Dream Man

by Linda Howard

  Marlie was a solitary creature who didn’t easily share either her space or her time. He had carefully spent the evening not crowding her too much, but all the same establishing a tone of normalcy to his presence. They had done very ordinary things—cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, watched television—just as if they had been together for months instead of one stressful weekend. It had worked; she had relaxed more and more as the evening wore on. And when they had gone to bed and he had begun making love to her, the reserve had completely vanished. He didn’t know if it was permanently gone; probably not. But he would deal with each reappearance as it happened, and in the meantime insinuate himself ever more deeply into the everyday fabric of her life. Besides, he had enjoyed it when she had made several acerbic remarks about his clothes. She had been too subdued and vulnerable for the past two days, and he had been delighted to see her return to her normal, sharp-tongued spirits.

  Still shaking his head at Marlie’s evident loss of common sense, Bonness gestured for Freddie and Worley to come over. When everyone was grouped together, they decided their course of action for the day. Freddie and Worley were going to talk to the people Jackie Sheets had worked with, including Liz Cline again, for she would be calmer now and might remember something else. They arranged to get copies of the canceled checks of both victims. Dane and Trammell went to the Hairport to talk to Jackie Sheets’s hair stylist.

  The Hairport was situated in a small, renovated house. There was none of the pink neon and purple-and-black decor so beloved by the trendier salons where all the clients came out looking as if they’d stuck their finger into a light socket. But there were real ferns (Dane knew because Trammell stuck his finger into the dirt to check), and comfortable waiting chairs, as well as a truly impressive selection of magazines, stacked in rickety towers on every available flat surface. There were several women in the salon, in various stages of tonsorial improvement. A sharp chemical smell hung in the air, with an undertone of hairspray and nail polish.

  The Kathy who cut Ms. Sheets’s hair was Kathleen McCrory, who looked as Irish as her name. She had sandy red hair that feathered around her face, a very fair complexion, and round blue eyes that widened even more when Dane and Trammell introduced themselves. She led them back to the tiny break room the stylists used, poured them each a cup of coffee, and offered them their choice of any of the varied snacks piled on the small table. They accepted the coffee, but turned down the Bugles and Twinkies.

  Kathleen was a cheerful, self-confident young woman. Trammell began to ask her about Jackie Sheets, and Dane settled back to enjoy his coffee, which was pretty good. He watched Kathleen lightly flirt with Trammell, and his partner lightly flirt in return, all the while asking questions. Kathleen did stop flirting when he told her that Jackie Sheets had been killed, and her big blue eyes slowly filled with tears. She looked back and forth between Dane and Trammell, as if wanting one of them to say it was a joke. Her lips began trembling. “I—I haven’t watched the news this weekend,” she said, and swallowed hard. “My boyfriend and I went to Daytona.”

  Dane reached across the small table and covered her hand with his. She clutched his fingers, and clung tightly to him until she had fought off the tears. She gave him a small, watery, apologetic smile as she began groping for a tissue to wipe her eyes.

  Yes, she had cut Jackie’s hair about every three weeks. Jackie had gorgeous hair, thick and silky, with a lot of body. She could do anything she wanted with it. Trammell gently interrupted the hair analysis to get her back on track. No, Jackie hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone for quite a while now. No, Kathleen couldn’t remember anyone named Vinick.

  Did she have any male customers? Sure. There were quite a few. Had Jackie spoken to any of them, gotten acquainted? Not that Kathleen could remember.

  Another dead end, Dane thought. He was getting damn tired of them.

  Tuesday was more of the same dead ends. A comparison of canceled checks and credit card receipts revealed that the Vinicks and Jackie Sheets had shopped at some of the same department stores, which told them exactly nothing. Dane imagined that almost everyone in Orlando had been in at least one of those stores at one time or another. Still, it was the only link they had come up with, so he doggedly pursued it, comparing dates to see if maybe they had been in any store at the same time.

  Jackie Sheets had had several department store credit cards, but Nadine Vinick hadn’t had any, usually paying for her purchases by check or charging the expense to their one credit card, a MasterCard, when she didn’t have the ready funds. But Mrs. Vinick had been very frugal, and had used the card only twice in the past year. Mostly the Vinicks had operated in a pay-as-you-go household, while Jackie Sheets had regularly made charges on her cards and paid in monthly installments, always living slightly above her means. Most of her purchases had been clothes, from the best stores in the city.

  Their lifestyles had been different. The Vinicks had been blue-collar, and Nadine’s greatest interest had been cooking. Jackie Sheets had been white-collar, a woman who had loved clothes and made an effort to always look her best. But somewhere, somehow, the two women, as different as they were, had had the bad luck to attract the attention of the same man. But where, and how?

  Chief Champlin had clearly hoped they would come up with something; his disappointment that afternoon wasn’t pleasant. But he was also a cop, and he had looked at the files. The same man had done both women. The very lack of forensic evidence was as much an indicator as if they had found the same fingerprints at both scenes. This was a smart bastard, and they needed help.

  “All right,” he said. “Call the Bureau. I’ll tell the mayor.”

  Bonness made the call, and briefly explained the situation. The local Bureau guys knew big stuff when they heard it, and said they would like to go over the files immediately.

  “Hollister and Trammell, get the files and go,” Bonness said.

  Dane saw Trammell check his watch, a sure sign that he had something else to do. “Why not send someone from each case?” he suggested. “They may have questions about Jackie Sheets that Trammell and I can’t answer.”

  “Okay,” Bonness agreed. “Freddie? Worley? Which one of you wants to go?”

  Worley grimaced. He clearly wanted to go, but he, too, checked his watch. “It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday. If I’m late for the party, my wife won’t speak to me for a year.”

  “I’m free,” Freddie said. “Which one of you guys is going?”

  “I am,” Dane said, and Trammell flashed him a grateful smile.

  FBI Agent Dennis Lowery was waiting for them. Lowery had that Ichabod Crane look to him: thin, long-legged, stoop-shouldered, his clothes always flapping about him as if they were too large. His eyes were deep-set, his nose was beaky. But he was a calm, intelligent man who was more diplomatic than some when it came to dealing with local law enforcement agencies. Dane had dealt with him before, and liked him well enough.

  A second agent, Sam DiLeonardo, was a young fart barely out of training, all spit and polish. Dane wasn’t as inclined to like him, because he looked like the type who would insist on going by the book even when everything was falling apart around him, but the kid redeemed himself by taking one look at Freddie and immediately falling in lust. He went absolutely still, his eyes widening a little as he stared at her. A slight blush darkened his cheeks. Freddie was always kind and could be very ladylike when she chose, so she pretended not to notice the kid’s fascination. Dane and Lowery exchanged wry glances as they sat down at a long conference table.

  “So what do you have?” Lowery asked, pulling a legal pad toward him and uncapping a pen.

  Freddie gave copies of the files to both agents, who silently leafed through them. DiLeonardo forgot his preoccupation with the plain but remarkably fetching Detective Freddie Brown, his expression turning grim as he stared at the stark photos of the bodies, in both color and black and white.

  “He probably stalks them before acting,” Dane sa
id. “He knows if they’re alone or not. In both cases, we think it’s possible that he was in the house for some time before they knew it, hiding out in the spare bedroom. In the Vinick case, he was probably waiting for her husband to go to work. With Jackie Sheets, we don’t know why he waited.”

  “Maybe for the neighbors to go to bed,” DiLeonardo said absently, still studying the notes.

  “They would be less likely to hear anything if they were still up, with the television on. At any rate, none of the neighbors heard any screams.”

  Lowery’s face was impassive as he looked at the photos. “You’d think, the way these women were butchered, that they would have been screaming bloody murder, but a lot of times it doesn’t work that way. He chased them, didn’t he? They were terrified, breathless, already traumatized by being raped. It’s difficult to scream, really scream, under those conditions. The throat tightens up, restricts sound. Probably they didn’t make all that much noise.”

  He tossed the files onto the table and rubbed his jaw. “Just two cases? That doesn’t give us much to work on, but I agree, it looks like the same guy. What’s the link?”

  “We haven’t been able to find one,” Dane said. “Not looks, lifestyle, friends, neighborhood, anything. We compared canceled checks and credit card receipts, and except for shopping at some of the same department stores, which applies to everyone else in town, their paths never crossed. They never met each other.”

  “They did something to attract this guy’s attention, though. Did they both buy something from the same store within, say, the last month?”

  “Not that we can find. It’s hard to say, because the Vinicks evidently paid cash for a lot of things.” Dane wasn’t irritated by Lowery’s questions, though some people would have been, taking it as a suggestion that the local cops hadn’t done a good job. The same questions were bound to come up over and over again, as different people grappled with the problem. There had been a lot of times when he had doggedly gone over the same file time and again, until something clicked and he saw a detail that had been there all along, but just hadn’t registered.

  “I’ll get this up to Quantico,” Lowery said. “Two murders in a week isn’t a good sign. If he’s escalating that fast, he’s out of control.”

  “I’m hoping it was unusual for him to kill two so close together. Maybe Jackie Sheets was an easy opportunity that he couldn’t resist.”

  “Maybe. But if he liked it, he won’t wait long before doing it again.”

  “Oh, he likes it,” Dane said bitterly. “He takes his time, plays with them. The son of a bitch loves his work.”

  16

  CARROLL JANES WAS SULKY. HE HAD BEEN IN A SOUR MOOD since last Friday night. Jacqueline Sheets hadn’t been as much fun as he had anticipated. The big rush of power he had expected just hadn’t materialized. She had been pathetic, just whining and scrambling in circles, rather than making it interesting. And there hadn’t been much press coverage about it either, which really disappointed him. Part of the fun—as it turned out, most of the fun—of this last one had been knowing that the cops would go crazy, with two incidences so similar, so close together, and absolutely no clues with which they could work. But evidently the cops were more stupid than he had thought, which took even more of the fun out of it. Where was the challenge? Not that they could catch him, but he had thought they would at least have noticed.

  He wasn’t sure what had interfered with his pleasure. Maybe Sheets had just been too soon after the last one. He hadn’t been in the proper state of anticipation, hadn’t drawn out the stalking over several weeks while the tension drew tighter and tighter, until he was at fever pitch, all of his senses almost painfully acute, all of his power focused.

  Of course, he would have to try another one to make certain. He hated to waste himself on a disappointment, but it was the only way he could find out. If the next one was as boring, he would know to spend more time on the process and wouldn’t let the apparent ease of a job sucker him into moving too fast, and cheating himself of his pleasure.

  Every day at work he waited and watched for the slightest transgression. Which unhappy customer was going to have to pay? After all, to make it a fair test, he would have to act as soon as possible.

  Marlie felt edgy, restless from an inner tension that just wouldn’t let up. She couldn’t pin down any one reason for it, because there were so many candidates from which to choose. The biggest reason, of course, was dread of the coming weekend. She couldn’t explain to anyone, not even Dane, how she felt after touching the killer’s thoughts during those bloody moments. She didn’t just feel dirty, she felt permanently contaminated by his evil, as if her soul would never be free of the ugliness. More than she had ever wanted anything in her life, she wanted to run, to get far away so she wouldn’t know when he killed again. That relief, unfortunately, was the one thing she couldn’t allow herself, or then she would be truly contaminated by her own cravenness. She had to stay, had to stick it out, for the sake of the two women who had already died, for the others she didn’t know about, for little Dusty … for herself.

  Then there was Dane. She loved him, but having him around all the time was still disconcerting. She had spent so many years alone that it sometimes startled her to turn around and bump into him. Suddenly there was twice the amount of laundry to do, three times as much food to prepare, schedules to adjust since there was only one bathroom, and very little room in bed. Her life had been totally in control, and now everything had changed.

  He knew, of course. Those sharp hazel eyes saw everything, though she struggled to hide how unsettled she was. He didn’t just dump all the chores in her lap, as a lot of men would have done; he was accustomed to doing his own laundry and didn’t hesitate to wash a load of clothes. The safe limits of his cooking were heating the contents of cans or slapping a sandwich together, so she did all of the cooking, and he took over the cleanup chores. He did what he could to ease the transition for her, but at the same time he refused to back off and give her more space. He was there; she had to accustom herself to him. She was happy to do so, to have this time with him no matter what his motivation, but it was still unnerving.

  She couldn’t escape the coming weekend, couldn’t distract herself. Would the killer strike again? The thought of some other innocent woman being butchered, of herself being sucked into the sickening, evil morass of the killer’s mind, was almost more than she could bear. She tried not to think of it, but it was like being tracked by a mad dog and trying not to think about that, either. With every tick of the clock, the weekend loomed closer, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it. She tried to brace herself to endure, instead, because she was Dane’s only link to the killer. Sooner or later, he would give her a clue to his identity. All she had to do was wait, and endure his killing frenzies without going mad herself.

  By Thursday, she was so tense that she couldn’t eat the Chinese food Dane had brought for dinner, and she loved Chinese. Her throat was tight, and when she swallowed, the food seemed to form a lump halfway down her esophagus. She didn’t have an appetite anyway, so finally she stopped even making an effort.

  As usual, Dane hadn’t missed a trick, though he was making impressive inroads on the food. “Worried?” he asked.

  “How can I not be? The last two weekends haven’t been a picnic.”

  “Are you picking up anything from him?” Dane asked the question casually, but the interest behind it was intense.

  “I’m uneasy, but it’s my feelings, not his.” She rubbed her hands over her arms. “How long will it take the FBI to get a profile on him?”

  “I don’t know. We only had two cases, so that may make it harder for them. But they may be able to match the MO to other cases that have been brought to their attention, and that will help.”

  “Do you think he’s killed before?” she asked tensely, looking out the back door. She could see Bill trimming the shrubbery at the rear of his lot. Her neighbors lived such nice, ordin
ary lives; she envied them the boredom of their security.

  “Probably. He’s too good at it to be a beginner. It’s likely that he moves around, to keep any one area from becoming too hot for him.”

  “So he’s moved here recently?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Isn’t there any way you can check on recent arrivals? Wouldn’t the post office have a record? Or maybe you could get a list of new customers from the utility companies.”

  “Do you know how many people move to central Florida every year?” he asked. “It would take a helluva lot of time. Still, it’s an idea.”

  “You could eliminate all the women, which would cut the list in half.”

  “And still leave us with a cast of thousands.” He stood and began clearing the table. “I’ll talk to Bonness about it.”

  She knotted her hands together and stared at him. “Do any of the others know about me?”

  “You mean, any of the other detectives?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just Bonness, Trammell, and me. Why?”

  “I’ve been worried about it.”

  “Again, why?”

  “They would talk.” Restlessly she got up and helped him clear the table.

  “So?”

  “That kind of talk would get to the media. You know how it is.”

  “So far, the media doesn’t even know about the killer. I’m surprised, because once we told the mayor, I expected it to be blasted on the six-o’clock news that there’s a serial killer loose in Orlando. No one in city hall can keep a secret. It’ll leak out any day, though.” He began washing their few dishes, and watched her as she paced the kitchen. “Have you had a rough time with the media before?”

  She shot him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding?”

  “What happened?”

  “Which time?” she asked caustically. “The reporters are bad enough, every time a story breaks, with the phone ringing incessantly, and cameras and microphones pushed in my face every time I open the door. But the reporters aren’t the worst of it. They’re just the cause. The worst comes after they’ve done their stories, when the death threats start, and the crackpot evangelists hold prayer meetings in front of my house to drive out Satan, because I obviously do the devil’s work. If it got out this time, I’d probably lose my job. I’ve never been in these circumstances before, because the Institute always supported me. But can you imagine a bank tolerating that kind of publicity? A weirdo psychic working in their accounting department! Some of their customers would close out their accounts, afraid I would pry into their business.”