Daddy's Little Killer

by LS Sygnet

  "We'll talk after I finish up with Maya."

  "Screw that. Ditch her now and talk to me."

  "You have serious issues with patience, Orion. No wonder you nabbed the wrong guy in the Bennett case." I let him ponder that, extricated myself from his arm and returned to dinner with Maya.

  "I take it your conversation with Officer Haverston was serious." The plate of antipasto was seriously picked over. Maya left me a few olives and some cheese. She grinned. "Sorry. I was hungrier than I realized."

  "It's all right. I'm going to have to cut dinner short anyway. Things are heating up in the investigation." Still, which investigation was left to her assumption. I had a niggling suspicion that everything might be linked. God only knew who else's conversations were being monitored. It might've explained how I ended up on someone's radar in Darkwater Bay before George Hardy even called me.

  "Are you all right? You seem rather grim, Helen."

  "Our federal tax dollars at work," I muttered.

  "What?"

  "Oh, two of my former colleagues from the FBI showed up while I was talking to Haverston. Apparently, they felt it was appropriate to come see me for an update on their investigation into Rick's murder rather than pick up a telephone."

  The more I thought about David's message, the more conspiracies popped into my brain. If he lied, if it was their intent to lure me back to the FBI where a conversation without legal representation could be finagled, it would explain a lot. Nobody would be so careless not to freeze the Marcos assets Rick had managed. Not even the morons in Darkwater Bay's Central Division would make a mistake like that.

  I frowned and considered the surveillance device in my pocket again. Had the FBI truly tracked me down today, or had they been following me all along? Wendell never conceived of the advanced tactics on the horizon for law enforcement when he subtly trained me all those years ago.

  "I'm still hungry. Do you have time to have a proper meal before you have to leave?"

  I picked at the remnants of the appetizer. Hunger was muted by raging distrust of everyone's motives. Everyone but Maya. "I think I've lost my appetite, Maya. I'm so sorry."

  "Hey, you gotta take care of yourself in all of this too, kiddo. You already look like a gust of our evening fog could lay you out flat."

  I noticed the ground cover when my flight was landing in Darkwater Bay. Before the plane's descent, the heavy mist obscured specific light, but magnified what lay beneath at the same time, giving an eerie glow to the coastal city.

  "Does the sun ever break through the clouds out here?" I forced a smile and picked up my menu. "If not, I could probably make a fortune if I hung a shingle and started working as a psychotherapist. The depression rate in this city must be off the charts."

  "It rains about three hundred sixty days a year, or so I've been told. I can remember one brief bout of sunshine in January, shortly after I arrived. The natives attributed it to global warming. You should've seen all the squinting motorists. I don't think you can buy a decent pair of sunglasses in this city."

  No wonder I stuck out like a sore thumb at Central Division when I walked into the building. It must've been akin to an alien invasion with my bug-eyed shades.

  I picked at the food on my plate, rearranging more than consumed. Maya noticed.

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "Hmm?"

  "This thing with the FBI showing up. I know you said that his death didn't really have an emotional impact, Helen, but he was your husband for a long time."

  "He lied to me for a very long time too."

  "Are you ready to move on?"

  "I don't know. What does that mean, really? Move on. Wipe the slate clean. Start over. Why do human beings feel the need to seek out something similar when the first shot was a massive failure?"

  "Because people are as varied as snowflakes. What was wrong with Rick might be very right with someone else. Not all men are deceitful creatures."

  Thoughts drifted back to Orion for some odd reason, probably the lies he told me in D.C. Then there was David's feigned concern. The only man who never disappointed me, who was always there with wisdom and love had been torn away from me without so much as a glance at the circumstances and justification for his actions.

  Wendell Eriksson was judged an evil man. To me, he was the yardstick by which all others would be measured for the rest of my life. Suddenly, my heart ached so deeply for my father that I wasn't sure I could bear the separation for another moment. Someday. It was a promise, a mantra I chanted to myself often since the beginning of our separation. Someday, I would find a way to bring my father back into my life.

  "Johnny Orion is back," Maya said softly. "I doubt a blind man could miss his interest."

  "Hmm?"

  "Orion," she repeated with a slight twist of her neck. "He can't take his eyes off you, Helen."

  "I'm meeting him after dinner. More questions about Gwen Foster. Don't get any ideas."

  "You're being paranoid, kiddo. Johnny's one of the good guys."

  "I thought you said he was a jerk."

  "He's a brute. That's what I called him, and it wasn't in reference to his personality. Johnny Orion is a very respected person in this city. I think if he had a friendship with Gwen Foster, it was based on mutual respect."

  "Not his womanizer tendencies? Forsythe says Orion is famous for the one night stand."

  "I wouldn't know anything about that. I know who he is, but we've never met, Helen. If his reputation is so well known that Ken would comment, I can't argue with it."

  "His reputation ... "

  "Yes. You know, that thing you remarked on, what he's known for?"

  "Maya, that's it. You're brilliant! Sorry to run out on dinner like this, but I've got to make a stop at central before I meet with someone later this evening. I'll call you soon."

  Chapter 15

  Orion's long legs didn't help him match my stride when I rushed out of the Montcliff Wednesday night.

  "Where are we going?"

  "We are not going anywhere, Orion. I'm going. Alone."

  "I thought you wanted to talk to me."

  I spun on my heel, nearly causing a collision. "Why didn't you tell me that Gwen Foster has a child out there somewhere?"

  "What? Gwen didn't have any kids. Sure, she's been raising Vinnie since Frank died ten years ago, but he's her cousin, Doc. Why would you think –"

  "I thought she was an old friend, Orion. Was that another lie?"

  "Of course it wasn't, but if Gwen had a baby, don't you think I would've known about it? A lot of people would've known."

  "What about her employer, a man that could very well be keeping Vinnie Bennett from the police right now? Wasn't that a detail worth mentioning to me last night? It's not like I didn't bring Datello's name into the conversation."

  "Datello is a dangerous man. I wouldn't advise that you treat him like a suspect in this case unless you've got hard evidence, Doc. Or is it your goal to amass as many enemies as you possibly can before one of them finally gets to you?"

  "Were you really at a convention in Washington when we met?"

  "Yes and no."

  "Remarkably clear. And you wonder why I can't seem to bring myself to trust you even a little bit," I fumed. A moment later, my car was in sight in the parking garage.

  "Goddammit, Doc!"

  "Let go of me."

  "Or what, you'll show me how mass is irrelevant when you're in the mood to throw down?"

  I lunged close to his body, which effectively weakened his grip on my arm. One heel dug into the back of his calf with a swift jab, while I grabbed his wrist and jerked him out of balance. Orion hit the concrete with a thud and audible loss of breath. My gun aimed between his eyes before he had time to react.

  "Now you know what I'm talking about, Orion. I can defend myself. When I tell you not to touch me, I mean it."

  "Jesus," he groaned. Orion rubbed the back of his head.

  I reached down and offered
a hand, which he ignored while slowly dragging himself to his feet.

  "Are you all right?"

  "You have me at an unfair disadvantage, Doc."

  "What's that?"

  "I would never hit a woman, no matter what she does to warrant a physical response."

  "Did you contact Detective Briscoe?"

  Orion nodded. "He's meeting us at my office."

  "I'll need the address. I could be delayed a few minutes."

  "May I ask where you're going?" Orion rubbed the back of his head and checked his fingers for blood.

  "Don't be such a baby, Orion. You didn't hit the ground that hard."

  "Martial arts, huh?"

  "Jujitsu. I'm a black belt."

  "I should've let Dumb and Dumber have at you. They deserve it."

  "Thank you for preventing things from going that far."

  "Jesus," Orion muttered a second time. "Are you bipolar or something?"

  "I merely illustrated a point. Let's not get to my lesson on patience, Orion. I doubt you'd enjoy it more than the one on respecting boundaries and personal space. Are we meeting at a specific location, or should I contact Briscoe and ask him to meet me at Central Division?"

  "My office is right across the street from central in LaPierre Tower. May I ask why you're going to central?" He regarded me warily.

  "Questions are fine, Orion. I'd think twice before you yield to the urge to manhandle me again."

  "So why central? Why right now?"

  "Research," I said. "Make sure Briscoe shows up for the meeting, and don't forget that you need to make yourself scarce while I talk to him. It's important, Orion."

  I drove downtown to central with three sets of headlights following behind me. Orion was a no-brainer. We were practically going to the same destination, for one. It appeared that in spite of my demonstration, he was determined to keep watch over me and assure my safety.

  Car number two in the procession was probably the no-neck PI's following me at the behest of someone Orion had yet to divulge. I pondered the unusual timing of their emergence in all of this and wondered if my earlier suspicion was missing the mark. I doubted that Sully Marcos would use men so obvious and inept. He favored the stealth and competence of men like my father, killers for whom radar was nonexistent, they kept such low profiles.

  Which brought me to car number three and reinforced another tidbit of paranoia. Surely David Levine and that snake Seleeby weren't planning to walk away after their plan was so quickly foiled. We hadn't gotten to the part of the conversation where I explained to David why returning to the FBI was impossible. Probably unnecessary anyway. If they had been watching all along, no doubt they were aware of my shiny new badge and gunmetal accessory.

  I refocused on Maya's innocent comment on Orion's reputation. Part of the disparity between the Bennett case and the Foster murder that had been nagging me was the component of sexual assault. Rapists who kill are not necessarily killers.

  Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Obviously they're killers if they kill. Anyone is. But the motivation in the crime is the key factor. For a rapist, the thrill is the act of sexual domination, power over another to take sexual pleasure without consent. The kill is a necessity to avoid identification. And why would a rapist become so avoidant of identification that he would resort to murder?

  He might've been caught, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated before. The specific manner of dismemberment also pointed to someone who wanted to delay identification for as long as possible. No fingerprints. No face to recognize.

  The snag for my profile was the disparity in ages. Gwen Foster was 34 years old. Brighton Bennett was less than half that age, fifteen at the time of her death. The preferential nature of sexual predators was compelling, and a wrench in my profile. Even monsters like Ted Bundy had an age range that was typically consistent. Bundy's oldest known victim was 26 years old. The youngest was twelve. The average age however was late teens.

  Any woman who has crept up on 40 will agree that at 26, it's a lot easier to pass for six or eight years younger than it is at 40 to pass for two decades younger. Bundy had a type. Whoever killed Gwen Foster and Brighton Bennett had a type too. What I needed was photographs of both women, something recent for Foster in particular. I also needed to run a few details regarding sexual assault of younger women through ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. There could be a history of assaults on middle-teenage girls, maybe even early victims who survived the encounter.

  My fingers drummed against the Prius steering wheel. "Fifteen years ago is a long time. What's this guy been doing in the meantime? Why the gap in crimes between Bennett and Foster? If he was already incarcerated before Brighton Bennett's murder, being the prompt that pushed him to kill subsequent victims, why weren't there a string of murders in between?"

  Maybe there were, but outside Darkwater Bay's jurisdiction. I hoped that ViCAP would provide answers. Of course, it required a huge assumption – that anyone from Darkwater Bay had bothered to enter the data from Brighton Bennett's murder into the system. If not, it was a situation I planned to rectify tonight.

  The detective squad room was quiet as a tomb, save for the soft snoring of Flynn Myre, who rested his feet on the top of his desk and reclined precariously in his chair. I tiptoed through the room to the office Rodney had designated temporary work space should I need to access any resources in the department.

  I did. The key slid into the deadbolt. I twisted it and pushed the door open. The resounding creak jolted Myre out of his slumber. Feet clunked to the floor. I glanced over my shoulder.

  "Oh hey, Eriksson."

  "Sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

  "What're you doing here so late?"

  "Just a little research. I won't be long." I stepped inside the door, cursing under my breath and turned on the light. The computer on the desk wasn't the most modern beast I'd seen, a Dell from circa 2005 that had seen better days.

  Without delay, I booted the software and started searching. Myre knocked on the doorframe.

  "Anything I can help you with tonight, Eriksson?"

  "No thank you."

  "Surfin' the 'net, huh?"

  "ViCAP," I said.

  He scratched his head. "What's ViCAP?"

  So much for my unfounded suspicion that the Bennett case was nowhere to be found. I explained the program to Myre, how it had been designed in the mid-eighties, more than a quarter century ago, to aid law enforcement in linking crimes and closing cases.

  "But … we had the son of a gun in custody. He'd be in prison right now if Orion hadn't tampered with the evidence."

  I gestured to one of the empty chairs in front of the desk. "You worked that case too, right? Didn't anyone find it odd that evidence that you and Orion didn't collect was used to taint evidence that you did collect?"

  "I don't follow," Myre frowned at me. A moment later, he popped a toothpick into his mouth and started gnawing.

  "The blood on the clothing had the chemical EDTA present, which presumably came from a blood vial that would've been collected by the medical examiner's office. It's not something that the police detectives would've had access to, yet when questions were asked about the clothing, it was presumed that you or Orion had tampered with it."

  "It was plain as day who was behind that. Orion was frothin' at the mouth for something that would link that little girl's murder to Datello."

  "A man who worked for Datello hardly incriminates him in the crime."

  "That's what I said at the time. Orion don't listen, and he sure as heck don't play well with others. He ran that investigation straight into the ground."

  My fingers clacked over the keyboard when ViCAP finally loaded.

  "Whatcha lookin' for?"

  "The Bennett case."

  Myre snorted and almost lost the sliver of wood between his lips. It rolled back and forth as he spoke with a hypnotic quality. Roll, jerk, gnaw, roll. "You ain't gonna find it in no database if the criteria is uns
olved crimes, Eriksson."

  I peered over the desk at him. "I was led to believe that this case is still open."

  Myre's open palm rolled in front of him. "Technical thing. Yeah, the case is still open, but nobody around here looks at it that way. We know who done the deed. We had him too, before Orion screwed the whole thing up."

  "Who considers it open – technically?"

  "The brass upstairs. The kid's mother. The stepfather."

  "Wait a minute. Brighton Bennett had a stepfather?"

  "Sure. Sam Colton. His wife was Jennifer, formerly Bennett, Colton. They're still around here, and I reckon that when news of what happened to another member of the Bennett clan finally leaks out in the papers that they'll be downstairs demanding justice again."

  "You knew that Gwen Foster used to be Gwen Bennett?"

  "It weren't no secret."

  I gritted my teeth. "No secret to whom? None of us investigating the case were aware of that detail without doing some serious digging, Myre. Did it occur to anyone who did know that this might be an important detail to share?"

  "Us old timers knew it the second we heard her name at the crime scene. Didn't seem like anybody was interested in what we had to say about it, so we kept our mouths shut."

  "I see."

  "It ain't personal."

  "Tell that to the family when they show up demanding justice," I said. "If I need any help, I'll let you know, Myre. In the meantime, I need to get back to work."

  "Suit yourself. Chief Lowe said that if you needed anything, we was to cooperate to the fullest. It ain't right how Hardy and Weber are pulling this mess out of the chief's hands. I ain't his favorite person by any stretch, but he's done right by me over the years. You'd do well to keep that in mind, Eriksson. Havin' Lowe in your corner sure as heck ain't gonna hurt, not when the negative stuff hits the airwaves."

  "I'll take it under advisement."

  In the meantime, the details of the Bennett case needed to be entered into ViCAP. My thoughts drifted as I input information. A ringing endorsement of Jerry Lowe from Flynn Myre wasn't what I'd call a plus in the Lowe column. I wondered again if he was quietly suffering the same fate as Hardy and Weber. Judging the faith Lowe put in his detectives told me more about his character than anything else. Unless he was being blackmailed. If the grand scheme of Central Division was considered, Hardy and Weber looked as bad, if not worse than Lowe.