Girl Most Likely

Twenty-Two

The sprawling ultramodern Midwest Medical Center on the outskirts of Galena on Highway 20 West had, a dozen years ago, replaced the much smaller Galena-Stauss Hospital.

For a police chief like Krista, the Medical Center was unquestionably a real boon to the community. But she also found it a little over-the-top, from the lobby’s high vaulted ceiling and indirect lighting to the self-noodling mahogany baby grand and sweeping ceramic-tiled staircase leading to a “family meditation” room. The modern design and mission-style trappings of the overthought facility might have been comforting to her if her mother hadn’t died here.

Not that Mom hadn’t received the best care — Krista herself had recommended the Medical Center to her father and mother over the Dubuque options, in part to be closer to her mom but also because it was so highly regarded.

But she was worried about Pop. Booker Jackson had called and said “no worries, everything’s fine”—her father had been assaulted by two “Chicago goons” (now in custody and jailed) and taken to the ER at the Medical Center. Her first reaction, past the initial alarm, was relief — she knew he’d receive top treatment there.

When she was on her way to the hospital, however, Booker called again to say her father had been treated and admitted to a room for an overnight stay and observation. Which on the face of it was fine. The patient “suites,” as they were called, were the most attractive, spacious hospital rooms Krista had ever seen.

Her mother had died in one.

Krista worried about the psychological impact that might have on Pop. She told herself she was being silly, but then she thought about him sitting in his comfy recliner in the ranch-style on Marion Street with a gun barrel in his mouth.

As she slipped into his room, closing the door behind her, Pop appeared to be sleeping. She was relieved to see he was not on an IV. The “suite” was exactly like the one Mom had been in — all shades of yellow and green with hardwood flooring, a wood-paneled wall behind the sizable hospital bed with its country-style quilt; above the bed a framed Galena landscape, a hot air balloon floating over the town. A lime-colored recliner sat in a corner, a green-and-yellow couch stretched beneath a big window, blinds shut.

She pulled up a hardwood visitor’s chair as quietly as she could and sat beside the bed, her father on his back but his face angled toward her, eyes closed.

“It’s quiet out there,” he said. “Too quiet.”

She laughed softly. “You’re such a cornball.”

He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “You should see the other guys.”

“You don’t look so bad.” She was on her feet now, at his bedside.

“You haven’t seen my ribs.”

She leaned in. “How bad, Pop?”

“Broke one and I was lucky at that. Both those SOBs were kicking me in the sides.”

“I’m so sorry...”

“Don’t apologize for them. Anyway — maybe I deserved getting kicked.”

“Why is that?”

“Going around Chicago, poking into politics and dirty dealings.”

She gestured behind her, toward Galena. “Booker has both of them locked up. He says he’s going to look into this himself.”

“Tell him I have a Chicago police contact for him.”

“Will do. Your friend Barney?”

“My friend Barney.”

“So does this mean you’re on to something?”

His eyebrows went up; even so, his eyes looked barely awake. “You mean, are one or any combination of Alex Cannon, Daniel Rule, and Sonny Salerno involved in these killings? Unlikely. I just got warned not to poke into their business. I doubt your classmate Alex knows anything about it.”

“Might be able to embarrass all of them, though. And those two strong-arms will do some time. Assault charges. Beating up on a Galena cop who came asking questions.”

“Beating up on me? Sounds kind of schoolyard.”

“Well, ‘schoolyard’ is closer to our case. Something ten or more years ago, involving my classmates, sparked these murders, don’t you think?”

“No argument.”

“Even with you getting leaned on, hard, the idea of a professional killer being responsible for the Sue Logan and Astrid Lund homicides, playing psycho as a sort of cover-up?... It’s just too far-fetched.”

“Smart daughter I got.”

“They’re keeping you overnight?”

“Yeah. They took some X-rays. Gonna keep an eye on me. Should be out of here in the morning.”

“Good.”

“Something we haven’t talked about.”

“Oh?”

“Crank this thing up.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Not all the way, just enough.”

She did as she was told. He winced and smiled at her at the same time.

Then he said, “In Chicago, I looked over the complete case file that cop Hastings in Clearwater sent. About the Logan homicide. I’ve been mulling it ever since.”

“And?”

“In both instances, the killer had been known to the woman.”

“You sound sure of that.”

“Two cups of coffee at Logan’s, two cups of tea at Lund’s. He or she was invited in. Takes the time to wash the cups out in the sink, after each crime. Logan answered the door and was stabbed where she stood. Lund allowed the killer in and on leaving, he or she placed duct tape on the latch to reenter.”

She was slowly nodding. “Both had a friendly conversation with the victim, left... and returned.”

“That seems to be the case.”

“Why would it go down this way, do you think?”

“If both women knew the person, and opened the door for him or her, the killing could have taken place right there and then. But the washed-out cups, and bloody footsteps leading to and away from the sink, revealed by luminol, indicate a pre-kill visit that required some cleanup.”

“Why the pre-visit, though?”

Pop’s eyes narrowed. “If something in the past — something bad — is at the root of these homicides, perhaps the killer wanted to determine whether the victim needed killing.”

She was nodding again, quicker now. “People reminisce at class reunions. Who they talk to, and what memories they’re inclined to share, could matter.”

“Could really matter here. And two... two women are dead. So whatever... whatever that bad thing is they... they share it.”

She could see he was fading. Shouldn’t have allowed him to talk so much. This visit had gone on long enough.

She asked him, “How much are you hurting?”

“Right now not much. I’m on really good drugs. But I’m... I’m taped up like half a mummy.”

“Well, get some sleep... Daddy.”

He smiled at her. “That I can manage.”

She glanced around. “Does it... bother you? Being here?”

He knew what she meant. “No. When I think of your mom, in this setting? She’s smiling.”

Krista nodded. “Know what you mean.”

“Now, if they wheel me into the ICU, I just might get depressed.”

She laughed gently, gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Goofball.”

When she was at the door, he called out to her. “Honey?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go over to the sheriff’s office.”

That was where the holding cells were. Across the street from the PD, in the massive, mostly old Courthouse and Public Safety complex.

“Let Booker handle it,” he said. “You’ve had a long day. Go home and get some sleep. We have things to do tomorrow.”

“Now you’re ordering the chief of police around?”

“I’m telling little Krista Larson. Do as your daddy says.”

She saluted and, in her best Charlie Chan’s number one daughter — style, said, “Okay, Pop.”

Ten minutes later she was pulling her Toyota into the brick drive at home. She got out, locked the car with the fob, then walked over to the back door, the kitchen entrance, which both she and her dad almost always used.

The front porch — with its view of the downtown, broken by church steeples, and the river beyond that — was for sitting and taking it all in... at a different time of year. But soon enough it would warm up and she and Pop would be sitting in rockers with iced tea or lemonade or more likely Carlsbergs.

She was unlocking the door when the male voice startled her.

“Krista!”

He came walking up from the street, first in shadow from a tree, then distinct in the combined glow of moon and street light. His car was parked across the way.

Josh Webster.

Jessy’s Josh. Ambling toward her in a blue sweatshirt with red letters (ALL AMERICAN) over white ones (POPCORN STORE), tan khakis, and white sneakers. He came up to her and she knew at once he and his crew had made a batch of cheese corn today.

“You got a few minutes?” he asked shyly.

He had a nice half smile and even now, smelling of his business, borderline pudgy, this remained the handsome guy with dark blue eyes and blond hair who had made many a GHS girl’s heart flutter. Including a cheerleader named Jessica Dolan.

“Sure,” Krista said. “What’s up?”

He nodded toward the house, frowned just a little. “Is, uh... Mr. Larson home?”

“Not right now,” she said, and for some reason didn’t go any further.

“Good,” he said.

“Good?”

“This is private. Personal. I mean, you can tell him, if you like. That’s up to you. But I think it’d just about kill me to have to sit and tell you with him listening in.”

“Starting to sound serious, Josh.”

“It kind of is,” he said, and shrugged. He seemed embarrassed. Or was he... ashamed?

Suddenly she was glad the Glock 21 was on her hip. Maybe that was stupid — this was Josh, for Pete’s sake! — but what her father had told her was fresh in her mind. That the killer probably visited his victims in a friendly way before calling back later with a butcher knife.

She went to the door and unlocked it.

“Go on in,” she said, gesturing for him to lead the way.

Soon they were sitting at the same end of the table where she and her father took their meals.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “I have some Coors Light I’m trying to get rid of. And Carlsberg is the house favorite.”

He smiled a little, her friendliness seeming to put him at ease some. “I’d take a Coors Light off your hands.”

She got it for him, nothing for herself. Then she sat, resting her left hand on the table and keeping her right hand in her lap. Near the holstered Glock.

He gulped a couple of swallows. He was looking straight ahead, not to his left where she sat. He rarely blinked. His mouth moved around, like he was trying to say something but his lips were glued shut. In the silly sweatshirt, he looked like a big kid.

Finally he said, “There are some things you should know.”

“I could stand to know a lot of things,” she said with a smile. It was a remark that would work if this were about nothing. But she already thought it was about something...

He said, “Some of what you need to know?... I don’t want you to talk to Jessy about. If you can manage it. I mean, if you have to... if for some reason you think it’s necessary... okay. I understand. You got my go-ahead. But only then. Only then.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“I follow,” she said, as if she did.

He sighed. Then blurted: “I went out with Astrid, end of junior year, and over the summer. Maybe you remember.”

“I think so.” Keeping track of Astrid’s romantic activities was tough at the time, let alone reconstructing them ten years later.

He swigged Coors Light. “Well, I, uh... it got serious.”

“All right.”

His eyes swung to hers. “I mean... real serious.”

“Okay.”

He looked away again. “Luckily I’d been saving up. I worked summers at a gas station. I wanted a car. I had a car, an old one, my dad bought me, but... I wanted something really cool. I mean, I was kind of riding high back then. Football team, basketball, too.”

She was starting to understand, or anyway she thought she might. “Go on.”

Another swig. “So, uh... hell. Damnit. This is harder than I thought. And I thought it was going to be hard!”

“You got Astrid pregnant.”

He looked right at her. His mouth dropped like a trapdoor. “How... how did you know?”

“You two were real serious. Luckily you had money saved up. You gave her money to take care of it.”

He gazed at her, astonished. “That’s right. Are you psychic?”

She almost said, I’m a detective, but instead said, “No. It just makes sense.”

“And do you know what it means?” He didn’t wait for her to answer that, though she could have. “I paid for an abortion. I took a child’s life! A child of mine!”

“Let’s not go there,” she said. “Let’s go to the real problem.”

He said nothing.

She said it for him: “Jessy. She doesn’t know, does she?”

He shook his head. “No.” He kept shaking it for a while. His eyes were downcast. When they came up, and swung to her, they were haunted. Not red from crying. Not tearing up. Haunted.

“Senior year I started dating Jessy,” he said quietly. “We’d known each other for a long time. Since youth group at Saint Mary’s. We were friends who got to be more than friends, but it was based on that. Knowing each other forever, I mean.”

“You got married right out of high school.”

He nodded. “Jessy was pregnant. I think you knew that. I think everybody knew that. But there was no question that I wouldn’t marry her. I loved her then and I love her now. We have wonderful kids. I put my family first. Don’t I?”

She knew two things about Josh: he put his business first; and he was apparently a fertile sucker.

But she said, “Of course you do.”

“Even now,” he said, “it would break her heart to know what I did. That I paid for Astrid’s abortion.”

If her right hand wasn’t below the table near her Glock, she’d have patted his hand. “Jessy would stand by you. You must know that, Josh. Anyway, it was a long time ago. She’d forgive you.”

He was shaking his head again. “She is such a devout Catholic. I was always more just a half-ass of a one. She would say she forgives me. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave me. Because she can’t. God wouldn’t let her.”

Now he was tearing up.

Krista said, “I won’t pretend to tell you I know exactly how she would react. I know her, she’s my best friend, but I don’t know her like you do. But I think she’d be an adult about it. And I promise you, Josh... this won’t come out unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Krista. Bless you.”

At least he didn’t add, “My child.”

“You okay, Josh?”

“There’s, uh...”

“Yes?”

“There’s more.”

What was this, an infomercial?

His shame gave way to embarrassment again. “We told you we were visiting Jessy’s sister and her husband. And we were.”

“Okay.”

“What we, uh, didn’t tell you... and should have, because you wouldn’t have to look very hard to find out... is Jessy’s sister and her husband have a time-share in Florida. And that’s where we were. With them. Not at the Timber Lake cabin, like I made it sound.”

“... Where in Florida is the time-share?”

“Saint Petersburg. That’s close to Clearwater, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Very.”

He sat forward. “But my in-laws, they can vouch for us. We were with them every day, every evening that week. Just ask them.”

“I will,” she said.

Her phone vibrated in her pants pocket. She answered it: “Yeah.”

Booker again. “We have another one.”

“Another beating?”

“No. Another one. A murder. That waitress. Jasmine Peterson.”

Her stomach fell. “... Same MO?”

“Pretty much. You know that little park off Main? She was killed and dragged there. She got off at nine and that’s close to her work. So it must’ve been around then. It’s, what... ten-something now.”

“On my way.” She clicked off.

Josh was just sitting there, apparently oblivious.

She asked, “Were you waiting long for me, Josh? Out front?”

He shrugged. “Maybe half an hour. That’s okay. I was collecting my thoughts.”

So even if Josh was the killer, she didn’t figure she was in immediate danger — his presence here might mean he was establishing an alibi.

“I have to go,” she said.

Josh chugged the rest of his beer and went to the door, opened it for her.

“After you,” she said.