by Mayer, Dale
“Did you set up extra patrol cars around that area for the night?”
He nodded. “We have indeed. It’s not just one block though. Silver Strand’s huge. And, if he spots the black-and-whites going by, he’ll widen his hunting ground.”
“I know. It’s a bitch.” She tossed down her pencil, snatched her jacket and purse. “Hopefully we’ll be lucky enough to sleep through the night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He gave her a wave as she walked out the door. Only as she stood outside and looked at how low the sun was did she realize it was well past quitting time. The last thing she wanted to do was go out to eat, but she had very little food left at the house. It was a dilemma. Go grocery shopping and pick up something, or go out to eat. Or she could follow her usual pattern: go home and not bother eating much. But sandwiches were her catchall.
She needed to sleep tonight and should at least eat something to keep up her energy.
She pulled into the grocery store, did a quick trip around the aisles, picked up stuff for sandwiches and a salad. When she got home, she made herself a sub sandwich and a salad to go with it. Feeling smug about her food choices, she walked over to the table and sat down to eat.
Her mind still buzzed between the two separate cases. She hadn’t found any link to connect the four break-ins to Macklin. That Marsha had lived alone and was close to the chosen area was a concern as her case resembled the other break-ins but differed on the rest of the details.
But none of the other victims had been killed. That was a massive difference. And they didn’t even appear close enough in MO to be used as a cover-up. In her mind she couldn’t see they were connected. At least not yet. Maybe if they got more facts, there would be more answers. But, for the moment, it was a wait-and-see game. When she finished washing the dishes, she had a quick shower, changed into her civilian clothes, and stood outside to take several deep breaths of fresh air. She stared in the direction where the four break-ins had occurred.
They were a couple miles away from her. She hadn’t found any traffic cams that revealed anything of interest. But then this was a suburban area, residential. Cams were only on the main intersections. She was pretty sure the assailant was walking to his chosen targets. What she didn’t know was if any of the neighbors had a surveillance camera and if he had parked his vehicle a block or two away.
She’d hoped to leave one of the unmarked cars parked with a camera set up on the street to see if any traffic came during the night.
But at the meeting earlier today, it had been vetoed. She’d be guessing where the intruder would be walking. Seeing strangers in the cameras wouldn’t give her a clue as to whether they were guilty or not. She needed to continue to delve in, drill deeper into the intruder’s life to see if this was a random choice or whether each of these people were targeted.
As she sat here, she picked up her phone and looked at the picture she’d taken. Each of the houses looked so similar. What made one appear a better bet than the other? How would this intruder have any idea who lived there or who didn’t? And, if he was keeping a close eye on them, where could he be that he wasn’t observed?
He could be someone out walking a dog, looking innocent, but at the same time she couldn’t interview everybody out with a dog. And yet, it wasn’t a bad way to find out if anybody had seen anything suspicious.
The police had spoken to several neighbors, and, so far, nobody had said anything helpful. It always amazed Alex how little people noticed anything in their neighborhood. She set aside her cell phone with the images for a moment to clear her head.
She reached for the bottle of wine she brought with her and the empty glass. As she poured the liquid, she winced at the bright red color. There’d been a lot of blood in Marsha’s place. It would take Alex a long time to forget those images. Outside of the death of the woman, there didn’t appear to be anything stolen. The TV was still there; her purse was still there. If something small and personal had been taken, it was hard to know what. Marsha didn’t have any other friends who stepped forward to say they knew what was going on in her life.
The police had gone through Marsha’s address book, but it had been damn empty except for one name. The name with multiple scratches and corrections was Macklin’s. Marsha had written down every house he’d lived in since they’d met.
As she sipped her wine, Alex wondered what it would be like to be the object of such a fixated person. It’d be damn scary—that sense of being watched, knowing something was wrong and somebody really ill was targeting you. He had gone the legal route and hadn’t had much luck.
But then it wouldn’t matter if the victim was male or female, stalkers were hard to stop in the best of times. Anybody who was dedicated enough could find a way to get to somebody. Alex pondered that concept. Had Marsha herself been a victim? Had somebody stalked her?
Alex quickly checked to see if Marsha had filed any restraining orders herself, but couldn’t find any. Neither could she find any other restraining orders filed against her, except for Mackin’s. She’d talked to Marsha’s boss, but the conversation had been short and simple. Marsha worked as a clerk for a shredding company. She showed up on time and left on time. Other than that she kept to herself, and got along with her coworkers but wasn’t unduly friendly.
The apartment block where Marsha lived was within walking distance of the Silver Strand Housing complex, and Alex had canvassed most of Marsha’s neighbors, but nobody had seen or heard anything. Although Alex still had several more to contact. Nobody wanted to get involved until it was their own life involved. One of the women she’d talked to hadn’t even known Marsha lived there.
When Alex had knocked, a woman opened the door nervously. Alex quickly reassured her that she was a police detective, and the Coronado PD was investigating the woman’s neighbor’s death. The woman still hadn’t wanted to talk. She’d closed the door and snapped the locks closed. Fear did that. Murder hit a little too close to home.
Her phone rang beside her. She picked it up, looked at the display, and winced. “Hello, Mom,” she said, her voice deliberately neutral. Give her mother an inch of emotion either way, and she pounced, looking for every dirty detail.
“How are you, Alex?”
“I’m fine.”
“Stop saying you’re fine. You’re not fine. You’ve taken on too much. You should come home to the family. I’m sure you could get a nice job here.”
“A nice job? Why? I wouldn’t get to deal with thieves and murderers that way,” she said, her tone a hint above mocking. If her mother thought something would bug her, she’d be all over it.
“You need a safe job. A safe place to live. Obviously the job you’re doing isn’t safe.”
Alex gave a bark of laughter. “It should be safer here than anywhere. I’m surrounded by servicemen and women who go out and bleed for our country on a regular basis. We’re all here to protect each other.”
“And yet there you are, considering things like murders and break-ins,” her mother scolded. “How good are the people there, really? They are just like everyone else.”
“I know that,” Alex said quietly. Unfortunately she knew it all too well. Every day she walked into work, she was faced with the fact some of these honorable men and women were much less honorable human beings.
“No way I’m walking away and letting the victims not get the full benefit of my investigative abilities. And I say, I’m fine, because, if I say anything else, you don’t give me an option. You don’t stop digging until you get all the details.”
“Of course I do. You’re my daughter.”
“Being your daughter doesn’t mean you have the right to know all the details of my life,” Alex said with exasperation. “We’ve had this conversation before, many times.”
Her mother chuckled. “I figure, if I work at you a bit at a time, like water on a stone, eventually you’ll give up and let me into your life a little more.”
Like that’s ever going to happen. B
ut she didn’t let her mother know that. “Any boyfriends yet?” she asked her mother. “That always takes you out of my personal life.”
“You have a personal life, do you?” her mother slid in smoothly.
“None I’m talking about, Mom. What about your personal life?”
“Well, I did go out for dinner last night with a lovely young man.”
Alex winced. Her mother had this penchant for men a good ten to twenty years younger than she was. The last one had only been a few years older than Alex. That had been awkward. “Nice. Where did you go?”
“He took me to a lovely fish restaurant downtown. We had seafood on some special pasta dish. It was really quite lovely.”
“And did you go home alone?” Alex asked in a humorous voice.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
“I don’t need the details, thanks.”
“Chicken!” her mother said. “I wish there were questions to ask,” she said in exasperation. “You can’t stay alone forever, Alex.”
“I can if I want to.”
“It’s not healthy. I get that Brad hurt you, but he wasn’t a nice man. The two of you weren’t meant to be together, and he proved it by sleeping with somebody else.”
“You know loyalty and honor are qualities that are important to me. Why is it so hard to imagine I don’t want to have a boyfriend who sleeps around?”
“The thing is, if he’s still sleeping around, he’s just a boy. Men grow up. They make a decision, and they stick with it.”
Alex stared moodily out at the night slowly darkening around her. She took a sip of the red wine and thought about her mother’s words. “I don’t want a boyfriend anymore,” she said. “But I might be interested in a man friend.”
Her mother chuckled. “Whereas I am looking for boyfriends. I really don’t want any kind of permanent relationship. And, if he sleeps around, that’s fine by me. Because then I can sleep around too.”
Alex didn’t want to know so much about her mother’s love life and tried to change the subject. “How’s work going?”
“The same as always. You know how much I hate being in the office. But it’s the busy season for us.”
Her mother was a buyer for one of the large retail stores. But nothing as glamorous as clothing. It was paper supplies. And she spent a lot of her days contacting suppliers, looking for deals.
“But you know you love it. You get to wheel and deal and save the company lots of money.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it for the rest of my life.”
Alex frowned. She’d heard her mother express distaste for her life before but not lately. “What would you like to do instead?”
“Retire and travel,” her mother said promptly.
“So, do it.”
“You know I can’t. I can’t afford to yet.”
The phone call with her mother ended abruptly when her phone beeped, signaling another call coming in. “Mom, I’ve got to go.” She quickly switched over to the other call and realized it was dispatch. “What’s up?”
“There’s been a second break-in at the first house, the one that went down four days ago. Two units are on their way.”
“What’s the address again?”
Dispatch rattled it off, confirming it indeed was the first house.
“I’m on my way.”
Relieved to have been called, hoping that her problems were over from that department, she headed out. In the back of her mind she stewed on why that house? She highly doubted it was the same person who had already been there once. There was no need to go back again. But, if it was the same perp, it certainly made her wonder if he was looking for something specific. Something they hadn’t considered yet.
What if he had some connection to these women, and/or their partners, and was looking for something specific? It was a troubling thought, considering four houses were already involved. But what if one of them had something he wanted? What if he was going through each house to make sure it wasn’t there? And, if he hadn’t found it on the first run-through, would he go back and check the houses again?
She grabbed her sweater, purse, and keys, and headed out the door. Dusk was just setting in. The light was that half-light. It was great for skulking through the shadows. But less so for seeing clearly. It took her ten minutes to get to the address. Two vehicles were already on the scene. She hopped out. “Who called it in?” she asked.
“The neighbors.” Lance pointed to the house on the right. “These guys did.”
“Nobody here?”
“No, the house was empty when we got here.”
“I’ll talk to the neighbors.”
“Are you going into the house as well?”
She called over her shoulders, “Absolutely. I’ll go through it with a fine-tooth comb now.”
The neighbors stood on their front porch. Alex introduced herself, shook their hands, and asked, “Can you tell me exactly what you saw?”
She put her phone on Record, let them know what she did, and said, “Now please tell me.”
The man said, “I saw what appeared to be a young male, tall, slim, dressed all in black, approach the house from our side. I was doing dishes in the kitchen when I looked out and saw him come up against the side here. He turned to the side of the house, went around to the back, and I thought I saw him sit on the deck for a little bit. I went outside myself, banging lots of doors, hoping he would disappear. And he did. But he went inside the house.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “How long was he inside the house?”
“I called as soon as he went in because I knew he didn’t live there. That’s Kathleen’s house. And I know she hasn’t been around since the break-in. She’s been living with her mother in San Diego.”
Alex nodded. She knew that too. “How did he act?”
“Assured and yet furtive. As in, he kept looking around, but he walked with a calm, straightforward walk,” his wife added.
Alex turned to look at her. “You saw him as well?”
The wife nodded. “Yes, I did. He was dressed in all black. It was kind of creepy.”
“Did he have a hood over his face?”
Both shook their heads.
Her interest piqued. She leaned forward slightly. “Did you get a look at his face?”
Both shook their heads again.
“Did you get a look at the color of his skin?”
This time they nodded. “He was white, but his complexion wasn’t pure white. He might have been a mixed race. He might have just had a heavy San Diego tan,” the husband said. “It was really hard to tell in this light.”
Having made a comment about visibility in that light, she understood what he meant. “So he walked inside the house, by way of the back door, but first he sat on the deck for a moment, looked around, and then went inside?”
They both nodded.
“Did you see him leave?”
The husband said, “I went out front to see if he left that way while my wife stared out back.”
“And did either of you see him?”
Both shook their heads.
She studied them carefully. “Any idea how he left?”
Again they both shook their heads. “Honestly I thought he was still inside the house. I figured when the cops came, you’d catch him. But you’re saying he’s not in there?”
“Apparently the officers have already done a sweep of the house, and he’s not there. Correct.” She turned and looked at the house in question. “I’m about to go over, but I wanted to hear what you had to say first.” She thanked them and went down the porch steps.
She stopped at the sidewalk and looked in the direction the intruder had approached from. He’d just been walking down the sidewalk and then deliberately stepped up to this house and around the back. He might have assumed the house was empty or took a chance on the house being empty, so he could have just come in looking for anything he could pick up quickly. Burglars were op
portunists. As soon as they knew a house was empty, they cased it out. And that could have been what this was. Being dressed in black was, in a way, just a smart outfit to be wearing if you were to break in to a house. The fact that the news advertised they were looking for a man dressed in black added to the perception this could be a copycat.
She walked back to the house in question. “Nobody saw the man leave?”
Lance shook his head. “Not since we arrived. I did speak to the neighbors and understood, as far as they were concerned, he was still in there. But we did a sweep, and nobody’s there.”
“I’ll go look myself.” She walked up the sidewalk to the porch and stepped through the front door. One of the officers stood off to the side.
He nodded respectfully.
She asked in a low tone, “Have you been all through the house?”
“With the initial sweep, yes. But I haven’t moved from here since.”
She nodded and did a very careful walk-through of the main floor and then headed to the stairs. She passed a front closet, but both doors were open. She stepped inside, took a quick look, moving all the jackets aside, searching for any kind of a trapdoor, attic access, or anything else. But came up empty. She headed to the stairs and swiftly moved up.
At the second floor she stopped and listened. She couldn’t hear anything. She moved into the spare bedroom, checked under the bed, inside the closet, checking for a trapdoor again, and then stepped out. As she walked past the hall closet, she stopped and looked at it. She pulled her weapon, opened the door, but found it empty. Yet oddly enough the shelving had collapsed or been placed on the floor instead of in their slots. As if somebody made space to stand. Using her cell phone, she shone the flashlight at the top of the closet to look. But again found no trapdoor or attic access.
She’d lived in enough places across the country to know some locations had no attics, and some had no basements. She closed the door to the hall closet, did a search in the main bathroom, still finding nothing. She headed toward the last bedroom.
The master bedroom door was open. She assumed her men had already searched here. But she followed suit and checked the area as well. The master bedroom had double windows with a view over the front street. She opened the window and stuck her head out.
