11th hour

Chapter 62

“Here’s why I think you’re wrong,” I said. We were in bed now. I rested my cheek on Joe’s chest and kept talking. “Jacobi believes in the law, and going vigilante is not just unlawful but criminal. It carries the death penalty.

“Jacobi just wouldn’t put himself into that kind of hole, not ever. By the way, he seemed fine to me,” I said. “Relaxed. Looked good. Lost some weight. He’s doing PT. He had a good appetite.”

Joe got a couple of words in.

“You asked him what he thought about this Revenge shooter?”

“I did. He said that Revenge is smart and has access to real-time information about where his victims are. That he might have a police-band radio. Maybe he has informants.”

“Good points,” said Joe.

“Jacobi said he thinks the shooter is on a mission, maybe a suicide mission.”

“That also makes sense. But it doesn’t rule Jacobi out.”

“I took a chance, Joe. I said that there was talk that the shooter could be a cop. Jacobi said, ‘Could be a cop. Could be a hired gun. Could be a rival drug dealer who is taking out the competition.’”

“So you didn’t get the feeling he was trying to steer you away? That he was hiding something?”

“No. But if Jacobi wanted to keep something from me, I think he could do it. I stopped short of asking him to account for his time last night, Joe. I just couldn’t do that.”

“Good. I’m glad. Keep your head down, blondie.”

He kissed my forehead. I hugged him tighter. I was scared, frightened about Jacobi, the shooter, and when there’d be another killing. But I felt safe in my husband’s arms. There was nowhere I’d rather be.

“I talked to Jacobi about the house of heads.”

“What did he think?”

“That the typical victim in a situation like this one would be a young streetwalker. You remember that case in Albuquerque?”

“Those young working girls who were buried in the desert?”

“That’s the one. I think there were about eighteen of them, late teens to midtwenties, buried without clothes, so they were just skeletons when they were found.

“There was no identification, no clues to their killer.

There was a cop in the missing-persons division who had collected DNA, though, so some of those girls were identified.”

“The killer wasn’t caught, as I remember.”

“No. Not yet. So, we have identified one of our Jane Does, Marilyn Varick. She wasn’t a known prostitute.”

“Maybe she was just never picked up for prostitution.”

“Agreed,” I said. “The stock profile for someone who preys on prostitutes is white male, thirty-five to fifty, has been in trouble with the law.”

Joe said, “Harry Chandler is about sixty, isn’t he?”

“Sixty-three. So, if he did it, he wants to be near his victims. And if that’s the case, I don’t see him as the one who dug them up. Someone else is leaving the message.”

“It’s a very frayed loose end,” said Joe.

“Isn’t it though?”

My mind went back to Jacobi. I saw him sitting across from me at LuLu’s, every bit my partner and friend of a dozen years.

I said, “Jacobi isn’t the shooter, Joe. He couldn’t be. I know him so well.”

“Do we ever really know anyone?” Joe said.