Dead Wrong

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Despite everything, she still felt that extraordinary, bubbles-in-champagne giddiness. Maybe she was one of many, but…he did want her. That was more than she'd ever imagined would actually happen.

  Trina smiled at him. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"

  He made an exultant sound and crushed her to him, his mouth descending on hers with a ferocity that stole her breath and her last ability to think. Instead, she just felt. Kissing him back with helpless pleasure, she hardly knew when he maneuvered them a step at a time down the hall. The big bed she'd peeked at the once was just there, behind her.

  Will undressed her slowly, his gaze caressing every inch of her as he bared it. First her pale belly and breasts that were large enough to occasionally be a nuisance but seemed to please him. While he was unzipping her jeans, she struggled to kick off boots. He slid the jeans and panties over her hips and down her legs until she stepped out of them.

  "Pretty," he murmured in a thick voice.

  She wanted to see him, too. When she tugged his shirt upward, he obliged by lifting his arms. His chest was wonderful: lean, muscled, the hair dark and soft. When she froze at the idea of touching the bulge beneath his jeans, he took her hands and set them there. Head bent, he watched as she undid the metal buttons that made up the fly, one at a time, pop, pop, pop. Her mouth was dry as she peeled plain gray boxers off to slide down to the floor.

  "Ohh," she breathed.

  "That's it, sweetheart." Eyelids heavy, he weighed her breasts in his hands and then stroked down her waist to her too-well-rounded hips, squeezing. "Touch me."

  She touched, if clumsily, knowing her relative inexperience showed. With a choked, private laugh, she thought, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd had a dozen lovers! This was Will Patton, naked and groaning and calling her sweetheart. Dreams did come true.

  He bore her back onto the bed and proceeded to kiss her and touch her until she was dizzy and whimpering, pleasure singing in her blood, pooling in her belly.

  They had one moment of desperation when he groped in the drawer beside the bed and failed to find anything but a packet of tissues. Swearing, he went to the bathroom, where she heard the frustrated bang of a cupboard door and then drawers.

  Her body seemed to be quivering like a tuning fork and she sent a brief wish/prayer into the ether. I didn't mean it when I was sorry he had condoms here. It's okay that he does. If he did.

  "Really," she whispered.

  It must have worked, because the medicine cabinet slammed and he reappeared with a handful of packets that he dropped on the bedside table. Trina was glad to see his hands shaking as he ripped one open.

  The urgency rose again with no more than a kiss, a few murmurs, his hand between her thighs.

  He entered her with a long thrust, his eyes fierce on hers, his shoulders slick with sweat. He made love to her with control so unrelenting, she'd come twice before his teeth bared and he pounded into her, a groan seeming to be wrenched from his chest.

  Tears burned in her eyes when he jerked and finally collapsed onto her, heart slamming against hers. She reveled in his weight on her, in his scent, pure male, in the silky brush of his hair against her cheek.

  Holding on to him tight, she closed her eyes and felt a few tears leak out. She hadn't known it was possible to feel happiness so intense, it hurt.

  I can die happy now, she thought, and in the next breath shuddered with the remembrance of the bodies of women who'd also had Will Patton, and then died.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TRINA REALLY DIDN'T look forward to seeing Lieutenant Patton the next morning. She cringed to imagine what her superior would think to know her son had spent the night romping in bed with a rookie detective who should be concentrating on her career. A career she owed almost entirely to Lieutenant Meg Patton, who had promoted Trina and then tagged her for this case.

  Her phone rang while she was pretending absorption in a criminal database.

  "Major Crimes, Giallombardo," she said warily.

  Will said, "Hey, Detective Giallombardo."

  Her heart took a big thump. She was proud of her casual tone. "Hey yourself." She sneaked a glance around to be sure no one heard her.

  "Dinner again tonight?"

  "At your place?"

  "I was thinking pasta e fagiole."

  Whatever that was. "You don't have to cook every night. I could make dinner."

  He laughed. "Why does that offer sound so lukewarm?"

  "Gee, maybe because it would be like a teenager who plays violin in the high school orchestra performing in front of Isaac Stern. So okay. We could go out."

  "You object to pasta e fagiole? How about penne pasta with artichokes and shrimp? Of if you don't like Italian…"

  Don't be dense, she told herself. He either really wanted to cook, or he didn't want to dine out. At least, not with her. She didn't have enough pride to ask why.

  "Pasta whatever sounded good. The first one."

  "Good." His voice was low and intimate. "Got to go. I'll see you when you can get there."

  She hung up the phone feeling buzzed—and bothered. This would be her fourth dinner at his apartment. Wouldn't it be normal at this point, since they had something going, for him to suggest they eat out or go to a movie or something?

  But combating her niggling fear that he was ashamed to be seen with her was her delight that they weren't going out. Fantastic food, lovemaking, pillow talk and more lovemaking…Who needed a movie?

  Behind her, the lieutenant announced, "Everyone working the Kristensen and Owen murders, let's gather in the conference room and compare notes."

  In a group, Trina thought. She could handle that.

  Most detectives stopped to fill coffee cups, then spread themselves around one end of the long table. Trina opened her notebook.

  Sitting at the head of the table, Meg Patton said, "Jerry?"

  "We need to put more pressure on Dirk Whittaker. He won't give me the name of the guy he's supposed to have been rebuilding that engine with. Can't meet my eyes, either."

  "What's your feeling about him?" Lieutenant Patton asked.

  "That he and his wife are having troubles and he's either having an affair or has just fallen to temptation a couple of times," he said without hesitation. "I can't be sure, because he's hiding something, no question, but murder…" He shook his head. "I can't see it. There's no anger bubbling under there. You know? Just…despair."

  After a moment of silence, the lieutenant nodded. "Keep on him."

  Somebody had interviewed Adrian Benson, who'd apparently had something going with Amy Owen before her death. Several of Amy's friends had suggested that she was tired of him, which gave him a motive. But he'd flown to Mazatlan with a group of friends a week later, and still been there when Karin was killed.

  "You talked to friends?" Lieutenant Patton peered above reading glasses.

  "Yep. Never left."

  "Good." She looked toward Trina. "McCartin?"

  "Makes me uneasy." Trina tapped her pencil on the table. "He has no alibi for either night, and he seems weirdly undisturbed by the murders even though he knew Amy in high school, if distantly, and actually dated Karin."

  "Capacity for violence?" a detective down the table asked.

  "Can't tell. He's got this surreal grin that doesn't touch his eyes. You know? Projects this likable persona that feels skin-deep to me. What's below that? From things other people have said about what he was like in high school, there's got to be resentment."

  Other names came and went. They'd spread their net wide. Most were eliminated, having accounted for at least one of the two times in question.

  They ended with Gavin Husby. Trina told the half dozen detectives about his record, his seeming contempt for women and how uncomfortable he'd made her feel.

  "But a jerk isn't necessarily a killer," she concluded.

  "Where do we go from here?" Lieutenant Patton asked finally.

  "I'm assuming nothing obvious eliminate
s any of our best prospects as the source of the pubic hair?" Jerry asked. "As in, one of these guys is a redhead and the hair was…"

  "Brown," Trina supplied.

  "No," Lieutenant Patton said, "they all have coloring that ranges from light to medium brown hair. Since body hair tends to be darker…"

  Nods all around.

  "Could we ask each suspect to give a pubic hair for comparison?" Randy Wheeler suggested.

  "At some point, we could try." The lieutenant looked dubious. "Right now, we don't have enough evidence against any one individual to call him a suspect. Gut feelings don't count. They'd be well within their rights to refuse, and to be insulted that we'd asked. These were horrific crimes. Saying 'You knew all three women' ain't enough."

  "What if we show Ricky Mendoza photos of these possibles? If the guy was in the bar the night Gilly was killed…" Trina suggested.

  They threw the idea around, but agreed that his motivation for fingering someone else was so powerful, his testimony might be unreliable. He'd want to recognize one of these men.

  Trina nodded and sat back in discouragement.

  Into the resulting silence, Jerry said, "I think we should back up and ask ourselves again, why a six-year gap between killings? Where were all these people? Why kill once, then take a big break? Once guys like this start, they don't usually stop until somebody makes them."

  "The jockstrap just hasn't popped up anywhere." The lieutenant looked as if she'd lost weight, her cheekbones more prominent than Trina remembered them.

  Randy Wheeler said no more than they were all thinking. "A serial killer doesn't change his signature."

  "That's true," Trina said, "but he might change his M.O."

  They all stared at her.

  The distinction was a fine one that the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit at Quantico tried to drum into local law enforcement investigators. And it so happened that it was one everyone here in Butte County had lost sight of, Trina realized.

  "What is his signature? The rape for sure. Tearing the victim's breast with his teeth—always the left breast. Probably strangling her."

  "But not necessarily using a jockstrap," the lieutenant said slowly.

  Jerry leaned forward. "But covering her face. That must mean something to him."

  "Maybe." Trina warmed to her theory. "But maybe not. Maybe that part isn't for him."

  "It's for Will," Meg Patton murmured.

  "It could be. What if the jockstrap isn't part of his signature? It's a message." Her skin was prickling with the belief that she was on to something they'd missed. Something important. "Maybe the message is for Will, maybe for someone else. But it's supposed to mean something to him."

  "Good God," Randy Wheeler said.

  Jerry objected, "Then why doesn't it?"

  Trina just shook her head.

  Lieutenant Patton said in a dry, precise voice, "Because whatever incident the jockstrap refers to meant a whole lot to our killer and not much to Will." She glanced at Trina. "Or to whoever the message is meant for. Isn't that the whole trouble? The killer feels slighted, angry precisely because he was left out, ignored, made to feel insignificant. And in a sense, he was right. Whatever that jockstrap symbolizes didn't mean much to Will and has been forgotten. Think how frustrated the killer must be."

  Trina stirred in her seat. "He's going to kill again soon."

  "I agree. If we don't stop him." Lieutenant Patton looked around the table. "Let's ask media contacts to remind women to be very, very careful. Don't go out alone at night, don't—for the moment—start dating anyone new. Let's step up patrols through the parking lots of every tavern, brewpub and bar in this county. I'll talk to Renee and ask the Elk Springs units to join us.

  "In the meantime, Detective Giallombardo, I'm putting you in charge of contacting police departments wherever our likeliest suspects have lived in the past six years. Start afresh. Forget the jockstrap. What unsolved rapes/murders do they have on their books? What can they tell us about them?

  "Jerry." She turned to the short, grizzled detective. "What about right here at home? Was Gillian Pappas the first victim, or had our killer gotten some practice first? That was a pretty sophisticated crime. He was real careful, real organized. He had someplace planned to take her so that he didn't have to hurry. Despite the bloodlust roaring through his head, he used a condom and probably wore gloves, and he apparently wrapped the body in plastic to transport it so that it didn't pick up any trace evidence from his vehicle. He was good."

  "Too good for a beginner," Jerry agreed slowly. Nodding, he pushed back his chair. "I'm on it."

  "I'll talk to Will," the lieutenant said, standing, too. "Something about a jockstrap has got to be there in his head. A joke, maybe. Who knows? But the killer expects him to remember, which means he was there when whatever it was happened."

  Energized, they all went back to work.

  Trina was at her computer station when the lieutenant paused beside her. "That was good thinking, Trina."

  "I…thank you."

  Lieutenant Patton nodded again, her blue eyes friendly, and continued toward her office.

  Feeling a buzz again, but for a different reason this time, Trina opened the book for Karin Kristensen's murder. A binder was used to compile reports, notes, pictures, actions taken and not taken, on every murder. This one was swelling.

  Which of their suspects had lived where?

  Jimmy McCartin—Beaverton and Astoria. Maybe other places, but she'd start with those. Gavin Husby was the restless one who'd moved frequently. Bellingham, Seattle and Vancouver in Washington State, then Albany, Portland and Salem here in Oregon.

  She decided to start with Beaverton and Astoria. She especially liked Astoria, which was a really small town. An unsolved murder as grisly as these current ones would be memorable in a place like that.

  She got a gruff sergeant who said, "I'll do some checking, Detective, but I got to tell you I don't remember anything like that. I'll check with folks at the county, if you'd like. Could be Seaside would be worth a call, too. Things are slow right now, it not being our tourist season. Give me your number, I'll get back to you in a day or two."

  "Bless you." She gave him her number and called Beaverton PD next.

  They were more distracted and less interested, but promised, too, to check their files of unsolved crimes in the relevant two years.

  She worked her way down the list, finding cooperation and delays everywhere. Homicide/Robbery detectives had enough to do without hunting old records. On the other hand, all were interested in the idea of solving a cold case.

  It took her all day, making calls, sitting on hold, getting transferred, leaving messages and waiting for return calls. At the end, she felt as if she'd put notes in bottles and let the tide take them out, not knowing if any would ever float back in and be found.

  Waiting never had been her strong suit.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT WAS AS GOOD as the one before. Trina had had only a couple of lovers before. Neither had been as skilled as Will. Neither had touched her and claimed her with the kind of urgency and pure need that he did.

  Of course, it helped that she hadn't been in love with either of the two men, although she'd tried to kid herself both times that she was.

  As she got dressed to leave, Will said to her back, "I have to drive over to Salem tomorrow to talk to a defendant and since I'm there, I've set up a meeting with a victim's family. I'm expecting to be late home."

  She pulled on a sock. "I should concentrate on the case anyway. I just keep thinking, any day…"

  When she didn't finish, Will did. "He'll kill another woman? It's been two weeks, hasn't it?"

  "And counting. Maybe he's having a harder time isolating his next victim. He might have had to give up on a first choice and select someone else. Since, if we're right, she has to have something to do with you, his options are limited. We've tried to impress on every woman we've talked to that she's got to be careful. More than careful
."

  "Jody Cox called yesterday. She was talking about taking a few weeks and visiting a college roommate who lives in Dallas. I told her I thought it was a good idea."

  "I'd like to see Nita Voss do the same." She pulled her turtleneck over her head and then her hair out of the snug neck. "Maybe. He could follow one of them. If they felt too safe because they'd left Elk Springs behind, they'd be vulnerable."

  "Do you think he'd do that?"

  "No," she admitted, "but how can we be sure? Especially if he gets desperate for a victim. I mean, how many women are there in town who meet his requirements?"

  "Which are?"

  There was something funny in his voice, but she didn't tune into it. "Dated you, obviously. Slim, blond, pretty. Unless that's chance, because it's been your preference."

  Watching her, not seeming to pay attention to what he was doing, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and reached for a T-shirt. "I've dated women who weren't blond."

  She thrilled to the sight of his long, lean body and was sorry when he yanked the shirt over his head.

  "Bronwen Fessler?"

  He shrugged. "A few times a couple of years ago, when I was in town for the holidays."

  Her voice got prickly. She couldn't help it. "Who in town haven't you slept with?"

  Mouth grim, he said, "I didn't say I'd slept with her. I didn't."

  "Amy?"

  "Yeah. Amy I did."

  She tried to sound brisk and professional, ignoring the wrench because she'd seen him with Amy back in high school, when her own crush on him hurt it was so intense. "So that's not necessarily a criteria. Or maybe he assumed you'd had sex with Karin." She faced him. "Did the subject ever come up with anybody? Did anybody ask?"

  "Gavin made a couple of crude remarks. I ignored them."

  "McCartin?"

  "He saw me out with Karin." Will sounded reluctant, as if he wished he didn't remember. "He asked if I had something going with her. Not those words, but something like that. I think I admitted I was going to have dinner with her that night."

  Damn. She kept thinking she could eliminate one of the two men. Focus. If only it were so easy.