Early retirement.
A man walked up to the two detectives.
“Garry Dubue,” he said, extending his hand. “I understand you’ve got some questions about Carl Gray?”
Walker shook the man’s hand, as did Curtis.
“Yeah, we’re just doing a follow-up on his wife’s murder, what with the case being dismissed and all,” replied Walker.
Dubue nodded with a frown. “Yeah, heard about that on the news. Tough break. He must be going through hell knowing his wife’s killer is out.”
“How did you know him?” asked Curtis.
“I was his supervisor at the time,” said Dubue as he led them to his office.
“Anything unusual with him?”
“No, nothing that I can remember. He was a model employee. Everyone was devastated to hear about his wife, but with that massive life insurance policy he had on her, it took the edge off, I guess. He quit the service a few months after it happened. Never really heard from him since.”
“Is that unusual. Never hearing from him, I mean?”
“Well, usually when someone leaves they keep in touch, at least for a while. This is like a family. Guys become friends, hang out after work, go on fishing trips together. And he was part of that crowd. Everyone liked him; he was very social. But when he left, nothing. Not a word. Even to his best friend, Chuck. I felt bad for him. Chuck seemed to take the death of Carl’s wife pretty hard. I think he and Carl were so close, he was sharing in his grief. Then for Carl to just cut him out along with everyone else…I guess maybe he just wanted to start a new life, with no one to remind him of the murder.”
“Is this Chuck guy still here?”
“Yeah, he’s a lifer,” said Dubue, chuckling. He reached for the phone and hit a button. “Have Charles Lott paged will you? Have him report to my office immediately.”
He hung up the phone and looked back at them. “He shouldn’t have left for his route yet, should only be a few minutes.”
“Can you confirm that Mr. Gray never delivered to Cooper’s address?” asked Walker.
“Sure, do you have the address?”
Curtis leaned forward, showing him a page in his notepad. Dubue hit a few keys and brought up the history, scanning it for several seconds. “Nope, he’s never delivered that route. But here’s one of those ‘small world’ stories for you. Chuck’s the regular on that route. Has been for almost ten years.”
Walker exchanged a quick glance with Curtis, his heart skipping a beat.
Finally a link!
There was a knock on the door and Dubue waved to the man standing there through the glass. The door opened and he poked his head inside. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Come in, Chuck. These police officers have a few questions for you about Carl Gray.”
Chuck’s eyebrows shot up.
“Wow, that’s goin’ back.” He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, taking the last empty chair. “What did you wanna know?”
“We understand you two were good friends?”
Chuck’s head bobbed. “Definitely, best of friends. At least…” He trailed off.
“What?”
“Well, at least I thought we were, but when he left here, he never spoke to me again. Didn’t return my calls, emails, texts. Just went completely incommunicado.”
“Can you think of any reason why he might not want to speak to you anymore?”
Chuck shifted in his chair, something most people might miss, but not a trained investigator like Walker.
“Did you know his wife, Sandra?”
“No,” he answered, perhaps a little too quickly.
“No? You’re best friends and you never met his wife?”
“Well, I met her of course. But didn’t really know her.”
Walker leaned back in his chair, the cue for Curtis to start in.
“You met her. How many times?”
Chuck shrugged his shoulders.
“Dunno. A few, I guess.”
“How many years were you two friends?”
“Almost ten years, I guess.”
“In ten years you only met his wife, your best friend’s wife, a few times?”
Curtis was rapid firing the questions at Chuck, his bad cop technique honed over years on the force.
“Well, maybe more.”
“More? A dozen times? A couple of dozen times? A hundred times?”
“I don’t know, a few dozen I guess.”
“Did you ever see her alone?”
“Yeah—no, no never alone.”
“You said ‘yeah’. Tell the truth. If we start asking around, are we going to find out that you were seeing Sandra without Carl around?”
He squirmed again. Even Walker’s cataract ridden grandmother would have seen it this time.
“Yes, Christ, I did see her a few times.”
“And did you tell Carl about these encounters?”
“No, yes, I mean no, there was no—”
“What, no reason to tell him you were having an affair with his wife?”
Chuck went red, looked at Dubue then at the floor.
“You’re twisting my words,” he finally managed.
“Am I? You’ve admitted to seeing your best friend’s wife dozens of times, sometimes alone, and you never told him.”
Walker leaned forward. “Seems to me Carl found out about your affair.”
Chuck stared at him, his jaw dropped, his eyes revealing the horror he felt at the idea.
“He couldn’t—”
“So you were having an affair with her,” said Walker, far more gently than the barrage Curtis had just subjected Chuck to.
Chuck dropped his head onto his chest.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Jesus Christ, Chuck!” exclaimed Dubue, who until this time had wisely kept his mouth shut. Walker glared at him. Dubue looked away, the message received.
“How long was it going on?”
“About a year.”
“How’d it start?”
“I don’t know, how do any of these things start? She and Carl were having problems, I was the only person who really knew both of them. We bumped into each other at a coffee shop one day, she invited me back to talk to me about Carl. She laid her heart out, I comforted her, and one thing led to another, and we ended up in bed together.” He looked from man to man in the room. “I didn’t plan it. It’s just, well, I was single, she was an incredible looking woman, and I felt sorry for her. I guess I thought it was what she wanted, and I was helping.”
Tears poured down his face, staining his uniform. “Christ, it tore me apart every time I saw Carl. And it got so bad trying to find times to see each other without Carl knowing, I would get him to cover my route so I could go home and screw his wife.” He gripped his hair, pulling hard. “God, I’m a terrible person.”
But Walker had stopped listening and was exchanging a grin with Curtis.
“You said you got him to cover your route sometimes.”
Chuck nodded.
“That’s completely against—” Walker cut Dubue off with a raised finger and daggers.
“Do you know what days?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“How many times, ballpark.”
“A few dozen maybe.”
“And what did you tell him you were doing?”
“I told him I had a girl on the side, and was going to see her.”
“Did he ever express any interest in Wayne Cooper?”
“Huh? The guy who killed Sandra?”
“Yes.”
“Why the hell would he ‘express interest’?”
“He lives on your route with his mother, Eileen Cooper.”
“You mean the pedo?”
Walker nodded.
“Jesus, I never made the connection. Almost all the mail is for Eileen Cooper so I never picked up on the name. I didn’t follow the trial because it was too painful. I loved Sandra. She was going to get a di
vorce and I was going to apply for a transfer so we could be together, and away from Carl.”
“So did Carl ever mention the Coopers?”
He shook his head.
“No, but—”
He stopped and looked at Dubue.
“Don’t worry about him, worry about me,” said Walker.
Chuck tore his eyes away from his boss.
“Well, I might have mentioned him.”
Walker could feel his heart pounding in his chest as they got closer to the truth. Give me the connection!
“How?”
“I told him about a pedo on the route, and how the policy”—he glanced at Dubue—“unofficial policy, was to lose as much of their mail as possible. You know, just to punish the bastard.”
“And you told this to Carl?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing. He just said okay, I guess. I don’t know, it wasn’t really a conversation I thought I’d have to remember six years later!”
“Anything else?”
Chuck thought for a moment.
“Well, there is one thing, now that we’re talking about the Cooper residence. For about six months, they got no mail, so I figured they were on to me losing their mail and had got a PO box somewhere. Then just before the murder, the mail started up again.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t really think much of it, but decided I better stop what I was doing.”
Walker turned to Dubue.
“Way ahead of you, Detective,” he said, his fingers hammering on the keyboard. “Got it! There was a change of address put in for six months, then terminated.”
Walker turned to Curtis and they exchanged fist bumps.
Got it indeed!
Michael “MJ” Jenkins flicked on the light of his office and placed the coffee and bagel he was carrying on his desk. He hung his jacket on the hanger hooked to the back of his door, then dropped into his high-back office chair, something he had to purchase himself—he couldn’t in good conscience as a doctor complain about chronic back pain that wasn’t there—yet. What the bean counters didn’t seem to understand was that sitting in an uncomfortable, poorly designed office chair, day in and day out, for a career, is what led to chronic back pain.
This $400 chair was an investment in his back’s future.
But he took no notice of it today as he bit into his sesame seed bagel with cream cheese, waiting for his computer to fire up. He gave a grunt when he saw the obit reports sitting in his inbox for the husbands of the seven widows. He opened the first one, the husband of Claire Russell. He quickly scanned it then stopped, backing up a few sentences.
Cliff Russell died from his injuries sustained when he heroically jumped in front of a city bus to save an elderly lady the driver hadn’t seen. She was saved, and has called Russell her “Guardian Angel”.
Another bite of his bagel.
I really need to get the low-fat cream cheese.
He brushed some sesame seeds off the keyboard and into a tiny pile on his desk that he’d deal with when finished.
“Mr. Fisk, how did you die?” he asked aloud to no one. A quick scan again had him stopping.
Terry Fisk was killed instantly when a crane cable broke, dropping a load of concrete mix. Those on the scene described Fisk’s final moments as heroic, charging toward the danger and shoving three men out of the way. A teary eyes Fred Duncan said this of Fisk: “That man is a hero. He saved me. He saved us. We would be dead if it weren’t for him.”
MJ’s bagel was forgotten as he opened the third obit, his heart pounding with excitement. A message popped up on his screen reminding him of the teleconference in the pit, but he closed it, reading on.
Have we finally found the link?
Shakespeare sent a text message to Aynslee, his second one of the morning. He had tried phoning Louise but there had been no answer, which wasn’t that unusual. She did respond to his text so he was no longer concerned about her.
It was Aynslee.
That poor kid kept getting mixed up in his cases, and he’d hate for this to be a third time. If it was, he’d have to seriously consider cutting off all contact with her for her own safety. Then again, she was targeted the first time, so technically he’d only be responsible for two kidnappings. And really, the last time was her being stupid, ignoring the advice of everyone around her.
So really, it was never my fault.
Until last night. That was him indulging himself with dinner—she was merely an innocent bystander.
Christ, Shakes, she’s probably asleep at home.
He nodded to himself. He was reading far too much into this. Even Louise had forgotten to text him, and he wasn’t Aynslee’s father so why would she even feel an obligation to let him know she’s okay? She probably laughed it off as him being overprotective, and went about her night. He glanced at his watch. It was barely seven in the morning. She probably didn’t even get up until noon what with her hours.
He satisfied himself with that and stepped into the pit. Everyone was assembled, including Vinny and Frank by video, but MJ was a black panel.
“Anyone heard from MJ?” he asked.
Head shakes and shrugged shoulders.
“Want me to go find him?” asked Vinny.
“No, he knows about the meeting. If he’s not logged in, I’m sure he’s got a good reason.”
As if hearing the conversation, MJ’s feed flicked and went live.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, “but I’ve got huge news.”
Shakespeare felt he had huge news too, but decided to indulge his friend.
“Good morning, MJ. Why don’t you unburden yourself?”
“Okay, here’s the skinny. I requested the obits and background research on each of our husbands yesterday from a few of the big dailies. Well, the first set arrived this morning and I just finished reading them.”
“And?”
“And I think I might have found something all of these women had in common.”
Shakespeare felt his heart leap, butterflies of excitement forming in his stomach.
“What?”
“Every single one of these women, including our latest victim Constance Reilly, had a husband who died a hero, saving someone else!”
Excited glances were exchanged around the room and Shakespeare felt Trace’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “Finally!” she hissed.
“Give some examples,” said Shakespeare.
“We’ve got one who died on a construction site saving three buddies, another pushed an old lady out of the way of an oncoming bus, another leapt off the subway platform to save a kid that had been pushed, another saved seven guys at a factory explosion, another went into a burning house and saved an infant but died from smoke inhalation. These were all normal people who sacrificed themselves to save someone else!”
Shakespeare moved from the desk to a chair, leaning back, one leg crossed over his knee, an elbow on his former perch, as he rubbed his chin. Heroes. Seven heroes. Men who sacrificed themselves with no thought of the consequences. A selfless act.
“When did the first one die?” he asked. He thought he knew the answer, but wanted to be sure.
“Almost six months before the first murder.”
“And the last one?” he asked for the benefit of the room, this one he knew for certain. “Of the original six,” he added.
“Exactly one week before the first murder.”
“And our new victim?”
“One week before.”
Air burst from Shakespeare’s pursed lips.
“Okay, so now we know how these women were picked. Our unsub for some reason picked seven random heroes, and decided to rape and murder their wives. Why?”
“Or he picked six, and now we can expect another six.”
Shakespeare looked at Trace and nodded. “You’re right. That’s a possibility.” He pointed at the assembled detectives. “I want all of you reviewing the obits. Find anyone who died s
aving someone else who left a wife behind. As you find each one, hand it off to a uniform to have them brought in for their own safety. If we can just find them before he gets a chance to kill again, we could disrupt his pattern, throw him off his game.”
MJ cleared his throat. “Hey, Shakes. Just with respect to the search, he killed them in reverse order, so you should start the day Constance Reilly’s husband died, and work back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Each victim’s husband died after the next victim’s.”
“So the last victim, Janet Dominguez, could have been the trigger, her husband being the earliest to die, or the first victim, Clair Russell, could have been the trigger, her husband being the most recent to die.” He shook his head then pointed at Walker and Curtis. “Focus on those two. Let’s find out everything we can about them, anything that might suggest why someone might want to kill them, or posthumously punish their husbands.”
Walker nodded. “On it, Shakes.”
Shakespeare pointed at Nonkoh and the rest of the crew. “You guys concentrate on the obits. The sooner you guys find the next most recent hero, the more likely we’ll be able to save his widow.”
Vinny cleared his throat.
“Well, as if there were any doubt, ballistics came back. Positive match to the first six murders.”
Shakespeare breathed a sigh of relief.
“Excellent. At least now we know we’re not dealing with a copycat.”
“Thank God,” said Trace. “Last thing we need is to have to try to track down another one of these whack jobs.”
“Frank, what’s the word on the vehicle traces?”
“I was able to determine the make and model of Detective Trace’s vehicle, got a license plate from the Columbus Circle cameras, and tracked it back to a rental company. Should hopefully have the warrant on that soon—I submitted it last night. The good news is that it has a low jack on it, so we’ll be able to find it as soon as we’re legal.”
Redeemer (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #3) Page 14
