“What can I do for you today, Ms. Peacock? I told you everything about the church last time you were here.”
Not everything. “You said you’ve been a member from the start, right?”
“Yes, I said that.” Lips pursed, she took a seat across from TJ.
“Then tell me what happened sixteen years ago when two of your members who were swingers committed suicide. I heard it was quite the scandal.” TJ had gone for the shock value and put it right out there. She had no way of being certain if more than one of the swinger couples were church members. If she was lucky, Abendoth would clear that up for her.
Irene’s lips formed a tight line.
“You may as well tell me about it, Irene. There are other ways I can find out. Might be ways that would bring it all out into the open again.”
The old woman’s posture melted in defeat. “I suppose you’re right about that. At least I can tell you what really happened, not some sensational lie about it.”
TJ doubted that. Abendoth was sure to downplay wherever she could. She left the room and came back with two small glasses and a bottle of sherry. The old gal needed a drink to loosen up. TJ hated sherry but accepted the offering.
“Just so you know, our church does not condone adultery. But back then some of our members, really only two couples, got involved with some indecent people and fell victim to temptation.”
“They were swingers,” TJ said.
Abendoth cringed and took another sip of her sherry.
“One of the ladies who… partook of… another woman’s husband fell in love with the man, and her feelings were returned. So every time they could manage to be together, right under the noses of their spouses, they did. As time wore on they couldn’t live with their sin any longer. They committed suicide. Together.”
TJ nearly laughed out loud at the “partook of” comment. And it was hard for her to imagine two adults offing each other rather than running off together. “How’d they do it?”
Abendoth downed the rest of her drink in one gulp. “What do you mean, how?”
“Did they both have guns? Walk ten paces and shoot on the count of ten?”
“You don’t have to be so crass.”
Crass? The old bat didn’t know the meaning of the word. “So how’d they do it?” TJ repeated. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. As a cop, TJ had seen many of these mutual suicides fall short of what the participants had planned. One usually bought it, and then the other became too freaked out to go through with it and ended up seriously hurt rather than dead.
Abendoth finally answered. “Arthur put a knife into Lilly’s heart, then shot himself in the head. I heard it wasn’t a very pretty sight. Is that frank enough for you?”
“Who were they?”
Abendoth poured herself another glass of the sherry before answering. “It was Lilly Diermeyer and Arthur Krause. They were part of the two couples from the church that were exchanging partners.”
Krause. That name again. “Any relation to Anna Krause and her kids?”
“Anna’s husband, Frank, and Arthur were brothers. Frank and Anna weren’t involved in the swapping thing, but Lilly Diermeyer was Anna’s sister. She was married to Sam Diermeyer. She and Arthur Krause, Frank’s brother, fell in love when they started the swinging. I told you already. That’s why they committed suicide; they couldn’t live with their sins.”
TJ had a hard time assimilating it all. Pretty juicy stuff for a small church. “Did you happen to have heard who else belonged to their group?”
“I heard there was a couple who lived over by Anna and Frank Krause. Their name was Brown, something like that. And there was another couple that wasn’t from around here. Their name was Jackson, I believe.” She sniffed. “That’s it. I’ve told you what I know.”
Abendoth was hiding something.
After leaving Abendoth, TJ went back to her unheated house and sat in the conference room of her office trying to make sense of everything she had heard.
In an effort to keep the swingers’ names and relationships straight, she stood in front of the last empty whiteboard and devised a list where she would put the information about the swingers and the murder-suicide in ordered form.
She left off the couples not involved in the suicides, the Brauns and the Jacksons. In an attempt to tie it all together, she added the other Krauses, Anna and Frank, because of their close ties to the victims. When she finished, the information was organized but provided no answers.
She had to go back out. Not now, though. Now she had to get their things together so she and JR could spend a few days with Richard while the furnace got repaired.
Anna and Frank Krause
Weren’t swingers
Parents of Lucian and Drucilla
Frank died in a single car accident after the suicides
Frank was secretly in love with Lilly who was his wife’s sister
Anna works nights as a mental health nurse
Daughter, Drucilla, is a student nurse
Son, Lucian, did odd jobs in the neighborhood, has cherubism
Lilly and Sam Diermeyer
Were swingers
Parents of Kane
Lilly killed herself with Arthur Krause
Fell in love with Arthur when they joined the swingers
Kane owns a music store and gives lessons
Barbara and Arthur Krause
Were swingers
Parents of Martin
Arthur killed himself with Lilly Diermeyer
He fell in love with Lilly when they joined the swingers
Son, Martin, is assistant pastor at the church
Martin runs a group for young adults at the church
TJ saw Detective Tasha Wade pull up in front of her house just as she and Richard added the last load of JR’s things into his Blazer and her Mini. It was nuts how much you had to haul for one small child. She walked over to greet Wade.
“Are you moving out?” she asked TJ.
“Nah. We got a basement full o’ water, so we’re staying somewhere else for a while.”
“Well, I can see you’re busy… “
TJ looked over at Richard.
“I’ll go ahead over to the apartment. See you there.” Richard always knew what to do.
TJ nodded at the house. “First floor’s not wet, just cold. Come on in, but keep your coat on.”
When she and Tasha were seated in her office, TJ asked, “So what can I help you with, Detective?”
“I thought it might be beneficial to both of us if we talked now that I know you’re a PI and working our case.”
“Tried talking to your partner the other day. Don’t think he found it too beneficial.”
“I thought maybe you and I could make more headway. You know, both of us being mothers and all.”
Like it was motherhood Haymaker lacked, not people skills. She had been meaning to talk to Tasha anyway, and now would be a good time, here on her own turf and without Haymaker. “So where’s your partner?”
“He’s out trying to catch up with a kid we heard was shadowing the Chapman girl, the one who fell down the stairs. He wants to be the first to interview the kid.” She chuckled. “Everything’s a competition with guys, isn’t it? Must have something to do with having external genitalia. Me? I like to cut to the chase. I figured it might save us both some time if we compared notes.”
TJ considered the offer. She stood up. “Follow me,” she said and led Tasha into the conference room.
Tasha gaped at TJ’s list. “Pretty impressive.”
They discussed the information and the possibility that everything could be related. Tasha seemed to appreciate the connection between Norman’s house explosion and the other incidents. While Tasha digested it, TJ added details to her information
about the double suicide that happened sixteen years ago. When she finished, she explained how she found out about the suicides and why she thought they tied in with what was happening now.
“You really think that has something to do with what’s happening today?” Tasha asked.
“It came up when I was talkin’ to the swingers. My guess? Sondra Jackson and her husband were part of the original group. Don’t have names of all the swingers yet, but if it’s connected, there’s gonna be more people killed. That word they wrote on Rosenthal’s wall in blood? Restitution. It had to mean something, an’ if it’s related to the suicides, someone’s blaming the swingers’ group.”
Tasha reviewed the information on the whiteboards. She studied the list TJ made of the people involved in the suicides.
“It could give us a motive,” Tasha said. “I’ll see what I can get on the suicides. The big question is why now after all this time has passed? I’ll look into Frank Krause’s car crash, too, and see if it was at all questionable. The timing could connect it with the rest.” She studied the whiteboards, her forehead wrinkled. “Do you know anything about this Lilly Diermeyer? Both brothers in love with her. Did they know about each other? Did her husband know?”
“What you see there is what I know. Haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody about it since I found out. I gotta remind you, my purpose here is Norman Teschler’s explosion. Only reason I’m lookin’ at the rest of it is because I think it all has to be tied together somehow.”
“Now that I see all this, I think I have to agree with you.”
“No DNA from those first break-ins?” TJ asked. “The ones you called the cum cases?” A DNA connection would at least tie the early cases to the murders and possibly to the attack on Carter Roche.
“They were low priority at the time because they weren’t even break-ins. The perps just went into unlocked houses and had sex in the beds. The house was open in the Chapman case too. Technically they were only trespass or illegal entry incidents, so no DNA was collected. Rosenthal’s break-in was the first one that was forced.”
“Did you at least save the sheets?”
Tasha snorted. “There wasn’t any reason to do that either. And it’s too early for results from the Chapman and Jackson murders or Roche’s attack.”
“Lookin’ at Chapman as a murder now?’ TJ asked.
“We’re considering it. My partner had the DNA from Chapman upgraded to priority, right up there with the samples from Sondra Jackson’s murder.”
“So,” TJ said, “how do we help each other?”
“Like I said, I’ll get what I can on the old double suicide and Frank Krause’s accident. I’ll get back to you later today or tomorrow.”
“I’m gonna do a stakeout tonight. Not sure on which of them yet, probably Martin Krause. He runs that young adult group—could be the ringleader if there is one.”
Tasha’s eyes gleamed. “You thought of that too? I had a feeling all along it was like the Manson thing. You know, Helter Skelter?”
“Charlie Manson? How do you figure?”
“Think about it. Those crappy cum cases, the first ones where we thought it was just kids going into unlocked houses to have sex? Those cases were just like what Manson’s followers did in the beginning. Manson sent them into peoples’ houses when they were sleeping, and they would creep around just for the thrill of it. Only whoever did it here added a step—they had sex in the peoples’ guest rooms.”
TJ hadn’t read Helter Skelter, but she knew about Manson and his followers.
In the late 1960s, Manson led a commune known as the Manson Family. He was later found guilty of murders performed by members of his group at his instruction, murders he believed would precipitate an apocalyptic race war. At the time Manson was an unemployed ex-convict who fancied himself a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music society.
It was damn creepy, all right. “Dunno. I was thinkin’ about Lucian Krause as one of the doers, but the kid doesn’t seem to have a social life or hang with anyone. And who’d even want to have sex with him?”
“If one person influenced the others to do the murders, and Lucian’s one of them, then how about Anna Krause, Lucian’s mother? She’d have a motive, too, because of her sister,” Tasha said.
TJ pointed to her other information on Anna Krause. “I don’t think so. She works nights at the hospital. Seems like if she were the one pullin’ the strings, she’d have to be accessible.”
“What if Anna’s husband’s car accident wasn’t an accident? Frank Krause died not long after the suicides. Maybe he had something to do with the deaths, so he drove into the concrete bridge on purpose. That would give her a double motive.”
“Possible, I guess. But Anna Krause as the instigator? Hard to picture a mother condoning that for her kids.”
Tasha sighed. “Been done before, been done before.”
Chapter 43
Last night before I met Jorge, I went to visit Carter. The nurses in the ICU were understanding and let me see him for a few minutes. One of them explained that Carter’s knife wound wasn’t life threatening, but he had received a blow on the head hard enough to cause serious bruising to his brain. They put him into a medically induced coma in order to prevent more swelling and give his brain and his lung time to heal. The next forty-eight hours would be critical.
My heart broke at the sight of him lying helpless in a hospital bed, tubes coming from his body, surrounded by machines whirring and beeping. I was having a difficult time wrestling with whether my pain was caused by a love I never left behind or guilt. A man who had been such a big part of my life had been seriously injured when I had been the intended target.
This morning I had made the trip to Lisa’s office with my wipers on timer, the steady drizzle making vision impossible without them. Lisa had come into her office today just for me. Once again, Lisa told me to gather my thoughts and decide where I’d like our discussion to begin while she left the room to make us some tea.
There was so much to choose from. Should I talk about what I had seen during my OBE and all its implications, my relationships with men, or how much the out-of-body experiences—imagined or real—affected my life?
Lisa handed me a mug of tea, and we sat in the green leather chairs by the window.
I quickly told her the details of everything that had happened since the last time we met.
“I don’t know what to do about what I saw last night,” I began. “I feel like I need to tell someone, the police, or TJ, but they aren’t going to believe me. It sounds so preposterous.”
She took a sip of her tea. “Gemma, is it possible, even if the out-of-body thing isn’t real, that somehow you suspected a relationship between the brother and sister? Some people are very sensitive to hidden agendas. It could have been something as small as a glance or an expression; the slightest body language can be revealing. Police are trained to pick up on these things, but in my experience some people just do it naturally. And with a thing like this, you might have repressed it because it was so inconceivable to you.”
“You’re right. It is hard to imagine, especially since Drucilla is an adult and Lucian only sixteen. I would think an older brother would be the sibling more likely to push his sister to have sex with him.”
“Just because the boy is younger, it doesn’t mean he didn’t initiate a sexual relationship with his sister. And girls have been known to initiate sex with a sibling.”
It didn’t matter who began the coupling. I found it disgusting. But Norman was still my main concern. “I can’t remember picking up on anything between them, but I don’t see them that often. If they’re really having sex, I’m sure they wouldn’t want anyone to know about it, right? Maybe Norman found out about them, and they killed him before he could tell anyone.”
Lisa considered this for a moment. “I suppose anything�
�s possible, Gemma. I think you should confide in TJ, though. After all, you hired her for just that purpose, to find out what happened to your friend.”
“TJ will find this as ridiculous as the police would. We’ve never discussed our personal lives. If I had told her about the sleep paralysis or the OBEs? She would have laughed or said, ‘What the fuck?’”
Lisa smiled. “She probably would have. She’s not an easy person to get to know. My own friendship with TJ evolved from a common goal: to find a man who was killing abused women. If you would feel better about it, I’ll join you when you talk to her.”
That was exactly what I had hoped. “Can you call her now? I’ll understand if you don’t have time to do it today.”
She looked at her watch. “I’ll make time. If she can come out here, we’ll order in lunch.”
Deli sandwiches, sodas, and chips were laid out on the conference room table when TJ walked into the room an hour later.
“What’s this,” she asked, “some kinda come-to-Jesus meeting?”
TJ had come out to Lisa’s office without being told the purpose of their meeting. Lisa only told her she wanted her there to talk to Gemma. She had offered to introduce the topic of what Gemma experienced in her OBE.
Lisa could tell TJ hadn’t had much sleep: her violet eyes looked faded, her caramel complexion sallow, and her usual snappy grin was missing. “Have a seat,” Lisa invited. “You look like you could use some food.” TJ grabbed one of the sandwiches and sat across from her, next to Gemma.
“How is Bill Denison doing?” Lisa asked.
“He died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you know when the service will be held?”
“Haven’t heard.” TJ attacked the sandwich.
TJ had not been easy to get to know, and if their friendship hadn’t been forced because of their common interest in finding why abused women were going missing, Lisa knew she and TJ wouldn’t be friends today. She hoped TJ could find some sympathy for Gemma.
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