, Dr. Tillett.”
When I telephoned the station, the dispatcher passed on the name of an informant who wanted to talk about a car-theft ring and a possible chop shop operating in our area. I made a note of the information and hurried out of the clubhouse before the chief could collar me again.
While I was on the north side of town, I drove up Alternate U.S. 19, through Dunedin and Palm Harbor to Tarpon Springs, intending to meet Anastasia Gianakis and ask a few questions. She had a motive for Sophia’s murder, and although her connections to Edith and Peter were tenuous, they placed her in the pool of suspects. I checked both her house and her gift shop near the sponge docks but she was at neither, and no one could tell me where to find her. I returned to her house and tucked my card in her front door with a note to contact me.
Rather than sit around waiting for Anastasia to call, I spent the late afternoon and most of the evening tracking down a scuzzball named Ross Hubert in Oldsmar. When I found him at a pub on Race Track Road, he wanted money but didn’t have any information worth buying. It was after ten that night when I drove back to the station. Adler was at his desk, filling out reports.
“Your little girl’s going to forget what her daddy looks like,” I said.
“Uh-uh. My wife’s a genius. She filmed a video of me, talking to Jessica, telling her stories. When I have to work long hours, Sharon plays it constantly. Says it keeps both of them company.”
And it would be a tangible memory if her policeman father were killed in the line of duty. I wondered how many other officers’ families had made such films, making a stab at immortality, a tiny hedge against loss.
“Any luck with Tillett’s staff?” I asked.
He swiveled in his chair and leaned back with his fingers locked behind his head. “Their alibis are airtight, except for Gale Whatley, the office manager. Says she was home alone with no one to verify it. How ’bout you?”
“Morelli was too sloshed to walk a straight line, much less commit murder, but Dorman and Tillett lack alibis. Dorman has the cold-bloodedness to have done it, and something has Tillett running scared, but I can’t press charges based on bigotry or fear. So where does that leave us?”
Adler kicked one foot, rotating his chair. “Same place as yesterday, with one exception.”
I turned on my computer monitor, pulled up a blank report and turned up the squelch on the scanner on my desk. “What exception?”
“We can scratch Peter Castleberry as a suspect.”
“Talk about explicating the blooming obvi—” I stopped at the sound of Darcy’s voice on the radio.
“—breaking and entering in progress at 10 Windward Lane. Complainant is locked in her bedroom. Says someone just smashed the glass on her front door.”
I sprang to my feet. “Let’s roll. That’s Karen Englewood’s house.”
CHAPTER 16
Adler reached under the seat of my Volvo for my emergency light.
“Leave it,” I said. “This may be our killer, and I don’t want to scare him off.”
Few cars roamed the streets of Pelican Bay on a Saturday night, and we met no traffic obstacles as we sped the few short blocks down Edgewater. When I turned onto Windward, I cut my headlights and pulled across the street from Karen’s. Her house and those of her neighbors were dark. In the distance a siren wailed, a green-and-white en route.
I keyed my radio. “You still have the complainant on the line?”
“Ten-four,” Darcy said.
“Tell her we’re on the scene, to keep her door locked, and not to come out until I say so.”
I turned to Adler. “You take the back. I’ll go in the front.”
I grabbed my flashlight, climbed out of the car and eased the door shut without a sound. Adler disappeared at a loping run around the corner of the house, and I approached the front door at an angle to avoid the walkway bathed in the yellow glow of the streetlight. Under cover of a pittosporum hedge, I edged my way toward the porch. I could hear nothing but the approaching siren and the hiss of my own breathing.
I crept up the front steps toward the door. Shards of glass, broken from the glass panel on the door’s right side, covered the porch floor. The door stood ajar with the lock unforced. The intruder had simply reached through the opening in the broken panel and unlocked it.
A patrol car pulled up and squelched its siren. Steve Johnson barreled up the steps, hand on his gun and stopped beside me.
“We’ll make a sweep of the house,” I said in a whisper. “Adler’s around back. When we’ve cleared the downstairs, we’ll let him in and the two of you can check the second floor.”
“You think our guy’s still in there?”
“If he is, he isn’t making any noise. Ready?”
Johnson kicked the door open and stepped in. We quickly progressed through the rooms, turned on lights, checked closets and behind draperies. When we reached the kitchen, I unlocked the door for Adler and the two men headed upstairs. They returned a few minutes later with Karen.
“You okay?” I asked.
She dropped into a chair at the table and managed a weak smile. “I feel like a James Bond martini, shaken, not stirred.”
Adler and Johnson left us to search the
lawn and shrubbery. I sat across from Karen. “What happened?”
“I was reading in bed and had just turned out the light when I heard glass breaking downstairs. I always sleep with my bedroom door locked. I learned that through the Neighborhood Watch program. I used my bedside phone to call 911. The operator kept me on the line until the officers reached my door and told me it was safe to come out.”
“Did you hear anything before the glass broke? The sound of a vehicle, a car door slamming?” If the burglar had wheels, he was long gone by now.
“Nothing. Everything was quiet until then.” She tugged a velour robe closer around her and tightened its sash. “But whoever broke in made a heck of a racket. I’m afraid to look at the damage.”
“You’ll have to, to tell us what’s missing.”
She set her mouth in a tight line. “Let’s get it over with.”
I followed her up the hall into the living room and heard her sharp intake of breath at the shambles before her. A coffee table was overturned and drawers of end tables wrenched out, but she found nothing missing. We crossed the hall into her study, a book-lined room with a large mahogany desk as the centerpiece. Books had been raked from the shelves, and a brass lamp, its shade crushed, lay on its side on the desk. The drawers gaped open.
“Don’t touch anything,” I said. “Just look. We’ll want to dust for prints.”
“Nothing’s been taken.” She pointed to a collection of silver candlesticks, a stereo system and a DVD player. “Wouldn’t the thief have grabbed something to make the break-in worth his while?”
“Could Larry have done this?”
She shook her head. “He has a key. If he wanted something, he would have just walked in and taken it.”
“One of his friends?”
“It’s possible. More than one of them has a drug habit to support. But if that’s the case, why didn’t they steal anything?”
Adler appeared in the doorway. “Nothing outside.”
“Request a K-9 unit,” I told him, “and get the techs over here.”
“On my way.” He disappeared again.
“Isn’t that a lot of bother for a common thief—” Karen’s eyes grew round as she faced me. “It wasn’t a common thief, was it? You think it’s the person who’s been killing Dr. Tillett’s patients.”
“Maybe you could make us a pot of coffee,” I said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Three of my clients are dead, Detective. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that whoever killed them might want me dead, too.”
“The realm of possibility is a helluva big territory. You can drive yourself crazy trying to cover it all.”
“My God, we can’t have that. A crazy psychologist?” With a laugh that bordered on hysteria, she headed for the kitchen.
Johnson ambled into the front hallway. “Anything missing?”
“Zip. Looks like someone threw a tantrum and ran away empty-handed.” I mentally cataloged a number of valuable items a thief could have carted away under one arm. “We were here fast, but not that fast. He had time to pull a profit.”
Johnson stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene. “Reminds me of a break-in call on the east side I answered about six months ago. Guy’s darkroom—”
“Darkroom?”
“Yeah, turned inside out, but nothing taken. Belonged to Castleberry, same guy who was stiffed last night on the trail.”
“Any of his developing chemicals stolen?”
“Said he’d take an inventory, and if anything turned up missing, he’d let me know. I never heard from him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this when we found Castleberry’s body?”
Johnson had the sense to look chagrined. “Sorry. I’d forgotten all about it till now.”
And Johnson wondered why he’d never made detective. I suppressed a sigh.
Out front, a vehicle pulled up and a dog barked. Johnson peeked out the curtains toward the street. “K-9 unit’s here. I’ll see if they need a hand.”
My head was whirling. Six months earlier someone had broken into Castleberry’s darkroom. If Peter had discovered a jar of potassium ferricyanide crystals missing, would he have reported it or simply purchased a new one? I’d ask Bill to check with Castleberry’s supplier for dates of purchases.
Karen padded in from the kitchen with a large wooden tray bearing a coffeepot and several mugs.
“Do you keep any clinic files here?” I asked.
She handed me a mug steaming with coffee. “Everything’s in my office at the clinic. Why?”
“Still trekking the realm of endless possibilities.”
A crime-scene technical team arrived and unloaded equipment in the front hall.
“Why don’t we wait in the kitchen, out of the way?” I said to Karen. “This could take a while.”
We sat at the big kitchen table again, and as I sipped coffee, Karen picked at the frayed end of the sash of her robe.
“You sure this has nothing to do with Larry?” I said.
“Four years ago, I’d have been sure. He’s changed so much since I divorced his father, I’m not sure about anything that concerns him now.”
“I’d better have a talk with him. Can you get me those names you mentioned this morning?”
“This morning?” She looked blank. “Oh, on the trail. My God, that already seems like years ago.”
Moving like an old woman, she levered herself from her chair and shuffled across to the island, where she removed a pad and pencil from the drawer. She returned to her chair, wrote three names and handed me the paper. “They live somewhere in North Clearwater. That’s all I know about them.”
An hour later, Adler returned to the kitchen. “K-9 unit picked up a scent on the porch, followed it to Edgewater and up along the waterfront, but lost it in the marina park.”
“Any footprints or trace evidence outside?” I asked, but wasn’t hopeful. Unlike the popular CSI crime dramas would have us believe, criminals weren’t always so cooperative or unlucky in leaving incriminating evidence behind.
“Nope,” Adler said, “but we’ll check again at daylight. It’s my guess this guy sashayed up the front walk, then left the same way, judging by the route the K-9 traced, but none of the neighbors saw anything. They were all asleep until the siren wakened them.”
“Are the techs finished?”
“Almost. Johnson’s going to drop me off at the station to get my car, so you don’t have to drive me back.” He headed toward the front of the house with Johnson at his heels.
Karen filled my cup from a fresh pot. “Can I give you something to eat?”
“No, I—”
“We’re through, Detective.” Susie, the younger of the tech team, stood in the doorway.
“What have you got?”
“A few good sets of prints. We’ll have to check them against Ms. Englewood’s and her son’s. Nothing else out of the ordinary…”
Her inflection hinted otherwise. “Except what?”
“Just seems strange the burglar didn’t take the gun,” she said.
“What gun?” Karen asked. “I don’t have a gun.”
“There’s a gun in your top desk drawer,” Susie said.
“Could it be Larry’s?” I asked.
Karen shook her head. “There is no gun.”
“Look, lady, it’s late,” Susie said, “and I’m too tired to argue. Come see for yourself.”
I hurried up the hall and into Karen’s study. Shoved to the back and barely visible in the partially opened drawer was the butt of a handgun.
“It’s a gun, all right,” I said to Karen. “Do I have your permission to examine it?”
“Why do you need my permission? It’s not my gun.” The note of hysteria had returned to her voice. “Go ahead. Examine it. Take it with you.”
I slipped a pencil through the trigger guard, lifted the weapon from the drawer and placed it on a blotter beneath the desk lamp. A blued .22 automatic.
“Don’t leave yet, Susie. I want this checked for prints, then handed over to ballistics.”
“How did it get there?” Karen’s hands trembled as she clutched the collar of her robe closed at her throat.
I lifted a narrow remnant of duct tape trailing off the barrel. “If I knew that, I’d know who killed Peter Castleberry.”
CHAPTER 17
Bill was still awake, watching the final minutes of the One O’Clock Movie when I rapped on the window of his boat and climbed aboard.
“I need your help,” I said when he slid open the door to the cabin.
“You got it. Want coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’m on such a caffeine high right now, I won’t stop shaking for a week.” I sprawled on his tiny sofa and kicked off my shoes.
“You need sleep.”
“Can’t. Too damn busy.” I told him what Adler and I had learned from the day’s interviews and about the gun discovered at Karen Englewood’s. “I can’t make sense of any of it.”
“Sleep deprivation makes it hard to think. I’ve got just the ticket.”
He took a saucepan from a galley cabinet, filled it with milk and turned on a burner. In a few minutes, I was sipping hot chocolate and eating homemade oatmeal cookies.
“Comfort food,” he said.
“Were you a Jewish mother in a former life?” The food worked its magic, melting away my caffeine jitters.
“A good Jewish mother would insist you give up this job and take better care of yourself.”
I reached for another cookie. “Can’t. Have to find a killer.”
“Why you? Adler’s a good man. Resign and let him handle the case.”
I leaned back against the cushions. “When Greg was murdered in the emergency room, his death threw my entire life into chaos. I was a spoiled rich brat who never thought past what dress to wear to the next club dance. When that crack addict pumped five bullets into him at close range, my eyes were opened to the disorder and destruction in the world. I can’t fix the entire world, but I can make my little corner of it a better place. In this case, that means taking a serial killer out of circulation.”
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