A Killer's Daughter

by Jenna Kernan

  Back then, fear and guilt filled her. How could she keep silent? What would happen if her mom went to jail? The battle between self-preservation and protecting others had kept her mute. She was afraid of her mother and she had been afraid for her mother.

  “I’m going to step back. Unlock the door so I can go.”

  “Fine,” he said, mouth tight and eyes alert.

  She inched away and he moved forward. When Nadine adjusted her grip on Demko’s pistol, Molly abandoned her toy and leapt before her.

  “No, Molly,” she said, glancing at the jubilant boxer that confused the gun for a new toy.

  In her momentary distraction, Demko took her wrist in a punishing grip. When had she removed her finger from the trigger?

  The gun clattered to the tile floor and Molly dropped her nose to the ground to sniff the unfamiliar object. The canine folded, the weapon between her front feet, as she made a yodeling howl. Her stub of a tail wagged, inviting one of them to engage in this new game and recapture the strange thing.

  “Molly, get your squeaky,” said Demko as he dragged Nadine against him, her back to his chest.

  His dog dashed to the kitchen. Demko snatched up his weapon. He held Nadine by the wrist and aimed a finger at her.

  “Stay here.”

  He marched back through the room, pistol in hand. Molly followed, head up, squeaking her toy in her jaws. Nadine snatched her keys from her pocket and headed toward the front door.

  She fumbled with the door locks, releasing both, but the door would not open. Molly returned, squeaking her plastic ducky once, before dropping it at Nadine’s feet. Nadine burst into tears as the enormity of everything hit her. What did she really think? That Demko could be a killer? No, she didn’t really believe that. She’d let her panic overwhelm her faith in this man. Why had she immediately believed the worst?

  But she knew. Her mother. Arleen’s duplicity had made Nadine unnaturally suspicious. But he wasn’t Arleen. Demko was a good man and an excellent detective and she’d ruined everything.

  He found her there, sobbing, squatting beside Molly. She pressed her forehead to Molly’s warm neck, clutching his dog with one hand and the doorknob with the other. The detective guided Nadine to her feet and she let him help her to his couch. There he wrapped her in his arms.

  “It will be all right,” he whispered into her hair.

  The pup nudged her with her nose. Her duck toy now rested on Nadine’s knee. She placed a hand on the dog’s head and stroked the velvet softness of one ear.

  “Good dog, Molly.” Her voice croaked. She sniffed and sagged back against Demko. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hell of a first date,” he said.

  She pinched her eyes shut, squeezing out more tears.

  “Doggy daycare was our first date.”

  He released her and gave her a look of pain that nearly broke her heart. She realized then that he’d been through this before, in Miami, when he lived under the taint of both evidence tampering and reporting one of his own. When their eyes met, she felt his weariness and sorrow ripping into her.

  “Whatever you think I did, I would never hurt you.”

  “I saw that article and thought you could have broken in. You were tied to that evidence tampering.”

  “I turned in the guy who tampered with evidence.”

  “As part of a deal?”

  “What? No!”

  “I might need you to prove that.”

  “Okay. I think we need to hit the pause button. Are you accusing me of a crime?”

  She swallowed. “No.”

  “Great. Just so you know, drawing a weapon on a police officer is a felony.”

  “Are you pressing charges?”

  “I’m just trying to understand what happened here.”

  Yet, he didn’t yell, name-call, threaten or hit. He just sat there, his expression of hurt and puzzlement tugging down the corners of his mouth.

  “I’m not anxious to file a report that says I was held at gunpoint with my own weapon.”

  That would be embarrassing.

  “Where is your gun?” she asked.

  He made a sound, a humorless laugh.

  “Like I’d tell you.” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “Nearly pissed myself when I saw you had the safety off.” He pointed toward the bedroom. “It’s locked up. Should have done that when we came in. Usually, I get changed and lock it up at night.”

  “I couldn’t shoot you.”

  “You sure had me fooled.”

  “Why couldn’t I get the door unlocked?” she asked.

  “Landlord has a duplicate set of keys. So I added a slide bolt at the top.”

  She turned and spotted the lock high on the door, above eye level, and groaned. Then she turned back to him.

  “You know about my mother?” she asked.

  He was silent for a moment. “Is that who you were visiting today?”

  “You knew?”

  “Suspected. No competency evaluations on Saturdays, right?”

  “Or parole hearings.”

  He snorted. “Busted.”

  “You really don’t know who my mother is?”

  He shook his head.

  “You are Caleb Nix?”

  He nodded. “I was. Took that family name after our aunt adopted us, my sister and me. They’re gone now. My cousin Danny lives here in town. He’s a cellist.”

  “Going blind,” she said.

  He gaped at her.

  “Juliette did some nosing around.”

  “And the evidence tampering?” he asked.

  “Okay, I was also nosing around.”

  “The police ought to recruit you both.” He moved away from her now and she straightened, turning so she could face him. “Any other questions?”

  She shook her head.

  He wiped a hand over his mouth and stood. “You want a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  He headed to the kitchen. She expected him to return with a glass of wine, but instead he carried a high-end whiskey and two glasses, each holding two cubes of ice. He set them on the table and poured the amber liquid. Demko offered her a glass and then clinked his against hers before taking a swallow.

  She lifted her tumbler and took a tiny sip. The liquid burned all the way down her throat. The heat came next.

  Demko settled one cushion away on the sofa and draped himself along one wide armrest, idly spinning the cubes in his drink.

  “So, who is your mom?”

  When she told him, he asked the question she would expect from a detective.

  “Did you know at the time?”

  Nadine nodded. “I figured it out.”

  Then she told him about the garbage bags smeared with blood and her mom’s prolonged disappearances and late-night returns. About her guilt at not calling the police sooner.

  “The trash bag on your bed. Now I understand.”

  She drew a breath and kept going, anxious now to get it all out. When she’d finished, he’d looked at her exactly the way she had been looking at him when she held him at gunpoint.

  Clint Demko was the picture of indecision.

  Finally he sat on the coffee table, facing Nadine. “I’m not sure the homicides and the break-in are related. And although I can see a similarity between this case and your mother’s homicides, that rope between our victims could have been there for a number of reasons.”

  “Name one,” she said.

  “Made it easier to drag them to the water. Use it as a tow behind a boat and then drop them.”

  “It’s a copycat.”

  If she were right, this unsub was just getting started. Now her truth was out there, she had to do everything in her power to convince Demko and to stop this killer.

  “Double homicide and a rope. Is that enough to connect them?” he asked.

  “And a couple. Having an affair. Killed together with a knife and dropped in water.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Okay. Maybe. But what about the
signature cuts on the ring finger and the marks gouged into the female? Did your mom do that?”

  “I don’t know. I was up at Lowell to ask my mother, but she refused to answer that question.”

  “What did you ask?”

  “If she’d marked all the women with common sorts of cuts or gashes.”

  “And her answer?”

  “She accused me of being a narc. Asked if I was wearing a wire.”

  “Listen, if there’s a connection, we have to find it. The case is stalled. No leads, no witnesses, and little physical evidence.”

  “And two bodies,” she said.

  “Yes.” His expression was grim. “Can you think of anyone else who would know?”

  “The district attorney who prosecuted the case. But he’s retired and they wouldn’t give me his contact info.”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “The district attorney’s office in Ocala.”

  He stared at the ceiling now, processing. She had another swallow of the whiskey and sputtered as her throat closed. Nadine’s stomach burned at the arrival of the 80 proof and she set the tumbler aside.

  His gaze flicked back to hers. Those eyes, she thought, they were the same blue as the Hope diamond and just as hard.

  “Let’s try again.”

  Demko made a single call to the police department in Ocala and had the home number of the DA in five minutes.

  He used the magic words “ongoing investigation” and his title. Then he asked about the lead detective on the Arleen Howler case.

  She waited as he listened, thanked whoever was on the other end of the call and hung up. Once off the phone, he passed her the number.

  “Lives in Winter Haven now.”

  “Maybe we should drive up and see him.”

  “‘We,’ huh?” He lifted a brow.

  She smiled. “Are you going to contact the detective who handled her case?”

  “Can’t. He’s deceased. Heart disease. All they have are his case notes.”

  Nadine recalled the man as unsmiling, stern and intimidating. When she was a teen, he’d frightened her, so she could not explain the stirring of loss she now experienced.

  Demko raised his glass, gulping the remains. She watched his Adam’s apple bob and wondered if it was the alcohol, the man or the stress that made her so aware of his physical presence.

  Then a terrible thought struck her. What if it were the topic of conversation Nadine found arousing?

  Her stomach clenched.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  Had her color changed with her mood?

  “You’re kidding. Right?”

  “Some water?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Molly, sleeping at his feet, lifted her head and watched as he stood. He headed for the kitchen. When he returned with the bottle, she closed her eyes. He removed the cap and handed Nadine the water.

  She took tiny sips. Her stomach accepted them, averting the crisis.

  “Why did you think I was working with Hartfield to set you up?” he asked.

  She told him what Juliette had confided to her ten days earlier.

  “Her mother is Lola Gillerman?”

  Nadine nodded, struggling to contain the tears.

  “Have you been in contact with Juliette since she told you?”

  Nadine shook her head.

  She was so tired, perhaps a little drunk, but it was a struggle to keep her eyes open.

  Demko retrieved his laptop and began his search of police databases. She answered the questions he needed to get started, sitting next to him as he tapped away on the keyboard. The arrest record for Lola Gillerman appeared, followed by her mother’s image, first young and then a more current one, with Arleen wearing the baby-blue prison uniform.

  “All in Lowell Correctional,” he muttered.

  Next flashed an image of Nadine and one of her brother, Arlo, leaving court.

  Demko dove down the rabbit hole, pulling up Arlo’s conviction record from a law enforcement database. He glanced at her as she sagged against the armrest.

  “Your brother is also serving time?”

  She yawned and nodded. “Assault.”

  “Sexual assault. Plea deal. Recently denied parole.”

  Nadine yawned again. “He’s like her. If they let him out, I worry about what he’ll do.”

  “You mean for a living?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid he could become like Arleen.”

  “Because of the sexual assault.”

  “It’s associated with serials. A commonality. And it was rape, not assault, and would have been murder, but he was interrupted. He lost his mind. And if that happened once, it could happen again.”

  But he used to read to me at bedtime. Her eyes were impossible to keep open.

  Molly lay against the couch, her legs sprawling under the coffee table. Her soft snores lulled Nadine to sleep. She awakened to a dark room, with vague memories of being helped down the hallway.

  She woke in daylight with something wet touching her face. She opened one eye and found the lanky boxer pup beside her bed, tail wagging as Molly booped her again with the cold wet nose. Nadine stroked the canine’s head and neck as she glanced about, finding herself in the guest bedroom. She lay under the bedspread and clutched the stuffed shark under one arm. Her phone sat on a charger on the bedside table. Except for her sandals, her clothing was all still on.

  Sunshine streamed through the venetian blinds and the phone’s clock read six minutes after eight on a sunny Sunday morning. She stretched and wondered if it was too early to call the DA. She needed to discover if any of her mother’s victims had suffered any mutilation similar to their current cases.

  Nadine retrieved her phone and the scrap of paper with the district attorney’s number and made the call.

  “Hello, Mr. Robins? This is Nadine Howler.”

  On Sunday afternoon, Nadine drove Demko up to Winter Haven for their appointment to visit retired district attorney Bradley Robins at his home.

  The man she recalled from court hardly resembled this paunchy graying senior. But his handshake was firm and his eyes bright. He admitted them into the modern ranch situated on one of the fifty lakes in this Central Florida community. A peek out the back showed a boat lift and water views.

  “My, my, Nadine Howler. I’m not sure I’d recognize you.”

  When she was a teenager, he’d spent time priming her for her court appearances, helping her prepare for the sort of questions the defense might ask. She’d been a minor and only in court when she took the stand, though the trial lasted many days.

  “This is Sarasota Homicide detective Clint Demko. We are working together on the double-homicide case I mentioned.”

  The men leaned in and shook hands.

  “Thank you for seeing us, sir,” said Demko as they broke apart.

  Nadine accepted a bottle of water from Robins’s wife, a trim woman dressed in activewear and holding garden gloves, which explained the spectacular flowers growing in front of the property.

  Robins then ushered them into his study, and Nadine perched beside Demko on the sleeper before a wide coffee table. The shelves were lined with books on law, awards and certificates in gilded frames and a bass fishing trophy. A folded American flag sat inside a triangular case on a middle shelf.

  “I wondered what happened to you. Criminal psychology, huh? Terrific.”

  “Forensic,” Nadine said.

  “Potato, pa-tah-to,” he said.

  She managed the small talk and then steered the conversation to details about her mother’s case, admitting that she knew just what was reported by the newspapers and furnished by the State of Florida’s database.

  “You were only in court four days,” Robins recalled, sitting forward in his reading chair. “Important days. But we tried to shield you from the worst of it.”

  Nadine had destroyed her mother’s alibi and provided the physical evidence, in that black bag, tying Ar
leen to her final victims.

  “I’ve read everything I could, but I wonder if you might have details not in the papers.”

  “Oh, well, we left a great deal out of the papers.”

  “Why?” asked Nadine.

  “At first, to weed out the kooks and disturbed who make false confessions for the notoriety. Detectives kept some case details private so that when they caught the guy, they’d know from the confession it was their man. Or, in this case, woman.”

  “But at the trial?” asked Demko.

  “The lead detective always believed that Arleen had help with these crimes. Specifically moving some of the bodies. He convinced me to withhold a few unique facts on the possibility that they might need them if they ever discovered a co-conspirator.”

  “Did you believe she had one?”

  Robins shook his head. “Not convinced. But I didn’t need the details to make my case. We had her clothing soaked in the victims’ blood. So, we compromised.”

  He returned to his filing cabinet and pulled out three pocket folders and stacked them on the table.

  “Transcripts,” he said.

  “Do you think I could make copies of these?”

  “Public record,” he said. “There’s an office center in town. We could go together after we chat.”

  “That would be very helpful.”

  “So, a double homicide. What similarities have you seen?”

  Demko took that one. “Vics are male and female. Both engaged in an affair. Killed with a blade, then dumped in water.” He finished by telling him about the rope.

  “Then I guess you’d best copy the binders as well.” He stood and went to the closet in the office, withdrawing a file box.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Police reports. Photos of the crime scenes and body dumps. Autopsy photos.”

  “I thought you said that was in these.” She motioned to the thick folders.

  “That’s transcripts and evidence. These are the photos and information not submitted in court, and everything I could get from the police. As I said, some images we kept back, out of public record.”

  Demko nodded.

  “Always thought I’d write a book. But it turns out I’m only good at writing legal briefs. Real crime is a whole different animal.” He turned to her. “I have copies of everything. I’d expect no one alive knows these crimes better. Besides your mother.”