Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  “Nathan Sloane,” he reminded her. “From the restaurant the other night. You were waiting for a friend who never showed.”

  “Right. It took me a moment to place you.” A part of her was pleased to run into him again, but what was he doing here in her office? As she recalled, she hadn’t even given him a last name.

  He leaned against the door jamb, his eyes registering amusement. They were bright blue and fringed with long, thick lashes. “I hope she had a good excuse for not showing.”

  Kali thought about brushing the question off with a flip response, but her sense of loss was too great. “She’s dead. Murdered, in fact. That night.”

  The expression of humor on his face faded. “The woman in the news?”

  Kali nodded.

  “Jesus. I’m sorry.”

  Nathan sounded genuinely moved, and Kali liked him for that. But she was still puzzled by his sudden appearance at her office door. And acutely aware that most of the building’s tenants had gone home for the day. “How did you find me?”

  “Your organizer. You left it at the table, remember?”

  And he had obviously taken a quick peek before chasing after her to return it. “Maybe a better question,” she asked, “is, why? Are you needing legal advice?”

  “I sure hope not. I was in the neighborhood is all, and thought I’d stop by to say hello.”

  She was mildly flattered.

  “You made quite an impression on me,” he added with the hint of a quirky smile.

  She wasn’t altogether sure that was a good thing. On the other hand, Nathan Sloane had a boyish charm it was hard not to warm to. She returned the smile. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “I was hoping you’d have time for a drink later. Or coffee, if you’d prefer.”

  Kali had enjoyed the time they’d spent over wine Friday evening. But now that she’d agreed to work with Owen, she had a lot on her mind. She didn’t want to waste a couple of hours making small talk.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I’m busy tonight.” She softened it with a smile.

  Nathan studied her a moment, then touched two fingers to his forehead in a goofy salute. “Yes, ma’am. I read you loud and clear. Can’t fault a guy for trying, though.” And he was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.

  Only later that evening, when she faced an empty house, an empty fridge and a bottle of wine with a crumbly cork, did Kali wonder if she’d been too hasty in dismissing Nathan Sloane. What was done was done, however. She had no way of reaching him even if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t, really.

  She crossed the street and borrowed three eggs and a high-tech corkscrew from Margot. She found some cheddar cheese that wasn’t moldy or overly dried out, and managed to put together an edible omelet. Then she went to her closet and pulled out the large cardboard box in which she’d stored newspaper clippings and her own notes on the Bayside Strangler. She no longer kept news clips and articles, even on high-profile trials where she was the lead attorney, but the Strangler trial had been her first, and she’d amassed quite a collection.

  The clippings far outnumbered her own notes, but they contained fewer details. As she read through them, refreshing her memory about the crime, she jotted key points on a yellow pad.

  Five victims, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-eight. All single. And all blondes, with straight, shoulder-length hair and slender, well-toned bodies. All of the women had been wearing revealing clothing when they were found, clothing that wasn’t their own. In three cases, the victim had also been wearing a black leather dog collar around her neck.

  All had been killed elsewhere, their bodies deposited and posed at the sites where they’d been found—near public trash bins. The ligature marks on the necks of all five women were similar, as well. The coroner had established that they’d been strangled with a common type of rope, the kind you could buy in fifty-foot segments at the hardware store. All but Wendy Gilchrist had been raped.

  Kali thought about Anne and felt the sourness rise from her stomach into her throat. Was she really up to reading the details of her friend’s death? Kali stood and stretched. She walked across to the wall of windows looking out over the bay. On a clear night the lights sparkled like jewels on black velvet. Tonight, the fog had rolled in from the coast and mist hung low in the air. The jewels still shone, but with an eerie, almost surreal cast that made Kali think of enchanted kingdoms and magic spells. It was a view she never tired of.

  Somewhere she had the number of the window washer Anne had given her last fall. Clear View Windows if she recalled correctly. He was good, Anne had said, and not too expensive. Kali would have to give him a call as soon as the rain stopped.

  Anne again. Reminders everywhere.

  Kali sat back down at the table where she’d spread her clippings. Anne didn’t exactly fit the pattern of the Bayside Strangler murders. She wasn’t single, for one thing, although she and Jerry had separated. She was slender and athletic, but her hair was more brown than blond and it was cut short. She was a bit older than the others too. Of course, by now, their killer would be older also.

  Except the person who’d killed the others was Dwayne Arnold Davis, Kali reminded herself, and he was dead.

  So who had killed Anne?

  CHAPTER 10

  Arms crossed at his chest, Lou glared at the captain. Inside, he was fuming, but he tried hard to appear calm.

  “What, exactly, does ‘working closely with the DA’s office mean?” he asked. Cops worked with DAs on a regular basis, sometimes even at the start of a new case, like now, but this was the first time Lou had been directed from above. It didn’t sit well.

  “The team approach, Lou. Two minds are better than one; three better than two.” Burnell didn’t sound any too happy about the arrangement himself.

  “Why?”

  Burnell shrugged. “Owen Nelson covering his ass, probably. Like I said, he thinks there may be similarities between the Bailey homicide and the Bayside Strangler murders awhile back.”

  “That still doesn’t—”

  “Dwayne Arnold Davis. Ring a bell? He was executed last month.”

  A person would have to be living in a cave not to have heard about it. Last-minute appeals, candlelight vigils, accusations of racial bias and sloppy police work. Lou would have remembered the case even without all that. It was the case he’d been yanked from when he was put on administrative leave following a shooting. That still rankled.

  “Owen Nelson was the prosecuting attorney on that case,” Burnell reminded him.

  And now he was the district attorney, running for governor. The picture was clear enough. Not that it made Lou any more comfortable. He didn’t think much of attorneys, and he thought even less of politicians. Lou had a job to do, and he didn’t need some snotty-nosed assistant deputy DA second-guessing his every move.

  “Nelson wants his office to be part of the investigation.”

  “He can do that?” Lou asked. Though obviously he could, since he had.

  “The district attorney’s office has superior jurisdiction. Owen Nelson could run his own investigation if he wanted to.” Burnell leaned forward, the bald dome of his head shiny in the overhead light. “Nobody’s taking the case away from you, Lou. Nelson simply wants his office involved from the get-go.”

  “Last DA who was part of a task force was a horse’s ass.”

  Burnell gave him a look that said my hands are tied. “Try to be grateful for the help.”

  Lou humphed. The way he figured it, the captain was covering his own rear end, just like Nelson. Trouble was, Lou was the man on the front lines. The one who had to pay the price.

  “And when you catch the guy,” Burnell added, “you’ll be able to hand the prosecutor a case that will stand up in court, and in the press.”

  That was it in a nutshell, Lou thought. Owen Nelson wasn’t taking any chances with a repeat of what happened before. Nor was the captain. The only person on the hot seat this time would be the defendant. />
  “You get anything from the note?” Burnell asked.

  “No prints, if that’s what you mean. Nothing special about the paper either. It was done on a computer. I’ve got the lab running tests for saliva from where the envelope was sealed.” Lou hoped the guy had been too stupid to use a sponge to moisten the flap.

  “What about witnesses?”

  “Still looking.”

  “I’ve pulled Maureen Oliver from patrol and assigned her to help you.”

  “Me and Keating, we do fine by ourselves.” Lou was no longer able to keep the edge of irritation from his voice.

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine with Maureen’s assistance, as well.”

  Great. Not only was he going to have a chaperon from the DA’s office, he was going to have a rookie cop trotting at his heels. And both were shes. The captain’s phone rang. He picked it up, dismissing Lou with a nod.

  <><><>

  Kali shifted in her chair, trying to find a comfortable position. There wasn’t one, she decided. It was a hard, straight-back chair. In a dingy and windowless room. Standard police department conference room. There was nothing comfortable about any of it, including the faces staring at her from around the table.

  There were four in all. Lou Fortune and Bryce Keating, the detectives she’d met earlier; Maureen Oliver, a uniformed cop several years younger than Kali; and a liaison from public relations, a black man who looked to be in his early fifties, whose unenviable duty it was to run interference with the press. He’d introduced himself simply as Emory.

  They were looking in her direction, expectantly. She felt a moment’s irritation. She hadn’t called the damn meeting; Owen had. Pushed her off to do battle with little more than a metaphoric handshake.

  “I know this must feel like a turf war,” she began, “but let me assure you that’s not what it’s about. I’m here because I want the same thing you do—a successful resolution to this case.”

  Maureen Oliver acknowledged the remark with a minimalist nod. The others remained stone-faced.

  “I was one of the district attorneys who worked on the Dwayne Arnold Davis trial,” Kali continued. “As you know, he was convicted of the so-called Bayside Strangler murders. Two of them, at any rate. There seem to be similarities between those murders and that of Anne Bailey.”

  “There are also differences.” This was Fortune, the older detective with a belly that strained against the buttons of his white cotton shirt. His tone was gruff.

  Kali hoped it was as much out of habit as real pique. “I’m not trying to ram anything down your throats, detective. I have no agenda aside from doing what I can to see that we catch, and convict, a murderer.”

  She’d expected resistance to the notion that they might be dealing with a serial killer. She didn’t blame them. And she’d like nothing better than to have them prove her wrong.

  Emory spoke up. “Are you going to be the spokesperson for the DA’s office on this?”

  “For the moment, among ourselves. But the detectives are heading up the investigation. Any public disclosures should come from them.” She looked to the two men. Fortune’s expression softened some, but Keating continued to regard her with the same flat gaze he’d fixed on her when she walked in.

  “Now, let’s talk about where we are and where we’re going,” she said.

  Fortune hunched forward, arms on his knees. “Where we are is nowhere. We found her car, abandoned and stripped, on a side street off East Fourteenth. No clue as to where she was grabbed.”

  “What about evidence in the car?”

  “We’ve got a team going over it now. No obvious signs of a struggle. Nothing that jumps out at you like it shouldn’t be there. My guess is, the killer never set foot in that car.”

  “How did it get to East Fourteenth, then?” Kali had her own ideas about that, but she wanted to hear what the detectives thought. Besides, if they were going to work together effectively, she had to convince them she wasn’t out to step on their toes.

  “Picked up by someone prowling for auto parts, most likely.”

  “You’re thinking she met with her killer somewhere between leaving her office and getting to the parking lot?”

  “Or between her car and the restaurant,” Fortune said.

  Kali felt a shiver. She hadn’t thought about the fact that Anne might have been only a few hundred yards away from her when she met up with her killer.

  “Then again,” Fortune said, “maybe she stopped somewhere along the way. Home even.”

  From the wiggle of the detective’s bushy brows when he mentioned stopping at home, Kali sensed that Jerry was high on their list of possible suspects. The spouse usually was, and the fact that he and Anne were separated couldn’t help matters.

  “No witnesses?” Kali asked. “No one who saw anything unusual?” It amazed her that with all the busybodies and watchful eyes out there, people could be accosted and killed without being seen, but it happened all the time.

  Bryce Keating eyed her silently, his dark eyes unreadable. “People who see don’t always talk,” he said slowly. “Not without a little arm-twisting.” She thought he winked at her. “Figuratively speaking.”

  Kali wondered if he was being sarcastic. It was hard to tell from his tone.

  She’d already learned that Keating had a reputation as someone who pushed the boundaries when it came to getting results. He also had an air about him—intense and self-contained. She didn’t have a clue what he was really thinking.

  “As soon as the press gets hold of the Bayside Strangler connection,” Fortune said bleakly, “we’ll have people coming out of the woodwork. Ninety-nine point nine percent of them, at a minimum, won’t know a thing. But we’ll have to follow up on all the leads on the minuscule chance of finding someone who does.”

  Maureen Oliver ran a hand through the hair at her temples. It was cut short, almost like a man’s, but her skin was so smooth and her features so delicate, there was nothing masculine about her. “How strong is the connection?” she asked. “I don’t know all that much about the Bayside Strangler.”

  “Strong enough for concern,” Kali said. “The poem from our killer follows the Bayside Strangler pattern. In all but the first of the murders, he sent a poem to the police referencing the victim by name and mentioning some personal bit of information about her.”

  “Owen Nelson and that reporter Jack Jackson got a copy of the poem as well, didn’t they? But the Strangler sent his only to the police?”

  “Right. But remember, Owen and Jackson weren’t involved in the investigation of the Bayside Strangler. They came on only after Davis’s arrest.”

  “What was personal about this last note?” Emory asked.

  “It referred to the yellow rose of Texas. Anne was born and raised in Texas.”

  Emory whistled under his breath. “And Jackson really agreed to keep it quiet?”

  “Apparently. For now.” Despite Owen’s assurances, Kali had half expected to see a front-page story in this morning’s paper. Whatever hold he had over Jackson, this must have put it to the test.

  “Then there’s the yellow rose itself,” Kali said, continuing to address Maureen’s question. “The Bayside Strangler sent a single yellow rose and love note to his victims. Four of them anyway. In one instance, the note never turned up.” She turned to the detectives. “You’ve talked to the florist whose name was on the box?”

  “He didn’t remember anyone buying a yellow rose,” Fortune said. “And he had no record of a delivery to Anne Bailey’s address.”

  “You think the killer delivered it himself?” Maureen asked.

  “Could be,” Kali said. “It wouldn’t surprise me to discover he bought the rose at a different florist’s, either, and substituted the box. That’s what happened with the Bayside Strangler.” She paused, pulling herself back to her original train of thought. “There are other similarities—the placement of her body by a trash bin, the clothes she was wearing—”

 
“You’ve had a chance to look at them?” Fortune asked.

  “This morning.” It hadn’t been a task Kali relished. She’d told herself they were just clothes, but they weren’t. They were the clothes Anne’s killer had chosen for her. He’d stripped her to the skin, then dressed her in a skimpy, tight skirt and shell, no underwear. Kali had felt a swell of nausea when the evidence room clerk handed her the lightweight plastic bag.

  “Did her husband take a look, as well?” Kali asked. “He’d know better than I would if they were hers.”

  “He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t be sure.”

  “Neither item was hers?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Kali turned to Maureen to explain. “The Bayside Strangler dressed his victims in provocative clothing, but he always included one item that was their own.”

  “It’s what I’ve been saying.” Fortune tapped the tabletop emphatically with his index finger. “There are differences.”

  Assuming Jerry could be trusted to recognize Anne’s clothing. Kali wasn’t putting her money on it. There were men who noticed clothes, but from everything Anne had said, her husband wasn’t one of them.

  Still, the more differences there were, the better. And there’d been no dog collar either, Kali reminded herself. The Bayside Strangler had placed a dog collar around the neck of three of his victims. That was a critical detail because it hadn’t come out at trial or in Jackson’s book.

  “He wants us to think he’s the Bayside Strangler,” Fortune said. “Doesn’t mean he is.”

  “More likely it means he isn’t. He’s a copycat.” Keating leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms in front of him. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, revealing well-toned forearms and a diagonal scar partially hidden by the black band of his watch. “Her husband might have a reason to want her dead,” he said.

  “What? The divorce?”

  “She was pregnant. Her brother says the husband wasn’t interested in having kids.”