The Christmas Killer

  Jake stepped in front of him. ‘We need to toss Ford’s house. Mills has—’

  Asher glared at him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m lead investigator.’

  ‘You have history with Ford.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m a suspect?’ Jake had stepped forward, deliberately entering Asher’s personal space. The chief was forced to take a step back.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Detective!’ Asher told him. ‘You know how the press are going to play this one. You went for one of their own, and they’re going to tear you apart. You’ll be convicted as soon as their ink is dry.’

  ‘Who gives a fuck what they print?’ Jake said.

  Jake could see Asher hadn’t been prepared for this response. He expected to be the one doing the shouting. Now Jake was putting him on the back foot. It was deliberate. Jake was in no mood for a dressing-down.

  Asher stared back at Jake. ‘Mills is in charge now. He’s leading, you’re his secondary.’

  ‘And he has the experience for something like this?’ asked Jake before he could stop himself. Immediately he turned and gave Mills a ‘No offence’ look, to which Mills responded with an affable ‘None taken’ headshake.

  Asher glanced over his shoulder at the journalists in the distance. ‘I have to give them something, even if it’s bullshit. You will still be running the case the way you have been. But, officially, Mills goes down on the books as lead detective. Ego aside, Austin, you know it has to be this way.’

  Jake held the colonel’s gaze for a long moment but said nothing. He turned to look at Mills, who had a platitude ready: ‘All that counts is that we get the fucker.’

  Jake relaxed. Focus on the job in hand. We’ll sort out the politics later.

  49

  Monday, 12.15 p.m.

  Chuck Ford lived on Beachwood, which intersected Oakland Downes. That made him a near neighbour of the Harpers. Jake dismissed the thought almost immediately. He was trying to make connections where there were none. Marcia Lamb and Candy wouldn’t fit into this neighbourhood. He was clutching at straws when he should have been analysing the facts.

  Beachwood was not as upmarket as Oakland Downes, but it was a close thing. The houses were a bit smaller, the yards not so expansive. But the cars in the driveways were as new and as luxurious. It was a kind of Oakland Downes Lite.

  It wasn’t all residential; some of the buildings had been converted to commercial properties. Jake spotted one large old residence hosting a plastic surgery clinic, while another housed a firm of lawyers.

  Mills pulled to the kerb about halfway down the street. The building they had stopped at was an old red-brick two-storey structure, quite large, with spaces for six cars marked in white paint at the end of the drive. Two cars were there now. They had been there a while, judging by the layers of snow that had collected.

  ‘Swanky,’ said Jake.

  ‘It’s not all his – it’s been converted to luxury apartments,’ Mills replied. ‘They went for way more than a cop’s salary stretches to.’

  ‘Were you interested?’

  Mills shook his head. ‘Beyond my budget. And it would have stretched Ford too.’

  Both men got out of the car, and Jake surveyed the scene. He walked down the driveway. It was screened by trees and ornate hedging, so whoever approached would have been able to do so unobserved, especially at night.

  I don’t think that mattered to you. You have no fear of being seen. Why is that?

  Jake had reached the door now. He had seen no signs of disturbance. The yard was beautifully maintained, with symmetrical flower beds, now just greenery. But none of the plants looked damaged. There had been no struggle here.

  You got in again. How do you keep doing that?

  Jake looked at the list of names on the front door. Six bells. Six parking slots. None of the bells had Ford’s name on it. He rang one at random. Nothing. So he tried the next. The fourth one got a sleepy female voice over the intercom.

  ‘Leave it on the stoop,’ she said.

  ‘We’re police officers. We’re looking for Charles Ford’s apartment?’

  ‘Chuck?’ she sounded a lot more awake now. ‘He’s number 4. Is he in trouble?’

  ‘Thanks, ma’am. Can you open the door?’

  There was a buzz, and Jake pushed the door open. Both cops stepped in. There were three doors off the main corridor: two to the right and one to the left.

  There was a stairwell on the left, and Jake went up to the first floor. It was the same as the floor below. Apartment 4 was on the left. Jake stopped at the top of the stairs and looked. Nothing seemed out of place. The corridor was clean and well lit.

  Mills was beside him now.

  ‘He got this far the way we did, and he probably just rang the bell and was let in,’ said Mills. ‘Somehow he seems to inspire trust in his victims.’

  ‘You’re learning,’ said Jake. ‘But it’s never that easy. I’d say he broke in and surprised Ford.’

  Mills stepped forward and said, ‘Give me a minute before you go in. You know how sites become contaminated as soon as we arrive in force. I’m going to lift whatever’s on the bell.’

  Quickly he removed a small vial of powder from his pocket and put some on his hand. He blew it gently on to the bell, then took out a roll of tape, taking off an inch. He laid it gently over the bell, then pulled. He then stuck the tape to a small laminated card and put it in a clear evidence bag.

  ‘We’d never be that lucky,’ said Jake.

  Mills reached into another pocket and took out a small wallet, removing some tools.

  ‘I got the door,’ he said.

  As soon as the door opened, the coppery smell of freshly spilt blood wafted out into the hallway.

  50

  Monday, 12.30 p.m.

  Jake assumed there’d be signs of a struggle within a few feet of the door. Ford was a mature man. He’d been round the block and would not be physically intimidated. He would put up a fight for his life.

  The apartment was blessedly free of Christmas paraphernalia – not unusual in the home of a middle-aged bachelor – but it was still awash in colour. Whites and lurid lashes of reds and yellows. Even the paintings on the walls followed the palette. They were brash moderns, cheap reproductions of Kandinsky splurges. One of the paintings was on the floor. It had a hole in its centre, as if someone had stepped through it. A bedside table was knocked over, a pile of mail and takeaway menus on the floor. A chair was lying in the kitchen area of the large open-plan room. The linoleum under the chair was sticky with congealed blood.

  You got in somehow. You sneaked up on him, and you hit him. But he was a big man, a lot stronger than the women you killed. You’ve had it easy up to now. But you fought as well. And you subdued him. You improvised a weapon.

  Jake looked around. What would make a good weapon? The picture? No, far too light. Then he saw it – a marble statuette of Rodin’s The Thinker.

  You grabbed the statue – that’s when the table fell over. He was coming at you after your first blow failed to knock him down. He turned and came at you. You pushed him back – that’s what knocked the painting off the wall. Then you hit him, and he fell right there.

  You must have been out of breath. You must have been terrified, but there was no commotion in the building. No one heard. You were able to do your work.

  Now Jake knew what to look for. He went over to the stereo – the volume knob was set quite high. Not so high that another resident would phone the police and complain, but high enough to drown out any sounds of a struggle inside the apartment. The stereo was off. He used his fingernail to press the On button, then Eject. Bruce Springsteen. That would do it.

  ‘We need to get forensics to dust the stereo.’

  ‘Check,’ said Mills from the door.

  When he woke up, you had him secured to the kitchen chair.

  Jake went over to the chair and bent. There was plenty of blood and two teeth. There was fabric on the
chair, probably from the restraints the killer had used. They were building a case, but they still needed a suspect.

  Ford had to know you, otherwise you would not have got past the door.

  Trouble was, Chuck Ford knew a lot of people.

  51

  Monday, 1 p.m.

  Within an hour of the initial report, the white van of the forensics team had arrived. Dr Ronnie Zatkin came herself.

  ‘I need everyone out so my team can do their job,’ she said. Like a no-nonsense schoolteacher she steered the uniformed cops from the apartment. Then the forensic photographer began his work, snapping picture after picture.

  ‘After he’s done, we’ll begin dusting for prints,’ she told Jake. ‘Then we can send in the team to collect blood and other samples. But it will be well into evening before you guys can have the room.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything now, Doctor?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve had a quick look at the body. Too early to confirm it, but the cause of death is likely the same mysterious instrument,’ she said. ‘Now, can you leave the room and let us do our job?’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, walking past her to one of the doors off the main living room. It was a small study, lined with books. There were plenty of notebooks and scraps of paper, and an open laptop on a desk.

  ‘You can’t go in there,’ shouted Ronnie. ‘We won’t get to that room until tomorrow. You can go in then.’

  ‘I need to go through Ford’s computer now. He knew things about the case before we released them. We need to know what he knew, and we need to see if what he was working on made him a target of the killer.’

  Ronnie sighed. ‘At least pull these on,’ she said, handing him a pair of latex gloves. ‘And give my team ten minutes with the keyboard before you begin.’

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘And don’t let anyone know I let you in.’

  Ford’s chair was a bit high for Jake, but he wouldn’t be here too long. Disregarding Ronnie’s request, he was about to hit the power key but noticed it was already on. Thank God. So he just moved the mouse a bit, and the screen lit up. Chuck was working when you arrived. Did you knock, and did he just let you in?

  Jake quickly scanned the article Ford was working on. Mills read over his shoulder. There was nothing new in it – speculation about possible links between the three women, and an unnamed psychologist musing about whether the Christmas Killer might have killed before Marcia Lamb. The same thought had passed through Jake’s head.

  He closed the article, and went to the file directory. Ford was a hoarder. Every word he had written for the last few years was still on the hard drive. There were thousands of articles. And the names on the files didn’t give much clue as to what was in them. This could take months and, even then, might not show up anything.

  Jake glanced at the door to see if Ronnie was looking in. When he was sure that she wasn’t he quickly typed ‘Christmas Killer’ into the Search box. About fifteen articles came up. He scanned them and concluded that Ford had no Deep Throat within the Littleton PD. His information just came from dogged working of the usual sources. And listening in to the police radio.

  ‘Try the victims,’ suggested Mills.

  Jake typed ‘Marcia Lamb’ in the box. She didn’t appear until a week previously, when the killer began his killing spree. Next he tried ‘Candy Jones’, who appeared in an article two years back after being hauled before the courts on a hooking rap. She got a week of county time and a fine of $200.

  But ‘Belinda Harper’ turned up in dozens of articles. Jake quickly ran through them. The first few seemed to relate to a charity dinner, a fund-raiser or a library or school committee so he dismissed the rest.

  ‘She was squeaky clean,’ he said.

  Next he typed in the chief suspects. ‘Guy Makowski’ produced a handful of hits, mostly related to union activities at the steel mill. There was also a court case where he’d claimed compensation after an accident. Nothing else, and nothing to ring any alarm bells.

  Then Jake typed in ‘Sonny Malone’.

  ‘This should be interesting,’ said Mills as the list of articles lit up the screen. There were plenty of references to Malone, all relating to court proceedings, but none in the past few years; Malone had been off the streets in jail.

  ‘A big nothing,’ said Jake. ‘Might as well leave it to the techs.’

  ‘Try “Mitch Harper” before you quit,’ suggested Mills.

  ‘Why not?’

  He typed in the name then hit the Return key. Mills sucked in his breath; they had struck the mother lode. The search box read, Your search has shown 728 files. That was far too many to wade through right now, with a forensics unit waiting to go through the whole apartment.

  Jake was about to switch off the computer when one of the 728 files listed caught his eye. What stood out was that it was a folder rather than a document. Dated four years ago, it was simply labelled ‘Harper File’.

  A whole folder on Mitch Harper. Was Ford following his campaign trail?

  Jake opened the folder. It contained eight documents. One was named ‘Deposition of Witness A, Call Girl’. Another was ‘Deposition of Doctor Shawcross’. Others were tagged ‘Statement’ or ‘Account Of’. Obviously Ford had been collecting statements for a major article, and he had stored the information together. The final article was the one Jake decided to read first. Its title: ‘Harper Scandal’.

  52

  SEX SCANDAL OF GOVERNOR-IN-WAITING

  by Charles Ford

  Littleton councilman and Democratic high-flyer Mitch Harper is tonight battening down the hatches as his career flounders amidst allegations of a year-long relationship with a local prostitute.

  The married politician, who had harbored ambitions for the state governorship, has been left reeling by the accusation that he slept with the high-class escort, as well as engaging in violent and deviant sexual practices.

  The escort went public after being hospitalized by the popular young attorney. He allegedly assaulted her during a heated sex session at a hotel in the capital. Police were called during the incident.

  This reporter has spoken to the woman in question, Leanne Schultz, who alleges that she began her affair with Councilman Harper last October, when he hired her and another escort and took them to an Indianapolis hotel. Councilman Harper was in the capital for a Democratic Party fund-raiser. His wife, Belinda Harper, was not with him on that occasion.

  ‘He seemed nice,’ said Ms Schultz. ‘We began to see each other regularly, at first when he was on business in Indianapolis. But soon he was sending a car to pick me up for nights and weekends away. I traveled to Washington with him just after Christmas.’

  It is believed that Belinda Harper was completely unaware of her husband’s meetings with Ms Schultz. She has given no comment, but a close friend told this reporter that Mrs Harper is ‘shocked and heartbroken.’

  According to Ms Schultz, it was not long before Councilman Harper began to display a darker side to his character. As the affair progressed, the councilman’s demands became more extreme. He experimented in bondage and sado-masochistic practices. Ms Schultz began to fear for her safety.

  ‘He liked to give it rough. The sex became more and more brutal; I felt as if I was being raped. I tried to break it off, but he threatened that he would tip off the police about me if I ever stopped seeing him.’

  Things came to a head on a night two weeks ago, when Councilman Harper was in Plainfield for a conference, where he was to deliver the keynote address. Ms Schultz went to his room after the event.

  ‘It began as normal, but I soon knew this was going to be one of the brutal sessions,’ she said. ‘He had a belt, and he wanted to whip me. I said no. I tried to leave the hotel room, but he stopped me. I began to scream, and he became physically aggressive.’

  Ms Schultz suffered a broken nose and bruised ribs in the assault. Other guests at the hotel heard the disturbance and phoned the police, who took Ms Schultz to
Plainfield Private Hospital. She was released after treatment, but decided not to press charges. However, she is understood to be considering bringing a civil action against Councilman Harper, who refused a request for comment.

  Councilman Harper was first elected to the city council in Littleton six years ago, and was returned with an increased majority two years ago. He has been spoken of as a candidate for higher office, but this latest scandal appears to have curtailed that ambition.

  A senior source within the Democratic Party said, ‘Mitch is a great guy, but if you can’t keep it in your trousers, maybe politics isn’t the game for you. It will take him a long time to come back from this.’

  53

  Monday, 2.20 p.m.

  Jake sat back from the computer. He looked up at Mills, who seemed as stunned as Jake felt. This was something new. He had known none of this about Harper. Surely someone could have filled him in?

  ‘Do you know much about Harper?’ he asked Mills.

  ‘Mitch? I’ve met him plenty of times,’ he replied. ‘I knew he was a bit of a horn dog, but I didn’t know this about him.’

  Just then Dr Zatkin looked in.

  ‘I’ll have to move you guys. You’ve had plenty of time,’ she said. ‘You better not be touching that keyboard!’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said Jake. ‘Ronnie, can you come in for a moment? Do you know Mitch Harper?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘As much as anyone else does. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Can you tell me about him?’

  She shrugged. ‘Trained as an attorney, qualified top of his class. He came home, set up a practice, married well and moved into politics. He got on to the city council at his first try, the youngest member in twenty years. We thought he was a high-flyer.’