by D P Lyle
“Study it all you want. Just don’t stop the medication. I won’t stand for that.” He turned and pushed through the door, leaving it open behind him.
CHAPTER 51
THURSDAY 10:05 A.M.
SIDAU POINTED OUT SEVERAL SHOE PRINTS, EACH STAKED WITH A red plastic flag. He was taking T-Tommy, Scotty, and me on a tour through the wooded area behind the Kushner house. We continued backtracking from Kushner’s house, across an open area beneath TVA power lines, to a rural blacktop road. Two crime scene techs were making casts of a pair of deep tire impressions in the soft dirt just off the pavement.
I shielded my eyes from the sun and gazed up the road. The morning sun silvered the TVA lines that swagged above the tree-tops. They looked like new guitar strings, waiting to be tightened to the proper key. Higher up in the cloudless blue sky, a pair of buzzards gripped the air with broad wings and made wide, lazy circles, searching for carrion.
I tried to imagine the nighttime darkness. The killer pulled off the road here, and then made his way through the woods. He knew exactly where he was going. No randomness here.
We made our way back to Kushner’s house. Nothing about the structure was distinctive. Nothing extraordinary that would attract attention. Except the couple inside. That was the attraction. Why these people? For that matter, why Mike? Why Allison or Petersen?
“Looked to me like all the prints back there were the Nikes,” I said. “None of the others.”
“That’s right,” Sidau said.
“Maybe he came another way,” I said. I massaged my neck. “Which means he didn’t come with him or follow him. He knew where he was going.”
“An accomplice?” Scotty asked.
Could that be true? Could the killer have an accomplice? A lookout? Could a pair of deranged psychos, working in tandem, be responsible for these murders? Everything I had seen or knew about this killer said no. Then who left the other prints? A nosy neighbor? A neighbor who saw this and didn’t call the police? No way. Someone following the killer? Stalking the killer? Who? Why? It didn’t make sense.
“You think there’s two of them?” T-Tommy asked.
“The profile favors this guy being a loner. Too unstable to have a sidekick.” I kicked a clump of crabgrass. “I guess we could have another Hickock and Smith duo.”
“Who?” Scotty said.
“Remember Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood?”
Scotty shrugged. “Vaguely.”
“Great book. Detailed the case. Late fifties or thereabouts. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were two losers who killed the Clutter family in Kansas because they thought Mr. Clutter had a safe full of money in his home. He didn’t, but they executed the entire family anyway. Their profile indicated that neither would have done it alone. But in tandem, they made a murderous pair. Hickock was the planner and Smith the hammer. Hickock got them there, and Smith went berserk.”
“You really think our boy could have a partner like that?” T-Tommy asked. “Someone who sets him up and turns him loose?”
I shrugged. “Might explain a couple of things.”
“Such as?” T-Tommy asked.
“The geographic profile, for one. If we add this scene into the mix, we have murders here way north of the city, Mike’s down south, Allison out west toward Madison, and Petersen right downtown. Unlike the disorganized nature of the scenes themselves, this widespread pattern suggests a more organized offender. One who isn’t afraid to travel. Feels comfortable just about anywhere. Disorganized ones tend to have a much smaller comfort zone. They feel stressed if they wander too far, so their crimes cluster closer to home.”
T-Tommy puffed out one cheek and then the other, moving a pocket of air back and forth, before letting out a long breath. “You’re saying we could have a hunter working with a killer?”
“I don’t know.” I looked up. The buzzards were now even higher in the sky. Broadening their area of search. Just like we were.
Difference was, they were looking for the dead; we were hunting for a living, breathing, and very clever killer. “It would also explain the phone calls.”
“How so?” Scotty asked.
“Something I can’t quite get my mind around yet. The killer is definitely disorganized. Rage-driven. The savageness of the attacks, leaving of the bodies at the kill site, no effort to conceal the crime. Yet the guy on the phone? Calm and rational. Even when I tried to provoke him, I got nothing. A killer this violent”—I nodded toward the house—“would have a very short fuse. He would likely lash out at anyone, particularly someone making personal attacks.”
“Great,” T-Tommy said. “A pair of psychos. That’s all we need.”
“That might not be the case, but we have to consider it.”
T-Tommy shoved his hands in his pockets. “Dub, I hope you’re wrong this time.”
You got that right. “I’m going to take another look inside,” I said.
I returned to the master bedroom, where I attempted to envision the killer’s movements. He crept into the room and stood just to the left of the bed. The spatter pattern and the wound to Mr. Kushner’s head indicated he was shot at close range while his head rested on the pillow. Asleep. Never saw it coming. Same for Mrs. Kushner. Her head was so badly beaten no entry wound could be identified, but the blood spatters above the bed indicated she, too, was shot where she slept. Meant that he definitely used a sound suppressor.
I moved back down the hall to the circular stain and knelt. The blood belonged to the woman, according to Sidau. The wall above the stain held more blood smears. Splotches, streaks, and a single bloody handprint. Small, probably the woman’s. Surrounding that, the fine spray of exhaled blood. She was alive when she was here. Still bleeding and still breathing. I looked back toward the bedroom and then down toward the family room. A pair of drag streaks came from the bedroom to this area, and then four streaks led on toward the den. He dragged the man all the way. The woman from here. She walked to this spot. The bullet didn’t kill her. She put up a fight but died right here. God bless you, Mrs. Kushner.
I moved to the den, where several criminalists continued collecting samples from the mass of flesh and bone that was once the Kushners. The musty smell of blood and death seemed heavier than it had earlier. I needed air.
I retreated into the backyard and walked to where T-Tommy, Scotty, and Sidau stood.
“I just called the department,” Scotty said. “They’re drawing a blank on the victims. The single thing they have in common is a phone call from the Huntsville Times. Seems they just had a subscription drive and called most of the county.”
“They called me three times last week,” T-Tommy said.
“They’ll add the Kushners’ data to the soup and see if anything pops up,” Scotty said.
“Dub,” one of the deputies yelled out the window. “Phone.”
“Who is it?”
“Didn’t say.”
I climbed the three steps to the back door and walked to the kitchen. Who would be calling me on the victims’ phone? I picked up the handset, which had a healthy coat of fingerprint powder.
“Hello.”
“I see you’re hard at work.”
I recognized the voice immediately. I motioned to one of the deputies and mouthed, “Get T-Tommy.” Then into the phone I said, “You left quite a mess.”
“Intentional, I assure you.”
“You fucked up this time.”
“I don’t think so,” the calm voice said. “Why don’t you tell me about it? What glaring mistake did I make that you so brilliantly recognized?”
“You threatened Ms. McBride.”
“I thought that might get your attention.”
“I’m your problem, not her.”
“Since you’re fucking her, I consider you one and the same.”
“I’m the one who’ll put you away.”
He laughed softly. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Basic character flaw. I’ve been worki
ng on it.”
“Good for you. The truth is that I don’t think even you can catch me.”
“You might be right. You might not make it out of this alive.”
“Such talk from a representative of law enforcement. Aren’t there laws against threatening the citizenry?”
“I’m the citizenry, and I’m not threatening you. Merely stating facts.”
“As you see them.”
“What I see is that I’m your problem. Unless you stop me, I’ll find you.”
“Like Packwood?”
“Something like that.”
“I think you just got lucky on that one.”
“Or he got unlucky. Most killers do.”
“Good thing I’m not most.”
“Good thing I’m lucky.”
He laughed. “We’ll see.” The call disconnected.
“What is it?” T-Tommy asked as he came through the door.
“It was him.”
“What’d he say?”
“Mostly gloating. But like I said earlier, the voice on the phone and the crime scenes don’t mesh.”
Scotty came in from the backyard, his cell phone at his ear. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll catch you later.” He closed the phone. “He used the same phone. Came through a tower off Governor’s Drive, near the Med Center.”
Harold Pearce switched off the cell phone and dropped it in his black bag. He then picked up the encrypted cell, called Smithson, and gave him an update.
“Very good,” Smithson said. “When’s the next event?”
“Tonight or tomorrow. I’m sure Kurtz is infuriated after his meeting with Hublein this morning. I doubt I can hold him down much longer.”
“Are the cops getting any closer?”
Pearce sighed. “They’re plodding morons. If they don’t stumble on the answer soon, I’ll dump an anonymous call on them. Even they should be able to figure it out if they have his name.”
“Good. Then we can run Kurtz into a corner and set up the final chapter.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“How much time do we have?” Smithson asked.
“Not more than a few days. He’s extremely unstable.”
“Excellent.”
Pearce punched the END button. He had to admit, all the pieces were coming together perfectly. Brian was falling apart, and Dub was fuming. Time to turn up the heat and then put the two of them together. After that, it would be “Hello, Tahiti.”
CHAPTER 52
THURSDAY 11:01 A.M.
T-TOMMY STOOD NEAR THE BACK EDGE OF THE YARD, CELL PHONE to his ear. He had been talking for ten minutes when he closed the phone and walked toward me. “That was Luther. You aren’t going to believe this.” I looked at him but said nothing. “The phone records. I put some guys on them last night, told them to check, recheck, and check again.”
“And?”
“It seems that a couple of days ago, a number that called both Allison and Petersen popped up. It belonged to an outfit called Gulf Coast Telemarketing. Since Mike didn’t receive a call from there, and since it was a telemarketing company, they considered it a coincidence.”
I frowned. “There are no coincidences.”
“I know. They dropped in Kushner’s data this morning and bang … Gulf Coast appeared. They got a list of all of their numbers. Thirty-six lines. Thirty are listed to Gulf Coast, three to Wanda Fisher, the owner, and three to a Mr. Milton Reynard. One of Mr.
Reynard’s numbers called Mike.”
“How’d this happen? I thought they checked every number. Actually called them.”
“So did I. Luther went ballistic, called Wanda Fisher himself. Seems that when she first set up her company, it was on a shoestring. Mr. Reynard, a good friend, loaned her some money. The phone company would allow only three numbers in her name, so …”
“Reynard signed off on the other three.”
“Exactly. As the company grew, she added more lines in the company name but never changed the original six listings.”
“Unbelievable. Where is this place?”
“South. Off the parkway.”
“Thank you for seeing us, Ms. Fisher,” I said as she welcomed us into her office. An attractive woman, forty or so, trim, fit, and neatly dressed in expensive gray slacks and a pink silk blouse. She had a professional demeanor and a firm, confident handshake.
“Please, sit down,” she said. “It’s not every day the sheriff calls. What can I do for you?”
After telling her that this wasn’t for public consumption, T-Tommy explained the situation. She was obviously shaken. Most people get through their entire lives without ever having to confront the truly ugly side of human nature. It was clear that this blindsided Wanda Fisher.
“What does this mean?” She spread her hands out on her desk as if searching for an anchor. “You think someone here is involved in these murders?”
I shook my head. “Not necessarily. It’s just that all the victims received calls from here, nothing more.”
“We make thousands of calls each day. Couldn’t this be a coincidence?”
“Possibly. But we have to check out every lead.”
“I understand.” She took a deep, slow breath. “What do you need?”
“Do you maintain a list of calls and who made them?” I asked.
“Sure. That’s how we pay our employees. They work on salary plus commissions.”
“That’s what we need.”
“Do you have the names?”
“Carl Petersen, Mike Savage, William Allison, Albert Kushner.”
She wrote the names on a notepad and then turned slightly, facing the computer on her desk. We sat for several minutes as she worked, the silence broken only by the soft click of the keyboard. Sitting up straight, she hit a final key and then turned toward the printer on the credenza behind her as it sprang to life. “Here you go.” She handed me the pages.
Each page contained a list of the dates, times, and names of the persons who made the calls to each of the victims. Half a dozen to Mike, more to each of the others. Gulf Coast apparently made good use of its call list. Only three names correlated with all the victims: Simon Baker, Glenda Riordan, and Brian Kurtz. Brian Kurtz. The name jumped at me. I handed the pages to T-Tommy and looked at Wanda.
“Looks like Simon Baker, Glenda Riordan, and Brian Kurtz made calls to each of the victims. What can you tell me about them?”
“Glenda and Simon are working today. Brian is no longer with us.”
“Why not?” I asked.
She sighed. “Brian is a nice guy, but he has some problems. Been a bit tense lately, and I’ve had several customer complaints about him being rude. So I had to let him go.”
I glanced at T-Tommy.
“At least temporarily,” she said. “He’s seeing his psychiatrist, and once the doctor says everything is okay, I may let Brian come back. He’s a very good worker.”
“Anything else you can tell us about him?” T-Tommy asked.
“He got into a fight the other day. Right outside. Some vagrant tried to rob him with a knife. Brian beat him up pretty badly.”
“Who’s his psychiatrist?” I asked.
“Robert Hublein.”
“We’d like to talk with Glenda Riordan and Simon Baker,” T-Tommy said.
“Sure.” She stood. “Wait right here, and I’ll get them.”
After she left, I pointed to the page T-Tommy still held. “Brian Kurtz was one of the violent crime files Scotty pulled.” T-Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t want to say anything in front of Ms. Fisher.”
CHAPTER 53
THURSDAY 11:58 A.M.
OUR CHAT WITH GLENDA RIORDAN AND SIMON BAKER TURNED UP little except that both agreed Kurtz was uptight. Simon offered that he was afraid of him. Glenda disagreed but did say Brian seemed stressed lately. I got the impression she might have had a crush on him. We thanked them and Wanda and left.
I called Claire. She and the deputy had searched
the area but never saw the kid. Now she was at work, putting together her report. She said she would meet me at Sammy’s around seven. After her segment on the six o’clock news.
Before heading back downtown, T-Tommy and I decided to stop by the Memorial Medical Center ER. See if we could chat with the doc who took care of Kurtz and the mugger. T-Tommy badged the receptionist, telling her we needed some information about a patient. She made a quick call to someone named Marcia and then led us back into the treatment area.
Marcia turned out to be the charge nurse Marcia Clark, a pleasant but no-nonsense woman. She wore dark blue surgical scrubs beneath a white coat and had a stethoscope draped around her neck.
“How can I help you?” she asked after we introduced ourselves.
T-Tommy explained why we were there.
“Oh, yes. I remember both the mugger and Mr. Kurtz.”
“What do you remember?”
“Let me get Dr. Beck. He took care of them.”
She told one of the other nurses to find Dr. Beck and offered us coffee. No thanks. A couple of minutes later a young, handsome man, also wearing the apparent ER uniform of blue surgical scrubs beneath a white coat, came toward us.
“I’m Dr. Beck.”
We shook hands.
“I know you,” he said, looking at me. “I’ve read a couple of your books. Loved them.”
“That’s always good to hear.” I looked around the ER. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?”
He led us through the treatment area and into a small office. “Excuse the mess.” He sat behind his desk. “What can I do for you?”
“You treated a couple of men several days ago,” I said. “Brian Kurtz and a mugger.”
I noticed his back stiffen slightly. “Yes.”
“Can you tell me about him?”
“That would be a violation of his right to privacy.”
“We have reason to believe that Kurtz is involved in a series of crimes. I can’t tell you what, but lives are at stake.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t discuss my patients without their permission.”