‘Why Lentford?’ Kahu said.
Jay smiled his even, white smile. Miller put her hands on the bed frame and squeezed tight. Never in her whole life had she wanted to hurt someone more.
‘Lentford is home,’ Jay said. ‘I’m sure Miller filled you in. Anyway, I came across the old dairy factory. By this time it was mid-afternoon. It was quiet around there, no one else in sight. But I didn’t want to get her out in broad daylight. She came to an hour later, started clawing and fighting. I’d jumped into the back seat. There was a bit of a struggle—’
‘Did you sexually assault her?’ Kahu asked. Miller found herself wishing, praying that he hadn’t.
‘What kind of sick fuck do you think I am?’ Jay said, his face screwed up in disgust. ‘As I was saying, we struggled. Maybe that’s when the coin came off and rolled under the seat. Anyway, she managed to get out of the truck. She was fast, for what she’d been through. I’ll give her that. I went after her. I had a knife. Didn’t want to use it – I hate blood. But she was so much stronger than I thought she’d be.’ Jay looked directly at Miller. ‘I stabbed her. To stop her, really. Stabbed her quite a few times. It was messy.’
He hunched his shoulders, his neck disappearing into the pale-blue hospital gown. ‘It was still light but I hadn’t seen anyone in hours so I dragged her behind one of the big vats and left her there. I used Gary’s shovel in the back, dug a shallow grave. The grass was over a metre high, her body was totally hidden. Figured no one came out there anymore. And, boy, was I right. I mean, I thought it would take a while for her to be discovered, and by then I’d be off overseas. But fourteen years! And only then because a few property developers were looking around. It could’ve been a lot longer!’ He laughed, happy how it all turned out.
All Miller could think about was ten-year-old Cassie tucked up in bed that night, wondering where her mother was.
‘And what about your name?’ Miller asked.
‘Karl Taylor,’ Jay said, smiling again and then wincing. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Miller was glad he was in some sort of pain – just not enough. ‘You know Karl Taylor was my grandfather. Not my real one. My name, before I was adopted, was Jason Martin. I was adopted by Mum and Dad – Amanda and Grant Taylor – and changed my name when I was fourteen to Jason Taylor.’
‘Why did you tell everyone your name was Karl Taylor when you were working in Tauranga?’ Kahu asked.
‘It’s what I did when I went somewhere new. You need to understand, this was always with me. The need to take a life. I’m not stupid, you know. I worked cash jobs, didn’t let people get too close. And it all paid off with Margaret. I did the deed and I disappeared.’
There was silence. Miller wanted to be out of this room, out of this hospital, but she knew there was more. ‘How did you get into my house?’ she asked.
‘You still haven’t figured that part out? I had a clear plan from the beginning. The letters, you, the victims, how it was done. I go out to The Oaks sometimes. You know, the treatment facility for the crazies – depressives, suicidal, druggies, alcoholics. They use me for all their advertising stuff, brochures, business cards, educational posters. I thought that was a good a place as any to find who I needed. I’m a quiet guy. Unassuming. I was part of the furniture there. They knew my face. They trusted me. The things I would hear.’ He shook his head, disbelieving. ‘I was in the staff room organising a bunch of brochures, and there were a couple of the counsellors in there. This was back in September. They were gossiping, as a lot of them do, about their colleagues and the patients. Apparently one of the patients, a female, was having it off with the boss lady, Fenella. They were having it off in her office every day for the last few months. Anyway, the boss lady got a fit of conscience and decided to call it off. The patient wasn’t happy and goes at her with a letter opener. Cuts her forehead and her arm before being pulled off.’
Jay laughed. ‘Bloody females. No charges were laid as this Fenella didn’t want the authorities to know she was banging one of the patients. Anyway, I decided right then, I’ve found my girl. I get into one of the counsellor’s offices on the pretence of delivering some brochures. I knew her first name and I looked her up on the computer. Again, very lax, didn’t even need a password. She was in for drugs, violent outbursts etcetera. I approached her carefully, not wanting to scare her off. I brought her drugs, and when she was let out last month we met, talked. She didn’t take much persuading. I introduced the idea to her slowly, in a roundabout way, didn’t want to freak her out, but she was all in, said it sounded like “fun”. She’s sick in the head,’ Jay said, without a trace of irony.
‘Who are you talking about?’ Kahu said.
‘Her name’s Tiffany. Tiffany Winslow.’ Jay smiled when he saw Miller’s reaction. ‘And, get this, she bloody hooked up with Cassie Hughes while she was at The Oaks. I couldn’t believe that part. Nothing to do with me. I guess it was all Fate, kind of like serendipity, like it was all supposed to be.’
‘She got you into the houses,’ Miller said. She turned to Kahu. ‘Cassie!’ Where was Tiff? What was she doing now?
Kahu whispered to the other detective standing behind the video camera, then left the room.
‘Women living alone don’t generally let guys into their homes. I wasn’t a stranger to those women but if I came knocking late at night, sure as shit they weren’t going to let me in. The plan worked brilliantly. You opened the door to her. Madi did it, Tamara did it and Emmeline did it. Tiff and I could’ve got through the whole female population of Lentford.’ He laughed quietly. ‘She gets let in, then she asks to use the toilet and I’m normally out the back. She lets me in through the back door and I go hide while she’s chatting away to them. She used to do the “my car’s broken down and my phone’s dead” act so she could get in to use the phone. Or say that she was being followed and needed somewhere safe to ring a friend. Perfect plan. No break-in, nothing. I had the police stumped,’ Jay said proudly. ‘Of course, I checked out their houses beforehand. Noted the back door, where the lounge and bathroom were, that kind of thing.’
Miller retraced what Tiff had done when she was at her house the previous evening. She’d asked to use the toilet and would have gone into the kitchen and opened the door for Jay. ‘She let you in and you went to hide in the wardrobe. Why the wardrobe?’
Jay was silent, as if waiting.
Miller nodded. ‘It’s all like your mother.’ She remembered Jay’s story of hiding in the cupboard, watching as Lauren assaulted his mother.
‘My mother,’ Jay said. ‘I told you, Miller. She made me like this. It’s her fault. After Mum, I went into foster care in Hamilton. I had just turned thirteen, shy, quiet, a bit of a runt. The two people who fostered me ended up adopting me – Amanda and Grant Taylor. As I said, I changed my name to theirs after they adopted me. When I moved back to Lentford I started using the surname Martin again, figured everyone had forgotten about the old slut who was murdered by her friend and the kid that got shipped off to foster care – and I was right. Plus, Martin’s a common enough name. Anyway, I tried to move on and forget what happened, but it had awoken something inside me, and I was forever changed. I was violent at school, beat up kids younger than me. I strangled a boy at school once. Nothing serious. He was left with a bit of bruising – I wasn’t going to kill him. I got expelled for that. My parents were understanding. I remember overhearing them one night after I’d been suspended. Mum – Amanda – she was asking Dad if the way my real mum had died and how I’d found her had fucked me up somehow. I was on my best behaviour from then on. I buried it deep for a long time. Not deep enough, I guess. It was always in the back of my head. Like a scratch that needed itching. And for a long time, I was good. Kids thought I was weird, and I did have a bit of a temper. But apart from that, I was okay. But then, before I killed Margaret, there was this realisation that something was missing. I didn’t feel happy or satisfied
. I felt like a failure. She always said I’d amount to nothing.’
Kahu had come back in. ‘Who did?’ he asked.
‘My mother,’ Jay said, frowning at Kahu. ‘The last time I felt truly happy was that night. The night my mother left my life.’ He held his hand to the side of his face. ‘When I found out about this thing growing in my head it was a sign. I needed to make my mark on the world before it was too late. And so it seemed obvious what I had to do. So that’s the story you’re going to tell, Miller. People will feel sorry for me. I’m damaged goods. My life was over before it began. My mother, those men, never gave me a chance.’
‘Your adoptive parents did,’ Miller said.
‘It was too late then. The damage was done.’
‘All excuses. You had the opportunity to turn your life around, but you chose not to.’
‘Do you really think that?’ Jay asked. ‘Tell my story, Miller. Wait and see what the public think.’
‘The scarves,’ Kahu said. It wasn’t posed as a question, but Jay began to speak.
‘I took two things with me the night that nice police officer took me away from that dump. My Sega and Mum’s scarves. I remember the police officer looking at me with big, sad eyes. I don’t really know why I took them.’ Jay looked honestly stumped. ‘But I slept with them for a long time, till her smell was gone from them. I never got round to throwing them away. They came with me wherever I moved to, the countries I travelled to.’
‘And you used them to strangle your victims,’ Kahu said.
Jay nodded. ‘Poetic, don’t you think?’
‘And the lipstick?’
‘It’s what she used to wear. The same colour every day, whether she was going off to work, or going to the pub, or doing other... stuff. I had to get the scene right, Detective, don’t you see that?’ He looked at Kahu and then at Miller, waiting for some reaction.
Does he think we’re all of a sudden going to agree with him? Understand him?
‘And what about their stories?’ Miller said. ‘Margaret’s, Emmeline’s, Madi’s, Tamara’s?’
‘You look at them and think their stories have been cut short, don’t you?’ Jay’s voice had become quieter and his speech sounded slurred, laboured. ‘But don’t you see? They’ve become a part of my story. They were nice women, but nothing special. People don’t need to know about them, really. They’ve become public figures because of what I did to them. Wrong place, wrong time. Whenever I’m mentioned – and that’s going to be a lot over the coming years – they’ll be mentioned too. They will live on through me.’
Jay’s smile turned into a grimace and he screamed in pain, clutching his head.
‘Shit.’ Kahu moved to the head of the bed and pushed the emergency button.
Jay’s body bucked in his bed once and then he was still, eyes screwed up tight. Two doctors and three nurses raced into the room and Kahu ushered Miller out. They stood in the hall listening to the doctors trying to save the life of a man who had taken so many.
Chapter 44
Kahu stood on Miller’s doorstep later that morning. ‘He’s dead. An acute haemorrhage into the tumour tissue, the doc said.’ He looked as bleary-eyed as Miller felt. ‘I need to get going. Press conference in Hamilton this morning. No doubt word is out in Lentford.’
‘Have you talked to Cassie?’ Miller asked.
‘She’s next on my list,’ Kahu said checking his watch.
‘So that’s it? After all that, he gets away with it?’
‘There won’t be a court case, no. There’ll be a coronial hearing at some point which will close the case. But the guy’s dead. Not sure if that’s getting away with it.’
‘You know what I mean, Kahu,’ Miller muttered, head down.
‘You heard the confession, Miller. The story’s all yours. A scoop.’
She looked up at him to make sure he wasn’t angry.
He smiled. ‘Tell the story. Tell them who he was, what he did. They need to know that seemingly average Joes like Jay are walking around their towns and cities. Not all evil, on the surface, is ugly and menacing. It doesn’t always lurk in city centres after dark. It mows your lawns, frequents your local pub, takes its kids to school and contributes to communities.’
Miller nodded. That she could do. ‘And Tiffany Winslow?’
‘That’s being taken care of,’ Kahu said, turning to look out across the park. It was a Saturday, another beautiful day. Two days before Christmas, and the park was packed already.
‘She’ll get charged, won’t she? She can’t get away with what she did.’
‘We’re bringing her in for questioning this morning.’
‘And?’ Miller joined Kahu on the step, watching a toddler inch her way down the slide, the dad at the bottom waiting, arms splayed.
‘And nothing. We’ll see what she has to say for herself.’
‘She was at my place last night,’ Miller said. ‘Jay explained exactly what they did.’
‘We need evidence though. We lifted a lot of prints from the victim’s houses. We’ll be getting Tiffany’s to compare. Keep this to yourself. Nothing’s been released about her,’ Kahu warned.
Miller nodded. ‘You know that true crime tour I did with Logan?’
Kahu grunted. She knew his feelings on the subject.
‘Logan took us to Jay’s old house. Where I was last night. Where Jay murdered his mother. Jay, at thirteen years old, lied to the cops, sent a woman to jail for sixteen years. Then thirty years later he comes back and murders women the same way he murdered his mother.’
‘Full circle,’ Kahu said. He shook his head and walked back to his car.
Chapter 45
It was just past midday and the Kowhai Cafe was full to capacity. Word had got round Lentford that the Scarf Killer was Jay Martin. The whole coffee shop was in discussion, but Miller didn’t hear Tiff’s name mentioned. She ordered coffees for her and Cassie, and they eased their way into the corner by the window to wait.
Tables had been pushed together to accommodate a large group of people, obviously meeting for the sole point of discussing the latest news. Others were talking to neighbouring tables. The whole cafe buzzed with conversation about Jay, some of it true, some of it not. But it didn’t seem to matter. Logan Dodds had been replaced with a whole new monster.
‘Where is he now? Is he still here? In Lentford?’ an older woman said, sitting at a table next to Cassie and Miller, her hand fluttering to her chest.
‘Probably taken him to Hamilton,’ someone offered up.
‘I’m so glad he’s not here anymore. Finally, we can get on with life. Go back to normal.’
‘Just think what those poor girls went through. Sick bastard,’ a man in his forties said to the long table in the middle of the room. ‘He’s been pretty much running Gavin Lexford’s printing business. He’s helped out at the schools. Given tours of the printing press to the kids. Probably a bloody paedo as well.’
Others muttered their agreement. ‘I heard he even went out Tamara. They actually went on a date together.’ People muttered their disapproval.
As if going on a date with Jay and then being killed by him made it so much worse, Miller thought.
‘Don’t you think she would’ve known?’ the older woman said to Len as he brought over coffee and cake to the table.
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ Len said. ‘I mean, you have dinner with someone, chat for a couple of hours. Did she go home with him? You’ve got to wonder.’ Len raised his eyebrows, implying that Tamara had done something wrong.
‘She didn’t go out with him,’ Miller said, knowing it was pointless. Half the cafe turned towards her, eager for more. ‘He asked her out, but she refused.’
‘Still,’ Len said and walked away.
Still what? Miller thought. There was always someone who wanted to fan the
flames.
Miller took the takeaway coffee cups from the woman behind the counter, which made her think of Li – she was never far from Miller’s mind. Cassie hadn’t said a word since they entered the Kowhai. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Miller said.
Cassie nodded and they left, voices following them out the door. ‘You know, Jay’s lived here not even two years. He’s not truly from Lentford,’ someone said, as if that gave the town a pass. They didn’t realise that the name Lentford would ever be synonymous with Jason Martin.
‘I’m a bit surprised no one spoke to me,’ Cassie said as they crossed the road and turned left and walked towards the river.
‘As good as the grapevine is in Lentford, I don’t think word’s got out about your mother yet,’ Miller said. ‘You might want to brace yourself.’ She sipped from her coffee. ‘Kahu’s told you what happened, right?’ She was unsure of what Cassie knew. No one back there knew about Tiffany or the fact that Jay was dead. It wouldn’t take long, though. Miller gave it till the end of the day, and hoped Kahu had filled Cassie in.
‘Detective Parata tracked me down this morning. He was outside my house when I got home. I stayed in Hamilton last night. He took me to the Riverview for a coffee, explained everything.’
Miller wondered if everything included Tiff.
‘He’s dead. Karl Taylor’s dead.’ Cassie shook her head. ‘Jay,’ she corrected herself, ‘is dead. It’s hard to reconcile the Karl Taylor I obsessed about, with Jay. I’ve been serving him in the pub for the last few weeks. It’s like Karl Taylor was a phantom after all these years. I honestly didn’t really expect to ever put a face to the name. Do you think he knew who I was?’
Miller remembered Jay’s glee at finding out Tiffany and Cassie were together. ‘I’d say so,’ she said.
‘Just another part of his game, I guess,’ Cassie said as they stopped down by the river.
‘Do you feel any kind of relief?’ Miller asked. ‘Closure?’
The Murder Club (A Miller Hatcher Novel Book 2) Page 29
