Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Keating grinned. “Nothing injured about your ornery streak, I see. You ever think you might heal faster if you let go of some of the anger?”

  “You ever remember you’re a cop and not a goddamn shrink? Go grab us a beer from the fridge, why don’t you. Best medicine in the world.” Lou had been thinking about an icy beer all afternoon, but he’d been put off by the thought of raising himself from the chair and struggling into the kitchen. Last time he’d been in this much pain, Jan had been around to pamper him. He knew that was a lousy, selfish reason to miss her, but he was in a lousy, selfish mood right now.

  Keating disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two bottles of Anchor Steam.

  “Tell me more about the victim,” Lou said.

  “Forty-one, long-time divorced. No children. We haven’t been able to contact her ex-husband. He lives somewhere in England. We did talk to the guy she’s been dating. He called us after he got the word from one of her co-workers. Kali and I paid him a visit at his office.”

  “Kali?”

  “The new DA.”

  “Jesus, just what I thought. She’s going to be dogging us every step of the way.”

  “I asked her to come along.”

  “You asked . . .” Lou paused as recognition dawned. “Not this time, Bryce. Use your head. She may be a woman, but she’s also a fucking DA. You want a good time, go call up one of those women who are always panting and pawing at your feet.” Lou wasn’t sure just what it was women saw in Keating, but the effect was almost universal. Like bees to honeysuckle.

  “Lou, you got a dirty mind.”

  “What I got is experience watching you.” Lou pulled the coldpack from behind him and repositioned it.

  “Isn’t that a bag of frozen peas?” Keating asked, puzzled.

  “Yeah, it’s a trick Jan taught me. Molds to your body better than ice, and it doesn’t drip.” Only somehow Jan made it work better. Lou had already managed to split open one bag, sending partially thawed peas into every corner and crevice of his chair.

  He hated to think what a mess he’d find when his back was mended enough so he could finally pull up the seat cushion.

  “I’ll have to remember that.” Keating’s tone was skeptical.

  “You were saying, about the boyfriend . . .”

  “Yeah, he’s older. Maybe fifty-five.”

  “That’s not so old.” Though lately Lou was feeling every one of his own fifty-four years.

  “I said older, not old.” Keating leaned back in his chair, swung one leg over the arm. It made Lou’s back hurt just watching.

  “He’s a doctor,” Keating added. “Seemed genuinely broken up over her death.”

  “Some people are good actors.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to find our killer by looking at friends and family, Lou. Not this time. What we got here is someone who’s operating on a whole different level from what motivates most crimes.”

  “You’re assuming we’ve got the same killer here as in the Bailey murder.” Lou was hoping that wasn’t so. Serial killer cases got everybody’s attention. The media, the politicians, the talk show hosts, they all wanted in on it. And they wanted a quick, airtight arrest.

  Keating frowned and rubbed his temples. “I don’t like the idea any better than you do.”

  “No yellow rose, though, and no note.”

  “Not yet. But we only discovered her this morning. And from the crime scene itself. . . I got to tell you, Lou, it looks the same. Too damn many similarities for it to be coincidence.”

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight.” Talking about work helped take Lou’s mind off the pain. Already he had gone a whole thirty seconds without thinking about his back. “Parkhurst met a client at a secluded house. Her car stayed there, she wound up dead.”

  Keating nodded. “A new client. Parkhurst apparently kept good records. If this Smith was someone she’d worked with before, she’d have had a record of it.”

  “But it’s a fake name. Could be anyone. Even her boyfriend the doctor.”

  “Could be, but my gut tells me we’re dealing with the same killer in both instances. That changes our focus, Lou. Motive, at least in the usual sense, goes out the window. If we want to catch this guy we’ve got to look at why he chose these particular women. They aren’t crimes of opportunity, either. He had to have crossed paths with them at some point.”

  “All we have to do is figure out when and how.” Lou snorted. Unless they got lucky, it would be like solving a Rubik’s Cube. Too many cases like that went unsolved. “I got to head to the John. Don’t go away.”

  Gritting his teeth against the torture of movement, Lou pushed himself from the chair. Immediately, he felt his back spasm.

  “You need a hand, Lou?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.” The only thing worse than hurting was having others see you hurting. Goddamn invasion of privacy.

  Lou hobbled across the room. It was a slow trip, but he managed to make it down the hallway and back. He half expected Keating to be gone by the time he returned.

  “So where were we?” Lou asked, easing himself back onto his pack of peas. They were partially thawed now, and no longer ice cold.

  “Talking about our killer.”

  “Or killers.” Lou wasn’t ready to concede their two victims had been murdered by the same man.

  Keating either didn’t pick up on Lou’s distinction, or didn’t want to. “You think maybe this guy really is the Bayside Strangler?” he asked.

  “And not a copycat, you mean?”

  Keating nodded. “You were around then, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t involved with the case.” Lou had wanted to be. Would have been too, if he hadn’t been yanked from it by being placed on routine administrative leave following the shooting of a doped-up suspect in a domestic murder. Lou had been cleared of any wrongdoing, but he’d spent six months behind the desk dealing with bicycle theft when he should have been working the streets in homicide.

  “Any chance Davis wasn’t the one who killed those earlier women?”

  Lou thought for a moment. “I don’t know what to make of the defense allegations of planted evidence. You hate to think badly of your fellow cops, but we both know that rules sometimes get bent pretty far.” He looked at Keating to gauge his reaction. Lou didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that Keating was one of those who occasionally pushed the limits. “As for Davis, though, I suspect he was as guilty as they come.”

  Keating was quiet, his expression clouded as it often was when he was uncertain. “I wish I could be as sure, Lou.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Nobody said it was easy being the single mother of a seventeen-year-old son, but Debbie Hunt wasn’t about to throw in the towel and give up. She knew women who did. Women who simply shrugged when their kids cut school, who turned a blind eye to drinking and drugs, and then rationalized their retreat by saying kids would be kids, and what could they do anyway that wouldn’t alienate their children forever? But the truth was, they didn’t have the energy it took to be a responsible parent.

  There were times Debbie wanted to give in, too. Life would certainly be easier if she didn’t always have to come across as the bad guy. But kids in their teens needed guidance and moral direction.

  Bobby disagreed, of course. All he needed from a parent was a roof over his head, food on the table and use of the family car and television.

  Debbie had hoped Bobby would be there to help her carry in the groceries when she got home from work that evening. But the house was empty. She could tell by the backpack tossed onto the table and the dirty dishes in the sink that he’d come home from school and then gone again. No note either, even though she’d asked him repeatedly to let her know where he was going.

  She made herself a cup of tea, put away the groceries, and was starting dinner when she heard the phone ring. Not surprisingly, the handset wasn’t where it should have been. She followed the sound, and her inst
incts, to Bobby’s room. The caller had given up by the time she found the phone. It was on the floor, half hidden by an old T-shirt and a long, rectangular florist’s box.

  For a fleeting moment Debbie thought that maybe the flowers were for her. Bobby could be very sweet when he wanted to be. But they were probably for Erin, the girl he’d been seeing for the last month. Her birthday? Or maybe the aftermath of a quarrel? Debbie wasn’t above a little light snooping. She opened the box and admired the single yellow rose. How romantic, she thought. How classy. She’d done something right in raising Bobby after all.

  A peek at the card, however, and her motherly glow evaporated.

  “Dearest Jane,

  I can feel the warmth of your body still. I’m so happy to know you will be mine forever.”

  The card felt like a stone in Debbie’s hand. Who was Jane? And, more to the point, what had she and Bobby done? Whatever had happened, it didn’t sound innocent. It certainly didn’t sound like behavior she condoned. Her throat felt dry; her heart was pounding. A parental moment of the worst sort.

  She heard the front door bang shut. Bobby was home.

  “What are you doing in my room?” he screeched, standing in the doorway with both arms on the frame.

  “I was looking for the phone.”

  He glared at the florist’s box in her hand, his mouth slightly agape.

  “Who is Jane?” Debbie asked. With no time to think about the best way to approach him, she’d blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “What?” Bobby made it sound like an accusation.

  “Bobby, I don’t want to play games here.”

  “Then don’t speak in riddles.”

  She held out the card and Bobby grabbed it from her hand.

  He read it, then tossed it on the floor. “How the hell should I know who Jane is?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Bobby. You obviously bought her a—”

  “Mom! The rose is for Erin. She had a bad fight with her father. I thought it might cheer her up.”

  “Why’d you write the card to Jane, then?” Never mind what the card implied. She wasn’t up to dealing with that just yet.

  “I didn’t write it.”

  “The florist made a mistake? And where did you get the money for this anyhow? You told me you were down to your last quarter.”

  Bobby sat down on his bed. “I didn’t buy it. I found it on the porch of that lady’s house, the one who was killed yesterday. She lived near Patrick.”

  Debbie had seen the story in the newspaper. A woman’s body found near Lake Temescal. “You stole from her?”

  “She’s dead, Mom. She’s not going to miss a stupid flower.”

  Debbie wasn’t happy about any of it, but she couldn’t help feeling relieved that she’d misunderstood the situation. Still, taking other people’s property was stealing, no matter what the circumstances. “You take it back, right now,” she told her son. “I’m going with you.”

  “The woman’s dead, Mom. The flower will sit on her porch and rot.”

  “So be it. It’s hers, not yours. Besides, I’m sure she has family and friends who might like to know about it. Come on, we’re going there right now.”

  With Bobby directing her, Debbie drove to the house. She was herding Bobby up the walkway when the door opened and a young female cop stepped out.

  Debbie nudged Bobby’s shoulder. “Go on, tell her what you did.” She hadn’t expected to find a cop here, but she couldn’t back down now. She only hoped she hadn’t set Bobby up for bigger trouble than she’d intended.

  But the cop wasn’t much interested in Bobby’s explanation. She took one look at the yellow rose and her face took on an intense and uncomfortable expression. She grabbed the box and thanked them hurriedly, brushing them aside as she headed for her patrol car.

  So much for honesty and righting wrongs, Debbie thought.

  CHAPTER 17

  Owen woke to the clamor of the alarm. It surprised him because he was sure he’d been awake all night. Tossing, turning, sweating and fighting the dread that pulsed through his veins.

  He’d been working in his study when Kali called the previous night to tell him about the rose. He’d taken the news with outward calm, but he’d felt his heart hammering in his chest. No more deluding himself into thinking it was all a coincidence. Owen had to face facts. A killer was once again loose in the East Bay; a killer whose crimes, by design or happenstance, bore an uncanny similarity to those of the Bayside Strangler. For which Dwayne Allen Davis had been convicted. And executed.

  The press was bound to latch on to it, build it into an even bigger story than it already was. People would love it. And Owen would be the center of controversy. This wasn’t the sort of publicity he wanted.

  Nor did he want to face the possibility that Davis had been innocent.

  Owen felt ill thinking about it. In the bed next to him, Selby stirred, reached out to touch his shoulder, then returned to the stillness of deep sleep. Owen raised himself on one elbow and kissed her cheek. She was beautiful, even first thing in the morning without benefit of makeup or a hairbrush. Especially then, in fact. There was a softness about her, a vulnerability she worked hard to disguise once she was fully awake.

  He’d been happier in the four months since they’d been married than he’d ever been. Some of it might have been the thrill of newfound love, but he couldn’t recall feeling about Marilyn the way he did about Selby. Maybe that had been their problem all along. He had loved Marilyn, but he hadn’t been in love. Even in the beginning. She had been a comfortable companion, a quiet, unassuming woman who made few demands on him. At the time, he’d thought that was enough. Now he realized what he’d been missing.

  Owen showered, finishing off as he did every morning with a blast of cold spray. He made himself a cup of coffee and leafed through the newspaper. The Parkhurst murder had garnered only a single column on the inside of the second section, much of it a rehash of what had been covered, briefly, the day before. Now that they’d identified the victim, however, the story had expanded to include quotes from friends and co-workers. No mention was made of the similarities between this murder and the murder of Anne Bailey, or of the yellow rose. Owen breathed a little more deeply, but he knew the reprieve was only temporary.

  He closed the paper and tried to likewise close his mind to anything but the full and busy day ahead of him. He simply couldn’t afford to let his thoughts wander down the treacherous path of conjecture.

  Owen gathered his briefcase and went back to the bedroom to kiss Selby good-bye.

  She was awake now. “Will you be home for dinner?” she asked, propping herself up on an elbow.

  “I’m giving a talk at the City Club, remember?”

  “Right. I’d forgotten.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and eyed him mischievously. “Another rich meal. I’m glad I don’t have to go with you tonight. Not only is campaigning hard work, it’s hard on the waistline.”

  “Is there a hidden message there?”

  She laughed. “Not unless you find one.”

  Owen sucked in his stomach and promised himself he’d skip dessert. “Little did you know what you were letting yourself in for when you married me.”

  “Oh, I knew.” She stood and wrapped her arms around his neck. The nightgown she wore was such a fine cotton that it was almost transparent.

  Owen put a hand on the small of her back and pulled her toward him. “One of these days, we’re going to get away, just the two of us. No deadlines, no ringing phones—”

  “Sounds good to me.” She kissed him, then headed off to the bathroom.

  As Owen was getting into his car, he was surprised to see Alex pull up in front of the house. It was early for him, unless he’d never gone to bed in the first place. Which, from the looks of him, Owen thought highly likely.

  “This is a surprise,” Owen said as Alex lumbered toward him.

  “I thought maybe we could go the cemetery together.�
�

  “Cemetery?” Owen’s first thought was of the Parkhurst homicide.

  “Mom’s birthday, remember?”

  He hadn’t, and he could tell by look on Alex’s face that Alex knew he hadn’t.

  “You don’t even remember when her birthday is, do you?”

  “Of course I know the date, it’s just that I wasn’t putting today’s date together with—”

  “You never even think about her anymore.”

  “Not true. I think about her every day.”

  Alex glowered. He was taller than Owen, and broad through the shoulders and arms. Too broad, Owen sometimes thought. He looked more like The Incredible Hulk than the sweet boy he’d once been. Marilyn had been stocky too, but she’d carried herself with a dancer’s grace whereas Alex was awkward—and often sullen.

  Owen mentally ran through his day. Not a spare half hour anywhere. “Why don’t we go to the cemetery tomorrow. We can have lunch together first. Any place you’d like.” Owen wasn’t sure what his schedule for tomorrow looked like, but he’d find a way to make the time. His relationship with his son was paramount.

  “You didn’t pay any attention to her when she was alive, either,” Alex said.

  “What are you talking about? Of course I paid attention to her. It’s not like we were newlyweds.”

  Alex shook his head. There was a look in his eye that reminded Owen that his son wasn’t a kid anymore. “You never think about anyone but yourself.”

  An old lament. Owen wasn’t in the mood. “I’ve got a busy day, Alex, and a lot on my mind right now. Can we have this talk later?”

  “Yeah, I forgot. You’re so important. The district attorney. The wannabe governor of California.”

  “I’d be busy whatever my job.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Alex turned on his heel slammed the door to his van, and drove off with a screech of rubber on asphalt.

  No, Owen didn’t get it. He didn’t get anything about Alex. The boy had been on Marilyn’s case constantly during the last year she was alive. Angry, disrespectful, critical of everything she did. And he had barely mentioned her name in the years following her death. Until Selby came into picture. Then suddenly it was Owen’s fault that Marilyn had died; Owen’s fault that she’d come to rely on alcohol and tranquilizers to get through the day. Everything was Owen’s fault. And now, he was at fault again for not putting his workday on hold at a moment’s notice to visit his late wife’s grave.