Targeted (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 9)

by Becky Durfee

  Luke grasped Jenny’s hand into his, and another surge of warmth ran through her body. This was a good man standing in front of her.

  They would need to look elsewhere for the killer.

  Chapter 4

  “I’m so conflicted,” Jenny admitted as they settled into the hotel room. “It’s my first night away from the baby, and I feel like I should be there with him. I miss him. But, at the same time, I’m looking forward to a solid night of sleep where I don’t have to listen for him.” She looked at Zack with helplessness. “And that makes me feel guilty.”

  “I swear, I don’t know why you do this to yourself. You’re here, so you might as well just enjoy it.”

  “But what if my mother is overwhelmed? What if the baby isn’t happy with her?”

  “It’s his grandma; she’s going to spoil the crap out of him. Besides, he sees her every day. It’s not like you left him with a stranger.”

  “But what if my mom can’t handle it?”

  “She’s had four kids; I think she can handle it. And you have to admit, five-month-old Steve is a lot easier to deal with than newborn Steve. She’ll be fine.”

  Although she didn’t argue, Jenny stuck her lip out in a pout.

  “You know what I think?” Zack began as he approached her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  She knew what was coming.

  “I think we should take advantage of our time alone and have a little grown up fun.”

  “I’m so surprised to hear you say that,” she replied dryly.

  “Well, it’s our first night alone in months. We can even get a little loud if we want.” His smile was wide and toothy.

  While Jenny wasn’t necessarily in the mood, the man had a point. “Okay, just let me pump a bottle first.”

  “That’s so not sexy,” Zack said.

  With a laugh, she replied, “I can’t help it. I am used to the baby eating every few hours. I’m getting backlogged. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to start playing around with these things until I take care of business.”

  He held up his hands. “I don’t think I really want to know the details. Why don’t you just do what you’ve got to do, and let me know when you are done?”

  Since the machine was loud, Jenny went into the bathroom to do the pumping. She had to admit there was a good deal of relief that came with it; she hadn’t done anything resembling nursing in far too long. The down side, however, was that she was now committed to the machine for the next few minutes. She sat on the closed toilet lid and allowed her mind to wander.

  So far, the only clue she had from either of the girls was the disheveled man along the walking trail. Closing her eyes, she envisioned him once again, wondering what led him to his apparent homelessness. Had it been drugs? Alcohol? Mental illness? She shook her head, acknowledging that something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong for that man. The notion saddened her.

  She thought back to Mick, who became homeless when his alcohol problem had gotten to be too much. She didn’t blame him for drinking so heavily, though, when she considered that he was only trying to erase the horrible images that haunted him from his time in the war. It didn’t seem right to her that a man who had fought for his country came home and was essentially forgotten. She wondered if something similar had happened to the man who frightened Lisa in the park. She grew even sadder.

  Glancing down at the bottles, she noted they were only partly full. Still glued to the machine, she thought about John for a moment, wondering if he was still in control of his crack addiction. He had never been homeless, but he paid his rent with drug money. He had a sad story to share as well, having lost both his parents—and, consequently, everything else—at a young age. Shaking her head, she realized that many people who were looked down upon were mere victims of bad luck. They deserved a little more understanding and a little less judgment.

  And maybe some help.

  This train of thought led her to realize how long it had been since she’d checked in with Mick and John. The roommates were supposed to be keeping each other clean, and she assumed that no news was good news, but she made a mental note to contact them shortly. The last thing she wanted was to fail as their support network.

  Switching gears, she began to wonder what the best plan of attack would be in the morning. She wanted to go to the walking trails, certainly, to look for this man; that was the only clue she had at this point. Although, she wondered if Sonya ever used those trails. Lisa was the only one to give her that clue. Perhaps that was going to be a waste of time.

  Jenny acknowledged this was going to be an especially difficult case. If the girls themselves didn’t know who killed them, the best they could do was guess, leading Jenny to places where they may have encountered the perpetrator while they were alive. This could have been a time consuming process that led nowhere.

  She wondered if the two victims were aware of each other in the spirit world. Lisa had undoubtedly heard about Sonya before she died, but was she able to seek out Sonya’s spirit afterward? Could they confer, comparing notes, figuring out with certainty the things the police could only guess about? Was Sonya aware of Lisa’s suspicions about that man in the park? Had she actually seen the same man but experienced less concern? Or were they each flying solo, both still completely mystified about what had happened to them and why?

  It was not lost on Jenny that these crimes could have been completely random, and no amount of research of the girls’ whereabouts before the murders would lead to any conclusions. Some sick person may have just looked into their windows, realizing they lived alone, and could have chosen his targets that way.

  However, if the person had been doing this for some kind of thrill, she imagined there would have been a more ritualistic nature to the killings. For whatever reason, it seemed the perpetrator wanted these women dead. No fanfare. No satisfaction. Just results.

  What was it about these women that made them targets? Jenny released a sigh as she realized she had no idea.

  She glanced down at the full bottles, unhooking herself from the machine and dumping the contents down the sink. She cleaned everything up and brushed her teeth, well aware of the task that lay ahead of her. Once she finished up in the bathroom, she walked around the corner, taking a look at her husband, who was watching television on the bed. “Hey, baby,” she said with a smirk, placing one hand against the wall and the other on her hip. “Come here often?”

  “You’re a celebrity,” Zack announced in the morning, looking at his laptop.

  “How so?” Jenny ran a comb through her wet hair.

  “Look. You’re an Internet sensation.”

  She walked over to him, peering over his shoulder. She saw a picture of herself walking toward Lisa Penne’s house, with a headline that read, “Stumped Police Department Calls in Tennessee Psychic.”

  “What the hell?” Jenny asked, standing back up. “Why am I news?”

  “The article is focusing on how unproductive and incompetent the Girard County police department is.”

  Faking a smile, Jenny simply said, “Great. And the fact that this guy leaves no clues has nothing to do with it, right?”

  Zack shrugged. “I didn’t write it. I’m just telling you what it says.”

  Jenny walked away with disgust, putting the comb back down on the dresser. Her phone chirped; after reading the screen, she announced, “It’s a text from Detective Brennan. She says they’re having a meeting at the police station at ten o’clock this morning and the chief wants me to attend.” She looked over at Zack with an expression of surprise. “Wow. It’s a little bit strange that they want me there, don’t you think? At the police meeting?”

  “Not necessarily. If they want you on their team, it makes sense that they’d like you to be in the know. Besides, you can give them information that no one else can.”

  “I’ve just never been so involved before,” Jenny replied. “I’ve always been an outsider, maybe working with one officer, a
nd usually on the sly. Or I have investigated completely on my own.”

  Zack saluted her from his chair. “Welcome to the big leagues, kid.”

  Jenny continued to squint as she contemplated the situation some more. “I wonder why this chief is so receptive to me. Do you think he’s desperate?”

  With a laugh, Zack replied, “You really don’t think very highly of yourself, do you? Maybe he’s just a believer.”

  “Either way,” Jenny said as she began to sort through her suitcase, “I need to get going. I don’t want to be late for this thing. It’s a miracle I was even invited.”

  “Go get ‘em, tiger,” Zack said to her. “Show ‘em how it’s done.”

  Jenny wasn’t sure how the press knew about this meeting, but they were standing in droves outside of the police station. Puffing out a quick breath for strength, she hopped out of the car, hoping she could remain inconspicuous.

  She didn’t.

  The reporters even knew her name, shouting at her to answer their questions as she approached the front door. The clicks of the cameras echoed in her ears as she kept her gaze forward and her face expressionless. She made it to the double glass doors, grateful for the silence once they closed behind her.

  “Hi,” she said to the officer behind the desk, “I’m here for the meeting. My name is Jenny Larrabee.”

  After checking her license, the officer led her back to a conference room that had a white board on wheels on one end of the room and a long table surrounded by chairs. About a dozen detectives of different ages, genders and races were in various places throughout the room, but they all had one thing in common—coffee. Every last one of them held a cup in their hands, which Jenny determined was to make up for the sleep they had undoubtedly been lacking since the attack on Sonya Lee three weeks before.

  Detective Brennan came over to her, greeting her with a smile. “Jenny…glad you could make it. Want a cup of coffee?”

  Just as Jenny was about to decline, a realization hit. For the first time in over a year, she was neither pregnant nor nursing. She actually could have coffee—with caffeine—that magical boost she’d been missing so desperately for the longest time. “That would be fabulous,” she replied, eagerly heading to the coffee maker in the corner of the room before taking a seat near the end of the table.

  Once everyone was situated, the man Jenny assumed to be the chief started speaking. He was middle-aged and balding, his sunken eyes indicating he was running on less sleep than anyone else in the room. “Okay, everyone, we’ve got another long day in front of us. Let’s go ahead and get started so we can get out of here and get this guy off the streets, shall we?”

  Jenny’s eyes circulated the room. Some of the detectives ignored her, others seemed curious about her presence. She felt awkward as the chief announced, “We do have a visitor with us today. This is Jenny Larrabee; she’s a psychic. I know some of you may not believe in that, but I want you to respect her anyway. We need all the help we can get in this case.”

  With that, all of the curious eyes left her and focused on the chief.

  “Okay, what we have are two dead women, with the same M.O…entry through a window, a quick and dirty execution and an exit out the same window. He doesn’t seem to spend much time at the scene, limiting the amount of evidence he leaves behind. We did find a shoe print in the mud outside the window at Lisa Penne’s house…size fourteen running shoe, so we’re either dealing with a big guy or a little guy who wore big shoes to throw us off.

  “We also found black fibers on the window sill of the Penne scene, but that doesn’t tell us a whole lot. It was a nighttime attack. The guy dressed for the occasion, which only means he would be harder for potential witnesses to spot.

  “The women were facing opposite directions in their beds, so it appears the perp used his left hand on one woman and his right on the other. The slits were both down to up, so he started low and went high. The medical examiner thinks he knocked them out with a swift blow to the head first, then slit their throats. Both were very quick, intentional acts.

  “Blood droplets led to the windows in both cases, indicating a point of exit, although no weapon has been found. The blood all belonged to our victims; he apparently didn’t cut himself in the process. No foreign fingerprints were found at either scene, an indication he wore gloves.” The chief wiped his hand across his forehead, looking both exhausted and overwhelmed. Without looking at the person in question, he simply asked, “Hughes, what’ve you got?”

  A man sitting at the table spoke from notes. “Penne had a full load this semester.” He listed the times and locations of all of her classes. “Went to the university gym at least five times a week, usually in the mid-morning. Was a jogger; liked to run at Buford Park. Hung out in the usual places on Center Street—Shenanigans, Eddie’s Brewery and the Tap House, in that order. Worked part time as a waitress at the Athens Diner. Wasn’t in a relationship at the time of the murder. Had no bitter ex-boyfriends to speak of. Got a list of names of the men she had been romantically involved with recently; none of them overlap with the Lee case.”

  The chief had written the important points on the whiteboard in quick, sloppy handwriting. Replacing the cap on the marker, he noted, “It looks like the areas of overlap are the gym, Buford Park and the bars.” He closed his eyes. “Who had gym?”

  “Me, sir,” a woman stated, referring to the sheet in front of her. “Over five hundred students belong to that gym, so it’s obviously difficult to get a feel for everyone who’s there. I’ve been focusing on the times that Sonya Lee worked out, which was usually early evening. A few members had told me of a particularly odd student who seemed to be spending more time watching the women than actually working out. His name is Tim Dauber…”

  “We’re not necessarily dealing with an odd person, here,” a man interjected, clearly displeasing the woman who had been speaking. “History suggests this perp would be a fully functioning member of society, not a socially awkward loner. The nature of these attacks makes it seem mission oriented, so I think we need to be focusing on what these women had in common that might have upset this guy. Were they lesbians? Engaged in interracial relationships? Did they have loose morals? That kind of thing.”

  The woman directed her comment at the chief. “We can’t eliminate the possibility that what these women had in common was that they were women. I agree these are most likely mission killings, but we still could be dealing with a socially awkward man who is tired of rejection. Perhaps he found himself attracted to these women, or they both had rejected his advances, and that’s what made him feel like they needed to be eliminated.”

  “This is a college with eight thousand men,” another detective stated. “Chances are one of them had unsuccessfully hit on both Sonya and Lisa, especially if both girls worked out at the same gym and hung out in the same bars.”

  The chief looked at the woman. “Had any men been seen interacting with Sonya at the gym prior to her death? Men that she wasn’t necessarily friends with, who may have been hitting on her?”

  “No,” she replied, “which is why I focused on Tim Dauber; he’s the closest thing to a potential suitor I could find there.”

  The chief closed his eyes, placing his hand on his forehead. “Who had Tap House?”

  An older gentleman spoke. “I did. What you have there is three-hundred-fifty drunken college students running around on any given night. It’s a whole room full of suspects.”

  “Anyone stand out?” the chief asked.

  “Not that I’ve been able to determine.”

  Detective Hughes, who was in charge of researching Lisa, said, “That wasn’t Lisa’s favorite hang-out. According to her friends, she went there rarely. She much preferred Shenanigans and Eddie’s Brewery.”

  “Shenanigans,” the chief said, “go.” Jenny could practically see his blood pressure rise with each spoken word.

  A woman read from some notes. “Both girls had been known to frequent there; the
y were considered regulars by the staff. Nothing in particular stood out about these girls prior to their attacks. Nothing suspicious. No one harassing them. There is one man who shows up alone there most nights—a man by the name of Justin Crowling. Mid-forties. Caucasian. Sits at the bar and just watches people.”

  The same man who interrupted before did it again, placing his head in his hands. “The killer didn’t have to be creepy. He could have just talked to them. He could have just given them a smile that wasn’t returned, for God’s sake. Maybe he just saw them from afar and they triggered something in him.” He looked up, repeatedly stabbing his pointer finger into the table for emphasis. “Statistics show the killer is probably an ordinary guy…someone you could talk to and have no idea you were having a conversation with a killer. We are wasting too much time focusing on people who look like killers. We need to find the person who is the killer. ”

  The woman’s tone escalated. “Yes, but how the hell are we supposed to figure out which men smiled at both girls?”

  “I can do that,” Jenny said softly.

  The room instantly became silent; Jenny could feel every eye on her. Clearing her throat, she added, “I can see little snippets of what the girls saw while they were alive.” She looked down at the table. “It’s how my gift works.”

  The silence remained, making Jenny want to bolt for the door. After a moment, the chief asked, “Have you seen anything?”

  Jenny shook her head. “Only a view of a man in a park, sitting along a jogging trail. He appeared to be homeless. But I might be able to get something else if I went to the other places the victims had been.”

  The chief looked at her intensely. “Are you willing to go to all of those places?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Who had Buford?” the chief demanded.

  “I did, sir.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Like she said,” the man replied, pointing at Jenny, “there is a homeless man who frequents the area. Most of the regulars at the park are familiar with him and say he has always been harmless.”