Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 2

by J. T. Ellison

  “I can. Is there someplace I could lay Flynn down? I’m not sure I want him hearing this.”

  “Yeah, we can finagle something. I’ll ask one of the shift detectives to keep an eye on him and page me if he wakes up. They’re slow tonight. Will that work?”

  “You must be a father, Detective.”

  He smiled at her. “Nope. My mom was a reporter, and my dad worked the overnight shift. I got used to waking up in strange corners of the city. Always felt better if someone was around to tell me she’d be back in a second.”

  They came to the conference-room door. He took Flynn from her arms and made his way back out of the room.

  Taylor Jackson was on the other side of the room, sitting on what looked like a countertop, one long leg dangling beneath her, talking rapid-fire into a cell phone. She must have been sitting on the other foot, she looked like a very blond crane. Two other men were sitting at the table, flipping through files. One was cute, rangy with floppy brown hair, the other more obviously reserved, with blond hair graying at the temples. She mentally dubbed them Frick and Frack. Wondered where the hot guy had gone with her kid. Wondered why she was thinking that.

  Colleen took a couple of deep breaths. It was all going to be all right.

  Jackson was wrapping up her phone call now. She flipped the cell shut, stowed it in her pocket, and crossed the room to Colleen. She didn’t smile, exactly, but her face was welcoming.

  “Hell of a thing,” she said, sticking out her hand to shake. Colleen took it, grateful for the warmth.

  “Good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

  “Take off your coat, have a seat. Detective Ross took care of you?”

  “Yes, thanks. He’s just put Flynn down for me. I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment.”

  Jackson cocked her head and looked at her, but said nothing. Damn. She must have sounded a bit possessive of Detective Ross. Strange, she was feeling possessive of the man. She’d only met him five minutes before for God’s sake. Hormones. Her hormones must be in gear. It was probably getting close to her time; she always got a little horny when nature was about to make a visit.

  God, Colleen, get your head in the game. She was getting punchy. No sleep plus a bucketful of stress and a healthy dose of fear did that to a girl. She tried to redeem herself by resorting to her most professional tone.

  “So, Lieutenant, what do you have?”

  Jackson turned and went to the table, sitting across from Colleen. “Trouble. A boatload of it. I need you to tell me everything you know about the murders.”

  “Where should I start?”

  “How about telling us where you got the information about the killings in San Francisco in the first place?”

  Colleen shook her head. “I can’t do that. I have sources. If I burn them, they’ll never speak to me again. I can’t give you their information. I’m sorry.”

  Jackson stared at her, then sighed. “Okay, we’ll come back to that. Why don’t you just start at the beginning and share what you’re comfortable with?”

  Colleen could tell the woman was trying hard not to be adversarial, but there was the tiniest bit of anger in the soft words. She didn’t blame her—of course Jackson would want the names of the sources. But Colleen had no intention of burning anyone if she could avoid it.

  “I knew there was something up when I got a couple of emails from San Francisco telling me there had been a murder that looked like the Zodiac. You have to remember, this happens a lot. People love to imitate him, and there are false alarms all the time. But something felt different about this. Right afterward, emails came in from New York and Boston. At first I thought it was some kind of joke, but it felt wrong. So I started digging. The reports I was getting were right on. I double-sourced everything. Two nights ago, three different cities were struck by copycat killers. They imitated the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam and the Zodiac. Yesterday morning, you had a fiasco in Nags Head, North Carolina, that I’m convinced was related.”

  “You’re convinced. No one in the law enforcement community was drawing correlations between these four sets of murders, but you, a semi-pro true-crime blogger, immediately recognized a pattern. So you went off half-cocked and posted your theories on the blog, thus drawing the ire of some creep who decided to spook you.”

  Colleen raised her chin a fraction. She refused to be condescended to. When Jackson said it aloud, she had to admit, it sounded absurd. But she knew she was right. Knew it in her heart.

  “Say what you will, but I was right. And that’s what I do, Lieutenant. I run a crime blog. Sometimes the criminals I’m discussing read that blog. It’s a free world. But here’s the important thing—I help the police solve cases all over the country. People have an inherent mistrust of the police, of the system. They think if they tell the truth, or rat on a friend, the police will somehow sweep them into the case. I provide a forum for people to share tips, insight and information with law enforcement anonymously. I’m very good at drawing conclusions. I’m self-trained to some extent, but please don’t forget, I worked the crime beat for years and I was married to a cop. A good cop. Tommy taught me everything he knew. And you were one of the ones who taught him.”

  Jackson gave Colleen a half smile. “Touché.”

  “Please don’t blame me for all of this. All I’ve done is report the facts as I’ve seen them. Just like any good investigator would.”

  Jackson ran her hands through her hair. Colleen was jealous, because the more rumpled it got, the sexier it looked. Her own hair would do nothing of the sort; when it was mussed up, it just looked like she’d slept on it for days.

  Jackson put her hair into a fluffy ponytail, then started playing with a ballpoint pen. “No one is faulting you, or blaming you, Colleen. I wish you had come to me before you shared your theories with the rest of the world, yes. But what’s done is done. We just want to know what’s going on, and why you and the Felon E blog are being used as the vehicle for these murders. We’ve confirmed that everyone that we know of who’s been killed was a participant on your blog. Did you issue some sort of challenge to them recently, a contest or something?”

  “Not that I know of. I went through my archives before I came down. I’ve done a couple of blogs on the Zodiac in the past, especially when they did the movie, but none on the Boston Strangler or Son of Sam. I haven’t ever run a contest, that’s not my kind of thing. As for a challenge, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Could you have accused someone of something, or asked your readers to rally around a certain case or victim?”

  Had she? She racked her brain and came up with nothing. She shook her head mutely.

  “Then why would he decide to use your blog in particular, of all the ones that are out there in the world? Why you, Colleen?”

  Why me indeed. A deranged fan? A killer she’d helped put away who’d gotten parole?

  “I can’t tell you that. I have no idea why. All I know is what I reported, and the fact that my commenters are dying because of it.”

  “Not because of your story, I don’t think. Your blog’s been in play for a while. I wonder if you simply stumbled across something you weren’t supposed to.”

  “Well, yesterday’s hacking certainly left no doubt that whoever is responsible is aware of the blog, at the very least. There must have been a hundred comments that said, ‘I know who you are.’ And no one, no one, knows who I am.”

  “Someone obviously does. Your contacts know who you are, don’t they? Or is everything you do anonymous?”

  Jackson had a disconcerting way of leaning forward as she talked, right into Colleen’s personal space. It was a good, solid interrogation technique: make the victim feel like they mattered, that you were hanging on every word. Colleen got the sense that very little passed by Taylor Jackson. She paid attention to every word out of Colleen’s mouth, but was reading the context, her body language, the unspoken as much as the spoken. Tommy had said she was one hell of an investigator. Colleen unde
rstood how that could be the case—she was able to pry information out of the littlest details.

  “Everything I do is supposed to be anonymous. I protect my identity as much as possible, especially from my contacts. They call me Felony. It’s a private joke—”

  “Yeah, on the blog’s name. I get it. So if they don’t know who you are, how do you get them to talk?”

  “Any way that I can. I give them a sympathetic ear, mostly. Some want money. I’m willing to donate a little bit to the cause, twenty here, twenty there. I won’t pay up front for a scoop. They have to be willing to share without recompense, I’ll only pad their paws after they give me verifiable information. Honestly, you’d be surprised at how many people want to help for free, simply to see the right thing done.”

  “How many people do you have in Metro?”

  Colleen almost laughed. Almost. Jackson’s face had hardened; she didn’t like this. Colleen couldn’t blame her. The idea of her whole department leaking like a sieve might be a difficult point to swallow.

  “I don’t have anyone in this office, if that’s what you’re asking, Lieutenant. That’s as far as I’m willing to go discussing my contacts. Right now, they aren’t relevant. What we need to be worrying about is the fact that the victim pool is my commenters.”

  “I don’t think anything is irrelevant, Colleen. We’ve already had a leak. One of the news stations in New York called here just a bit ago, asking questions. So first things first. Take down the blog,” Jackson said.

  Colleen stiffened in her seat. “No.”

  “Colleen. Be reasonable. You’re putting your readers at risk every moment they’re still in play. They count on you for entertainment, for news. Let them know they can count on you to keep them safe, too.”

  “I won’t do it. I refuse to be chased off because some lunatic has it in for me.”

  “Has it in for you? It’s your commenters he’s killing. Your livelihood. Without the fans, would your blog be anything? Of course not. Really, Colleen. Listen very carefully. You’re playing with fire. You’ve got too much to lose. This man will stop at nothing to get what he wants. You are disposable. You don’t matter to him. You’re a means to an end, and he will use you then kill you when you’re no longer necessary to his little games. In the meantime, a lot of innocent people are going to be caught in the crossfire. I’m telling you, we need to take the blog down.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I won’t be bullied into submission by a lunatic, or by the police. If I take it down, it will send a clear signal to everyone in this industry that they can be scared out of business. I have to stand up for all of us.”

  Jackson paused for a moment, then threw up her hands. “Fine. I’m sorry you feel that way. I suppose we’ll just have to take it down for you.”

  Colleen rose from her chair. Fury coursed through her. “Don’t you even think about—”

  “It’s already done.” Jackson nodded to the door, where the handsome Detective Ross stood, a small frown on his face. “How—”

  “Detective Ross is one of the finest forensic detectives in the country. He’s taken the site down, set in motion a system to contact your commenters and alert them to look after their safety.”

  “You can’t do that. It’s illegal. Client confidentiality.”

  “Once they leave a comment in the ether, it’s public domain.”

  “No, no, no. It’s not. It’s a private domain. They have to register for the site. It’s only open to commenters who have opted to give me their information, and those are the only ones who can participate in the comments. I have a strict privacy clause in place, drawn up by an intellectual-property-rights attorney, that they must agree to, not to mention the rights of the hosting company and the content management system I use. There is an expectation of privacy by joining my group. You can’t contact them without my permission, or a warrant.”

  Jackson got right in her face. “Please. Give me a break, Colleen. It’s just a blog. And if it’s that private, the killer is on that list of people. We need those names.”

  Colleen started to sputter, but Jackson held up a hand. “Don’t bother getting outraged. You’re lucky we aren’t charging you with obstruction. We need to be serious for a moment. Sit back down, take a deep breath, relax and start talking. You came to me for help, remember? Quit wasting my time if you don’t have anything to add to the discussion besides bullshit.”

  Colleen stayed on her feet. “You’re a bitch.”

  Jackson laughed, short and knowing, then grew serious. “Maybe I am. But I’m much more worried about saving lives than us being girlfriends. Okay? Can we stop playing around and get down to business? People are dying, Colleen. You, and your son, are in grave danger. If you won’t do it for me, think of Flynn. Think about what Tommy would want you to do.”

  Colleen was defeated. She recognized the feeling. She’d just been outplayed. She didn’t like it, but she had to respect the gamesmanship. For Jackson to use Colleen’s dead husband and her living child against her was low, but it had served its purpose. She tamped down her own anger, sat back at the table and pulled a notebook from her bag. Flipped it open. Started to read aloud. Enjoyed the look of pure shock on the lieutenant’s face as she started reading off the victims’ names and her website numbers, and the Pretender’s victim pool grew exponentially larger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Taylor left Colleen in the conference room alternately vocalizing her anger with Taylor and casting coquettish glances at Lincoln. She found a quiet corner at the end of the hallway. The industrial fluorescents were over-bright. Or maybe she was overtired. She glanced at her TAG Heuer watch, it was nearly morning. The interview had taken almost an hour, with Colleen fighting her every step of the way. She had enough information to go forward, but something was missing. Specifically, why Colleen had been targeted in the first place. There were plenty of true-crime blogs on the web. Even a couple of other national sites that were run out of Nashville, according to Colleen. So why her? There was something missing, a piece they were overlooking, but damn if she could see what that was.

  Taylor leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. What kind of game was Ewan Copeland playing? Was he responsible for the murders in New York, San Francisco and Boston? There was no way he could possibly be in all three places at once—he could have committed one of the series, but not all three, on two separate coasts. There was only one conclusion: he’d finally actualized his training from the Snow White Killer and recruited a group of apprentices to work alongside him, even going so far as to bring his own sister into the mix. The thought sent chills to her very marrow.

  But more people meant more opportunities for leaks, for mistakes. And that might bring her the chance to end all of this sooner rather than later. All it would take to end her nightmare was a twitch of her forefinger. One clean shot, and the world would breathe easier.

  She revisited her ongoing fantasy, thought about how she could lie in wait, and kill Copeland the moment she had confirmation that it was really him. She envisioned the setting—Copeland begging for his life, his pleas falling on deaf ears as she stood over him and shot without hesitation. The end.

  Getting away from Baldwin and her team to enact such measures wouldn’t be difficult. Deception was a part of her job, misleading statements, sleight of hand. She was a magician with real handcuffs.

  Everything up to now has been a dress rehearsal, you bastard. I won’t let you hurt anyone else I know.

  God, she was tired.

  “Are you okay?”

  Taylor’s eyes flew open at Baldwin’s voice. He’d managed to sneak up on her. Good grief, had she dozed off standing, like a cow in a field? She nearly laughed at the image.

  “I’m fine. You scared me.”

  “Sorry about that. I thought you might have a headache. Your forehead is all squinched up like it gets when something hurts.” He ran his thumb softly across the two little wrinkles that appeared between her brows when she wa
s frustrated or concentrating. Her railroad tracks, he called them, miniature furrows in her otherwise smooth skin. Her mother had good skin, and her grandmother before her. Lots of collagen. They’d both aged well, she hoped she’d get the same chance.

  Something hurt, all right. The bleeding edge of her soul where she’d taken the knife and sliced off a piece the moment she’d decided on revenge as the only path to sanity. She tucked it away. There was plenty of time to wallow later.

  “I’m good. Just thinking. What’s happening with you?”

  “Waiting on a bunch of call backs. It’s rather frustrating not to be able to do anything.”

  “You’re here. That’s doing something.” She pushed off the wall. “Want a coke?”

  “Nothing cold. I need coffee. It’s freezing in that interrogation room.”

  “I need a coke. Sorry you had to suffer. I keep it cold in there on purpose. Makes the bad guys ’fess up quicker. I have a hard time keeping a straight face when I’m in court and they play video of the interrogations. Watching the suspects try to warm their hands with the cuffs on is a source of great amusement for me.”

  “Taylor, my dear, you are a first-class sadist.”

  “You know it.”

  They started walking, shoulders touching. Taylor took comfort in the contact. It reminded her that even though she was alone in this, she had someplace to turn if she backed out, or if she truly needed a safe place to run to.

  “How’s Colleen Keck?” Baldwin asked.

  They reached the soda machine. Baldwin peeled a dollar out of his wallet and put it in, chivalrously handed the Diet Coke to Taylor. She accepted it, cracked the lid and took a long drink before she answered.

  “I had to have Lincoln take the blog down, but that’s as far as I can go. Colleen is not cooperating the way I’d like. She’s more worried about protecting her sources than helping us stop the Pretender. Without her permission to scan the personal information of the blog commenters, I’ll have to get a warrant, and warrants take time. I lied a little, told her we were already contacting them, but she’s no dummy, she knew we couldn’t do that without securing paper first. I left Lincoln in with her, she seems to have developed some rapport with him. If that doesn’t work, I thought I’d let you have a go at her, see if she’ll soften up.”