The 9th Girl

by Tami Hoag

  Still . . . no coincidence was a good coincidence as far as Liska was concerned.

  She got out and went to the patrol car, holding her ID up for the uniformed officer behind the wheel. He ran the window down.

  “How’s it been?” she asked, glancing to the street. Reporters were coming like hungry animals to food. She recognized several. The short guy from channel eleven, the perky blond girl from the early morning news, Dana Nolan.

  “Quiet,” the officer said. “Once we chased the riffraff off the property.” He glanced in his rearview mirror and made a sound of disapproval. He flicked a switch on the dash, picked up the mike, and barked an order that blasted over the speakers into the street. “Stay back, folks! This is private property. Stay back!”

  He shook his head and glanced up at Liska. “Fucking vultures.”

  “Is anyone in the house with Mrs. Gray?”

  “I don’t think so. I haven’t seen anyone come or go since the boyfriend dropped her off. What’s the news?”

  “Bad.”

  “Damn. I’ve got a daughter myself,” he said. “I don’t even want to imagine. I don’t envy you being the messenger, Sarge.”

  “Better giving that news than getting it,” Liska said.

  She went to the front door, rang the bell, and waited. And waited. And waited.

  Maybe Julia Gray was sedated and asleep, she thought. Then again, what mother could sleep awaiting news of a missing child?

  Kovac had told her Julia Gray had left her phone in her car while she’d been at the station half the morning, even though she had claimed to have gotten a text message from her daughter just the night before.

  She rang the bell again, her mind racing as she waited. Who scraped up their kid from a bike accident and didn’t go straight to an ER? A drug rep with long-standing relationships in the medical community? Maybe.

  She rang the bell a third time, her nerves starting to itch. What kind of emotion choked a mother whose child went missing, whose last words to that child had been delivered in anger? As angry as she was with Kyle, she still felt guilty for being so hard on him that morning. To see him fight tears at her caustic recriminations was like pouring acid on her soul. If those had been her last words to him, Nikki would never have been able to live with herself.

  Maybe Julia Gray wouldn’t be able to either. Maybe she would take too many pills. Maybe she would slit her wrists.

  As she began to think about getting one of the uniforms to kick in the door, it cracked open and Penny Gray’s mother peered out at her with red-rimmed eyes.

  Liska showed her ID. “Mrs. Gray? I’m Sergeant Liska. May I come in?”

  Julia Gray stepped back from the door. She looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept in a week. Her blond hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She wore yoga pants and a sweatshirt. Her hands were red and chapped, fingernail polish ruined. The brace on her injured right hand was soaking wet. She rubbed one hand and then the other with a limp white cotton towel.

  “I’m sorry,” Julia Gray said. “I was in the kitchen. I’m trying to keep busy. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m sure it’s hard. I have two boys. I don’t know what I would do.”

  Julia Gray just stared at her. Nikki could see the question in her eyes—Do you have news about my daughter?—and she could see the fear of asking that question too. If she asked, she might get an answer she didn’t want to hear.

  “Can we sit down, Mrs. Gray?”

  Julia Gray’s swollen eyes widened in alarm. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. You should probably just go.”

  Bad news was always preceded by Can we sit down? Or We need to talk. If they didn’t sit down, then she could go on thinking maybe her daughter would still be coming home. If they sat down, the bad news would come out, and there would be no escaping it.

  “I have to ask you a couple of questions,” Nikki said, putting off the inevitable. Once she made the announcement, she would lose her opportunity to get the answers. “About when Penny broke her arm.”

  “She fell off her bike.”

  “Were you there when it happened?”

  “No. She called me. She had her appointment with Michael that morning. She rode her bike over there. It’s not far. It was one of the first nice spring days. She was on her way home. And . . . and she fell. She was cutting through the park. She called me, and I called Michael. He was closer.”

  “Why didn’t you take her to the emergency room?” Nikki asked.

  She looked confused by the question. “We called Bob Iverson. His practice is nearby.”

  “But it was a Saturday. He doesn’t normally work Saturday, does he?”

  “No. But I know him. Michael knows him too. He came in.” Her eyes narrowed; confusion tugged across her brow. “I don’t understand why you’re asking me about this. He gave you the X-rays, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Nikki said. “It just seems a little unusual—the circumstances. And the fracture was an unusual fracture. The ME told me it’s the kind of break that happens from a twisting motion rather than a fall.”

  “Well, she fell,” she insisted. Then she went very still as the letters ME penetrated. Her injured hand came up to massage her throat, as if she was suddenly having trouble swallowing. “What else did he have to say?”

  Nikki sighed. “Please, Mrs. Gray,” she murmured, trying to direct her toward the living room with its still-decorated Christmas tree. “Let’s sit down.”

  Julia Gray stiffened. “No.”

  There was never any good way to do this, and it never got any easier no matter how many parents she had to disappoint. “The medical examiner has reviewed all the distinguishing marks and characteristics, along with the X-rays of your daughter’s wrist, and compared them with the young woman—”

  “No!” Julia Gray said again, more emphatically this time. Not as if in denial, but as if she was getting angry because Nikki clearly wasn’t listening to her.

  “There’s really no question, Mrs. Gray,” she said firmly. “Your daughter is deceased. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Penny Gray’s mother looked frantically around the foyer, looking for help or some hidden escape route. Nikki could feel the electric energy coming off her in waves. She began to tremble visibly, first her hands, then her shoulders, her whole body stiffening like she was going into a seizure. Her face was as white as chalk.

  Nikki put a hand on her shoulder. “Please, sit down, Mrs. Gray.”

  Julia Gray jerked back, eyes wild with pain. “Don’t touch me! Get out! Get out of my house!”

  “Mrs. Gray, please try to calm down—”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” she shouted. “Get out of my house! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Like an animal blind with fear and pain, she bolted forward, swinging wildly with her injured hand, striking Nikki hard on the left eyebrow, slicing open the skin.

  As blood ran down into her field of vision, Nikki threw her hands up too late to ward off the attack. She stumbled backward into the door, banging the back of her head against it.

  “Get out! Get out! Get out!” Julia screamed over and over, incoherent, half sobbing, arms flailing like a toddler in a tantrum.

  As she swung one arm down, Nikki caught her by the wrist. She pulled the woman’s arm down between them and turned, stepping to the side and reversing their positions, putting Julia Gray’s back against the door, and pinning her there with a shoulder to the woman’s sternum.

  Penny Gray’s mother struggled for just a moment, then went limp, the adrenaline-fueled strength draining from her like water down a drain.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she mumbled, dissolving into tears. “I can’t believe this is happening! How can this be happening to me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Nikki murmured, lessening the pressure, letting Julia Gray’s weight come more against her. She put her arms around the woman and just stood there, holding her—one mother offer
ing comfort to another.

  She wanted to tell Julia Gray that she would be all right, that eventually things would be okay, but it was a stupid thing to say, a completely empty, ridiculous promise to make. She knew that no matter what else happened in the coming days, no matter which way this case went, no matter who was responsible for the death of her daughter, Julia Gray would not be all right, and things would never be the same for her again.

  31

  “Dana Nolan, on special assignment, coming to you live from outside the residence of missing Minneapolis teenager Penelope Gray. Sources inside the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office are confirming that the New Year’s Eve murder victim known as Zombie Doe has been identified as the missing Performance Scholastic Institute student. An AMBER Alert was issued last night for the missing teen, whose mother made a public appeal for her return this morning along with Minneapolis Homicide captain Ullrich Kasselmann.

  “No official statement has yet been made by the Minneapolis Police Department either confirming or denying the identification of Zombie Doe. Speculation has run rampant that Zombie Doe may in fact be yet another victim of the serial killer law enforcement has dubbed Doc Holiday, due to his penchant for committing his crimes on or around holidays.”

  “Doug Irwin here, Dana.” The guy from the newsroom broke in. “There seems to be some activity going on there. Can you fill us in on what’s been happening in the past few minutes?”

  “Yes, Doug. One of the homicide detectives working the case was just seen arriving here at the residence and going into the home, presumably to convey some information to Julia Gray. I’ll be coming to you live for NewsWatch with any breaking information as things develop. Until then, back to you at the studio, Doug.”

  Fitz smiled, almost like a proud uncle. He felt a connection to Dana Nolan that truly did border on familial. He had handpicked her, after all, like one of his flea market finds. She was a little diamond just waiting for polish and the perfect setting.

  He was so pleased he had chosen her, especially now that she was getting an extra opportunity to make a name for herself by covering this case. There was a wonderful poetry in that. He had chosen her because of her initial reporting of the story of Zombie Doe, the alleged “ninth victim.” Fate was allowing her to rise to the attention of the audience because of the ninth victim. And her greatest fame would ultimately come in being a victim. What a beautiful irony. It filled him with pride to be the architect of this story.

  She stood there in front of the camera, so wide-eyed and earnest, her cheeks rosy with the cold. So young. So . . . wholesome. She didn’t understand what tragedy was. She didn’t know what it meant to feel real pain or experience true loss. She observed others and tried to guess what that must be like. Or she tried to relate her own small version of personal catastrophe to these incidents. Maybe she had lost a kitten as a little girl. Maybe an elderly grandparent had died.

  She had so much to learn about genuine suffering.

  And he would be the one to teach it to her.

  Soon.

  32

  “When I told you to take up cage fighting, I was being sarcastic,” Kovac said, looking at his partner.

  Her left brow was a red, swollen ledge. A couple of small stitches closed the cut Julia Gray had opened.

  Liska made a face. “I guess I need to start joining Kyle at his kickboxing lessons.”

  “Muay Thai,” Tippen said, striking a martial arts pose. “The deadly art of eight limbs.”

  “Tinks is deadly enough with four,” Kovac said. “And that’s not counting her tongue.”

  “Fuck you, Kojak.”

  “And there it is.”

  They had gathered again in the conference room. Someone had picked up Chinese takeout, and the boxes littered the long table. Kovac found the beef with broccoli and helped himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a real meal.

  He looked at his partner. “So she just wigged out on you?”

  “She was ready to snap when I got there. She saw bad news coming, and she didn’t want to hear it.”

  “All her chickens are coming home to roost under a big media spotlight,” Kovac said. “Her daughter is missing. Her daughter is an embarrassment. Her daughter makes her look like a bad mother. Now her daughter is dead.”

  “That’s not entirely fair,” Liska said. “You’ve never given birth. You can’t know what it’s like. You get this perfect little being, and then life happens, and suddenly you feel like you don’t have any control anymore. And you screw up and they screw up, but they’re still your kid. I don’t ever want to know what Julia Gray is feeling now. I’m sure she’s reliving every mistake she ever made.”

  “No more do-overs,” Kovac said, wondering how much of a mess he would have made raising his kid if he’d gotten the chance. It was probably better not knowing.

  He looked to one of his borrowed uniform cops, a burly kid named Adams. “What do the neighbors have to say?”

  “We canvassed the neighborhood twice—first thing this morning and at the end of the day. Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary. Even the closest neighbors don’t have a clear view of the Grays’ driveway because of the way the house is situated. One close neighbor has a security camera on their garage that might catch some coming and going, but they’re out of town. The security company needs a release from the owners to give us access to the video. They’re working on that.

  “Also, one of the neighbors had a New Year’s Eve party with a lot of cars parked on the street. That was the thing everyone remembered. No one could really recall the night before that.”

  “Elwood, what about the girl’s Facebook friends?”

  “I tracked down a few who live in the area. It seems they didn’t really know her that well. They said she came and hung out at a couple of coffeehouses they all frequent. They liked her poetry, but she’s a lot younger than most of them.”

  “So she was building up those relationships that she didn’t really have to the kids at school to make it look like she was cool somewhere, if not with them,” Liska said.

  Elwood nodded. “That’s how it looks. A couple of them let her sleep at their places when she was on the outs with her mother. But they’ve got alibis for New Year’s Eve.”

  “I would rather come back in my next life as a sewer rat than have to be a teenager again,” she muttered.

  Kovac set his plate aside and sighed. “And we’ve got no legit sightings of the girl’s car?”

  “Do you know how many black Toyota Camrys there are in the Twin Cities?” one of the young detectives asked. “To say nothing of other makes that resemble the Toyota Camry. The majority of people don’t seem to know one car from another. We’ve got every agency available checking the tips. It’s not a needle in a haystack. It’s a needle in a pile of needles.”

  The lack of progress was tiring. They were expending tremendous amounts of energy and manpower with no reward. As much as Kovac had wanted the opportunity to renew efforts on the rest of the Doc Holiday cases, the effort was spreading them too thin. He had detectives reviewing the old cases with new eyes, but now he would have preferred to have more attention on the case at hand. A cold case wouldn’t get any colder, but the window of opportunity on a fresh homicide was small.

  The phrase be careful what you ask for kept playing through his head.

  The blessing and the curse of the previous Doc Holiday cases had been in the fact that the victims were from other places, other states. Difficult to investigate, and yet without a great deal of complication from the victims’ family lives—at least on his end of the investigation.

  If Doc had snatched Penny Gray, he could have done them all a favor by dumping her in Iowa.

  Kasselmann stepped into the room—still looking crisp and together, wanting an update.

  Calling on the energy induced by sodium and MSG, Kovac roused himself to go up to the whiteboard and conduct a proper review of what they had, what they didn’t have
, what they wanted, and what they needed to do.

  Bottom line: They had a whole lot of nothing that added up to a strong suspect.

  The captain frowned and sighed. “Come see me in my office before you go, Sam.”

  His frown deepened as he looked at Liska. “What happened to you?”

  “The victim’s mother decided to kill the messenger,” she said.

  “The Gray woman did that to you?”

  “She’s stronger than she looks.”

  “How about that?” Kovac asked when Kasselmann and most of the others had cleared out.

  “How about what?” Liska busied herself clearing away the food cartons and paper plates.

  “Julia Gray giving you that eye. You’ll be lucky if you don’t have a shiner tomorrow.”

  “I’d probably lose it too, if I was in her place.”

  “She hit you with her right hand?” he asked. “The one in the brace?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “She wasn’t thinking clearly. Or maybe she wanted to feel physical pain too. You know? I’d rather hit my thumb with a hammer than feel emotional pain because of one of my kids.”

  “Remind me to follow you home, then, and remove all the hammers from your house.”

  She gave him the finger.

  Kovac turned to Tippen and Elwood. “I don’t buy her story about falling on the ice. It’s too coincidental.”

  Liska dumped the last of the trash in the garbage can. “I don’t buy the story about the girl falling off the bike, and the whole thing about the mom calling her doctor friend on a Saturday. Dr. Concierge setting a weird fracture instead of sending the kid to a specialist. That’s a malpractice suit waiting to happen. Why would he risk that?”

  “What was the mother’s explanation?” Tippen asked.

  “That the girl was on her way home from her therapy session with Michael Warner. She cut through some park, had an accident.”

  “No witnesses,” Elwood said.

  Liska shrugged.

  Kovac scowled. “That’s funny. I asked Michael Warner about it. He didn’t say anything about having seen the girl the day that happened.”