Killing Fear

THREE

Detective Will Hooper came up from the basement where he’d retrieved the files on Theodore Glenn in preparation for the task-force meeting.

Chief Causey thought Will was crazy when he insisted on calling the meeting first thing Sunday morning, insisting that Glenn would head for the border. Will argued passionately, knowing Glenn would return to San Diego to make good on his threat.

Though unconvinced, Causey ordered everyone threatened by Glenn to be notified. He also agreed to put together the task force as a precautionary measure.

Chief Causey’s opinion aside, there was no doubt in Will’s mind that Theodore Glenn would try to kill those who had put him in prison. The only question: Who would he target first?

Carina Kincaid, Will’s partner, entered the bull pen and made a beeline toward the coffeepot, her dark hair still damp. “Bastard,” she mumbled when she saw Will. “You called me at four in the morning.”

“Wimp.”

“I’d tell you to fuck off, but I’m too tired.”

“Late night?”

Carina blinked. “Why do I feel we’ve had some version of this conversation before?”

“Because you have someone to share your bed and I don’t.”

“Your dry spell will be the death of me,” Carina said. “What happened to Monica?”

“That was over months ago.”

“Nicole?”

“I’m surprised you even know about her. That was before we were partners. We split amicably.”

“What about that cute girl who works for Jim? Maybe you should ask her out.”

“Diana? Cute girl? Last I checked, she was older than you.”

Carina waved her hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I think she likes you.”

“Diana and I had a thing years ago.”

“Hmm. She still has it bad for you. Why, I can’t imagine.”

Will shook his head. “I doubt that. It didn’t work out with Diana. Not all of us get as lucky as you.”

“You’ll get no argument here, but I’m not sharing Nick with you no matter how much you beg.”

Will rolled his eyes and pulled open the cardboard box.

“What’s in there?” Carina asked, pulling her hair back with a metal clip.

“Everything related to the Glenn case. Except the evidence, which is at archives.”

“Why isn’t this in archives? The case was closed seven years ago.”

“I needed it during that appeals court hearing last year. Plus, I expected Glenn to file another appeal, and I wanted to stay fresh.”

“You’re obsessed with that case. Remember? We got the guy.”

It was a generic “we” because Carina had still been a beat cop when Will and his former partner, Frank Sturgeon, had investigated the homicides that led to the arrest of wealthy corporate trial lawyer Theodore Glenn.

“I’m not obsessed.”

He wouldn’t admit it to Carina, but he still dreamed about the murders. He supposed they’d be called nightmares if anyone was going to get technical about it.

Theodore Glenn had enjoyed playing with his victims. Seeing the bodies, knowing what he did to those four women, interviewing Glenn after he’d been locked up-Will continually replayed the investigation in his mind.

It wasn’t just the brutal slayings, or the blood, or Glenn’s sick humor-it was Glenn himself during interrogation.

From petty thieves to hardened murderers, most criminals lied or cast blame elsewhere: “It’s not my fault,” “She wanted it,” or “I didn’t mean to kill her, it got out of hand, it was an accident.”

Theodore Glenn had not one ounce of remorse. Not one grain of empathy. He’d looked at the crime scene photos with the interest of a bored scientist. He had even criticized the way the crime scene technician had photographed the scene.

“The lighting is awful. Had she only increased the aperture, you’d be able to see the definition of the blood against the rug. You call this evidence?”

Will had faced many brutal killers. He’d faced psychopaths. He’d faced gang leaders who would just as soon shoot a cop as talk to one.

But Theodore Glenn was no typical killer. He had a picture-perfect background. Upper middle class upbringing. No hint of violence in his childhood. After interviewing his parents, Will couldn’t even imagine them so much as spanking their beloved son. Was that the problem: lack of discipline? Too much and it’s abuse, too little and your bratty kid runs wild.

It was human nature to cast blame, to search for a specific reason why someone like Theodore Glenn killed. But the truth was simple: He had no conscience. Will saw it in his face, in his tone, in his arrogance. This bastard killed because he enjoyed it, because he enjoyed getting away with deviant acts. Was it just for the thrill? Maybe. Will wasn’t a shrink, but he knew Glenn wasn’t like most killers.

Something else about the Glenn murders haunted him.

Robin.

Out of self-preservation, Will didn’t like to think about Robin McKenna. Even bringing her to mind now brought conflicting feelings of love and lust, anger and remorse, fear and need. He had made huge mistakes with her-on the case, in his life.

Now he had to warn her. He’d never wanted to see her again, and at the same time he desperately wanted to make love to her. Hold her. Be with her.

He ran a hand through his short-cropped brown hair.

“What’s wrong?” Carina asked as she efficiently separated the files.

“Nothing.”

“Hooper, I’ve known you for how long?”

“Seriously, just the past creeping up on me.”

“We’re going to catch Glenn. Every cop in the state is looking for him.”

“How many people will die first?” Will tensed. Glenn would go after Robin. Will had to protect her. The thought that she might suffer at Glenn’s hands caused sweat to break out on his forehead.

Protect her? He’d be lucky if she let him through her door. Robin had made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Not that he blamed her, not after what he’d said and done.

Chief Causey walked in, poured a cup of coffee. “You’re on, Hooper. Now make it fast. I got the press breathing down my throat, Descario screaming about protection, and the Feds calling.”

“The Feds?”

“The California Highway Patrol are working with the FBI’s San Francisco regional office. They have huge issues up north-a severely damaged bridge, power out-ages, looting. The usual loonies running amok after a major natural disaster. They’ve offered to loan a Suit to us to facilitate communication and share resources.”

“Whatever you think best,” Will responded. “It might be helpful to have an insider, as long as we don’t get the shaft.”

“I’ll feel them out, see what’s happening, and let you know.”

Carrying his box of photos and information, Will led the way into the interview room he’d turned into the task-force command center. He wanted to make sure that everyone working the case knew exactly what Theodore Glenn had done to those women.

There were four cops in the room who Causey had dedicated to Will for the time being. In an hour, Will would be speaking at shift change, but for now these were the three men and one woman who, apart from himself and Carina, would be working exclusively on the Theodore Glenn case.

“We have a lot of work to do in the next twenty-four hours,” Will began. He glanced at Officer Diaz. “You’ve contacted everyone involved with the Glenn prosecution? Witnesses?”

“Still working on the list, sir. I reached about half of them last night.”

Will wanted to ask if he’d talked to Robin, but refrained, trusting that Diaz would do a thorough job.

“Keep going. Give me a list of everyone you haven’t spoken to personally before end of shift.”

“Yes, sir.”

Will looked around the room. Other than Diaz and Carina, no one else had been on the force seven years ago when Glenn was at large.

“A little background on Theodore Glenn. Seven years ago he killed four strippers who worked at RJ’s in the gaslight district. The club is no longer there. It was bought out and renovated during the big redevelopment push a few years back. Glenn had been a regular at RJ’s for about a year. He had dated at least three of the victims.”

Will took out crime scene photographs and placed them on the whiteboard with magnets. First an enlarged snapshot of a gorgeous young woman. She was twenty, blonde, and had a dazzling smile.

“Bethany Coleman was Glenn’s first victim. She dated Glenn for three months before, according to witnesses, they parted friends.” He put up a picture of her dead body. Glenn had cut her skin more than forty times, feet to face, one-to two-inch-long shallow cuts that would have scarred and defaced her. Painful, but not fatal. When he’d finally tired of torturing Bethany, he’d slit her throat.

“Was Glenn a suspect from the beginning?”

“Way down on the list. Bethany had seven former boyfriends the year before she was murdered, and Glenn hadn’t been the most recent. There was some evidence at the scene and it was being processed by the crime lab when Brandi Bell was murdered fourteen days after Bethany.”

Will put up Brandi’s photograph. She was an unnatural platinum blonde with another winning smile and huge brown eyes. “There was a witness in Brandi’s homicide. An elderly woman across the street gave a description of a man leaving Brandi’s duplex to canvassing officers. From that, Robin McKenna, a friend and colleague of the victim, identified Theodore Glenn, a regular patron of the club who had dated both Bethany and Brandi.”

“The wounds on the bodies look different,” Carina interjected. “The cuts on Bethany’s body are a mess, blood smeared. On Brandi they look like they were cleaned. Did he wash the victims after killing them?”

“Good guess, but no,” Will said. His jaw tensed as he imagined what Brandi had suffered in the final minutes before Glenn slit her throat. “He poured bleach over her body.”

“To destroy evidence?”

“Possibly.” He paused. “The bleach was poured over the wounds while his victims were still alive.”

Carina shivered as if she’d heard nails scratch on a chalkboard. It would have felt like being burned alive to the victims. It had the added benefit of destroying potential evidence.

Will continued. “We pulled Glenn in for an interview and court-ordered DNA test, based on Robin McKenna’s identification. The killer had left DNA at the scene of the first murder-three strands of hair, pulled from Glenn’s scalp as Bethany struggled.” He took a deep breath. This was the part that was totally fucked. “We had him. We had him in custody and we had the DNA test. We handed the case to the D.A.’s office. Immediately, the case was thrown out.”

“Why?” one of the newer cops asked.

“The criminalists had come directly from another homicide. The DNA collected at the scene was contaminated: the hair samples got mixed with hair samples from the other crime. Descario tossed out both cases. Without the DNA, we had nothing to tie Theodore Glenn to the murders.”

“What about the witness?” Carina asked.

“The D.A. didn’t feel she was reliable.” Will shook his head. “And as much as I hate to admit it, Descario was right on that point. The woman was eighty and in a lineup she couldn’t pick out Glenn. Going from a secondhand identification off the sketch-no jury would have convicted him. We had to let him go.” That had been one of the worst days of Will’s life: knowing he had a killer behind bars and having to let him out. He’d never forget the smug expression of victory on that bastard’s face.

“How did you connect the two killings? If you couldn’t use the DNA from the first murder, and bleach was used in the second, how did you make the connection?” Carina asked, curious.

“A similar M.O. The multitude of small, painful cuts with the same type of knife. The way the hands and feet were bound. The slit throat with a double-edged blade. And the victims were dancers at the same club.” Will paused. “Glenn must have realized he’d screwed up with Bethany Coleman, and that’s why he used the bleach at Brandi Bell’s crime scene. Even if he left trace evidence there, the bleach would have corrupted any DNA samples.”

One of the cops in the back shook his head and lamented, “Because of all those forensics shows, killers are becoming smarter.”

Will shrugged. “Perhaps, but remember this was seven years ago. Those shows didn’t have the impact on criminals and jurors that they might have today.”

Will put up Jessica’s picture. A brunette. “You can see that Glenn has no preference as to type: Bethany and Brandi were Caucasian, Jessica a Latina. What they had in common were their good looks, and all were strippers at RJ’s.”

“And hadn’t each victim dated Glenn at some point?” Carina asked.

“All but his last, Anna Clark.”

“If you knew Glenn was the killer, why didn’t we follow him?” she asked.

“We did, but-” Will didn’t want to get into it. He wasn’t about to publicly criticize his former partner. Water under the bridge. Frank was no longer a cop. He could do no more damage.

“Anyway,” Will continued as if the question wasn’t asked, “Glenn had a loose alibi for Jessica’s murder, which was one month after Brandi was killed. We were all over him at the time, pulled him into interview, but again had no hard evidence. A week after Jessica, he killed Anna Clark. He shook our tail.”

He put Anna’s picture up. Black hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin. Sweet. And in death? He put up the crime scene photo. In death she was another mangled body, another crime victim in a police file.

He took a deep breath. It could have been Robin. And in his heart, he believed Glenn had meant to kill Robin all along.

“The crime scene is a mess,” Carina said. “What happened?”

“Anna’s roommate came home and tripped over the body in the dark.” Will’s stomach lurched, picturing Robin in the dark, slipping and falling in Anna’s blood. When he’d arrived at the scene only minutes later she had been huddled and shaking outside her apartment door, holding a cat drenched in his owner’s blood. “In fact, the entire scene was compromised. But Glenn was careless this time: though he bleached Anna’s body, several of his hairs were found in Anna’s fist.”

“What about sexual assault?” Carina asked. She’d been flipping through the files, reading the reports.

“None,” Will said. “He didn’t rape or have sex with his victims immediately prior to their murders. He did have consensual sex with all the victims, with the possible exception of Anna Clark, weeks or months before their deaths. Anna Clark was a lesbian. She wouldn’t have had consensual sex with Glenn.”

“He doesn’t sound like your garden variety serial killer,” Carina said.

“He isn’t,” Will said. “He’s smart. Very smart. Do not underestimate Theodore Glenn.”

“Next step?” Carina asked.

Will turned to Diaz. “You finish the warning calls to witnesses. I want the rest of you to split the city and start canvassing motels, hotels, and dive apartments that rent by the week. Flash Glenn’s picture around to anyone and everyone. If everyone is looking for him, he can’t hide for long.”

“You really think he’s going to come here and not try to leave the country?”

“I know it.”

Trinity Lange listened intently to Chief Causey’s bland, perfunctory report to the press on Theodore Glenn’s escape and the subsequent response of the San Diego Police Department.

She had better information off CNN and Fox News. She glanced behind Causey to where Detective Will Hooper stood, deceptively casual. He was watching the crowd. Looking for Glenn? Feeling out the audience?

What did the cops know that they weren’t telling?

Trinity had made a name for herself as a crime reporter, starting as a freelancer and working her way up to a star reporter with her own monthly show. She’d had every major law enforcement officer from the Attorney General down to the smallest police chief on her television program, and her ratings continued to grow. It was just a matter of time before she had New York knocking at her door.

She didn’t honestly believe that Theodore Glenn would show his face in San Diego. She’d followed the trial closely, listened to him, even interviewed him in lockup. He wasn’t a dumb criminal. But on the off chance that he did show up, Trinity wanted to be there. Reporting the news before anyone else.

That meant knowing what the cops knew. And they always knew more than they told the press.

Her hand shot up. Causey called on another reporter.

“Jerk,” she mumbled, keeping her hand in the air.

“Chief Causey,” the reporter asked, “are you alerting prostitutes to be cautious now that Glenn has escaped?”

Idiot. Glenn hadn’t gone after prostitutes. The novice certainly hadn’t done his homework.

Causey seemed at a loss. He said, “Glenn targeted women with whom he’d had a previous relationship. Our primary concern is for individuals he specifically threatened at his trial. We are contacting everyone involved in the trial, and going from there. All units are on alert, and we’re working closely with the California Highway Patrol and federal authorities to track the known movements of Theodore Glenn. As I said at the beginning, Glenn was spotted in Fresno late last night and is suspected of stealing a 2004 white Honda Accord.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trinity rolled her eyes. Stupid question, leading to repetition. She waved her hand again.

Causey picked someone else. What was with him? She looked at Will, tried to catch his eye. He looked over at her, gave her a half grin, then turned his attention back to Causey.

Had Will Hooper told the chief not to call on her?

Finally, Causey pointed at her. Trinity asked, “Chief Causey, who is in charge of the task force and what are they planning on doing to protect the citizens of San Diego?”

Causey turned to Will. “Detective William Hooper, a twenty-year veteran of San Diego PD, is heading up the task force. He was involved in the original investigation and was instrumental in capturing Glenn seven years ago.”

Before Causey could call on anyone else, Trinity spoke up. “Do you have any actual indication that Glenn is headed for San Diego?”

“None,” Causey said emphatically, but glanced at Will. Why?

Will took the microphone and said, “The smart thing for Glenn to do would be to attempt to leave the country. Every cop in San Diego County-every cop in the state-is looking for him. He killed an injured guard in cold blood during his escape.

“But Glenn is not that smart,” Will continued. “Glenn only sees one thing, and that is he was convicted. Now he wants revenge. And that’s why he’ll come to San Diego. Watch for him. He may alter his appearance. But if everyone in San Diego is looking, we can catch him before he hurts anyone else, and put him back on death row.”

Theodore despised Will Hooper. And listening to the press conference on the news, sitting safe in an old, worn La-Z-Boy, and having that asshole cop call him stupid pained him.

Hooper knew damn well he was a genius. It was only bad luck that a witness caught sight of him coming out of Brandi’s duplex. He should have gone in and killed that old biddy when he saw the curtains move. But he honestly hadn’t believed she could see that far away. How was he to know she regularly used binoculars to watch the comings and goings from all her neighbors’ houses?

He’d seen the sketch on the news. It didn’t look enough like him to have him concerned. It could have been anybody.

Then to have that high-and-mighty hypocrite Robin McKenna tell the cops that he was the man in the sketch. Bad luck. It should never have happened. How that slut was able to make the connection unnerved him, and pissed him off. It was a guess on her part, simply because she didn’t like him. She’d made that perfectly clear right from the beginning.

Robin. He closed his eyes and saw her perfect form take shape. The way she moved onstage. Liquid energy. Smooth, perfect, music in motion. He’d wanted her something fierce. He saw in her eyes something he’d never seen before. An intelligence and knowledge that mirrored his. She was better than this, better than a stripper, and she knew it. Her self-confidence rivaled his. Her poise and elegance. Everything about Robin McKenna was a dream dance, an act, an image she wanted to show. Just like him. All he wanted was for her to touch him. Why didn’t she see that they were the same?

But instead of joining him, she’d turned against him. Long before she identified his sketch for the police, she turned on him. Told Bethany he was dangerous. A year before he killed the girl, Robin was warning her.

Smart, cold bitch.

He’d been set up. He hadn’t killed Robin’s pathetic roommate, yet he’d been convicted for that murder as well.

How did he know the bitch herself hadn’t knocked off her roommate to frame him? She’d wanted him out of the picture so badly. And she was cold and heartless enough to kill, of that Theodore was certain. They were two of a kind, and before he was done with Robin McKenna, she would recognize that fact.

He had his list, and he would take care of each person on it in due time. Blood was thicker than water, and he had a score to settle.

His sister should never have testified against him. She would suffer for her betrayal. Robin could wait. Watch him take his revenge on others first. She’d know he was coming for her. She’d know and that fear would fester deliciously under her flawless skin.

He smiled at the thought of Robin cowering in the corner. Waiting for him to come and put her out of her misery. Because he would. And he would not be merciful.

Jenny Olsen slouched into the living room with a tray of food. She was a fat bitch, might have been pretty if she didn’t look like a cow. But she’d been faithfully writing to him in prison these last seven years and she’d told him she’d do anything for him.

He’d called her on it when he showed up on her porch early Sunday morning.

“I hope you like it,” Jenny said, beaming.

Stupid wench.

He tasted the meal. Chicken, rice, carrots, and broccoli. The best meal he’d had in years. Simple, flavorful, home-cooked.

“Delicious,” he said honestly, favoring her with a smile.

She beamed brighter, rubbing her chubby hands together. “Can I get you anything else? A beer maybe?”

“Do you have red wine?” Theodore detested beer, and he dreaded what sort of wine this white-trash female would have on hand, but he hadn’t had a drink in seven years.

Jenny looked worried. “N-no. But I have some Scotch, I think. It was my father’s, before he died.”

“Let’s see it.”

She walked over to the hutch in the dining room. Her small fifties cinderblock house was clean but full of clutter. Knickknacks. Glass figures. Her life, on show for everyone who walked through the door.

Pathetic.

She bent down, fumbled through bottles. She came up with something that actually looked good. “Is this okay?”

“Pour it,” he said.

She did, he sipped. “Not bad.”

He ate and drank, not caring that Jenny watched his every move. She adored him. He could see it in her doe eyes, in her obsequious manner. Wasn’t she the least bit scared? Wasn’t she the least bit concerned that he might kill her?

Theodore wasn’t surprised he’d gotten away yesterday. The only truly hazardous part of the escape was the hour he’d spent in the frigid water of the San Francisco Bay. He’d been victorious partly from luck, partly from intelligence. He’d immediately slipped away from the pack because those other fools were going to get themselves killed or captured. When he finally made it to shore, he’d lucked out that he emerged only yards from a convenience store. Before going to prison, he’d never known how to hot-wire a vehicle, but he’d learned a lot behind bars and it only took him two tries before he successfully stole a truck. He once again felt that familiar jolt of adrenaline, the high from being smart and on the edge.

More good luck was that there was a suitcase in the stolen truck. He pulled out a white T-shirt and wind-breaker. Enough to get rid of his prison duds and look like ordinary Joe Citizen.

Glenn had headed north, then east around the bay, then south down highway 99, because there were more places to stop and hide off the road if necessary. He swapped cars in Fresno, suspecting that the owner of this pickup he had stolen would have reported it missing by that time. Three hours later, he merged onto I-5 near the Grapevine and went over the hill toward L.A. There was no abnormal police presence that he noticed. He stayed just a few miles over the speed limit, drove through the night, and was now only an hour away from his hometown, in the home of Jenny Olsen, one of the many women who had written him in prison. Jenny had said she would do anything for him.

So far, she wasn’t lying.