Answering the Call

by Ali Vali

  “I hate to bother you, but the department’s already stretched thin, so the brass will never approve it. If you can’t, tell me. I’ll think of something else.”

  “Don’t insult me. You know how much Emma loves Keegan. You go to work, and I give you my word your new family will be fine. I’ll send my best guys, since we’ve been sticking around the house more lately.”

  She stood and embraced Cain for her generosity. It didn’t surprise her, but the offer was more than she could’ve hoped for. “Thank you, and I’ll do my best to pay you back.”

  “There you go insulting me again,” Cain said, slapping her back. “You can send me a platter of that garlic bread from Blanchard’s, and we’ll be square.”

  “You got it, and I’ll do my best to convince Anabel’s people that you aren’t that bad.” Cain slapped her again and let her go but didn’t move too far away. “I meant what I said—thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.”

  “I do. You know what family means to me, and we’re family, Sept. You don’t have to ask, and that’s what you should tell your bosses. Tell them I offered, and nothing else. I don’t want any of this blowing back on you.” Cain wasn’t just giving, but she understood the politics and how to navigate it.

  “Thank you isn’t enough, but it’s all I have for now.”

  “You cannot complain when we throw you an engagement party, and you know Emma will insist. Now get out of here and catch this guy.”

  She left smiling and wondered if there was some FBI file on her because of Cain. “Hey. Call Anabel Hicks at the FBI field office and ask if she’ll see us,” she said to Nathan. He probably should’ve stayed home, but she wasn’t forcing the issue.

  “Hold on,” Nathan said and put his phone down. “She’s in the office all day, so she said to come by whenever.”

  “Pick you up in about ten minutes.”

  He got in, appearing haggard. “What are we seeing Anabel about?” he asked and smiled when she placed her hand on his forearm.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay out of this today? You can hang out with Keegan and chop stuff,” she said and smiled. “That’s how she cured me.”

  “Really?”

  “When we met, it hadn’t been that long since Nicole and Sophie had died.” She shook her head, remembering their first fight about using Grey Goose to drown the pain. “Keegan substituted pajama cooking lessons for vodka. I ended up falling in love and not concentrating on my sense of loss. She’s a good listener. Remember that, and you can learn a few things about food.”

  “And the falling-in-love part?” Nathan asked, and she squeezed his arm.

  “You try that with Keegan, and I’ll use you for target practice.”

  He laughed at the threat, and some of his tiredness seemed to fall away.

  “She’s not likely to ever notice anyone else in this lifetime as long as you’re around, and you’re right about her listening. We talked last night—you’re lucky, partner.”

  “You’re not alone. I’ll be happy to walk this road with you. I certainly have experience at it.”

  “Thanks, and thank you for not getting rid of me right off, even if I was probably an idiot.”

  She laughed and searched for a spot on the street to park. “You’re welcome. Now let’s go get some information that might lead us somewhere.”

  The receptionist walked them up to Anabel’s office, and the bureau chief came from around her desk and joined them at the seating area by the windows. “Your father called me this morning and gave me the rundown about last night. I’m sorry, Nathan.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Nathan said, and Sept respected him for keeping it together so far.

  “Please, it’s Anabel.” She patted Nathan’s knee. “What can I do for you two?”

  She glanced at Nathan before speaking, but he waved her on. “Last night’s scene was the same perp, but their signature changed when the victim’s mutilation went a step farther than before.”

  “Sebastian said you investigated two scenes yesterday.”

  “Yes, and I could use your help on the second one,” she said, handing Anabel the crime-scene photos. “We believe this perp is a woman, and she’s copying Perlis’s crimes for some reason but with her own style. The altar she left at the Lafayette Cemetery made me think of something, but I can’t put my finger on what.”

  “What in particular?” Anabel asked as she flipped through the file.

  “The eyes,” she said, watching Nathan. He paled at her words. “Can you run that MO through your system and see what pops up? We’ll wait, if you don’t mind.”

  “Stay here, and I’ll have my team dig into that. While I do that, I’ll get the head of our bomb squad to come up and give you a report on what we have so far.”

  “I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” she said to Nathan, and he pressed his hands together.

  “I can’t look at those today, maybe never.”

  “I know, and it might help if, in Judy’s honor, you—”

  “What, quit or sit out?” he asked, angry now.

  “Channel your anger instead of holding tight to the pain. You know what she did to Judy. Get pissed and dedicate yourself to hunting this bitch down.”

  “Detectives.” The man from the night before came in and shook hands with them. He looked different in the gray suit and blue tie. “Thanks for coming in. Saved me a trip.”

  “I apologize. I didn’t catch your name,” she said.

  “No problem. Last night we were worried about keeping all the stuff we were born with intact. I’m Will Butler, the explosives expert for the southern district.” He sat and gave them each a copy of what he’d come up with. “Your suspect is an interesting killer.”

  “That’s an interesting thing to say,” she said, but hoped this led somewhere.

  “A series of bombs happened in the mid-eighties that were classified at first as insurance fraud. You know, people destroying property they couldn’t afford and couldn’t ditch.” Will tapped the first page of the file that contained a list of addresses.

  “Did they get reclassified then?” Nathan asked.

  “Turns out some of the places were successful businesses, so what had started in abandoned places morphed into something much more when the bomber picked places that had a few people in them, eventually killing fourteen.” Will took her file and flipped quite a few pages into it. “The guy turned out to be a serial killer who escalated fast and had nothing whatsoever to do with the owners.”

  “I don’t remember this case,” Sept said, glancing at the file. “And what’s it got to do with ours?”

  “That’s the design of John Moore’s bombs, a unique signature when it came to the wiring and the detonation mechanism. He’s now serving life in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Most of his bombs went off in Cheyenne, but he was from a small town about a hundred miles away.” Will flipped the page for her and motioned for Nathan to do the same. “This is the bomb you helped us find in the stolen car from your scene.”

  “You’re saying they’re identical?” she said, the implications making her head hurt.

  “Down to the wire placement. Moore has an admirer of his work, who copied it,” Will said with a little too much enthusiasm. “We’ve got another copycat that’s most probably working with your perp.”

  “If that’s true, this just turned into a cluster,” she said, flipping between the two pages. The diagrams Will had put together were identical.

  “I think we found what you’re looking for, Sept,” Anabel said, coming back in with Ivan and Catalina.

  “If it’s another copycat, my head might explode,” she said, and Nathan nodded.

  “There’s a case in Newark that just wrapped,” Anabel said, looking at her as if she didn’t know if she was kidding. “Eugene Paul Masters ended up killing nine people with quite the unique signature. He called himself the butterfly killer,” she said and explained why. “The lead detective was just found in h
is bedroom dead with the same MO.”

  “They got the wrong guy?” Sept asked.

  Anabel shook her head and took a deep breath before answering. “The murder was almost perfect, except for the one thing Masters always finished with.”

  “It’s the one clue the Newark department hasn’t disclosed to the media,” Catalina said.

  “Somebody tell me,” Sept said, raising her hands.

  “Masters removed the eyes postmortem and placed them in the victim’s shoes. When Detective Thomas Branson was found, his eyes were still in place, and that small detail marked his case a copycat,” Anabel said.

  “There’s no way we’ve got three perps,” Sept said.

  “I don’t think so either.” Anabel pressed her hands together on her lap. “You’ve uncovered a pattern no one has seen before.”

  “We’ve got a copycat who didn’t start with Alex Perlis,” she said, and the realization was mind-boggling. “That’s nuts.”

  “Nuts but true,” Will said. “I didn’t finish earlier. Moore’s been incarcerated longer than he was a free man, but five years ago there was another string of bombs in Cheyenne. Same devices and same MO, and no known suspects.”

  “How many dead?” she asked.

  “Fourteen.”

  “It’s more than that, if you add in Detective Branson and all the bodies here,” Sept said. “Can I speak to you alone, Anabel?”

  Everyone cleared out, and Anabel moved to the seat next to her. “I’m going to have to report this, Sept,” Anabel said to start.

  “I know, but this asshole is in the city and is guilty of seven murders so far. Report it, but Chief Jernigan won’t simply hand over the investigation to you—not without a fight.”

  “What do you suggest, then?”

  “A joint task force, and I mean in every sense of the word. If this is a woman, she killed not only four innocent people, but three police officers on top of that. Fritz hands that over to you, and the mayor will have his balls, and you’ll die in the flood when he pops an artery.”

  “You’re so eloquent when you put your mind to it,” Anabel said and held her hand out. “You’re right, though, and to be fair, you’re technically the one who put it together.”

  “Can you send Mora and Silva to our place, and they can start navigating the out-of-state stuff? Somewhere along the lines, something has to intersect.”

  “Probably a few more than Mora and Silva, including myself, so I hope you don’t mind that. This isn’t the type of case that comes along every day.”

  “That’s great,” she said and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, though, let me go break the news to Fritz and my father.”

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can put some stuff together. The most important thing, Sept, is to be careful. The butterfly cases worry me, because the copycat murderer targeted the man who captured Masters.”

  “If taking a shot at me brings this woman out of the shadows, I’m all for it.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Sept and Nathan drove to the precinct when Fritz said he and Sebastian would meet them there for a full report. What she had now felt like even less than what she’d started with in the morning. Certainly it was more information, but when she considered the scope, the killer had knocked them back a few pegs.

  “Wow,” Nathan said when they reached their workplace on Royal and it was packed. “It’s like they’re here for the second coming of the police god.”

  “You’re hilarious.” She parked on the street in the next block, and one of the uniforms waved her away from the car. “Thanks, man.”

  They made it to the conference room, where Fritz, Sebastian, and all the higher-ranking members of the NOPD were waiting. She took the pen for the whiteboard and wrote the names Masters, Moore, and Perlis at the top, then drew a line from every one of them to a circle at the bottom.

  “This is what we know.” She explained who Masters and Moore were and their commonality with Perlis. “Each is a serial killer who carved out a unique signature, but eventually all were caught.” Each person listening seemed riveted. “Plus, the perp who identifies herself as Hunter copycatted all their crimes.”

  “What?” Fritz asked. “How can you be sure?”

  “Right now, I can’t, but after our team studied the CCT footage until their eyes bled, they found only one suspicious individual leaving the building to steal a car later found at a crime scene. It’s highly improbable we have more than one killer duplicating crimes who were all involved in Lee Cenac’s murder.”

  “But one guy responsible for all this isn’t likely either,” Fritz said.

  “One woman, sir,” Nathan said.

  “That makes it even less likely.” Fritz sounded exasperated. “If you’re right, though, it’ll certainly be an anomaly, since there aren’t many female serial killers.”

  “It’s an equal-opportunity world, sir,” she said, and smiled to try to calm Fritz.

  “Damn fine work, Sept, and even better since you kept the case where it belongs.” Fritz literally patted her on the back. “What do you need from us?”

  “Our team is working well, and having agents come from Hicks’s office should streamline the process.”

  “We’re all at your disposal, so get back to work,” Fritz said, and the mob followed him out.

  “What’s first?” Nathan asked.

  “Have Lourdes and the others find room for Anabel and her people. Then we have to make some calls.”

  She took the butterfly killer’s case file back to her desk and thumbed through it. The police had kept the eyes part of the murders quiet, but she remembered where she’d heard about it. One of the victim’s family members had given it up. The fallout hadn’t been too bad, since Masters was already locked up.

  “Can I speak to the detective working Detective Branson’s case, please?” The call to New Jersey was more about curiosity than solving the case, but stranger things had happened. Mike had, she liked to joke, solved Perlis.

  “This is Detective Lindsey Carter. How can I help you?”

  “Thanks for taking my call,” she said and introduced herself. “The bureau chief of our FBI field office explained that Detective Branson’s murder was a copycat. Can you walk me through why you think so?”

  Lindsey hesitated but finally started talking. “Everything was the same—the butterfly on the ceiling, the skin off the chest on his face, and his clothes cut off him and neatly folded at his feet. Only this time it wasn’t his eyes in his shoes, but his testicles. The other weird thing was—”

  “He was missing a toe,” Sept said.

  “How’d you know that?” Carter sounded defensive suddenly.

  “It was sent to me by UPS while I was on vacation, out of town, away from my home.”

  “Why?”

  “Good question, but I’ve got no answer. I’ll inform the sheriff who still has possession of the toe and have it sent back to you. If Detective Branson’s been buried, maybe arrangements can be made to make him whole.”

  “Thank you, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay in contact with you about your case. We’re dead in the water when it comes to leads on our end. This might shake something loose.”

  “Let’s hope. We could all use a break.”

  * * *

  Anabel and her crew had set up in the conference room, and the IT woman she’d brought with her had already found four other serial cases where someone had copied the original suspect’s crimes after he’d been apprehended. If it was just one person and their time in New Orleans was almost done, their murders, along with all the others from different states, would possibly never be solved.

  The hunt would have to resume only when or if Hunter resurfaced somewhere else and actually made such an egregious mistake that it’d lead to an arrest. If that happened, they’d have to wait their turn in the legal nightmare that would follow, and Hunter might never be tried and convicted in a New Orleans courtroom.

  “You ready to go?
” Nathan asked later that afternoon.

  Sept’s neck and back were stiff from watching a computer monitor for most of the afternoon as the agent researched cases. This rabbit hole couldn’t suck up another one of her days, so she’d have to trust the agents to find the information. What had compelled her to stay was the number sixty-six. If one person had committed all the crimes, so far they’d found sixty-six murders.

  “Come have dinner with me, and then we’ll head back to the house and have a drink,” she said to Nathan.

  “I’m just going to head home,” Nathan said, not getting up. “Go ahead, and I’ll have someone drop me off.”

  “That wasn’t a question, partner. It’s a list of what you’ll be doing tonight. You can wallow alone later, but you’re coming with me.”

  The staff at Blanchard’s were cleaning their stations as the first diners were set to arrive, which gave Keegan time to talk to them before she had to focus on her role in the kitchen. “Hopefully neither of you minds sharing the table with my family. It’s inspection night, and you know that means Gran will be in rare form.”

  “Thanks for including me,” Nathan said, and Keegan kissed his cheek.

  “You might want to hold off on the thank you,” Sept said as Keegan put her arms around her. “Especially if your phone rings during dinner. If that happens, pray Della hasn’t ordered the steak and isn’t holding a sharp knife.”

  “You might want to hold off on the sarcasm until you explain the big guy in the chair in the corner,” Keegan said, pinching her, but she still had one of the waiters get them a drink. “Relax, and I’ll join you once we get going. It’ll give you time to come up with a good answer.” An hour later, Della arrived with Melinda and two more burly guys. Jacqueline followed ten minutes after that but didn’t appear at all perturbed by having a big shadow.

  “Nathan, you have my sympathies, dear boy,” Della said, taking his hands. “The mayor told me what happened when we had lunch today, and it’s a horrible thing.”