Guilty as Sin

by Jami Alden

  Yet Kate couldn’t shake the feeling that with these latest revelations, something had shifted between them.

  Reset button indeed.

  As they pulled into Judy Dorsey’s driveway, Tommy struggled to pull his tangled thoughts back under control.

  She never got the letter.

  She never got the letter.

  The thought had been banging like a gong in his head for the last fifty miles, along with a twisted mess of stuff that bubbled up with the realization that when it came to Kate, he’d been wrong about a lot of things for a lot of years.

  Of course, the possibility had occurred to him. The senator’s disapproval of Tommy had been loud and clear well before Michael’s death. Tommy wasn’t stupid. When he didn’t hear back from Kate, he’d known there was a possibility that the letter had been intercepted.

  Yet the possibility that she’d read it, ignored it, and gone along with her father’s plan to screw up his life had burned like acid in his gut for the past fourteen years.

  He should be happy, he thought, or at least relieved. If she hadn’t read—and ignored his letter—it meant he’d never humiliated himself.

  He’d never all but begged her forgiveness for his part in what happened that night, begged her to call him or write him back. She’d never read the part where he told her that even if she didn’t want to be with him, he still wanted to be her friend, that he’d take whatever she was willing to give as long as she didn’t completely shut him out.

  He’d never told her he loved her.

  Yet more than relief, he felt a sharp ache. At the idea that things could have gone a lot differently for them if only the letter had reached her.

  Maybe…

  He smacked the thought down before it could even form. Really, idiot? Even if she had received the letter, you really think she would have welcomed you back with open arms? She was still the same girl who slammed the door in your face when you tried tell her you were sorry. She was still the same girl who had gone willingly with her father when he’d crooked his finger.

  The same girl who had blamed him so much for his part in Michael’s death that she’d willingly done her part to ruin his future.

  Hearing something from you to the contrary would have gone a long way toward making me feel like I wasn’t a completely worthless human being.

  That didn’t sound like someone who blamed him. That sounded like a heartbroken girl who was desperately grasping at any kindness thrown her way.

  So what? Nothing would have turned out different. He slammed the door of the sedan and started up the walkway of Judy Dorsey’s modest single-story house. You were both a couple of dumb kids. Even without the tragedy, the relationship would have burned out as soon as you set foot back on campus that fall.

  Michael’s death just sped all of that up and made sure the aftertaste was particularly foul for both of you.

  Still, he couldn’t get the picture of Kate, slumped on her floor, blood spilling from the milk-white skin of her wrist, out of his head. Christ, he’d seen horrible things in his life—bullet wounds, limbs blown off. Hell, he’d watched half of his friend’s skull get blown off and hadn’t lost his cool for a second.

  But just the thought of Kate like that made him feel like he was going to throw up.

  If she’d known he was there, that he’d cared—no, loved her—would she have felt so desperate?

  He raised his hand to knock on the door, forcing the thoughts aside. This was no time to wallow in their past and wonder about what might have been.

  They waited several seconds and he could feel Kate’s furtive, speculative stare. He’d felt it the entire remainder of the drive, probing, trying to suss out the truth he had no intention of sharing.

  There was a sound from inside, the scrape of a chair across the floor, followed by quick footsteps. Kate’s gaze snapped to the door, immediately on task as she pushed her spinning thoughts about Tommy and his missing letter aside for the moment.

  The door opened to reveal a woman in her early forties. She was dressed simply in a long-sleeve T-shirt and baggy jeans, with dirty blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had the kind of lines in her face that came more from fatigue than age, and she had a tired, careworn air.

  “Judy Dorsey?” Kate asked.

  “That’s me,” she replied, her eyes narrowing on Kate’s face. No doubt trying to place her.

  “Is your mother here?” Tommy asked.

  Judy’s gaze swung to Tommy and she got a wary look on her face as she registered his size and stony expression. “What’s this about?” She started to take a step back.

  “Sorry, we should introduce ourselves.” Kate pulled her face into her camera-ready smile and made quick introductions.

  “Kate Beckett? The woman who’s always on TV talking about missing kids?”

  Kate nodded. “And Mr. Ibarra is currently helping with an ongoing investigation. That’s why we’re hoping to talk to your mother.”

  Judy’s jaw clenched and she started to shake her head. “I’m sorry, my mother’s not a well woman, and she really can’t talk—”

  The door started to close and Tommy caught it with the flat of his hand.

  “I’ll call the police!” Judy shouted.

  “Please, that isn’t necessary,” Kate said. She pulled Tricia’s picture up on her phone. “You’ve seen me on the news, talking about this girl?”

  Judy’s eyes flicked down to the screen and she gave a curt nod. “I’m sorry about her, but I don’t see—”

  “Without going into details,” Tommy said, “we think there’s a possible connection between Tricia’s abduction and your brother’s case. We know your mother did her own investigation, and we were hoping she might shed some light.”

  “No,” Judy snapped. “My mother wasted too much time obsessing over my brother before she finally accepted what he did. I can’t let you see her—”

  “Judy? Who’s at the door?” a thin voice called from inside.

  “Nothing, Mo—”

  But before she could get the words out, quick footsteps sounded down the hallway and a gray head popped around Judy’s shoulder.

  Angela Dorsey wore her gray hair cut short, and despite her age her face still had a youthful look thanks to her small snub nose and wide, inquisitive brown eyes. Eyes that recognized Kate the second she laid eyes on her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing, they were just leaving,” Judy said.

  Kate spoke quickly and loudly to drown her out. “We’re looking into a link between the murders your son was accused of and a recent kidnapping. If there’s a connection, it could prove your son’s innocence once and for all.”

  That was all she needed to hear. Angela ushered them in over Judy’s protests and led them down the hall to the living room. Though the house was small, from what Kate could see it was neat as a pin, its older but comfortable furnishings well cared for.

  “Have a seat,” she said, indicating a thickly padded couch covered in moss green ultrasuede.

  “Mom, I don’t think this is a good idea. You know how upset you get when you talk about this stuff.”

  “Judy, why don’t you make yourself useful and offer our guests something to drink,” Angela said in a voice that would cut stone.

  No shrinking little old lady here, Kate thought.

  “I keep all my files locked in the garage,” she said. “Just let me go get them.”

  Judy made no move toward hospitality, instead glared at them, her plump arms folded across her chest. “The last time she wallowed in all of this, she got so depressed she wouldn’t get out of bed for a month. I had to take off time from work—”

  “And then we saw the doctor and adjusted my medication so that is less likely to happen,” Angela said. She made a shooing motion at her daughter. “Will you give us some privacy, please?”

  “Just make sure you wrap up by six thirty.” Judy said with an exasperated sigh. “My shift at the hospit
al starts at seven, and I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

  Angela watched her daughter leave the room, her expression troubled. “I will never understand why she was so quick to believe what they said about Arthur.” She placed a folder on the coffee table in front of her. “She always thought I was crazy. Maybe I am.”

  “Or,” Kate said, “maybe we’ll stumble onto something that will finally prove you right.”

  Tommy watched quietly as Angela pulled a manila folder full of papers from a big accordion-style envelope.

  “This is a copy of the FBI case file on my son,” she said, indicating the smaller folder. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s useless.”

  Tommy leafed through it while Kate read over his shoulder. It was essentially the same information they’d already seen, with a few additional notes. “They were able to put him in all of the cities where the girls were killed. They amassed sufficient evidence to bring him in for questioning. They found a baseball bat with one of the victims’ blood on it,” Tommy said.

  “All circumstantial,” Angela snapped, waving her hand as though to fan away a foul smell. “He traveled a lot, and he was in those cities working. He did finish work on new housing developments. He was usually hired by the same company and worked with a lot of the same men in different cities, but the FBI never bothered to look into it.”

  Tommy and Kate shared a look. That bit of information hadn’t been in the files they’d seen either. Had other potential perps been at those same job sites with Dorsey when those girls were killed?

  Angela opened up the accordion folder and pulled out a stack of papers. “I worked with a private investigator who cross-referenced and figured out who was on site with him in all four cities where the murders happened.”

  There were five names on the list.

  “We gave the names to the FBI, but they never did anything with them,” Angela said, her voice tight with frustration.

  “Mind if I make a copy of these?” Tommy asked as he pulled a portable scanner out of his bag.

  “Of course not,” she replied.

  As Tommy scanned the documents, Angela continued, her assessment of the FBI’s handling of the case quickly ramping up into a rant. “So many things they didn’t care about or dismissed out of hand,” she said. “Our tax dollars at work, and they didn’t even take into account the details.”

  “Such as?” Kate prompted.

  “Like the fact that the last victim, Jessica Stiller, probably died after Arthur was already dead, God rest his soul.”

  Kate frowned and exchanged a look with Tommy.

  “I don’t remember seeing anything about that in the medical examiner’s report,” Kate said.

  “That’s because it wasn’t,” Angela said. “By the time they found the last victim, the FBI had taken over the case, and their medical examiner estimated the time of death to be before Arthur”—she paused, closed her eyes—“hanged himself. Although that’s another can of worms, if you ask me.”

  Right, Tommy remembered. The theory was that Dorsey, knowing the FBI was closing in on him, killed the girl and then killed himself shortly after. Then again, Angela had gone on record many times with her doubt that the death was a suicide. While he felt for the woman, that was a can of worms he wasn’t prepared to open right now.

  “But the local authorities insisted on having their own examiner on the scene. Because of the condition of the body, he insisted that she could have been killed within a full twenty-four-hour period before or after Arthur died.”

  She pulled a report from the file and held it out for Kate. They read together, Tommy’s brow furrowing as he read the local M.E.’s assessment of the body and time of death.

  “It doesn’t make any sense why this wouldn’t make it into the file,” he murmured.

  “You know what else doesn’t make sense?” Angela asked. “How in the world my son would get hold of that fancy lotion the girls all had on them.”

  “The Beaute D’or,” Kate said, a shiver running down her spine as she remembered smoothing the cream on her own skin.

  “Where in the world would Arthur have gotten hold of it?” Judy said, holding out her palms for emphasis.

  Kate shrugged. “It’s widely available.”

  “But it’s ungodly expensive,” Angela said. “Over $200 for a little jar. Look around you—this is the kind of life Arthur grew up in. He wouldn’t know anything about fancy gold-filled creams or have the means to buy it. Where would he even get such a thing?”

  “He’d have to buy it in an upscale department store, like Neiman Marcus or Barneys,” Kate said, “or special order it like my mother did.”

  Tommy was struck by a sudden memory of that fateful night when Michael was killed. How less than an hour before he’d been out on that beach with Kate, enthralled by the way her sweet-smelling skin had seemed to sparkle in the moonlight.

  Once again, the eerie coincidence made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

  As an argument for Dorsey’s innocence, it was pretty light.

  “If it was an integral part of his ritual, I don’t think the cost would have been an issue,” Kate said, echoing Tommy’s thoughts.

  “But if he had to special order it,” Angela broke in, “it wouldn’t have been possible. My house was his last permanent address. I would have remembered something like that showing up.”

  There were a thousand ways to poke holes in her theory, but Tommy resisted. The woman had suffered through that argument enough, and nothing was going to change her mind about her son. There was no reason for him to dogpile onto her pain.

  They spent several more minutes going through the information Mrs. Dorsey provided, and Tommy scanned the most relevant documents.

  “Please keep me updated on anything you find out,” she said as she shook hands with Tommy at the door, “and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any more questions.” She quickly wrote down a number on a scrap of paper. “That’s not listed anywhere so please don’t share it.”

  “Of course.” Kate nodded and held out her hand.

  Instead of shaking it and releasing it as she had with Tommy, Angela clasped Kate’s hand in both of hers, her expression turning somber. “I know I sound like an old crackpot grasping at straws, but I know in my heart my son didn’t do what they think he did. Whoever did that to those girls is still out there, and if he’s the one who went after Tricia, I pray to God you find her before it’s too late.”

  It took Judy Dorsey ten minutes to find the old address book where she’d written the number. While part of her wondered if they even cared after all this time, she decided it was worth giving him the heads-up. If nothing else, maybe it would make life difficult for Little Miss Perfect and her overgrown companion, she thought with a grimace as she dialed.

  The last time the press had dredged up Arthur’s case, she’d barely been able to pull her mother back from the edge. Not that her mother appreciated any of it—not the fact that Judy took her in when it became clear she wasn’t safe living by herself in Omaha. Not the sacrifices she’d made in her career and her personal life.

  No, her mother still cared more about her dead, no-good, murdering brother than she did about her living, breathing daughter who had done more for her in the last week than her brother had done in a waste of a lifetime.

  He answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Agent Fields?” Judy asked.

  There was a slight hesitation and then: “Yes, this is Agent Fields. Who is this?”

  Chapter 19

  He didn’t need to hear her name to know who it was. Judy Dorsey was the only one who had this number, and there was only one reason she would be calling.

  His fingers tightened around the receiver, his stomach muscles clenching as he waited to hear what she had to say.

  “I know it’s been a long time, and it probably doesn’t even matter at this point, but you said I should call you if anyone showed up wanting to talk about my bro
ther’s case.”

  He cleared his throat, determined not to let any of his apprehension show. He thanked her for calling. “It might not seem important after all this time, but we always like to be prepared to deal with the press or the victims’ families should the need arise. Is it another TV show?”

  No reason to worry if it was, he reminded himself. With all the investigation shows on cable these days, it seemed like every few years or so a producer was dredging up the Bludgeoner case.

  “Not exactly,” Judy said uncertainly. “I mean, Kate Beckett is on TV a lot, but that’s not what she’s here for.”

  His body flushed red hot, then went ice cold in a matter of seconds. His hand started to shake around the phone. “What does she want?”

  But he knew before she spoke what Kate was doing there. “She’s here with a man—his name is escaping me right now—he’s a private investigator helping her with the missing girl case. I’m sure you’ve heard about it—she was on vacation with her family over in Sandpoint?”

  “We’re monitoring the case, of course,” he replied, hoping his voice didn’t sound as choked as it felt.

  “Well, they seem to think there might be a connection to my brother’s case and this one.”

  He felt a spike of panic and tamped it down. There was nothing to worry about, he reminded himself. He’d been so careful, covered all of his tracks.

  And then after Dorsey’s death he’d finally found his true mate and hadn’t needed to take such extreme measures until recently.

  “You don’t think it could be true, could it? Is it really possible that my brother wasn’t guilty after all?”

  He took a deep breath, forced the panic back. Kate and Ibarra could ask all the questions they wanted. Nothing would ever point them in his direction—nothing that could possibly connect him to those other girls. “I know it’s hard to hear,” he said, infusing his voice with false sympathy, “but all of our evidence points to your brother’s guilt. Despite your mother’s position, if there was evidence that contradicted that, I believe we would have found it by now.”