“Yes, ma’am,” I replied remembering my southern manners. “We are looking for Laura Bisceglia. Do you know where I can find her?”
“Are you a friend of hers?” the woman asked. She reached her hand out to shake mine. Her grip was firm but her hand ice cold. “I’m Elaine.”
“Riley. No, we aren’t friends exactly, but I need to speak with her. Have you seen her around?”
Elaine looked at Laura’s front door and then back at me. She turned back to look at her own house for a moment and then back to Laura’s. Elaine put her hand on my arm and pulled me to the far side of the lawn closer to Laura’s SUV and away from her own house.
She spoke in a voice only slightly higher than a whisper.
“My husband doesn’t like me to get involved in other people’s business, you understand. Laura is a sweet girl. I’m worried about her. I haven’t seen her since Friday afternoon. That man on the news with the missing wife came to pick her up. I know it was him. I’ve seen him here before. I haven’t seen Laura after that. Her car has been in the driveway and no lights on in the house all week. I was going to wait another day and then call her parents.”
“Has anyone been by that you’ve seen? What about friends? Could she be with them?” I asked hopefully.
“Her parents and other family are in Chicago and a brother up in New York. She has a good deal of friends, but they haven’t been over in a long while. When she goes away, she asks me to take in her mail. She never mentioned a trip to me.”
That feeling down deep in the pit of my stomach was starting to grow. I didn’t want to alarm Elaine just yet so I said, “Wait right here, Elaine, let me run around back and grab my partner. We can all talk together.”
CHAPTER 24
I WALKED QUICKLY to the back of the house and found Cooper standing on the middle rung of an old wooden ladder looking into the back windows of the house.
“See anything?” I asked, coming up behind him.
“No, just the purse. That’s definitely a cellphone on the table. I knocked several more times. No answer. Any luck with the neighbors?” Cooper asked, climbing back down the ladder and moving it to the side of garage.
“Unfortunately, yes. I stopped her mid-story though. I wanted you to be there to hear what she had to say. It’s Laura’s next door neighbor. Her name is Elaine. The last time she saw Laura she was leaving with George on Friday afternoon. She hasn’t seen her since.”
Cooper cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “Out of town?”
I shrugged. “Elaine said she usually takes in her mail if she goes away. It seems they were at least fairly friendly. It’s that kind of neighborhood. But Coop, I know from George that it didn’t go well between them on Friday night. He ended it with her for good. He said he brought her home and dropped her off. Maybe she did just take off with friends and forgot to tell Elaine. I bet she was pretty upset after the break up.”
“Okay, let’s go talk to Elaine. We might need to call Luke before we get too far in, but let’s see what we can find out before we need to do that,” Cooper said. I agreed.
We walked back around to the front of the house where I made introductions. Then we convinced Elaine that we should meet in her house at a table so we could take some notes if needed. Elaine really didn’t want to get her husband involved but then admitted it was probably too late for that.
The three of us came through Elaine’s front door and were greeted by Elaine’s husband Don sitting in his recliner, iced tea in hand watching television. He barely even nodded in our direction as we walked through the house towards the kitchen. Her home reminded me of someone’s grandma’s house. It was warm and cozy and the kitchen smelled like wonderful things were constantly cooking in the oven. Cooper and I sat around her small kitchen table as she pulled out three glasses and poured us all some sweet tea without bothering to ask if we wanted any.
“Tell me who you two are again before we go any further,” Elaine requested as she joined us at the table.
“We’re private investigators. We are working on a case where Laura might be a witness. We just need to speak with her,” Cooper explained.
“I see,” Elaine said. Then she asked, “Is it the Maime LaRue Brewer case? I’ve been following it on TV. I don’t want to get involved in all that.”
She said it loud enough for her husband to hear her protest.
“We understand,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Yes, we are looking for Maime. We know George was with Laura the night Maime went missing. All we need to do is confirm that with Laura.”
Elaine shook her head in understanding. “Laura’s a good girl, you have to understand that. She got mixed up with George Brewer, and she hasn’t been the same since. We used to sit out on the porch and have nice long talks. She was good at her job at the hospital and has a lot of friends. But since she started seeing him, everything changed for her.”
“Tell me what you mean, everything changed? Did she confide in you about the affair?” I asked, taking a sip of my tea.
“Well, she doesn’t come out of the house much anymore. She doesn’t have friends over like she used to. The last time I saw her, she looked tired and like she had been crying.”
I waited, nodding my head to urge Elaine to continue.
“She did tell me a little about the affair. George played mind games. He would pull her in and then push her away if she got too close. He’d never let her go enough for her move on. As soon as she’d get herself together and take a step forward, he’d come back around again. It was too much for her. She couldn’t seem to get out of his hold. I knew she was having some trouble at work, too. Her boss said her performance on the job was suffering.”
After a few beats of silence, Elaine pounded her frail fist down on the table and said forcefully, “That man ruined her.”
I reached out and put my hand on top of Elaine’s arm, but there was nothing I could really say. George had a way of doing that to nice women. It seemed he knew what weakness to play. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt, but hearing Elaine, I was beginning to wonder if George was a little more destructive than I realized.
Cooper interrupted the moment. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Elaine straightened in her seat and wiped her eyes. Turning to Cooper, she said, “Friday. I happen to look out the window at the same time she was getting into that man’s truck. I never saw her come home that night, but then again, I don’t stay up very late.”
“What about before then? When was the last time you really spoke with her?”
“Let’s see, it had to have been maybe Wednesday of last week. I saw her bringing in groceries. I went out to say hello. She was in a rush so we didn’t get too much of a chance to talk. She did seem happier than usual.”
“Do you happen to have a picture of Laura?” Cooper asked. I knew where he was going. I silently said a little prayer she wasn’t one of the women found in the river.
“I don’t, but I can do you one better,” Elaine said, getting up and walking to a kitchen drawer. She pulled out a key attached to a purple grappling hook and waved it at us. “I’ve got her house key.”
CHAPTER 25
“DON’T TELL ME you haven’t got anything, Luke. Don’t even say it,” Captain Meadows demanded as he entered the empty conference room where Luke waited at the far end. Luke had scheduled an impromptu staff meeting with all the detectives that were available to start going over the evidence of the three Jane Does that were found in the river. Finding a connection to Maime LaRue Brewer was also on the agenda.
Besides Luke and his partner, there were only five other homicide detectives at the Little Rock Police Department available for the meeting. The three old timers – Jenkins, Richards and Romero – where there. They mostly handled the gang homicides in the southeast part of the city. They were all past retirement age but still hanging on. Then there was the newest promotion Phillips, a young rookie detective who followed the old timers aroun
d like a puppy. Phillips mostly fetched coffee and stood around and waited for orders.
Then there was the transfer from Tampa, Florida, David Norwalk – who was frankly a know-it-all that Luke wished was another police force’s nightmare instead of their own. Since the first day Norwalk arrived almost a year ago, he rubbed Luke the wrong way. He handled arson, thefts and then homicide cases, when needed. Nobody liked working with Norwalk. He gave fast, often inaccurate opinions but spoke them like they were cold hard fact. He was the kind of guy that spoke first and thought later, if at all. There was a real sense of camaraderie among the detectives. They all helped each other out when they could, pitched in for one another, but not Norwalk. It was like he was in competition with all of them.
Luke stood against the back far end of the table and waited. The other detectives, in their pressed khakis, dress shirts and ties, took their seats one by one and talked amongst themselves as they waited for the meeting to start. Luke noticed Cap looked downright haggard and didn’t talk to anyone. Instead, he stared hard at Luke. He wished he had some good news to share. He was at a loss.
After everyone got settled, Luke flipped the switch on the wall and the ceiling fans overhead started to hum. He stood in front of a large dry erase board and an equally large cork board next to it and laid the three manila case files he held in his hands on the table. He picked up a dry erase marker and nervously snapped the marker top off and back on. Once all eyes were on him, he started.
“Thanks for meeting today. As you know, we now have had three homicides and one missing woman. What we don’t know is if they are connected. The first woman was found in the River Market District, the second tangled by a boat dock in Murray Park, and the last not even a half mile from her along the side of the river caught in some shallow water. We know very little so far, but a quick look at the cases show they’re similar. All were found in their underwear and bras less than a couple of miles from each other, all within roughly twenty-four hours. Something Cooper pointed out, each was wearing a single item of jewelry.”
The detectives started talking at once. Luke quieted them back down and continued.
“The first woman had on a ring, the second had on a bracelet and the third a pair of earrings. All of what appears to be expensive quality. The medical examiner is working up toxicology and cause and manner of death. On first glance, it looks like strangulation. One last thing to note, the last woman we just found today had the word whore written across her stomach in pink. We don’t know if it was marker, or as the medical examiner suggested, maybe nail polish. No idea yet on approximate times of death.”
“Any chance we get identification on any of the women?” Cap asked, pulling the file folders off the table and passing them around to the detectives. The files had crime scene photos and photos of the deceased women.
“We’re working on it,” Luke responded. Then he outlined the details of the files along with the basics he knew about the women; height, hair color and approximate age.
Cap nodded and wrote down some notes. He directed, “When we get enough information on them, let’s get it out across the state to all the local police departments, and let’s make sure to get it into NCIC and NamUs.”
Luke routinely used NCIC – the National Crime Information Center, which helped the department on many cases. They used it to apprehend fugitives, locate missing persons and recover stolen property. Others had even identified terrorists using the system. He was less familiar with NamUs – an initiative by the Department of Justice called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Luke jotted down some notes on his growing list.
A question from the back caught Luke’s attention. “Any other similarities?” David Norwalk asked.
“No. Nothing definitive yet. Of course, it’s been less than twenty-four hours since the first woman was found and less than six hours since the last. Ligature marks on their wrists and ankles and one around their necks. Clear sign of petechiae present, which the guess of strangulation probably wouldn’t be that far off,” Luke detailed.
The meeting continued as Luke fielded questions from most of the detectives. He made notes on the board, tacked up relevant documents and engaged them all in discussion.
Unfortunately, Luke couldn’t answer most of the questions yet. He had asked for a rush from the medical examiner’s office and hoped Purvis would have some answers at the latest by tomorrow morning. They didn’t really know any more than the basics. Without some DNA, time and cause of death or some hits in the database for possible identification, they didn’t have much to go on yet. They would need to identify the women to really start investigating. Even the witnesses who found the bodies didn’t have much to say.
No one in the group could decide if the Brewer case was connected or not. There was a fifty-fifty divide. Maime was roughly the same age as the other women and same build as the first woman. That’s all they had to go on, other than the women washing up near George’s office. Until Maime was found or they could identify the other women and the circumstances of their deaths, too many unknowns remained.
“The media seems to be right on these cases. We need to make some kind of official statement soon,” Luke reminded them when the questions ended.
“Are we saying we have a serial killer on our hands?” Jenkins wanted to know. Ted Jenkins was the oldest of the old timers and the only white guy among the three senior detectives.
“I don’t think we can make that jump at all until we have more information. It’s certainly not a term we want the media to run with. No need to cause unnecessary alarm.”
Luke barely got out his last word before Norwalk shot his mouth off.
“Of course it’s a serial killer. What else could it be? Three victims, all women and all the same age. They died the same way and found in the same place. Don’t be stupid.”
Luke couldn’t deal with a pissing match right now. Before he could respond though, Cap spoke up forcefully.
“Under no circumstance will anyone from this department mention anything about a serial killer to anyone. Not the Brewer family, no other law enforcement and most definitely not the media. We close all leaks from this office immediately. That is a direct order. Got it?”
Each detective nodded in agreement. Norwalk sulked but didn’t say another word.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go. Get to work,” Cap barked loudly.
They filed out one by one from the conference room.
As Luke walked by, Norwalk muttered under his breath, “When you mess up the biggest case of your career, I’m going to have your job.”
Luke didn’t even respond. He just stopped and watched Norwalk walk away. He hated the guy. Luke didn’t need more pressure right now, but that was typical Norwalk all the way. Norwalk had been gunning for Luke’s position as the head of the violent crime’s division since the day he started. Luke was going to make sure he’d never give him the chance.
CHAPTER 26
JUST AS I HEARD THE LOCK CLICK OPEN to Laura’s front door, Cooper grabbed a hold of my hair and give me a tug backwards, probably more forcefully than he meant. I stumbled over my own feet, turned on him and yelled, “What are you doing?”
Cooper glared at me and took the keys out of my hand. He stood looking down at me with his hands on his hips. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Truth was I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. When Elaine showed us Laura’s key, the only thing I wanted to do was get inside her house and find a photo of her. That’s what I was thinking as I sprinted out of Elaine’s house. I made it to Laura’s porch before anyone else caught up.
“We have to know if it’s her or not,” I said. I stepped back and made room for Elaine as she joined us on the porch.
“You flew out of the house so fast I assumed you’d be in already. What are you doing out here?” Elaine inquired, a little out of breath from trying to keep up with us.
I turned to Cooper waiting for an answer since he was the
one who was slowing this process down. “It’s breaking and entering. We have no permission to go into her house,” Cooper reminded me. “And we don’t know...”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence for me. I knew what he was going to say. We had no idea if Laura’s house was going to be a crime scene or not. If she really was missing, trampling through her house could disturb possible evidence. Touching her phone, going through her purse would all be off limits, at least for now.
“Well what do you suppose we do? We can’t just stand out here and wait,” I said, starting to pace back and forth the distance of the porch.
Cooper had the key now. It seemed he was in charge. If I had been alone, I’d already been in and out of the house and knew what I needed to know.
Cooper pulled his cellphone from his pocket, scrolled through numbers and placed a call. He left it on speaker, volume up so we could hear. When he got his neighbor Jenny on the phone, he asked when the last time was she had spoken to Laura. She hadn’t and told him that Laura had been a no show for her hospital shift this morning. Cooper didn’t tell her we were standing on Laura’s porch. He just let her know he’d look into it and be in touch. As he wrapped up the call, Elaine stood watching the both of us.
“I have permission to go in. I take in her mail when she’s away,” Elaine ventured.
Cooper shook his head no and called another number. No speaker phone this time, but I didn’t have to hear the voice on the other end to know he was talking to Luke.
Cooper’s voice shifted and he got straight to the point. He explained about George’s alibi and then caught Luke up with recent developments. Elaine and I both waited for Cooper to get off the phone. I think Elaine was as frustrated as I was by the whole situation. Before either of us could stop her, she snatched the key out of Cooper’s hand, and faster than I thought the woman could move, clicked open the front door lock and entered Laura’s home.
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