by L. A. Witt
It stopped being a coincidence when the dates, addresses, and other groups of victims came into play. And when a crazy SOB flipped out at a woman for being the wrong age? Yeah. We definitely had a serial killer on our hands.
“You said Detective Anderson, right?”
He nodded. “If this pattern is right, you can almost guarantee that woman is going to be one of the next victims.”
“Yeah, I know.” I started to get up. “I’ll go talk to Anderson.” I paused. “And . . . thanks. This might be the lead we were looking for.”
Trent nodded again, but said nothing.
“If I need more, I’ll contact you.” I closed the files and piled them into a neat stack again. He kept his eyes down, so I didn’t attempt any more conversation.
As I headed for the door, though . . .
“Ruffner.”
I turned around.
When he looked up at me, there was something in his eyes I never thought I’d see in Trent Newberry—fear. Not the fear like when he’d realized he was busted and there was a good chance he was dying right there on the tarmac. No, this was something deeper. Something that seemed to come from the same place as my certainty that I’d been about to helplessly watch Darren die.
Hand on the door, I said, “Yeah?”
“The victim Detective Anderson told me about—she goes to the same community college as my sister. They’re the same age.” He swallowed. “Get this guy, all right?”
“We’ll do everything we can.”
Two days wasn’t a lot of time to catch a murderer, especially with nothing but cold case notes to go on. We were getting nowhere fast.
For the past twenty-four hours, Andreas and I had commandeered one of the conference rooms at the station to lay out all the evidence, and after using up the table, the dry-erase board, and one of the walls, it was clear there was a lot of evidence to put together.
I was reluctantly impressed that Trent had managed to be as conclusive as he had about the murders: they were spread all over the city, not localized to any one particular spot, not even within each method of killing. The victims all had different jobs, different levels of affluence; there was no common thread that I could find in their personal lives. The only thing that connected them were their ages and the way they’d been killed.
In the first group, they were all stabbed. One woman had been killed coming out of a late choir practice, another on the way to her car. The man in that group had been homeless, found in an alley with his throat cut by what the coroner thought was a box cutter. The woman on the way to her car had been attacked from behind, her throat cut as well. The first victim, Mary Jones, had ended the same way, although her death had been messier. She’d had defensive wounds on her arms, slashes that had glanced off her torso as she’d tried to fight off her attacker. Eventually he’d gotten through, though, and had driven the blade into her neck so many times he’d almost decapitated her.
Mary Jones was interesting, and not just because she’d been the first, his obvious starting point. I’d looked her up to see if she had a record, and had ended up finding her name on a police report filed three weeks before she was killed. She’d been mugged and stabbed once, nonfatally, before her attacker had fled. It had made the papers briefly, and the man behind the mugging had been arrested and was still in prison, so that was a dead end. Still. What were the chances of being attacked like that twice?
My eyes were getting blurry. I reached out for my cup of coffee, only to find it empty. Damn it. I could go get more, but that would mean walking the gauntlet to the break room, and while Chief Hamilton made sure that nobody was openly disrespectful to Andreas or me, there was more than enough passive-aggressive bullshit to go around.
It didn’t matter. I needed to focus. Tomorrow was the sixteenth, and we were still no closer to figuring this guy out than we’d been yesterday. Andreas had gone back to Trent’s precinct to meet with Detective Anderson, the one who’d handled the girl who’d been threatened and let go. Maybe Detective Anderson would be really nice and super helpful. Maybe the girl would remember all sorts of details she’d neglected to mention before. Maybe her attacker would have a really obvious tattoo, or a name tag.
Maybe pigs would fly.
Fuck it, I needed something to drink. It was late enough now that I probably wouldn’t take too much shit getting a cup of coffee. I pushed to my feet and left the conference room reluctantly, pictures of bodies floating in front of my eyes even as I trudged down the hall. Stabbings, for the first three. The next four were all beaten to death with a tire iron. The victims in their forties had been shot—straight to the chest—and the latest batch had all been found strung up in the rafters of empty buildings, their own cars used to drive them to their final, unfortunate resting places. How did he do it? Did he make them drive while he held a gun on them? Did he trick them, drug them? Did he coerce them, write to them to meet him there or else? Or else what?
I was so preoccupied with the case that this time, when I was hit with a mug of hot coffee, I knew it was my fault. Fortunately this one was in an insulated travel mug that didn’t spill anything on me. Looking at the mortified expression on the face of the person I’d walked into, I was reassured that it had been a complete accident. Also? Shit. “Hey, Erin.”
“Hi! Oh my gosh, I didn’t spill any on you, right?”
“Not a drop,” I assured her.
“Good. Sorry about that.”
“I should have been watching where I was going, it’s fine.” I went to walk around her, but she fell in beside me instead. “It’s kind of late for you to still be here, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Mark’s pretty relaxed about long lunches and breaks, and I kind of like doing the paperwork when the day shift is gone. It’s quieter.”
“True.” I checked the coffeepot, but it was empty. I went to grab the canister to refill it, only . . .
Also empty. And there were no more filters, either. Great.
Erin must have seen my frustration. “Sorry, Detective Ross told me that I could take the last of the—”
“It’s fine,” I said, because there was no way I was going to make Andreas’s kid feel guilty about other people’s behavior. “I probably don’t need any more coffee anyway.” I couldn’t even remember how many cups I’d had today. We’d settled into the station early, and I hadn’t left since.
“How about a soda?” Erin reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of Coke. “It’s not coffee, but it still has caffeine.”
I wasn’t crazy about Coke, but I wasn’t going to refuse either. “Sure. Thank you.”
“No problem.” We stood in the break room and stared at each other for a moment.
“So, I—”
“Have you seen—”
I cut myself off faster. “Go ahead, go. Have I seen what?”
“Um, have you seen my dad lately, actually? Is he around tonight?”
“He’s out interviewing a witness.” Or at least he had been an hour ago. I figured he was on his way back now.
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“No reason, I just . . . wanted to talk to him.” There was an undercurrent of discomfort there that I didn’t understand. As far as I knew, Andreas and Erin had been getting along well. Maybe someone had talked to her? Maybe someone was being a jackass about Andreas and not bothering to hide it in front of his kid?
“He probably won’t be long, if you want to wait for him.”
“No, that’s okay. You guys are really busy, right?”
I sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. We’re kind of on a timetable right now, and we can’t afford to take many breaks.”
“Because you’re trying to catch a serial killer.”
“Right . . . How did you know that?”
Erin’s smile was steeped in sarcasm. It was such an Andreas look I almost laughed. “There aren’t any secrets around here, not even from the interns.”
Ah-hah. I got whe
re she was going with this. “None, huh?”
“None. And that’s been kind of shitty, I’ve got to tell you.”
“Yeah, I bet.” What a way to find out that her dad had HIV. Fuck. I wanted to say something soothing, but I didn’t know how. Lucky for me, Erin didn’t care to wait.
“Did you know? That my dad’s got . . .”
I shook my head. “Not at first.”
She bit her lip for a moment. “Do you mind it?”
“Not at all.” I said it as forcefully as I could without being aggressive. “Your dad is the best partner I could ask for. He’s a good cop, he works hard, and he literally saved my life last month. I don’t care about anything else.”
Erin’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Good. I’m glad he has you, then.” Her phone beeped, and she made a face. “I’ve got to go. Would you let him know I’ll try to talk to him later, when you guys aren’t so busy?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks.” She disappeared down the hall, and once she was out of sight I barely resisted the urge to wipe my forehead. I wasn’t prepared to get into discussions of Andreas with his kids, especially not when they didn’t know we were dating. Or, hell, were we even dating recently? I’d been laid up for a month, and now we were trying to catch a serial killer. I almost wished we could go back to being bored.
One day to catch a killer before he killed again. I wanted to believe we could do it, but I wasn’t feeling optimistic. If we had a bigger team, we might be able to stake out places that had the number six in their addresses, but even if we’d had every cop in the city at our disposal, it would have been like finding a needle in a haystack.
I looked over the map we’d stuck up on the wall, different colored pins indicating where bodies had been found. The previous four victims of this latest string were all over the place—not surprising, since they’d all been transported via car. But with the other ones, the ones that had been stalked and killed when the opportunity presented itself . . . had the killer been on foot? On a bike? How had he followed them without being seen, and for how long?
My phone buzzed. Maybe Andreas was out of his interview. I checked the message, and . . .
It was from my mom. It was a picture, showing Asher and Melissa side by side in the backseat of Vic’s car. Asher was beaming at her like she’d just cured cancer, and the look on her face was startlingly soft. Kind. She had no right to look kind, not when she’d been the architect of so much of Asher’s unhappiness. So, what, now she was doing my family a fucking favor coming to visit him, like that made up for years of neglect? Bullshit. I deleted it and put my phone down.
Five minutes later I got another message. Because I was clearly a masochist, I looked at it. We’re doing dinner out tonight. Do you want to meet us?
Hmm, let me think about that. How about hell no? I can’t, I’m working.
It might be the last time you get a chance to eat out with your brother, honey. Can’t you take a break?
Wow, cue the heavy guilt trip. Mom was pulling out all the stops tonight. I contemplated texting her what I was really feeling, but ended up going with I’m trying to catch a murderer. Have fun.
Okay, honey. Sorry to bother you.
And now I felt even worse. I put my phone down and rubbed my hands over my face. God, I was tired. I’d barely slept last night, despite how groggy I’d been. It had been impossible to find a position that made my shoulder feel like it wasn’t about to fall off, even with Andreas’s help, and I’d had to shift every five minutes.
“You look beat.”
I straightened up and turned to meet him so fast my neck cracked. “Hey! Did you get anything out of the girl?”
Andreas grimly shook his head. “Only that she’s scared out of her mind that he could be coming for her next. I told her she didn’t have to worry, that we’d get him before then.”
“Right.” She was still a teenager. She’d be safe. We’d definitely get him before he killed seven more people. “What about Anderson, did she have any more information to share? Is she going to help?”
“Detective Perkins has her working on other cases.” From the twist of his mouth, I could pretty well guess how Perkins had taken what he’d probably seen as Andreas’s interference. “And she wasn’t too keen on the idea anyway. I did put in a request to Singh for Anderson’s notes about that incident, but she’s got a lot of plates in the air, so it looks like it’s still just you and me.”
“And Paula,” I added, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Paula was great, but she was just one person. We needed more, but nobody else was going to work with us for the foreseeable future. And I was exhausted. “I wish I could say I’d made a brilliant breakthrough, but nope.”
“Eh, you made one yesterday. I won’t expect another for a week or so.”
I chuckled. “You’re taking it easy on me.”
“Somebody needs to.” He came over beside me but didn’t sit down. I could still feel the heat of him, though. I wanted to lean my head against his chest, but I was worried that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to pick it back up. “We should get back to your place, get some sleep. We can get an early start tomorrow.”
“You read my mind,” I admitted. “I’m not going to be good for much at this point.” I reached for my jacket and checked for my keys. “Huh.” I looked on the chair, across the table, then on the floor.
“What?”
“Have you seen my keys? I thought they’d be in my jacket, but they’re not.”
“You gave them to me. We took your car this morning, remember?”
He looked faintly worried. I didn’t like seeing that expression on him; it just seemed wrong, and I’d seen it too much lately.
“Oh, right.” Right, because we had my car today. Yeah. “Yes, I remember. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
One hour, one shower, and a dinner of reheated lasagna later, and I was finally comfortable, boneless against Andreas’s side now that I was warm and full and medicated. “R’member to wake me up at four,” I said around a yawn as I pressed my face into the soft skin of his shoulder. “So we can be at the station by five.” Tomorrow would be a long day, but we needed all the advantage we could get. Maybe we’d see something new. Maybe we could still catch him before he killed again.
“I know, I already set your alarm.” He kissed me, soft and gentle, and I just about melted into the mattress. “Go to sleep.”
“M’kay.”
I slept better than I should have, better than I deserved to. I woke up not to the sound of the alarm, but to Andreas fumbling for his phone. I blinked dumbly at the clock—3:17.
“What?” Andreas barked into his phone. “Paula? What’re you— Oh. Shit, really?” He sighed heavily. “Yeah, fine. Text me the address. We’ll be there.” He hung up and looked at me. “We’ve got to go. Paula got word of a hanging victim. Female, early thirties.”
My heart sank. “Where?”
“Sixth and Parkside.”
The crime scene didn’t yield any surprises. The body was hanging from the rafters just like those before her. Not twenty feet away, her car. Purse and wallet were undisturbed on the floor with her cash, keys, and cell phone. According to her ID, she was thirty-four.
While we waited for the lab to print the forensic photographer’s photos, Darren and I holed up in the conference room where all our information had been laid out. Neither of us said much. There wasn’t much to say.
As he sucked down coffee and pored over notes he’d read a thousand times, I stole a few concerned glances at him. He’d slept pretty well last night, but didn’t seem rested. Then again, we’d been awake since 3:15, and it wasn’t like I could get impatient with him, anyway. I was barely moving myself. The fact that he was functional at all right now impressed the fuck out of me.
Someone knocked at the door, and when it opened, Paula stepped inside with two giant Starbucks cups. “Brought you boys some more go-juic
e. Two extra shots of espresso each.”
Darren made a face. “That sounds bitter and disgusting.” But he reached for a cup anyway and sipped it carefully.
I took the other. “Thanks, Paula.”
“Anytime.” She scanned all of our notes and whiteboards. “My God, what a puzzle.”
I said nothing, just took a drink of the high-octane coffee and watched her studying our case files. Any other cop would’ve been summarily shown out of the room. Get out and let us work, for fuck’s sake.
But Paula was different. She was probably the least likely person on the planet to hinder our investigation, and at this point, we could use all the help we could get. Besides, she had brought coffee, which earned her a hell of a lot of leeway.
“Any leads?” she asked.
I sighed. “I wish. We’ve been through this file to hell and back, even got some information out of Trent Newberry, but . . .” I shook my head. “The only thing we’ve been able to piece together so far is that it’s one killer, and that he’s going to strike again in under ten days.”
“No connections between the victims?” She glanced at me. “No common employer? Maybe some specialist they’ve all seen for suspicious moles or something?”
“I haven’t tried the mole angle,” I muttered, “but at this point, I’m not willing to rule anything out.”
Darren yawned. “It’s like the worst ever game of Guess Who?”
“What about that woman who was assaulted?” Paula asked. “Didn’t she give you a description?”
I scowled. “Yes, and when I told the chief I wanted to do a lineup of every early-middle-aged Caucasian male with a receding hairline and a paunch, he threw me out of his office.”
She laughed. I was surprised Darren wasn’t giving us the side-eye for the snark, but then, he had contributed his own wisecrack. Maybe he was learning that no one stayed sane on a case like this without being able to break the tension once in a while. Or maybe he was just too tired to care if anything was in bad taste.
I turned my attention back to the file I’d been reading when Paula walked in. With the details of the new crime scene fresh in my mind, I was rereading all the previous forensic reports in hopes that some connection would make itself known. We’d linked the victims’ deaths to each other. The killer, however, had left no links to himself. Or herself, I supposed, but my gut said this was a man. Especially because the badly described stalker had been male.
