by Louise Krieg
“You can't take us off the case,” Danny complained, rubbing at his eyes, heedless of the way it smeared around the eyeliner that he still had yet to remove. “We're this close to getting it solved, and if we can meet up with this guy tonight, then–“
“We don't even know if he's the guy we want, Danny,” Lindsay reminded him gently. “Sure, there's a striking resemblance between the runes on his arms and the runes that have been carved into the women's stomachs, but that doesn't actually amount to solid evidence. For all we know, this is still tied to some sort of cult or religion that, however minor, might have more than one follower who uses these runes.”
Danny dropped into a chair, hands over his face. “I can't let this one go, though,” he mumbled.
The Commander frowned. “All the more reason for me to remove the two of you from this case,” he said. “Stupid mistakes get made when you get obsessive.”
“There's nothing you can do to stop me from going to that tattoo parlor tonight,” Danny told him. “Take me off the case—fire me, if you want to. But I'm going there, and I'm going to talk to the guy. There's nothing you can do to stop me.”
For a long moment, Danny and the Commander stared at one another. “I'm going as well,” Lindsay said, breaking the silence. Both the others swiveled to face him, and he shrugged. “I know Danny well enough to know that he's going to go. And he's going to need backup. It would look weird for him to have shown up with me earlier in the morning and then show up with someone else in the afternoon. So I'm going with him. And there's nothing you can do to stop me either.” He paused and gave them a weird smile. “You know, my kid sister is a young, female, medical professional. Doesn't live in Miami, but I can't help thinking...”
The Commander threw his hands in the air. “I knew the two of you were going to crack eventually,” he said. “Well, it's your funeral. But if you get killed...”
“Not in my plan for the night,” Danny said tersely. “But you'll arrange for us to have backup?”
“Of course,” the Commander said, sighing.
When they entered the tattoo parlor that afternoon, Danny felt like he was practically buzzing with adrenaline. Between knowing the danger they could be in and knowing that they were this close to solving the case… For a moment, as he stared wordlessly at the man in the back of the shop, his tattooed arms moving animatedly as he talked with Amelia.
Then, he shook his head and moved forward, a grin on his face. “Hey, those tattoos look even cooler in person than they did on the online pictures,” he said cheerfully. He stuck out his hand. “Good to meet you. I'm Danny.”
The guy reached out his hand and shook Danny's giving him a curious once-over. “Chris,” he said. “Look, not to be a dick, but you don't really look like the kind of guy that would get a bunch of tattoos up his arm.”
Danny ducked his head. “I'm going through a bit of a transitional period at the moment,” he said. “I blame it on my mother; she was Southern, so she raised me to be a good guy in sweaters and slacks. I'm still discovering who I really am.”
Lindsay fought not to snort at the story—he knew Danny's mother, and she was definitely not a church-going Southern woman. Fortunately, he managed to suppress the noise.
And the story had Chris nodding. “I feel that, man. Maybe you can work that into the tattoo somehow. Amelia said you had some questions about it, though?”
“Yeah.” Danny glanced over at Amelia. “Look, I'm sure you have other appointments coming in, right? Maybe we should get out of your hair. There's a coffeeshop around the corner where we could talk.” If things got messy, he didn't want her to be in the thick of it.
Amelia shrugged. “Up to you what you want to do. But yeah, I do have another guy coming in soon. And if you want more input from me, sorry, but you'll have to pay a consultation fee just like anyone else.”
Danny grinned. “No problem; I totally get that.” He held out a hand to her. “Look, it was great meeting you, and thanks for putting us in contact with one another. I'm sure you'll see me back.”
At the coffeeshop, they each ordered drinks and tossed their jackets across the backs of their chairs. “So what were your questions, then?” Chris asked Danny.
Danny frowned and flipped his badge out. “I have a couple questions for you regarding the death of Ms. Tracey Duncan. Don't make me take you down to the station first. We do have backup surrounding us.”
Chris' eyes widened a bit, but he didn't protest. “What do you want to know?”
“Let's start with something simple,” Lindsay suggested. “How did you know Tracey?”
“We met in an art class back during her sophomore year,” Chris said. “Tracey's parents always wanted her to be a doctor, but she wasn't so sure about it. So she decided to experiment and take a couple fun classes in her free time.” He gave a soft smile. “She loved that art class.” There was a clap of thunder, and he glanced skywards for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, we hit it off really well and started dating not too long after that.”
“When did she break up with you?” Danny asked.
Chris raised his eyebrows. “She never broke up with me,” he said. “We were going to get married next fall.”
“She didn't wear a wedding band.”
“No,” Chris agreed, looking embarrassed. “When I proposed to her, I couldn't afford a good engagement ring, so I proposed with a locket that had our faces both in it. I thought it was sweet. I'm an artist, so I don't make a lot. And because she's new in the medical realm, she doesn't make that much either, and she has a lot of student loans to pay off. Eventually, we decided that rather than put money into an engagement band that she won't wear after the wedding anyway, we might as well put that money into the honeymoon and do something really special. So there was never an engagement band.”
“She wasn't wearing a locket either,” Danny said.
Chris reached into his pocket and pulled out a small necklace on a silver chain. “She left this at my place the last time she was there—not because she was breaking up with me or anything like that; she just forgot it. The locket itself is solid sterling silver, but the chain isn't, so it started to fade to copper when she wore it in the shower. She usually took it off to shower and then put it back on immediately afterwards, but that day, the hospital called her in early, and in her rush to get there, she forgot to put it back on.”
“Hmm,” Danny said.
“You don't seem too heartbroken for someone who just lost his fiancée,” Lindsay remarked.
Chris looked at him for a long moment. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “You trick me here under the impression that you want to talk about tattoos, and instead you want to ask me questions about this crappy act of the universe.” He frowned at them. “I hope you don't think I killed her or something—that would be sick.”
Danny raised an eyebrow at him and wordlessly pulled the picture out of his pocket. “Judging by the way your face is cut out of this picture, we assumed the two of you had broken up. But perhaps it's just that she didn't feel the same way about you but didn't have the guts to end things? Maybe once you found out, that made you–“
“Stop,” Chris said, pressing his fingertips against his eyelids. “Jesus, just stop. I didn't kill her, okay? You want to know why my face was cut out of that picture? That's the one I used for the locket. Look, you can still see her hair brushing my shoulder in the picture here.” He popped open the locket, and sure enough, it was clear from the hair and from the scissor marks at the edge of the picture that it was the same picture. “I don't know where you got that from, but I'm telling you, I didn't kill her.”
“But the runes on your arms,” Danny protested weakly. “And the fact that you called the tattoo parlor at the same time that we were there...”
“I didn't kill her,” Chris repeated. He scowled. “But if you have a minute, I might be able to give you a lead on who did.”
Chapter Five
“Wish we could
have searched his bag,” Danny muttered under his breath as he and Lindsay drove back towards the precinct.
Lindsay gaped over at him. “You still think he was the murderer,” he said incredulously. “After all that–“
“We need to look up links between this guy and the other women,” Danny interrupted. “I know you want to get home to your wife, but do you think it could wait for a couple hours? There has to be something there that we're missing. It's not enough that they're all young, female medical practitioners. There has to be something more to it. And the runes...”
“Chris says he made up those runes,” Lindsay reminded him.
“He can't have,” Danny muttered. “Or else our killer didn't make up the runes and copied them from...” He trailed off, the idea suddenly striking him. “Or else our killer copied him.”
“So great, our killer is anyone who has ever seen the tattoo parlor's website,” Lindsay said sarcastically. “Give it a rest, Danny. We need to start focusing on other cases. As the Commander said, your fixation with this is unhealthy, and that can lead to mistakes. You were ready to convict an innocent man in there today.”
Danny drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, peering out through the pounding rain. “Gut feeling is still telling me that we're so close to solving it, though,” he said. “We have to be.” He glanced over at his partner. “Based on what you said about your kid sister, why aren't you more obsessed with this case?”
“Based on the fact that you don't have a kid sister, why are you so obsessed with this case?” Lindsay retorted. “And keep your eyes on the road. You know how I feel about driving during rains like these.”
Danny smiled a little, but his face quickly turned thoughtful again. “Who would have seen Chris' tattoos and also known his girlfriend?” he asked. “Anyone in their friend circle. But why target medical professionals? It had to have been someone who–“
“Had an unhealthy fixation on Tracey,” Lindsay suggested. “Anyone who was fixated on Chris would have gone after him. But someone who was fixated on Tracey would have gone after other people in the hopes that they could get to her enough that she'd break up with Chris and be with him.”
“What's the significance of the number twelve?” Danny asked. “That's how many women we've had who fit the match at this point.”
“Twelve months in a year?” Lindsay suggested. “A year ago… Hurricane season. We would have had Hurricane Jerica. We need to know where Tracey was then.” He frowned. “But if Tracey's dead now, it could be that the killer won't kill anyone else, right?”
“Doesn't matter,” Danny said grimly. “He still deserves to stand for his actions.” He paused. “There was a journal at the crime scene. In her underwear drawer.” He pulled the small black notebook out of his pocket and tossed it to Lindsay. “It doesn't say anything incriminating, otherwise I would have mentioned it before. But what was our girl doing twelve months ago from the night she was killed?”
Lindsay stared at his partner for a long moment but then flipped open the journal, reminding himself of what Danny had said the night of the murder: the woman was already dead. Her privacy hardly mattered anymore, and anyway, they were trying to allow her to rest in peace or save future women or whatever. He took a deep breath and began to read, aided by the light of his phone.
When he found the correct date, his eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Pull over,” he said. “You're going to want to see this.”
“I can't pull over on the side of the highway during hurricane season,” Danny said impatiently. He did pull off the next exit, though, and stopped in a gas station parking lot, flicking on the overhead lights. “Now give me that thing.” He flipped to the right page and began reading. “Shit.”
Went home with Skipper tonight. Thing is, I know Chris loves me and wants to marry me, but I've still always had this lingering doubt, and Skipper plays right into that. It's not just in bed, although that's a large part of it. We just seem to click, in a way that Chris and I have never managed. And where Chris makes me feel like I need to be a better person, Skip makes me feel like I can be the best version of myself and he'll always love me. I'm going to have to figure out what to do long-term, but tonight, I was promising Skip that I'd break it off with Chris and be his forever…
Danny frantically skipped forwards and backwards in the journal, but that was the only mention of 'Skipper' that he could find. He pulled out a phone and quickly dialed a number that he had memorized.
“Who are you calling?” Lindsay asked.
Danny held up one finger, telling him to wait. “Jenny? This is Detective Carlson.” he asked when the woman answered. “What can you tell me about a guy named Skipper?”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “What do you know about Skipper?” she asked.
Danny raised an eyebrow. “Not much,” he admitted. “Except that I know that he knows Tracey. And I'm not sure how.”
“We went to school with him,” Jenny said faintly. “Tracey dated him for a little while, before she went off to college. But it was nothing serious—at least for Tracey, it wasn't.” She paused with a frown. “You don't think Skip had anything to do with Tracey's death, do you?”
“What was their relationship like?” Danny asked, ignoring her question.
Jenny paused. “Well, like I said, the relationship was probably more serious to Skip than it was to Tracey, but still, he couldn't have had anything to do with Tracey's death—he loved her. He wanted to win her back, I'm sure, but he wouldn't have killed her, unless he thought there was absolutely no way he could ever have her again.”
Danny listened to her words with a sinking heart. “Jenny, do you have any sort of contact for Skipper? Or even a last name? I have some questions for him.”
He could tell Jenny was crying when she responded. “He wouldn't have done that,” she insisted. “I swear it. But if you need to talk to him, his phone number is 234-871-1919.” She hung up before he could ask any further questions.
Danny himself hung up the phone with shaking fingers and looked over at Lindsay in the passenger's seat. “I think we've just solved the case,” he said, but he didn't feel as exhilarated as he'd expected.
Epilogue
Sure enough, the more they looked into Skipper Willkinson's history, the more likely it seemed that he was Tracey's murderer. And the more likely it seemed that the other women had not been random targets. It went beyond being young, female, and a medical professional—Skip had known them all. One of them, he'd met at a bar. Another, he'd dated briefly. A third had been Tracey's roommate the year that Skipper had visited Tracey at university. And so on.
Danny heard the sentencing read out in the courtroom, feeling utterly numb. He was glad they'd finally gotten justice, of course, but he still didn't feel good about the whole thing, especially not when he saw Jenny crying over to one side. He looked over at Lindsay and gave him a silent signal to show he was leaving the room the back way. There would be too many reporters in the front, and although he normally would have answered their questions, today he didn't have the heart.
Lindsay followed him.
“You okay, Danny?” the man asked.
Danny shrugged and then shook his head. “I don't know that I can do this anymore,” he admitted. “It's not just obsessing about cases. I could work through that. But it's...”
Lindsay laid a hand on his shoulder as he trailed off, squeezing lightly. “You don't have to tell me,” he said. “I know. I can see it in you. I've known it for longer than you have, I think.” He paused. “What are you going to do instead?”
Danny smiled bitterly. “Not sure,” he admitted. “I worked my whole life for this. Which is part of why I can't do this anymore, I guess. Skipper worked his whole life to be with Tracey, didn't he? And look where that got him in the end. Maybe any amount of fixation is a bad thing.”
Lindsay snorted. “I don't think picking the perfect occupation for yourself is necessarily
going to make you a serial killer,” he said.
“We never did figure out what those runes meant,” Danny said. “I always wanted to ask, but instead, we were too busy asking about the deaths.”
“It was the same mark as on the front of Tracey's locker,” Lindsay said. “I'm surprised you didn't realize. I asked Chris about it at one point and he just smirked and said he had dropped a bunch of spaghetti noodles on the floor the night of their first real date and that was the pattern they all fell into.”
Danny took a shaky breath. “You better train your next partner well,” he said finally, staring out at the street rather than looking at Lindsay. “And don't get yourself killed.”
“Should be easier now my partner isn't crazy,” Lindsay teased, clapping a hand on Danny's shoulder. “I'll see you when you're stir-crazy and ready to come back.”
