We turned out the light, and the two of us walked back into the master bedroom. As I continued my visual examination of the room, I focused on the night stand. I opened the drawer, photographed the contents, and closed it. “No condoms,” I said.
“She had a tubal ligation.” Netter put his hands on his hips, frustrated. “I know you’re not scheduled to report until tomorrow,” he said, “but if you’ve got anything, anything at all that could explain how he got into this house, I need to hear it.”
I sighed. “Well, I can think of three possibilities right now. One, we know there was no forced entry, that’s obvious. All the windows and doors were locked except the front door, which was unlocked but had no tool marks on it. So how did he gain access? Agent MacKenzie said this guy is probably good with his hands, with tools, so maybe he’s a locksmith. He could have been inside waiting for her.” Netter’s face said he hadn’t thought of this possibility.
“Two, Clancy could have brought him home with her, but that scenario just doesn’t feel right.
“Three, Clancy could have let him in, which is what I’m beginning to suspect. If Plum came to the front door, and he was someone she knew, she might have invited him in.
“Or he could have given the impression he was someone who could be trusted—a priest, delivery man, fireman, police officer. I took Maggie to a costume party last Halloween, and I dressed as a police officer. Everything I needed was available on the internet—police uniform, baton, handcuffs, even a variety of fake badges.
“Or he could be a diminutive individual,” I added. “Maybe he was disguised as a woman who appeared unthreatening.
“You know,” I said, “Ted Bundy used to wear a bandage or a fake cast to give the impression he’d been injured. We could be dealing with something similar here.”
I shrugged. “I guess it could also be someone impersonating one of those Jehovah’s Witness guys. They always want to come in and spread the word. But they don’t use the King James Version of the Bible. I believe they use something called the New World Translation.”
Netter had been silently taking it all in. He looked at his watch. “I have to get back to give my daily statement to the press,” he said. “You about through here?”
I retrieved my briefcase, and we left through the front door. As Netter locked up, a Channel Fourteen News team was setting up to prepare a short segment for this evening’s news.
Netter pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit his tobacco nipple.
CHAPTER 8
There were only three of us for dinner: Julie, myself and Roberta. It was spaghetti and meatball night, and it was excellent as usual. We started with a caprese salad with fresh basil from Roberta’s kitchen windowsill herb garden. The entré was accompanied by her normally wicked garlic bread, kicked up to a ‘to die for’ level, with more garlic and butter and parmesan cheese than either Maggie or Nora would tolerate. Since they were both absent, we skipped the wine and had iced tea.
It was after six o’clock and time for the broadcast of Carolinians In the News. I turned on the TV in the great room, and we all sat down to watch the big screen. We suffered through a short segment on the progress of a new toll road extension before my segment came on at six fifteen.
Channel Fourteen had done an excellent job editing the sequence, and as promised, the banner with the number for the tip hotline was shown at the bottom of the screen. They had also eliminated any remnants of my screwups. In fact, I looked calm, cool, and collected, and remarkably, came across with an air of intelligence. I was relieved and sort of proud and couldn’t wait for Maggie to see the segment when it repeated at ten fifteen.
I had no sooner turned off the TV when Roberta asked, “Do they pay you a lot for this task force work?”
She knocked the wind out of my sails. “No, I’m performing this work pro bono.” The look on her face told me she didn’t understand. “I’m doing it for free … no pay,” I said.
She pointed her finger at me. “You need to get a real job, a job that pays money, so you can support your family!”
This conversation had suddenly become a replay of several discussions I’d had with Jennifer before our divorce. “I do have a real job,” I said defensively. “I’m an author, and as you can see by that interview, a successful, charming, highly intelligent author.”
Roberta scoffed. “You write stories. Stories! That is not a job for a man with a family.” She crossed her arms and slowly shook her head. “I don’t like this boprono. Poor Miss Maggie.”
I lowered my face into my hands. “Roberta, please, not the poor Miss Maggie speech again … I’ve heard it so many times.”
“And you should hear it,” she said. “You should hear it every day. This is how you repay her? She took you in out of the cold like she would a stray dog!”
I raised my head and looked at her. “Out of the cold? It was August when I moved in here.”
“You are not a man!” she said. “You leeve off of a woman … you leeve off of your wife!” She stood straight and proud. “My father was a man.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Your father worked a hundred hours a day just to bring food to the kitchen table.”
“He did! He did! He worked in the fields!” She spread her fingers out straight in front of her. “He work his finger to a bone, so me and my brothers and sisters had something to eat!”
Julie, who had been sitting quietly on the sofa watching the interaction, piped up and saved me. “Roberta,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I asked Ben to help me with my homework, and it’s getting late.”
Roberta huffed, and headed for the dining room to begin cleaning up, mumbling something in Spanish as she walked away—something that sounded like perro callejero.
When I heard the water running, I faced my grinning stepdaughter. “All right,” I said. “You saved me. But you haven’t got me fooled for a minute. You want something. What is it?”
“I want to drive your car this weekend,” she said.
I looked at her, flabbergasted. “What? Are you nuts? I’m not letting you drive my car! You’re only fourteen years old!”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to tell Roberta I don’t need your help after all,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
She began to get up, but I snagged her arm. “No, no, wait … just wait! Let’s not be hasty about this. There’s a thing called compromise.” We sat there staring each other down. She was holding all the cards, and she knew it.
“Okay,” I said, “but only on Saturday … for half an hour … and I pick the place. And I have to be with you.”
She looked at me for a minute and then stuck her hand out. “Deal!” she said.
I shook her hand. “My god, you’re getting more like your mother every day. Anyway, I’m headed for the demilitarized zone before you swindle me for anything else.”
Julie stayed to help Roberta clear the rest of the table while Oscar and I retreated to the guesthouse.
We entered and Oscar waddled over to his bed, exhausted from whatever dogs do all day. He lay on his back with his feet in the air, watching me as I powered up my computer and checked my cell phone messages. There were two. The first was from Amanda Jane.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said excitedly. “Mom and I watched you on TV. You were very handsome, and you did great. I’m so proud of you. Even Mom seemed happy that your book is doing well. Hugs, bye.”
Of course Jennifer was happy my book was doing well. The bitch was trying to get half of the royalty money. The thought of it burned me, but I was pleased I’d impressed my daughter.
Julie had bounced into the guesthouse and was sitting at the breakfast table doing her homework when I checked the second message. It was from Howard Price, my agent. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than the chat I’d just had with Roberta, so I dialed his number.
The conversation went better than I expected. I came clean about my writer’s block and the difficulty I was having developi
ng the story line for the novel. Surprisingly, Howard wasn’t upset at all and insisted I drop the novel and concentrate solely on the search for Jack Plum. “I smell a blockbuster bestseller here, Ben,” he said. When I hung up, I was relieved that the cursed novel was no longer hanging over my head.
Oscar was now draped across Julie’s lap with his head hanging over her leg, and she was absently rubbing his back as she read something on her iPad. I sat at my computer and began creating the presentation I would give at the task force meeting the following morning.
An hour later, Julie finished her homework and returned to the main house with Oscar. I continued refining my presentation and then downloaded the final version onto a flash drive.
It was past nine thirty when I entered the master bedroom suite. I knew Maggie was home because water was running in the bathroom. A few minutes later, I had a bottle of chardonnay uncorked and breathing, and the gas log burning in the fireplace.
The sitting room was very quiet, and my thoughts went back to the eerie silence in the Clancy home. I shuddered at the thought of it. Jack Plum was a monster, regardless of what Lainie MacKenzie said.
Maggie came in to join me in the sitting room, wearing an elegant full-length, silky white nightgown and huge, fuzzy-pink UGGs slippers. I handed her a glass of wine and took her in.
“My god, you’re beautiful,” I said. “A radiant angel.” I put my arms around her and kissed her. “Just what the hell do you have on your feet? Those don’t look like they came from Marshak’s.”
“Shut up! The feet on this radiant angel are screaming,” she said. “How’d the interview go?”
“Excellent. It’ll be rebroadcast in a few minutes, and I think you’ll be impressed.” Maggie plopped down next to me and sighed heavily as I flipped the TV on to Channel Fourteen and programmed the DVR.
“God, I’m tired,” she said.
I gently kissed the top of her head. “I have to ask you, is all this wealth and power really worth it? Don’t you ever want to just kick back and enjoy life?”
She leaned against me. “It’s worth it, Ben. It’s worth it to me. There’s something about leaving this empire to Julie that keeps driving me to do more and more. Please understand.”
“Well I’m sorry, I really don’t understand it. But you do whatever you need to do, and I’ll be right here to support you. Just remember that none of this means anything to me. I only care about you and Julie and Nora.”
“And Roberta?” she asked.
“Roberta’s my prime suspect in the Headless Corpse Killings,” I said.
Maggie poked me in the arm. “That’s not very nice,” she said. “Besides, I know you love her in your own way.”
The rebroadcast of Carolinians In the News came on a few minutes after a replay of Netter’s daily briefing on the task force efforts to find Jack Plum.
After my interview was finished, I looked at Maggie, “So? What do you think?”
“Why didn’t you get your haircut?” she asked. “Your hair’s pretty shaggy lookin’.”
CHAPTER 9
Wednesday morning was sunny, and the temperature was already in the high fifties. I’d escaped the house without a lecture from Roberta and was enjoying the drive, listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Spring in the Triangle had burst into bloom with dogwoods, redbuds, and flowering crabapple and cherry trees. The area was ablaze with azaleas in every color imaginable, and tulips, daffodils, irises, peonies, camellias, hyacinth, wisteria, honeysuckle, hibiscus and wildflowers were in full bloom.
When I got to the task force conference room, there was a crowd milling around the coffee area, but I managed to squeeze through, grab a donut, and pour myself a glass of orange juice. I was a creature of habit and sat in the same chair in the gallery as I had Monday morning. Agent MacKenzie was seated at the big people’s table, wearing a charcoal grey skirt and cream-colored blouse. I was surprised to see her this morning because she’d said she needed to return to Quantico for a few days.
Netter went over the agenda, and I was happy to see that I would go first. I didn’t really like public speaking. Instead, I preferred informal dialogue where I could watch body language and reactions. My presentation was clear, concise, and to the point, and it took only ten minutes. However, my concentration was completely broken both times Agent MacKenzie crossed her legs.
The next report was from Angela Dreckmann, head of the Wake County Crime Lab. She said her deputy, Marie Driscoll, had made significant progress refining the carpet strand analysis. Dreckmann explained how fibers were classified into three basic categories: natural, manufactured, and synthetic. She went on to discuss the distinctions among the categories.
There were two distinct fiber types common to both crime scenes. The first type was a natural fiber: a dyed wool fiber normally used in area rugs. Dreckmann showed a photograph of a slide taken from a comparison microscope. The fibers on the slide were strikingly similar. It was believed these fibers came from a rug Jack Plum had access to, possibly in his place of residence. The CSI team was now comparing the strands to a fiber database in an attempt to identify the manufacturer.
The second fiber type was synthetic: a nylon fiber from the type of cut-pile carpeting that’s been used in most cars since 1974. Further isolation would be accomplished through chemical analysis of the dye to determine the manufacturer and which vehicles were produced with that particular variety of carpeting.
In both instances, forensic specialists had used a microspectrophotometer to measure the wavelength of the reflected light from each strand. It conclusively proved that the strands were identical in color and from the same dye lot. Dreckmann stated that the lab was now performing dispersive X-ray analysis and mass spectrometry, combined with gas chromatography, to yield the chemical composition of each fiber and the dye pigments contained therein.
She then moved to the analysis of hairs found at the two scenes. Dreckmann showed a magnification of a human hair. “Three hairs from the Clancy crime scene, and one hair from the Knudsen scene, appear to be from an individual other than immediate friends and family members of the two victims. The hairs are approximately .07 millimeters in diameter and have an oval cross section, indicating a high probability that the donor is of Caucasian race. The hairs are dark brown in color and very thin, with a straight shaft form. The pigment is natural eumelanin and its distribution is uniform.”
One hair at the Clancy crime scene was intact, with the bulb attached. The CSI team was in the process of extracting nuclear DNA that would be compared to DNA extracted from semen samples found at both scenes. Mitochondrial DNA had also been extracted from all hair samples for comparison.
At this point I started to nod off, but I had absorbed enough of the technical detail to realize that the forensics team was well on its way to developing a genetic and physical profile of Jack Plum. All that was needed was a suspect for comparison. This is where I was expected to contribute to a plausible theory that would narrow the search. Thus far, I had failed to do that.
Bob Dunwood, the chief investigator for the Capital District of the SBI, proceeded next with his report. Dunwood was serious and methodical, with a dry, unanimated, monotonous delivery. His team had been researching possible connections or commonalities between the two victims.
Clancy and Knudsen had gone to different high schools. They went to different dentists, general practitioners, and Ob-Gyns. Dunwood proceeded to list the victims’ doctors. Clancy’s bank accounts were held at the First American Bank of Cary; Knudsen banked at Wells Fargo in Apex. They shopped at different grocery stores. They drove different models of cars and had their automotive maintenance and repairs performed at different shops. Their automobile insurance was through the same company, State Farm, but the agents were in different locations. In fact, Knudsen was her own agent.
Netter finished the meeting with his status report. There had been seventy-three tips phoned in to the hotline, and his investigators had prioritized them
as they were received. Most of them were from citizens believing that a neighbor, ex-husband, or son-in-law was the Headless Corpse Killer. Twenty-two of the tips included the description of a suspicious vehicle driving in the caller’s neighborhood. License plate numbers provided were being checked against DMV databases for registration information.
Netter turned off the projector. “Most of you probably know that the memorial for Carla Knudsen will be held this afternoon at one o’clock at the First Baptist Church in Apex. The burial will follow immediately at Sacred Haven Cemetery, also in Apex.”
He continued. “Plum placed Clancy’s severed head on her gravesite fifteen days after her murder. Chief Grissom of Apex has authorized stakeout personnel to watch Sacred Haven Cemetery twenty-four seven. Plum would be crazy to try such a stunt again, but we’re not missing any opportunity where we might have a chance to grab him.”
Agent MacKenzie stood and faced us. “Some of us will be in attendance,” she said, “including me. Sometimes perpetrators like to show up at the funerals of their victims, so they can watch loved ones grieve. If you attend, please make note of anything that catches your attention.” The meeting ended.
The room began to clear, and I joined Lieutenant Netter and Detective Cox by the coffee area. Cox pointed toward the M.E. “Boy, that Huffman is one strange lookin’ dude,” he said.
Netter laughed. “Yeah, he doesn’t even have to get dressed up for Halloween. There are a lot of strange ones in this group—like the guy from the SBI with his left eye pointed slightly off to one side. You can’t tell where the hell he’s lookin’.”
“Well, that Lainie MacKenzie is certainly a sultry lookin’ babe,” I said. “A woman that beautiful and not wearing a ring has to be a lesbian.” I chuckled, but the uncomfortable look on their faces as they turned and swiftly walked away told me she was standing directly behind me. I turned around and looked into the sultry blue eyes of Lainie MacKenzie.
Vengeance is Mine - A Benjamin Tucker Mystery Page 5
