Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Now she sat at her desk, palms pressed to her forehead, willing herself to recall exactly what Anne had told her about Clear View Windows.

  Kali could recall the occasion of the conversation vividly. They’d been in Anne’s office. An autumn day in full, vivid color, just before Thanksgiving. The sun angling through the window had warmed Kali’s back and cast a golden glow on the room. Kali had commented on the clean windows, and that was when Anne had given her the name of her window washer. “He does my windows at home, too,” Anne had explained. “He’s cheap, fast and thorough.” And Kali, who’d just that morning noted the layer of grime that dulled the large wall of windows in her living and dining rooms, wrote the name and number of the window washing service on a scrap of paper and tucked it into her purse, fully intending to call that evening. She hadn’t, although she’d filed the paper away where she could find it later.

  If she had called, might she have met the same fate as Anne? Kali felt nausea roll over her and took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she reached for the phone and punched in the number. An answering machine picked up. Male voice. Fuzzy and hard to decipher. She rang the number again. An individual’s name rather than a company, but Anne had said the man worked alone.

  Next, she checked with the licensing bureau to see if Clear View Windows was registered with the county. It wasn’t. Not that failure to register the name necessarily held significance. People doing business under a name different than their own were supposed to register, but small service businesses like housecleaning or gardening sometimes overlooked that step.

  Kali took another deep breath and tried again to step back in time. What else had Anne said? Kali was sure there was more, but it hadn’t seemed important at the moment. Something about the man’s wiry build and intrepid maneuvering of heights, as she recalled. But nothing to indicate that he appeared in any way threatening.

  Kali was still working the memory when Lou Fortune and Bryce Keating showed up at her office door.

  “We got your message,” Bryce said. He crossed in front of Kali’s desk and leaned against the wall near where she was sitting. A faint whiff of spicy aftershave followed. Kali couldn’t name the scent, but she’d come to associate it with Bryce Keating and the pleasant sensation she felt in his company.

  Lou grimaced as he sat in the straight-back chair closest to the door. She could tell from the way he lowered himself to the seat that his back still bothered him. “How’d you find out about this window connection?” The question sounded almost accusatory.

  “I saw a business card in Mrs. Greene’s kitchen,” Kali explained. “She told me Jane Parkhurst had used the cleaning service and given her the name. It was familiar because Anne had recommended the service to me.”

  “You’ve used them too?” This was Bryce. He looked directly at her, and she felt her skin grow warm.

  “No, I never got around to calling. It strikes me as an interesting coincidence that both Anne and Jane had their windows done by the same company. It’s just the sort of connection that ties them to the same killer.”

  Lou picked up the card from Kali’s desk and tapped it against his knee. “What do we know about this outfit?”

  Kali told him what she could remember of her conversation with Anne. “I checked fictitious business names. There’s no Clear View registered.”

  Bryce looked at his partner. “Let’s give the number a try.”

  “I already did,” Kali said. “It’s a recording. Very fuzzy. I tried it twice to make sure I was dialing right. It sounded like a home answering machine. The voice was male, but that’s all I can say for sure.”

  “Was Clear View identified by name?”

  Kali shook her head. “As I said, the tone was garbled, but it sounded like the guy said his name was Burt Lancaster.”

  There was a moment of deafening silence during which Bryce and Lou exchanged meaningful looks. Their reaction wasn’t what Kali expected, and it made her uncomfortable.

  “Like the actor—you know, Elmer Gantry. At least, that’s what it sounded like. That’s why I tried a second time. I thought I’d misdialed.”

  “Could it have been Kurt instead of Burt?” Bryce asked.

  “Kurt Lancaster? Sure. It could have been a lot of things.”

  “Son of a bitch.” It was said with a sense of amazement.

  “I knew it.” Lou slapped his knee. “I told you the guy was a pervert.”

  “You know him?” Kali hadn’t followed the whole nonverbal exchange, but she was pretty sure she’d understood the gist of it.

  “Just met him,” Bryce said. “He’s the guy who was buying women’s clothing in the secondhand store.”

  “Kinky too,” Lou added. “He had these dolls—he made some of them, in fact. Life-sized. And lots of different outfits. He dresses them, kind of the way girls play with their Barbies.”

  “He works for a janitorial service.” Bryce seemed to be thinking out loud. “It fits. Works evenings for the company, moonlights during the day doing windows on his own.”

  Lou rose to his feet. “Let’s bring him in.”

  Kali was torn. Her heart pounded with excitement at the prospect of catching the killer, but her role here was to make sure it was done right. “It’s going to be tough convincing a judge that we have enough evidence to hold him.”

  “Fuck that,” Bryce said. “By the time we’re finished with him, we’ll have the evidence.”

  “That’s not—”

  “You want us to leave him out there on the streets where he can kill again?” His tone was sharp.

  “Of course not.” Was Bryce being purposely argumentative?

  “We’re going to need solid evidence, though, if we want the charges to stick.”

  “We’ll get it,” Bryce said with a smugness that made her wonder momentarily why she found him attractive.

  “Solid, reliable evidence,” she added, recalling the fiasco surrounding Dwayne Allen Davis.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’m just thinking ahead to—”

  “We don’t need your permission anyway.” This was Lou weighing in.

  “But it will come to me soon enough. How am I going to charge him without sufficient evidence?”

  Bryce shot her a silent look and the detectives left.

  <><><>

  Kali didn’t get a glimpse of Lancaster until later that evening when Lou and Bryce brought him downtown for questioning. They stuck him in an interrogation room and left him there for nearly an hour while they trumped up excuses for keeping themselves busy.

  “Probably best if we question him alone,” Lou informed Kali as they conferred over Styrofoam cups of bitter black coffee. Not hostile, but not asking, either.

  “There’s a two-way mirror against the back wall,” Bryce said. “That way you’ll be able to tell if we screw up.” He gave special emphasis to the last two words.

  Kali had no problem not being part of the initial questioning. That was pretty much standard practice. She was bothered, however, by the barbed undertone in Bryce’s delivery. And when she tried to clear the air, he brushed her efforts aside.

  “We’ve all got a job to do.” He looked at her a moment and then left.

  Lou showed Kali the door to the viewing room. She took her coffee and settled in front of the mirror where she could watch without being seen.

  She was struck right off the bat by how wiry and delicate Lancaster was. He wasn’t much taller than she was and probably weighed only a few pounds more. The type of man who’d have been teased a lot growing up, even without the unfortunate name.

  Could Lancaster have overpowered women who were athletic and fit? Yes, she told herself. All he had to do was catch them unawares. A hand around their throats in just the right place and they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Lancaster was fidgety and seemed upset, but Kali would have been, too, in his position. Finally, Bryce entered the interrogation room carrying a can of soda a
nd a candy bar. He handed them to Lancaster. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Paperwork and phone calls. Too much happening all at the same time.”

  Lancaster took the soda but ignored the candy bar. “What’s this about anyway? I don’t bother nobody.”

  Bryce sat down and folded his arms across his middle. Casual conversation mode. “Those dolls, the way you have them set around the apartment like they lived there, it’s pretty neat. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  Lancaster rubbed a palm against his thigh. “It’s something I do.”

  “And the ones you make yourself are really something. Must take a lot of patience.”

  “It does.” The response was couched in wariness.

  “Where’d you learn?”

  “Taught myself mostly.”

  “You ever sell them?”

  Lancaster reacted with agitation. His Adam’s apple bobbed and his skin looked pasty. “No. That would be . . . it wouldn’t be right.”

  Bryce nodded with understanding. “They’re . . . special. Like your friends or something.”

  “Yes, that’s it. Most people don’t understand. They think it’s just a hobby, like . . . like photography.”

  Kali was intrigued. Not only by his doll making, but also the reference to photography. The killer had sent them a photo of Jane Parkhurst, after all.

  “My partner should be here any minute,” Bryce said, stifling a yawn. “I gotta warn you, he’s a tough old bastard and he’s in shitty mood. I’ll try to keep him reined in for you.” The door opened. “Ah, there he is now.”

  Lou entered the room. Even through the glass Kali could feel the change in atmosphere, and she knew that it was intentional. The old good-cop, bad-cop routine.

  Lou pulled out a chair as if to straddle it, then apparently remembered his back. He leaned over the table instead. “Anne Bailey. Jane Parkhurst. Those names mean anything to you, Lancaster?”

  He thought for a moment, licked his lips nervously then nodded. “I know them. I’ve done work for them.”

  “Knew them, dipshit. They’re dead. Both of them.”

  Lancaster started to twitch. Head, shoulders, legs. Like a marionette with tangled strings. “What are you saying?”

  “Dead, as in murdered. But you know they’re dead, don’t you?” Lou leaned farther over the table until he was almost nose to nose with Lancaster. “You know it better than anyone.”

  “Whad’ya mean murdered?” Lancaster looked from Lou to Bryce.

  Kali could see his Adam’s apple bobbing frantically.

  Bryce pulled himself from his slouch. “Hey, Lou, read him his rights. Mr. Lancaster here deserves some respect.”

  “What are you talking about? You think I killed them?” Lancaster’s voice rose to a fevered pitch. “That’s what this is about?”

  “Did you?” Bryce’s voice was so soft that Kali had trouble making out the words.

  Lancaster’s hands shook. His body rocked in his chair.

  Lou pulled a card out of his pocket and read off the standard Miranda warning. Lancaster barely listened.

  “You . . . you think I k . . . kil. . . killed them?” he asked again.

  “Yeah,” Lou said, “that’s what we think.”

  “You . . . you’re wrong. I. . . I. . .” He turned to Bryce. “Wh-wh-why would I do something like that?”

  “You tell us,” Bryce said calmly.

  Lancaster’s twitching grew more pronounced. As did his stuttering. “I-I-I di-di-didn’t. You-you-you don’t understand.”

  “We understand plenty,” Lou bellowed. “You play with those stupid dolls of yours, dressing them, undressing them, dressing them again. Then you wanted something a bit more, isn’t that right? So you went after real women. Dressed them up just the way you do your dolls.”

  “No!”

  “Why’d you do it, Kurt?” Bryce’s voice was gentle, entreating.

  “I di-didn’t.”

  “If you tell us why,” Bryce said reasonably, “maybe we can help. Maybe you didn’t really mean for them to die. Maybe they even liked having you dress them.”

  There was no response, only more twitching.

  “Yeah, I bet that’s it,” Lou said. “It’s not really his fault.”

  Where Bryce’s tone was gentle, Lou’s was thick with disdain. Kali knew they’d taken on the roles deliberately, and knew that both were manipulative, but even so she found herself drawn in by Bryce’s empathy.

  “Some little voice in your head tell you to do it?” Lou snickered.

  “Only the voices of the angels,” Lancaster said.

  “Angels, is it? They talk to you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Fallen angels, more like it. You know about fallen angels, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  Lou’s face wore a look of disbelief. “Where were you last Tuesday?”

  Lancaster looked at Bryce. “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?”

  Kali reacted immediately. We want this clean, she reminded them silently. The last thing they needed was a confession that would get tossed out at trial.

  Bryce rubbed his jaw as if having a lawyer present had never crossed his mind. “Sure, if that’s what you want.” In a manner that said, “What would be the point in that?”

  It was remarkable how much could be conveyed by tone and nuance. Kali hoped he’d keep it at that.

  “But maybe you could help us out a little first,” Bryce added. “See, all we want is to know where you were Tuesday. If there’s someone who can vouch for you, then you couldn’t have done it, right? You’d be in the clear.”

  “I was at work,” Lancaster said without hesitation. “Six at night till two in the morning.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I-I don’t know. Somebody must have seen me.”

  “Give us some names.”

  Even from where she sat, Kali could see the panic in Lancaster’s eyes. “I. . . don’t remember exactly.”

  “You work in teams?”

  “We’ve been short-staffed. I’ve been working alone.” The explaining seemed to have calmed Lancaster. His jerky twitches and stammering were less pronounced. “I can give you some names, though. You ask. Somebody musta seen me.”

  “Where were you working?” Bryce asked.

  “Downtown. On Harrison.”

  Lou pulled his chair up close to Lancaster and finally sat down. “Nothing says you couldn’t have left work for a while, done the deed, the kidnapping part anyway, then gone back to the job.”

  “Why do you think I—”

  Lou tossed a coil of rope onto the table. “We found this in the back of your van, Lancaster.”

  Neither detective had mentioned the rope to Kali. She hoped they’d obtained it legally, though the search requirements for parolees were a lot looser than for the general public.

  “I try to keep some there,” Lancaster explained.

  “The women were strangled with rope like this,” Lou said.

  “I-I k-keep it for emergencies. Comes in handy, lots of times.”

  “Like for tying up women.”

  “N-no, n-no, I—”

  Lou put a hand on Lancaster’s chest. “Listen, genius. My partner asked you where you were Tuesday. You’re the one who immediately jumped to evening. Which, by the way, coincides perfectly with the timing of Parkhurst’s abduction. Only way you’d have known that was if you were there.”

  “No, I’m sure you said evening.” Lancaster’s eyes darted between the two detectives.

  “How many others did you do?”

  “Others?”

  “Besides Anne Bailey and Jane Parkhurst.” Lou poked him again with each name.

  Bryce made a gesture restraining Lou. He addressed his comments to Lancaster. “We hear about it from your lips first, that’s good, you know what I mean? We find out after the fact. . .” Bryce shook his head. “They’ll charge it as a capital offense for sure.”

  He wa
s walking a fine line, Kali thought. Nothing he said was untrue, but the slant was definitely misleading.

  “So it’s definitely better to tell us, Kurt. How many others?”

  “None,” Lancaster protested. “No one else!”

  Kali’s heart was pounding. Was that a confession?

  “Just Bailey and Parkhurst?” Bryce asked.

  “No, not them either! You’re trying to trick me.”

  “We’re trying to help you,” Bryce said calmly. “Only way we can do that is to understand what really happened.”

  “Don’t I have a right to a lawyer? You said I could call one.”

  “You ready to confess? Sure, we’ll go find you a lawyer. Maybe even work out a plea. You might be able to get it down to life.”

  Easy, Kali thought. Deny him his right to counsel and you’ll lose anything he tells you.

  Lancaster was breathing quickly, as if he’d just run up a flight of stairs. “I don’t want to confess. I just want a lawyer.”

  Lou snapped at him. “You dumb shits are all the same. Know what happens once you call a lawyer? He warns you not to cooperate. Zip your lip, he says. Don’t give them anything. So you sit in a cement cell for months on end, sometimes even for years, while he’s out earning himself a nice income messing with your life. He has lunch at Skates by the Bay, goes home to his pretty little wife. What does he care how long you stay rotting in the system?”

  “It’s up to you,” Bryce said. “I know if it was me and I was innocent, I’d want to clear my name as quickly as possible.”

  “I want a lawyer!” Lancaster seemed near tears.

  “I’ve had it.” Lou stood and shoved the chair roughly. He headed for the door. “Let his sorry ass rot.”

  Bryce whispered something to Lancaster that Kali couldn’t hear, then he, too, left the room. Lancaster folded his head in his arms and sobbed like a child.

  Kali stood and stretched, suddenly aware of the knot in her shoulders. She felt flooded with relief. For a while there she’d been afraid the detectives would push it too far.