A Perfect Obsession

by Heather Graham

  “We’ll talk to him again tomorrow,” Craig said. He glanced at his watch and then glanced up.

  They were being joined by Detective Rebecca Owens. She slid into the booth at Frankie’s Roadside Diner next to Kieran, who sat across from Craig.

  She looked at Craig and said, “I thought I’d tried every angle. I looked high and low, and we interviewed well over a hundred people. And you come down and find the right hole to dig in one day,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m grateful, of course. Really grateful. But I do have to admit I’m feeling on the lame side right now.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Craig told her. “We’ve just been dealing with the fact that this guy seems to like the underground world. And we haven’t found his workplace or his kill zone in New York City. I think we just got lucky here. Well, I got lucky. Kieran managed to get just what we didn’t even know we needed from Janet.”

  Owens nodded. She reached across the table for Craig’s beer and swigged it down in a very long swallow. “Sorry. I’ll get you another. Well, so, we’ve found where he killed Cary. How do we find him? The forensic team may come up with something. But forensic teams went over the site where Cary was found with a fine-tooth comb. He wears gloves. He’s careful. He didn’t leave so much as a cell of evidence. But maybe they’ll get lucky down there.”

  Kieran had her phone out, studying the pictures she had taken, already sent to Craig’s office, and, as far as she knew, already being studied by Craig’s favorite tech, Marty.

  “E-L-L-I,” she said, reading off the letters on the bit of label. She looked up at Craig. “Something—Craig, I think I know where this label comes from!”

  “You do? Well, of course you do,” Owens said, flagging down the server and ordering a beer and asking to replace Craig’s, as well. “And the meat loaf, Raoul, if you have any left!”

  “Kieran?” Craig pressed.

  She smiled. “I’ve shopped there. It’s a little clothing boutique off Houston Street. The owner’s a really attractive older woman with an accent. French, I think, though I know one of the clerks is Italian. It’s a bit pricey—I don’t shop there often—but she has beautiful things...like...like beautiful white dresses. The place is called Chic-er-elli.”

  “There was a different label on the dress found on Jeannette Gilbert,” Craig said. “It came from Saks.” He had his phone out, keyed into his notes. “No trace of a label on the dress Cary was wearing when she was found.”

  “So, the other part of this label is somewhere,” Owens said.

  “And there were two different major chain labels found on Jane Doe and Cheyenne,” Craig said.

  “He’s careful and smart,” Owens muttered bitterly. “I wonder if he knows the label ripped. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he thinks we’re all running around blind. Oh, wait. We are.”

  “This is a small boutique. A salesperson might remember to whom she sold a white dress,” Kieran said.

  “He bought it six or seven months ago,” Owens said glumly. “The place may not even have the same employees.”

  “We’ll find out tomorrow,” Craig said. “Kieran, you sure that’s the place?”

  She looked at him. “My little black dress,” she said. “I love it. I do know the label.”

  Raoul, the server, arrived at the table, delivering their drinks, Kieran’s fish and the meat loaf that Craig and Rebecca Owens had both ordered. The man hovered at the table.

  “What are you doing, Raoul?” Owens asked. “The meat loaf is great, as always. I eat here a lot,” she told Craig and Kieran. “Not that many places open after ten in this immediate area.”

  “You’re working with Detective Owens, right? On Cary’s case?” Raoul asked Craig.

  The FBI agent nodded.

  Raoul still hovered.

  “They’re Feds,” Owens told the server. “You can put my meal on their tab tonight.” She shrugged. “Bigger organization, bigger budget.”

  Craig grinned at that. “Bet you can’t guess which fleabag motel our federal budget has us staying in!”

  Owens enjoyed that.

  Raoul still looked anxious.

  “I just wanted to say...find him. Find who did this, please.”

  “We won’t stop looking until we do,” Craig promised him.

  “Thank you. Cary was special. She knew everyone, loved everyone. She was beautiful, she was nice, she was...perfect.”

  He turned and walked away.

  “Close-knit community down here, especially once you’re on the edges of town,” Owens said quietly. “And, please...you have to keep that promise.” She sounded a little emotional, and she quickly turned away and then said gruffly, “The taxpayers are saving on this one, huh? The two of you are a couple? Only one room at the fleabag motel? She is your girlfriend, right?”

  “Yes,” Craig told her. But he smiled at Kieran across the table. “And my colleague,” he added firmly.

  Kieran smiled. The fish was delicious, she was famished. And, later, the “fleabag” motel was just fine.

  When they lay in bed together, Kieran rolled to Craig and said, “That felt good.”

  “I haven’t really touched you. Yet.”

  “Actually, your touch does feel good—even before you even touch me. Chemicals in the brain and all. It’s anticipation, you know. Very seductive and titillating. But that’s not what I meant,” Kieran said.

  “Oh?”

  “What you said to Owens. That, yes, we were a couple. But, yes, we were colleagues. That was really nice.”

  He smiled and pulled her naked body to his.

  “Guess that means it’s your night to suck up to me.”

  “Hmm, hope I haven’t run out of body parts,” she murmured, speaking against his throat and moving her lips down to his collarbone and shoulders.

  “I can help you find some,” he promised.

  * * *

  “‘The past and present collide!’” Dr. Miro read. “‘VIP reopening of Le Club Vampyre tonight!’”

  Miro read with a certain flair, placing the paper on the end of their small conference-room table, leaning toward Bentley Fuller on the one side, and then Kieran on the other. She did so dramatically—being a little on the dramatic side. At five feet and ninety-five pounds, Allison Miro was sheer vitality.

  Kieran had loved her from their first interview, and her respect for the woman, and for Dr. Fuller, had only grown as their caseload had grown.

  The finest thing about both doctors was their serious care for others. They donated a fair amount of their proceeds every year to charities—after they had been checked out to assure that the majority of the donation went to the charity and not to overhead.

  Like them, Kieran’s first love was helping people.

  Her work included sessions with those who had testified, those who had been accused, those who were witnesses and, sometimes, young adults who just might be saved from becoming career criminals. Battered wives, two battered husbands, addicts and people who had been damaged by life. She loved talking with them, helping them see the root of their problems and helping them improve their own lives. There was nothing as good as a day when she saw a real breakthrough in a patient’s eyes—a wife who realized that she was suffering from battered woman syndrome, an addict who realized that adding a depressant to being depressed was not a solution or a young adult who found the world of backstage theater work to be far more fun than working as a prankster, thief or vandal.

  She really was in an ideal world for work. Her employers also loved her family pub, and they saw no conflict at all in her relationship with Craig Frasier. They simply saw more opportunities.

  She glanced at the two doctors at the conference table, grateful for their faith in her abilities.

  And grateful she’d gotten into work at a reasonable ho
ur that morning.

  There had been no way out of traffic that morning when they’d driven out of Virginia and done their best to avoid the DC mess heading north, even when they’d left just after 5:00 a.m. It was amazing just how many people in the nation’s capital were up and about at that time.

  They’d still made the drive in just about five hours. She hadn’t gone home; Craig had dropped her straight at work before heading in himself. However, on the way, he’d been in touch with Egan and Mike and Detective McBride.

  She’d just finished briefing her employers on the trip to Virginia, and how they had found the vault where the killer had lured his victim, stabbed her, cleaned her and redressed her. Both doctors had been grave, no doubt realizing there must be such a site in New Jersey, as well. And, of course, one in New York.

  Finding the site might well send the killer into a tailspin.

  “I think more and more about this man,” Dr. Fuller had said.

  “He’s definitely obsessed with the underground,” Kieran had added.

  “And beauty and perfection and youth,” Dr. Miro had finished—right before presenting the paper and doing her dramatic reading.

  “So Roger Gleason plans on reopening Le Club Vampyre tonight?” Kieran asked. If the FBI or police had managed to find him, Gleason would be at the FBI offices as they spoke, being interrogated again.

  “Yes, why?”

  She wasn’t sure that Craig would want her mentioning the fact that Gleason had become more of a person of interest than ever. So she came up with a phony reason.

  “It’s Wednesday,” she said. “I’d have thought he’d have opted for a Friday night, a time when he could really make a big deal out of it. A weekend.”

  “Ah, my dear Kieran! You are usually far better at listening!” Dr. Miro said, smiling. “VIP opening tonight. Invitation only. There’s a short list here of some of those invited, including the mayor.”

  Kieran shrugged. “I’d still have thought he’d have gone for the weekend. What if all his major VIPs have early-morning meetings tomorrow?”

  “VIPs can probably change their schedules,” Dr. Fuller noted. “And, of course, they’ll want to be there early, at any rate.”

  “Yes, Gleason has managed to get press all over the place. I’m thinking he might see this as a dual opportunity—huge night tonight, huge nights on Friday and Saturday,” Dr. Miro said. “However, I do think that we should show up.”

  Kieran laughed. “I don’t think I’m on the VIP list.”

  “Oh, but you are! We all are,” Dr. Miro said. “The email invite popped into my box first thing this morning. And, under the circumstances, we think you should go.”

  “Oh,” Kieran said, waiting.

  “You’ll be my date for the evening,” Dr. Fuller said.

  “Though I’m sure your young man will be there. I don’t see the FBI letting that venue open again unless they have a presence there,” Dr. Miro said.

  “My wife and I can’t both be out,” Dr. Fuller explained. “My daughter has a school play tonight. She’s going to be a spring flower. Bad enough that one of us misses it.”

  “Okay,” Kieran said. She smiled.

  “Where would you like me to get you?” Dr. Fuller asked.

  “Finnegan’s,” she told him. “It may be difficult to find parking, Dr. Fuller. If I’m at the pub, we can just walk around the block and we’ll be there.”

  “Fine. Eight o’clock?”

  “Eight o’clock,” she agreed. She glanced at her watch; it was already midafternoon, and she believed that Craig also meant to pick her up and return to the hospital to try speaking with Sadie Miller again.

  “You’re free to leave whenever you need to do so. It is a dressy occasion,” Dr. Fuller told her.

  She smiled. She thought she made a fairly presentable appearance when she came to work. But, apparently, Dr. Fuller was a little worried she might not be up to snuff for a gala event.

  “Yes, sir!” she said, and she fled from the conference room.

  Back in the privacy of her own office, she tried Craig’s number. No answer. She thought about calling the hospital and inquiring about Sadie Miller’s condition.

  But, of course, the hospital would deny that Sadie Miller was there. And she couldn’t just drop in on the young woman—not without one of the agents in charge of the case.

  She rose impulsively and grabbed her bag; she’d been given leave to go.

  Dr. Fuller doubted her ability to dress well for the evening? Well, she’d do her best to see to it that she was gowned appropriately.

  She knew a lovely little boutique not far from Finnegan’s. Craig, of course, had reported to Egan, and she was sure someone from the FBI had been out at Chic-er-elli.

  But, she had the sudden urge to stop in herself.

  * * *

  “Do I need my attorney?” Roger Gleason asked, staring at Craig across the table. “I was ‘asked’ in. I’m sure I’d be here now whether I had agreed or not.”

  “You’re not under arrest,” Craig told him. “But...okay, the best technical experts in the world have been over your video surveillance footage. No one came in or out of your club the night before Jeannette Gilbert was found. You know the layout of the building. You arranged with the Episcopal Church for the bodies beneath the altar to be moved appropriately out to the cemetery. You knew Jeannette Gilbert.”

  “You’re grasping at straws!” Gleason said, running his fingers through his hair. He looked distressed at last.

  Distressed—but guilty?

  “I knew Jeannette. I own the place. But I’m sure you’ve had me watched. I’m sure you’ve checked into my past. There’s nothing anywhere to suggest that I could be guilty of such a thing! I liked Jeannette. She’d been good for my club. And these other girls... I like women, Special Agent Frasier. In the normal way! And I know you hear this often enough, but I don’t need to lure them. My vanity isn’t so great that I believe they want to be with me more than any other man, but I am incredibly wealthy. I did not commit these horrible deeds.”

  “We’re just working hard on trying to figure any other way that the alarm didn’t go off, and that the footage shows nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Search my house,” Gleason said. “You’re welcome to do so. Search anywhere you like—with my blessing. I’m not guilty of these horrible crimes.”

  He sounded like a man deeply perplexed himself—worried, and frustrated.

  “I know I set the alarm,” he said. “I know that I did. And how someone got in without being picked up by the security cameras, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.”

  “And that scares you.”

  “That I don’t have an answer? Yes, it does.”

  “You really have nothing to say.”

  Gleason was thoughtful. “My concierge. Elton Jennings. He started at ten the night before Jeannette was found. He can tell you that I came in right around eleven at night. And Joe Perkins came on at six in the morning. He saw me when I left at seven.”

  Craig already knew that; Egan had checked the schedules of their multitude of suspects and had agents verify their whereabouts whenever possible.

  “What, do I look like Spider-Man?” Gleason asked, frustrated. “There’s no other way in or out of the building unless you pass the concierge. There’s no fire escape from the penthouse.”

  “People lie,” Craig told him. “Especially if they’re paid to lie.”

  He thought that Gleason would get mad. Sometimes, it was good to get a suspect mad.

  But Gleason didn’t rise to anger. “They’re both good men. They have good jobs. Neither has a sick child or a reason to be bribed, Special Agent Frasier. You’re being offensive to the two of them right now. I didn’t pay them off to say that I’d never left. I
never left. I didn’t need to try to pay anyone a bribe.” He leaned back. “I’ll do anything the FBI asks to help with this, but if you’re not going to arrest me now, let me go. Please. I’m reopening the club tonight to a special VIP list. Of course, you’re invited. You and any of the FBI you’d like to have there. And the cops—McBride. Anyone you want. We’ve already extended an evite here. I’m sure you know that already. And we’ve invited those shrinks you work with and Ms. Finnegan. Invite anyone you want, Frasier. But for now please. Arrest me or let me go.”

  “You invited the FBI?” Craig asked.

  “Well, okay, so yours isn’t exactly an invitation. It’s an announcement saying that while I’ve hired private security, due to the circumstances, anyone the Bureau sees as important is more than welcome to be there.”

  Craig sat back. Egan hadn’t said anything to him, and Egan was watching the interview from behind the glass.

  “Excuse me,” he told Gleason.

  He rose and left the room. Mike and Egan met him in the hallway.

  “Evite came in while you were talking,” Egan said.

  “Think it’s because we brought him in?” Mike asked.

  “He hasn’t had his phone out,” Egan said.

  “And he didn’t send any messages or emails when I picked him up,” Mike said thoughtfully, “so, at the least, he did extend the announcement before you talked to him. Of course, under the circumstances, he had to have known we considered him a viable suspect.”

  “What do you think?” Egan asked Craig.

  “I think we should let him go. And definitely attend tonight,” Craig said. “Anything yet on the boutique—that Chic-er-elli?” He knew that they’d had an agent in that morning. The owner hadn’t been in, and the sales attendant on duty didn’t recognize any of the people in the pictures that were shown to her. The clerk had left a message for the owner. One of the other salespeople had been due in after two, and one woman was off for the next two days. She was being tracked down.