Cold Truth

25

Craig Denver looked out onto the parking lot of the Bowers Inlet Police Department and wondered what the hell was going on in his town.

Women turning up dead, a man found in a Dumpster with his neck broken, a young girl missing and most likely dead as well. What the hell had happened to the sleepy little bay towns he’d loved all his life?

“Chief?” Phyl opened the door between her office and his and poked her head in. “I made some iced tea. I thought you might need something cold about now.”

“Thanks.”

She came into the office with a tall glass in her hand. Chief Denver slid an envelope over and gestured for her to place the glass on it.

“Do you have a minute?” he asked.

“Sure.” She stood uncertainly at the end of his desk.

“Sit.” He waved in the direction of the chairs and took a sip of the iced tea. “No one makes iced tea like you do, Phyl. I swear I’d keep you on even if you were a total incompetent, just to have a supply of your iced tea in the summer.”

She sat, crossed her legs, and waited.

He rubbed his temples as if in pain. “Honest to God, Phyl, I can’t keep up with all this. For the first time in my life, I’m second-guessing every move I make, every decision. I should have brought all four of those guys in for questioning yesterday. I didn’t, and now a man is dead and a woman is missing. What the hell was I thinking?”

“You were thinking if you try to push the killer too fast, you’ll lose him, send him back into whatever hole he’s been hiding in for the past twenty-six years. Which hasty action may well have done. Without probable cause, you have no arrest. Without evidence, you don’t have probable cause. You can’t hold four men because you think one of them might be a killer.”

“You sound like a cop, Phyl.”

“I sound like you sounded yesterday. Those were your arguments when you went back and forth with the DA’s office.”

“Still, maybe-”

“Forget maybe. You don’t even know that Sellers was killed by the same guy. As much as you say you don’t believe in coincidences, I gotta tell you, they happen.”

“What the hell do you make of all this, Phyl?” He stood and began to pace. “All these women, now Sellers…”

“I don’t know, Chief.” She shook her head, understanding that he didn’t expect her to have answers, he needed to bounce something off her. She was well practiced at letting him take his time getting to it.

“Did you know him, Carl Sellers?”

“I did. He was in my sister’s class,” she nodded, “though not a very popular guy, and he certainly wasn’t in with the group of guys you’re looking at. He was one of those who was just there. No real friends, no real enemies, not that I recall, anyway. One of those who left the Jersey Shore, ended up in some big city someplace-I think I heard he’s been living in Chicago -where he became very successful. Didn’t come back home much. Just sort of a schmo who got lucky when he grew up.”

“That was my impression, too, the little I remember about him.” He sat on the edge of the desk, sipped his tea, then put the glass back onto the envelope. “Feels like it’s all connected somehow, doesn’t it? I can’t figure out how, damn it. I’m having a hard time seeing the Strangler all of a sudden going from strangling women to breaking a man’s neck.”

“Maybe it was just a robbery after all. His wallet was missing, his watch.”

“Maybe so.” Denver ’s fingers tapped out an agitated rhythm on the desktop.

“You know, there have been a lot of social activities this week, Chief. Those four…” she pointed at the file she’d earlier placed on his desk with the faxes from FBI Agent Peyton, “they’ve been at pretty much all of them. I’ve seen them myself.”

“And what did you think, Phyl? You get strange vibes from any of them?”

“They’re all strange, if you ask me. But if you’re asking me if any one of them looked more likely than the others, well, no.” She rested an elbow on the edge of the desk. “Billy Calhoun, he’s still a loudmouth. Used to drive everyone crazy in school because he could get away with anything, his father being principal. And Jon Wainwright? He was always in the background, you know? Sneaking around. Kenny Kelly, well, as the son of a judge, he could have gotten away with murder back then. And Joey Patterson is still the goof he always was.” She paused, then added, “It’s funny, remembering how they were when we were in school. Everyone thought they were so cool. Now they’re all just middle-aged men with balding heads and expanding waistbands.”

The chief pretended to flinch. “ Lot of that going around these days, Phyl.”

“You wear your bald head well, Chief.” She smiled. “But if you’re asking me if there was anything about any one of them that gave me the willies, or made me think, ‘Yeah, this one’s the serial killer,’ I’m going to have to disappoint you. They all look normal. Just like everyone else.” She shook her head. “But that’s what makes it so scary, you know. Whoever he is, he looks as normal as anyone.”

“The beast is rarely marked on the outside,” he muttered.

“What?” she asked.

“Something Chief Wainwright used to say. The beast is rarely marked on the outside. Inside, he’s ugly and evil as sin. Outside, he looks like anyone.”

“Maybe that’s what makes him a beast.”

“I have a call in to the FBI; I’m asking for a few more agents. I need someone watching each of the four around the clock, see who goes where. I’ve tried surveillance with the few men I have, and I don’t have enough bodies to keep tabs on four people, twenty-four/seven. It’s impossible. Best I could do was to cover two of them. Not good enough.” He shook his head. “Obviously, not good enough. And I still have someone posted at Lucy Webb’s door around the clock. I can’t take the chance of leaving her unguarded.”

“Maybe if we work with the other PDs…” she began but he waved her off.

“I’m having a real problem with a couple of these departments. Except for Tilden, everyone seems to think they can handle this alone. Look to make a name for themselves, I guess. Dreaming about a book deal and an appearance on Good Morning America, maybe Letterman, for whoever brings this guy in.” His disgust at the prospect was evident. “And in the meantime, people just keep dying and disappearing.”

He shook his head.

“You know, if we’d known about some of these modern investigative techniques twenty-six years ago, we might have had him then. If we’d known how to lift fingerprints from skin, lift trace evidence, or even the profiling they do today, we might have gotten him.” Denver shook his head almost apologetically. “As it is now, we did everything right, as right as we could. Got the lab working, though why it takes so long to get results on some of these things is beyond me. Got the FBI in here right away. Got the profiler down here… we’ve got a sketch artist in to talk to Lucy Webb, see if we can get a picture of this guy. And another woman has still gone missing. Whatever we do from here on out, we’re still a day late, in my book.”

“That will be huge, the picture. We’ll have him, once we have his face. Especially if it’s someone local.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s two now. The artist is still with Lucy. Maybe in another hour or so we’ll have him ID’d. That should make you feel optimistic.”

“I’ll be optimistic when I have someone sitting in that back room.”

“What did the profiler say?”

“She believes he started this as a young man, that the Burkes were his first kills. That he was after Jenny, just unfortunate for Bob that he came home early that day, and that he didn’t expect the kids to come home when they did.” He tapped his fingers on the side of the glass. “Said that he hadn’t gone there with the intention of killing Jenny, that he thought she’d be waiting for him. That he was obsessed with her, and thought she felt the same way about him, but when she started fighting him, he went into a rage and killed her. That he keeps killing all these other women who look like her because each time he thinks maybe it will turn out right for him, but when it doesn’t, he ends up killing again.”

“Never saw that coming, back then. The killings all seemed so different.”

“That’s what we thought at the time.”

“Did she say anything else about him, anything that could give us an idea of what kind of person he might have been back then?”

“She asked if he had a record as a juvie. I told her that if any of these four”-he slid the list from the file and placed it in the center of his desk-“had gotten into any serious trouble, I’d have been the last to know. No rookie was going to be made privy to that sort of thing. But she-Dr. McCall-thought that was significant, any early criminal activities.”

“What kind of activities?”

“Stuff other than speeding and starting fights on the school grounds. She asked specifically about sex offenses. Flashing. Peeping Tom-type stuff. She said sometimes guys who engage in that sort of thing when they’re young graduate to more serious sex offenses later on.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t help her with that. I don’t know who’d’a known about it, if any of those boys had been up to stuff like that.”

“I did,” Phyl said softly.

It took him a moment to respond.

“What? You did what?”

“I knew.”

His eyes narrowed. “Phyl, what are you trying to say?”

“I know who the peeper was.” She picked up a pen that sat at mid-desk, reached for the list, and circled a name. She then turned the sheet of paper around for him to see the name she’d marked.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

He frowned. “How do you know?”

“I was the peepee.”

Denver ’s jaw dropped.

“Right.” She nodded firmly. “I’m the one he peeped.”

“First I ever heard of this.”

“I imagine it is. But as you said, as a rookie, you wouldn’t have been brought into it.”

“Son of a bitch.” Denver slapped his hand on the top of his desk.

“That’s pretty much what my father said at the time.”

“Is this the face, Lucy? Is this the man who attacked you?” Kendra Smith held up the sketch she’d made from the description Lucy had given her. It had taken well over two hours, and though she knew her subject was rapidly tiring, she needed to have every detail right before she left the hospital room. The devil’s in the details, as her mother used to say. When it came to creating a composite, the details were crucial. An accurate sketch could make the difference between catching a killer and accusing an innocent man. Kendra took her responsibility very seriously. Once she signed her name to the picture she’d drawn, there would be no mistakes.

“That’s him, yes. That’s him.” Lucy’s voice was almost nonexistent after a couple hours of speaking. Her throat was still bruised, but she’d insisted on completing the sketch as soon as possible.

Cass knocked on the partially closed door. “May we come in?”

“You’re just in time.” Kendra looked beyond Cass to speak directly to Rick. “We just finished.”

“Cass, this is Kendra Smith,” Rick introduced the artist. “Kendra, Cass is the detective here in Bowers Inlet…”

He paused as Cass embraced Lucy.

“And she’s also Lucy’s cousin,” he added.

“Well, Lucy’s a trooper. She did an incredible job. In spite of the fact that she tells me there was low light in the room where she was attacked, she kept her eyes open.” Kendra held up the sketch she’d completed. “Agent Cisco, I believe this is your man.”

Dark hair going light at the temples and receding slightly. Thick neck. Eyes deep and wide apart. Chiseled jawline, ears close to the head. Lines around the mouth and eyes.

“Lucy, had you seen this man before? Before the night he attacked you?” Cass was asking as she reached for the sketch.

“I think I did. I think he was in the video store last weekend when I went in for a movie. Was that Saturday night?” Lucy squeezed her eyes tightly closed. “God, it seems like so long ago.”

Cass patted Lucy’s arm. “You did a terrific job, Luce. I’m so proud of you.”

She took the sketch from Rick’s hands, and paused. Turning back to him, she lowered her voice and said, “He was in the restaurant last night. He was with three…”

She took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. “He was with three other men. What are the chances the four we’ve been looking for were right under our noses?”

Rick took a second look at the sketch.

“Shit, you’re right. He was there.” He rubbed his chin. “No coincidence that he was at the Inn. He must have been watching you, Cass.”

“Let’s get this over to the chief. I’ll bet my life he’ll recognize this face.” She leaned over and kissed Lucy soundly on the cheek. “You did it, Lulu. We’re going to get him, and you were the one who led the way.”

“If you do get him, it will have been worth it,” Lucy whispered.

“No ifs. He’s ours now.” Cass turned to Kendra. “Thanks so much. This is excellent work.”

“Lucy did the hard part,” Kendra said modestly. “I’m only the translator.”

“Whatever you call it, you have a gift. Thank you.” Cass headed toward the door.

“Thanks, Kendra. I’ll let you know when we get him.” Rick followed Cass into the hall and stepped around the officer who was standing guard.

“I’ll race you to the elevator,” Cass said, but as they approached the small lobby between elevator cars, they noticed both cars had arrows pointing up.

“Forget it. Let’s take the steps.” Rick grabbed her by the arm and steered her toward the stairwell.

They ran down several flights then through the double doors that led to the lobby, and out the side door that opened to the parking garage. Up one more flight to Rick’s car, then out onto Claymore Boulevard, which led directly into Bowers Inlet. Five minutes more and they were at the police station.

Cass barely knocked on Denver ’s door.

“We have a face,” she said breathlessly as she held up the sketch.

“And I have the name,” Denver told them.

“Do we know where he is?” Rick asked.

“We know where he’s been. He leased a house over on Darien Road. I already called for a warrant. Judge Newburg is signing it as we speak. It should arrive about the same time we do. We’ll start there.”

“Chief, I want back on the job.” Cass’s hands settled on her hips, her arguments already on the tip of her tongue. It was clear she was ready to fight if she had to.

“With restrictions. One, you don’t go inside until we know for certain if he’s there…”

“How many officers do we have?” Rick asked before Cass could respond. “Besides the three of us.”

“I have three more meeting us at the scene and I’ve already requested backup from Tilden.”

“But we’re lead, right?” Cass paused in the doorway.

“I said you could come along with restrictions,” Denver reminded her. “I know the temptation to nail this guy is going to be overwhelming for you. But let someone else bring him down, you hear me? It’s in everyone’s best interest if you do not put your hands on him. If you can’t go along with that, you stay outside until it’s over. Are we understood?”

“Sure. I understand.” She nodded, her mouth a straight, grim line. “You want this clean.”

“It’s going to be clean. What I want is to avoid any complications in the future. I want this done professionally-not that you’re not professional, Cass-but for you, this is highly personal. You were one of his first victims. I don’t want your fingerprints on him when we take him down. And I want him alive to answer for every last victim.”

She nodded. She didn’t like it, but she understood. Someone else would have to bring him in. Which was okay, though not the way she wanted it to end.

What she wanted was to bring him down, alone. What she wanted was to look into the eyes of the man who had murdered her family, hold a pistol to his heart, and fire.