“You ride together?” So far this would explain no one at Secrets seeing Kayla the night she disappeared and why her car had shown up in an east side parking lot.
“No, we drove our own cars.” Amber shifted position as two handsome men approached the club, making sure they’d seen her.
“Then what? Just tell me everything you remember.”
“Vinnie’s was packed. Couple guys at the bar gave us their seats, then hung around. They must have thought giving us the seats would get them in our pants. Fools. Anyway, once we got rid of them we each kind of did our own thing. I saw some friends in a booth by the dance floor and went over and had a drink with them. After that I don’t know where she went. I didn’t see her again, so I figured she either left or met someone.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see her with anyone?”
“Kayla always had guys around her.”
“But no one in particular that night?”
“Not that I remember. It was a long time ago.”
Crap, this got her nothing new. But she knew lots of the staff at Vinnie’s. They’d tell her whatever they could remember, but the skank was right—it had been a long time ago.
“What about the two guys you blew off? How pissed were they?”
Amber’s neatly penciled eyebrows shot up, her green eyes widening. “You don’t think they could have done something to her?”
“I don’t think anything. What do you remember about them?”
Scrunching her eyes, she seemed to be concentrating for a minute. “Not much, really. They were dressed like factory workers on a night out. Jeans, flannel shirts over tee shirts, work boots, like that. They thought we’d be impressed that they were stagehands for some Broadway show that was playing at the Center.” She snorted. “Like that would impress us.”
“How did you blow them off?”
“We tried being nice first—told them we were waiting for dates—but they kept hanging around. They didn’t get it so Kayla told them to disappear. We’d had a couple drinks by then and she was getting loose lips.”
“Do you remember what she said?”
“Not exactly. Maybe something like, ‘Thanks for giving us your seats, but you can move on now.’ And when that didn’t work she told them we weren’t interested in losers like them. Might have been worse than that. I don’t remember for sure, but they left.”
Weird. It sounded like Jamie Denison’s attitude at the Sombrero Club. Probably didn’t mean anything. But they’d have to try to find the stage guys, see what they had to say. She thanked her and got up to leave when Amber offered to buy her a drink. There was no mistaking the question in the probing peridot eyes.
“Sorry, got other people to talk to tonight.” Shit. TJ figured if she would ever be tempted to have a fling with a woman, this flytrap would be the last one she’d try it with. She shuddered and hurried back into the bar to get Shannon.
On the way to the car, Shannon asked, “Now what?”
“Think I’m gonna go back to Eric’s.”
Shannon stopped walking. “You’re going back? Did you find something?”
“Maybe. But I’m not sure what it means.” She made a face. “Might not mean squat. It’s freezing out here. I’ll call you on your cell and fill you in.”
82
It was quiet in the house when TJ returned to Eric’s. She put on a pair of sweats, and restless, went back upstairs and made herself a drink. She carried it to Eric’s office where she sat down and studied the white-boards for a while, then got up and added the newly gathered information under Jamie and Kayla’s names. She circled the new bullets under each name that said, “Blew off creepy guy.” What could that possibly have to do with anything when it was two different guys?
TJ sat down in Eric’s plush, leather desk chair. They were missing something. Not missing something exactly, there was something there, something important that they hadn’t connected. What was it? TJ couldn’t stand feeling like the answer was there on the fringes of her consciousness, just beyond her ken. Damn! She knew nothing would bring it out now. She had to walk away from it. Do something else.
On her way back downstairs, she noticed the door to Jeff’s room was ajar and peeked in to see if he might be awake. He wasn’t there. Strange. Maybe the others were out for the night. Back in the kitchen, she peeked into the refrigerator. She got out some turkey and bread, set it on the counter, and saw Phanny watching her. That dog was always hungry. She fixed herself a sandwich piled high with white meat, ‘accidently’ dropped a piece on the floor that the dog snapped up.
“I thought you were gone for the weekend.”
TJ looked up from mid-bite to see Eric moving toward the refrigerator.
“Change of plans. Came back for a turkey sandwich.”
He laughed. “You’ve got a friend I see.”
“Yeah, this dog’s always where the food is.”
The turkey and bread came back out, and Eric sat next to her at the island with a double-decker turkey sandwich in front of him.
TJ knew his style. He was good at getting her to open up by saying nothing. “Forget it if you’re waiting for me to tell you what happened.”
He took a bite of his sandwich and studied her.
“Okay,” she admitted, “Richard stayed in Chicago. Some family thing.”
Eric kept eating.
TJ could tell he was resisting a smile by the way his laugh lines puckered at the side of his eyes. “You never did like him,” she accused.
Eric put down the sandwich and turned to her. “The guy’s a good cop.”
She glared at him.
“I don’t like him for you, all right?”
“Why?”
Eric looked surprised that she’d asked him. “Let me see. I suppose ‘he’s not good enough for you’ isn’t what you want to hear.”
TJ kept glaring.
“I guess I always thought you deserved someone who made you his top priority. Not married to his job—someone younger, a little less street-worn.”
“Shouldn’t have asked, you sound like Janeen. May have run its course, anyway.” She sighed. “I got a problem. And nothin to do with Richard.” She told Eric what she and Shannon had found out that night, that she’d added it to the boards, and something was nagging at her.
“I hate that feeling. How do you usually pull it out?”
“Dunno. It’s always different. But what do you think? Was Kayla capable of being nasty like that?”
“When she’d been drinking, sure. Do you think you can find the guy?”
“I checked the archives from the paper. Found out the name of the play. There should be records of who was working the stage that night.”
“Seems like it gives us more new questions than answers, doesn’t it? Maybe the profiler can give us some insight.”
“Profiler—what the fuck?”
83
The afternoon the profiler arrived, Tina spotted the large, dark-blue van as it moved into the circle drive and stopped in front of the door. She looked on in wonder when the side door opened as if by magic and a long ramp slowly emerged from the van, lowering to touch the ground. A thin, sharp-eyed man operating a motorized chair rolled down the ramp. Tina ran to get Eric, who hurried to put a portable ramp on the front step for their guest.
Like many of her peers, Lisa hated to admit that anyone other than a practicing clinician could be so insightful of the forensic psyche as to actually be able to pinpoint a killer’s profile, but she was determined to keep an open mind.
When he entered the room, Mason Orth appeared small, but Lisa quickly realized that his position in the chair concealed his height. He wore a soft, taupe fedora, reminiscent of another era. When he took it off, hanging it on the back of the chair, she saw that his hair was mostly silver, although he didn’t look more than sixty.
Eric introduced them. Orth’s eyes drew her to him, eclipsing the effect of his handicap. They were piercing, intense. When he looked into her e
yes, she felt like he could see her deepest secrets.
He held his hand out to her. When their palms met, her feeling about him intensified. He was going to help them; she could feel it.
“Please, call me Mason. David told me you’re a psychologist. We’ll have to put our heads together and see what we can come up with.”
Did he think he could win her over with that line? “It’ll be a pleasure. David’s told us wonderful things about your work.”
“I hope I can live up to his praise.” He laughed, the sharp planes of face softening. He turned to Eric. “I want to thank you for your generosity in inviting me to dinner, but if you don’t mind I’d like to see these whiteboards I’ve heard about.”
Eric motioned toward his office. “Of course. We won’t be having dinner for a while yet.”
They showed him into the office. He guided his chair to the middle of the room, looking over each woman’s photo and information without speaking. Eric excused himself while Lisa took a chair, silently waiting for a comment from the enigmatic man. Minutes passed.
Mason Orth’s intensity filled the room, the silence almost eerie. The spell was broken when he asked, “Lisa, are you convinced that these disappearances are the work of one person?”
Lisa wondered how he’d known she was still in the room; he’d addressed her without moving from his position in front of the boards. Bewildered, she replied, “I wasn’t at first. I was only sure that something wasn’t right. I never believed the rise in the statistics could be put off to chance—it was too high. The police think it’s the work of one or more of a number of deviant online groups, or an organization helping women to leave abusive relationships. Their head of computer crimes, James Wilson, believes ‘multiple factors’ are responsible.”
Turning to her, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I don’t believe these women have run off or been killed by their husbands. The more we dig, the more it looks like there was a man on the fringes of these women’s lives, a man who was careful to stay in the background, invisible. I am convinced there is one person out there targeting this specific group of women.”
“Quite fascinating, isn’t it?” He turned back to the photos. “The obvious conclusion would be that the key to this mystery lies with the victims. Find why he’s targeting abused women, and you’ll find your killer.”
“You don’t think we should focus on the obvious—why he’s killing abused women?”
Observing the photos, he answered, “One would be inclined to think he had a grudge against them for some reason. However, it could easily be something as overt as the fact that he enjoys killing women—and these women are a group whose disappearances can be blamed on many factors. Rather convenient for him when there is a ready-made suspect for the law to concentrate on—disappearances that can be explained away.”
Lisa was impressed. “We haven’t thought of it that way. It’s so simple it makes perfect sense.”
He turned back to face her. “Yes, but there is nothing simple about your killer. He’s an extremely complex man.”
84
TJ was running late. By the time she joined the group, they were seated at the dinner table, sharing another of Teresa’s sumptuous suppers. Tonight’s menu was beef stew served with Parmesan cheese bread. It smelled wonderful. Teresa rushed to put a serving in front of her, shooing Tina back to their room.
They introduced TJ to Orth. The man’s penetrating eyes made her uneasy. She’d been against bringing him on board, but if he could help them wrap things up, she’d hear him out.
After dinner, they gathered in front of the whiteboards. The profiler turned to TJ. “I understand that researching these women was your idea. I always like to start at the beginning, so tell me why these disappearances piqued your interest.”
TJ was taken off guard; she’d planned on being an observer. That nagging feeling that had come to her when studying the whiteboards was still with her. She’d been hoping a new insight might break it loose. “Goin’ way back, my sister was abused by her husband until he was stopped by the police—permanently.” She neglected to add that she had been “the police” who’d stopped him.
“Bout’ a year later Eric hired me to find something that might help to get him out of jail on appeal. After doin’ all the legwork and getting to know Eric, I was convinced he didn’t kill his wife.” She explained the rest of her story, including what they’d been told about the statistics by Richard Conlin and James Wilson.
“A mutual friend told me Lisa was goin’ in to MPD about the stats. Thought the police had blown the whole thing off, and when I heard someone else was interested, decided to see if I could get her to help me.”
“The Milwaukee police are still ignoring it?”
“Yeah, so far. Dependin’ on what we can give them, Waukesha and Oconomowoc are gonna rework Jamie Denison and Kayla Schilling’s disappearances once we turn over our information. We’ll give em’ everything we got, including whatever you have to add. And we’d like you to be here when we do it.”
TJ hadn’t planned on asking him to be there. Something about Orth made him credible, assured her his expertise could improve their chances with the law.
Orth waited a bit before he spoke, his eyes appraising her. “Let me think about that. I’ll get input from all of you tonight. I’ll give you a written report eventually, but I’ll be able to tell you my impressions before I leave. Then you can decide if you think it will be helpful to have me here when you address the police. And I would encourage you to include a representative from Milwaukee.“
TJ grimaced. “Well, I know Richard Conlin would come. Not sure he’d bring an open mind.”
“I’d think that the fact that the area police are going forward would convince them, if nothing else,” Orth commented.
After dinner, they reviewed all the evidence and information from the interviews. TJ added that she’d located Tim Aiello, the stagehand who had talked to Kayla at Vinnie’s the night she’d disappeared. He admitted Kayla had pissed him off when she’d so rudely given him the brush-off. He had an alibi for the evening, however. The stagehands shared rooms and his roommate remembered him coming in before eleven because he’d interrupted an important phone call from his wife who was almost ready to give birth. Aiello admitted he watched Kayla after she blew him off and had seen her leave with a man. The interesting part was he remembered, “The dude had gray hair.”
Orth grew quiet after they’d shared everything they thought was important. They left the room to have coffee and dessert in the kitchen. After he’d finished his coffee, the profiler started talking.
“I don’t think what I have to say will be a surprise to any of you. I believe the Milwaukee police are wrong, and you folks have it right. This is the work of one man. There is always the possibility of an accomplice, but I think it’s unlikely. There is a possibility that your killer is a woman, although the odds are against it, and the missing bodies would leave us to deduce that the killer had the strength to take them with him and somehow make them disappear. My feeling is that the perpetrator is a male.
“His profile? Serial killers tend to be Caucasian men in the twenty to forty age range. If your witnesses were accurate about the gray hair, I’d guess he’s not a lot more than forty and prematurely gray. He’s not an attention seeker, or there would have been bodies found. Part of him isn’t proud of what he is doing, but the other part wins out.
“He’s successfully disposing of the bodies of these women, so I would expect him to own or have access to a vehicle which would make that possible—a van, an SUV with darkened windows, even a truck with a closed bed.
“He’s organized. These murders—if indeed they are murders and he doesn’t have the women stashed away somewhere as prisoners—are well planned. He’s highly intelligent, most likely employed as some kind of professional or even a businessman.”
Lisa frowned. “What about what we’ve heard from witnesses—that some of the women were
rude to men who approached them?”
Orth brightened. “That’s the interesting part! All your victims are very attractive women. Vulnerable to their abusers, yes, but bright women, employed at above average jobs. Your killer convinced them to keep their liaisons with him a secret—probably by playing the safety card—and they went along with it. They would have feared repercussions by their abusers if it were known they were seeing him. It follows that he’s a charming, good looking man, and also manipulative.”
Jeff said, “I thought all these guys were loners.”
“He very well could be. He feels in control with these women, so he is free to be outgoing with them. His social skills may be limited in any other setting.
“To get back to your question, Lisa, here is what I find intriguing. If his trigger were these women’s derogatory comments to men that are unattractive to them, it would seem to follow that he himself is unattractive. Since we know that to be highly unlikely, it reveals that he either was unsightly at one time and carries a grudge, or has some kind of hidden handicap. Maybe he’s bald and wears a wig. Possibly he has a sexual dysfunction or an abnormally small penis. It could be any number of things really, and when the police find him, it’ll become apparent.”
Lisa sighed. “If the police find him.”
Orth looked at her sympathetically, a half-smile on his narrow face. “I understand you’re discouraged. But the police will have to do their work, and without any bodies it will be difficult to find him. There’s a good chance he owns property where he disposes of his victims. I’m afraid it’s possible he could relocate as soon as he becomes aware the police are finally on to him.” His last words were not what any of them had wanted to hear.
After Mason Orth left, TJ had to admit that he’d been impressive. What she’d been most taken by was that he hadn’t tried to wow them with any impossible little details. His profile seemed to fit with the amount of evidence they were able to provide. Most importantly, he backed up what they’d been trying to tell the police.
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