Surprisingly enough, Jack nodded. "Good."
Casey raised an injured eyebrow. "Good? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Scanlon. Seems to me you're about a week away from singing the same tune yourself, buddy."
Jack actually allowed a grudging grin. "I mean I feel a lot better knowing you won't have to face Hunsacker for a while."
"Oh, yeah," she retorted dryly, motioning to all the activity. "It's certainly made a difference so far."
"We'll get him this time, honey," Bert promised.
Casey just laid a hand on his arm. "Don't make promises you might not be able to keep, Bert. This guy has ■more lives than Rob Lowe." She took a sip of coffee, strong and black and bitter, before continuing. "I did come up with some things this afternoon that might be helpful. It's too bad you weren't around, Jack. It's been quite a day."
Jack offered a tight scowl and pulled his notebook over. "I'd love to hear about it."
She began picking at Bert's pepperoni slice. "Did I tell you that Hunsacker is a gun buff?"
Jack stiffened. Casey guessed she hadn't.
"I'm sorry. There were so many other things, that must have slipped through. He's especially fascinated by gang weapons and the like. I hadn't thought about it all until you told me about those guys who were killed the same night as Evelyn. You said they couldn't connect them all because they were shot with different guns. The cousins had been shot by an AK47. The gang gun."
She got a brace of nods and answered. "At first I thought Evelyn had been killed by an AK47 because I'd heard it from her coworkers. The thing is, they had heard it from Hunsacker. And Hunsacker can sure tell a twenty-two from an AK47, wouldn't you think?"
She could see Jack's gears already working hard. "Let me," she begged, proud of her deduction, knowing he'd hit it just as fast as she. "There weren't any witnesses to Evelyn's murder, because those two men were the witnesses. Maybe Hunsacker hid in the back seat of Evelyn's car, or forced her in at gunpoint. He made her drive to East St. Louis, where he knew nobody'd be surprised, and shot her over there. These guys drive up, and he pulls out a second gun, or uses their own and shoots them, and drives them back to the river to dump them. And then he takes their car over the bridge and dumps it at the bus station where he could get a cab home. Voila, how a white man makes himself invisible in a black community."
Jack's smile was damn near beatific. "That's it," he agreed. "That's it."
Bert shook his head. "The hell with nursing, girl. Come be a cop."
Casey grinned with her little triumph. "Don't tempt me, big boy."
Jack bent to scribble the information down, grinning and shaking his head. "God, this just makes my day. Wait till the East Side guys hear it. We might even get an ID from a cabby."
"Want to hear what else I have?"
That brought Jack's head right back up. "You have more?"
Casey nodded. "Actually, this one's from Poppi."
"The space cadet with the Tammy and the Bachelor hairdo?"
Casey scowled right back. "Don't count Poppi out," she warned. "She has some interesting insights."
Jack snorted. "I'll bet."
"What if," she asked, "there are other murders I missed?"
Jack looked as if he wanted to groan.
"No, I mean it," Casey insisted, leaning over toward him. "Maybe there's something stronger. Maybe we can catch him up with something else."
"And who gets to do this paperwork?" he demanded. "You want a list of unsolved female murders for the last six months from about a ten-county area."
She nodded. "Let me go through it," she said. "After all, I got no place to go. I also know his type of girl. At least we should look."
"She's right," Bert suggested. "The Johnson woman might not be the only woman he's popped in your jurisdiction. Maybe you can make a stronger case."
Jack snorted again. "Night Court has stronger cases. I'm just trying to stay ahead of the paperwork."
"Hey," Casey objected. "It's forward momentum, isn't it? It's something. Hunsacker's gotten the last two rounds. Let's get the next one, okay?"
Jack leveled that half-awake stare on her, just a hint of a grin curling his lips. "Whatever you say, Knute."
She grinned back. "Screw you, Copper."
"Casey?"
Casey turned to find Mr. Rawlings at the kitchen door. He'd stopped shaking, but he looked older suddenly, wan and tired. She hopped to her feet.
"Oh, Mr. Rawlings, why don't you go on home? Do you need to talk to him again, Bert?"
"The officer interviewed you, Mr. Rawlings?" Bert asked in his best community-relations voice.
Mr. Rawlings nodded his head. "I... I'd stay with your mother, Casey," he apologized. "But this has quite taken something out of me."
"Of course," she said, a hand on his thin arm. He had asthma and a heart condition. Casey could hear him wheezing and felt guilty for forgetting him. "Thanks so much for sitting with Mom. I know she appreciates it."
Mr. Rawlings patted Casey's other arm in commiseration. "If you need anything..."
Casey nodded. "Thank you. Oh, by the way, did you meet Sergeant Scanlon? He's the one who owns the Mustang. Mr. Rawlings has been coveting your car, Jack."
Mr. Rawlings bobbed his head in anxious agreement. "It's a real beauty, Sergeant."
"Thank you," Jack acknowledged with a smile. "It's a good car—289 cubic inch with a dual line Holley four barrel."
Mr. Rawlings looked like Helen when she heard about heaven. Casey couldn't suppress a grin. She just couldn't imagine him squealing into corners, the wind in his three hairs and Skid Row blasting from the stereo.
"Why don't you give it a run, next time I'm over," Jack offered, and Mr. Rawlings looked like he'd met God.
"Oh, thank you. That would be... lovely." The old man smiled and bobbed a couple more times. "Good night, then."
"Good night," Bert murmured a second later as the front door could be heard clicking home. "What a lovely idea. Tell you what, I'm gonna leave the phone tag to you guys, and concentrate on getting that list for Casey. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll have a face to go with those ears, and some more information on the sender."
Casey looked down at the table, guilty that she hadn't thought of it sooner. "Look for missing nurses," she suggested. "It's his favorite target to date."
At least it wasn't Marva. The victim had been white. Had been. As awful as the implications of that statement were, Casey didn't even want to think of the alternatives.
Bless Bert's heart. Shoving his cap back on his head, he reached over and gave Casey a fatherly pat. "Hang in there, little girl," he said. "We'll get him."
"Yeah," she said, lifting her eyes in search of support. "We will."
Both men smiled for her. The only problem was, Casey was far too familiar with that look. They wanted Hunsacker as badly as she, but they were too realistic to think that was enough to get them a conviction. It was kind of like telling the parents of a brain-dead child that at least his heart was beating.
Jack stood and held out a hand. "Good to have some help," he said.
Accepting the handshake, Bert laughed and shook his head. "Man, I believe it. Whatever happens, the collar's yours."
Jack smiled. "Nuns taught me to share, DeClue. We can arm wrestle for him later. Call me first thing in the morning."
They headed into the living room to see Bert out. Casey had forgotten that Helen was still out there. She was dusting the piano.
"Oh," she sang when she caught sight of them, "I thought you boys had all gone. I'm sorry."
"Sergeant DeClue's just leaving, Mom," Casey said, pushing Bert none too gently for the door before Helen intercepted them.
Bert nodded and smiled. "Good night, Mrs. McDonough."
Casey closed the door on Bert just as Helen came to life.
"Excuse me, Father." She smiled brightly at Jack, holding her duster to her chest like a crucifix. "Did I introduce you to my family?"
* * *
C
asey saw the sun rise. She hadn't meant to. She'd meant to stay up just long enough to throw Hunsacker's latest game back at him by not saying a word when he called. Let him think he hadn't affected her with his present. Let him think her suspension didn't mean anything. She'd fully intended on evening out the score by making him sweat out her reaction a little. Maybe think the box hadn't shown up at all, or that she was too tough to let it bother her, to let him bother her.
But Hunsacker had figured out just how to torture her even more. He didn't call.
Casey paced downstairs until almost four, making Jack coffee and sandwiches and offering to make up a bed in the guest room if he didn't make it home. She came within a hairbreadth of dusting Helen's family on the wall. That was when Jack walked up and took her two hands in his and gently demanded she go on to bed. He'd wait up for the call. He had work to do. After the day she'd had, she needed some sleep.
Realizing that she was making him crazier than she was making herself, she acquiesced. And spent the rest of the night watching the sky change outside her window.
By seven she gave up and went downstairs. Helen wasn't up yet. Too much company the night before, Casey guessed. The kitchen was empty, Jack's paperwork scattered over the table like notes from an all-night cram session. He'd made a chart, with all the names and information listed on each murder. He'd left four more slots open. It depressed Casey unspeakably.
She found Jack curled up on the couch in the sun room. He'd obviously finally given up himself. His jacket was still out in the kitchen, his tie strewn over the back of the couch, and his shoes in a pile.
The romance books Casey read always seemed to describe a sleeping man as looking like a little boy. Jack didn't look like a boy. He looked like a man. His hair was ruffled and his chin shadowy and his clothes disheveled. He'd tried to get comfortable on a couch that was about four inches too short, and ended up with his feet hanging over the end. There was a hole in his left sock.
Casey looked at his face, which should have been passive and unlined in sleep, and saw just what toll his work had taken on him. He looked gaunt and tired, the creases between his brows permanent, the hollows in his cheeks too deep. A controlled man who saw everything and admitted nothing. Casey watched him sleep for a moment and wished there were something she could do to lift some of that weight. She thought of that funny little kiss he'd given her the night before, and was surprised again how much she wished there were something he'd let her offer in return. And then, not knowing what else to do, she went to make coffee.
* * *
"This isn't good," Yablonsky said later that day when Jack got him on the phone. "This guy's starting to take real trophies. And he's giving them to the nurse. He obviously considers her an important part of his image. What do you have on evidence?"
Refreshed only by a shower down in the locker room, Jack rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus on the chart he'd laid out the night before. He'd woken to the smell of fresh coffee only two hours earlier and been surprised to find Casey buttering English muffins when he'd stumbled out into the kitchen, shoes and tie in hand. It was the first time he'd eaten breakfast in two years.
"Oh, Hunsacker was real good," Jack told the agent, the surprising comfort of a meal in that bright kitchen firing new determination. "Got a street person downtown to walk the package into the Fed Ex office. We probably won't even get a start on finding that guy until the shelters open tonight, and if Hunsacker's true to form, he picked a soup sandwich right out of State San. No evidence from the box except that forensics is happy to say that it was a very professional job. Still no ID on the victim."
"Mmmm. His cycle is shortening. His practice is in trouble, which tells me he's devoting more and more energy to his hunting. And he's graduated to knives. That's real personal stuff with these guys. I'd say he's escalating big time."
"What about the nurse?" Jack asked, taking a slug of coffee to drown the fire of anxiety in his belly. "She seems to think she's safe because he's performing for her." He couldn't get past the picture of her in her robe and bare feet, her hair tousled and her cooking atrocious.
"You mean like the guys who send notes to radio stations. It's possible."
"What are the chances he's gonna change his mind?"
Jack didn't like the silence that met his question at all. "I don't know," Yablonsky finally admitted. "He's sure playing by some of the rules, but he's making his own, too. He's one of the first serials to kill women he knows. I'm not sure I'd put anything past him."
"Great." Just how many nights did he think Casey was going to let him camp out in her back room on the premise that he was waiting for a phone call? "What do I do?"
Yablonsky laughed. "Get him. We can get a complete profile for you by tomorrow, if it'll help. I'd still find out more about his family. That's usually where these guys get their impetus. Do anything you can to get hold of that notebook of his. Get a righteous search warrant for his house. It's all there, somewhere. He's keeping track."
If all Jack needed was confirmation, he'd have felt better. What Yablonsky was telling him was scaring the hell out of him, and that had all come home to him when Casey had greeted him that morning, coffee cup in hand, butter smudged on her cheek, her eyes wide and guileless. By the time he hung up ten minutes later, he found himself rooting around for the Maalox without even bothering to look for witnesses.
* * *
"I guess this isn't so bad for six months," Casey said the next afternoon as she picked through the computer printout of murder statistics Bert had brought her.
She was feeling better only because she was doing something again. Hunsacker hadn't called again the night before, and Casey hadn't been able to get Jack to go home again. Worse, she'd caught herself sneaking downstairs close to dawn to cover him up back on the sun-room couch and showering before fixing him breakfast.
Helen had taken up the dangerous new tack that Casey could get her job back with enough plenary indulgences. The news media had just loved the story of the mystery gift, especially since its rightful owner hadn't been discovered yet, and had taken to camping outside Casey's house waiting for her to appear.
Across from her Jack was filling in the latest round of information into his chart. Bert sat alongside, reading the notes Jack had taken from his talk with the FBI. Half-empty plates of ham-salad sandwiches and potato salad weighted down corners, and steins of iced tea supplanted the usual coffee.
"Never mind," Helen said with that small, helpless whine of hers on her way through, as if in conversation with Casey. "I know you're busy. I'll just walk to church."
"I'll be there in a minute, Mom." Casey had already begun thumbing down the list. Maria T. Speers, 79, retired, rape and strangulation, St. Louis, March 12. Bettina Mae Brown, 51, housewife, gunshot wounds to face, Berkley, May 21. Elise P. Soughay, 17, student, assault with a blunt instrument, Washington, February 5.
She looked up to see new shadows and creases on Jack's face. "This is delightful," she said with a scowl. "No wonder cops get so weird. Do you ever see anything nice?"
Jack offered a weary grin. "Now you're asking if I believe in miracles."
"No miracles here," Helen piped up in a mournful voice as she pulled on her white gloves. "We aren't worthy. Benny won't come, and Mick won't stay."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Mick?" he asked. "Who's that, another brother?"
Casey got to her feet. "A father. The kind who lives on in memory."
"Benny, too?"
Casey paused, uncertain, wishing Jack didn't want this. "I'll tell you about Benny if you tell me about miracles."
When she waded back through the minicams fifteen minutes later, neither Jack nor Bert had moved.
"Yes," Jack said, rubbing a little at his epigastrum. "There are good things that happen. There have to be or nobody'd hang around at all. Now, how about Benny?"
Casey ran her finger down another notch. Latoya B. Farmer, 9, student, rape and suffocation, East St. Louis, January 22.
"Not everybody knows what to do with the guilt," was all Jack said.
Casey looked up. He smiled, but the purple shadows under his eyes gave it a dark cast, and Casey had the feeling he wasn't joking.
"What would a Jesuit have to feel guilty for?" she demanded. "I see a lot of merit in keeping the church a little off balance. I can't even say I disagree with liberation theology."
"You can't liberate anybody with your hands tied," he countered. "Not by gun and not by crucifix."
"Then by badge?"
He shrugged. "It quiets the most ghosts. Any positive step is better than none at all."
Casey almost forgot Bert was sitting next to her. She was transfixed by the brief flash of vulnerability in Jack's eyes, the real darkness that lay behind all that reason. Now, oddly enough, she thought of a little boy. She thought what Jack must have been like before the ghosts had found him. She wanted to know where those ghosts lived, and how they spoke to him.
Jack deliberately turned back to his work, so she did the same, trying her best to regain a safe distance.
Mary W. Evans, 54, nursing supervisor, hit and run, Sunset Hills, March 3.
Casey was already four names beyond when it struck her. She looked back at the name again.
Evans. Mary W. W for Wilhelmina.
"Jesus Christ," she whispered, stunned. Shaking. She didn't see both men come to attention.
"Recognize somebody?"
It took her a minute to look up from the stark statistics.
Billie. Poor Billie, who couldn't get along with anybody, who had no friends at the end to claim her. Billie, who was not just hit by a car but ripped apart by it. Billie, who had been visited in the end by Dr. Hunsacker because he'd heard she was dead.
Casey grew cold and silent. Angry. Impotent all over again. She'd been wrong. Wanda hadn't been the first. And Casey hadn't even seen it. He'd been right there, making sure, rewarding himself. And she hadn't even guessed. She felt sick to her stomach all over again.
A Man to Die For Page 34
