Cereal Killer

by G. A. McKevett

  “Jim’s gone,” a neighbor told Savannah. She and Dirk had split up and were canvassing both sides of the street. This was the first person she had found at home. “Gone? Gone where?”

  “Las Vegas,” the elderly woman said, a bright, excited look on her face. “I gave him ten dollars’ worth of quarters to play the slots for me. We’re gonna split whatever he wins. I can’t wait for him to get back in town, so I can find out how much we won. I need a new recliner and maybe even a new car if he did good enough.”

  “I see,” Savannah replied. What she could see was a sweet lady who needed a realistic plan for replacing that aged recliner. “How long has Jim been out of town?”

  “Nine days. He stopped in along the way to visit some girl that he’s sweet on, and he’s been in Vegas for the past three days. I haven’t heard a word from him. I’m hoping that’s not bad news. Do you think he would have called me if we’d hit a big one?”

  Savannah shrugged and stifled a grin. “I have no idea, ma’am.” She glanced across the street at Oates’s house with its empty driveway. “Does Jim drive a white van with a rack on top?” she asked.

  “Oh, that monstrosity of his. It’s an eyesore, I tell you. That’s another reason why I hope he wins a big jackpot in Vegas. He needs a new van worse than I need another car. That thing’s going to break down someday and leave him on the side of the road.”

  “So, he drove the van to Las Vegas?” Savannah asked, her mental wheels whirring as she evaluated the possibility that ol’ Jim had lied to this dear lady, stayed in town, and murdered some women in his spare time.

  “Heavens, no. He wouldn’t drive that thing to Los Angeles, let alone Vegas. I’m telling you, it’s a heap of junk. He took his other car—his Toyota. He just uses the van for his work. He’s a painter, you know. Not the artist kind, the house and wall kind.”

  “Wait a minute,” Savannah said, confused. When she and Dirk had arrived at Oates’s house, they had looked through the garage window and found the garage empty, except for a mountain of painting supplies. “If he didn’t take the van with him and it isn’t in the garage, where is it?”

  The old lady smiled, happy to supply the answer. “Oh, that’s because Charlotte has it. She borrows it sometimes when he’s out of town... you know... when she’s got some furniture to haul or something like that.”

  “Charlotte?” Savannah felt a prickle of anticipation. “Who’s Charlotte?”

  “Charlotte Murray, his sister. Such a sweet girl. I’ve always really liked Charlotte. Looks just like her brother. Maybe if we win big, we can give her enough money to buy a van for herself, or at least a bigger car. You know, she can’t haul a decent bill of groceries in that little Honda of hers. Why, she...”

  Savannah waved to Dirk, who was halfway down the block, looking dejected as he left one house and headed for another. Seeing her beckoning him, he perked up and joined her beside the Buick.

  “Get in,” she said.

  Once inside the car, she turned to him and said, “Charlotte Murray.”

  “What about Charlotte Murray? I already talked to her.”

  Savannah shook her head. ‘What? You already know about Charlotte Murray?”

  “Yeah, I told you. I questioned her already.”

  “About what? Who is she?”

  “She works at the hospital. She’s a head nurse, Kevin Connor’s supervisor.”

  Savannah felt a rush similar to the one provided by a hot, strong Irish coffee. It flowed through her body, making her tingle to her fingers and toes.

  “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, “this Charlotte Murray is the one who gave Kevin Connor his airtight alibi? The one who says he was there at the hospital all day and couldn’t have possibly murdered his wife?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Time slowed for Savannah, as it often did at moments of high stress... or exquisite delight. She laughed, reached over, and slapped Dirk on the shoulder. “Charlotte Murray is Jim Oates’s sister,” she said. “He’s been on a trip to Vegas this week, and she’s driving his white van.”

  “No way!” Dirk’s eyes lit up with the light of a man who thought he was drowning only moments before but now sees a luxury cruise ship coming to pluck him out of the cold waters of the Atlantic.

  “You got it, big guy.”

  He grinned—an evil grin. “So, whatcha say, Mamma? Is it about time to go to the hospital?”

  She placed her hands on her stomach and began to huff and puff. ‘Yes, sirree, Bob. I feel like I’m about nine and a half months along and finally something’s about to deliver!”

  Savannah didn’t exactly hate the hospital—at least, not the way she hated the city morgue. But it was a close second.

  Antiseptic-smelling hallways with highly polished floors and open doors that revealed the unhappy side of living and dying—hospitals reminded her of the fragility of human beings. And in her line of work, she had plenty of reminders of that sad fact already.

  But today, as she and Dirk hurried down the hallway, their shoes squeaking on the shiny linoleum, she was in a far better mood than usual. There was nothing quite like a break in a case to put a spring in a girl’s step... hospital hallway or not.

  And while they were a long way still from figuring out the “why, when, and where” of the case, at least they had a line on “who.” And as Savannah’s brother, Macon, would say, “That’s better than a bite in the ass.”

  “When you interviewed this gal,” she said to Dirk, “did she seem like the type to you?”

  “The type?” Dirk shook his head. “No. Tumblety seems like the type. Assuming there’s a type. And we both know there ain’t.”

  Savannah had to admit it was true. In her years of investigating homicides, she had pretty much concluded that about anyone could commit murder under the right... or wrong... set of circumstances.

  But one killing, done in the heat of passion and regretted a moment later, was one thing. Two, maybe three, murders in a week—that was something altogether different. That took a person of a different mind-set. And it was hard for her to imagine that anyone who had chosen nursing as a profession could do such a thing.

  After hiking for what seemed like miles through the cavernous maze of hallways on the ground floor, they came to the surgical unit where Kevin Connor worked. And more importantly, where Dirk said he had last interviewed Nurse Charlotte Murray.

  They found her desk at the nurse’s station near the elevator bank, but after a look around, Dirk told Savannah that she wasn’t among the nurses milling about in their bright blue smocks and heavy white sneakers.

  Dirk walked up to a young black woman with copious beaded braids who was sitting behind a desk and said, “Is Nurse Murray on duty?”

  Her pretty face lit up with recognition and interest. “You’re the one who was here the other day,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “The policeman who was asking about Nurse Connor’s wife.”

  “That’s right,” he said, dropping his voice to match her whisper. “Is she around?”

  “She was. I think she’s on a break right now.” Savannah noted the gleam in the young nurse’s eye—the sure sign of a dyed-in-the-wool gossip. And when investigating a case, those were Savannah’s favorite people. You couldn’t trust half of what they told you, but one hundred percent of it was bound to be interesting.

  “Where does she usually go when she takes her breaks?” Dirk asked.

  “Depends on how long her break is,” the nurse replied. “Sometimes she goes to the cafeteria. And since she smokes, sometimes she’s up on the roof, having a cigarette.” She glanced around, then lowered her voice even more. “And sometimes... she takes a nap... in there.” She nodded toward a door down a hallway to their left.

  It was something in her tone and in the quirk of her brow when she said, “... in there,” that set Savannah’s wheels turning.

  She leaned onto the desk and gave the nurse her friendliest down-home smile. “What’s... in th
ere?” she asked.

  “It’s sort of an unofficial break room. It’s where they catch a nap when they get the chance.”

  “Who’s they?” Dirk wanted to know.

  “The head nurses,” she replied, again lifting one brow. “The doctors. The surgical nurses.”

  For a moment Savannah could see those last three

  words, like a giant neon sign flashing over the woman’s head.

  “Surreal nurses?” Savannah repeated. “And head nurses?”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “And maybe sometimes they might be napping in there at the same time?” Dirk said.

  “They might be in there. They might be napping. Depends on who it is how much sleeping is going on.”

  “Gotcha,” Savannah said. “And do you suppose they’re ‘napping’ in there right now?”

  “Naw, don’t think so. I haven’t seen anybody go in there today yet.”

  “How about the day that Kevin Connor’s wife died?” Dirk asked. “Do you think there were any head nurses and surgical nurses in there napping together?”

  “I was sitting at this desk all day. I saw Nurse Connor go in there. He stopped by the desk first and said he was really tired after a long surgery he’d had that morning. Said he was going to get some sleep before a myomectomy in the afternoon. He told us not to bother him.”

  “And was he... bothered, that is?” Savannah asked. Again, the nurse looked around, but the only other two nurses in the area seemed deeply engrossed in a patient’s chart. “Nurse Murray went in there for a couple of minutes. When she came out, she said he was sound asleep and reminded me not to disturb him, to let him rest.”

  “How long was he in there?” Dirk said.

  “About an hour. Maybe a little longer.”

  “How did he look when he came out?” Savannah asked.

  “Look?”

  “Yes. Did he look... rested?”

  She nodded. “He looked fine. I mean, he didn’t even look like he’d been sleeping. Usually people come out of there with pillow prints on their faces, their hair standing up, and drool on their chins.”

  Savannah turned to Dirk. “That sounds like you in the morning,” she said. “Or pretty much any time up till noon.”

  Dirk ignored Savannah’s comment and said to the nurse, “Do you think I could see that room?”

  “You mean, like go in there and look around?” ‘Yeah. Exactly.”

  “I don’t see why not. The door’s usually unlocked, and I don’t think anybody’s in there right now. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks... for everything,” Dirk told her.

  “Yeah,” Savannah added. “And you have a real good day, darlin’.”

  The nurse’s eyes sparkled with good-natured mischief. “I always do.”

  As they walked away and headed toward the room in question, Savannah whispered to Dirk, “Don’t you just love a blabbermouth?”

  “I depend on them,” he replied. “They’re almost as informative as pissed-off ex-wives.”

  When they reached the door at the end of the hall, they were pleased to find it unlocked. Dirk entered first and switched on the light.

  Following him inside, Savannah was surprised to find far less than the five-star accommodations she was anticipating. Although she hadn’t expected the nap/break room to have down pillows and Egyptian cotton duvets, she had figured that doctors snoozed on something better than a gurney and a simple cot.

  Both “beds” were empty, but rumpled pillows and sheets suggested that they had been used recently.

  Savannah shut the door behind her and joined Dirk beside the large window.

  “So much for the idea that Connor couldn’t have left this room without being seen,” she said.

  “Just what I was thinking. Tell everybody not to bother you, hop in and out of the window, and go on about your merry way of murdering your old lady.”

  “How?”

  He gave her an exasperating, weary look. “One thing at a time, if you don’t mind.”

  She turned and glanced around the room. On the far wall was a line of small gray lockers that were secured with assorted padlocks and combination locks.

  “Oh, lookie, lookie,” she said. “That one there on the end says MURRAY. And it’s got a padlock.”

  Dirk sniffed. “Yeah, but I ain’t got a warrant and my butt’s still sore from the chief chewin’ on it. He hasn’t gotten over us breaking into the Montoya chick’s place yet.”

  “Eh, the chief should fall down a flight o’ stairs,” she said, walking over to the locker and fingering the simple padlock.

  He said nothing as he watched her examine the mechanism.

  “There’s nothing to this,” she said. “I had one of these on my high school gym locker.”

  “I could get a warrant,” he said. “Maybe... in a few hours. Of course, by then Nurse Blabbermouth back there at the desk will tell a dozen people we were asking about Murray and that we came into this room. And they’ll tell Nurse Murray, and she’ll get rid of anything in there that might be any good.”

  “Ninety seconds,” she whispered... the voice of temptation. “That’s all it’d take me to have her open.”

  “I can’t. The chief would be having my oysters fried for dinner.”

  Savannah reached into her purse and fumbled around, searching for her lock pick. “Why don’t you go see if you can track down Murray?” she suggested. “And maybe check with security to see if they keep track of what vehicles come and go out of the parking lot. They might have one of those gates where you have to use a card to get in. Or maybe they have a camera set up, showing who’s doing what.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “I’ll see if either Connor’s or Murray’s vehicle left during the day.”

  “You do that.” She gave him a big grin and a wink. “And I’ll meet you in the lobby in a while.”

  “And when we hook up again,” he said, “you can let me know if it would be worth my while to get that search warrant.”

  “Oh... let’s just say I’ll be able to give you an informed opinion.”

  Half an hour later, Dirk found Savannah sitting on a chair in the lobby, reading a year-old copy of People magazine. She had a satisfied smirk on her face that matched the one on his.

  “Did you find Murray?” she asked him.

  “Nope. Get this: While we were in the locker room, somebody—I can’t imagine who—told her we were there, asking for her. She split, said she had a headache and had to go home.”

  “Are you going to put an APB out on her?”

  “Not yet. Let’s go by her house and see if she’s there. With any luck, she’ll still be driving her brother’s van.” As they walked out to the visitors’ parking lot, Savannah asked him, “Did you get anything interesting from security?”

  “Yeah, I did. Murray left the garage at ten forty-nine that morning and didn’t come back until eleven thirty-five. Connor stayed here,” he said, “according to the cards that they use to get through the gate.”

  “Or Connor could have left, using Murray’s card. The record wouldn’t necessarily show what vehicle was being driven.”

  “True.”

  “Is there a video?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Darn. There’s never a video when you need one.”

  “Unless it’s a convenience store that’s being robbed. Then there’s a camera, but some moron forgot to put in a tape. What did you find in the locker? Anything?” She suppressed a chuckle. “Oh, I guess it’s a matter of opinion. But I think so.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “How about a pair of red clogs, exactly like the ones I saw in Kevin Connor’s living room?”

  “We already figured they’re fooling around. That’s old news.”

  “How about a pair of men’s jeans... about Kevin Connor’s size... wadded into a ball in the bottom of the locker?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not excited, Van. I hate to tell ya, but—”

&
nbsp; “What if I told you that those jeans have some suspicious dark brown stains on them?”

  “I’m breathin’ hard....”

  “And some interesting white lines on the knees that look sorta like tic-tac-toe marks.”

  “White lines? Tic-tac-toe?”

  “Yeah. Ring a bell?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all.”

  ‘You said you bleach your toilet and bathroom floor once a week. Haven’t you ever gotten a few drops on what you’re wearing and ruined it?”

  “Naw, I clean it when I’m naked, just before I get into the shower.”

  She grimaced. “Gee, thanks for the visual I didn’t need. Anyway... trust me, when you’re cleaning a floor with bleach, you don’t want to kneel on the floor with good clothes on.”

  He brightened, stopped, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Or you wind up with white marks on your clothes.”

  She nodded. “And remember Kameeka’s kitchen floor? It’s tile—those little tiles that are about two inches wide.”

  “Are the tic-tac-toe lines on those jeans about two inches wide?”

  “Bingo!”

  Before she knew what was happening, he had grabbed her, pulled her to him, and planted a rough, whisker-bristly, hot and hard kiss on her lips.

  And he didn’t release her all that quickly either. She had plenty of time to savor it, think about it, and compare his technique to Ryan’s before he finally let her g°-

  Her final analysis was: What Dirk lacked in Ryan’s finesse, he more than made up in raw enthusiasm.

  Not bad, she thought. Not half bad at all.

  As they continued on across the lot, Dirk chatted on brightly, ecstatic about the case’s latest turns—as though nothing unusual had just happened. “I’m gonna get Jake McMurtry to come over here and sit on that locker,” he was saying, “so that nobody unscrupulous breaks into it before I can get that search warrant. We don’t want those jeans to take a walk.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I’m gonna swing by your place and drop you off on my way to Murray’s house. I don’t want her to see you, face to face, just yet. We might need to use you in some other ‘nonofficial’ capacity later, and we don’t want her to know that we’re a team.”