Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

  “No, it’d discourage tourism. Aren’t you on the wrong side of the river?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  The grin was back. “Naw, I moved over here to the land of Lincoln for the better bennies. Your girl seems to have a good head on her shoulders. How did that happen?”

  “Her mom, I guess.”

  Eli’s grin vanished. “Yeah, I heard Karen passed. Sorry, man. Listen, that’s some nasty shit in there. Somebody didn’t like that girl.”

  “How many you got working it?”

  “Two, plus me. We’re just getting going. Give me a second and I’ll show you around. I want to get out of these damn booties. I almost slipped on my ass in the kitchen.”

  “You always were a graceful thing.”

  Eli headed for the van and Keith joined Krista and Booker on the porch.

  “Booker,” Keith said.

  “Keith,” Booker said.

  Keith said to Krista, “If you have this character, what do you need me for?”

  But it was Booker who answered, “You worked way more homicides than I have, man. Anyway. . . I think your daughter wants to talk to you.”

  Keith looked at her and asked, “Is that right, honey?”

  Krista nodded and led her father off the porch and into the nearby front yard.

  “Talk to me about what?” he asked her.

  “First of all,” his daughter said, “don’t call me ‘honey.’”

  That made him smile. “Even at home?”

  That made her smile. He was glad to see she could.

  “Home is okay,” she said. “Look, Booker is working three, count ’em, three very bad child abuse cases. And there’s an ugly domestic trial on the docket. He’ll have to testify starting tomorrow afternoon.”

  Keith was nodding. “And you only have the one investigator—not counting yourself, of course.”

  “Not counting you. I want to enlist you for this investigation. As a consultant. Perfectly within bounds, considering you’re retired law enforcement.”

  His eyebrows went up. “You think the city council will put up with nepotism like this?”

  “Since you won’t be paid anything, that’s not a problem. This is strictly pro bono.”

  Eli was approaching them from the van, now in running shoes. “Hate to interrupt a family meeting, but Keith? You want the tour?”

  “Yeah. Give me a minute.”

  Eli nodded and headed in.

  Keith said to Krista, “I’m going to guess you don’t want to accompany me inside.”

  “I will if you want.”

  He shook his head. “If I see something that needs calling your attention to, I’ll come get you. Are you. . . are you doing okay?”

  “You already asked me that. On the phone?”

  “Astrid was your friend. You didn’t come here as a cop, you came as a classmate, ready to have a scone or something. Talk old times. This can’t have been easy.”

  “Pop,” she said, “Astrid and I weren’t that friendly.”

  “Don’t call me Pop.”

  She grinned. Actually grinned. “That’s what Charlie Chan said to his number one son.”

  “And his number two and number three. Okay, at home you can still call me ‘Pop,’ but honey—how are you doing? How are you holding up? Every cop who finds a dead body doesn’t call their daddy, you know.”

  “They would if you were their daddy.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “When I found myself in the middle of a crime scene, I stopped being friend and turned cop. It’s where my head immediately went and where it still is.”

  He patted her hand on his shoulder. “Good girl,” he said.

  They both withdrew their hands. He let her take the lead and followed her back onto the porch, where Booker came over.

  “Keith,” the investigator said, “man, I wish I could do more, but I’m up to my ass in alligators. And they’re hungry.”

  “Just give us today,” Keith said, “and we’ll be fine. If I might suggest?”

  “Suggest away,” Booker said, as Krista fell in alongside him.

  “Chief,” Keith said to his daughter, “if you haven’t already, call David Landry at Lake View Lodge and tell him there is a serious police matter that we need his help dealing with.”

  Her eyes were narrowed. “Not tell him about the homicide?”

  “No. Do you think it’s got to social media yet?”

  “Probably not. Although the neighbors know something serious has happened, obviously, and that much may be out there. Probably is.”

  Keith nodded. He glanced from his daughter to Booker and back again, pulling them both in. “Tell Landry all the guests are to be held. Have him announce, in no uncertain terms, that no one who attended the reunion will be allowed to check out by order of the Galena Police Department.”

  “Got it,” she said with a nod, already getting her cell out.

  “And,” Keith continued, “have Landry tell them that, after the brunch, we’ll be gathering all of them in that same room. . . assuming the brunch is in the banquet hall at the convention center. . . for ‘informational purposes.’ Don’t tell him in regard to what. His guests are to be told ‘a serious police matter,’ nothing more.”

  She nodded again and walked off to make the call from the other end of the porch.

  “You, my friend,” Keith said, patting Booker on the shoulder, “will give us this afternoon, and we’ll call it square, me covering for you the rest of the week.”

  Booker gave a single nod. “Fair trade.”

  Keith smiled and nodded back. He paused at the front door and from his coat pocket withdrew the pair of latex gloves he’d thought to bring along. Then he glanced over at Booker and asked, “How long have the CSIs been here?”

  “Half an hour maybe. Show’s hardly started.”

  That was an understatement. Ahead would be photographing and videoing the scene, including all possible routes of exit and entrance, diagraming and measuring any footprint, accessing any spatter, smear, or drop of blood, recording exact position of each. For the three CSIs present, as many hours of work lay ahead, and that didn’t include recovering items for lab work or even dusting for fingerprints.

  Keith opened the front door and went in. Eli was in the kitchen, facing away, as if he were showing off the bold CRIME SCENE TECHNICIAN logo on his back, the words curving above and below the state police seal. The CSI was at the kitchen sink, and when he half turned, in the blue rubber gloves, he looked like he was about to do the dishes—especially with the two cups and saucers down in there.

  “What do you make of this?” Eli asked Keith, who came over.

  The cups had been rinsed, but traces of brownish liquid lingered.

  “Somebody,” Keith said, “had a cup of tea. Actually, two somebodies.”

  “We have one victim,” the CSI said. “And two teacups. Nobody else living here, right?”

  “Well, this is the parents’ house, but they’re Florida snowbirds.”

  “So maybe the victim had a visitor before she went to bed?”

  Keith thought about that. “Astrid Lund likely came straight here from an event out at Lake View Lodge. It’s possible somebody stopped by for a chat over tea.”

  “Came straight from what kind of event?”

  “Class reunion.”

  Eli let out a hollow laugh. “You ever been to a class reunion, Detective?”

  Felt funny being called “Detective” again.

  “A few,” Keith said.

  “And how many beers or drinks or whatever did you throw down at those reunions?”

  “More than a few.”

  “After all that alcohol, you ever go have a cup of tea with one of your buddies?”

  “No. But maybe women are different.”

  “There’s a theory to run with. I’m just wondering if. . .”

  Keith said, “If the perpetrator was a friend or anyway friendly acquaintance who turned out to be. . . not so friendly.”
/>   The blue-jumpsuited shoulders shrugged. “Of course, this tea might’ve been from earlier in the day.”

  “Might have.”

  Keith looked around, spotted a lidded wastebasket. He looked inside. Two used tea bags lay at the bottom of the black plastic bag lining the wastebasket. Nothing else.

  “For the sake of argument,” Keith said, “assume the Lund woman, who lives in Chicago, drove straight to the reunion, and came here to sleep in her family home afterward. That there’s no other refuse here—knowing the parents are living elsewhere for now—would indicate this tea was consumed when she came here after the reunion.”

  “Reasonable,” Eli said.

  “Any indication of a blood trail?”

  “Luminol says blood was dribbled from the victim’s bedroom down the back stairs and trails off here in the kitchen.”

  “When you spray that sink, see if it doesn’t light up like Christmas.”

  Eli frowned. “You think the killer cleaned up after himself?”

  “Or herself, I do.”

  Eli frowned some more. “How does that play out? The victim and her guest drink tea, then go upstairs, the victim climbs in bed, and the killer stabs her repeatedly?”

  “No,” Keith said, and led Eli through the living room and into the entry area. He opened the door. He took a close look at the front door latch.

  “I don’t see anything, except maybe a bit of sticky residue,” Keith said. “But I bet you find evidence that this door latch was taped not to lock.”

  Eli had a closer look. “Real possibility. You think a friendly cup of tea was followed by the guest leaving, but on exiting, making sure he. . . or she. . . could easily get back in?”

  “That’s it. Or maybe it is, if you say so, after you’ve done your magic. Did you notice that wood-block knife set on the counter?”

  “Noticed it, but so what?”

  “One knife is missing. The largest one. Have you found a murder weapon?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that may identify it for you even if you don’t find it.”

  A little hurt, Eli said, “I’d have noticed that eventually.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Keith said, not wanting to rub it in. “Has the coroner been here?”

  “No.” Eli shrugged. “You know Sundays. Want a look upstairs?”

  “No,” Keith said. “But show me.”

  At the top of the stairs, gesturing toward a room with an open door, Eli said, “Best guess is murder happened around midnight. Rigor has set in everywhere. Based on lividity, she died in bed, maybe asleep.”

  The two CSIs working the room had not just their bodies covered in white plastic, but their faces and heads as well, and both wore their blue booties. One investigator seemed to be a man, the other a woman; both were white but that’s about all Keith could tell.

  Eli stayed in the hall, but called out, “This is Detective Larson. He’s working with the Galena PD.”

  The ghostly figures nodded and went back to work, gathering blood samples at the moment.

  Keith stepped inside.

  The lovely girl he’d seen last night was still lovely, her face anyway, but her chest bore a massive wealth of wounds, a black silk robe torn at every entry point, crusty black blood framing each wound. Even worse, the blood had sprayed the ceiling and it clung up there in ghastly streaks, with heavier areas looking like horrid black stucco.

  He exited the bedroom.

  He felt the tears well up. His daughter, so much younger than himself, with so much less experience, had held together, stayed cop, emotionless, professional. But he had to fight it. That young woman. . . that girl. . . his daughter’s classmate. . . all he could think of was, That could be her in there!

  He shook it off, but first it had shaken him.

  Eli led Keith down the front stairs, which took them near that front door again.

  Keith said, “I believe this is a killer who has struck before. A classmate of the girl upstairs. . . a classmate of my daughter, Krista, that young chief of police outside. . . was murdered in Clearwater, Florida, last August. In much the same way. I’m going to contact the detective working the case, whose name is Hastings, so if you receive a call from somebody of that name in Florida, take it.”

  Eli nodded. “We dealing with a serial, you think?”

  “Yes and no. I think these are specific, not random murders. But the method. . .”

  “Is madness,” Eli said. Sighed.

  And headed back through the living room and dining room into the kitchen.

  Outside, Keith told Krista he needed to make a call. She was still keeping an eye on things from the porch, in Booker’s company.

  Walking down the sidewalk, somewhat away from the murder house, Keith looked for the number in the phone. Then he called it.

  “Yeah, I remember you,” Hastings said. The sound of a basketball game on the TV, turned down a little, was nonetheless noticeable.

  Keith said, “I hate to bother you on a Sunday.”

  “Yeah, no problem, what is it?” All run together.

  “That Sue Logan homicide you’re working. . .”

  “Yeah, nothing new since we talked.”

  “I have something new.”

  “Oh?”

  “A similar homicide. Young woman the same age as Logan. And a classmate of hers. Murdered. Stabbed repeatedly in the chest.”

  “Like our victim. . .”

  “Just like your victim. Could you send me the entire file on the case so far? I’ll give you my email, and—”

  “Yeah, okay, but you said you’re retired or something. It’s your daughter? Who’s chief of police, there? Where?”

  “Galena, Illinois. I am retired, but I’m consulting. They haven’t had a homicide in twenty years, but I worked my share on the other side of the river. In Dubuque.”

  “Okay. I can do that. Need to clear it, but. . . pretty sure I can do that.”

  Keith gave him the email address.

  He had just slipped the cell phone back in his jacket pocket when he realized his daughter was approaching.

  “Everything’s set out at the lodge,” she said.

  “Good. We’ll take Booker along. Pick your best officer here on the scene and put them in charge. The forensics team is just starting.”

  “You look pale, Pop.”

  “Let’s get going before I embarrass you.”

  “You don’t embarrass me.”

  “If I hugged you like I want to, I would. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They did.

  THIRTEEN

  Though she’d lived in Galena all her life, Krista never failed to marvel at the ride out to Lake View Lodge—by summer, a shimmering, rolling tapestry of green, in fall a sea of brown, gold, red, and shades between. Yet somehow the skeletal gray of countless trees reaching bony fingers skyward had its own singular, haunting beauty.

  Krista was driving the department’s unmarked car, a dark blue Chevy Impala. Her father was behind her in the Toyota as they pulled up to the lodge, to start questioning reunion attendees.

  She and Pop had gone home briefly for her to get into her uniform—she thought that was a must with what lay ahead—and her Pop thought it best to get himself in a fresh button-down shirt, tan sport coat, brown slacks, and brown-and-yellow tie himself. Then they headed to the station to make a quick stop.

  On the way there, Pop had told her he was getting the files on the Sue Logan homicide from the Clearwater PD. Of course she’d immediately made the connection herself—even though she didn’t have details about Sue’s murder, what she did know tallied with Astrid’s. Two classmates slain so similarly was a coincidence she could hardly shrug off.

  At the station, she’d unlocked the door at the Bench Street entrance and gone up to her office to get the keys to the Impala, then had another thought.

  From a desk drawer she took her old badge, which said

  GALENA POLICE

  OFFICER K. LAR
SON

  and went back down to the street, where her father was leaning against the Toyota.

  She gave it to him, saying, “In case anyone asks for your identification.”

  He took it with a nod and approving smile and pinned it in his wallet, where his Dubuque PD badge had once lived.

  Outside the sprawl of Lake View Lodge’s interlocking modern buildings with their rustic touches, the front parking lot had its first several rows filled, despite off-season. In the next row with open spaces, Krista pulled into one and her father found another a few spots away.

  She waited for him and they paused for a moment. He gestured around.

  “Mostly local plates,” he said.

  “I’d be surprised if any of my classmates hadn’t returned for the brunch,” she said. “Anybody from our class just has to show up for a complimentary breakfast.”

  “That’s a break for us.”

  As they headed for the main lodge building, Booker came ambling out and met them as they stepped up onto the outer walk.

  “I told everybody they can’t leave,” Booker said. “They don’t seem happy, but the free food helps.”

  “Yeah,” her father said, “but what happens when breakfast is over?”

  Booker spread his hands wide. “Well, it’s not over yet. And I’m about to serve myself up. Our host says to help ourselves, and I grabbed us a table.”

  Krista and her dad shrugged at each other. She didn’t have any appetite that she’d noticed and Pop didn’t seem very interested, either. But this day had already been long and fueling up wasn’t a bad idea.

  They went in the front way this time, the lobby seeming almost as sprawling as the lodge itself, with some business offices to the left and right as they entered, the front desk up ahead with very modern furnishings scattered among lodge-like trappings, including a sitting area complete with stone fireplace.

  David Landry materialized from somewhere, his attire like the lobby, half-modern, half-rustic—a stylish olive jacket, fat-knotted dark green tie, but a V-neck brown nubby sweater, fashionably worn-out jeans, and cowboy boots with (as usual with David) uplifting heels.

  The resort manager came over quickly and shook first her hand and then her father’s. David and Booker nodded at each other; they’d already been consulting, about breakfast anyway.