Dead Ringer

by Annelise Ryan

  Hamilton frowns and says, “Ulrich’s fingerprints were found in Caroline’s house.”

  “He readily admitted to being there, didn’t he?” Hurley counters. “They were dating for a while, so that’s of little to no evidentiary value.”

  Hamilton smiles, but the muscles in his cheeks twitch with tension. “There was the fishing license found near the first victim,” he says, his voice tight, as if he’s gritting his teeth. “And there was also a fiber found on one of the victims—I forget which one, off the top of my head—that was matched to the carpet in Ulrich’s car.”

  “That was on Darla Marks,” Stetson offers. “They think it got on her body while Ulrich was transporting her to the spot where her body was dumped.”

  “You searched his vehicle?” I ask.

  Hamilton sighs with exasperation. “We did.”

  “And?”

  “And we didn’t find anything other than a match to the carpet fiber.”

  “So there was no other trace evidence in the car that he supposedly used to transport a dead body?” I say in disbelief.

  “No, there was not.” Now Hamilton’s teeth are clenched.

  “Let me see if I have this right,” I say. “You’re telling us that this Ulrich guy somehow managed to murder four women over a period of a few months in places unknown and transport all of their bodies to dump sites. So far, the only evidence you’ve been able to find against him is a fishing license, which he could have lost anytime, and a fiber that matches the carpet in his car—a carpet, I’m guessing, that could also be found in hundreds of other cars in the area?”

  Hamilton shrugs off the question. “So the guy is smart,” he says irritably. “Hell, if you watch enough crime shows on TV these days, it’s easy to figure out how to get away with murder and avoid detection.” He looks at us and huffs a humorless laugh. “Look, I know how excited you can get thinking you’ve discovered something big. A serial killer wrongly convicted! Wow!” he says in a mocking tone. “I get it. It’s heady stuff. But it’s just not true in this case. Ulrich did it. Is your death similar? I’ll take your word for it. You all seem like competent professionals. But these flower petals aren’t the big deal you’re trying to make them out to be. Did they get mentioned during the trial? No. Were the petals public knowledge? Again, no. But our team knew about them, the defense team knew about them, and who knows how many other people heard about them?”

  He pauses, and when no one says anything, he goes on. “Not to mention that Ulrich himself could be behind this. He’s in a prison with some hard-core criminals, including other murderers. It wouldn’t be the first time someone in prison arranged a killing on the outside.”

  All cogent arguments, and our faces must reflect this. Hamilton’s next words, said with a sympathetic look in our direction, are “Go home. You’re barking up the wrong tree here.”

  Hurley gives him a smile I’ve only seen a few times. It’s a cold, calculating smile that makes a shiver run down my back.

  “Thanks,” he says in a hard, brittle voice. “But I’d like to draw my own conclusions.”

  There is a heated stare-off between the two men, and Hamilton has a look in his eye that makes me glad I’m not a defendant facing him. Then, in the blink of an eye, his face morphs into Mr. Friendly again. “Suit yourself,” he says flippantly, stroking his tie. “Far be it for me to tell anyone else how to waste their time.”

  With one last glacial glare at Hamilton, Hurley turns to Stetson. “I’m curious, did Ulrich ever explain what was behind the pattern of the stab wounds?”

  Stetson frowns and shakes his head. “A lot of what we have is speculation, some of it expert. We did have a shrink talk with Ulrich, or, should I say, he talked to Ulrich. Ulrich wouldn’t speak to him. The shrink didn’t come up with much about Ulrich personally because of that. He did say, though, that the V pattern of the wounds, leading down to the area of the female reproductive organs in a shape resembling the uterus, suggested some level of sexual frustration. We thought Ulrich had some sexual issues with Ms. Helgeson, and that added to both his fixation and his frustration.”

  “What sorts of sexual issues?” I ask.

  Stetson shrugs. “Can’t say for sure, since Ulrich wouldn’t talk, but Helgeson supposedly told one of her friends that Ulrich couldn’t get it up.” He clears his throat, looks at me, and says, “Sorry, miss.”

  I wave away his apology. “Don’t censor yourself on my account,” I tell him. “I spent a lot of years working as an ER nurse, so you’d be hard put to say anything I haven’t heard before.”

  “And the flower petals,” Hurley says, frowning in thought, “they weren’t mentioned because you couldn’t tie Ulrich to them in any way?”

  Apparently tired of being ignored, Hamilton pipes up. “That’s right. We thought the lack of connection could potentially create enough doubt in the minds of the jury that they wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement, or even worse, they might acquit.”

  Hurley doesn’t look at Hamilton; he keeps his focus on Stetson. “I assume you checked out all the local florist shops?” he says.

  “We did,” Stetson says after a quick glance at Hamilton. “We checked all of Ulrich’s online activity, too, thinking he might have made a purchase that way. I had my men search out areas in town where anyone might be growing the flowers in a hothouse somewhere, and we also pored over his financials, looking for any purchases that might have included the flowers. Even though the flowers wouldn’t have been in season at the time of the murders, we checked out local gardens, just to be sure. There was nothing. We have no idea where those flowers came from.”

  “Did Ulrich ever say anything about them?”

  Stetson scoffs a laugh. “Talking wasn’t one of Ulrich’s strong suits. He steadfastly denied having anything to do with any of these killings, and his denials were about the only thing he’d ever say.”

  “But in the end,” Hamilton rudely interjects, “we had enough other evidence to make the conviction stick. We didn’t need the flower petals. Ulrich dated one of the victims, and she dumped him after a few weeks. He had connections with another victim, and we found his fishing license at one of the dump sites. We know that the year before, he bought a fishing knife that fits with the type of wounds the victims had. Plus, he had no alibi for any of the deaths.”

  “I’m still surprised that the defense didn’t bring up the petals,” Hurley says.

  Once again, Stetson and Hamilton exchange a look; then they shrug in unison. “We made all the evidence available to the defense team,” Hamilton says with a hint of smugness.

  I’m sure they did, but I’m also willing to bet they found a way to bury the flower petal evidence in hopes that the defense would never find it. I make a mental note to find out who was Ulrich’s original attorney and to ask him. Barney Ledbetter’s explanation made some sense: They had likely seen the flower petal evidence, but were worried that the prosecution had some powerful psychological testimony lined up. They suspected it would be descriptive enough to make the jurors forget or simply ignore the fact that the flowers couldn’t be traced to Ulrich.

  “Was there evidence of sexual assault in any of the girls?” Izzy asks.

  Stetson shakes his head.

  “That seems odd if the man’s motivation was some kind of sexual frustration,” Izzy says.

  Hurley nods. “I agree. Did you guys talk to any of Ulrich’s previous dates, assuming he had any? Or any of his family?”

  “Of course we did,” Stetson says irritably. He folds his arms over his chest, distancing himself. “The guy saw other women over the years, but they all seemed to fizzle out after a date or two. One of them was a teacher at the high school where Ulrich worked, and she said the guy was too intense for her. He seemed all about getting serious, getting married, starting a family, that sort of thing. And she wasn’t ready for that yet.”

  Hamilton snorts a laugh. “Bit of a switch there, eh?” he says.

  We all tur
n to stare at him. “How so?” Hurley asks.

  Hamilton casts an incredulous look Hurley’s way, clearly astonished that he can’t see the obvious. “It’s always the chicks who want to make things serious fast,” he says. “You know, they’re all about commitment, and the ring, and the wedding. It’s the guys who are usually backing away.”

  Once again, Hamilton and Hurley stare at one another. Hurley’s frowning; Hamilton smiles at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to get the joke. Over the next few seconds, Hamilton’s smile fades and he looks over at me suddenly, as if he forgot that there was a woman in the room.

  “Stereotypes,” he says with an awkward shrug. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, can’t say that I do,” I tell him.

  This isn’t true, but I don’t feel like letting the guy off the hook, if for no other reason than simply because he used the word “chicks.”

  “Did any of the other, um, chicks that Ulrich dated have anything interesting to add?” I ask him.

  Hurley’s eyebrows raise, and I see the corners of his mouth curl up the tiniest bit. Izzy hides a laugh/cough behind his hand. Hamilton just stares at me, his facial muscles twitching.

  “Sorry,” he says finally. “I didn’t mean to be . . . I shouldn’t have . . . oh, hell.” He lets his head fall back and he stares at the ceiling, emitting a world-weary sigh. “No, the other women didn’t have anything of interest to offer. They all said the same thing—they dated the guy, there wasn’t enough of a spark there, and they moved on.”

  Hamilton lowers his head, but doesn’t look at me. Instead, he smooths his tie again and then reaches for the water carafe to refill his glass. I get a strong sense that he wishes there were something stronger in that carafe than just water.

  “Did any of the other women initiate the breakups?” I ask him.

  “No. They all said things just petered out. They went on a couple of dates with the guy, the magic wasn’t there, and they just stopped seeing one another.”

  “What did his family say about him?” Hurley asks.

  Stetson jumps in to answer this one, since Hamilton is currently gulping down water. “Ulrich is the youngest of three kids, and the only boy. His dad died when he was in high school, and his mom said Ulrich took it hard, but seemed to do okay. She, of course, doesn’t think he did any of this.”

  “So no big red flags in the guy’s history?” Hurley says.

  “Nope.”

  Silence falls over the room, and it’s quiet enough that I hear Hamilton swallow just before he breaks the silence.

  “You guys are convinced Ulrich is innocent, aren’t you?” His tone makes it clear how ludicrous he thinks this idea is. “You don’t think you have a copycat. You think you have the same guy that killed our girls here, don’t you? Except that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he suddenly relocate? Why would he stop killing for a while and then start up again?”

  “All good questions,” Hurley says. “But the bigger question, the one that bothers me the most, is how would anyone else know about the flower petals? If it is a copycat, how could they have known about the flower petals . . . not just their presence, but the specific number of them and the wound they were found in?”

  “The presence of those flower petals wasn’t a state secret,” Hamilton says. “And I think the idea of Ulrich arranging something from prison is quite feasible. It makes a lot more sense than some random copycat.”

  “Except,” Hurley says, pulling at his chin, “if Ulrich was hoping to arrange another killing to make himself look innocent, why do it so far from the area where the first killings took place? I mean, yes, the story was all over the news at the time it happened, but that was, what, almost two years ago? In this day and age of instant news cycles, that’s a long time. It was pure happenstance that we made the connection.”

  “Yet you did,” Stetson says, a hint of suspicion underlying his words.

  “Yes, you did,” Hamilton says thoughtfully. “Just how did you make that connection? Clearly, your focus is on the flower petals, yet, as you so succinctly point out, that information wasn’t publicly available. How did you find out about them?”

  My heart does a little flip-flop because I don’t want the answer to that question to get out, at least not yet. The person who told it to me might get in trouble, and I don’t want to be the cause of anyone losing their job. I’m afraid either Hurley or Izzy will let the cat out of the bag, so I jump into the fray in hopes of diverting attention.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I need to excuse myself.” I shove my chair back and give the men an awkward smile. “I need to pee something fierce,” I say with false embarrassment.

  My efforts have the desired effect. Stetson blushes and stammers something unintelligible, pushing his own chair back and standing in a gentlemanly manner. Hamilton merely shakes his head, smiles, and takes another gulp from his glass.

  “Can someone show me to the nearest bathroom, please?” I say. “And can we hurry?”

  CHAPTER 12

  Stetson hurries around the table as I open the door to the room. I step out into the hallway and run smack into someone.

  “Oomph,” a feminine voice says as I back up and start to apologize. A tall, redheaded, angry-looking woman around my age, is standing in front of me.

  “Susan?” Stetson says from behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  Belatedly I realize that Susan isn’t alone. Two towheaded, toddler-aged girls, identical twins, are with her.

  As the two little girls sing a chorus of “Hi, Daddy” to Stetson, Susan glares at me, giving me a head-to-toe assessment. Judging from her expression, I see I come up seriously lacking. Then she shifts her stare to Stetson.

  “You were supposed to pick up the girls at noon, remember?” she chastises.

  Stetson shoots me an apologetic look, points, and says, “The bathroom is down this hall and to your right.” Then he grabs Susan by the arm and starts to pull her along with him in the opposite direction.

  Susan wrests her arm loose of his grip and the two of them indulge in a short stare-down before Susan steps past Stetson and goes the way he’d wanted her to, in the first place. The two little girls are toddling along in her trail. Stetson, with head bowed, falls into step behind them until they disappear around a corner.

  I hear an intense hiss of voices coming from that direction, though I can’t make out what they are saying. Despite an overwhelming urge to be nosy and eavesdrop—I’m a nosy person at heart—I head for the bathroom.

  By the time I get back to the conference room, I see that Stetson hasn’t returned, but Hurley and Hamilton are chatting with a newcomer, someone I recognize. With blond hair, blue eyes, a muscular but slim build, and a tan—a definite rarity for this time of year in Wisconsin—he looks like he’s from central casting, called up to play the role of California surfer guy.

  “Hello there, Mattie Winston,” he says with a smile when I walk in. “Long time, no see.”

  I see Hurley shoot me a curious look. I smile back at the newcomer, whom I recognize as the guy from that night in the bar at the forensic conference. I wrack my brain for a name. “Good to see you again, too,” I say, stalling. I scramble madly through the detritus of my memories from that night. “Is it Tim?” I say, taking a stab after unearthing a vague, alcohol-fuzzed memory.

  “Close,” he says with a sideways nod, his smile broadening. “It’s Todd. Todd Oliver, from the conference last fall.”

  “Right. Sorry,” I say with an apologetic smile.

  I watch Hurley’s gaze turn steely-eyed as his head pivots toward Todd. I know he has deduced that this is the man I had drinks with in the bar, the one who told me about the Ulrich case.

  “You two know one another?” Hamilton says, looking from Todd to me, and back at Todd again.

  “Sort of,” I say.

  “Do tell,” Hurley says, a hint of challenge in his voice. His steely-eyed gaze is back on me.

  Izzy is sittin
g at the table, observing; there’s an amused and curious expression on his face.

  “Well, we met at a forensic conference in Milwaukee last fall,” I say. I’m saved from any further explanations when Stetson walks back into the room, the two little girls with him.

  “Sorry about that,” he says to no one in particular. “Susan had an engagement and I was supposed to take the girls. I forgot.” He looks over at Todd. “Thanks for coming over. Let me take these two to Mrs. Gilbert so she can entertain them for a bit while we finish here. Pete can bring you up to speed.” With that, he takes his daughters by their hands and leads them off down the hall.

  “What brings you up our way?” Todd asks me.

  “A case,” I say. “One that might be related to one of yours, Mason Ulrich.”

  “Really?” Todd looks intrigued. “Is that why Stetson called me over here?” he asks Hamilton.

  “It is. These folks are from Sorenson and they have a case down there that is similar to the Ulrich murders.”

  “He had another victim we didn’t find?” Todd says, wide-eyed.

  “Not exactly,” Hamilton says. “They have a recent victim, killed a couple of days ago. It appears she was killed by someone with an MO identical to Ulrich’s.”

  “A copycat,” Todd deduces, still intrigued.

  “I don’t think so,” Izzy says.

  I suspect that he, too, has guessed that Todd was my source for the flower petal information, and he’s sensed that I’m not eager to reveal that. But the facts are going to come out sooner or later.

  “We understand that the presence of some flower petals in the wounds of your victims was a fact that wasn’t generally known. We found the same flower petals in one of the wounds on our victim,” Izzy says.

  Todd looks over at Hamilton and his face flushes red. He makes the connections with amazing speed and earns my respect a second later.

  “I told Mattie here about our case during the conference,” he says, coming clean. “It was just the two of us, though, two colleagues who work in the same field, sharing data.” Todd looks over at me. “Did you tell anyone else about it?”