by Beverly Long
“I know. But it’s different than I expected. I was hoping to find something that tied the four dead women together. I wasn’t expecting a damn neon sign pointing at the next victim. It’s...kind of horrible. It’s almost as if we’re part of it now, that we know something that only the killer knows. That we’re linked.”
“We’re not fucking linked,” he said. But he understood. They suddenly knew the name of a woman in a serial killer’s crosshairs. And that killer planned to smother her with her own pillow in only eight days.
Unless he changed his pattern.
Tenth name down. Ten days apart. What was so damn special about ten?
Could they count on the fact that whatever it was, it was so important he wouldn’t deviate from his course?
Count on a killer? No way. Not putting his peaches in that basket.
“It’s weird,” Rena said. “To think that if he hadn’t skipped Mia Franklin, then Marsha Knight, LeAnn Jacobs and Jane Picus would all have gotten ten more days to live. They all got moved up in line.” She met his eyes. “What could they have done with ten more days?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’re never going to know. Maybe...maybe they’d have told their kids that they loved them one more time?”
“Shake it off, Morgan.”
“Fine. I’m looking up Mia Franklin,” she said. Within seconds, she had an address. “One seventy-one North Missouri Street. We need to make sure she’s alive.”
“If it will make you feel better, we’ll go there next.”
“There are a hundred and seventy-three signatures on this paper,” she said.
“Seventeen potential victims,” A.L. said, proving that he could do math in his head. Then he pointed to the name on line seventy. “That’s a man.”
“Maybe it still would have happened,” Rena said.
“Or maybe if Perp discriminates on the basis of gender, he would have skipped on until he came to the next woman.” They weren’t ever going to know for sure, because they were going to stop him now. There was no other acceptable alternative.
“I’m going to get Gavin. I’ve got some questions about how these signatures are collected,” A.L. said. He walked down the short hallway, gave two sharp knocks on the door and returned to the reception area with Gavin on his heels. He did not show him the paper.
“Where were the signatures on the Gizer Hotel petition collected?”
“I have no idea,” Gavin said. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to be helpful,” he added quickly, probably because he saw the frustration in A.L.’s eyes. “We have a group of volunteers that take our petitions to various events in the city. For example, maybe to the farmer’s market or to a concert in Hackman Park. Sometimes we even set up a table outside the grocery store. We don’t care where we get the signature, we just want the name. It’s all about volume.”
“Gavin, who else would have had access to that filing cabinet?” Rena asked.
“Just me and Diane, my assistant. We’re the only two paid employees. We don’t let the volunteers access any of the paperwork. It would be bad if they saw what their neighbor had contributed. Of course,” he said, “every volunteer who actually took this sheet to some event would have had access to it for the duration of the event.”
A.L. had already thought of that. “And you don’t track which volunteers take certain petitions?”
“No.” Gavin looked apologetic. “There’s never been any reason to.”
“We’re going to need a list of your volunteers,” Rena said.
“I can get that from Diane,” he said.
“We’re going to want to talk to her,” Rena said, just as the door opened and in walked a fiftyish woman wearing black slacks and a purple and black shirt. She was carrying a small bank bag.
“Here’s your chance,” Gavin said softly. “Hey, Diane. Got a minute?”
“Of course.” She smiled at Rena and A.L. “I’m Diane Crate.”
“Detectives McKittridge and Morgan,” A.L. said. They both showed badges. A.L. turned toward Gavin. “Would you mind if we talk with Diane alone?” His gut told him that neither Gavin nor Diane were involved in the murders. Gavin could have hidden the petition from them pretty easily. And Diane was midfifties and weighed about a hundred pounds. He thought several of the victims could have taken her. But he definitely wanted to make sure that Diane’s story about the petition squared with Gavin’s.
“Of course not. I’ll be in my office. Again.” He said it as if he was being sent to the principal’s office for doing something but wasn’t sure what. A.L. watched him and waited until he heard the door shut before turning back to Diane.
“What’s happened?” the woman asked.
“We’re interested in a petition in your files to save 470 Waterfront Street. It’s the old Gizer Hotel.”
Her expression did not change.
“Can you tell us what the process is for getting signatures on a petition?” A.L. asked.
“Sure. Uh... Gavin decides if a petition is going to be necessary or helpful. Once he does, I create the petition. Sometimes we’re in a hurry to get signatures and sometimes we’re not. It depends on how fast a project is moving forward.”
“Was the Gizer Hotel petition one that moved quickly?”
Diane shook her head. “No. We started collecting signatures on that months ago, maybe even six months. Actually, I could probably tell you when we started if I pull up the file in my computer. It would have the date the document was created.”
“Do that,” A.L. said. He moved to where he could see what Diane was entering into the computer.
It took her just a minute to get to the file. “Here it is,” she said. “Wow. It was actually eight months ago that I created the file. On October 3.”
“So some of these signatures likely got collected soon after that?” A.L. asked.
Diane nodded. “And then I think we stopped focusing on this for a while. You’d have to ask Gavin, but I seem to recall that there was a group of investors interested, but the deal fell through. And then a second group got involved, and I remember Gavin telling me to resurrect the petition and start circulating it again. That was probably within the last couple months.”
“Were any of your volunteers especially interested in the Gizer Hotel petition?”
“Not that I recall. I mean, our volunteers are very nice and they do anything we ask. Of course, some are better at engaging others and they tend to get more donations and more signatures.”
“Do you know any particular volunteer who might have collected signatures for the Gizer Hotel?”
“No, I’m sorry. There is one person who definitely has kept tabs on the project. He’s not a volunteer, though. He was a teacher at the high school for years, but he’s been retired for at least fifteen or twenty years. He was the one who brought the Gizer Hotel to our attention and has stopped in a couple times to inquire about the status.”
“What’s his name?”
“Matt Connell. He lives at Siesta Charm.”
A.L. knew the place, an assisted living center. His uncle Joe was always teasing his dad that they should get connecting rooms there.
“You could meet Matt next week,” Diane said. “He’s doing a presentation for us.” She gestured toward the room with the chairs. “On the third Thursday of every month, we have a speaker on a historical topic. Matt’s presentation is how Baywood was affected by World War II. Several of our prominent industrial employers sprang up out of the sudden need to equip a surging military.”
He wasn’t waiting until the third Thursday of the month—that would be May 19. One day before the killer would likely strike again.
“How many volunteers do you have?” Rena asked.
“Between twenty and thirty.”
It was better than a hundred, but still, it’d take a while t
o vet that many people. “I’d like a list of their names and any contact information you have on them—phone, email, address, whatever. You can email it to me,” A.L. said, dropping a card on her desk.
“I’ll do it this afternoon,” Diane said.
“Thank you,” A.L. said. “Also, I’d like to know when they started volunteering with BHP. You’d have that, right?”
“I should,” Diane said. “But that means I’ll have to pull every file. It might take a little longer.”
“It’s important,” A.L. said. “I’m going to ask Gavin to join us again.”
Once they were all together again, A.L. said, “Gavin, we’d like to take this petition with us.”
“Okay. Can I make a copy of it?” he asked. “I don’t want to lose those names.”
If they left a copy, then Gavin and Diane would have a field day figuring out that the woman on line sixty was the next potential victim. “I’m sorry, but it’s evidence and I need to take it. I’ll have somebody transcribe the names and emails of those we’re not interested in and get that back to you.” This was the fucking break they’d needed. “I’m going to need your assurances, Gavin and Diane, that you won’t say anything about this petition or our conversation about it. Not to your significant other or any of those volunteers or your neighbor you see when you walk your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog,” Gavin said.
“You understand what I mean,” A.L. said. “If you were to say something, it could jeopardize our investigation.”
“I have a pretty good idea of the case that you’re probably working on—the case everybody is probably working on. The case that everybody is talking about. And if I’m right, I certainly won’t say anything,” Gavin said. “I want you to get this person. On the day that last woman was killed, that Jane Picus, I had my wife and adult daughter come to work with me. The whole day. I just didn’t want to leave them home alone. This needs to stop.”
A.L. and Rena did not make eye contact. Neither confirmed nor denied Gavin’s speculation. Instead, A.L. looked at Diane.
“Same for me,” she said. “The story makes me sick.”
“Thank you,” A.L. said. He handed the petition to Rena, who carefully put it in the big leather bag that she carried over one shoulder. They didn’t talk until they were back in the car.
“We’ll take it to Faster,” A.L. said. “But we need to keep the circle tight. We can’t afford for Perp to get tipped off.”
Rena hugged her purse. “I’ve been a cop for a long time and have seen a lot of things. And I’ve learned not to be too hopeful at times. But right now, I really hope Mia Franklin is okay.”
“Me, too,” A.L. said.
“And I really can’t imagine being Tess Lyons.”
Eight
Faster made them wait fifteen minutes, and Rena could tell that A.L. was seething, especially since the man’s administrative assistant had verified that he was alone in his office.
“Probably playing with his dick,” A.L. said, not that quietly.
And Rena couldn’t help herself when the door of the office opened. Her gaze immediately went there before she quickly shifted her eyes, as if she was anticipating either a big tent show or some telltale staining.
Nothing to see here. No need to look behind the curtain. The words danced in her head, and she thought that she might be losing it. “Chief,” she said, taking a chair. It felt weird to call him that. He’d always been Christian. “Thanks for seeing us.”
“Of course. What can I do for you, Detectives?”
A.L. leaned forward in his chair. “We have new information on the murders of the four women. Leshia Fowler, Marsha Knight, LeAnn Jacobs and Jane Picus.”
“I remember their names,” Christian said. His tone said it all. He didn’t appreciate A.L. acting as if he was a dumb shit.
A.L. handed him the paper. “Well, here they are in black and white.”
Christian looked at the paper. “Where did you get this?”
“From Gavin Rice. The director of Baywood Historic Preservation. They—”
“I know what it is. I’ve been to some of their events.”
“Well, in this case, they’re trying to save the property listed at the top of that petition—470 Waterfront.”
Their boss examined the list. “What am I looking at here?”
“Every tenth name,” Rena said. “With the exception of line twenty.”
Now he got it. “Goddamn it. Our perp has systematically been working his way down the list. Have we verified that Mia Franklin is indeed alive?”
“That’s next. It would be great if something jumped out at us, explaining why she was spared. But quite frankly, the similarities and differences between the victims are no longer as important as they once were. This list is the connection we were looking for.”
“Huge find,” Christian said.
Rena said, “We’ve got every reason to believe that Tess Lyons, on line number sixty, will be the next victim.”
“Who had access to this list?” Christian asked.
“The director and his secretary, Diane,” she said.
“Are either of them suspects?” Christian asked.
“We’ll clear them officially, but right now, we’re pretty confident that they aren’t,” A.L. said.
“Unfortunately,” Rena jumped in, “they rely upon volunteer labor, and there’s no record of who would have been responsible for getting signatures on the petition on any given day. And it’s likely these signatures were gathered over a period of months.”
“You need to look at the volunteers,” Christian said.
“We will,” Rena said. “Once we find Tess Lyons, what are your thoughts about what we should tell her?”
Christian leaned so far back in his chair that she knew the front wheels were no longer on the floor. He didn’t say anything for a long minute. “Right now, we have to assume the killer doesn’t know that we have this, that we’ve identified the next victim. If she does anything unusual, we may lose him in the wind. If he sees us contact her, same result. This has to be handled very carefully.”
She and A.L. said nothing.
“Get some intelligence on her. Then we decide what’s next.” He looked at his watch. “Task force meeting starts in twenty minutes. I can bring them up to speed on this new development.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
A.L. had seemingly gone mute.
She stood and hoped like hell that her partner followed her out of the office. Otherwise, she was going to be training a new one.
Fortunately, he was just steps behind her. “That accomplished nothing,” he said when they were back at their desks.
“Not true,” she said. “We’ve brought the boss in and gotten his approval to move forward. Now we find Mia Franklin and make sure that we don’t have a fifth victim. Then it’s on to Tess Lyons. Quietly.”
* * *
One seventy-one North Missouri was at the far eastern side of town. It was a duplex, sharing a wall with 173 North Missouri. The building was brick, the yard was mowed and Mia Franklin’s living room curtains were wide open. It was just after 3:00 p.m.
“What are we going to tell her?” Rena asked.
“Not the truth,” A.L. said. “No amount of therapy could make that better.”
“We could be investigating nearby car thefts,” Rena said. The Bulletin had recently had an article about the issue.
“Good as anything,” A.L. said, opening his door. “You take the lead.”
They walked up the sidewalk, and Rena rang the bell. A young woman, wearing yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail, opened the door. “Yes?” she said.
“Detectives Morgan and McKittridge,” Rena said. They held their badges steady for her. “Are you Mia Franklin?”
�
��Yes.”
Rena almost sighed. There’d been so damn much death that it made it almost wonderful that this woman was alive and well. “We’re investigating a series of car thefts that have occurred a block or two over. Have you had any trouble with your vehicle?”
She shook her head. “There’s a garage behind the duplex. We always park in there.”
“We?” Rena asked.
“Well, me,” Mia said. “And Margaret, the woman who lives next door. We’re both single. I guess that just makes us a little extra careful.”
“You said single. As in never married or divorced?” Rena asked.
Mia raised both of her dark eyebrows, likely put off by the question. But she answered. “I’ve never been married, and Margaret has been divorced for several years.”
“Any children here?” A.L. asked. “We’ve been having some trouble with bikes, too.”
“No kids,” she said. “For either Margaret or me.”
“Where do you work, Ms. Franklin?” Rena asked.
“I’m in nursing school. I cocktail a couple nights a week at Mory’s.”
It was a sports bar that served decent burgers and Gabe thought they had a respectable list of craft beers. “Great,” she said. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”
“No problem.”
“Superglad you haven’t had any trouble,” Rena added. “Please do let us know if anything changes.” She passed over her business card.
“I will. Thank you for checking,” Mia said.
“You’re welcome,” Rena said.
They were back in the car before she spoke again. “We should have told her to play the lottery.”
“She’s our only student. Also the only one single with no children,” A.L. said.
“She’s also the only one living in a duplex,” Rena said. “The others were all single-family homes.”
“Could be that, I suppose,” A.L. said. “A neighbor, too close for comfort, might hear a scream, a knock against the wall.” He started the vehicle. “We can’t lose sight of any of it, but right now, we need to find Tess Lyons.”
