The Love Killings

by Robert Ellis

Matt smiled as he turned on the shower. He could still smell her sex on his skin, and it felt wonderful. It felt like physical therapy. It felt like healing. He was surprised and even grateful that he hadn’t been distracted by his past, his history. More than grateful. And he completely understood why Brown had seemed so tentative in the beginning, and why she wanted to keep whatever they had under wraps. Brown wanted to be seen as the professional that she was. Nothing less would do.

  For anyone, Matt thought.

  It occurred to him that he really was a rental. And that Brown’s decision to come forward last night might have had something to do with the fact that Matt lived in another city and would eventually be going away.

  He smiled again as he stepped into the shower, letting the hot water rain down on him and thinking about the progress he thought he’d made earlier this morning. He’d left Brown’s townhouse around 1:30 a.m. In spite of the late hour, he’d set the alarm for seven and brewed a pot of strong coffee as soon as he got out of bed.

  He couldn’t get Dr. Westbrook’s second profile out of his mind and had wanted to get back on his laptop. But even more, the possibility that the man he was looking for shared something with Adam Lanza, a mass killer, seemed white-hot. As he drank coffee and yearned for a cigarette, he typed Lanza’s name into the search engine and tried to bring himself up to speed as quickly as he could. After an hour or so, he spotted a link on the list and clicked it.

  It wasn’t an article about the Newtown shooting. Instead, he’d found a related story from the New York Times about Dylann Roof, the twenty-one-year-old who had shot six women and three men at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

  Matt stepped out of the shower and dressed as quickly as he could. After pouring another cup of coffee, he slipped a piece of nicotine gum against his cheek and sat on the couch before his laptop.

  Dylann Roof had gunned down nine people. Nine innocents. A group of pastors and Bible study members gathered peacefully for a prayer service. Nine African Americans from all walks of life, ranging from twenty-six years old to eighty-seven years young. Like the elementary school in Newtown, the crime scene at the church had been a blood bath. Multiple gunshots with a Glock .45 semiautomatic pistol from close range. Eight magazines loaded with hollow-point bullets to maximize damage. Like the teachers and children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Bible study members at the Emanuel AME Church didn’t stand a chance.

  Matt kept reading. The Bible study group had invited Roof to pray with them. Roof thanked them and sat with them, then waited until they closed their eyes before he opened fire and slaughtered them.

  Matt clenched his jaws and narrowed his brow.

  What struck him as he read the article a second time wasn’t the fact that Dylann Roof was an obvious racist. He was a racist and would be indicted for hate crimes on top of the nine murders. But what stood out for Matt was the role he seemed to share with Adam Lanza as a mass killer. The fact that they were almost the same age. The fact that they both lived troubled lives. The fact that they didn’t just kill people, they slaughtered them. And then the final blow. The fact that when he downloaded their photographs and examined them side by side, they could have been brothers.

  The presence Roof seemed to share with Lanza was difficult to pin down. It was somewhere in the photographs. Somewhere between the lines. Not the shapes of their faces, but their blank expressions. Their attitude. They came from a similar place. A dark corner. Matt could see the hate showing on their faces, the hopelessness and rage. But nowhere was the physical match more telling than in their eyes.

  Matt took a sip of coffee and pulled his laptop closer.

  Their eyes, he thought. That’s where it was coming from. Both of them had the eyes of a predator—ultra-intense, completely riveting, and over-the-top psychotic. It was almost as if their eyes were no longer a window to their minds and emotions. It was almost as if the line had been snapped and their souls died off and vanished. The photograph of Dylann Roof had been taken during his arrest. Because of the number of death threats, he was wearing a bulletproof vest over his white T-shirt. The crowd was hostile, his life in the balance, and he should have been nervous and frightened. Yet his face appeared empty, devoid of any expression at all, just those dead eyes drilling through the camera lenses. When Matt took another look at the photograph of Adam Lanza, he found the same thing. The kid looked like a zombie. An alien. The kind of reptile that lives in the mud beneath rocks or behind glass in a zoo. It seemed so unbelievable, so unfathomable, even outlandish, that no one looked at these two kids and didn’t know in an instant that something was incredibly wrong with both of them.

  Dead eyes and the psychopathic stare. Both Roof and Lanza were a long way past being odd. Why didn’t anyone see it? Why did anyone have to die before they did see it?

  Matt bookmarked the pages and saved the photographs. As he packed up his laptop, he wondered if the man he was looking for, the man who killed the Strattons and the Holloways, might not possess this same look. These same eyes. He wondered if the killer would show up at the funeral, and if he might not seem familiar enough to stand out.

  Matt holstered his .45, grabbed his scarf, and got into his jacket. Slinging his briefcase over his shoulder, he walked out and locked the front door. A woman was just exiting the apartment next door. On the night he arrived, he had seen a man in his thirties with blond hair and a knapsack enter the apartment and announce to someone that he was home. This woman was at least fifty and dressed immaculately in a business suit.

  Matt stepped over to the elevator and pressed the button. He could feel the woman behind him and, when he turned, caught her looking away. The elevator doors opened. After following her in, he pressed the button to the lobby, stepped to the back, and gave her another look up and down.

  “My name’s Matt Jones,” he said finally. “I’ll be staying here for a while.”

  She didn’t say anything and seemed anxious.

  He cleared his throat. “Was that your husband I saw the other night?”

  “I don’t live here,” she said quickly. “I was just dropping something off.”

  The elevator reached the first floor, and she hurried out. Matt watched her burst through the lobby and out the doors. People who live in cities, particularly on the East Coast, often become uncomfortable around strangers. Matt had been raised in the East and spent time here in Philadelphia, and even more time in New York City. But this seemed different than that. This woman appeared to be frightened when she looked at him.

  He checked his pistol. It was hidden beneath his jacket. She couldn’t have seen it. He wondered if he wasn’t projecting his baggage on her. He probably could have used another couple of hours’ sleep.

  He stepped into the lobby and stopped before the mailboxes. When he found the box that matched the apartment number the woman had walked out of, he read the name.

  Dick and Donna Martino.

  He thought about the man he’d seen walking into the apartment the other night. He had blond hair and wore it on the long side. The name Martino didn’t exactly fit.

  CHAPTER 32

  Andrew Penchant flinched as he saw Matt Jones in the lobby from a bench in the park across the street. The detective was jotting something down on a pad as he spoke on his cell phone. Directions maybe? An address? Or was it a lead in his hunt for Dr. Baylor, the real killer. A woman had just walked out of the apartment building. It seemed like she was in a hurry as she hailed a cab and raced off.

  Andrew couldn’t believe his luck. Instead of copping some weed at Love Park, he’d had a feeling that maybe he should put that off and swing by Fitler Square first. It was after nine, and he had no expectation of crossing paths with the homicide detective from Los Angeles.

  But here he was.

  Andrew smiled as he adjusted his shades in the bright sunlight. He felt his pulse quickening, his heart beating, as the glass doors opened and Matt Jones stepped outside.

  He watched
him check the street, then start down the sidewalk heading east on Pine. Andrew pulled himself together, grabbed his knapsack, and exited the park. After crossing at the light on Twenty-Third Street, he caught up to Jones and stepped in right behind him. He was close—so close—his eyes all over him.

  Jones was taller than he had guessed. Stronger and more formidable than he thought he’d be. Andrew could remember reading that Jones had been shot once and survived, then three more times atop Mount Hollywood, where he should have probably bled to death but didn’t.

  Andrew stepped closer, measuring the side of the detective’s chiseled face. His strong chin and prominent cheekbones. He tried not to laugh. Jones might be formidable, but he couldn’t be too smart. He was chasing a phantom. He was chasing the wrong man.

  I’m over here, dude. I’m right behind you. I’m your shadow, man.

  Jones stopped at the corner, and Andrew missed it and almost plowed into the man. He’d been fooling around in his head and hadn’t been paying attention. When Jones turned, Andrew tried to absorb the shock. The detective was looking right at him, and it wasn’t a glance. It was a long look, almost as if he was trying to commit Andrew’s image to memory. He could feel Jones checking out his cornrows, his blond hair and milky-white skin. He could see him making note of his Ray-Bans and trying to see through the dark glass.

  The adrenaline rush was awesome. It had been a long time since Andrew didn’t need reefer to get this stoked. Oh my God. He could feel Jones measuring him.

  Andrew nodded at the detective like everything was copasetic, then dug his cell phone out of his pocket like he’d just received a call, or even better and way more cool, like he’d just received a text message from one of his countless friends. His social network, man. His crew. Jones bought it and finally looked away. When the light turned green, Andrew hesitated a moment and let Jones lead the way across Pine Street. He could see where the detective was heading now. He could see a parking garage around the corner on Twenty-Second Street.

  Andrew watched him enter the garage, then looked directly across the street and saw a place called the Good Karma Café.

  He slipped his cell phone into his pocket and laughed out loud at the name. It seemed so perfect, so in the moment that he couldn’t make it up. He walked in, glanced at the menu, and ordered a Popeye bagel with a scrambled egg, spinach, and American cheese. After seeing Jones in person, after taking into account his demeanor, his persona, even his posture, it occurred to Andrew that strength might make the difference someday in the future, and the Popeye bagel with spinach seemed like the way to go.

  Andrew walked his coffee over to the window bar and pulled a stool away while they made up his bagel. Then he dug his Canon digital SLR out of the knapsack, removed his shades, and waited.

  Patiently. In the Good Karma Café.

  It only took a couple of minutes. As Jones wheeled his Crown Vic down the ramp and out the doors, Andrew snapped the picture. He didn’t really care about the government-issued license plates. He had zoomed in and didn’t include them in the frame. It was more about getting a close-up shot of the detective who didn’t know he existed and wasn’t even looking for him. More about getting a shot of Matt Jones chasing a phantom. More about the fact that within a single day, he’d figured out who Jones was and where he was staying.

  He knew the building. The high-end neighborhood.

  He watched the detective race down Twenty-Second Street and vanish. When Andrew turned, the woman behind the counter smiled at him. His Popeye bagel with a scrambled egg, spinach, and American cheese was ready, and it smelled good.

  CHAPTER 33

  Matt stood in the churchyard, staring at the five new graves waiting to be filled in. He could smell the earth below the frost line, the frozen ground below his feet crunching as he shifted his weight. His eyes rose to the headstone. When he first arrived, three men had been setting it in place.

  The funeral service for Jim and Tammy Stratton and their three children had begun about half an hour ago. It wasn’t being held across the street in the modern building on the hill. Instead, the service was here in old St. David’s Episcopal Church, a modest sanctuary built in 1715 of wood and stone and set in the middle of the churchyard beneath a forest of tall trees.

  Matt could hear what he guessed was a pair of violins playing Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” The music was leaking out of the church into the graveyard and drifting over the headstones.

  It seemed so still out here. In spite of the music, it seemed so quiet and grim.

  He looked through the trees and saw the media camped out on the south lawn this side of the stream. One of the video cameras appeared to be from a TV station in Baltimore, but like the couple paying their respects before a grave closer to the church, the groundskeeper trimming bushes by the fence, and a pair of mourners attending the service inside, the man and woman with press credentials and a video camera were special agents with the FBI recruited directly out of Washington.

  Matt walked up the steps and opened the door without making any sound. As he entered the church, he saw Doyle and Rogers standing against the rear wall with Dr. Westbrook. Kate Brown had taken a seat in the last pew just ahead of him.

  After a few moments, Matt could feel someone move in behind him. When he heard Doyle’s voice, he pricked up his ears.

  “Remember, Jones. We’re looking for Dr. Baylor, not some asshole kid that has issues with his mommy.”

  Matt turned and gave him a look. Doyle’s eyes were drilling him, his jaw clenched. It seemed more than clear that the federal prosecutor was still incensed by the things Matt had said last night. He watched Doyle step away and glance at Rogers. He saw the two men exchange nods.

  They have blinders on. It’s the corporate way, you know.

  But not Dr. Westbrook. He was looking at Matt as well, but no longer appeared to be judging him. Instead, it was an even, measured gaze. The look of genuine curiosity.

  Matt wished that he could have read Westbrook’s mind, but shrugged it off and turned back to the church. He slipped a piece of nicotine gum into his mouth and let his eyes drift from face to face. Baylor hadn’t shown up. Nor had anyone even close to Dr. Westbrook’s alternate profile. As Matt counted heads and subtracted the two special agents, only thirty-one people were here for the funeral, and not one of them was a single male in his twenties.

  Matt looked at the five caskets lined up before the altar. When the music came to an end, the church rector, Reverend Lillian Brey, began to speak in a gentle but clear voice. Because of the egregious crimes Jim Stratton had committed, there was an awkward feeling to the service that seemed more than palpable. Brey spent several moments speaking about forgiveness before concluding that William Penn had named their city Philadelphia for good reason. Penn was a Quaker and had experienced religious persecution, people trying to force other people to believe what they believed. People thinking that they were right and everyone who didn’t agree with them was wrong. Penn wanted his colony to be different than that. He wanted his colony to be a place where anyone could worship freely no matter what their beliefs. And that’s where the word Philadelphia came from. Philos meaning love or friendship, and adelphos meaning brother. It was Greek for the words brotherly love, she said, and today it was time for us to forgive.

  While Brey led the mourners in prayer, Matt turned and glanced at the funeral director standing on the other side of the church behind the last pew. His name was Lester Snow, and Matt had met him at the briefing before the service. He looked like he was about seventy, and he had told Matt that his funeral home had been operating for forty-five years.

  So why did the funeral director seem so anxious? Why did he look so spooked?

  Matt followed Snow’s gaze to the five caskets, then looked back at the man. Something was on his mind. The worry showing on his face appeared out of place, almost as if this were his first funeral.

  After the prayer ended and the music began, the service moved
into the churchyard. It seemed strange, but there were no pallbearers. Just ten men in black suits who ferried the caskets out into the yard and positioned them on the nylon straps stretched over the five graves.

  Matt checked the graveyard, but didn’t spot anyone new. To the north he could see a steep hill and, set on top, a home that, like the church, might have been built three centuries ago. But through the final moments of the service, he kept his eyes on the undertaker, Lester Snow.

  It occurred to Matt that Snow could have been worried about logistics. Jim Stratton, MD, didn’t appear to have many friends left. Not after giving his healthy patients chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The poor turnout and the lack of people willing to serve as pallbearers might have put a strain on Lester Snow’s services. But once the coffins were lowered into the ground, once the mourners walked away, nothing had changed on Lester Snow’s face.

  The man was worried. Matt knew in his gut that there had to be a reason.

  Kate Brown walked over. “We should get going,” she said.

  He gave her a look. He wanted to stay and talk to Snow but knew that it would require subtlety and wanted to do it alone.

  “Why don’t you go with Rogers and Doyle?” he said. “I’ll meet you at the office.”

  “You want to stay? Why?”

  “I have something I want to do.”

  “What?”

  He lowered his voice. “Did you say anything to Doyle about Westbrook giving us that profile?”

  She seemed surprised, and narrowed her brow. “No,” she said. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. Something Doyle said inside the church.”

  “I didn’t say anything. Maybe Westbrook did.”

  “Maybe,” Matt said. “Why don’t you go with them?”

  “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. I sure hope it doesn’t have anything to do with last night.”

  He gave her a long look as he thought it over. He wanted to talk to Snow on his own. He didn’t want it to seem official.