Murder Deja Vu

by Polly Iyer

  “Damn them,” Dana said.

  “Dana, please.” Lana moved to the windows to close them. “Someone might hear you. With all the noise we’ve made, I can’t believe someone hasn’t already.”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m just so upset.” She paced the room, going in circles until she was dizzy. “I need to call the boys.”

  “No, you don’t,” Frank said. “You’re here and you’ll stay here, off the radar. That’s what they want you to do. You might give yourself away without meaning to. Stay calm. We’ve been lucky so far, but that’s all it is, luck. Can’t get anywhere in life without some of it.”

  “I wish I could speak to Reece, so I’d know for sure he’s all right.”

  “You can call him if you want,” Frank said. “His phone is clean, and so is this cell. But I’d advise you not to. Let him do what he needs to do.”

  “If something happened,” Lana said, “you’d hear it on the television. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

  Frank patted Lana’s ass as she walked passed. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Dana smiled, in spite of the gnawing in the pit of her stomach.

  “Now, sit down. Relax. I’ll tell you some stories. Want to hear how Reece wound up in solitary again?”

  “I don’t know, Frank. Injustice is hard to swallow. Maybe I don’t need to know everything.”

  “Did he tell you he did the same thing for a couple of young kids that I did for him?”

  “You mean he attacked four big convicts? Doesn’t sound like Reece.”

  “Not four. Two. They were sodomizing a young boy, not for the first time either. The kid must have been around eighteen, caught with a gram of coke in his car. He wasn’t dealing, just putting it up his nose. The court decided to make an example and threw him in with serious offenders. Might as well have put a bull’s eye on him for target practice.”

  Lana shook her head. She handed Dana a cup of coffee. “Something’s wrong with the system to do that. Something’s very wrong.”

  “Yes, my dear. The system is imperfect. More than I could ever explain. Anyway, Reece saw it and went ballistic. There’s a hierarchy in prison sex. The predators or pitchers, as they’re called, prey on the young and innocent. Reece took on both of them and put them down. I wasn’t around or I’d’ve helped. He served a couple of weeks in the hole for that. When he made it back into the population, the men treated him differently, with respect. Not everyone inside is a pervert.”

  “And after being locked in solitary?”

  Frank shook his head. “Not good. But he did it again anyway and found himself back there. I tried to explain he couldn’t get them all, and if he was going to be a vigilante, he’d better do it when the guards were looking the other way.”

  “If the guards were looking, why didn’t they stop the rape?”

  “You know what they say about power corrupting. There are all levels. You see it in the police, people who are supposed to watch out for the weak. Doesn’t always happen. Prison brings out the worst in men. Bad men get worse, good men go bad, and a pecking order develops where the strong rule the weak. Lord of the Flies. Good book. Reece gave me that one.”

  “What happened when he got out the second time?”

  “He was angry, drew into himself, which is what Reece does. Lasted awhile.”

  Dana had seen those moods.

  “He came out of it eventually, but I could see being in the box had an effect. But you know what? He never shut off from me.”

  “Because you’re the father who didn’t disappoint.”

  “Don’t get me going on that one. I never had kids, but if I had, no matter what they did I’d be in their corner. Reece’s father, that fuck, turned his back on his son. For that, there is no forgiveness.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Revelation

  Clarence left Betsy Ferrar’s house with renewed optimism. She wouldn’t retract her story of twenty-one years ago, nor did she give him anything he could use in court, if Jeri were trying the Sitton murder case again. But she wasn’t. These were different murders—a whole new ballgame.

  He went back to the townhouse he shared with Jeraldine on Beacon Hill. After booting up the computer, he spent an hour researching. He felt good about his theory, but he still didn’t have the proof he needed.

  When Jeraldine called, he told her he believed he had narrowed Karen Sitton’s murderer to one man, and that the same person murdered Rayanne Johnson. “I think I know how, but I can’t prove it,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?” she asked.

  “I want to talk to him first. You should know what it’s like for a man to be wrongly accused. If I’m wrong, I will have cast doubt on an innocent person. I don’t want to do that.”

  “Have you heard from anyone?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry.”

  “Not easy, love.”

  “I won’t be home when you get here, babe. I think it’s important to keep going on this. I’ll catch a bite on the road.”

  “Where are you going? No, don’t tell me. Do what you have to do. I’ll be home late anyway. I have a backlog of work to catch up on here. If you’re not there, I’ll wait up.”

  “I hope that has lawyerly hidden meaning,” Clarence said, and hung up. He always played his gut. Until today, Jordan Kraus had a solid alibi. But something Mrs. Ferrar said kept niggling at him, and he needed to pursue it. Kraus described the goings-on at the table concerned secret lives, and that Karen Sitton wasn’t the only person to have one.

  Even though Clarence told Reece to go back to his safe house, his mentioning old angers bothered him. He needed to inform Reece where he was going so they weren’t working at cross purposes. Reece’s number was blocked when he called earlier, and Clarence had failed to get it. Big mistake.

  That left Frank Vance. Clarence hoped the old man had been in the game long enough to know how to play it. He dialed Vance’s home number. A woman answered. Clarence asked for Vance.

  “Who is calling, please?” she asked with a strong accent.

  “Clarence Wright. I’m working for Reece Daughtry’s attorney.”

  “One moment.”

  Muffled sounds came from the other end of the line, and a gruff voice said, “He’s not here, hasn’t been here, and I don’t know where he is.”

  “I understand,” Clarence said. “I found out things he needs to know, and I’m going to pursue them. If you hear from him, have him call me. He has the number.”

  “He’s too smart to come here or even call. The police have already been here, searched my apartment, found nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tapped my phone. They do that, you know. But if I hear from him, I’ll tell him to call you.”

  No, the old man knew the game. “Thanks.” Vance broke the connection.

  Clarence’s instincts had always served him well in the past. Punching Kraus’s name into the computer resulted in the usual generic information—an address in Rockport, a coastal town north of Gloucester, and a list of company affiliations that sounded dog related, which made sense. Nothing else sounded familiar. If Jordan Kraus had a veterinary practice, Clarence couldn’t find the listing.

  He remembered speaking to Kraus on the phone. He hadn’t changed his story from the transcripts of the trial. Clarence wished he had more time to do a thorough check, get a feel for the guy. He hated working on a hunch alone. Reece didn’t have time for him to be wrong.

  He got in the car, set his GPS to Kraus’s address, slipped a Miles Davis CD into the player, and headed for Rockport. He wanted to see Jordan Kraus’s face when he accused him of double murder.

  Rockport, a picturesque town on the Massachusetts coast, boasted beautiful beaches, tourist shops, and even a couple of old lighthouses. He arrived at Kraus’s home, fully expecting him to be out.

  The house was a typical shingled New England cape, but the view set it apart—a panorama of ocean over the rocky coastline, shared by all
the houses on that side of the street. Clarence never wanted the responsibility of a house, but he could be swayed if he woke every day to the visual magnificence before him. He had opened his windows and heard the seagulls squawking overhead, smelled the fresh saltwater air, and tried not to forget the reason he’d come.

  He pulled into the driveway in front of a two-car garage. A dog barked inside, and he saw a woman peek out a large picture window. The door opened and she stood waiting, a black lab at her side. The dog didn’t seem threatening, but its presence stopped Clarence in his tracks.

  “May I help you?” she said.

  “My name is Clarence Wright. I’m an investigator for Reece Daughtry’s attorney. I spoke to your husband a couple of months ago.”

  “Yes, of course. He told me. Come in. Jordan’s outside on the deck, working on the computer.”

  She must have noticed his reticence. “Dally won’t attack. She doesn’t know the word, nor does she have the nature.”

  Clarence moved cautiously toward the door.

  “Why don’t you wait in the living room? I’ll tell Jordan you’re here.” She gestured toward the sofa, and he settled into the end seat.

  The house had a lived-in quality, with a chintz-covered sofa and overstuffed club chairs. Nothing fancy, but comfortable and inviting. A grand piano sat off to one side, framed pictures cluttered the mantel. He got up and scanned them. A man, woman, and two children at different ages. Was this a killer’s life? Then he zeroed in on one particular picture and knew it wasn’t. His instincts had failed him.

  “Mr. Wright, Jordan asked if you’d join him outside.”

  Clarence followed her to a large deck. The view took his breath away—ocean and more ocean, as far as the eye could see. A good-looking, tanned man sat at a table in front of a laptop. Definitely not the description of the man who left Rudy’s bar. But he already knew that.

  “Mr. Wright, pleased to meet you.”

  He offered his hand to Clarence’s left, his sightline also missing its mark. Jordan Kraus couldn’t see an inch in front of him. He was blind. “I’m sorry to come unannounced. I thought if I called, you might not see me.” He realized what he said and started to stutter an apology, but Kraus intervened.

  “Please, don’t get politically correct. I’m not touchy or sensitive. I just can’t see.” He felt for the cover of his laptop and closed it. “Have a seat.”

  Clarence settled into a comfortable chair around a glass-top table.

  “I remember your call. I guess your investigation has gained steam now that Reece Daughtry is wanted for double murder. Am I the last on your list? The one you were sure would end your search for the killer?”

  Clarence smiled. Of course, Kraus would have considered that. “I suppose you’ve been getting calls.”

  “Both Steve and Mark. I haven’t talked to either of them in years. This time, my wife wouldn’t let me put them off. I’m glad because I told them I’d lost my sight. I never could before. I didn’t deal with it well in the beginning. Then time passed, and we lost touch. It’s not like I didn’t know I was going blind. It had been coming on for years—retinitis pigmentosa—but I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me.”

  “I understand.”

  “Beautiful view, isn’t it? I know what it looks like. I could still see when we bought the house. I like to hear the sounds of the ocean, feel the air. It relaxes me.

  “Very beautiful. I’d be out here all the time.”

  “Hmm, not in winter. It’s damn cold. You live in Boston, I remember.”

  “Yes, but I could handle the cold better with this view.”

  Kraus looked out over the ocean as if he could see, and Clarence felt a wave of sympathy for the man’s loss. Such a sad irony to have this vista before him and be unable to see it.

  “Obviously, I couldn’t have committed the murder in North Carolina, and I didn’t kill Karen Sitton either. I slept with her only once. She wasn’t anyone I wished to spend time with, especially after I found out she wasn’t particularly discerning about who she slept with. I wished I had known Reece better before her murder. I could have warned him about her.”

  “I wish someone had. But that’s moot now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What can you tell me about that night, about the others who were with you?”

  “Probably not much more than Steve told you, or Mark told Reece. Why did you think it was me? I was with Betsy Ferrar until three a.m., and she swore to that in an affidavit. The others discovered the body at the apartment before then.”

  “Two reasons. When I talked to her, I got the feeling that she might have fallen asleep.”

  “She did. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. She drank more than she was used to. Everyone did that night. Did you think I drugged her and went off to kill Karen?”

  Clarence hesitated. “The thought entered my mind. Reece had been drugged. The fact he couldn’t remember anything made me suspicious. I thought of date rape drugs, then I thought of Ketamine.”

  Jordan’s eyes remained blank, but he nodded understanding. “Of course. Ketamine. A veterinary drug. Special K I’ve heard it called. Even then we’d read the reports of side effects on humans. Possible memory loss after anesthesia.”

  “Unfortunately date rape drugs have improved, but once the connection formed in my mind, I couldn’t let it go.”

  “I—” Kraus’s face twisted with some memory.

  “What? You thought of something.”

  “Only a fleeting thought, and I can’t remember exactly what. But something about your mention of Ketamine struck a chord. It’ll come to me.”

  Kraus’s wife came outside with a tray containing two glasses with handles, like the old glass root beer mugs Clarence remembered.

  “I made some iced tea.” She put Jordan’s glass to his right without saying anything, and he knew exactly where to reach for it. He smiled in her direction and thanked her.

  “This is unsweetened, Mr. Wright. If you prefer sugar, I’ll bring some out.”

  “This is fine, thanks.”

  “Call me if you need anything,” she said, and left the deck.

  “My wife is a special woman. She was my mobility instructor, getting me ready for a world without sight. I don’t know if I would have made it without her.”

  “I hate to be so single-minded, Mr. Kraus—”

  “Call me Jordan.”

  “Jordan. I don’t have much time. Reece is being stalked by federal agents and the police from border to border. They’ll get him sooner or later. They always do.”

  “And you want me to remember about the Ketamine.”

  “Yes. Maybe it will prick your memory if you tell me what happened that day or the day before.”

  “Let me think.” Kraus sipped his tea, his blank eyes staring over the rim of the glass. “Steve and I volunteered the day before the murder at a clinic for rescue dogs in Cambridge. Everything went fine, so—wait.” He nodded. “I remember now. When we got back to Grafton after the weekend—that’s where Tuft’s vet school is—we were called into the dean’s office. The vet at the clinic called the school to tell them that a vial of Ketamine was missing. Neither Steve nor I knew anything about it. There were other people helping out, so we assumed either one of them took it or an employee used the cover of the rescue clinic to take the vial. We never heard any more about it. I never would have remembered that if you hadn’t mentioned Ketamine.” He put his glass on the table.

  Clarence couldn’t tell if Kraus was thinking or visualizing, but his brow furrowed. “You’re sure Steve didn’t take it?”

  “Positive. Steve wouldn’t kill Karen. He didn’t care enough about women to feel betrayed by one.”

  Clarence blew out a breath. “You knew?”

  “I suspected. I also didn’t care. Steve was and is, I’m sure, a terrific vet. I only wish we could have gone into practice together.”

  “He thinks you didn’t want to partner with
him because you found out he was gay.”

  “I know. He told me. He knows better now. By the end of our last year I suffered night blindness and knew I could never go into practice. Once I started losing my peripheral vision, it would keep getting worse, until I had either little or no sight left. I couldn’t stand the thought, but I felt I owed it to myself to finish school. Not everyone with RP goes completely blind. I’m one of the unlucky ones.” He smiled. “Anyway, I backed out of everything for a while. Now I run a non-profit to help people with RP. I understand the disease, and I can speak to experience about going through the transition. The veterinary experience came in handy because I also train seeing-eye dogs. I inherited a good deal of money, so that was never a problem. I feel like I’m doing some good.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “So now that you know I’m not a murderer, what’s your next move?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Between Reece and me, we’ve cleared the three people at the table when Reece found out about Karen.”

  “You missed someone.”

  Clarence thought a moment. “Yes, of course I did. How could I have been so—Jesus, I hate to say the word—blind?”

  “Sometimes those of us without sight see more than a sighted person,” Jordan said. “Oh, and now that I think of it, Carl helped us out at the rescue clinic that day.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  A Little Undercover Work

  Harold County, North Carolina

  Harry Klugh was an uncommon name. Sheriff Jim Payton tracked one private investigator by that name from his birth in Philadelphia to his death in a boating accident on Lake Michigan in 1984. No one ever found his body.

  The birth date for the Harry Klugh that surfaced in Atlanta in 1985 when he applied for a license under Harry Klugh Investigations was miraculously the same birth date as the dead Harry Klugh. The fuzzy headshot on the license could have been anyone and signaled another red flag. The anomalies put Payton on alert.

  He thought of contacting the feds about his discovery, but if he was right, he didn’t want to warn Klugh—or whatever the hell his real name was—before he gathered more facts. Klugh might go underground and emerge somewhere else with still another name, and Payton’s bargaining chip would be lost.