Next Girl On The List - A serial killer thriller (McRyan Mystery Series Book)

by Roger Stelljes

  “She sounded a little more legitimate,” Galloway stated. “She seemed to check the boxes based on her picture and the statistics in her DMV file. Plus, I’m a little thin on people right at this moment and you two should get out of here for a bit. Trust me, you’ll feel better for it.”

  A little before 8:00 P.M. Mac and Wire knocked on the apartment door of Priscilla Blumenthal. Priscilla lived in an apartment building in the Michigan Park neighborhood.

  Priscilla answered the door and Mac and Wire identified themselves. “I saw you on the television. Heck, they’re running it nonstop on the cable news channels.” She invited them inside the apartment.

  Mac made a quick assessment of Priscilla and he was instantly skeptical. She didn’t seem right. Physically she fit the profile, but only kind of. She was taller, five eight maybe and had perhaps wider hips, but as he assessed her she didn’t strike him as physically Rubenesque compared to the other victims. There was also an air about her that suggested she wasn’t the meek, quiet type that Rubens typically approached. Even as she opened the door, he detected an edge from Priscilla that he suspected would not have attracted Rubens.

  That having been said, Mac wasn’t taking any chances. Galloway was right. CYA.

  “So, Priscilla, tell us about this man,” Wire prompted.

  “His name is Quentin Hickey,” Priscilla replied.

  “And how did you meet?”

  “I met Quentin two months ago at a benefit for a local private school. My employer is a food ingredient company and we supplied some of our cooking products to be auctioned off in gift baskets. I was one of the people selected, or more like, ordered, to go to the thing. It wasn’t an event I’d really want to work, if you know what I mean. Plus, I wasn’t getting paid extra.”

  “Yeah, I hate it when the bosses make you do those things,” Wire replied while looking at Mac.

  “Right,” Priscilla added. “Your partner here makes you do those things, doesn’t he?”

  “Him?” Wire replied. “Never. Anyway, you go to this event and then what?”

  “They have this table set up and you talk up your company’s products in the hopes that people will bid more for them at the auction. The company gets some good publicity out of it. In any event, Quentin approached to examine our products and struck up a conversation with me.”

  “And why was Quentin there?”

  “He said he had a niece that went to the school and he was there to support her.”

  “I see,” Wire replied with some doubt. “And then what happened?”

  “We went out for a drink after the event. Then we went out a few nights later and we seemed to be heading toward something more.”

  “Yet it didn’t?”

  “Not after a few weeks, anyway.”

  “And what happened in those few weeks?”

  “We went out, usually at some out of the way place. A couple of times we came back here and you know—”

  “What?” Wire asked.

  “Had sex.”

  “Ah, I see,” Wire replied and shared a look with Mac. This didn’t feel on the level.

  “Then what happened?” Mac asked, taking notes.

  “He stopped calling, stopped showing up and when I did manage to get a hold of him he wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “Do you have any idea what changed?”

  “No, I really don’t,” Priscilla replied. “Then your partner was on television talking about this Rubens and how he’s killing these women and that if you had a relationship with someone and then he up and disappeared, you should call. I started wondering if Quentin fit that profile.”

  “Describe Quentin for me,” Mac requested.

  “He’s got black hair, wears a beard. He’s like six feet tall.”

  “And do you have his phone number or address?”

  “I have his cell number.”

  Mac wrote it down. “If you’ll excuse me.” He went into the hallway and called Galloway.

  “So what is Priscilla telling you?”

  “That she met some guy who she had sex with for a couple of weeks who then stopped calling.”

  “Oh, so not a lead on Rubens.”

  “I’m kind of doubting that it is,” Mac answered. “But, due to your wise counsel, I’m covering our asses. So run this number for me and we’ll find out for sure.” Five minutes later Galloway had an address and phone number for Quentin Hickey. Quentin lived up in College Park, which did give Mac a little of tingle of excitement. The other night they’d tracked a call from Rubens up near the University of Maryland.

  A little before 10:00 P.M. they knocked on Quentin’s door. It was answered by a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Hickey, and Mac and Wire immediately knew it was a dead end. Quentin spelled it out for them while speaking out on the front lawn.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have taken up with her,” he said.

  “The affair, you mean?” Wire asked directly and with a hardly disguised tone of disapproval.

  Hickey nodded. “The old lady and I have been having issues. We were separated for a time and while we were, I ran into Priscilla.”

  “Why did you stop seeing her?” Mac asked.

  Hickey nodded towards the house. “Luann and I decided to give it another shot. I told Priscilla I didn’t want to see her anymore.”

  “Did you tell her why?”

  “No,” Quentin replied. “I guess I should have. At this point, she’s just trying to make my life miserable. I don’t need her help. I have a master’s degree in screwing up my life.”

  As they left Quentin to go back inside and try to explain their visit away, Dara looked over to Mac. “So, Mac, are you sure you want to get married?”

  “Like a buddy of mine once said, you only get married twice.”

  A half-hour later, they pulled back into the parking ramp at the field office.

  “You mind if I call it a night?” Wire asked. It was nearly 11:00 P.M.

  “No, go ahead,” Mac answered, checking his watch, “I’m going to head inside and stare at the whiteboard for a while and then go home myself.”

  “Don’t stay up too late,” Wire responded as she walked to her car and Mac strode to the elevator lobby. When he got to the door, he turned around with a big grin and yelled, “Say hi to Ridge for me.”

  Wire looked up in horror. “How?”

  “I have my ways, Dara Wire, I have my ways.”

  “But—” she started, flabbergasted, heading back toward him.

  “I saw you talking to him during the press conference,” Mac stated. “I could just tell.”

  Wire shook her head at him in amazement.

  “I don’t miss much,” Mac added cockily.

  “I guess not,” she replied, shaking her head, hands on her hips. “I didn’t realize you cared,” she needled back.

  “Someone has to look out for you,” he replied and then in a more serious tone added, “Just be careful.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t know him,” Mac cautioned. “And neither do you.”

  “Well, Mac,” Wire replied with a big smile, “that’s why you go on dates.”

  “Oh, so it’s a date?”

  “Well, hold on a second …”

  • • •

  Gwen watched the press conference on CNN one more time as she finished up the last of her duties at the library. She wondered if she should call. There had only been three times that she had gone out with Louis.

  “Are you ready, Gwen?”

  “Yes,” she replied as she clicked shutdown for her computer. She waited for the computer screen to go black and then joined Melissa at the back door.

  “On your way home?” Melissa asked as they walked to their cars.

  “That’s my plan. I have to stop at the grocery store for some things. I need eggs and milk but otherwise, I have a new book awaiting me at home.”

  “Good night.”

  “You too.”

  Fifteen minutes
later Gwen walked into the corner store. She reached inside the cooler for a dozen eggs, opening the container to make sure none were cracked. In the next compartment over, she grabbed a half-gallon of two percent milk and went to the register to wait behind two other customers.

  The flat screen television mounted above and to the right of the cash register was tuned to CNN. Once again that FBI agent’s press conference was running. The number to call was posted on the screen. She reached for her cell phone, swiped to the second screen and hit the Notes icon and tapped in the number, then put the phone back into her coat pocket.

  As she walked out of the store, her favorite little coffee shop was to the left. She deposited the groceries into her car and went back into the coffee shop to get a quick cup of decaf before the shop closed.

  Five minutes later, she pulled her car into the garage. Gwen grabbed her cup of coffee out of the cup holder and then set it on the roof of her Camry while she took her groceries out of the back seat. She locked the car and lowered the garage door. She opened the back door of the detached garage and stepped out onto the small sidewalk to the rear of her house.

  The thud was sickening as the hammer came thundering down onto the back of her skull.

  Gwen instantly collapsed to the ground, her groceries and coffee spilling all over the sidewalk.

  She groaned and started to move.

  He stepped over her body, kneeled down, placing his left knee on the small of her back and pressed down on her neck with his left hand.

  The job had to be finished.

  He swung the hammer down viciously again on her skull. Not satisfied, he reached high and way back with the hammer and brought it down with all of his might one more time. This time, the hammer dug deep into her skull, crushing the bone.

  Gwen was dead.

  He grabbed her purse, ran around the garage and down the alley at a full sprint. He reached his car a block and a half away and quickly sped off.

  McRyan had made his move.

  He had countered.

  But there were two women who concerned him. One more to go.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It’s a level of ruthlessness that blows my mind.”

  As the clock approached midnight and in an effort to avoid drawing any unwanted attention from other media types, Wire met up with Ridge closer to her Alexandra, Virginia home at a small local dive bar. She found the author patiently waiting, reading his phone, perched in a secluded back corner booth. In front of him rested a half-finished pitcher of beer along with two small baskets of popcorn.

  “This is as below the radar as I can be in here,” he noted upon her arrival. “Shall I pour you a beer?”

  “I could use one.”

  “So what’s new?” he asked airily as he poured. “You might as well tell me. I’ll find out anyway.”

  “So you think.”

  “I’m very good at what I do.”

  “God, you sound as arrogant as Mac sometimes.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment … I guess,” Ridge replied with a smile. “So come on, shop talk. What’s new?”

  She brought him somewhat up to date on the night’s activities.

  “So this Priscilla pulled the stealth Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, ‘I’m not going to be ignored, Dan,’ bit?”

  “That was kind of our take on it. I almost, almost felt bad for him even though he was a cheating scumbag.”

  “Is it cheating if they were separated?”

  “It depends on how separated. I didn’t necessarily get the sense it was a lengthy separation. It felt more like the minute he got out of the house he jumped the first thing he could find.”

  Ridge ordered another pitcher and made it clear one of the reasons he was there. “Look, I’m not really looking for a tip or the next big break in the case, although I’d gladly take anything you’d provide.”

  “Right.”

  “Dara, what I am is a writer who is going to be looking to tell a story. A book is going to be written. And this story, like any good story, needs a subject beyond just Rubens.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You sure you don’t want to hear the whole pitch? I can be pretty persuasive,” the author answered in a tone that said he always ended up getting what he wanted.

  “Let’s see, all your pitch really means is that instead of getting burned in tomorrow’s newspaper, I can get burned a year from now in your next tawdry best seller.”

  Ridge shook his head in amusement. “You’re every bit as cynical as your partner, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been burned before—maybe not by the media, but I’ve been burned. So let’s just say you haven’t earned my trust yet.”

  “Oh, you mean like your partner trusts Heather Foxx.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wire lamely replied, sipping her beer.

  The author laughed. “Please. Let’s make a rule, you and I, to not insult each other’s intelligence. Other than with Steve Kroft a few Sundays ago, anytime he does cut open a vein, Heather Foxx is involved, whether in Washington or way back when he was in the Twin Cities. I mean, who had the first question at today’s press conference?”

  “So?”

  “So they have a relationship of some kind. I was thinking …”

  “Whatever relationship it is, it’s not that kind.”

  “Right,” Ridge replied in disbelief. “You’ve seen Heather Foxx, right?”

  “I have and it’s not that kind of relationship and if you ever print that, things won’t end well for you.”

  “What, you’ll be angry with me?”

  “Yes, but even worse for you would be having Mac—or even really worse, Sally Kennedy—angry with you.” Wire turned serious. “Word of advice, don’t go there.”

  Ridge took the measure of Wire. “Okay,” he answered with some uncertainty.

  “Move on, Ridge. Move on.”

  “Noted,” Ridge replied, sufficiently chastised. If he thought he was going to get dirt on McRyan out of Wire, he was sorely mistaken.

  He moved onto safer territory.

  He talked about himself. It was something he was clearly comfortable doing.

  Ridge had written two other non-fiction crime books along with two mysteries, not to mention his job going around the country and writing crime stories for World News Magazine. He had a good gig going and was quite impressed with himself, albeit in a completely disarming, if not charming, way. His enthusiasm was authentic, like a little kid in the candy store or on Christmas morning. Ridge clearly enjoyed the stories he got to research and write. His prolific publishing history thoroughly provided, Ridge eventually steered the conversation back to the re-emergence of Rubens.

  “Whether you catch him or not, Rubens will give me another book. My publisher already called—the story is just too good. We’ll settle on terms here sometime soon.”

  “Glad we can provide you some entertainment,” Wire shot back derisively, leaning back, her arms folded across her chest.

  Ridge was unfazed. “Give me a break, Dara. A serial killer who appears then disappears and then reappears every few years, taunting and jeering along the way, setting deadlines, leaving clues, jerking the police’s chain and then disappearing without a trace. You can’t make it up.”

  “Who’d want to?”

  “Every fiction writer there is,” Ridge responded. “Except this one, Rubens, is the gift that keeps on giving. I just have to build some time into my schedule here soon so I can strike while the iron is hot. I’ll be burying myself in my home office for a good long while to crank out that puppy after this is all over. The whole thing is just fascinating. I love the adrenaline of it and—”

  “And what?”

  He leaned in, smiling. “This time I’d love to find a way inside, like April Greene. I want to tell the story more from the police’s perspective this time. What the chase is like. What it really does to you.”

  Wire leaned back, shaking her head an
d taking a drink of her beer. “I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t take no for an answer. “Look, Dara, I’ve been there from the beginning with Rubens. I mean this, no bullshit—you and McRyan are the best to go after him.”

  “Flattery will get you more consideration,” Dara replied with a smile, but then quickly closed the door again. “But it’s Mac’s show—you’d have to convince him.”

  “You’re part of it, too,” Ridge suggested.

  Wire shook her head. “I am, but Mac is the lead. He’s the boss, and you can’t tell the story without him and you won’t truly get inside without him. So on that point, good luck to you. As part of your research, I’m sure you’ve uncovered that he’s not exactly the sharing kind.”

  “No, I experienced that in person the other night. So if the buck stops with him, what’s your role, Dara Wire? Plucky sidekick?”

  Wire thought for a quick second. “One part of it is to keep Mac sane and from doing something stupid. He’s not just the smartest cop I’ve run across, but one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He is wicked smart.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  “A case like this is stressful. I’ve seen that stress bring out an abrasiveness and hair-trigger temper in Mac that can get him into trouble. He’ll just lash out.”

  “Like outside that abortion clinic on the Reaper case?”

  “That would be one example,” Dara replied with a nod. “What a shit show that was.”

  “I remember it well,” Ridge replied. “The reporter crossed the line though.”

  “She did,” Wire answered. “And Mac snapped, which you just can’t do. Mac,” she shook her head and smiled. “The man does not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he doesn’t suffer them at all. I can usually help him keep that in check. Plus, I like to think I’m pretty smart and he knows he can trust me. As smart as he is, he needs someone to bounce ideas off of and talk things through with. He feeds off that interaction. So I play devil’s advocate to what he’s thinking and sometimes I’ll see something or perceive something differently and we break through.” She thought about it for a second longer and then added, “We’re a good team.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Answer me this,” Wire asked, turning things back to the case. “Why Rubens? Why does this guy focus on these women the way he does?”