“Harry.”
She had deleted his contact number from her mobile a long time ago when they broke up. So Harry was asking her to come to the park which didn’t make sense at all. He could have easily dropped by and Flora would welcome him with open arms. Daisy was already suspecting that Harry was having an affair with her, in this situation, meeting secretly was the worst thing to do.
She felt a need to discuss it with someone, preferably a girlfriend. Sam was too young to understand this matter and Flora was too old. Cady was busy in London and Rebecca was still mad at her. She suddenly felt highly understocked with friends of her own age. She thought about Ken and looked at her who was still inspecting her face. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it in confusion.
“You want to say something?” Ken asked.
She opened her mouth again, but then her mobile rang for the third time in the evening. It was another unknown number which she picked. It was Kripke on the other side. “Alicia! Come to the police station as soon as possible.”
“Why? What’s happened?” She tensed.
“Your class fellow, Rebecca is found dead in her house.” She listened to him in horror, unable to say anything, paralyzed with fear.
“We are calling all of her friends to give us as much information as possible.” Kripke was in a hurry.
“I will be there.” She said with a heavy heart and disconnected the call.
“What happened?” Ken asked.
“It’s Rebecca and her mother, the murder you were talking about.” She felt she might start crying any minute.
“You all right?”
“I … don’t know.”
It was a long time ago when she was in touch with Rebecca, but she remembered it like yesterday. Rebecca really tried to take her out of her non-social lifestyle after the breakup, but Alicia was too deep in it to come out. Her parents also played a factor in making things worse. The only thing Alicia remembered that Rebecca tried real hard because she was also fed up of living in Georgestown just like Alicia. Rebecca could not leave because of her mother also didn’t approve of her living alone in a big city. She was a lively girl. She liked to meet new people and to go to new places. Who could have possibly wanted her dead?
“Harry was on the phone?” Ken asked her, breaking her chain of thoughts.
“Kripke, he is calling me to the police station.”
Ken checked his watch and pressed his lips. “I will drop you.”
“You?”
“Is it a problem?” He leaned forward on his desk. “Are you scared that I will strangle you on the way?”
Alicia was mortified.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Plea for Help
Black Jaguar F-Pace was crawling on an empty road at a surprisingly slow speed. Sam had looked at them going out with a suspiciously serious face.
“Do you have Kinetoptophobia?”
“What is that?” Ken looked at her questioningly.
“It is fear of motion.”
Ken smiled, “I hate being center of attention.”
“No wonder. No one knows anything about you.” She muttered.
“What exactly people want to know about me? I got to hear this all the time.” Ken said in agitation. “They know about my parents. They know Clarke raised me. They know I run a bookstore. What more do they want to know?”
“What makes your hair so shiny?” She smiled to reduce tension in the air.
Ken chuckled, “because I take a bath in blood of my victims.”
“Kripke would love that theory.” Alicia smiled sadly.
There was something about Ken which made her not awkward in his presence which she usually felt with most of the people, including her class fellows and relatives.
“So have you decided about going to London?” He asked taking a turn.
“I will give notice to my boss if I go.” She dodged the question.
Ken took his eyes away from the windshield, looked at her for a moment and put the car in second gear. The rest of the journey was quiet. Alicia was thinking about Rebecca and the time she spent with her. Ken stopped the car a block away from the police station. She raised her eyebrows looking at him.
“They won’t like you coming out of a car of a suspect. They would think that your opinion is skewed. You go; I am waiting.” He said.
“I will ask Kripke to drive me home. You don’t need to wait.” She really didn’t want to disturb him anymore.
“All right.” He said but his face said he was not alright with her decision. “This is my shawl by the way.”
“Oh.” Alicia looked at the shawl, hiding her torn t-shirt, she was generously using since evening. “I am sorry, but I can’t give it right now. My t-shirt is in terrible condition.”
“I am not asking it back.” Ken said without looking at her. “Goodbye, Miss Stone!”
She bid him adieu getting confused over his behavior and crossed the street. Before entering in the building, she looked towards his parking spot, but only saw darkness. Either he was gone or turned off the headlights. She took a deep breath and entered the premises.
“Hey kid.” Kripke said when she entered his office. “We were waiting for you.” Harry was busy in a file.
Alicia set with them and instantly felt alert with their face expressions. Kipling was totally sleep deprived while Harry was looking wobbly. He looked as if he would start crying any minute but Kripke was too busy to notice it.
“What happened?”
“This is getting out of hands. If we fail to catch the killer this week, they would be sending feds.” Kripke closed the file opened in front of him in anger.
“How did she die?” Alicia asked.
“Raped and suffocated in her home.”
“Oh my God.” She stared at him with open mouth. It was far scary and gut-wrenching than she imagined. She regretted asking it.
“But, this didn’t match with the profile of other killings. It might be a different killer.” She didn’t want to hear accusation of rape for Ken.
“There is only one killer.” Kripke rejected her idea with one swift motion of his hand. “There was one homicide until last year and not a single case of sexual assault. Now we have three murders including a rape in the matter of three weeks. How is it possible if it is not by one person? Suddenly many people became violent psychopaths? It ought to be one person behind all of it.”
Harry, who was listening to both of them silently, intervened.
“We might be wrong in calling it a rape.” Harry said in a thin voice. “She might have slept with a guy that night before the killer came along.”
“She didn’t have a boyfriend as per our sources.” Kripke said thoughtfully.
“She might have one, but didn’t want to make it public. Everyone has secrets. It can also be a one-night stand.” Harry defended his stance.
“What happened to her mother?” Alicia asked.
“She was staying with her brother that night. She was the one who discovered the body in the morning.” Kripke explained.
“Wait a minute, doesn’t that mean the killer knows her?” Alicia said. She found it difficult to believe that a sharp girl like Rebecca was a friend of a psychopath.
“That’s the initial understanding.” Kripke said.
“You still think it is Ken?” She asked Kripke.
Kripke leaned back on his chair looking at the ceiling with an exasperated face. “We found another plastic bag of your bookstore on the murder site.”
“There are any fingerprints on it?” She asked dreading the reply.
“He was wearing gloves this time.” Kripke said thoughtfully. “How was she in the college? Social? Destitute?” Kripke started writing on a paper.
“She had many friends. At least she was more social than me.” She said feeling slightly guilty about the situation. “Did you talk to her other friends?”
“None of them knew anything about her personal life. Her ex-boyfriend is
in London. He said they split because of work schedule and there was no bad blood between them.” Kripke said.
“But of course he would say that.” Alicia said.
“We have not ruled him out yet.”
“Don’t you think that perhaps killer wants to frame someone at the bookstore?” Alicia suggested slowly. “Perhaps whoever is the killer, he has an axe to grind with Ken. If Ken was really involved, he wouldn’t be leaving shopping bags so carelessly.”
“Not possible.” Kripke told Alicia. “Look, Alicia! I know he is your boss and you must be feeling sympathetic for him, but listen to me. Don’t get fooled by that man. He is a killer alright. There is something about him that I never told anyone. I was in Warsaw on a family vacation few months ago and he was there too. He killed a man in front of me—with a fucking umbrella. I saw it with my own eyes. I couldn’t do anything except going to the police station afterwards.”
Kripke cursed in anger. Alicia stared at him with her heart running a marathon. She dared not saying that it could be a resemblance.
“I will not let him slip from my fingers again. Warsaw was a different matter; it was a foreign country. I didn’t have any power to stop him, but now, in England, he cannot escape the justice.” Kripke said with determination.
She stared at the wooden desk in between her and Kripke. She was still finding it difficult to believe that Ken could kill someone.
“Why did you message…” She started speaking when Harry kicked her in the shins under the table stopping her from finishing the question.
“What?” Kripke raised his head from the file he was reading.
“She had messaged me thanking about the drive last night which I forgot to reply.” Harry lied with a smile to his boss.
“How would you describe Rebecca as a person?” Kripke turned back to his writing.
“Ambitious, curious, gossip-loving, and … normal.” Trouble with Alicia was that she thought everybody was normal—except her.
“So she stayed in town after graduation; while, most of her friends move out. She broke with her boyfriend in that time which must be frustrating for her. She was looking for a job opportunity in London.” Kripke read from his paper and then put it down. “This profile is perfect for getting conned. Somebody must have used her in the name of opportunity and when she threatened him to blow the whistle, he got rid of her.”
“But where will we fit the plastic bag?” Alicia asked thoughtfully.
“We need to know where was Ken last night?”
“In London.” Alicia and Harry both said at the same time.
“Wow! Was it published in the newspaper?” Kripke looking at them in amazement.
“He was in Le Forno last night. He said he was going to London.” Harry said.
“He ‘said’ he was going to London.” Kripke repeated raising his eyebrows for emphasis.
“He has an alibi.” Alicia said. When both men stared at her questioningly, she added, “a powerful alibi.”
“Oh my God,” Kripke threw a pencil on floor in frustration. “If that alibi is Miss Robinson then we have got jack shit for a case.”
“Why don’t you put some men to monitor him?” She suggested hoping that it would make Kripke rule out Ken altogether as a suspect.
“That was the first thing I did after the second murder,” Kripke rubbed his eyes, “but he is sharp and swift. He always knows that he has been followed.”
“There are many people who work in the bookstore. You can run background checks on them as well.” She said in sympathy. It was Kripke's first case and he ought to have felt bad about the lack of progress. It was another matter that it was the first case of Harry as well, but she was unable to sympathize with him.
The telephone rang in the meantime and Kripke picked the receiver. He listened to it for few minutes and then asked.
“Are you sure?”
Alicia guessed that the person on the other side of the receiver had answered in affirmative as Kripke replied.
“Fine. Now we are getting somewhere. Fax it to me.”
He put down the receiver with a satisfied smile. Alicia and Harry both looked curiously at him.
“Well, as I said, it is connected to the bookstore. Rebecca worked at Bell, Book and Candle for three months after which Ken fired him stating ‘unprofessional attitude’ as the reason.” Kripke searched in a drawer and took out a passport. He showed her the visa page. “Now, take a look. Rebecca was in Warsaw in May as well. They both were there at the same time which means he knew her before giving her the job.”
Alicia listened to him with open mouth. Harry was also amazed with the latest development. For the first time since she joined the case, her belief in Ken flickered, but still how was that possible? The man who just dropped her outside of the police station out of concern for her security, the man whose shawl still covering her shredded sleeves and wounds, that man was a violent rapist and murderer? She felt disoriented about everything.
This is not happening. There must be some Mount Everest size misunderstanding.
But, then she remembered the basement under his house which was lurking in her subconscious for too long, the catacomb of book shelves and people who were searching for it. She wanted to explain it as an obsession of books, but she knew those were not books, but some sort of records. She bit her lips ruthlessly and left her chair.
“I need to go.” She suddenly felt claustrophobic in the enclosed office space.
“I will drop you.” Harry said with pleading eyes.
Alicia didn’t reply and came out of the police station without looking back. She was thinking about how to go home without feeling as afraid as a grasshopper when Harry came from behind. “Look, it is important. I need to talk to you.”
She looked at him with a scorn on her face.
“For Rebecca,” he pleaded. It was a new thing watching Harry pleading to her, oddly satisfying.
“Alright,” she agreed and walked beside him to the parking lot. She looked in the direction where Ken had parked earlier that night, but the area was still enveloped in darkness.
Harry was silent during the journey. She wondered what happened which made Harry to approach her. She woke up from her thoughts when Harry stopped the car at the central park. Alicia checked her mobile it was half past nine.
“You want to go to the park at this time? Do I need to remind you that there is a murderer at large?” Alicia was annoyed.
“Please listen to me once.” He said killing the engine. “Come on.”
The night was dark everywhere else except for the park. She had always seen it lit like a Christmas tree regardless of the time of the day. The main reason for that was the Central Hospital in front of it. The patients often came on a stroll and so did the hospital personnel.
Together they walked, which was not like any walk they had had previously. Alicia was uncomfortable both with the cold and with her companion.
“You remember we used to come here on date.” Harry touched the cold iron chain of a swing.
“Yes, I remember, to my regret.” Alicia said.
“I know you are mad at me, but it is not about our personal differences now. It is bigger than that.” He said with a worried face.
“Come to the point.” She set down on one of the swings.
“Will you help me?” He asked in a humble voice which Alicia found difficult to associate with him.
“About what?” She was still skeptical. Harry asking for her help, from her, it was an impossibility.
“Whether you help me or not, just promise me you won’t tell anyone what I am going to tell you.” He begged again.
“If it was someone else, I would promise, but as it is about you then I am going to tell this to Flora anyways.” Alicia said holding her hands defensively.
“Fine. You can tell Flora, but not to anyone else.”
“Alright. I am in.”
Harry looked at the trees with an expression of a teenage who watched por
n for the first time and caught red handed.
He said in a regretful voice. “It was me with Rebecca last night.”
Alicia stared at the ground in front of her and then blinked twice. “What are you saying?”
“I was sleeping with her.” He said loudly getting emotional, but then he looked around under the fear that someone might have heard him.
“Do you mean you killed her?” She asked in disbelief.
“No, idiot. We were just sleeping together, even that was once in a while. Last night I went to her house after dropping you.” He paused for a second. “I can swear when I left she was alive.”
“So Daisy was right in suspecting you. Sorry to break your little heart, but nobody would believe that she was alive.” Alicia shook her head. “What happened to Daisy in the evening? Why was she drunk?”
“She has just started drinking since she came back from London Fashion Week.”
“Do you think someone would have seen you coming out of Rebecca’s house?” Alicia interrogated him.
“I don’t know.” Harry bit his fingernails in anxiety.
“I don’t see how can I help you in this matter.”
“Daisy thinks I was with you so does Flora and Kripke.” When Harry saw that Alicia still didn’t get what he was trying to say, he tried the direct approach. “I need an alibi.”
Anger rose in her heart like a wild fire; she left the swing standing tall on her feet. “So I am supposed to tell everybody that we are sleeping together?”
“I am not asking you to roam around the streets telling every passerby. I am just asking you to be diligent. If it will come to the point that police suspect me only then I would need your help.” Harry said
“NEVER.” Alicia said with iron-clad certainty.
“Why? You are single. It’s not like you have a ‘boyfriend’ who would mind.” His tone was mocking.
“Thank you very much for reminding me that I am single. Better single and satisfied than sleeping around, cheating two people at the same time, and if you are wondering who is the second person. It’s you Harry. You are cheating yourself by thinking that you love Daisy; while, in reality, you only love yourself.” Alicia said loudly.
The Killing Scripture (Alicia Stone Series Book 1) Page 11
