Shattered

by Allison Brennan

  Don led them into the kitchen and motioned for them to sit at a round table for four in the breakfast nook. He poured coffee and brought out a carton of milk and sugar to the table. “None of that fake sugar,” he said.

  “I love the real stuff,” Lucy said and put in a hefty spoonful. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

  Don sat down. He added milk to his coffee. “I was surprised when Stanton called me last night.” He looked pointedly at Max. “More surprised that he was sending out a reporter.”

  Lucy only vaguely remembered Don Katella. He’d retired ten years after Justin’s murder and was now in his late sixties. She didn’t remember much about the investigation, except she’d seen Don at her house, talking to her parents, to Nelia, and to Carina.

  “Both Max and I have read the files,” Lucy said, “but the reports are basic. I’d like your impression of the crime, your theory.”

  “First, tell me why after nearly twenty years someone starts nosing around in that poor boy’s murder.”

  Lucy was going to respond, but Max beat her to it. “I would tell you, but I don’t want to cloud your perception. Your gut reaction is more valuable to me.” She paused. “To both of us.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I investigate cold cases.”

  “I know who you are. Why Justin Stanton?”

  Max hesitated, just a beat, then said, “I don’t believe his killer stopped with him.”

  “Serial killer,” Don said flatly and shook his head.

  “That’s why I didn’t want to cloud your judgment.”

  Don turned to Lucy. “And your family is okay with this?”

  “Justin is my family.”

  “You’re a fed though, right? Andrew said you’re in the FBI, out of Texas.”

  “Yes, San Antonio Field Office. I’m on my own time today. However, if I can prove anything that Max has already uncovered, I plan on opening a federal investigation.” She couldn’t do it herself, but she could make it happen. What was the benefit of having family in the FBI as well as friends in high places if she couldn’t use them to solve a two-decade-old murder? Especially when other lives were at stake.

  “You read the reports,” Don said, leaning back in his chair. “There was little evidence.”

  “Go back to the beginning,” Max said. “When you caught the case.”

  “I wasn’t called in until after search and rescue found Justin’s body and it was clear he’d been murdered. I knew about his kidnapping—Andrew Stanton was a prosecutor, we all knew he was going places. So when a prosecutor’s kid goes missing, you automatically think it’s a perp getting revenge.”

  “Yet you weren’t involved in the investigation until his body was found.”

  “The scene was fucked up to begin with,” Don said. “Excuse the colorful language. Guess I’m still a cop at heart, though my wife would skin me alive for using such language in the house.”

  Katella sipped his coffee as he collected his thoughts. “From the beginning, we knew someone had come in through the window and taken the kid. The screen was bent, but the suspect wore gloves—no prints. But if the killer left footprints, we couldn’t differentiate them from a dozen others—including Stanton, his wife, his sister-in-law—that would be your sister Carina, Lucy—and every other Kincaid and friend of the Kincaids and friends of Andrew and cops who came over to search for Justin. We don’t know if he was carried to the park or driven to the park. His body was buried in a shallow grave, wrapped in his own blanket, a stuffed giraffe tucked under his arm.”

  Lucy leaned forward. “That wasn’t in the reports.”

  “It was a detail we didn’t want getting out. I never forgot it. And I guess after all this time, it doesn’t matter if it’s leaked.”

  “We’ll keep the information private until absolutely necessary,” Max said.

  “Andrew sent me the full autopsy report, not the summary released to the press,” Lucy said. “Justin had a sedative in his system. Some sort of narcotic, though it wasn’t specified.”

  “Correct. Possibly chloral hydrate, a children’s sedative, but the tests were inconclusive. The coroner indicated that he was either unconscious or lethargic when he was suffocated.”

  “Fibers from his blanket were found in his lungs,” Lucy said. “Indicating that the killer put the blanket over his face before she suffocated him.”

  Don leaned forward. “She? Do you have a suspect? Are you screwing with me?”

  “No suspect. Just a theory.”

  “You working with your brother? I heard Dr. Kincaid works for the feds now.”

  “He’s a civilian consultant. But I haven’t talked to Dillon in depth about this.”

  “We had no reason to believe the killer was a woman or a man. We didn’t know what to believe. We looked hard at Andrew and his wife. When a kid is killed … well, hell, you know this as well as I do. It’s almost always someone they know. Especially since there was no sexual assault. We’d considered Carina for a time … kills me now that she was a suspect. She’s a great cop.”

  “Dillon told me. But she was ruled out.”

  Max shot Lucy a glance, but she ignored it. Max had intended to go behind Lucy’s back and interview Katella alone, Lucy didn’t have any qualms about holding back her conversation with Dillon, at least initially. She was still trying to process everything Dillon had said and how she was going to convince Carina to help.

  “I never publicized the theory, but there’s a transcript of my interview with her. Remember, she was practically a kid. Nineteen, I think. College student. I wondered if maybe it was an accident. Justin accidentally poisoned himself, she thought he was dead, panicked, buried him, and came up with the story that he had been kidnapped.”

  Dillon had said nothing about the details of Carina as a suspect, but no wonder she was sensitive about Lucy looking into the murder. To have to relive that again … the interrogation, the accusations. She would have been terrified and horrified that anyone could consider that she would hurt her own nephew.

  Lucy had once been suspected of a murder she didn’t commit. It had been hell going through the interview process—even though she knew she was innocent.

  “Truthfully, until we got back the tox screens and determined that the narcotic in Justin’s bloodstream was not found in any medicines or chemicals in the house—either the Stanton house or the Kincaid house—Carina was the most logical suspect. Nelia had a solid alibi. She worked for a defense contractor, they have to sign in and out and the log and desk are manned by military security. Andrew’s was a little flimsier—with his mistress—but he never tried to hide that fact. His mistress was a prosecutor in Orange County with no reason to lie for him. And they were at a hotel where they were both seen on security cameras. But Carina was alone in the house with Justin.”

  “And after you received the drug analysis?”

  “We looked at every criminal that Andrew Stanton put away. He’d only been a prosecutor for three, four years at the time, most everyone he convicted was still in prison. The few we did interview had alibis. No relative or accomplice seemed to have the means or opportunity. We exhausted everyone, even the most asinine possibilities. And none of them gave me the vibe. I considered that maybe Stanton or the wife hired someone to kill the kid, but that didn’t bear out in their financials. And except for the infidelity—which according to Nelia Stanton’s statement, she knew about, and Andrew’s statement said his wife knew about the affair as well—everyone we spoke to said they were great parents. Justin played soccer, they went to his games, socialized, his teacher said both parents were completely engaged in Justin’s schooling. They came together to parent-teacher conferences, they came together to school events. No one suspected they didn’t have a picture-perfect marriage.

  “By this time, three weeks had passed. Twenty years ago forensics weren’t what they are today, but we had decent tools. We collected trace evidence, but found nothing that didn’
t belong in the bedroom. No foreign DNA at the grave site, but he hadn’t been found for twenty-four hours and evidence could have been lost. No witnesses came forward. We canvassed every house between the Stanton’s house and the park where Justin’s body was found. We talked to every resident, many two or three times. Talked to everyone who knew the family. Teachers. Family. Friends. Colleagues. Dozens of people. The case haunted me … because there was next to nothing.”

  Max said, “I have three cases almost identical to Justin’s murder. At least two of them have another common factor—the father was having an affair and was with his mistress the night his son was killed.”

  Don stared at her. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

  “They’re all cold cases outside of San Diego.”

  Lucy glanced over, wondering why Max didn’t share the other details—that one parent had been convicted of murder.

  “My associate interviewed one of the families, and learned that their son was buried with his favorite stuffed animal. He’s working on the other case today.”

  Lucy said, “I’m not a criminal profiler, but I have worked in the area. This profile is so clear to me, Don. These boys were all killed by a woman. Someone who knew that their fathers were having an affair.”

  Don shook his head. “That makes no fucking sense. Why kill a kid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Max glanced at her, but Lucy didn’t want to give too much away, not yet.

  “Don,” Lucy said, “Justin is most likely the first of three or more like-crimes, spanning almost twenty years. That tells me that you most likely interviewed the killer, but didn’t know it … didn’t know what to ask because you had no idea why Justin was killed.”

  “And you do? Because right now it sounds like you’re pulling a rabbit out of your ass on this.” Don shook his head. “This case was nearly twenty years ago. And while I remember it—I couldn’t forget if I wanted to—I don’t know what you’re looking for. I interviewed a lot of people. So did the beat cops.”

  “Andrew is getting me a copy of the entire file, including all the notes from the interviews,” Lucy said. “What would help us most of all is if you could go through each interview you and your team conducted and look at it again, going under the assumption that the killer is a woman who knew of Andrew’s affair.”

  “This makes no fucking sense,” Katella mumbled, then repeated, “Why kill a kid?”

  “The killer is likely a high-functioning psychopath. To her, it makes complete sense. Maybe a punishment of sorts—”

  As she spoke, Lucy realized she already had a working profile. It was still forming in her head, she was still fleshing out the details, but there seemed to be a retribution feeling to the murders, a way of punishing the family. Why kill the child? Because it would destroy the family. It would destroy the marriage. The pain of losing a child would never go away. Statistically, when a child was murdered, the family disintegrated. Did she kill to punish the father for the affair? The mistress for her culpability? The mother for her ignorance?

  It was a direction to look, but Lucy was having a hard time grasping the why. Because the killer would still have to look a little boy in his eyes while she killed him.

  Except she didn’t. She suffocated him with a blanket. Wrapped him tight when he was unconscious.

  Max asked, “Why would punishing Justin hurt his parents?” She was looking at Lucy oddly. Had she been lost in her thoughts for too long?

  “You’re looking at this wrong—the killer wasn’t punishing Justin, she was punishing Andrew. And, perhaps, Nelia. Or both.”

  Don said, “That’s fucked, Kincaid. Totally and completely screwball.”

  “To us, but not to the killer. It makes sense to her. We just have to figure out why, then we will find her. Did she lose a child? Or maybe she can’t have a child and doesn’t think that Andrew and Nelia deserved theirs?” Lucy hesitated … she understood the pain of being barren far too well. But to deny others happiness because of her own sorrow over not being about to conceive? That would never have crossed her mind.

  Yet she understood the deep and complex feelings. If someone was psychotic, they might twist that around, punish those who didn’t appreciate what they had. A father cheating on his wife, not being home for the family … it would fit. But wouldn’t that also punish the mother? Except, the mothers were all out the same night. Working late. Not home with their child. Were these crimes also a form of self-loathing? That the killer wants to punish herself over and over through the pain and suffering of the mother who also lost a child?

  Did the killer run away from the crime scene … or return to absorb the pain of those who suffered? Did that suffering sustain her for years before she felt the need to kill again? To punish again?

  “Lucy,” Max said, snapping her fingers. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” she said. The emotions and impressions were too raw right now for her to make sense of it. She, too, needed to read the transcripts, run background checks on all the women between the ages of twenty and forty—forty because if the same killer killed Justin and Peter Caldwell, that would put her at around sixty now … not impossible, but highly unlikely.

  She also needed to find out if there were any other similarities among the Stantons, Porters, Donovans, and Caldwells. Was there something they weren’t seeing?

  “If you think it’ll help,” Don Katella said slowly, “I’ll review the transcripts again.”

  “Thank you,” Lucy said. “I’ll have Andrew send them over this morning. I’m going to read everything as well, and may call you if I have questions. We will solve Justin’s murder.”

  “I sincerely hope you’re right. I don’t like unfinished business, and this case has bugged me from the beginning.”

  * * *

  Max didn’t say anything for nearly the entire drive back to the hotel. She was both angry and impressed. Okay, mostly she was furious at Kincaid for holding back on her. For taking over the conversation with the detective. Max had her own questions, but they were slightly altered versions of what Lucy had already asked. Max was used to doing things her own way and while she didn’t object to anything Lucy had said or done, it was different. And Max didn’t have anything actionable to follow up on. One of her interview rules was to never leave an interview with someone who had information—like Katella—without a thread for her to follow. Giving him this assignment of reading the interviews might be productive, but left Max twiddling her fingers.

  She did not twiddle well.

  “You didn’t tell me about the conversation with your brother the shrink,” Max said bluntly.

  “It’s not over. When I have something relevant to share, I will.”

  “This isn’t a partnership,” Max said.

  “I thought you didn’t want a partnership.”

  “It was forced on me.”

  “You planned to interview Don Katella without me.”

  “As it turned out, you interviewed him without me.”

  Lucy glanced at Max. Was she actually bemused at Max’s frustration?

  “I’m used to being in charge, Lucy. I’m used to asking the questions.”

  “Did you have questions I didn’t ask?”

  “That’s not the point. I have a process, a system that works for me. You have a different process. I may have yielded different information, to give us another path to follow. Now we’re waiting on a retired cop to read hundreds of pages of interviews? And we have nothing.”

  “We’re not waiting for anything,” Lucy said. “Andrew is sending me a copy of the interviews as well, of course we need to review them. But Katella was there twenty years ago. Rereading the statements may spark something in his memory.”

  She was right, Max admitted, but she felt like she wasn’t in control. Max didn’t like not being in control.

  “I don’t see how this is going to work,” she mumbled.

  “Have you heard back from your assistant?”r />
  Max narrowed her gaze at Lucy as she stopped at a red light. “Excuse me?”

  “You mentioned last night that your assistant was following up with the Porter family.”

  She’d forgotten that she’d told Lucy.

  “He’ll call when he has something,” Max said. “So what now?”

  “This is your case,” Lucy said. “I just got a text from Andrew—copies of all statements will be delivered to the hotel by one. We have nearly three hours.”

  “My case.” Max laughed. Really. “I’d like to visit the crime scene. Get a sense of the neighborhood, the park where Justin was buried, so I can visualize the scene when we read the statements.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything for a long minute. Max could be insensitive, and perhaps she had been on purpose. Justin was Lucy’s nephew. What had she said yesterday?

  Justin was my best friend.

  Max understood loss as much as anyone. That she and Lucy had that in common didn’t surprise her; what surprised her was that the anger she had felt earlier when Lucy took over the interview of Katella disappeared.

  “Are you okay with that?” Max asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and remained silent as Max typed the address into her GPS.

  Chapter Seventeen

  David stood when Tommy Porter’s uncle, Grant McKnight, approached him at the coffee shop near the beach in Santa Barbara. It was before the lunch hour, but the place was beginning to fill.

  “Officer McKnight, thank you for meeting with me.”

  Grant shook David’s hand once firmly, then sat in the booth across from David. David sat back down.

  The waitress approached immediately. “Hello, Grant. The usual?”

  “To go, I don’t have a lot of time,” Grant said. “Coffee now. Thanks, Ann.” He waited until she left. “This is my usual lunch spot.”

  “I was surprised to get your call.”

  “Jamie, Doug, and I had a long talk about your visit last night. Originally, they’d called me over to find out if they could have you arrested. I was ready to hunt you down, to be honest. Then I read the e-mail you sent last night. Bold, but to the point. I like that.”