Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5)

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Keating turned to Kali. “No point your sticking around while we process the scene, I just wanted you to see this firsthand.”

  “You think it’s the same as the others?”

  “Certainly looks that way.”

  Kali shifted her gaze from Keating to Lou and back to Keating again. “Guess this leaves us up a creek as far as Lancaster’s concerned?”

  Lou shoved his hands in his pockets. Keating looked away. Neither of them answered her.

  “But what about the library card?” she asked. It was the same tone Nikki sometimes used when she thought Lou was being unfair. Not whiny really, but full of protest. “Lancaster had Jane Parkhurst’s purse and library card, remember?”

  “I know.” Lou hated it when cases went this way. Which they did all too often.

  “Maybe he’s in on it, but not alone,” Keating said. “Or maybe this is a setup by some friend of Lancaster’s to make us think we’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “We want to keep this quiet,” Lou said. “No press conference, no nods to the media. Maybe we’ll figure it out before word gets around.”

  “But we’ve still got Lancaster to deal with.” She rocked forward on the balls of her feet.

  “Can’t you hold him on the shoplifting charge? Or a parole violation?”

  She turned to Keating in a flash of anger. “You wanted Lancaster off the street. Public safety, you said. Looks to me like putting him behind bars got us nothing but egg on our face.”

  “You think I’m happy about this?”

  “Hey, we’re on the same side here,” Lou reminded them.

  Kali sighed. “I’ll see if I can run damage control in the DA’s office.” She turned and headed for her car. Lou watched Keating, whose eyes were following Kali’s retreating form. “She still on your list?”

  Keating didn’t bother to look at him. “It’s none of your damn business, Lou.”

  “Sorry, it’s just that you’d said . . .” Lou held up a hand in surrender. Keating was right, it wasn’t any of his business, but this was the first time Lou had seen Keating bristle about it. “Forget I asked.” Truth was, Lou didn’t really care, as long as Keating didn’t let his personal life interfere with their work.

  Keating glanced back at the house. “It’s gotta be the same guy.”

  “I think so too.”

  “But it’s a big shift from what he’s done before.”

  “Setting up the scene of the abduction?”

  Keating nodded, his hand clenched into a fist. “This is about more than simply killing women; our guy is enjoying jerking us around.”

  “And getting cocky about it, too.”

  “That’s what I mean about the shift. It’s almost like the victims are peripheral.”

  “To what?”

  “To the game.” Keating bit his lower lip. “This is the type of killer who likes to associate himself in some way with the investigation. It’s almost a textbook case.”

  “Or hang around the fringe.” Lou knew it wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon, but he’d personally come across it only once. He’d been in homicide a couple of years, already partnered with Harry. There’d been a rash of attacks on elderly women, including four murders. They’d finally pinned them on the ambulance driver who showed up at each of the crime scenes.

  Lou eyed the dwindling crowd of onlookers. “We’d better check through the looky-loo names. Maureen says she got contact information for most of them.”

  “Good. I suspect what our guy gets off on isn’t so much a need to control his victims, as a screw-you challenge to power and authority. He’d like nothing better than watching us stumble.”

  Keating was thinking out loud. Lou played along. “I agree. The focus doesn’t seem to be sexual.”

  “There’s all the peripheral stuff like the poems and photographs. And now we’ve got a scene without a crime or a body. It’s a game for him, Lou. And that’s the real turn-on as far as he’s concerned.”

  This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation, and for the most part Lou agreed. But recently he’d begun to wonder if they were missing something obvious.

  “There’s another possibility,” he said. “Maybe it’s not a textbook serial killer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about who stands to benefit most from these murders.”

  “Benefit? In what way?”

  “Could be that someone’s trying to put a cork in Nelson’s chances for the election.”

  Keating looked skeptical. “You really think Tony Molina would stoop to murder?”

  “Not the big man himself, but some of his supporters.” It wasn’t a theory Lou necessarily believed, but he thought it warranted looking at. “Al Gomez, that lawyer who defended Davis, he’s been trying to stir up trouble ever since Nelson announced his candidacy. I heard a radio interview with him not long ago. He and Molina grew up in the same neighborhood.”

  “But murder? I don’t know. You must have been smoking some bad stuff, Lou.”

  “Only thing I smoke is cigars.”

  “They’re the worst.”

  Lou chuckled. “You know, for a mean bastard, you have unbelievably sissified tastes.”

  “Refined tastes, Lou. There’s a big difference.” Keating checked his watch. “You put out an APB on the car?”

  Lou nodded. “I have a bad feeling about this, Bryce. Whether we find the car first or the body, it’s not going to be pretty.”

  “Lancaster seemed so perfect for the crimes, too.” Keating sounded pissed, and Lou didn’t blame him. He felt the same way himself.

  “I’m going to talk to what’s left of the flock over there,” Lou said.

  When Keating went back into the house, Lou moseyed across the street. Four women, a sprinkling of children, and two men. One looked to be in his seventies, the other considerably younger.

  “Has something happened to Ruby?” one of the women asked. “The cop who was over here earlier said they were investigating a break-in, but Joanna Singleton, she lives there—” the woman pointed to the house behind them—”she was the one who called the police in the first place. She said she tried calling Ruby at work and was told she never showed up today.”

  “Any of you seen her this morning?” Lou asked, sidestepping the woman’s question.

  None of them had.

  Three of the women lived in the neighborhood; the fourth was the visiting daughter of the older gentleman. The remaining man said he’d been taking a walk when he saw the crowd gathered and stopped to see what had happened. His driver’s license showed that he lived about a mile to the east. He taught guitar out of his home, he said, mostly to school-aged kids, which was why he was free in the mornings.

  “You walk this way often?” Lou asked him.

  “Almost every day.”

  “You ever see anything unusual going on?”

  “Can’t say that I did. Sorry.”

  Lou probed further with the neighbors, learning nothing aside from the fact that Ruby Wings was well liked, then headed back to join Keating.

  At the curb, he stopped to analyze how visible the intruder would have been from the side of the garage. Practically hidden. But he’d have had to park somewhere, and presumably get back into his car with Ruby. Unless he’d taken hers.

  So maybe he’d approached the house on foot, Lou thought. Fat lot of good it did, though, if no one had seen him. As Lou headed back up the walkway, his eye caught something red and shiny on the dirt under the daylilies. He stopped and retrieved two foil candy wrappers. Dove dark chocolate.

  Ruby’s? Neighborhood kids? Most likely. But Lou had been trained by some of the best cops in the business. He carefully dropped the wrappers into one of the baggies he always carried in his jacket pocket.

  <><><>

  Kali shook hands with Lancaster’s attorney, a veteran public defender named Eric Pogue. Short and pudgy, with heavy jowls and an immutably grim expression, Pogue reminded her of a bulldog. She o
ffered a smile as she introduced herself; he didn’t.

  “I’m going to advise my client not to answer any questions,” Pogue said, bristling with righteousness. He had large lips, and an unpleasant habit of spraying saliva when he talked.

  Kali stepped back. “I want to go over his statement to the police,” she explained. “Make sure he feels it’s a fair representation of the facts.” And more importantly, get a feel for how Lancaster was connected, or not connected, to the murders.

  Pogue scoffed. “Fair? He says he didn’t do it; that’s what you should be listening to.”

  There were two ways to approach a client’s defense—work with the prosecution or dig your heels in and cry foul at every turn. She could see that Pogue had cast his fates in the latter camp. That made it much harder.

  “Believe it or not, Mr. Pogue, I am only trying to get at the truth.”

  “And I’ve got a bridge I could sell you.”

  They entered the small interview room near the holding cells. Kurt Lancaster was already seated at the table. A guard stood behind him.

  “We’ll take it from here,” Pogue said.

  The guard looked at Kali, who nodded. “I’ll be just outside if you need me,” he said.

  Pogue pulled out a chair and sat kitty-corner from his client. Keeping his distance, Kali noted, and his grim countenance. He didn’t look directly at Lancaster, or address him personally. It was a job for him, Kali thought. And the attraction was in the rhetoric, not the people.

  Kali sat closer to Lancaster, on purpose, and pulled out his file. “I’m the assistant district attorney assigned to this case,” she explained. “I’ve read the statement you gave to the detectives, and I want to be sure it’s accurate.”

  Lancaster nodded. He was, as she’d noted before, an odd-looking man, with deep-set eyes and a pointy chin, but up close there was also something vulnerable about him. Like the homely kid in elementary school who was the butt of every practical joke.

  “You’ve done work for both Anne Bailey and Jane Parkhurst, is that correct?”

  “I work for lots of people. I have my own window-washing business, part time.”

  “But Ms. Bailey and Ms. Parkhurst were among your regular clients?”

  Pogue leaned forward. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  “He’s already admitted it,” Kali pointed out with impatience. “And we’ve got corroborating third-party evidence to that effect.”

  “I did work for them,” Lancaster said. “Ms. Parkhurst for several years.”

  “Can you tell me what you were doing the evening of January fourth.”

  Pogue interrupted, again spraying spittle. “I’m advising my client—”

  “I already told the cops, I was sick. Achy, you know? And a fever.”

  “You were home alone and didn’t talk to anyone at all?”

  “Don’t answer,” Pogue said.

  Kali waited a moment. This time Lancaster listened to the advice of his attorney and remained silent. She pressed on. “What about the evening of January thirteenth?”

  “I was at work.”

  “Yet we’ve found no one who can vouch for the fact that you were there after signing in.”

  “I told—”

  “Don’t try to explain,” Pogue said.

  “But I want—”

  “There will be time for that later.”

  Kali tried a direct appeal. “Mr. Lancaster, despite what you may think, we’re not interested in charging an innocent man. If you can help us understand how we’re misinterpreting the evidence, it would be in your best interest to do so.”

  Lancaster looked to Pogue and then back to Kali, but he said nothing.

  “We know from your ATM records,” Kali continued, “that you were in the area of Jane Parkhurst’s house twice in the few weeks before she was killed. That’s nowhere near your own home.”

  He shrugged. “I work all over the area.”

  “Your neighbors and co-workers say you’re a good man.” Kali kept her eyes on Lancaster, willing Pogue to keep from interrupting. “I’m thinking you might not be the one who was really behind these murders. Maybe you and a friend were in this together. Maybe it was all his idea. If you give us the other name, we’re not going to be looking so hard at you.”

  “There wasn’t anyone else.”

  “Shut up,” Pogue said. “She’s trying to trick you.”

  “I didn’t do nothing wrong.” Lancaster’s eyes were dark and pleading. “I didn’t touch those women.”

  “The police have searched your house, Mr. Lancaster. They found Jane Parkhurst’s purse and library card there among your things.”

  Pogue pushed back his chair. “This interview has gone far enough.” He turned to his client. “We’ll deal with all this in court, Kurt. Not here.”

  Lancaster ignored him, giving Kali a pleading look. “I can explain about the purse. Mrs. Parkhurst gave it to me.”

  “She gave you her purse?”

  He nodded vigorously. “It was on the front steps. A bunch of stuff she was giving away. I asked her, I didn’t just take it. I got a blue sweater and a blouse, too.”

  Kali felt as though there was a lead weight in her stomach. They had no case against Lancaster. No case at all.

  “Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?” she asked.

  “Forget it,” Pogue barked. “They are totally unreliable.”

  Also inadmissible in court. But the results might make Kali feel better about letting Lancaster go.

  “I’ll do it,” Lancaster said.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Hey, Dad,” Alex called from the kitchen, “you want another beer?”

  Owen wasn’t much of a beer drinker. The one can he’d already downed had about pushed his limit, but in the interest of father-son bonding, he acquiesced. “That would be great, Alex. Thanks.”

  It wasn’t often they were together like this, just the two of them kicking back in easy camaraderie. Selby was out for the evening with her college roommate, who was in town for a conference, and while Owen was disappointed that she’d left on one of the rare evenings he was free, he’d seized the opportunity to invite Alex to have dinner with him. He could never predict Alex’s mood, and Owen had braced himself for some smart-ass response like “Why would I want dinner with you?” He’d been pleasantly surprised when Alex not only agreed but seemed appreciative. Perhaps there was hope yet for mending their relationship.

  They’d decided that eating in was better than going out, although Owen suspected his new large-screen television had something to do with Alex’s opinion on the matter. Now, fortified with enchiladas and chips they’d picked up at their favorite Mexican place, they were settled on the leather sofa in the den watching the basketball game. Alex had been in surprisingly good spirits all evening. Owen had even gotten out of him the name of a girl he was dating. Not dating, Owen corrected himself as Alex had corrected him earlier, seeing. Apparently dating wasn’t something young people did anymore.

  Alex returned from the kitchen with two cans of beer and a bag of cookies. “Did I miss anything?” He handed Owen a beer, then plopped down at the far end of the couch.

  “Four commercials, all of which were advertising sex and only incidentally whatever product was alluded to at the end.”

  Alex laughed. “You’re a prude, Dad.”

  “Hardly.”

  “A dinosaur then?”

  Owen was willing to give him that. He smiled. “Probably.” Then he leaned back and privately basked in the glow of sharing an evening with his son.

  They concentrated on the game with only an occasional “hold on to the ball, stupid,” or “watch that shoving,” to punctuate the silence. By halftime, Owen was feeling pleased with the way the evening had turned out.

  “You ever think about college?” he asked.

  Alex gave him a funny look. “I barely made it through high school.”

  “That’s only because you never really
tried. You’re a bright boy, Alex. You could do anything you put your mind to.”

  “Brain surgeon?” The words were thickly sarcastic.

  Owen wanted to send a positive message. “If that’s what you wanted, yes. I’m willing to pay your tuition, help with living expenses. It’s an opportunity—”

  “For you to look like a hero.”

  The words smarted. Owen brushed them aside. “An opportunity to make something of yourself.”

  “College doesn’t interest me,” Alex said flatly.

  Owen could feel his blood pressure rising. He bit back the urge to lecture.

  “I’m starting to get interested in film,” Alex said after a while.

  “Film?”

  “Like, making movies.”

  “Great.” Another pipe dream, Owen thought. Like so many of Alex’s interests. “Only it’s not very practical.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to break in? How slim the chances of success are?” As soon as the words were out, Owen realized he’d gone about it all wrong.

  Alex shot him a pointed look. “You saying I wouldn’t be any good?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Though Owen was sure that Alex had no idea of the work and perseverance involved. He’d make some fly-by-night stab at it and expect immediate success.

  “What I meant,” Owen said with deliberate patience, “was there’s a lot of luck involved.”

  Alex slid down on the couch, swinging one leg over the arm. “Doesn’t matter. It’s just something that’s crossed my mind.” Ignoring the marble coaster, he set the beer can directly on the walnut coffee table.

  “Not on wood, Alex. You know better than that.”

  “What’s the matter, Selby got you pussy-whipped?”

  Anger flashed in Owen’s gut, but he exercised restraint. He’d gotten that much from those counseling sessions. “I don’t like that kind of language,” he said evenly.

  “Especially not about precious Selby, right?”

  “Come on, son, don’t spoil a good evening.”