Black Jack

by Diane Capri

  She listed the points Deerfield mentioned. The paint, the women, the mysterious cause of death, the far-flung crime scenes, the connection to the Army and to Reacher.

  “A bathtub filled with green paint?” Finlay asked. “What was the significance of that?”

  “I haven’t seen the file yet, and Deerfield didn’t say. Since the case wasn’t closed, the original team probably never figured that out.” Kim shrugged. “Deerfield says the killing stopped for a few years and has started up again. He says some of the features in the fresh case are not the same as the old one, but there’s enough similarity that he thinks Reacher was the original serial killer. And still is.”

  “I see.” Finlay cocked his head. “And what do you think?”

  “Statistically, the new murder must be a copycat. Serial killers don’t quit and then start up again. Like you said, they’re sick, and they’re driven to do what they do. They can’t just stop.” She paused and took a breath. “But someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to kill this latest victim and stage the murder like the original ones. Which means the killer knows about the old cases. He’s clever and strong and familiar with investigation procedures, too. Reacher possesses all those characteristics and more.”

  “But you’re not sold on Deerfield’s theory that Reacher’s the killer. Why not?”

  “Just doesn’t feel like Reacher to me, you know?” She shook her head. “What possible motive could he have?”

  Finlay shrugged. “Deerfield is probably planning to ask him, don’t you think?”

  “The body’s been there for about ten days. Deerfield’s theory is that Reacher killed Jodie Jacob because she left him. And then he left town.”

  Finlay nodded. “Common motive in about eighty-four percent of female homicides, unfortunately.”

  “But what about the previous victims? There was no evidence that he’d been in love with them all or that they’d walked out on him, I’m guessing. Because if Deerfield had facts like that, he’d have told me,” Kim said.

  “What else?” Finlay asked.

  “Wouldn’t he have killed the victims in a more Reacher-like way?”

  “Dead is dead. What else are you thinking?” He frowned.

  “Reacher’s…well, let’s call him an efficient killer. The Army trains them that way, and he was an excellent student. Minimal fanfare. Weapons of choice are guns, mayhem, and brute force, mainly.” She paused. “None of which were employed to kill these victims.”

  Finlay grinned. “I see your point.”

  A brief knock at the door and Russell, Finlay’s Secret Service assistant, looked in. “Dr. Finlay, your seven o’clock is here. I put him in the blue room.”

  Finlay nodded, and Russell backed out and closed the door.

  “Send me the names of the victims. I’ll dig up the old file. And I need to see the new crime scene and the body,” Finlay said. “Do you have video or photos?”

  “Yes,” Kim replied. “I’ll leave you the address, too. You’ve got access to satellite images of the area around the house. Look back at least a couple of weeks. Deerfield says Jodie Jacob walked into the house and never came out. You’ll see why that’s not likely. And while you’re at it, look for Reacher, too. I doubt you’ll find him sneaking around that house. That’s not his style, either.”

  He frowned. “Why would we have surveillance satellites aimed at a private residence?”

  “Because the house is located in Garrison, New York. Across the river from West Point.” West Point, the Naval Academy, and other military-related schools were solid targets for terrorists and skilled killers of every kind. Every military installation around the country was watched constantly by various US agencies. Probably monitored by foreign actors and private industry, too.

  “Ah. I see. What does Cooper say about all of this?” Finlay asked.

  Kim paused long enough for him to guess that she hadn’t discussed her theories with the Boss.

  Finlay nodded, and his frown deepened. He stood and buttoned his jacket. “No promises. I don’t know where Reacher is. I’ve told you that before. I can put the word out that I want to hear from him. Send me what you can on the murders. I’ll let you know if I have anything useful to contribute.”

  When he left the room and closed the door behind him, her adrenaline plummeted. She fell back into the chair, exhausted. Finlay drained every ounce of energy she could muster, every time. She never let him see her sweat, but the truth was that he scared her beyond reason.

  Gaspar would say she was an idiot to get Finlay involved in this thing, regardless of what was actually going on. Which was precisely why she didn’t tell her partner she was coming here, either.

  She couldn’t linger, although she wanted to curl up on the sofa and sleep. She took the elevator to the lobby and a taxi back to her hotel. She stashed the burner phone in the planter by the elevator again.

  When she reached her room, the manila envelope was still lying in the center of her bed next to her personal cell. The envelope was vibrating like crazy.

  She shook her head. This time, the Boss probably didn’t see her enter the hotel since he thought she was already in her room. He’d probably been calling since yesterday morning, at intervals, attempting to reach her. He wanted to talk, but she wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  She tossed the envelope and her personal cell onto a chair and collapsed on the bed. She closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep in less than ten seconds.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Saturday, January 29

  8:35 a.m.

  New York City, New York

  Her brain eventually registered the nagging intrusion through the fog of sleep. Once the fog was penetrated, she subconsciously identified the noise. Her personal cell phone, vibrating incessantly. Six long rings, and then automatically sent to voicemail. Every time the unanswered call kicked over to request a message, the caller hung up and tried again.

  She ignored the sound for a while, but after two dozen attempts, she caved.

  Without opening her eyes, she fumbled until she found the phone under the manila envelope in the chair where she’d tossed them.

  “Otto.” She answered the call without looking at the caller ID.

  “Were you still sleeping? Sorry. I’ve been calling awhile. Figured you were in the shower,” Brice said. He sounded awake and alert and annoying as hell. “I’m on my way to pick you up. We’ve got a full plate today. Be there in ten.”

  “No.” Her voice croaked. She needed another couple of hours of shut-eye. At least. “Sorry. Can’t.”

  “Can’t what?” Brice sounded preoccupied, but not discouraged. “Turn your television on. Get up to speed on the media coverage. Someone did us a favor. Shooting at that theater out in Center Line. Where the big mass shooting was a few years ago. Lots of coverage for the new murder. Our case is already number two on the lineup in local news and moving down the list.”

  “What are you talking about?” She opened her eyes to find the remote and pressed the power button. The screen came to life on the hotel menu. She located the live TV button, muted the volume, and ran through channels until she found the all-news station.

  The Center Line Theater shooting was front and center, as he’d said. She read the crawl along the bottom of the screen. One man shot. Shooter in the wind. She closed her eyes and flopped back on the bed.

  “We’ve got a little space now. Let’s make the most of it before the spotlight comes back. I’ll detour and grab you a big coffee. Pick you up at the valet entrance in twenty.” Brice disconnected before she could refuse again.

  Kim groaned. She punched up the volume on the TV and headed to the shower. She wasn’t dirty, but she needed to wake up. Coffee alone wouldn’t do the job.

  She caught headlines while she dressed. There were very few known facts about last night’s shooting beyond what she’d read on the crawl.

  One body, identity not public until next of kin could be notified. Killed execution style with small
caliber bullets to the left temple. They didn’t mention the size of the exit wounds on the right temple or how those bullets mash up the brain on the way through. For Kim, they didn’t need to explain.

  The rest of the coverage was a rehash of the original case. The Center Line Theater shooting had been one of the worst mass shootings in the country at the time. She listened with half an ear.

  Kim remembered the basic facts fairly well. Two seventeen-year-old boys were engaged in a role-playing game at the release of a popular movie. The film had been developed from an exceptionally violent video game. The climax scene was an epic gun battle. The teens joined in, using guns they’d stolen and smuggled into the theater.

  One of the teens had loaded his weapon with blanks, which he said later was their plan.

  The other teen had loaded his with live bullets.

  The shooting had shocked and horrified the upscale community where the most noteworthy thing that ever happened was bad weather during tourist seasons.

  When the shooter was killed by police a few minutes into the firefight, inevitable questions about his motives remained unanswered.

  During the wee hours of this morning, Kim figured it was the second teen who had been executed. There was no more accurate way to say it, although the reporters did their best to avoid the word for understandable reasons. Speculation was rampant that the executioner had been a bereaved family member of one of the original victims.

  For the twenty minutes Kim paid slight attention to the broadcast, nothing was mentioned about the body in the bathtub in Garrison. Brice was pleased, and so was she, but probably for different reasons.

  Keeping the media off her back on a new homicide was a full-time project. Coverage made her job exponentially more difficult every time.

  But Deerfield couldn’t be happy. Delayed reporting could mean that Reacher wouldn’t hear about the bathtub murder for a while. If Deerfield were still in town, he’d probably have already scheduled a press conference, she thought sourly.

  Which made Brice’s reaction even more curious. He’d been such a toady last night. Why the change of heart?

  She kept the set on and left the room. She retrieved her burner phone from the planter before entering the elevator and made her way downstairs to the valet entrance.

  True to his word, Brice was waiting out front behind the wheel of the black SUV. So predictable. Some women might find that comforting, Kim supposed. She climbed up and settled into the passenger seat. Two cups of coffee were waiting in the console’s cup holders. Reliable, though, which was okay.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Meeting Detective Grassley first. Then the morgue. The autopsy on our vic could be finished this morning.”

  “I need to know what we’re doing here, Brice. If we’re not dealing with a serial killer, and we both know the odds are long this killer is the same one as the old cases, then we don’t have any jurisdiction on a homicide. Grassley has made it clear she’s not inviting the FBI into her case.” She punched the plastic opening on the cup’s lid and swigged her first coffee of the morning. “Later today, I’ll read the old case files. For now, tell me what I need to know.”

  “Deerfield gave you all the highlights already. He worked the original case because Reacher was living in New York when he was picked up. Five victims, various locations around the country. All the victims suffocated, but they never figured out why. All were found in a bathtub filled with Army green paint.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  “And the killing simply stopped?” She stared at him a second or so until he noticed. “You’re sure nothing happened to the guy? Like some not-so-friendly fire, maybe?”

  Brice shrugged. “Our killer could have been arrested and sent away for something else. If he was military, and he could be since the victims were vets, he might have been deployed. Maybe he’s been sick. Heart attack or a car wreck kept him off the playing field for a while. Could be a thousand explanations. Who knows?”

  “How, specifically, was Reacher involved in the case?” Kim asked.

  Brice glanced at her. “Investigators scooped him up in an alley near Mostro’s. Saw him roughing up a couple of guys who were shaking down the owner. Our protection rackets unit had been watching these two and saw the whole thing. Reacher pounded the guy’s head on the concrete a bit too vigorously, I guess.”

  Kim shuddered. “How was that related to the bathtub cases?”

  Brice squirmed in his seat. “It, uh, wasn’t. The Serial Crimes Unit was already looking for Reacher. They had him as a person of interest because he knew all the victims like we told you. When he ended up in custody, they hit the jackpot, I guess.”

  “So they flipped him? Pressured him into cooperating with the investigation?”

  Brice shrugged. “The file’s a little unclear on that. But he ended up working with our team on the case. Until the case fizzled. Then he moved on.”

  Kim thought about the story for a couple of minutes. “How’d he get out of the maimed mobster problem?”

  “The file’s vague about that, too.”

  “Figures.” She wasn’t the least bit surprised. Where Reacher was concerned, the patterns repeated. The guy was a trouble magnet. He attracted felons like rotten fruit attracts angry wasps. When he managed to get himself arrested, he never stayed in custody very long. “Was there a female agent on the team, by any chance?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Kim smirked. “I’ve got fifty bucks that says an attractive woman was on the investigative team. Wanna bet?”

  “Uh, maybe, I guess. Dunno.” Brice cocked his head. He pulled into a parking spot at the curb. “Grassley’s waiting for us.”

  Kim scanned the busy Manhattan street. She saw nothing familiar. “Where are we?”

  “Wall Street. Jodie Jacob’s law firm, Spencer Gutman. Grassley’s interviewing the partners.”

  “Grassley identified the body? It’s definitely Jacob?”

  “Not yet. But maybe we can rule Jacob out. Whether it’s her or not, we need the interviews. Come on.”

  He walked around the front of the SUV and waited for Kim to climb out. They found the elevator and rode up into the rarified air of pricey Manhattan real estate.

  The firm’s reception area was quiet. After a couple of minutes, a woman returned to the front desk. Brice showed his badge and asked for Grassley. The woman led them down a corridor lined with law books on oak shelves. They came to a set of double doors.

  She opened the door to a blinding wall of windows. “Detective Grassley, your colleagues have arrived.”

  Once her eyes adjusted, Kim saw Grassley at a long conference table, backlit by the rare winter sunshine. Across the table was a stocky man, about fifty, thinning brown hair. Dressed in a suit that cost more than the entire wardrobes of all three public servants combined.

  The man looked up.

  Brice flashed his badge again. “FBI Special Agents Brice and Otto.”

  The man nodded, “Charles Copeland.”

  Grassley said, “Mr. Copeland worked closely with Ms. Jacob. Until she left the New York office for Europe and later, she left the firm.”

  Kim cocked her head. “Wasn’t Jodie Jacob a partner here? My friends who have partnerships in firms like this are serving a life sentence.”

  Copeland chuckled. “The golden handcuffs are very real, Agent Otto. Partners do usually stick with us until they retire or die. But no one is chained to the desk. Slavery’s been illegal in this country for a century or so.”

  Brice swept his arm wide. “So you’re saying Jodie Jacob simply walked away from all this?”

  “We didn’t fire her if that’s what you’re asking. Which is another thing that’s hard to do with a partner, anyway,” Copeland replied. “She did a stint in our European offices. We were very happy with her and with her work. No one wanted her to go.”

  Kim said, “But she wasn’t all that happy with Spencer Gutman, I gather.”
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br />   He shrugged. “I don’t know why she left. I already explained that to Detective Grassley.”

  “When did she stop working with the firm?” Grassley asked.

  Copeland shook his head. “Maybe a couple of years ago? I’m not sure. Spencer Gutman is a big firm. More than a thousand lawyers, all told. She was a member of my department, but we weren’t working together directly. I was here in Manhattan, and she was in Brussels at that point, I think.”

  “Where did she go when she left Spencer Gutman?” Brice asked.

  Copeland shrugged again. “I don’t really know. By the time I found out she was gone, it was months later. Our paths haven’t crossed again.”

  “Anybody here in the New York office who would know where she’s working now?” Kim asked.

  Grassley said, “The personnel department gave us her residential address. They said they didn’t have a new professional address for her.”

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it Mr. Copeland?” Brice asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t handle personnel matters for the firm,” Copeland replied.

  “What is your area of expertise, exactly?” Kim asked since he seemed to know almost nothing about a partner in his own department, which she found hard to believe.

  “Same as Jodie’s. Mergers and acquisitions. But my clients are based on the East Coast, primarily. Like I said, Jodie worked with our European clients. Totally different continents.”

  “Yeah. Europe and the U.S. are on different continents. I’m aware.” Kim held on to her patience, but barely. “When did you see Jodie Jacob the last time?”

  “Maybe five or six years ago? She would have been here in New York.” He cocked his head and pooched his lips to work in a way that could have meant he was seriously thinking about the question. Or not. He shrugged. “I remember the party when we celebrated her election to partner. I’m really not sure if I saw her again after that. I haven’t been to our European offices for at least a decade, and like I said, that’s where she was working. I’m sorry I’m not more help.”