She was saying, “The idea that an ’80s band, mounting a reunion, is getting its players bumped off one by one! It’s a great story.”
He frowned a bit. “It’s not a ‘story,’ Rebecca. And it’s not a Lifetime movie of the week, either. It’s on the one hand just a theory, and not a very filled-in theory yet . . . and on the other, it’s about real people getting killed.”
She opened up a hand. “Which is a big damn deal. Do you know how popular true-crime podcasts are these days? Documentaries on Netflix and Hulu? This could be a real stepping-stone.”
“For who? Or whom or whatever?”
She was smiling big; even without lipstick, it was a hell of a smile. “For me, you beautiful dope. It could get me back into a major market.”
That was a sucker punch hitting him in the solar plexus.
He asked, “Is that where you want to be?”
She gave him a duh? look. “Do you really think a morning show in Davenport, Iowa, is my idea of a dream job?”
Why did that feel like she was insulting him?
Rebecca was like any star—and in her field, in Chicago anyway, she had been a star for many years—self-centered and at least occasionally thoughtless. But she was not without empathy, and her expression melted.
“Sweetie,” she said, and touched his face, “I’m not going anywhere just yet, and maybe not ever. People aren’t lining up for elderly female news anchors, either.”
He grinned a little. “Elderly’s a little harsh.”
She laughed gently. “How about this? Just keep me apprised of what’s going on with this case . . . You know—when things heat up enough for it to be news and not just speculation.”
“Sure. Okay.”
She shrugged with the shoulder she wasn’t leaning on. “And if I get some golden opportunity, my love, I will expend just as much energy convincing you to come along with me to my major-market home as I will going after that great new gig. Promise.”
And she kissed him.
A very nice kiss, a lingering one that eased his worries, and before long, the light was out, and they were both sleeping. They’d been doing that for over an hour when his cell phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Keith was immediately awake, as most cops would be, and Rebecca was the same, as most reporters would be, particularly one in bed with a cop, even a part-time, semiretired consulting one.
Seated on the edge of the bed, he checked the caller ID and answered, saying, “What’s up, Booker?”
“Lousy damn time to call, I know. I tried to get the chief, but it went to voice mail. I thought you were the next best thing, considering.”
“Lucky me. What is it?”
“It’s a dead Donna Jonsen. Is what it is.”
“Hell you say. I just saw her tonight.”
“Yeah, well maybe somebody else saw her, too. This is another one of those.”
“Of those?”
“Of she looks like she dropped dead, but two’s coincidence and three’s a crowd. Also, place has been tossed, like Davies’s pad.”
“Meaning her apartment.”
“Yeah. Should have said that. I’m there now, but I got roused out of bed myself, by the officer who caught the call. I’m still half-asleep.”
“Be an optimist. Be half-awake.”
Something that was part laugh, part grunt came over the line. “See what I can do. Phil Deeson found her. He lives with her. Lived with her. I didn’t make it over to the Grape tonight, but you musta been there—at the Pistons preview?”
“Right. And Phil was part of that, of course. The band guys were heading over to Dubuque for a nightcap and some pizza, after.” Keith checked his watch. “Three thirty now. I’ll be right over.”
“Tell your daughter.”
His daughter sleeping downstairs with Brian Paulen? That daughter?
“I hate to disturb her.”
“Yeah, well, then don’t wake your daughter up. Wake up the chief of police instead.”
Booker clicked off.
Rebecca asked, “Something?”
He went around the bed to the chair where he’d draped his clothes from tonight. “A third death. Donna Jonsen.”
Rebecca sat up. Tousled. Gorgeous. “Woman who runs the Corner Stop?”
“Yeah.”
“Circumstances?”
“Don’t quite know yet. I’m not going to keep you in the dark anymore, Rebecca. But for now, this is strictly a police call.”
He had stripped from his pajamas to nothing and was getting into his boxers, unaware of how at ease he already felt around this woman.
He went on: “You can go back to sleep or come downstairs with me. I have to wake Krista. Brian needs to hear this, too—his guitarist is who found the body.”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah. That about covers it.”
She got up and into her red silk gown—she’d packed a little carry-on type bag, in anticipation of the overnight stay and the tricky sleeping arrangements—and followed Keith, who left his sport jacket behind but had the S&W on his hip, out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
He went to the door of his daughter’s bedroom and felt inordinate relief finding it shut. He knocked, at first, tepidly, then again, with normal force.
“Krista!” he said. “Honey! Booker needs us at a crime scene . . . I’ll wait in the living room.”
She called back, “Right with you, Pop!”
Rebecca was already seated on the leather-cushioned Stickley sofa. Keith joined her as they waited for his daughter.
Krista emerged from the hallway in her summer uniform of light blue polo with badge insignia and navy slacks, Glock on her hip. She looked crisp and awake and showing no signs of having been awakened, or even just disturbed, at after three thirty in the morning.
The same could not be said of Brian, whose curly dark hair was mussed, his eyes sleepy, his attire a Pistons tee and jeans he’d pulled on. Where Krista was in steel-toed boots, Brian was in his bare feet.
Keith met his daughter mid–living room and filled her in. He directed some of the information to Brian, since this death might have ramifications to the Pistons reunion.
When he was done, she asked her father, “Has Booker called in Crime Scene Services?”
“Probably. We didn’t get to that. You’re okay with me going along?”
“I insist on you going along.” She turned to bleary-eyed Brian, who had joined Rebecca on the sofa, and said, “We’ll be a while. Neither of you need wait up for us.”
Both of them nodded.
Already heading for the front door, Keith glanced back and said good-naturedly, “This kind of thing comes with the territory. Guess you both better learn to live with it.”
Rebecca, arms folded, looked at him with patience and obvious fondness. “Just so you take me along next time.”
Calling to her halfway out, Brian said to Krista, “What’s this mean, anyway?”
“That’s what I hope to find out,” Krista said, and then her father closed the door behind them.
Brian sat there frowning, looking at the emptiness the father and daughter had left in the room.
Rebecca, arms still folded, looked at the young musician and asked, “What do you mean by ‘what’s this mean’?”
He looked at her, as if he hadn’t noticed her there before. Considering how beautiful the woman in the red silk robe was, that was doubtful.
“I meant,” he said, “Donna was Rick Jonsen’s husband. So it’s not a member of the Pistons this time, but it’s . . . well, don’t you think it must be related?”
She nodded. “So Krista has filled you in on her suspicions? And the rest of the band, too?”
He nodded. “She and Mr. Larson have, yes. That’s why Mr. Larson . . . Keith . . . hell, I never know what to call him. Anyway, her father is tagging along with the band, as a well-armed roadie. A bodyguard, really.”
“Two members of the band dead, and now so is the ex-wife of one o
f the deceased. What could that mean?”
Brian shrugged elaborately. “Donna’s apartment’s been searched, stem to stern. The same was true of Dan Davies’s place after they found him. But I’m kind of the new kid in this thing. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the old days.”
“So you’re no help to a struggling girl reporter trying to make an impression in a man’s world.”
He grinned at her. “None at all.”
“Can you get back to sleep? I don’t think I can.”
“Me either. I’m waiting up, no matter what Krista said. How about you?”
She stood, smoothed the sides of her robe. “Let’s see what these people keep in their refrigerator.”
Fifteen minutes later in the den, Rebecca was curled up on a two-seater sofa and Brian had settled back in a comfy overstuffed chair, both abandoned bedmates facing the TV.
Each had a plate of sliced Colby Jack cheese and Ritz crackers and iced tea. They settled in to see what they could agree to watch on Netflix while they waited for their significant-others-in-training to report back in.
They did not choose a true-crime doc.
NINETEEN
Krista and Keith Larson stood in the kitchen of the apartment above the Corner Stop and took in a crime scene as troubling as it was puzzling, as sad as it was grotesque.
Some things were clear, though, as she and her father hovered near the deceased Donna Jonsen, on her back, her eyes wide and at once staring at the antique tin-tiled ceiling above her and nothing at all. The woman’s face was contorted, caught in a death mask of surprise and terror, as if she had died of fright and not . . . something else.
“Well,” her dad said, his latex-gloved hands hanging at his sides in loose fists, “at least nobody’s trying to pass this one off as a suicide.”
The corpse on the wooden floor was near a captain’s table opposite as you entered from the stairs up from the street. An ashtray was on the tabletop, but no cigarettes had been put out in it, a Bic lighter and one empty Blue Moon bottle nearby. As for the rest of the kitchen, the cabinet doors were all open, their contents either removed and carelessly arranged on the counter, or still there and clearly gone through. Drawers, too, pushed back in halfway.
Booker was at work with his Nikon D5100 elsewhere in the apartment, which a glimpse through the open connecting door revealed had been searched in the same thorough but untidy manner as the Davies digs.
The detective had already filled his chief in on what little he knew, and informed her that the county coroner’s office had been called, and the state police, too. Neither was here yet, which was no surprise—the coroner would have to be roused out of bed, and the Region 2 Forensic Services investigators had to come from Mount Carroll, forty miles away.
A badly staggered Phil Deeson had been briefly questioned by Booker, allowed to gather a few things, and released to spend the night in the guest room at the Pennistons’.
“That’s horror on her face,” Keith said grimly. “And pain.”
Krista was bending for a closer look. “Right. As if she knew what was happening. Knew she was being murdered, and couldn’t do anything about it.”
“And it is murder, isn’t it? No question now.”
Krista rose, sighed. “Not with the crime scene a mess again. What the heck was the killer searching for?”
With a dry smile, Keith said, “You can say ‘hell.’ Grown-up language is allowed at a crime scene. Especially a murder.”
She managed a smile herself. “Old habits die hard. Neither you nor Mom swore around me. And I paid you the same respect, you may recall.”
He grunted a near laugh. “Not a lot of respect got shown to Donna by her killer. Can’t be any doubt now that these homicides are by the same hand.”
She shook her head. “None. And likely Donna’s ex was also a victim. This just has to be some kind of poisoning. That Blue Moon bottle may tell the tale.”
“Or maybe the cigarettes,” her father said with a shrug. “But I doubt it. That tabletop is fairly neat and clean, considering the state of the rest of this room.”
“And the rest of the place.”
They moved away from Donna’s body but remained in the kitchen, over by the sink. They stood facing each other, arms folded, not really aware they were mirror images. Folded arms can mean, in body language terms, a guarded state. Here it reflected only the strength and skepticism of two cops at a crime scene.
“I’m kicking myself,” her dad said, “for letting my guard down. Or I should say letting down the guys I’m supposed to be bodyguarding. Just because I had a date, like some damn kid.”
“You weren’t Donna’s bodyguard.”
He frowned. “No, but this shows the very real danger out there. That we have a maniac on the loose.”
She formed the tiniest smile. “That’s a little melodramatic, Pop, don’t you think?”
“Not at all.” Narrowing his eyes at her, he went on: “But this does change the complexion of how we view this. We’ve been assuming the original members of the Pistons are the targets here. Now the victim pool has expanded to include an ex-wife. What does that mean?”
“What could it mean?”
He shook his head, unfolded his arms, rested his latex-gloved hands on his hips. “It might mean the potential victims are not just members of the band, but individuals close to the band. It widens the circle . . . but how wide?”
Now Krista had her hands on her hips, unconsciously mirroring again. “Maybe not very wide at all. The Pistons and those close to them.”
“All right, but that’s still vague. Does it include Brian, for example?”
Her head reared back involuntarily. “I hope not!”
“I’m not surprised you feel that way, but he’s his father’s son, remember. And is his mother, Maria, at risk? How about Chloe Penniston, and Lisa Pike? Steve’s daughter, Holly? What about poor Fill-in Phil, who played with the Pistons for years, even if it was after their heyday?”
Krista was frowning at the floor. “This reunion really should be scuttled.”
“Would the city council go along with that?”
She met his gaze. “I don’t know. As specific as all this seems to us, it may seem circumstantial to the city fathers. A lot is riding on the Music Fest. And then there’s the band itself. The boys got a taste at the Grape of how well they’ll go over. Hard to turn your back on that.”
“Better than turning your back on a madman.”
“Or madwoman.”
“Well, I have to admit, at risk of sounding sexist . . . poison’s traditionally a woman’s weapon.”
She huffed a small laugh. “That is sexist, Pop. Way more convicted poisoners are men. The stats say so.”
“That’s only because the stats also say ninety percent of murderers are men. But in this instance, I could be convinced a woman was our man, so to speak.”
“Why’s that?”
His eyes narrowed. “Rick was a fairly big guy. Dan was slender but not small, either. And Donna was a tough gal, a bar owner and known for her physicality. You’ve heard she was her own bouncer, at times?”
“I have,” Krista said with a nod.
“Well, these murders indicate an avoidance of physical confrontation. Which makes sense with these particular victims.”
“I’ll buy that as reasonable conjecture. But still . . . something doesn’t quite track.”
“What would that be?”
“Poisoning indicates careful planning. A killer who’s done his or her due diligence—including choosing a method that might lead to the murder being taken for a heart attack or suicide.”
Her father rolled his eyes and gestured toward the dead Donna. “Not much attempt of that here.”
“Right. Only the avoidance of a physical confrontation. It might mean we have a killer forced by circumstances to strike more quickly, and more often, than originally planned. Or . . . just a psychotic who’s devolving.”
“And that w
ould help explain why the murders themselves, however carefully executed . . . excuse the choice of words . . . are followed by a frantic, sloppy search.”
“Sloppy,” came a deep, familiar voice from the doorway to the next room, “but thorough.”
Booker—Nikon in latex-gloved hands, again in a black undertaker’s (or was that preacher’s) suit, with no tie and an open collar—ambled over.
He said, “You can see right where the search stopped. Which I would say means that, just like at the Davies pad, what he or she was lookin’ for got found.”
Krista and her father exchanged glances.
Booker asked, “Care to see?”
They followed the detective into a nondescript bedroom adjacent. Gesturing to a dresser, Booker said, “Bottom drawer is open. Check out the ones above.”
“They’re shut,” Krista said, forehead furrowed, “but carelessly. Not tight, not all the way.”
“So,” her father said, “the killer started at the top and worked his way, or her way, down. What do you make of that?”
“Means,” Booker said, “the object sought was in that last drawer.”
“Not necessarily. Maybe he or she didn’t bother to shut it, not having another drawer underneath to check.”
Big shoulders shrugged. “Fair enough. But this dresser and that nightstand are the only things that got searched in here—the closet hasn’t been touched, and the books in that bookcase are snug as a bug.”
“Meaning,” Krista said, pointing to the open drawer, “the search did end here.”
Booker nodded. “And started in the living room. Or maybe in the kitchen, and then the killer went through the two rooms beyond that . . . this bedroom and a home office . . . and continued with the living room. Have a look yourself. But be gentle. When those CSIs finally show, they won’t appreciate you messin’ up the mess.”
Other than the body itself—which had been first priority, of course—Booker hadn’t taken the kitchen photos yet. He started in while the Larsons had a walk through the apartment.
Donna’s place was just as topsy-turvy as Dan Davies’s had been, the only real difference being the furniture was nothing special and the wall hangings, rock band posters, minimal. Those had been taken down and the brown-paper backs of their frames ripped open.
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