A Killer's Daughter

by Jenna Kernan

  “Not sure. Benderson Park vicinity.”

  “The place they do rowing?” she asked. “North?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hotel?”

  “Cross of University and North Cattlemen Road. Less than a mile.”

  “Hmm.”

  She had added all capture areas to her map, but some of that involved guesswork. The disappearance area fell well within the predicted range.

  “I don’t like it,” said Nadine.

  “Well, for now, he’s just a missing person,” said Demko.

  “Could you let me know if he turns up?” she asked.

  “Will do.”

  Nadine wasn’t fond of loose ends and anomalies. Things tended to sit where they belong, and having a missing person in the middle of this investigation may have been normal, but it made her anxious.

  “Better go.”

  Nadine waited for him to disconnect, but instead he spoke again.

  “Oh, wait. While I have you on the phone, Torrin and his staff have been going through your mother’s correspondence. He mentioned that they may need you to visit again. Would you be willing?”

  This time, she was not instantly agreeable.

  “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “I know it takes a toll, but it might be the one thing that puts us ahead of this perp.”

  Demko said his good-byes and left her alone on a Sunday morning with her geographic profiles and a new missing person.

  Had the clock just started ticking again?

  On Monday, Nadine tackled the tsunami of emails flooding her office in-box. Everyone wanted a piece of the profiler with the serial killer mom. Focusing on other things wasn’t working, but she made it through the day. She finally caved and call Demko.

  “Any new developments?”

  “Yeah, matter of fact. The FBI has made some progress on finding Anthony Dun. Word is that they have confirmed a tip. The governor is back in town, and they are setting the stage, scheduling a press conference.”

  “Don’t they have to catch him before they can put him in front of the TV cameras?” she asked.

  “That’s the way we do it down here. But I have no idea what goes on in Tallahassee or DC. They already called the local news. Want them on site to get footage of Dun’s arrest.”

  Nadine shifted the office phone to her shoulder and jiggled her cell phone awake to glance at the time. It was 5:15 p.m.

  “You free tonight?” she asked.

  “For…?”

  “I wondered if you would like to have dinner with me.”

  “You cooking?” he asked.

  Nadine affected a tone of shock. “Don’t even joke about it.”

  He laughed and then there was a long silent pause.

  “I wish I could. Unfortunately, it’s all hands on deck for the dragnet around Dun. The FBI has ‘eyes on,’ and we’re just coordinating the takedown.”

  “Well, good luck.”

  “You have any interest in coming along?”

  Nadine was rejecting the offer before he finished the question. “I don’t want to upstage the FBI’s party.”

  “They’d never know you were there.”

  “Thanks, but no. If I never see Anthony Dun again, it would be too soon.”

  “You’ll see him in court, if nowhere else.”

  He was right. She would have to testify to her interactions with Anthony Dun. She wondered again if he was the man who had been in her house. The FBI said he was there but had yet to produce any evidence to prove their allegation. Also, why would Anthony Dun write Legacy on her bathroom mirror? Did he mean that they both had the legacy of incarcerated parents who had committed terrible crimes?

  Demko spoke to someone else, his words muffled and then back to Nadine. “Gotta go. SWAT team just arrived, and we already have county sheriffs, city police, FBI and ATF.”

  “ATF? How did they get involved?”

  “I’m not sure. Something about unregistered weapons linked to Dun.”

  The possibility of a house being booby-trapped exploded in her mind. She squeezed the receiver.

  “Please take care!”

  “Yes. I will.”

  “Did they find the young rower?” she asked.

  “No. Not yet. But you were right about the girls. A teammate told me he has a reputation. Promiscuous.”

  “Anyone else missing?”

  “None reported.”

  She released a breath. “Be careful.”

  He made a humming sound. A laugh? She wasn’t sure.

  “Always,” he said.

  He did this sort of thing as part of his job. But it didn’t make it any easier. When had his safety become so vital to her?

  “I’ll call after it’s done.”

  After it’s Dun, she thought.

  Nadine made it home before six and set out the hard copies of the geo-map renderings on the dinette, hoping they might spark some insights.

  She worried about Demko and hoped he’d be back soon. With that thought in mind, she headed to a local gourmet market on Osprey.

  At home, she juggled the bag holding hot calzones, meatballs, tiramisu and her keys. She kicked the front door shut and locked it. With arms full, she passed the dinette, where her laptop, files and the geographic maps sat, and growled, her frustration close to the surface. What was she missing?

  But there was something. She paused and cocked her head.

  No… nothing. But she thought…

  She blew out a long breath and left the maps, heading for the kitchen and putting away the food. When she returned to the dinette, she studied the map again from a distance. From several feet off, the marks of her mother’s victims made a pattern, of sorts.

  Nadine turned one of the maps at a ninety-degree angle. Then she stepped back to compare the two.

  It clicked in her brain, a corresponding configuration. She snatched up the maps, placing them side by side, but with the local map upside down. A shiver of awareness traveled along her spine. This was what she had been hunting for, something more than topographical similarities. This was the detail that her subconscious had registered, giving her that sense of something missing. Now insight had finally reached her conscious mind.

  She only had to turn the local map 180 degrees to align the directions of each body dump with those of her mother’s known victims. East was West. North was South. So simple!

  Nadine placed one map on top of the other and held them to the dining room light. The points were a near-perfect match.

  The map of Sarasota, Desoto and Manatee Counties was larger than the one of Marion, Volusia and Lake, but her mind made the readjustment. She finally understood why the unsub used Myakka and why he dropped the bodies in Phillippi Creek: because the kill and dump sites now aligned perfectly with her mother’s.

  The small hairs on her arms and neck lifted as she stared at the blank spot on her map, where the kill site of her classmate showed through from beneath. They recovered Sandra and Mr. White’s bodies where she had held them captive for days. There was no body dump because the police arrested Arleen before she could move her final victims.

  And just like that, she knew where they’d be. With that information came the possibility that she could save them.

  The sheriff had said there was only one person missing. But there were two. She was certain. They’d figure that out, but by then, it might be too late.

  She made a circle on her map. The FBI could set up a dragnet. They could rescue them and catch this killer.

  Nadine snatched up a lamp from beside the couch and tossed the shade away. She placed that light under the dining room table. The bare bulb glowing through the glass surface made it easy to trace one map on top of the other. She checked the Sarasota map against the small black X marking her classmate’s body found all those years ago. She checked it again. Then she opened her files on her laptop, rotated one, overlaid them and made the top one more transparent. It required only reducing her mother’s map
slightly to make a perfect match. Finally she opened Google Maps and went to the satellite view.

  There was no mistake. The area on the map was a match for Dr. Margery Crean’s home residence, a five-acre plot that included several outbuildings and a dog kennel.

  How had she missed this?

  Crean’s husband’s business was similar to the horse stable where her mother had worked, doing terrible things to Sandra and Stephen White.

  What had Crean told her? Her husband was out of town on a breeders’ convention? She was home alone, taking care of all of the dogs and their pups. Was she also taking care of other business—personal business?

  This had been under her nose the entire time!

  Dr. Margery Crean, noted expert on serial killers, expert of aberrant psychological behavior, was not just an unethical researcher. She was a killer. And not just any serial killer, their serial killer.

  Nadine lifted the phone and called Demko. He picked up on the third ring. She heard men’s and women’s voices and the rumble of large equipment, alerting her that he was in the field. He answered her call, despite being in the middle of a joint department operation to capture Dun.

  “What’s up?”

  “You’re in the wrong place.”

  “What? Nadine, what did you say?”

  Behind him came the mechanical beeping of a large vehicle traveling in reverse.

  Nadine raised her voice, shouting into the phone, explaining in rapid, broken sentences. Her words tumbled, one over the other, like gravel poured from a dump truck.

  “He’s not the guy. He’s a decoy. Or a mistake. Just the wrong guy, in the wrong place. He’s like me. Caught up in the whirlwind. I overlaid the maps. Put one upside down. They match!”

  “Nadine, slow down. I can’t understand you. What are you saying?”

  “It’s not Dun! I’m certain.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He stands out. He’s odd.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And people notice him.” It was so obvious to her. Why couldn’t he see it?

  “Because he’s a psychopath. Their profiler said so.”

  “They’re wrong. He’s not a psychopath and he’s not our killer. Demko, listen. They’ll be out there on or near Route 70. Something like a horse farm.” She told him the address.

  “You just going to drive around looking for horses?”

  “You have to go to Margery Crean’s dog-breeding facility.”

  He went silent. She waited and then spoke.

  “Demko?”

  “Nadine, listen. I have to tell you something. But you have to promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “That rower, Elton Delconte, snuck off to see a girl. His teammate finally got worried enough to alert the coach.”

  A quicksilver stab of premonition ripped through her.

  “Where is she?”

  “We haven’t tracked her down yet. She told her boyfriend she had a competition. She’s a sculler. It’s like a two-oar versus one-oar thing. But she’s not competing. She came here to see Delconte.”

  “Her boyfriend didn’t know she was missing?”

  “Right. Not until she didn’t check in. Then he called her coach. I guess they’ve been doing this awhile.”

  “Name?”

  “It’s Joanna. Joanna Silver. She’s an Olympic hopeful.”

  “How old?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “That’s her.”

  The killer had them. Both. She felt it in the marrow of her bones and in the throbbing of blood in her veins. She would not let this happen again. Not again!

  “I’m going out there,” she said.

  “Out where? To the dog kennel?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Nadine—”

  “You want to stop me? Come and get me.”

  She disconnected the call, grabbed her purse and key fob and headed out to her car. She reached Fruitville Road and was heading for the interstate when the phone rang again through the car’s hands-free system. Demko’s number lit up the display. She took the call.

  “You sure about this?” he said.

  “It’s not Dun. True psychopaths have learned to blend. You don’t notice us, will never notice us. That’s why we’re successful. We seem normal.”

  “Nadine?”

  “Are you coming or not?”

  “You said, ‘we.’”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘we’re successful’ and ‘we seem normal.’”

  She had. Her foot slipped from the accelerator. What had she just done? Had she just told a Homicide detective that she considered herself a psychopath?

  Nadine swerved to the shoulder, gripping the wheel, panting like a long-distance runner.

  “Nadine? Are you there?”

  She tried to regain her equilibrium as she stared out the windshield. Her mouth was filled with the sour taste of disgust.

  “Nadine! Answer me!”

  The world had gone quiet and bright. Everything shifted to a pinpoint focus. This time, she would save Sandra.

  She turned toward the speaker on the overhead console.

  “I’m here.”

  “This is crazy,” he said.

  “Crean’s husband is out of town,” Nadine said. “Breeders’ event. She’s been alone since—”

  “Friday,” he said, interrupting. “I was just out there.”

  “Did you search the outbuildings?”

  “No.”

  Delconte went missing on Saturday morning. Their perp had already had three days to enjoy these latest living toys, and when Stephen White was dead, this monster would turn to Sandra.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Demko asked.

  “Follow if you can. Good-bye, Clint.”

  Thirty-Three

  Every dog has its day

  It occurred to Nadine, en route, that she didn’t have a gun or knife or any weapon at all. But the world was full of useful tools and she had something more valuable—the mind of a killer.

  Nadine stepped on the accelerator, flying up I-75.

  Crean had been in every federal correctional facility holding their parents. She’d had access to their mothers, likely interviewed each one. Had she asked about their families and noted who had entered law enforcement?

  But what was the purpose of bringing them here and then re-creating her mother’s crimes? The word scrawled on Nadine’s mirror came to mind: Legacy.

  If her supervisor wanted to see her break, Crean wouldn’t survive it, because evil didn’t just live among them. It lived within them. Didn’t interviewing Arleen Howler teach Crean that much?

  She’d ask Crean all her questions after they rescued that girl, because she was not letting her kill that teenager. Nadine could not, and would not, live with her death on her conscience.

  The descendants of killers understood, more than most, the scars left by their foul deeds. Murderers didn’t just kill people; they killed all their unborn descendants, whole generations, and scarred the surviving families.

  Somehow, Demko beat her there. When she arrived at Crean’s home, she found his vehicle parked on the shoulder before the long curving drive. She pulled in behind him and he appeared at her driver’s-side door before she even had her seat belt off.

  Nadine stepped out of her car and they stared across the road at the Crean family residence. Under the shade of several large live oak trees sat a ranch-style home, painted barn-red and decorated with country charm with wagon wheels and flowerbeds brimming with colorful blooms. Crean’s car was parked before an enormous garage that had an additional bay door large enough for an RV or boat. This structure was a likely spot to hold two captive victims, but it was the kennels that Nadine itched to visit.

  Beyond the garage stood two barnlike buildings, one new with green siding and a metal roof, and one that seemed near collapse. The new building was flanked with chain-link exercise pens and
a row of individual outdoor kennels. The sound of yapping and barking told her that the Creans did have some canines housed here.

  The second building looked older and the roof sagged.

  “Judging from the vehicle, I’d say she’s home.” Demko’s voice came out as a threatening snarl. He had his target and morphed into the hunter she had long recognized him to be.

  Nadine shifted from side to side, uncomfortable in her own skin; she was reluctant to access the predator lurking within. “What do we do now?”

  Demko grimaced. “‘We’? We don’t do anything. You stay here and hold on to your phone. I’m going to check out the kennels.”

  “Which one?”

  “Both.”

  “Can you just enter her property?”

  “Your maps give me probable cause. We have two persons in danger. That’s all I need to investigate. If I find something, I can pull Florida Highway Patrol from the manhunt.”

  The troopers were experts at high-speed chases, but when facing a serial killer, she would prefer the sheriffs. Unfortunately, they were protecting the governor or tied up in the capture of Anthony Dun.

  Demko tapped on the phone that was still under her bra, the screen glowing.

  “Keep that in your hand. Call 911 if anything happens. I’ll call if it’s all clear.”

  “You could turn on the video chat. I could watch what was happening.”

  “Nadine, I need both hands.”

  “Of course. Of course you do.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. His eyes rounded in surprise. Then he kissed her back, the contact hard and possessive. When he drew away, she was breathless.

  “Good luck.”

  He made a growling sound in his throat and took off at a lope, gun drawn, staying low to the ground. She watched as he circled behind the garage and continued toward the kennels, then out of sight.

  The hum of the insects in the tall grass at the roadside filled the air. A tuft of white hair was caught on one of the barbs of cattle fence skirting the road. Inside the pasture, the grass was shorn down to stubble and clear cattle paths zigzagged the wide-open stretch of yellowing grass.

  She listened, but all she heard was the rattle of the wind in the palmetto palms above her head, the insects and the incessant barking of the penned dogs.