Die for Me

by Karen Rose

  She had no paper on her nightstand, unless he counted the candy wrappers, which he did not. But a framed picture caught his eye. He carried it to the window and held it to the light from the streetlamps. It was a young woman with long dark hair and big eyes, taken sometime in the fifties. She sat sideways, looking over the back of a chair, in front of what looked like a dressing room mirror. Vito thought about Sophie’s father, a French film star with whom she hadn’t spent much time until the end of his life. He wondered if this was her mother, but doubted she’d keep her picture next to her bed.

  “My gran.” He looked over to see her sitting up in bed, knees pulled to her chest.

  “She was an actress, too?”

  “Of a fashion.” She lifted a brow. “Double bonus prize if you know who she is.”

  “I liked the bonus prize from before. Are you going to give me a hint?”

  “Nope. But I will make you breakfast.” She grinned. “I figure it’s the least I can do.”

  He grinned back, then picked up another photo, turning on a lamp. It was the same woman, with a man he did recognize. “Your grandmother knew Luis Albarossa?”

  Sophie poked her head out of a sweatshirt, her face stunned. “What is it with you? You know French actors and Italian tenors, too?”

  “My grandfather was an opera fan.” He hesitated. “So am I.”

  She’d bent at the waist to pull on a pair of sweats and paused, her hair a curtain over her face. She parted it with one hand and glared out. “What’s wrong with opera?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that some people don’t think it’s very…”

  “Manly? That’s just macho bullshit inherent in a patriarchal society.” She yanked at the sweats and pushed her hair from her face. “Opera or Guns-N-Roses, neither makes you less of a man. Besides, I’m the last person you need to prove your manhood to.”

  “Tell that to my brothers and my dad.”

  She looked amused. “What, that you give great sex?”

  Startled, he laughed. “No, that opera is manly.”

  “Ohhh. It’s always good to be clear. So gramps was an opera aficionado?”

  “Every time it came to town he’d get tickets, but nobody would go to the concerts except me. We heard Albarossa do Don Giovanni when I was ten. Unforgettable.” He narrowed his eyes. “Give me a hint. What was your grandmother’s last name?”

  “Johannsen,” she said with a smirk. “Lotte, Birgit! Time to go out.” The dogs scrambled from one of the bedrooms, yapping. She headed down the stairs and he followed.

  “Just a hint, Sophie.”

  She just smirked again and went out the back door with the two ridiculously colored dogs. “You know too much already. You should have to work for a double bonus.”

  Chuckling, Vito wandered into the living room and investigated there. A double bonus prize was nothing to sneeze at. Plus, he admitted to himself, he was nosy. Sophie Johannsen was a damn interesting woman on her own, but it appeared her family tree had some unique knots and forks.

  He found what he was looking for and carried it to the kitchen. She was back from outside and pulling pots and pans from the cupboard.

  “You cook?” he said, surprised again.

  “Of course. Woman cannot live by beef jerky and Ho Hos alone. I’m a good cook.” She looked at the framed program he held and sighed dramatically. “So who is she?”

  Vito leaned against the refrigerator, both smug in the knowledge that the double bonus was now his and awed. “Your grandmother is Anna Shubert. My God, Sophie, my grandfather and I heard her sing Orfeo at the Academy downtown. Her Che faro…” He sobered, remembering the tears on his grandfather’s face. In his own eyes. “After her aria there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. She was remarkable.”

  Sophie’s lips curved sadly. “Yeah, she was. Orfeo here in Philly was her last performance. I’ll tell her you knew who she was. It’ll make her day.” She nudged him out of the way, taking eggs and a carton of cream from the fridge and setting them on the counter. Then her shoulders sagged. “It’s so hard to watch her die, Vito.”

  “I’m sorry. My dad’s got heart disease. We’re grateful for every day he’s with us.”

  “Then you understand.” She blew a sigh up her forehead. “If you want, there are a few photo albums in the living room. If you like opera, it’ll be a treat.”

  Eagerly he brought them to the table. “These albums have to be worth a mint.”

  “To Gran, yeah. And to me.” She set a cup of coffee next to his elbow. “That’s the Paris Opera House. The man standing next to Gran is Maurice. He’s the one who gave me the information about the dead collector,” she added before going back to the stove.

  Vito frowned. “I thought you said Maurice was your father’s friend.”

  She winced. “He was Alex’s friend, too. It’s kind of complicated. Sordid, really.”

  She called her father by his first name. Interesting. “Sophie, stop teasing me.”

  She chuckled. “Maurice and Alex went to university together. Both were wealthy playboys. Anna was in her forties and at the peak of her career, touring Europe. She’d been a widow a long time by then. I guess she was lonely. Alex had had a few small movie roles. Maurice worked for the opera house in Paris which is where he met Anna. The opera threw a party and Maurice invited my father, introduced them, and”-she lifted a shoulder-“I’m told the infatuation was instantaneous.”

  Vito grimaced. “Your grandmother and your father? That’s… ew.”

  She whipped the eggs with a wire whisk. “Technically she wasn’t my grandmother and he wasn’t my father. Not yet anyway. I wasn’t in the picture yet.”

  “Still…”

  “I told you it was sordid. Well, they had a grand affair.” She frowned into the pan as she poured the eggs in. “Then she found out he was married. She tossed him aside.”

  Vito was beginning to see a pattern here. “I see.”

  She shot him a wry look. “Alex didn’t. Anna was born in Hamburg, but she was raised in Pittsburgh. I’m told he was quite devastated when Anna left.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “Maurice. He’s quite the gossip. That’s why I knew he’d be able to get all the good stuff on Alberto Berretti.”

  “So how did you… come into the picture?”

  “Ah. It gets even more sordid. Anna has two daughters. Freya the Good and Lena.”

  “The Bad?”

  Sophie just shrugged. “Suffice it to say Lena and Anna didn’t get along. Freya was older and already married to my uncle Harry. Lena was seventeen, headstrong and rebellious. She wanted a singing career of her own. She got mad when Anna wouldn’t give her entrée. They had quite a falling-out. Then Anna broke up with my father.”

  She dished eggs onto two plates and put them on the table. “Like I said, Alex was devastated and he spent a lot of time drunk. Not an excuse, but… One night he got approached in a bar by a young woman who seduced him. Lena.”

  “Lena seduced him just to get back at her mother? She really was Lena the Bad.”

  “It gets worse. Lena and Anna had it out. Lena ran away, and Anna came home to Pittsburgh to lick her wounds. I think Anna really loved Alex and expected to marry him.” She toyed with the food on her plate. “Nine months later, Lena came home with a bundle of joy.” She twirled her fork. “Voilà. And that’s how I came into the picture.”

  “A child of an illicit affair conducted because of another illicit affair,” Vito said quietly. “Then you met Brewster and unwittingly did what your mother and Anna had done.”

  “I’m not that hard to figure out. But I am a good cook. Your food’s getting cold.”

  She’d closed the door on her life again, but each time it stayed open a little longer. He still didn’t know what happened to her mother or how Katherine Bauer had come to be the ‘mother she’d never known’ or the significance of the body bag, but Vito could be patient. He pushed his clean plate aside. “What will you do about you
r bike?”

  “I’ll get it towed. Can you give me the name of your mechanic?”

  “Sure, but you should report it to the police, along with the dead mouse. Brewster’s wife can’t just get away with terrorizing you like that.”

  She made a scoffing noise. “You can bet your double bonus I’ll report it. That woman bullied me once, but I’m done with her.”

  “Good girl. How will you get to work this morning?”

  “I can use Gran’s car until my bike is fixed.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s an okay car, it just smells like Lotte and Birgit.”

  At their names, the dogs came running, wagging their rainbow butts as they begged for handouts. Vito laughed softly. “Lotte Lehman and Birgit Nilsson. Opera legends.”

  “Gran’s idols. Naming these girls after them was the biggest honor she could think of. These dogs are like Gran’s children. She spoils them rotten.”

  “Did she color them?”

  Sophie put their plates in the sink. “No, that was my mistake. I brought Gran home from rehab after her stroke-before she got pneumonia and had to go to the nursing home. She’d sit at the window and watch the dogs play outside, but her eyes were bad. Then it snowed and they were white and she couldn’t see them at all.” She trailed off. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was just food coloring. It’s actually faded a lot.”

  Vito laughed. “Sophie, you’re incredible.” He walked to the sink, pushed her hair aside and ran his lips down the back of her neck. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She shivered. “I’m going to sit with Gran tonight. It’s Freya’s bingo night.”

  “Then I’ll go with you. How often can I meet a legend?”

  Wednesday, January 17, 6:00

  A.M.

  Something was different. Wrong. He drove the highway to his field, Gregory Sanders’s body in a plastic bag under the tarp in the bed of his truck. Normally he never passed another car on this road. But he’d passed two cars already. Sheer instinct had him driving past the access road without slowing down, and what he saw as he passed stopped his heart. There should have been untouched snow where the access road met the highway, but instead he saw the crisscross of tire ruts, indicating repeated access by multiple vehicles.

  Bile rose in his throat, choking him. They’d found his graveyard.

  Somehow, someone had found his graveyard. But how? And who? The police?

  He made himself breathe. Most certainly the police.

  They’ll find me. They’ll catch me. He made himself breathe again. Relax. How can they catch you? There’s no way they can identify any of those bodies.

  And even if they did, there was no way to link any of the bodies to him. His heart was pounding hard and he wiped a shaky hand across his mouth. He needed to get out of here. He had Gregory Sanders’s body in a plastic bag in his truck. If for any reason he was stopped… Even he couldn’t explain a dead body away.

  So breathe. Just breathe. Think. You have to be smart about this.

  He’d been so very careful. He’d worn gloves, ensured none of his own body came in contact with the victims. Not even a hair. So even if they identified every damn one of the victims, they couldn’t link them to him. He was safe.

  So he breathed. And thought. His first step was to get rid of Gregory. Next, he had to find out what the cops knew and how they’d found out. If they were close, he’d bolt.

  He knew how to disappear. He’d done it before.

  He drove for five miles. No one followed him. He pulled off the road, behind some trees. And waited, holding his breath. No police cars drove by. No cars of any kind.

  He got out of the truck, for the first time grateful for the chill of a Philadephia morning on his heated skin. The land beyond the edge of the road sloped sharply down into a gulley. This was as good a place as any to dump Sanders.

  Quickly he lowered the tailgate, pulled away the tarp and grabbed the plastic bag in his gloved hands. He heaved the bag into the snow, shoving with his foot until it started to slide. The bag hit a tree, then rolled the rest of the way down. There was a visible path in the snow marking its descent, but if he was lucky it would snow again tonight and the cops wouldn’t find Gregory Sanders before the spring thaw.

  He’d be long gone by then. He got back behind the wheel and turned in the direction he’d come, wondering if he’d done the right thing.

  Then he knew that he had. Two police cruisers sat at the entrance to his access road where none had been before, one pointed in, one out. Shift change, he thought. He’d slipped through their shift change by the skin of his teeth. An officer got out of one of the cruisers as he approached.

  His first inclination was to hit the accelerator and take the cop out, but that would be foolish. Satisfying, but ultimately foolish. He slowed to a stop. Made himself frown in polite puzzlement as he rolled his window down.

  “Where are you headed, sir?” the officer asked with no smile.

  “To work. I live down this road.” He squinted, pretending to try to see past the cruiser. “What’s going on over there? I seen cars comin’ and goin’.”

  “This is a restricted area, sir. If you can take another route, then do.”

  “Ain’t no other route,” he said. “But I reckon I can keep my eyes to myself.”

  The officer took his notepad from his pocket. “Can I get your name, sir?”

  This was where long-term planning paid off, and he settled into his seat, confident now. “Jason Kinney.” It would be the name registered to his license plate, because he’d filed the change in title with the DMV himself a year ago. Jason Kinney was just one of the driver’s licenses he had in his wallet. It always paid to be thorough.

  The officer made a big show of walking to the rear of the truck and writing down the license plate. He checked under the tarp before coming back and touching the tip of his hat. “Now that we know you’re a resident of the area, we won’t need to stop you again.”

  He nodded. Like he’d ever come this way again. Not. “I appreciate it, Officer. Have a nice day.”

  Wednesday, January 17, 8:05

  A.M.

  Jen McFain frowned. “We seem to have a problem, Vito.”

  Vito slid into his seat at the head of the table, still a little breathless from his mad morning dash. After leaving Sophie’s he’d raced home, showered, and apologized profusely to Tess about staying out all night without calling. Then he’d headed in to work, only to be accosted at the precinct door by a horde of reporters with flashing cameras.

  “I’ve had all kinds of problems this morning, Jen. What seems to be yours?”

  “No crullers. What kind of meeting are you trying to run anyway?’

  “Yeah, Vito,” Liz said. “What kind of meeting starts out without crullers?”

  “You never brought food,” Vito said to Liz and she grinned.

  “Yeah, but you did, on the first day. First rule of team leadership-never set a precedent you don’t intend to keep.”

  Vito looked around the table. “Anybody else have nuisance demands?”

  Liz looked amused, Katherine impatient. Bev and Tim looked tired. Jen just scowled at him. “Cheapskate,” she muttered, and Vito rolled his eyes.

  “We now have one more victim ID confirmed. Bill Melville is victim three-one. I’ve noted him on the chart. We also have a name. E. Munch. Nick came back from Melville’s apartment last night and ran it through the system, but came up with nothing.”

  “It’s not like he’d use his real name anyway,” Jen said. “But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts”-she glared at him meaningfully-“that the name means something.”

  “You could be right. Any ideas, besides the obvious Munch connection to food?”

  Jen’s lips twitched. “Very funny, Chick. I’ll give it some thought.”

  “Thank you.” He turned to Katherine. “What’s new on your end?”

  “We autopsied the old couple from the second row last night. We didn’t find anything new th
at would help you ID them. But Tino did some sketches. My assistant said he didn’t leave the morgue until after midnight.”

  Vito felt a sharp spear of gratitude for his brother who’d jumped in with both feet to help. When this was all over he’d find a way to thank him. “Yes, and we’ll compare his sketches to missing-persons files.” From his folder Vito pulled copies of the sketches he’d found on his desk that morning. He passed them to Liz. “This is what Tino came up with. He made a few of the woman with different hairstyles. It’s hard to picture what she might have looked like without seeing some hair.”

  “Me next,” Jen said. “We got two new pieces of news last night. First, an ID on the tire tread print we took from the scene that first day. Our boy drives a Ford F150, just like yours, Vito.”

  “Terrific,” Vito muttered. “So nice to have something in common with a psycho killer. Let’s get the description out there. It’s a long shot, but at least we can be keeping our eyes open. Did you get any footprints with that tire tread?”

  “None that were usable. Sorry. Now the second thing is the grenade we took out of the gut of the last victim on the first row. It’s a vintage MK2 pineapple grenade, made sometime before 1945. Tracing it would be nearly impossible, but it’s one more piece of the puzzle. This guy uses the real thing.”

  “And speaking of the real thing.” Vito told them about Sophie’s inquiries the day before. “So we have one possible source for his medieval weapons. I was going to call Interpol before I checked out Claire Reynolds’s doctor and the library where she worked. And I still need to locate Bill Melville’s parents. They don’t know he’s dead.”

  “Give me Interpol,” Liz said. “You take the doctor and the parents.”

  “Thanks.” Vito looked over at Bev and Tim. “You guys are quiet.”

  “We’re tired,” Tim said. “We were up most of the night going through records with the owners of UCanModel. Then the attorneys got involved.”

  “Shit,” Vito murmured.

  “Yeah.” Tim scraped his palms down his unshaven cheeks. “The owners want to cooperate, but their attorneys are telling them they have a privacy notice for all subscribers. So it’s slow going. We broke at three