“Last couple of months?”
“Maybe. I don’t really remember.”
Keating rocked forward. “You’re lying, Jackson. Her phone records show she called you nearly every day until about a week before her death.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. Jackson glanced up the stairway toward the second floor, then spoke in a lowered voice. “Let’s step outside. I don’t want my wife to overhear this conversation.”
Once he’d closed the door behind them, he said, “We were seeing each other.” His tone was still hushed.
Lou’s wasn’t. “An affair, you mean.”
“Shh. Please. It isn’t something I’m proud of.” He wrung his hands. “It was over before she died.”
“Who called it off, you or her?”
“It was mutual.”
Keating made a face. “Are her friends going to agree with that assessment?”
“Maybe it was more me than her.” Jackson rubbed his cheek with his knuckle. “I finally realized I’d made a big mistake getting involved with her.”
“How’d she react when you broke it off?” Lou asked.
“She was upset.” Jackson took a breath. He sounded nervous.
“When was this?”
“End of December.”
Just in time for the holidays, Lou thought. What a gift. “The phone calls continued, though.”
“I know. She wouldn’t leave me alone. Kept begging me to reconsider. She even called the house a couple of times.”
Keating brushed a spider off the porch railing and stepped on it. “You must be relieved that she’s dead.”
Jackson shook his head emphatically. “No, you’re wrong about that. I cared for Ruby. She was a lot of fun. Her murder has been tearing me up inside, and there was no one I could even talk to about it.”
“Certainly not your wife.” Keating’s tone was nasty.
Jackson ignored the remark. “It was the same killer as the other two, wasn’t it?”
“Same as what other two?”
“The Bayside copycat. Don’t play dumb with me.”
“What makes you think it was the same?” Lou asked.
“You two are on the case, for one thing.”
Keating stuck a hand in the pocket of his black leather jacket. “Have you been clothes shopping lately, Jack?”
He laughed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Have you?”
“I don’t know. I may have bought some shirts.”
“Macy’s?”
“Nordstrom’s isn’t my style.”
“Do you remember when that was?” Lou asked.
“Jesus, what’s with you two?” He looked from Keating to Lou, and the expression on his face turned dark. “Wait a minute, this is all somehow related to Ruby’s murder. You think I might be involved? That’s crazy. You’re wasting your time, believe me.”
“Why should we believe you?”
“I’ll tell you what you should be looking at—the connection between the victims and the Bayside Strangler case, that’s what. Anne Bailey was an attorney on the case; Ruby’s mother was a member of the jury. I don’t know what Jane Parkhurst’s connection was, but maybe you ought to find out.”
“Whoa.” Lou wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Ruby Wings’s mother sat on the jury in the Strangler case?”
“Yeah. That’s why Ruby was so interested in it, which is how she hooked up with me. But the point is, your killer’s not only copying the Strangler, he’s selecting victims who are somehow connected. Your killer knows the Strangler case well.”
Keating smiled. “Sounds like you, Jack.”
Lou scratched his cheek as they headed back to the car. “You think it might be him?”
“He’s on the short list of people who knew about the dog collars in the Bayside Strangler case. If you think about it, Jackson is the perfect guy to be our killer.”
“How’s that?”
“He covered the Bayside Strangler in depth. He knows more about the murders than just about anybody else. And he probably relived Davis’s fantasies in his own mind when he wrote the book. If they happened to mesh with his own . . .”
“Davis was a trigger, you mean?”
Bryce nodded. “Or he could have done it simply for the attention. Hell, maybe he even set the whole thing up just to get the Wings woman. The first killing took place not long after they broke up.”
“You’re drifting pretty far out there, Bryce.”
“Could be. Still, we should keep an eye on him.”
Lou nodded. “I wonder if the captain will authorize a tail.”
“If not, you and I are going to be pulling double duty for the next couple of weeks.”
<><><>
Kali had not had a restful night. With Margot’s attack and Nathan’s lies vying for space in her mind, she’d alternated between fretful sleep and troubled wakefulness. First thing this morning, she’d called the hospital and reassured herself about Margot’s condition. Dismissing Nathan from her mind was harder.
Twice during the day, she’d been tempted to call him and give him a piece of her mind. But both times she’d hesitated. She was hardly one to appoint herself a member of the morality police, and all she really wanted was to be rid of Nathan Sloane.
Still, it rankled her to sit by and say nothing. She was looking at the phone, again thinking about calling, when it rang.
She experienced a prickle of pleasure when she recognized the voice on the other end as Bryce’s.
“How is your neighbor doing?” he asked.
“Better. I talked to her this morning. She still has a horrible headache, but the tests came back normal. Unless she takes a turn for the worse, they’ll probably release her tomorrow.”
“That’s good.” He paused, and Kali expected some disparaging comment about Margot’s gender. Or at the very least, some reaction of curiosity. Instead, he asked, “Was there anything about the attack you think might relate to our murders?”
It took Kali a moment to process the question, and when she did, her knees grew weak. “You think it was the killer who attacked her?”
“I think it’s worth exploring. She said he tried to strangle her.”
“Attacks on women aren’t uncommon.”
Bryce hesitated a moment. “Does your friend have any connection to the Strangler case?”
“Margot? Not likely.” Kali wasn’t sure where Bryce was going with this. “Why?”
“Anne Bailey worked on the original Bayside Strangler case. Turns out Ruby Wings was having an affair with Jackson. No only that, her mother sat on the jury that convicted Dwayne Davis. It could be the killer is targeting women who have some affiliation, however tenuous, to the original case.”
“Whoa.” There was a lot for Kali to absorb, and her mind was still half floating along on the sound of Bryce’s voice. She, too, had an affiliation to the original case. “How did you learn all this?”
“Maureen Oliver discovered that Ruby Wings made repeated calls to Jackson’s cell phone. When we talked with him, he admitted the affair, though reluctantly. He was the one who pointed out that two of the victims had connections to the Strangler case.”
“What about Jane Parkhurst?”
“No link that we’ve discovered, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“Have you talked with Ruby Wings’s mother?” Kali asked.
“She died a couple of years ago. Cancer. But it could be the killer is somehow seeking revenge for Davis’s conviction.”
“Or it could all be coincidence.” Kali didn’t want to think about the other possibility. She couldn’t imagine how Margot was connected to the Strangler case, but Kali most definitely was. As strongly as Anne Bailey, in fact.
“I think you ought to be careful,” Bryce said. “And I’d like to talk to your friend.” There was a beat of silence; then his voice grew softer. “Can we change the subject for a minute?”
“Sure.”
“You want to have di
nner with me tomorrow night?”
“Love to.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Had he really had any doubt? She sat for a moment after hanging up, savoring the anticipation of an evening with Bryce Keating. Hell, an evening and night. She began mentally going through her closet, trying to decide what to wear.
Finally she pulled herself from the reverie, called the office where Jane Parkhurst had worked, and spoke with several of her co-workers. Not only was there no apparent connection with the Strangler case, Jane hadn’t even been living in the Bay Area at the time. She’d been married then and living in Portland, Oregon.
Kali reached for Jackson’s book—dedicated, she noted with irony, to his wife—and turned to the section that talked about the jurors. Sure enough, there’d been a juror named Celia Wings. But she wasn’t, Kali noted, a particularly vocal juror, nor had she been convinced initially of Davis’s guilt. Besides, why target a juror’s daughter when there were actual jurors the killer could have gone after?
The more she thought about it, the more she decided it had to be a coincidence that Anne and Ruby both had ties to the Strangler case. And Margot’s only connection was Kali herself, which was pretty darned tenuous. Not that Kali really thought the attack on Margot had anything to do with the murders.
But what if it was the killer? Kali made herself hold on to the thought a moment, to climb inside and think about what it might mean. Her stomach churned, but her mind remained blank.
<><><>
Heading home for the evening, Kali stopped by the hospital to visit Margot, and then the grocery store. She would have made do with what was in the house if she’d had only herself to think about, but she knew she was almost out of dog food.
And since she was there anyway, Kali picked up chicken breasts and string beans for herself. She was rounding the produce aisle when she saw a familiar male turn the corner at the other end.
Nathan?
She sped up and rounded the corner to the next aisle. When she didn’t see him, she decided she’d been hallucinating. She finished her shopping and headed to the express checkout. She’d no sooner slid into what she gauged to be the shortest line than Nathan stepped in behind her.
“Hey, this is a surprise.” Nathan put energy into making it sound authentic, but Kali was sure it wasn’t.
“What are you doing here?” The line moved ahead and Kali placed her items on the conveyor belt.
“Shopping. How about you?”
“I meant, in this store.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why, is something wrong with this store?”
“It’s kind of far from where you live.”
There was a subtle shift in his expression. He shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Drop off a fare close to here?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Kali paid for her purchases and dropped her wallet back into her purse. “Who is Helen?” she asked.
The question clearly caught him off guard. He seemed momentarily stunned, then quickly recovered. “My sister. Why?”
His sister. Couldn’t he do better than that? It was an excuse so old and tried, you’d think he’d have trouble delivering it with a straight face. “You live with your sister?”
“It’s temporary. Until I get a regular job and some money in the bank. How’d you know about Helen?”
“Your cell phone is registered to her.”
He gave Kali a calculated smile. “So that’s what this is all about. You thought she was someone I was involved with?”
“Just curious.” She wished he weren’t such a good liar. It was hard to tell what the truth was.
“I’m flattered you’re so interested.”
“I said curious, not interested.”
The smile grew smug. “If you say so.”
She paid for the groceries and left Nathan in line. In the parking lot, Kali spotted a green cab parked near the entrance. It was dented in a few places and belonged to an independent company she’d not seen before. She jotted down the license number and the name of the company. Then she went to her own car and sat there, watching the cab. She didn’t even turn on the engine until she’d seen Nathan get into the cab and drive off.
CHAPTER 39
The day had blossomed with the hint of spring, and Lou was feeling good. It happened this way every February—a short teaser of sunny, warm days fragrant with the scent of daphne and jasmine. The spell wouldn’t last. Winter was sure to slam back onto the scene with a vengeance, just as it did every year. For the time being, though, he was enjoying the respite from rain and cold.
Keating, on the other hand, seemed not to have noticed. Between sips of straight black coffee that made up his entire lunch, Keating was poring over Jack Jackson’s book on the Bayside Strangler. They were sitting at an outside table in the City Center plaza where the flowering cherries were in bloom and pots of tulips danced in the sun, but Keating had hardly looked up from his reading.
Lou bit into his hamburger. It was stacked high with lettuce, tomato and pickle. “What are you looking for?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.”
In the twenty-four hours since they’d discovered that Jackson was involved with Ruby Wings, Keating had talked about little else but the guy’s potential as a suspect. Lou wasn’t so sure he bought into it, but he wasn’t sure he didn’t, either. He knew cops who’d gone bad. Why should a crime reporter be any different? Or maybe it was the fascination with things criminal that drew them to their professions in the first place.
“We know Jackson smokes,” Keating said. “And we found cigarette butts at two of the crime scenes.”
“Pretty slim evidence.” Lou picked up a French fry.
Keating marked his place in the book with a napkin. “I know we don’t have much to go on, but think about it, Lou. Jackson knows the Strangler crime inside and out. He’s studied it from virtually every perspective—the victims’ families, the cops, attorneys and jurors. Even Davis himself.”
“Except Davis claimed he was innocent.”
“Maybe he was,” Keating said with growing excitement. “Maybe it was Jackson all along.”
Lou took another bite of hamburger and chewed slowly. He wasn’t even sure Keating was serious. “I guess anything is possible,” Lou said. That was a cardinal rule of homicide investigation. You didn’t categorically rule out anything. But you didn’t jump to conclusions either.
“The captain okayed the tail,” Keating said. “So we’re freed from that drudgery.”
“He must be getting soft. I was sure he’d tell us to take a hike.”
“There are a limited number of people who know the details of the Bayside Strangler murders, and Jackson is one of them.”
That’s what they came back to every time. Their killer was someone who was familiar with the Strangler case. They’d put together a list of people who fit that category. Jackson and Gomez were the two with something obvious to gain from the publicity surrounding the murders. Owen Nelson was at the other end of the spectrum, with the most to lose. But there were more than a dozen other names on the list, from Dunworthy to low-ranking police personnel. And Lou was sure there were others who should have been on their list and weren’t.
“You know,” Lou said, “the dog collar might be something our killer came up with it completely on his own.”
Keating wasn’t buying it. “If it was only the collar and none of the other similarities, I might agree with you. But combined with everything else, I’m sure he knew.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“I want to look back over the file on the Gilchrist murder since Kali is convinced there’s a tie-in between that murder and our current ones. You want to follow up with that friend of Ruby Wings and see what she can tell us?”
“Assuming she even knew Ruby was involved with Jackson.”
“Women talk,” Keating said. “I bet you five dollars she knew.”
From his tone, Lou figured Keating was speaking from experience.
Keating picked up his lunch tab, pulled out his wallet and slid a couple of ones onto the table. “I’m outta here. Catch you later this afternoon.”
Lou took his time finishing his burger, then drove to Carla O’Neill’s house in Crocker Highlands and punched the bell. He was admiring the pots of Iceland poppies on the porch when she opened the door.
“What can I do for you, detective? Something more about Ruby’s death?”
“Just a few questions. Can I come in?”
She hesitated. “Actually, I’d rather talk out here if you don’t mind. I’ve got a house full of kids. My turn with the babysitting co-op.” She turned back and said something to a young boy inside, then stepped onto the porch, partially closing the door behind her. “What is it you want to know?”
“Why didn’t you tell us that Ruby was having an affair?”
A string of expressions passed over Carla’s face. Surprise, guilt, and then horror. “Is that who killed her?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“We don’t know who killed her,” Lou said. “But withholding information only makes our job that much harder.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to cause trouble. He was married.”
“You know him?”
Carla shook her head. “Ruby called him Jack. I’m not even sure that’s his real name. Ruby was very quiet about the whole thing. She knew I didn’t approve.”
“So you never met him?”
“No. I saw them together once, though. By accident. He’s not all that much to look at. A little on the heavy side.”
“What was their relationship like?”
“Hot, at least in the beginning. Ruby was the instigator, I think. She met him and went after him. But I don’t imagine he put up much of a fight.” Carla paused, her forehead creased in thought. “I don’t know much about his marriage except that he couldn’t have spent a lot of time with his wife because he was with Ruby a couple of times a week. Then right before Christmas, he started acting more distant. And a couple of weeks ago he told her it was over.”
“How’d she take it?”
Cold Justice (Kali O'Brien series Book 5) Page 34
