The other security guard, the one TJ called Robo, had gone home to get some sleep and would be back at the end of her shift. RayAnn was taking a closer route around the house this time, hoping to avoid the drifts, and as she passed the patio, she noticed something odd—a bulky package underneath the grill that hadn’t been there the day before. It seemed unlikely that anyone would be cooking outdoors in that weather, so something new under the grill was definitely strange unless it had been put there for winter storage.
When she stepped onto the patio and circled the grill, a cold shiver went up her spine, a chill that had nothing to do with her ice-cold feet. Poking out from under the grill’s dark-green cover was an arm, a woman’s arm with a stack of silver bracelets at the wrist—the ‘package’ she’d seen under the grill was a body. RayAnn pulled out her phone and willed her nearly frostbitten fingers to punch in 911.
Bart was feeling cabin fever setting in, even after taking advantage of Eric’s well-appointed home gym and watching a movie on the huge TV. Jen was out with a client who had offered to pick her up. He worked on his next blog, answered messages, and bored, left the apartment above the garage and went downstairs to see what the refrigerator had to offer. If he didn’t get back to his own place soon, his clothes weren’t going to fit. People sure ate well at Eric’s house.
Everything was quiet in the great room adjoining the kitchen. Evidently the boy was down for a nap, and his grandma was watching soaps on the downstairs TV. Bart hoped he would never be so desperate for entertainment that he’d watch that drivel.
He had just settled at the island with a bowl of leftover chili—it always tasted better after being stored for a day or two—when the back door off the patio opened and RayAnn came inside, stamping her boots on a rug just inside the door. She ignored him when he greeted her and she quickly reset the alarm and took off her boots. Her wet socks clung to her feet.
“Hey, would you do me a favor?” she asked. “My duffel, its in the mudroom. Will you toss it to me?”
Bart retrieved the bag and handed it to her. “You okay?”
She grabbed the bag and pulled out a pair of shoes and socks. “No, not really.” Once the dry socks covered her feet, she said, “We’re going to have visitors any minute.”
“Visitors?”
“Yeah. Waukesha PD. I just called 911. There’s a body out there. A woman.” She nodded at the patio. “You should probably call Detective Conlin.”
Bart walked to the door to look out, thinking that RayAnn was certainly taking the
discovery calmly.
“Don’t go out there,” she said. “It’s a crime scene now; you don’t want to muck it up.”
“Hey. I know all about crime scenes. I won’t ‘muck it up.’ I just want to look.” Bart couldn’t see anything from the angle of the window. He turned to tell her he was just going to step outside when he noticed she was shivering.
She was worse off than he’d thought. “Come on over here. I’ll heat up another bowl of chili for you while we wait for the cops.” While it heated he ran upstairs for a pair of sheepskin-lined slippers he’d brought from home, figuring they would probably fit her. She accepted them gratefully, and the fleece hoodie he handed her.
Bart thought how strange it was to be enjoying food when there was a dead person just outside the door. They ate in silence until they heard the sirens. He remembered that he had to report this to Conlin. The detective from Milwaukee wouldn’t be the one coming out for this.
The body of Emma Le Gesse was removed from Eric’s patio an hour later. A Detective Zabel from the Waukesha PD had shown up with a partner only minutes after the emergency vehicles and first responders arrived on the scene.
Lisa and Eric, whom Bart had called right after he called Conlin, came home shortly after that, just in time to be questioned by the WPD. They’d met the Waukesha detectives at the time of the Abused Women Murders, they explained to Bart when he noticed they had skipped introductions and acted like old friends. Satisfied that the residents had nothing to tell them beyond the obvious, finding the body, the detectives left the scene shortly after accepting coffee to warm them up.
Even the techs hadn’t stayed long. The patio had few clues to give up; the snow had been trampled by the circling security staff way too often during the night. Whoever had placed Emma’s body under the grill had to have timed the security guard’s outdoor rotations, and been clever enough to bring it in right up the driveway where there’d be no footprints.
Lisa, Bart, Eric, and RayAnn remained sitting at the kitchen island with untouched coffee in front of them.
“I knew something happened to her,” Lisa said. “Like I told the detectives, the amount of blood we found in her house didn’t leave much hope that she was still alive, but I never thought her killer would put her body here.”
Bart snickered. “He put it here because I’m here, like some kind of offering or sacrifice.”
“Or to make it look like you did it,” RayAnn said. “Not like I think you did,” she added quickly.
“Is Richard coming out here now?” Eric asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Bart. “When I called him he just said he’d be getting in touch with the Waukesha detectives.”
“Was she murdered the same way as the other woman?” Eric asked. The detectives hadn’t shared that information.
They all looked to RayAnn who said she had no idea because she hadn’t wanted to touch anything and risk disturbing possible evidence—all she’d seen was the arm.
“We know now that Whitney was abused by her husband,” Bart said as he
turned to Lisa. “Was this woman?”
Lisa had made a tentative ID of Emma Le Gesse, but her sister would be going to Waukesha to make it formal. “I can’t really talk about her since she was my client, but I suppose I may as well tell you what will be all over the media in a matter of hours. Emma and her husband have had domestic calls to their house, but not because she was abused. Emma was the abuser. My sense was that he didn’t kill her, though. That’s really all I can tell you.”
Bart said, “If Headliner is listening in to police scanners, he would only hear the call out. There wouldn’t be any way for him to know who was the abuser. He would have thought she was abused by her husband.”
“I keep wondering why he’s doing this,” said Lisa. “The first murder, I understand he might have wanted to blame on you, Bart, but this? Since he knows you’re staying here, you would think he would assume you weren’t ever alone and had an alibi.”
Bart shrugged. “It could look bad, though, right? Except I never met the woman. I wouldn’t have a motive.”
A beat, then, “Christmas is only four days off,” muttered RayAnn, changing the subject. “Guess we’ll be spending it here.”
“Looks that way,” said Eric. “But cheer up, all. We’ve got a tree, decorations, food, and enough people to fill the dining room table. I’ll even hire some carolers.”
Bart groaned at the suggestion of carolers and then the conversation came to a halt as JR ran into the room followed by Donna. He was carrying a stuffed giraffe and made a beeline to the Christmas tree. His small face, transfixed, stared up at the bight lights. “Kissmas tee!” he exclaimed.
Bart left the island and sat in front of the tree next to JR. “Right, a Christmas tree. And Santa will be here to put presents under it.”
JR plunked down on Bart’s lap. “Pesents!”
61
When TJ arrived back at Eric’s, JR ran toward her and leapt into her arms. She held him close, enjoying his sweet little-boy smell. When she set him down, he pulled her over to the Christmas tree and pointed at it like he did whenever she came home, as if she’d forgotten its presence in Eric’s living room. She took time to admire the tree with him before taking him with her to the kitchen where Eric, Lisa, and Bart were still congregated. She noticed the dining room table was formally set and a welcoming scent of baking meat and potatoes came from the oven.
JR ran back to Donna who sat in the living room, knitting.
“TJ, we have something to tell you,” Lisa said. When she finished bringing TJ up to speed on Emma Le Gesse, TJ said, “This keeps gettin’ more complicated by the minute.”
“This killer is an enigma. We don’t know anything about him or his motives,” said Bart. “He seems to want us to believe he’s a copycat or even an admirer of the guy who murdered all those abused women. But there are too many differences for that. Is he just trying to hurt me and my blog? Make me look like a murderer? Or are all these things just a cover-up for his real motive? Maybe he only wanted to eliminate one particular woman but make it look like a serial is at work.”
TJ shrugged. “Could be anything far as we know right now. But I gotta say, my gut tells me this all started with Whitney. I still wanna know how she connects to Rina’s niece—if she even does.”
“Who is Rina?” Bart asked, and when TJ didn’t answer him, he said, “We set up the whiteboards you wanted in Eric’s office.”
“Thanks. I better get to work then,” she said. “Lisa can you come with me?”
“Sure. Jen’ll be down in a minute and she can watch the dinner.”
In the office, TJ stood at the boards, adding what she knew about the two cases into organized columns.
“I had a feelin’ there was more you wanted to tell me about this Emma.”
“No, not really,” Lisa said. “Her husband came in this morning looking for her and I asked Maggie to look into it. She found the blood in the foyer.”
“You think the husband did it?”
“He doesn’t have an alibi, but I told Maggie I didn’t think he seemed culpable for her murder. She doesn’t think so either.”
“Wanted you alone to tell you what I just found out about Felhaber’s wife. She’s
bipolar.”
“Who told you that, one of her friends?”
“No. Found out the woman doesn’t have friends.”
“Everyone has friends, TJ.”
“All hers are just the hang-around kind. I stuck around her office building until her temporary secretary left for the day and I cornered her by her car. She doesn’t like Felhaber so she spilled what she knew about her. ”
“She told you Patricia is bipolar? How could you trust that?”
“Wasn’t just her who told me that.”
“Who else, then, if the woman has no close friends?”
TJ stopped writing. “Uh, better if I don’t tell you how I got that bit o’ news confirmed.”
“I suppose it was from that Turner character. I have a problem with hacking into anyone’s medical records, but I can see why you had him do it for you.” TJ didn’t comment and Lisa watched as TJ finished charting the facts.
“I think we should tell Bart about Kelsey and Rina, don’t you?” Lisa asked.
When TJ made a face, she said, “You never know, maybe he’d have an idea.”
They broke off when Richard entered the room. “I think I have something for you,”
he said, as he looked over what TJ had written. “I might know who killed Whitney.”
TJ put down the pen and faced him. “Who?”
“Her friend Denise. Denise went to Whitney’s apartment to confront her about sleeping with her husband. At first Denise told us she saw him leaving Whitney’s apartment as she arrived. But later, she broke down and admitted that she hadn’t seen him there. When she went there, she and Whitney fought. She claims that she didn’t intend to hurt her, but Whitney fell and hit her head on the corner of a coffee table in the living room. She told us she checked for a pulse, and when she didn’t find one, she wiped down everything she’d touched and left.”
“Then how did Whitney’s body get to Bart’s place? And her body had more injuries than just a head injury, right?” Lisa asked.
“Denise was adamant about having nothing to do with any injuries except the one from the fall. She never heard of Kosik.”
“She tellin’ the truth?” TJ asked.
“It seemed like it,” Richard said “But before you get your hopes up that we’ve solved that puzzle, I have to tell you I’m not even sure it was the fall Denise described that killed the woman. You know how hard it can be to find a pulse on a person’s throat. Whitney could have been alive when Denise left the apartment.”
TJ turned back to the board. “Crap. That fucks everything up even more.”
After dinner, TJ, Donna, Bart, Jen, JR, and Lisa piled into Eric’s new Enclave and headed to the mall for shopping and a visit with Santa. Brave for a child his age, JR ran to Santa’s lap when it was his turn. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he’d had time to watch the process and see all the other kids returning from the throne with suckers in their hands.
TJ snapped at least a dozen shots of her son with Santa, and just as he was running back to her, her phone rang.
“Where are you?” Rina asked. “Sounds like a zoo.”
“Sorta is. I’m at the mall. Finally taking my boy to see Santa.”
“Nice, I’m envious. Listen, I wanted to let you know what’s happening. We met with Grippano and he is going to file a motion to get a custody hearing for Patricia’s baby. He says our suit is unconventional but not unheard of so we stand a good chance of getting the process started right away. He is trying to put a rush on it, of course, but with Christmas so close the wheels are grinding slow in the courthouse.”
“Too bad. Wouldn’t trust Patricia to play fair for a minute. Was hopin’ the element of surprise would be on your side.”
“I was too. But it is not all bad news. The woman is still a person of interest in her husband’s death—the main person of interest. She wasn’t in town that night, but the police are trying to prove she hired it out. And listen to this—in order to stay out of jail she had to turn over her passport.”
“That helps, I guess. But doesn’t she own a private jet?”
“That is more good news. Patricia hires private planes as needed. All the services have been notified that she is persona non grata until her husband’s murder is solved.”
“Still worries me,” TJ said. “All that money could buy her an escape route if she wanted one.”
“But she will be watched much closer as a murder suspect than as a woman trying to protect her fetus. I’m having her watched. We can’t take any chances. Oh, and I found out she’s got that manic-depressive thing, what’s it called?”
“It’s called bein’ bipolar. And how the hell did you get that?”
“From a mutual friend. Mrs. Felhaber and I have done a few charity events together.”
“You know this chick?”
“I did not say we were bosom buddies. We worked on some committees together, that’s all. I always thought she was rather unusual. Actually, the woman seemed to be fawning over me when we were together. I have no idea why. I did not like it. Or her.”
Long after JR was asleep and the adults had wrapped presents, Lisa found TJ in a leather recliner in Eric’s study, gazing at the whiteboards. “What did Rina want?” After TJ told her, Lisa asked, “Do you think Rina knew Doctor Felhaber?”
“Didn’t sound like it, but she mighta met him at one of those fundraisers. All these odd connections—somethin’ suspicious about all of it, right?”
“I can’t disagree. I’m glad Rina is having Patricia watched. Lyle told Kelsey that his wife was desperate to have a child. If she’s bipolar and not taking her meds, she’ll be a loose cannon. And if she isn’t off of them already, she’ll be tempted to go off the drugs because they can put her pregnancy at risk. At least we know she’s seeing a specialist. Hopefully, Patricia will listen to her and be sure to take meds that are compatible with pregnancy.
“She’s seein’ a baby specialist, not a shrink.”
“In Patricia’s case, she should be monitored by both a psychiatrist and her ob-gyn in order to control her illness and protect the baby. Didn’t Turner know if she was in the
rapy?”
“Not sure. I gotta look. He faxed me some reports, but I figured it was just the stuff he told me on the phone.” She left the room and came back with two sheets of paper. “No, nothin’ here about therapy.”
“Her husband could have been prescribing for her if she wasn’t seeing a psychiatrist. That would explain the heated discussion with Ferguson. She would have counseled Patricia to have a psychiatrist co-monitor her medications.”
TJ poured a glass of wine and took a large gulp. “Fuck. She’s an accident waitin’ to happen. I just talked to Richard. He couldn’t get me an interview with the detective on the doctor’s case, but he told Richard they aren’t watchin’ her—short staffed, holiday vacations, blah, blah, blah.”
“You said Rina is having her watched, right?”
“Yeah. But don’t forget that her goons are a bunch of muscled morons.” TJ finished the wine in another gulp. “Looks like I’m gonna be workin’ this Christmas.”
“That would be a shame. JR will be disappointed if you can’t be here. Why don’t you have RayAnn watch Patricia and take shifts here instead?”
“Can’t ask her to do twenty-four-seven duty.”
“Rina isn’t shy about spending money. Why don’t you get some kind of radio or phone connection set up with her security people? Then have them check in with you and let you know what Patricia is up to. That way, you can be here for Christmas, and if anything sounds suspicious and you don’t trust Rina’s security, then you can go yourself.”
62
Eric and Lisa had a big dinner planned for Christmas Day, and on the eve they were all gathered in the kitchen preparing the food.
After a round of discussion about whether it was safe to venture out to attend a church service—this conversation, by nature, included the security guards—it was decided that Christmas Day would be the wisest choice for those wanting to attend. That had left Christmas Eve for preparations that included any parts of the meal that could be fixed in advance, wrapping presents, assembling JR’s new tricycle, and making sure to leave cookies and milk out for Santa.
Girl Undone (TJ Peacock & Lisa Rayburn Mysteries Book 3) Page 21