by Jenna Kernan
Instead, she wobbled back to the street as her knees gave way. She sank to the curb.
The rain had moved away, and steam rose from the road, visible now in approaching headlights.
Where’s Juliette?
“Juliette!”
“Behind the patrol car,” she heard Juliette call.
“Why?”
There was a hissing sound, air escaping from between clenched teeth. “So that you don’t hit me again.”
“Did you see someone running away?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
Vehicle doors opened as several police units arrived from two directions. Nadine turned to the hedgerow beside her house and saw the palm fronds moving again. Whoever had killed the officer outside her home could be long gone. Or they could be watching right now.
Twenty-Four
Couple two part two
I heard it on the scanner, pick up and escort. I followed her to her home, tailing the patrol unit. And who do I find on assignment? My target, Howard Pender, the guy who just can’t let go. Unbelievable good fortune.
What luck! I’d been unsuccessful at finding Pender alone and vulnerable. This is Nadine’s street. It’s right in the city but on such an out-of-the-way corner. And the vegetation. Truly amazing. A real tropical jungle.
Bringing them together on such short notice was difficult enough. Bringing them together as adversaries took real genius.
En route, I sent Juliette a text from a burner phone. Getting to Pender was ridiculously easy. I showed the cop my county ID, and he opened his squad car door to speak to me. He remembered when I called him in and seemed nervous.
Pender is so like the ranger killed in his truck. I’d never find a better chance than this. It took real daring, and the thrill is indescribable.
There he was, sitting right in front of Dee-Dee’s cute little home, all alone. I loved that place, inside and out.
Officer Pender told me way too much about why he was there. Nervous, you know, that I understood he was on assignment.
I told him I was sorry for his recent loss.
Then I slit his throat with a fish fillet knife. He was still breathing when I stabbed him in the chest. Those Kevlar vests don’t stop knives, and this blade makes deep yet narrow cuts. Unfortunately, the arterial spray got me.
I tied the rope as he gasped, sucking blood and air through the wound in his neck and into his lungs. He reached for his radio. It was easy to hold down his arm, and for a few lovely quiet moments, he was all mine.
I’m riding such a high.
After the kill, I watched Nadine from the side yard as she went out and Juliette walked in. Perfect timing, magnificent. But Nadine botched it. A complete whiff.
Way to spoil a perfect day. Soured my mood and just made me cross. I really thought she was stronger. It’s not from a lack of lineage. That’s for sure. Maybe she gets it from her father’s side, that weakness.
My part is the push. Apply the right pressure to anything and it will eventually change shape or break. Nadine is tough but still pliant. She’ll transform and I’ll be here to witness that moment.
Doesn’t she see the grand plan of God’s design? I am her god now. As soon as she kills, she will be mine.
This girl is no innocent. I’ve read the court transcripts. She knew her mother was murdering people. She helped her clean up the evidence and did not say a word about it to anyone for years. She’s like us. Why won’t she accept that?
I was dripping with blood. But folks in that area all have garden hoses right on the sides of their houses. In a few minutes, I was a shirtless jogger caught in the rain. My only complaint was my socks. I hate jogging with wet socks.
Twenty-Five
Perfect storm
The slam of a vehicle’s door preceded Detective Clint Demko’s appearance. He herded them into the cottage, not waiting for an invitation but marching them right into Nadine’s home. In that moment, she had an inkling of what it must be like for her mother in prison, having no privacy and no control.
There she and Juliette waited until a female officer and FBI crime tech arrived and collected their wet clothing as evidence. They were questioned individually. Finally Juliette was escorted out, wearing SPD sweats, and with an ice pack pressed to her cheek.
That had been four hours ago, and at midnight, the crime scene techs still swarmed her yard and cottage, but she was swaying where she sat, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Some part of Nadine still wanted to blame Juliette for something that appeared not to be her fault. Why, when Nadine realized that Juliette held a phone and not a weapon, was her first reaction disappointment?
“You’ve got my blood, Dee-Dee, and you are out there. You can continue what I started.”
Nadine’s mind flicked back to Officer Pender. She no longer wondered if she was being paranoid. This death was on her doorstep. Someone was toying with her. But it wasn’t Juliette. The ME seemed to be a pawn, perhaps a rook. But not a killer. Not the killer, despite the evidence linking her to a crime scene.
Pender had a rope on his wrist. She’d bet all 452 dollars she had in her checking account that the cut end of this rope was an exact match for the one found tied to Hope Kerr.
Had their unsub chosen unrelated people at random, or were they involved?
The living room was suddenly awash with lights. Shouts came from outside the cottage. Her front door’s porthole window illuminated like a lighthouse beacon.
The shouting continued and the jumpy officer moved Nadine to the couch, away from the light streaming through the front and kitchen windows a moment before Demko returned.
“Television van just showed up reporting on Pender’s homicide. Stay clear of the windows.” Demko pointed to the patrolman. “Close the kitchen shade.”
The floodlights flicked off. The young officer drew down the blind.
“Nadine, I’m suggesting you stay in a hotel again, tonight.”
“Can I take my car?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Inside the perimeter. I’ll drive you.”
“Aren’t you lead?”
“FBI. Handling the press and most every other damn thing.”
“Ah.”
“Pack a bag. I’ll be back.”
She headed to the bedroom and grabbed the roller suitcase. Her blind was raised, and she paused a moment, staring out at the blackness of her yard, and shivered.
Had the monster been out there? Their killer?
Demko returned as she zipped the suitcase closed.
He escorted her out and they headed away from her home, again. The lump in her throat grew.
“It’s not Juliette.”
“Why’s that?”
“It just isn’t. Couldn’t someone have…” She stopped talking.
“Couldn’t someone have what?” he asked.
She shook her head. What she had been about to say was Couldn’t someone have planted that can? And right off, she knew what he’d think.
“You think I did that. The can? Right?” he asked, his tone accusing.
She shook her head, not looking at him.
“I mean, I was at the scene. I was front and center in an evidence-tampering indictment. Could be me.”
“It’s not.”
“Because you don’t want it to be me.”
“Maybe.”
He nodded. “You want me to call someone to drive you, or shall I?”
She thought that over and then cast her lot.
“Let’s go,” she said.
The closest was a boutique hotel on the North Trail. A patrol unit followed them. By the time she checked in, it was nearly two in the morning.
He joined her on the elevator and walked her to her room, paused in the hallway and asked her to check inside. It was empty, but she turned on all the lights.
Demko leaned on the doorjamb. She was not inviting him in. He studied her face and seemed to come to some decision, because he reached out and took her
hand and pulled her forward, holding her tight. Tears trickled from her eyes as he cradled her. This was what she needed, the comfort and strength of his body.
Her shoulders shook as the tears fell. He made quiet shushing noises and whispered reassurances.
“It can’t be Juliette.”
“I agree,” he said. “But if she didn’t drop that can, and that evidence wasn’t planted—”
“The killer planted it,” she said.
“That’s my theory.”
Nadine pulled away. He had to go, had to get back to work, but she longed to keep him here with her.
She looked into his handsome face and read concern in those alluring deep blue eyes.
“I’m glad you’re all right, Nadine.”
They shared a smile. They were both safe. But the killer was still out there. Her smile faded.
“We have to stop him… or her.”
He nodded, his expression turning hard at the mention of their unsub.
“We will.”
“Thank you for taking care of me,” she said.
He released her hand and then brushed the hair from her face. His thumb grazed Nadine’s skin, the pad rough against her cheek. Now she was wide awake, and her skin tingled all the way down her arms to her fingertips.
He moved away, holding her gaze, but nothing else. “You’ll have a patrolman stationed at the elevator all night. Tomorrow you’ll need to come to the station to sign your statement. I’ll see you then.”
“Are you going back there?” she asked.
“I have to notify Pender’s next of kin. Just waiting for records on that.”
What a miserable, unenviable job that must be, telling a fallen officer’s family that he’d been murdered on the job.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He rubbed his neck. “Yeah. Hate this part.”
She stepped forward, pressing both hands to his chest, and lifted on her toes to kiss him. Their lips met. She tried to give him the comfort he had given her. The contact was gentle at first. But quickly blazed with heat. He retreated and scrubbed his mouth with his palm.
Something was wrong. She read that much in his expression.
“Nadine, I have to tell you something about Officer Pender.”
She didn’t need skills on reading body language to see that whatever he was about to convey would be terrible.
“Remember I told you that the ex-husband of the wedding photographer found dead in Robinson Preserve was on our force?”
Nadine braced, already knowing what he would say, as her ears buzzed as if she’d just left a heavy metal rock concert.
His words confirmed her assumption.
“It was Pender. He was married to Hope Kerr.”
Twenty-Six
Better late than never
The migraine, which Nadine should have been expecting, arrived at four in the morning. She had packed her medication and took it before she started vomiting. It was a near miss. At six, she swallowed another pill and slept until ten.
Pender’s ex-wife was Hope Kerr, the woman who had been pulled from the Manatee River. It now seemed apparent that the pair had been sleeping together. Demko had told her that Kerr’s ex-husband was an officer on their force, but the patrolman had denied sleeping with his ex. Demko had turned up nothing to prove otherwise.
Why hadn’t she put together last night that Pender was that officer?
Nadine wasn’t exactly surprised that they could find no evidence of infidelity. Though divorced, Kerr and Pender had a son. That sort of connection never broke. The two communicated regularly about their son, visitation rights, school assignments, where the boy had left his cleats for soccer practice. They even attended some school functions and sporting events together. It would have been simple to meet for sex.
Why he denied the affair seemed obvious. Such a salacious story would eventually find its way into the news and hurt his son.
Demko had warned Officer Pender, but, still, their unsub had managed to murder an armed police officer. Had Pender recognized his killer? Perhaps trusted this person and had been put off his guard?
Now Demko was blaming himself for not doing more to protect Pender, despite his denials.
The man whom Nadine had asked Demko to find had been assigned to Nadine’s protection. And the FBI profiler’s theory, that Kerr was just a convenient target who stumbled into the killer’s territory, was blown.
She retrieved her phone and checked her messages. She’d forgotten to switch off the privacy setting, which kept her cell on silent mode from midnight to six, so she’d missed Demko’s texts. He’d also sent one photo: Officer Pender’s left hand, which was not mutilated.
No time, or is it because he had not remarried? she asked herself.
Nadine headed to the shower and then dressed in golf shorts and a blouse covered with a pattern of small pink flamingos floating inside lime-colored inner tubes. In the hall, she found the promised police protection.
“Good morning, Dr. Finch,” said the young female officer. “I’m to drive you to headquarters to review and sign your statement.”
Nadine sat in the front of the squad car, just like the day she had been escorted from her high school. The interior smelled like Lysol spray and pine air freshener. This woman was not chatty.
At the station, another officer recorded her fingerprints, using a live scan technique. She rolled her fingers on a glass plate, as instructed, uncomfortable that her prints were now in the system. Would they be kept for only six months and then destroyed, like the ones taken for her background check, or were they now a permanent part of state and federal databases?
This was the kind of question a criminal would ask.
Her anxiety persisted and she kept rubbing the pads of her fingers, as if that would somehow erase those records. The point was, it wasn’t under her control. That bothered her.
The FBI also bothered her because she really didn’t know where she stood. Was she a consultant, suspect or bait?
The same guy who had taken her prints escorted Nadine from intake to homicide.
“Here we are,” said the officer, motioning her in.
Across the nearly empty room, Detective Wernli waited. Nadine had worked with the veteran Homicide detective on several cases, most recently the staged suicide of Emily Lancer by her murderous husband, Morton. She respected Wernli, but she was disappointed not to find Demko.
Nadine gave a mechanical thank-you to her escort and headed toward the detective; she was still carrying her overnight bag and purse.
Wernli stood, revealing wrinkled slacks, and he had a bit of leaf debris stuck in his hair. The redness in his eyes pointed to a night on the job.
“Where’s Demko?” she asked Wernli.
“Press conference. Asking for help on finding Officer Howard Pender’s killer.”
An image of the officer’s bloody body and the car’s interior flashed in her mind.
Howard Pender, she thought, rest his soul.
“If you’ll have a seat,” said Detective Wernli. “I’ll review your statement and get your signature.”
“Is Dr. Hartfield here?” she asked.
“Released.”
Nadine left the station and drove to Juliette’s home. She rang the bell and waited. Juliette’s face appeared at the window. Should Nadine wave, like an old friend dropping by for a visit, or throw herself, barking at the door, like the madwoman growing inside her? The last time they met, Nadine had punched her friend in the face.
She assessed the damage. The swelling had receded as color bloomed. Juliette’s eye was mostly open, but the ring of purple went from her eyebrow to her nose. Her cheek looked puffy.
Nadine supposed she should blame Arlo for teaching her how to fight.
“Hi, Juliette. Could I come in for a minute?”
Juliette’s expression was cautious, and her shoulders slowly rose and fell with the weight of her sigh. Then the dead bolt clicked. The metal slide of a chain loc
k followed, and she opened the door, inviting the devil inside.
Despite all their meetings for drinks and dinners, Nadine had never been in her home.
The first-floor garden-style apartment was as interesting as oatmeal from the outside. But the interior walls were a fresh mint green and the ceiling fans looked like woven mats. Juliette’s dining room table was natural pine and topped with a huge live orchid covered with cascading violet blooms. More plants sat on the floor in the beams of sunlight. Nadine wouldn’t expect a pathologist to have a green thumb. Juliette obviously did.
“I didn’t do it,” said Juliette. “None of them.”
“I know it.”
“Because I have a solid alibi or because you believe me?”
She hesitated. “Both.”
“They found my print at the scene on Lido. A seltzer can.”
“I heard.”
“I was never there.”
“Someone planted it.”
Juliette nodded. “You were at the scene.”
“I wasn’t. After my stunt at the autopsy, I went back to the office. Never made it out there.”
Juliette studied her in silence.
“This isn’t my doing.”
Her colleague was too polite not to invite her in and too trusting to order her out. She motioned toward the living room. More plants sat on the low half wall that separated the kitchen from the foyer. Her furniture was large, bright and overwhelmed the room.
“Hello!” The tiny voice came from the living area, sounding like Juliette’s but shrunken.
A child?
One more step and Nadine had her answer. A sheet blanketed the floor. In the center sat a birdcage the size of a dishwasher with the door open. Atop the cage, a large white parrot stood on a wooden perch. The bird’s crown of white and yellow feathers lifted as it rocked from side to side.
