Dead Before Dark

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “No, I’m fine. You know I’m used to this kind of thing. Let’s go.”

  They make their way over to the two men, who by now have noticed them and are watching warily.

  Randy opens his wallet and flashes a badge. “I’m Detective Randall Barakat from Long Beach Township in New Jersey. This is Lucinda Sloan. She works with the Philadelphia police department.”

  She doesn’t have a badge, but she does have ID, which she holds up for their perusal. Neither man bothers.

  The one in the trench coat stubs out his cigarette beneath a scuffed black shoe. “What can we do for you today?”

  “This is where Jaime Dobiak was stabbed to death last night, right?”

  Surprise—and perhaps suspicion—filters into his eyes. “And you know that because…?”

  “We read it in the newspaper.”

  His eyes narrow. “Which newspaper?”

  Randy looks questioningly at Lucinda.

  “It was the Chicago Daily Times,” she tells the detective, wondering why it matters.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, that’s a morning paper. There was no information about this homicide available when it went to press.” He jerks a thumb at the lone news van parked across the street. “The next of kin was notified an hour ago, and the media is just starting to pick up on the story now.”

  “It…it was the online version,” Lucinda says slowly, reaching into her pocket for her BlackBerry.

  “What time did you say you read this?”

  “I don’t know…. About a quarter after eleven, maybe?”

  The detective is shaking his head before she’s even done speaking. “Nope. That’s impossible. The victim wasn’t even found until almost noon.”

  “Neal. Frank Santiago,” a brusque voice greets him on the phone. “I got your message.”

  Messages, actually. Neal has left a couple more since he saw what was in the package on Lucinda’s doorstep, and since hearing the latest news from her and Randy in Chicago.

  Neal gestures to Roz that he’s going to step outside to take the call.

  “Mmm hmm.” Roz barely looks up from the object on the table, under bright lights as the forensics team does their thing.

  In the corridor, Neal asks Frank, “Where are you now?”

  “I just got into my office. Why?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About…?”

  “About the Barakat case. There’s been further communication from Carla’s killer. And last night, there was another murder.”

  There’s a pause.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Neal tells him about the woman in Chicago. Hearing the clicking of a keyboard on the other end of the line, he knows Frank is looking for information.

  “You won’t find anything about it yet. It just happened.” He doesn’t bother to explain how it is that they’ve known about it for hours already. “We confirmed it with the CPD, Frank.”

  “You said there was communication. What kind?”

  “Lucinda got an e-mail this morning—”

  On the other end of the line, Frank exhales loudly—not a sigh, exactly, but close.

  “She was with me last night, Frank. In case you were wondering.”

  “Of course she was.”

  “Are you saying you doubt me? Do you think I’m covering for her?”

  “Did I say that? Where is she now?”

  Neal ignores the question. “A package was left at her door today.”

  “What was in it?”

  “A blue tissue stained with a red lipstick kiss…and microscopic droplets of blood. Forensics is on it now. Looks like it might have come from the Chicago victim’s mouth.”

  “Vic?”

  Startled, he spins around in his chair. Kitty is home from work. He didn’t even hear her come in.

  As she crosses the room, lit only by the glowing computer screen in front of him, he sees that night has fallen without his even having realized it.

  “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Kitty flicks on a lamp, and he blinks. “Working on the book?”

  “Working on catching this guy and hoping that makes it into the book,” he says resolutely, as Kitty sits on the love seat and unzips the high heeled leather boots she’s wearing. “I heard from him again today.”

  She looks up, startled. “What?”

  He clicks the mouse a couple of times, bringing up on the screen a copy of the latest note, written in red lipstick. He’d scanned it and the envelope into the computer earlier, before dutifully handing them over to the field office agents.

  Kitty pulls off her boots and crosses the room in her stocking feet to stand behind him.

  “Where were you last night? I thought you might try to rescue her,” she reads aloud. “RIP, Jaime. March 20. 7:05 P.M.”

  Vic silently clicks the screen again, bringing up the Chicago Daily Times homepage and pointing to the breaking news item he finally found there a little while ago, after repeatedly checking this and other Chicago news sites all afternoon.

  Kitty reads the lead paragraph, about a young woman named Jaime Dobiak who was murdered sometime early last evening in her apartment. “Oh, no, Vic.”

  “Sick bastard. He mailed this letter three days ago.”

  “Knowing exactly when he was going to kill her? Right down to the minute?”

  “Yes. And that it would be too late by the time I got it. He’s taunting me, Kitty.”

  Clearly shaken, she sinks into a chair. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t either. But if this is how he’s going to play it…”

  Then game on, he thinks grimly.

  It doesn’t take long, once Chicago’s Bureau of Investigative Services gets hold of the e-mailed link Lucinda received this morning, for them to determine what both Lucinda and Randy instantly realized earlier.

  It wasn’t a true link to the Chicago Daily Times; rather, it led to a convincing dummy Web site featuring not just actual stories from the morning paper, but also a genuine-looking article about a murder that had yet to be discovered.

  Noon central time, when the victim was found, would have been one o’clock eastern time.

  By then, Lucinda and Randy were already on their way to the airport.

  The Bureau’s computer technicians are already trying to trace the origins of the fake Web site as well as the e-mail address, but warned that whoever created them most likely covered his tracks well.

  Sitting in a glass-walled room opposite Detective Bob Reingold—now minus the trench coat—Lucinda and Randy have walked him through the events that led them here, beginning with the scrapbook on Lucinda’s bed, back in February.

  Lucinda expects him to bat a skeptical eye when she admits that she isn’t exactly an ordinary detective, but he seems to take it in stride, leading her to believe that he might have consulted police psychics himself. She wouldn’t dare ask him, though, knowing it isn’t something many law enforcement officials are willing to discuss.

  For the most part, the man just listens and nods, taking notes and occasionally asking clarifying questions. Of particular interest to him are the longitude and latitude coordinates left at the scene, the wrist watch, and the red lipstick used on anonymous communication received by both Lucinda and Camden Hastings.

  Lucinda suspects similar details might tie Jaime Dobiak’s murder to Carla’s. Of course, Reingold doesn’t offer the information, and both she and Randy know better than to ask about it.

  As their tale winds down, a phone rings on the desk.

  “Yeah?” Reingold barks into it. Then, after a moment, “This is him.”

  Another pause, then, “Who?”

  Reingold listens. Nods. “Yeah. Hang on a second.” He covers the mouthpiece and looks at Lucinda and Randy. “Would you mind stepping outside while I take this call?”

  “Not at all.”

  Welcoming the chance to stand and stret
ch, Lucinda follows Randy into the corridor.

  In the instant before the door closes behind them, she hears Reingold say, “What can I do for you, Detective Santiago?”

  Frank hangs up the phone and looks at Dan Lambert, seated across the desk from him.

  Dan nods. “You did what you had to do.”

  “I know that.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for being misled by that DNA evidence. It’s what he wanted. He was trying to throw us off his trail.”

  “I know that,” Frank says again, pissed at Dan for belaboring the point, pissed at himself for…

  Well, for just about everything, from going down the wrong path from the very beginning of the investigation to being unable—after all the triumphant battles he’s fought in his life—to overcome the toxic cells that are making a certain death march through his body.

  If the news today that it’s time to stop treatment brought him to his knees, then the news that another murder has been committed, ostensibly letting Lucinda Sloan off the hook, sent him sprawling.

  He let a serial killer slip through his fingers.

  If he hadn’t been so eager to bring down the psychic who had worked her way under his skin—and into his thoughts—then he might have caught the guy before he killed again.

  A young woman lies dead tonight because of it.

  Because of him.

  It’s time for Frank to go.

  Time for him to face what lies ahead.

  When they asked him to wait around to speak with the doctor after his test, rather than sending him on his way as usual, he knew the news wouldn’t be good.

  He was right.

  And when they told him, Frank Santiago—who hasn’t shed a tear since the day his father was killed, on duty, over half a century ago—finally broke down and cried.

  “Neal? Is that you?”

  “Yes.” He closes the front door behind him and notices a familiar blue parka draped on the coat tree.

  Garland Fisher is here. Again.

  Hanging his overcoat on the newel post at the foot of the stairs, Neal isn’t in the mood to be neighborly. All he wants is to eat the dinner Erma will have kept hot for him, followed by a big piece of coffee cake, then to drop into bed.

  Guess that won’t be happening tonight.

  He scrubs his hands in the half bath under the stairs, then trudges to the kitchen to find Garland drinking tea as Erma reaches into the oven with a mitt. In the center of the table, the baking dish that contained the rest of last night’s sour cream coffee cake is now empty except for a few crumbs.

  “Neal! Long time no see!” Garland, in plaid flannel, is jovial.

  When isn’t he? Neal wonders grouchily, and notes that Garland is sitting in Neal’s own place at the table. Why didn’t Erma tell him to sit in one of the other chairs?

  Is it too much for a man to ask, to come home to find his own seat vacant, to eat a meal in solitude, to have his wife to himself?

  “Just got back from visiting my grandkids,” Garland tells him, “and wanted to stop by and drop off a little something I picked up to say thanks for grabbing my mail and keeping an eye on the house while I was gone. Did you see this?” He holds up the copy of Meanderings magazine.

  “I sure did. Very nice. Congratulations.”

  “Garland brought us some fudge, Neal. Your favorite. Isn’t that nice?” Erma asks, setting a plate in front of him.

  “Very nice. Thank you, Garland.”

  “Welcome. Rough day?”

  “They’re all rough.”

  “Was there another murder?”

  “There’s always another murder.”

  “Yeah, but you’ll solve it, right?”

  Resisting the urge to respond to Garland’s question with a sarcastic, “Sure, no problem,” Neal picks up his knife.

  He cuts into a breaded pork chop and wishes Lucinda would call from Chicago, even though she checked in with him about an hour ago to see what had happened when they’d questioned her friend Bradley.

  Neal told her they were going to check out his alibi—that he’d been at home in New York the night before—but had no grounds to hold him.

  “Poor Bradley, walking into the middle of this. I need to call him and make sure he’s okay,” Lucinda said.

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” Other than being outraged at having been questioned in the first place, and wanting to know what, exactly, Neal suspected he had done, other than pick up a package he’d found on his friend’s doorstep.

  Neal had given him very few details.

  His gut tells him the guy is innocent, but he’s taking no chances where Lucinda is concerned.

  “I’m going to stay here at least until tomorrow,” she told him before they hung up, “and see what I can find out.”

  “What about Randy?”

  “He’s staying too.”

  Of course. He wouldn’t leave her now. There’s no question that she’s a target—or that the killer was trying to set her up.

  As far as he knows, she doesn’t even realize she was perilously close to becoming a suspect. It’s not up to Neal to discuss the DNA evidence with her—not until he has more information.

  Meanwhile, chances are that Lucinda is safer in Chicago than she would be here. Though the crime lab is still running tests on its contents, the package left at her doorstep today suggests that whoever killed Jaime Dobiak is back in Philadelphia.

  “Guess I should get going home now,” Garland Fisher says, stretching. “It’s been a long day. Thanks for the coffee and cake, Erma. Neal, she’s an amazing baker.”

  “I know she is.”

  “My wife used to make the best apple pie you ever tasted. I used to tell her she could sell it and make us rich, but she said she didn’t want to make it for anyone but me.” He looks lost in thought for a moment, then tells them, “Been a year next week.”

  It takes a moment for Neal to figure out what he’s talking about.

  “Can’t believe she’s not here to see this.” He holds up the literary magazine. “She would have been proud.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Erma says softly.

  “Yeah. They say it gets easier. I keep wondering when.”

  Neal instantly regrets begrudging Garland the last of his favorite coffee cake.

  “One day at a time. That’s what I tell myself. Just get through one day at a time.”

  “That’s all you can do, Garland,” Neal tells him. “Listen, don’t be a stranger. Okay? You’re welcome anytime.”

  “Thanks, Neal.”

  He can feel Erma’s approving smile as he goes back to cutting his pork chop and worrying about Lucinda.

  Cam can hear the baby crying the moment she steps into the house from the attached garage, and her heart sinks.

  She leaves her loafers in the mud room, then drops her shoulder bag and coat in the kitchen, lit only by the light beneath the stove hood. There are dishes in the sink, and on the counter she sees several half-empty baby bottles, a white takeout pizza box with a grease-stained cover, and a couple of paper plates littered with nibbled crusts.

  She bypasses the mess and walks through the darkened first floor. In the foyer, light spills down the staircase from the upstairs hall. She looks up to see Mike standing there barefoot in sweats, looking exhausted, with Grace on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” he says, over her wailing. “You’re home.”

  “I didn’t want to call when we landed because I thought it might wake up the baby. Guess it didn’t matter.” She takes the stairs two at a time and holds out her arms. “Come here, sweet girl. Mama’s home. Yes, she is.”

  “Thank God for that.” Mike hugs her, then rubs his tired eyes. “How’d it go?”

  “I think I have something to go on.” Engorged and already unbuttoning her blouse, she carries the still sobbing baby into the bedroom to feed her, with Mike on her heels.

  “What do you mean you have something to go on?”

  “I spoke to a couple of people w
ho knew Sandra Wubner and said that A, they don’t believe she killed herself and B, there was probably someone with her that night. Some guy, and it wasn’t her boyfriend.”

  She sits on the rumpled king-sized bed, leans back against the pillows, and guides the baby to her breast. Grace immediately stops crying.

  Cam and Mike sigh in simultaneous relief.

  “Are you going to call the police, then?” Mike asks Cam, after a minute.

  “About Sandra Wubner?” She shrugs. “I’m going to call Lucinda first.”

  Mike sits beside her and pushes her hair back from her face. “Call Lucinda, and call the police, but that’s it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”

  “I don’t want you getting involved.”

  “But I’ve got to try to get in touch with Elizabeth Johnson’s family. There are—”

  “There are a million gazillion Johnsons in the world, and you haven’t been able to find them. Let the police do it, Cam.”

  “But they won’t—”

  “This could be dangerous, and you can’t go taking any risks. We need you here.” He kisses the top of her head.

  “You just don’t want to be stuck here with a screaming baby again.”

  “You got that right.” He leans back and closes his eyes with a weary smile.

  She sighs. “Where’s Tess?”

  “In her room.”

  “How’d she do on her test today?”

  “She had a test today?”

  Cam sighs inwardly. Mike does his best to hold down the fort, she knows. He’s just not as tuned into the details. Again, Cam feels a flicker of guilt for having left her family today to go chasing down clues in a decades-old death.

  But you found some, didn’t you? That’s important. You did what had to be done.

  “All I know is that Tess said she has a lot of homework tonight,” Mike tells her. “She only came out to eat, and then she went right back to it.”

  “Good. That’s responsible of her. She’s growing up, isn’t she?”

  “She is. Thank God we get to do it all again.”