Prejean grabbed Julia’s arm and drew her to him. “Don’t believe what people say about me. I care about you more than you know. What happened with you and LaBeau today, you must still be shaken up.”
Prejean wrapped his arms around Julia and tried to hug her, but she pushed him away and reached for her phone in her pocket, ready to call Navarro.
Prejean took a step back and a look of hurt spread across his face.
“I don’t know what you think is happening, or what my intentions are, but you’re wrong on all counts. I didn’t lie, and I didn’t plant evidence. And you and me, we’re just friends. Or at least, I thought we were.”
“I want you to leave, Prejean.”
“I planned to stay with you until Navarro was done at work, because I was worried when I heard Washington pulled the detail off. But if that’s how you want to play it, I’ll be going now. You take care of yourself and get your mind right.”
Prejean left, slamming the door behind him, leaving Julia alone in the apartment to face a sudden onslaught of guilt over her accusations. She thought about following Prejean, but ultimately she knew she had to listen to Navarro. Julia waited until she heard the ting of the elevator arriving on their floor, and then went to the living room to call Virginia.
Julia reached into her bag for her reporter’s notebook, which included the latest summary she had jotted down and planned to share with her editor to update her on the case. Julia laid the notebook on the coffee table, sat down on the sofa, and pulled out six pieces of paper that she had folded and stuffed inside the notebook: the transcript of her two calls with MMK that the police provided upon her insistence after she turned over the actual recordings to Navarro and his team. The police had also included the initials of each speaker immediately following their respective quotes.
She did a quick study of the transcript from the first call when she was in the parking lot with Logan after his game. She re-read the words the Magic Man Killer had said to her in his smooth, emotionless tone and the clues MMK had planted about “finding the dark magic in Detroit” and the Alice in Wonderland references that led her to Roseline.
She began to review the rest of the transcript that chronicled her conversation with MMK during his second call after she and Navarro saved Christy King in the park.
Julia ran her index finger underneath each sentence as she read.
“You weren’t supposed to find Christy King. How did you do it?” MMK
“Because I’m smarter than you. So are the cops.” JG
“No, no, no. Time-out, Julia. It’s time for you to listen, not speak.” MMK
Julia’s index finger stopped abruptly under the phrase “time-out.”
The two words seemed to hang in the air like a fast-descending sickle. “Time-out” was the exact same phrase Logan had just used, and his reference to the expression made something finally click into place.
Julia grabbed her phone and then hurriedly searched her contacts until she found the number for the director of the Wayne County Parks Department, Matthew Morales.
Julia felt her heart racing so fast, she tempered her breathing to try and make it beat in a natural rhythm until Morales answered.
“It’s Julia Gooden,” she said in a rush.
“Julia, it’s after hours and I was just leaving for the day. We had a late staff meeting tonight and I’m heading home.”
“This is an emergency. I need to find out if three women had their children in sports teams through your parks-and-rec department.”
“I’m sorry. Your boss, Virginia, is a personal friend, but if this is for a story, it’s going to have to wait. Call me tomorrow.”
“No. Get on your computer and search the names April Young, Heather Burns, and Christy King. Do it, Morales. Two of those women I mentioned are dead, and a fourth woman is missing. I think their connection is through Wayne County sports teams. The missing woman, Charlotte Fisher, has a son who plays in a parks-and-rec basketball team.”
“Is this about the serial murders of the female joggers you’ve been writing about?”
“That’s exactly what this is. Just get on your computer. Please.”
“Okay, okay.”
Julia could hear a door close on the other end of the phone, followed by movement in the background. She waited the longest four minutes of her life until Morales finally came back on.
“Okay, Heather Burns’s daughter, Carly, was on a senior girls’ Wayne County soccer team. April Young’s boy played on our peewee baseball league, and Christy King’s son, Clay, is on a junior soccer league for ages eight and under.”
Julia’s mind spun back to the blue dress MMK made his victims wear and the time she had worn her own version. She had put on the blue dress for Navarro’s police awards banquet, which had tied into the initial theory that MMK could be a cop. Her correlation to the dress had been stuck on that single event. But Julia now realized she had first stopped to watch Logan play on an All-Stars Little League game on his final day of baseball camp during the summer before she met up with Navarro for the awards banquet.
“Hold on one second,” Julia said.
She pulled out the orange flyer from the parks-and-rec department from her bag, the one for early registration for the kids and the opportunity for parents to get discounts, and studied it for the first time.
The top part of the form was information about the child and the teams they were interested in, but the bottom half of the form was for the parents to fill out about themselves, including their gender and age. There was also a check box of sporting activities parents participated in, and one of the options was running. Underneath each selection, the parents could include information about which current parks they frequented for the activities they checked off.
“The orange flyers the parks department is giving out for early youth sports registration and perks for parents who sign up, who has access to those?” Julia asked.
“Plenty of people. Those forms are in at least twenty gyms. We also have them posted in every park we have in the county, and people can fill them out and leave them in drop boxes. All that information is input into our computer system.”
Julia’s eyes stayed on the orange form, and she realized MMK likely did his initial vetting of his victims through the form, and for those who fit the profile, he could easily see where the women ran if they filled out that line on the form.
“Thanks for your help, but you’re going to need to be accessible to the police and me tonight. We’re going to need to comb through your records,” Julia said. “I think someone who works for Wayne County Parks and Rec is the Magic Man Killer.”
Julia hung up with a startled Morales and then called Navarro, feeling a burn of frustration when her call went straight to voice mail.
“I found the connection,” Julia said as she left a message. “All the women—April Young, Heather Burns, Christy King, Charlotte Fisher, and me—all our children play youth sports through the county-rec league. I’m sure someone who works for the Wayne County Parks and Rec Department is the killer. I’ll explain more when I see you. I’m heading to the station now with Logan.”
Julia ended the call, left a note for Helen, and grabbed her bag. She left the apartment, ready to retrieve Logan, and turned around to lock the door. But the key froze in her hand when she felt the sharp edge of a knife wedge itself against the side of her neck.
“Hello, Julia. We’re going back inside now.”
The person behind Julia gave her a hard shove into the apartment. Once Julia got inside, she felt the knife move away from her neck.
She spun around to see the referee from Logan’s basketball games, Jeremiah Landry.
“I’ve got something of yours,” Jeremiah said. He reached inside his sweatshirt pocket and retrieved a baseball. “You left it at your brother’s grave. That was a strange thing to do. But we’re both strange, aren’t we? You haven’t been running in a while. I always enjoyed watching you run. It was a thing of gra
ce.”
“Get out of here,” Julia said as her eyes swept across the sterile apartment for anything she could use as a weapon.
“That’s not going to happen. I came for you. It’s all for you. A man like me, most of the time, we’re invisible,” Jeremiah said, but this time, his voice sounded different, with a brush of a Southern accent.
Julia began to hit Navarro’s number on her phone again, but stopped when Jeremiah raised up his thick green-and-black knife and pointed it at her chest.
“Don’t do it, or I’ll cut you before I planned.”
Julia dropped her phone back into her purse, knowing she needed to buy time. “Why me? Why are you doing this?”
“The first time I saw you, I was subbing at a Little League summer camp game, umping behind home plate. You were wearing the blue dress. You looked so lovely and came to my defense. A true warrior, you are. One of the bitches, those women, the parents who live and die for their stupid kids’ games, started yelling at a call I made. You told her off. You never saw my face behind my umpire mask, I’m guessing. Either that, or I was simply forgettable. I started following you after that. When I saw Logan’s name on the basketball team roster, I switched schedules with another ref so I could work his games, and I made myself into a nice guy for you when we talked, the type of man I thought you’d like. None of the things I told you about myself were true. But I think you liked that version of me, Julia. I really do.”
Julia looked at the blade of the knife Jeremiah clutched in his hand and prayed that Logan would remain in Navarro’s place if he heard a struggle.
“You have no idea how much work I did to prepare for this moment. You and me, we’re just the same, exact halves that make a whole. After I started following you, I saw your interview on TV and I knew our meeting, our relationship, was preordained. You never cared about your brother, did you? It was all a charade, an act, we put on, behaving like we’re supposed to in the real world. You didn’t show any emotion when the reporter asked about how your brother’s murder made you feel. Not one single ounce of emotion.”
“Don’t talk about my brother. I’m nothing like you. Where’s Charlotte?”
“In a basement. I stuffed her in a container,” Jeremiah said. “She’s probably dead by now. The cops were at the church where I planned to take her, so I had to find a safe place real quick. But then I realized it was too close to home. You don’t mess with the darkness where you live.”
“You found your victims through the parks. You saw the mothers in the stands watching their children play the games you worked. And you tracked them through the registration forms.”
“That’s right. But you didn’t figure it out in time. With Charlotte, I knew that one was going to hurt you. The registration forms were a big help to me in my planning. If the women ticked the right age box and indicated they were runners, I’d go to their kids’ games and find them. It was painstaking work to get the right women. They didn’t have to look just like you, but they had to have your body type. I could fix the rest. I followed them and knew their patterns. Enough talk now. It’s time for our dance. I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”
Jeremiah reached inside a duffel bag, which hung by his side, and pulled out a blue dress.
Julia looked to the front door, but Jeremiah’s body blocked its route. She knew she could try to escape from the patio, but she was eleven stories up with nothing but concrete below her.
“Here’s your dress,” Jeremiah said. “Don’t worry. It will fit. I know what you’re thinking. We don’t have any music, but I thought of everything.”
“You’re crazy,” Julia said, and refused to take the dress Jeremiah held out to her.
“‘Hold me close and hold me fast,’” Jeremiah began to sing. “‘The magic spell you cast . . .’”
Julia ran as fast as she could to the living room and banged her fist twice against the common wall that connected to Navarro’s apartment, praying her little boy would keep his promise and call Navarro without coming in to save her.
“Help! Please, someone!” Julia screamed.
Jeremiah raced after her into the room. His face remained eerily calm as he grabbed her around the waist and pressed the blade of his knife against her neck.
“Say you love me, Julia.”
“The cops are on the way.”
“No, they aren’t. I followed you here. I follow you everywhere. I saw the blond-haired cop leave. He’s gone. It’s just you and me now, where we were always supposed to be. Put the dress on. Don’t tease me and make me wait any longer. It’s almost time.”
CHAPTER 30
Logan looked at the framed picture on the living-room coffee table of his mother and Uncle Ray, who wasn’t really his uncle, but he’d been calling him that since he could remember. He thought it was weird when parents made kids call people who weren’t relatives “auntie” or “uncle,” just to make it seem like you had to like the person because they were now part of your family.
But Logan liked Navarro. A lot. Some days more than his own dad, who, up until he died, had spent more time at his law practice than with his kids, even skipping out on family events on the weekends just so he could work.
Plus his dad wasn’t nice to his mom sometimes.
The jerk.
His dad had done some bad things before he died, and Logan just couldn’t bring himself to forgive his father for them yet. Or for dying. Kids needed their dads, even if they weren’t very good ones.
Logan was sure of one thing. His uncle Ray was brave, just like he was. Logan picked up a copy of something called Police magazine, which lay next to the framed picture, and thought maybe he’d be a cop one day, or a lawyer who didn’t neglect his family. Either career path was good, just as long as he could take down the bad guys, like he had done one time in the woods when he tried to save his mother and little brother.
He was small, but he still had a heart of a lion, he thought. Logan thumbed through the magazine that had boring stuff about guns and some weird article titled “Beware Armchair SWAT Commanders,” and looked at his reflection in the hallway mirror.
Uncle Ray was a big man who looked like some muscular movie guy who wore camouflage and jumped into hostile territory out of a helicopter to rescue an entire village.
Now that was cool.
Logan posed and flexed in the mirror, trying hard to make a muscle, but all he saw were two puny kid’s arms in the reflection.
Man, he had some work to do. He’d ask his uncle Ray if he could go with him to his gym sometime. Maybe they could be lifting buddies.
His mom had gotten a lot better about letting him do things in the last year. She’d been so paranoid before, always worried something was going to happen to him or to Will.
It’s not like bad stuff happened every minute.
Boom! Boom!
Logan jumped backward when he heard two sharp bangs on the common wall in front of him, and then his mother’s voice screaming for help.
Logan’s first instinct, just like it had been that time in the woods, was to run to save his mom. But he had to be smart. Logan realized the person with his mom must be the killer he had read about online in the stories he wasn’t supposed to see.
MMK had his mother.
Logan raced into Navarro’s bedroom, where Logan was pretty sure he had seen a landline.
“Dear God, please!” Logan whispered as the call went through to Uncle Ray.
* * *
Navarro grabbed his leather jacket and keys from his desk at the precinct, ready to drive to LaBeau’s cabin. He nabbed his cell phone from the top of his desk and saw he had a voice message. He was about to play it when Sheila, the receptionist, poked her head in the doorway of the detective unit.
“Ray, you’re going to want to take this one. There’s a woman here. She’s real upset. She thinks her husband might be the Magic Man Killer. She went into a shed I guess he has in the back of their house, because she said he’s been acting w
eird lately. The woman found a closet with blue dresses and black wigs, and a treasure trove of creepy stories written by Julia Gooden, and some videotaped interview she did with CNN.”
“We got him. What’s the husband’s name?”
“Jeremiah Landry. The chief is with the woman now. Washington already put an APB out on Landry.”
Navarro felt his cell phone buzz in his hand and did a quick look at the number. “Hold on. Tell Washington I’ll be right there. Something’s up. I’m getting a call from my own apartment.”
* * *
“God, please, I’ll do anything, I swear, just let Uncle Ray answer,” Logan begged as the phone continued to ring. If Navarro didn’t pick up, Logan knew what he’d have to do. He’d scour the kitchen, find a knife, and burst into the apartment to rescue his mother.
“It’s Ray Navarro. Who’s this?”
“Uncle Ray, it’s Logan! Someone’s got my mom. I think it’s the killer. I heard my mom scream for help. They’re in the apartment next door. I’m in your place. You’ve got to get here right now!” Logan cried, racing to get the words out.
“I’m coming. I’m five minutes out. Stay calm, Logan. It’s going to be fine,” Navarro said.
Logan could hear movement, like Navarro was running, and then he heard his mother’s boyfriend shout to send units to his building, the eleventh floor, apartment 11C.
“Five minutes is too long. We need to get my mom now or he’s going to kill her. I know it. I’m going in there to stop him,” Logan said.
“No, you’re not. Your mother wouldn’t want you to do that. She’s smart and she’ll be okay until I get there. You stay on the phone with me.”
Logan felt hot tears run down his face and he ran into the kitchen to get a knife.
His tape recorder was sitting on the counter. He stopped his pursuit and grabbed the little recorder, clutching it tightly in his small hand.
Logan knew what he was going to do.
You Fit the Pattern Page 28