by Dale Mayer
“And?” he asked smoothly. “Do you think I’ll ask you to eat chopped liver? I bought the groceries, so just say, Thank you, and we’ll eat.”
“Thank you.” As she watched him at work in her kitchen, she asked, “Do you want me to do anything?”
“What do you want to go with it?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m hungry enough that I’ll need some starch.”
“Rice, potatoes, or pasta?” he asked, tossing her a package of a mix of rice with quinoa.
She looked at it in surprise. “What are those funny little yellow things?”
“That’s the quinoa.”
She shrugged. “I recognize the rice part.”
“Quinoa’s good. We’ll have that with it.”
“In that case, why ask me?” she grumbled.
He chuckled. “You can pick the veggie.”
But, as she looked at the vegetables he had put in her fridge, she wasn’t even sure which would go best.
“It’s not rocket science. Whatever you like goes best.”
She laughed at that, then quickly picked up the broccoli and showed it to him.
He nodded. “Sounds good. Do you want to prep it, or shall I?”
She shrugged, took a small paring knife, and had it in even size florets within seconds.
“Perfect. Now you can take your coffee and go sit and relax.”
Her eyebrows shot up at that. “Did you not work today?”
“I did, but it wasn’t as stressful a day, like some of them have been.”
“Good for you. My cases are getting to be a nightmare.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, as he turned up the heat on the cast-iron pan. He already had the water for the rice mix coming to a boil. “Go take a break.”
Following his orders and realizing that she was just cranky enough to make more trouble, she poured herself a coffee, walked over, and slumped onto the couch.
“You want to tell me about the case?”
“Not really. Unless you have any insights, I don’t really want to discuss it.”
“And how could I possibly have any insights,” he noted in a reasonable tone of voice, “if you don’t tell me what it’s about?”
“I’ve told you a lot of it, but now my two cases have dovetailed.” She shook her head. “I’m trying to figure out what these bullies at the university have been doing, but, so far, I haven’t had any luck. I’m waiting on Dr. Agress’s executive assistant to send me a list of complaints from other students, but he wanted to go through them first.”
“Of course he did, so any complaints against rich donor-family kids won’t be allowed to come your way.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him. “Do you really think he’ll censor them?”
He turned and gave her a hard look.
She nodded slowly. “In that case, I’ll need a warrant. I shouldn’t have to do that.”
“Send him an email and remind him that you want full access or you’ll bring in a warrant.”
She quickly sent off an email to Dr. Agress. She hated to, but, if he wouldn’t be cooperative, it would just cost valuable time. “And that’s only part of it. I don’t know that these kids, the bullying gang, have anything to do with these murders at all.”
“Murders?” He frowned. “Are we talking plural now?”
She nodded. “Yes, plural.”
“Interesting, so you have a serial killer.”
“I don’t know that the definition of a serial killer would apply in this case. We have two deaths, both with similarities, and I’m really hoping we won’t have any more victims.”
“But didn’t you also say you had another murder on the campus?”
“Well, fine, okay, so I have three murders. And you’re right. I do, and this one, I … I can’t see that they aren’t connected, but I haven’t figured out how they are yet either.”
“Which is very typical anyway, so that’s hardly the issue.”
“I’m still running comparisons, and it’s taking so long.”
“Comparisons of what?”
“It’s a long shot,” she explained, sitting up, grabbing her coffee, and pacing her living room. “But there have been a lot of accidents in that block over the last ten years.”
“Similar?”
“Very similar, too similar for comfort.”
“As in what similarity?”
“Running down cyclists.”
“Well”—he stopped and shrugged—“that’s a hard one because, with those kinds of accidents, there’s only so much similarity possible. Cyclists are hit by vehicles all the time, unfortunately.”
“I know, and that’s the problem.”
“Are these fatalities?”
“In all cases, yes.”
“Did you check the relatives?”
“That’s in progress. There are still about a good dozen people, depending on which case we’re looking at, to be contacted. So far everybody we’ve contacted has talked about how horrible it was and how much it affected their lives, but I didn’t get any ring of leftover anger or need for revenge or anything. To them it was just a straight-up accident. Something that was terrible and that people should be punished for, but there wasn’t anything that anybody could do.”
“Got it,” he said.
She watched as he checked the rice, and then, adding the olive oil in the preheated cast-iron skillet, he tossed in the two big steaks. She was amazed that they even fit. He had cut off the edges of fat and had sprinkled some spices all over the top. “Where did you get the spices from?”
“I bought them.” With a wave of his hand, he said, “Go back to the case.”
“Well, and then, when we had a fatality at the intersection, it wasn’t supposed to be my case, but a projectile penetrated the back of the cyclist’s head, right above the ear.”
He turned, looked at her. “So it was murder.”
She nodded. “Yes, but whether the projectile was some kid on the golf course with an errant golf ball or someone on purpose with an ice bullet, we don’t know yet. However, she managed to move forward after that hit to her head. The blow would have been stunning, but … I don’t know. I get the feeling that the projectile angle just kept pushing her into the intersection. It was timed very well, right at the intersection.”
“So afterward she was hit by a car?”
“Yes, but the blow from the vehicle didn’t cause very much damage. There would have been some bruising, but she had no broken bones, and she didn’t hit the pavement with a horrific force. Obviously all of it together kills her, but the driver swears to God that he was stopped and didn’t hit anybody, but he took off anyway.”
“So he panics, and now you’re looking at him.”
“It’s hard not to. But then we had the second murder at the off-campus student housing.”
He nodded. “I remember you said something about that.”
“Yeah, but it was in another woman’s room.”
“Right, but they were all partying that night.”
“Exactly, but the woman who belonged in that room was missing.”
He turned and looked at her. “Did you find her?”
“I did. In the intersection, the same intersection, with the same projectile hole behind her ear.”
He stared at her in shock, his jaw dropping. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yes, so now our most recent cases, all within one week, are linked—the murder of Paula in student housing and the two others, shot by the same type of projectile, Candy and Sally, both found at the same intersection. Things are bad, and I’m worried there will be more victims. The only thing I have is this group of six people, of which two are now dead, the only two females. But get this. Both women had a sexual relationship with this rich-ass Brandon kid, and there was some fighting between the two females, but there is also talk that they may have had a relationship of their own.”
“As in?” He looked at her, clearly puzzled.
“A
pparently they often did threesomes with this puke Brandon, and then the two females would go off and have a twosome. That’s according to Brandon though, and I don’t believe jack shit that comes out of his mouth.”
“Because he’s the kid with the silver spoon, is that what you mean?”
She nodded. “He’s also arrogant and slimy.”
“Meaning, you find it hard to trust anything about him.”
“And he has a lawyer on speed dial. He also earned himself an ugly reputation at several other universities, before he ended up at this one. I did speak to Dr. Agress, who acknowledged that Brandon came with a checkered past, but they didn’t have any real proof because nobody at the previous institutions would go on record, saying he was a bad apple, so no one saw any reason not to allow him in UBC.”
“Wonder how these decision makers will feel about that when this is all over.”
“When I was there, asking him for any and all complaints against this group of bullies or any others on campus, Dr. Agress told me that he was part of a movement to get the city to change the traffic pattern so that these cyclist accidents could be avoided.”
“And was the traffic pattern determined to be at fault?”
“According to the city of Vancouver, no, so their request was denied.”
“That in itself could make people angry,” he said.
“I hadn’t considered Dr. Agress a suspect.”
“No, and I don’t suppose that he would make a good one anyway,” Simon said. “I’m just pointing out the fact that, when you go through a lot of effort to affect change, and then it doesn’t happen, it can leave people with an ugly taste in their mouths.”
“Maybe.” She groaned. “There’s just nothing that I can lock down. I found a strange guy at a nearby pizza parlor, who likes to watch that intersection a little too much, so I wondered if he was watching the results of his actions.”
“But he couldn’t be shooting somebody and watching them get hit in the intersection at the same time, right?”
She looked at him and slowly shook her head. “No, which is another reason why occasionally our discussions in the bullpen have suggested there could potentially be two of them, working together.”
He gave a low whistle. “Wow, these are brain twisters.”
“Sometimes cases are simple. Sometimes people think that they’re really smart and that we won’t figure anything out, but then we get the evidence we need, and it all falls in place quickly. And then there are cases, like this, where you just sit there and stare at it, wondering if it’s just too much of a coincidence to have all this stuff happening, and yet none of it even be related.”
“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? If it’s not related, then you have multiple separate incidents.”
“Exactly.”
“Now, why the second woman in the intersection with the same projectile from an angle behind her?”
“Right.” Kate frowned. “So those are connected. But maybe the killer saw Candy at the first crime scene with Sally and picked out Candy randomly.”
“Which then links Brandon the bully, as Candy was part of his crew.”
“And I really like that idea too,” she said.
“Rich assholes will never be my favorite topic, so I like him as the killer.”
“But this one has a lot of lawyer power, so we need to make sure that we have everything locked up tight. Therefore, they can’t pull a random string and unravel the whole thing.”
“And I get that.” Simon shook his head. “Except for the projectiles, I would say it was just another random bike accident.”
“Exactly, but it’s the projectiles that make the bike accidents happen.”
He stopped, turned around, looked at her. “And do you think that’s what he’s trying to do?”
“The thing is, I don’t know. We’re really struggling on the whole motive here for Brandon. Which is part of the problem anyway. For bullies, it’s just because they can. Yet we have five annual bike accidents at or near that one intersection.”
“It sounds like it all surrounds that traffic pattern somehow.”
“And who kills over that?” she asked, with a wry look.
“Someone who lost a loved one there. Maybe that Brandon kid is just piggybacking on that.” Simon blinked several times, as he thought about it. “That’s just bizarre.”
“Yeah, which part?” she asked, followed by a short laugh. “When you think about it, so much of this just doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, but if it’s to make it look like a traffic accident, then you have to look back at the histories of all these other ones.”
“Which is what I’ve been doing.” She turned and looked at him. “I’m not exactly sitting around doing nothing.”
“Whoa, believe me. I know that you’re working your ass off on this. I just find it fascinating that, in this case, the traffic pattern matters.”
“But it’ll only matter because somebody is legitimately affected somehow by the traffic pattern.”
He nodded. “So somebody connected to the deaths? The first one you dug up from ten years ago?”
“That was my thought, but, so far, we haven’t found anything. But, like I said, I’ve still got a dozen family members and friends of the prior victims to connect with. I’ve left an incredible number of messages. Two are out of country, and I don’t know about some of the others. We’ve got two who are missing persons, but the family of one said that the husband of one of the female victims just up and disappeared. They don’t know where that husband is, but, because he was overwhelmed from the shock of what happened to his wife, they think he basically took a step back out of life—or committed suicide. And you know we have an awful lot of suicides across the country and a not very easily updatable database to try to track them down with.”
“Or he’s gone underground, and he’s trying to get revenge.”
She stopped cold, looked at him. “That’s another option. It just depends on who this person is. Of course, in this case, I do have a name, but names can be changed, and people don’t necessarily use their real names. I’ve asked for credit card records, phone records, anything and everything, and the family has given me any known forwarding addresses. They even asked that, if I get in touch with him, to let them know so they can reach out as well. They said they all had a hard time back then, and it would have been nice if they could have stayed in touch to support each other, but he was not in great shape.”
“Oh, I like him for it now. Because people who are strong and emotional like that make all kinds of decisions, like finding a way to get back at the world.”
“It was an accident, according to the records.”
“An accident?”
“Yes, but also it was a young driver, and the roads were bad. It was winter, and, for whatever reason, his wife had decided to go cycling, figuring that, by the end of the day, since this is Vancouver, not like it’s up north, the snow would be gone, and she’d be clear to go do her stuff. She was a fanatical cyclist. He didn’t want her to go, and that’s part of the reason why he’s had so much trouble dealing with the loss because they had a fight on her way out the door.”
“Oh, crap, and that changes the motivation then too, and it could just be that he’s feeling guilty.”
“Exactly. So, none of this is pulling together as a viable suspect.”
“I still like him.”
“And he’s on my list. But he hasn’t had anything to do with anybody in a long time.”
“Right, so you have to find him first in order to even question him.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
“What about kids?”
“There were a couple, a son and a daughter, and the extended family, her sister, has them.”
“Hang on a minute. You mean, he walked away from his children too?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He frowned. “In that case, it doesn’t play out the way I thought.”
“That’s what I mean. None of these theories are necessarily looking solid.”
“What about any of the other victims’ families?”
“There was one son from another family and two daughters from yet another victim’s family. The rest had no children.”
“Well, that’s good. It’s one thing to recover from a loss. It’s another thing to recover from a loss when you still have children to raise.”
“And, in many cases, in several of these, the spouses went on to remarry and have somewhat normal lives.”
“Which is the healthy thing to do because focusing on what you’ve lost will never get you that same scenario back again.”
“No, and it just gives you something to dwell on instead of picking up from the loss and moving on,” she said quietly.
He looked at her and winced. “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“They are always there, but I do understand loss in a way that a lot of people don’t. So I empathize with some of these people. I certainly empathize with the father who turned and walked away because of what happened, but to leave the kids behind? No way.”
“Yet, at the same time you can’t judge him because you really don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. And that’s another problem.”
He nodded. “I get it.”
At that, her phone rang. She looked at it, frowned. “I’ll have to take this.”
“You’ve got two minutes,” Simon said on a note of warning. “After that, I’ll be pissed if you aren’t here ready to eat a hot meal.”
She nodded and answered her phone. “Detective Morgan speaking.” She listened to the voice on the other end.
“Hey, I’m not sure why you were calling me, but I presume it has to do with my wife’s accident because I haven’t had a reason to be involved with the police otherwise,” said a man with a gruff voice on the phone.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Jack, Jack Wellington. My wife died in a cycling accident at the university years ago.”
“Ah, I’m sorry about your loss.”
“Me too,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “It was probably the roughest time in my life. But the kids and I, well, we got through it.”
