Psychobyte

by Cat Connor

  “Not necessary, Kurt. That was a reaction to the victim.” I swallowed the steadily rising bile. “It’s Phoebe Childs. I know her. She moved recently. That’s why the address seemed familiar. It was written on an invitation to a house warming.”

  Kurt stood up, reached out for my hand and helped me to my feet. He didn’t let go straight away, probably smart. I felt like death having a bad day. I could only imagine how great I looked.

  “Can you do this?” He flicked his hand toward the house.

  “Yep. I can do this.” I sounded more confident than I felt. No one ever expects to recognize a murder victim.

  “The minute you want out, let me know,” he said.

  “I’ll be okay. Let’s go see what Phoebe has to say.” I moved toward the door. “You can let go. I’m okay.”

  Kurt let go my hand but stayed close as we walked back into the house and to the bathroom.

  “Phoebe Childs, age thirty-one,” Kurt said. “When did you last see her, Conway?”

  “We went out for coffee a month or so ago. She needed an off the record chat, well, more to vent really. A parent she was dealing with was causing issues.”

  “A parent?” Kurt questioned.

  I bent down and said, “Phoebe, I’m so sorry. Say hello to Cassie for me.” A slight coffee aroma rose from Phoebe. My gut twisted.

  Kurt spoke from near my shoulder.

  “Conway?”

  “Yes, a parent. She’s a social worker with Child Protective Services.”

  “Was, Conway,” Kurt said gently.

  “Was,” I corrected. “She worked with a friend of mine. After her death, we stayed in touch.”

  “Cassandra Smith, right?”

  “Yep.”

  It didn’t pay to dwell on Cassie’s death. I found her. Kurt tried to save her life. Enough said. I stood up and glanced around the room. A piece of paper stuck out of a closed drawer in the vanity unit. It revealed a sentence, just like the other crime scenes.

  “Maybe he liked Phoebe,” I said, passing Kurt the paper. “‘Laughter replaced it all.’”

  “That’s not as dark as the other notes.”

  The drawer caught my eye again. I pulled it open properly. Perfume. Expensive perfume and lots of it. Perfume boxes four deep and three across, except in one row. The sixth box was missing. I photographed the drawer contents with my phone.

  “There’s a gap.”

  “A gap?”

  “Yeah, look. He might’ve taken the sixth box.”

  “Any way to figure out what box number six contained?”

  “I dunno.”

  What perfumes did she like? All of them by the look of the drawer.

  I needed a perfumer. It’s possible a perfumer could fill in the gap based on the selection still in the drawer.

  The perfume thing bugged me. The body wash and shampoo thing bugged me too. So did the words and the poetry at the first scene, and the lack of mess. The Republican thing bugged the hell out of me. Didn’t need to ask anyone about Phoebe’s political inclinations. She was a card-carrying Republican. We’d enjoyed many animated discussions about politics because we didn’t share the same political outlook.

  I stopped thinking about our lively debates. Too hard to believe someone so engaging and funny lay drained of vitality in her shower. The bloodied messenger bag swam into view. The bag-carrying Unsub bugged the hell out of me. I was bugged.

  We waited for the scene guards and crime techs to arrive. Lunchtime came and went. I drank water and ignored the hunger pangs in my stomach.

  The medical examiner arrived as the Crime Scene techs finished up.

  “Caroline,” I said, walking toward her with my hand out.

  She shook my hand. “Another one?”

  “Yes.” I put my hand on her arm. “It’s Phoebe Childs.”

  “Oh, God,” she exclaimed on a rush of exhalation. “Will you catch this prick, please?”

  “I’m trying, Caroline. I’m trying.”

  She nodded. “I don’t have enough hands on deck. I’m calling in another medical examiner. I’ve still got three autopsies to do.”

  “Let me know as soon as you have anything that’ll help us.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I hate to ask, but will you prioritize her toxicology screen and stomach contents?”

  “Yes.”

  Caroline removed the sadness from her expression; in its place, she wore a bland work face. She disappeared inside.

  “I need to sit down with all the crime scene photos,” I said to Kurt.

  Sitting down seemed like an excellent idea.

  “They’re in the system. Office?”

  “Yeah.” I stifled a yawn.

  “Keeping you up?”

  “Let’s just do this thing.”

  Any hope of going home early vanished with the thoughts rolling in my head. The day had almost disappeared. I settled the thoughts; they wouldn’t do me or the investigation any good. Six victims and I doubted our Unsub had finished. Something triggered this daily killing of women. I had a feeling the double up was a coordination error. Someone got carried away and killed too soon.

  My phone rang. Lobo’s “I’d love you to want me” signaled the call was from Mitch. The music made me smile. I slid my finger across the screen. “Hey. How’s your day?”

  “Going okay. You all right, El?” Mitch said.

  “Not really,” I replied. “I’m at Phoebe’s new house.”

  “Thought you were working a crime scene ...” An almost audible rumble filtered through as his thoughts slotted into place. “Oh, crap, El. Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay?” He paused then said, “No, you’re not. Wish I could hug you.”

  “Hold that thought. I’ll need that hug when I get home tonight.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Outside at Phoebe’s. Do you remember when she moved, Mitch?”

  “A few weeks ago, I think. Hang on.” I heard his fingers tapping on keys. “She sent an invitation to her house-warming party, this coming weekend. She moved two and a half weeks ago.”

  Finally, a time frame.

  “Yeah, that party won’t be happening now.”

  “There’s something else going on. I can feel a disruption in the force, what is it?” His voice lightened a little. A smile crept in. “What’s going on with you, El? You sure it’s not cold feet?”

  Dammit. I couldn’t lie to him but I didn’t want to get into anything yet.

  “You know it isn’t. Eight days and we’re officially husband and wife,” I said with a smile. “It’s nothing. I got sick at the crime scene, that’ll be what you’re sensing.”

  “Not surprised. You okay now?”

  “Yep.” Changing the subject but not too much. “I need to find someone in the perfume industry to talk to.”

  “This case related?”

  “Yes, I think the Unsub has a thing for a particular scent or maybe one Unsub does.”

  Mitch’s breathing changed; I heard a sharp intake of air. “One Unsub?”

  “Yeah. I think there are two,” I replied. The theme song for “Three’s Company” soared through the phone and whacked me hard on the ear. I reeled from the opening bars of the late seventies-early eighties TV show. Three? The TV reference was screwy but made sense to me. I’d seen two males. I knew a woman had placed the memorial notice. Two men and a woman, instead of the two women and one man in the television show.

  “El? You there?” Worry creased Mitch’s voice, sharpening the edges and sending arrows into my heart.

  “I think I’m tired,” I replied. Before I could halt my stream of consciousness, truth started dripping from my mouth. “I’m used to seeing Chance and hearing songs … now my mind has gone old school and brought back old TV shows.” The crazy flowing freely.

  “Chance? You need to explain that one, babe …”

  “Christopher Chance. Ever read the Human Target comics?”
r />   “Yeah, once or twice. So you see a comic book character?”

  “Yeah. Nah, I see him as a real person from the Human Target TV show … you know, Mark Valley.”

  Mitch’s laughter softened the crazy. “Your mind is a fascinating place, El.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” I replied, hoping there weren’t any more questions. “I’ll see you when I see you. Hopefully not late.”

  “Babe ...”

  “Three things.”

  “Three things.” The smile sprang back into his voice. “Don’t be too late.”

  With a smile, I hung up, pocketed my phone and joined Kurt in the car.

  “Office?” he said, turning the key. The engine fired.

  “Yes. What time do you think it is in France?”

  “Planning a trip, Conway?”

  “Needing a perfumer to talk to and France popped into my head as a place where I might find one or two.”

  My mind quietened as the journey continued. Where had we come across a perfumer before? I didn’t speak until I walked into my office and saw Lee sitting in a spare chair in front of my desk.

  I threw questions into the air hoping he’d catch them. “Who was the perfumer? What company was it?”

  Lee sat back in the chair and watched me sit at my desk. “You’re talking about the Hawk case, yeah?”

  “Yeah, remember the perfume and pendants? What was the company called?”

  “It was cologne,” Lee said turning my laptop to face him. “Men don’t wear perfume.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lee.” I picked up a manila folder from my desk.

  A memo from Sandra fluttered to the polished desk surface. I turned it over and read it. Just a note saying she’d printed the photos and had heard about Phoebe. A niggle forced its way to the front: if I didn’t get this case closed quickly, I’d miss the funeral because I’d be on my honeymoon. Not that I thought Phoebe would mind, but I minded.

  With the folder in my hand, I stood and crossed the room to the far wall where the magnetic white board waited with victims’ photos in a timeline. Left to right. I added things we’d learned in the last twenty-four hours. Under that, I attached photos from the crime scenes of the notes found. Lastly, I added my own comments, initial impressions, what I considered missing objects from the scenes and which scenes I thought different, as in a different Unsub.

  Resting against the edge of my desk, close to Lee, I surveyed the board. I’d considered our timeline wasn’t correct early on, discovery isn’t always the order in which things happen. We were waiting on the ME’s reports, those reports would include time of death. I walked to the board and rearranged the photos, sliding them into various new positions on the board, hoping to get a new perspective.

  It felt as though he spent more time with Jane or in Jane’s home. Did he want her death to look like a suicide? Was he experimenting with death, finding his comfort zone? All things are possible.

  After messing with the photos and the order of deaths, I put them all back in the order of discovery. What I knew felt right. The pieces were forming a cohesive picture.

  I surveyed the images and words in front of me. This time, I took the memos left at each scene and stacked them in chronological order. The newspaper with the memorial notice sat on the coffee table by the couch. I cut out the notice and added it to the whiteboard then drew lines from the relevant victims to the clipping.

  “The poem bothers me,” I said to the wall.

  “Did you say something, Chicky?” Lee asked.

  “I’m not thrilled by this stanza.”

  If the second is as long as the first, we are likely to see a lot more victims. Not a comforting thought.

  “You think the Unsubs are just warming up?” Lee’s words sent cold spikes through my brain.

  “I hope not. But yes, that’s what I’m thinking.” There was something hinky about the double-up in deaths. “It could be because there are two Unsubs, communication might be slipping a bit. Two deaths in one day seem like a communication error.” Or the second Unsub got tired of playing second fiddle and wanted to be in on the kill.

  “Chicky, we could find more double-ups.”

  “Yeah.”

  Not something I wanted to think about for too long with bodies piling up and leads thin on the ground; and I still needed to hold a media conference.

  Screw it.

  How did they choose their victims and how much planning went into the deaths? From what I could tell, there had to be prior contact or the victims were followed home ahead of the deaths. Sleeping pills in the morning coffee: that level of planning scared me. How did the Unsub get the pills into the coffee? The victims had coffee in their stomachs or on their breath and so far, two had sleeping pills in their systems. It made sense that the delivery method for the pills was coffee.

  But when? Could the Unsub have been in the houses the night before the murders? What if he stayed the night, waiting for the morning?

  That thought stopped me in my tracks.

  We had no evidence to suggest anyone else but the victims stayed in the houses. I didn’t recall anything in the reports. Didn’t mean I hadn’t missed something, though.

  “Lee, anything to suggest anyone else stayed in any of the houses?”

  “Looking.” The quiet clicking of the keys on his laptop stopped. “Thorough searches of the homes in question turned up nothing of note. Victims didn’t appear to have shared their beds with anyone recently. Spare bedrooms were home offices and craft rooms, the ones that had spare beds showed no sign they’d been occupied recently.”

  “Thanks.”

  The number of victims had the potential to work in our favor. The more people killed, the greater the risk for the Unsubs. The more victims, the more we’d learn. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on here. Something I couldn’t see.

  Where was the music when I needed it?

  I sighed and slid back into my chair.

  My cell phone chimed with a text message from Sean saying he’d driven by Gerrard’s home. It was empty with a sold sign in the front yard. I typed a quick thank you and asked Sean to check into Gerrard’s financials.

  Dammit. Not great news about the house. Sold his house and went where?

  With another sigh, I shook Gerrard from my thoughts. Phoebe and her house sat front and center, Gerrard would have to wait a bit longer.

  “Phoebe moved to her new house two and a half weeks ago, so the Unsub met her in that time or stalked her within that time.”

  Lee looked up. “We have a time frame?”

  “Well, the beginning of one, maybe. Unless, she knew the Unsub before moving.” Chucking the cat among the pigeons is what I do best. “I need to look at Phoebe’s life over the last few months.”

  “I’ll carry on with this search while you start on Phoebe.”

  I pulled up Phoebe’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, running back over her timelines looking for new people, comments, anything that indicated someone new on the scene. Or someone had paid more attention than they used to. About fourteen days back on her Twitter feed, I found a name I recognized. Kristopher Lette. He’d added one of her tweets to his favorites.

  “Lee, Kristopher Lette follows …” I stopped and corrected myself. “Followed Phoebe on Twitter. As far as I can tell, there was no direct interaction and she didn’t follow him back.”

  “I know that name. Refresh my memory?”

  “ Police spoke to him after he approached Sarah Ng’s home. They described him as thin, pale, and almost translucent.”

  “The vampire,” Lee said with a grin.

  Vampire and an Unsub with a blood-spattered bag. A connection?

  “It’s possible he’s related to the journalist Rosanne Lette.” I looked at Lee as he continued searching through files on his laptop. “The vampire thing is sending up flares in my brain.”

  Lee chuckled. “I can only imagine what’s going in your head. Did he do anythin
g beyond watching?”

  “Favorited a tweet about her new house.”

  “She didn’t have location turned on did she?”

  I scanned her tweets looking to see if the GPS sign appeared anywhere.

  “Not then, she didn’t, but a few months earlier she did … her old address showed up when I typed a tweet.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Yeah.”

  Lette could’ve used the old address to find her new location. Public tax records of house sales and purchases. Time-consuming searches if you don’t know where to start, but he had an address.

  Lette wasn’t either of the Unsubs I’d seen through the eyes of the dead women. So why was his name popping up? Vampires like blood. I needed more information on Lette.

  “You all good there?” I said to Lee, standing up.

  “Yep, you going somewhere?”

  “Not far, need to make a call. Be back in a few.” I picked up my cell phone and wandered into the hallway.

  “What’s the likelihood of you being home soon?”

  The warmth in Mitch’s voice flooded through me. “I’m not sure. Hey, Mitch … did you find out anything about Rosanne and her possible son, Kristopher?”

  “Not a great deal. She didn’t talk much and wouldn’t be drawn. Even mom couldn’t get her yapping about any kids she may have.”

  Sometimes it’s what people don’t say that tells me the most.

  “Did she mention a son at all?”

  “She said she had a boy in his twenties and that was as far as the conversation went.”

  “Did she refer to him by name?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t much help, El.”

  My smile bounced over the airwaves. “But you were M, you were. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  We hung up. So Rosanne didn’t like talking about her son. That fascinated me. It was at odds with the parents I knew. They all talked about their kids’ achievements or lack of; you didn’t always get detail but the sense of pride or disappointment was evident as they spoke.

  Ideas about why a mother wouldn’t talk about a son sparked an inner debate. He could be some kind of freak. He could have a criminal record. He could be estranged for a variety of reasons, not all of them bad. I paused; in my experience, someone cropping up in a case of mine was usually bad. I saw no reason why Kristopher Lette’s appearance would be an exception.