Sense Of Evil

15

HOLLIS LOOKED UP as Ginny stuck her head in the conference room to say, “Caleb Powell is here to see you. Should I show him in here, or to one of the offices?”

“In here, I guess. Thanks, Ginny.” Hollis went to cover the bulletin boards, then returned to a chair on the far side of the table. She was more than a little surprised that he wanted to see her at all; to seek her out here at the police station, and on a Sunday, definitely made her wonder.

Especially after their last meeting.

“Hi,” Caleb said as he came in. He didn’t shut the door behind him, and Hollis didn’t suggest that he do so.

“Hi yourself. What’s up?” With a gesture, she invited him to sit down on the opposite side of the table.

He hesitated, then sat down. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“You know. I acted like a jerk when you told me about your eyes.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “You didn’t act like a jerk, you were just a little unnerved. I can hardly blame you for that, since I am too. And I’ve had months to get used to them.”

“Still, it was a lousy way for me to act. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

Caleb moved half-consciously in his chair. “Then why do I get the feeling I’ve damaged… something… beyond repair?”

Having watched Isabel and Rafe circling each other like a couple of wary cats, Hollis was in no mood to play games. “Caleb, you seem like a nice guy, with a nice, satisfying life here in Hastings. And I hope that after we’ve done our job and gone away, you get your nice little town back again. I hope we can offer you some sense of closure in Tricia’s death by finding the animal who killed her.”

“But?”

“But nothing. There isn’t anything else. There never was, really.”

“There might have been.”

Still being honest, she said, “I sort of doubt it. Not because of anything you said or did, but just the timing.”

“And there’s no use even trying?”

“I think… that right now my life and your life are so different we could never even find a bit of common ground to stand on. Honestly. You don’t know me, Caleb. The little bit you do know is just the tip of a pretty dark and unsettling iceberg.”

He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Yeah, I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

“Admit it. You’re relieved.”

“No. No, not relieved. In fact, I have the distinct feeling I’m missing out on something I’ll regret one day.”

“Nice of you to say so.”

He smiled a bit ruefully. “Look, there’s something else I came here to tell you. Show you. Something that could possibly be related to Tricia’s murder.”

Hollis had no problem in shifting from the personal to the professional-which told her a lot. “What is it?”

“I found something in the desk. My desk, not hers. It was in a drawer I never use because it’s in an awkward position in the desk layout, and apparently she’d been using it to store work-related things she no longer used. Mostly old notebooks. I went through all of them, and they were all the shorthand notes she’d taken. Dictation, notes about schedules and appointments, that sort of thing.”

“What was unusual about that?”

“Nothing. But when I was going through the last notebook-which was actually the one that had been on top, by the way-a slip of paper fell out. I’m guessing it was something she wrote down during a phone call, and the date puts it just before the murders began.” He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket, adding, “My prints are all over it, but I figured it didn’t really matter. It’s clearly a private note, since it doesn’t match anything in my schedule, and I doubt it has any value as evidence-except to maybe point the investigation in a different direction.” He placed the small piece of paper on the conference table and pushed it across to her.

Out of habit, Hollis nevertheless used the eraser of the pencil she was holding to draw the paper closer so she could study it. “Looks like her handwriting,” she said.

“I’m no expert, but I’ve seen a lot of her handwriting over the years. She wrote that. Plus, that’s the sort of doodling she tended to do when her mind was on something else.”

The “doodles” were clear enough. A little cat face; a couple of hearts with arrows through them; stairs leading to nowhere; a sun setting off the edge of the paper with its rays beaming; a female eye, with long lashes and carefully detailed iris; and two circles connected by a series of smaller circles.

The paper was clearly from a notepad; it was a neon green, and across the top was printed: It works in practice, but not in theory.

“There were other notepads like this one in her desk,” Hollis remembered. “The kind with preprinted cartoons or funny sayings on them.”

“Yeah. She said they lightened up the serious tone of a lawyer’s office, but she only used them for personal or throwaway notes.”

Hollis nodded, and studied what Tricia had written in the center of the notepad.

J.B.

Old Hwy

7:00 5/16

It was followed by two large question marks.

“Did Tricia know Jamie Brower?” Hollis asked.

“She never mentioned it, if she did.”

“How did she react when Jamie was murdered?”

“Shocked and horrified, just like the rest of us.” Caleb frowned. “She did take a few vacation days unexpectedly, now that I think about it.”

“Did she leave town?”

“She said she was going to. The time off was because her sister had had surgery, and Tricia needed to go to Augusta and help take care of the kids.”

Hollis pushed the note to one side and hunted through the folders stacked on the table until she found the one she wanted. She looked through several pages, frowning, then paused. “Okay. According to her sister’s statement, at the time of Tricia’s death she hadn’t seen her in more than three months. I thought I remembered reading that.”

“Tricia lied to me?” Caleb was baffled. “Why? I mean, it’s not like I even asked her why she needed the time off. She had so much vacation and sick time accumulated, I remember telling her to take a week or two if that’s what she needed. But she came back to work about… four days later.”

Hollis looked through the folder for several more minutes, pausing here and there, and finally closed it. “We’ve backtracked every victim’s life for about two weeks prior to their murders, which means we have information that starts tracking Tricia just a few days after Jamie was killed.”

“So you don’t know if she was here in town or went somewhere else.”

“No. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out, though. Her apartment manager has been very cooperative, and Tricia was a friendly neighbor, so her neighbors noticed her.”

“A lesson to all of us not to become too isolated, I guess.”

“One way to look at it.” Hollis hesitated, then said, “Did Tricia ever show up to work with unexplained bruises or burns, anything like that?”

“No. I told you her former boyfriend showed no signs of abusing her. I never saw a bruise, and since she seldom wore makeup I think I would have noticed.”

“True enough.” Hollis smiled. “Thanks for bringing this in, Caleb.”

He took the hint and rose to his feet. “I only hope it turns out to be helpful.”

“I’ll let you know,” she promised. “That closure we were talking about.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He hesitated just an instant, then turned and left the conference room.

Hollis was just about to call Ginny in and find out if the younger officer wanted to share a pizza and do some brainstorming when she felt a sudden chill, as if someone had opened a window into winter.

She watched gooseflesh rise on her arms and had to force herself to look up, toward the doorway.

Jamie Brower stood there.

“Oh, shit,” Hollis murmured.

She wasn’t solid flesh, but neither was she a ghostly, wispy thing; she was definitely clearer and more distinct than Hollis had yet seen her. In this form, anyway.

Her expression was anxious, worried; Jamie said something-or tried to. All Hollis heard was that peculiar hollow silence.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to hold her own voice steady. Trying not to feel terrified. “I can’t hear you.”

Jamie moved a step closer to the table and Hollis. Or rather-and very eerily-floated closer, since she didn’t seem to actually take a physical step.

Again, she tried to say something.

This time, Hollis could-almost-hear something. Like a quiet voice speaking from the far end of a huge room.

She focused, concentrated. “I can just barely hear… Try again, please. What do you need to tell me?”

Jamie’s mouth moved as she tried to communicate, the intensity of her need so obvious that Hollis could literally feel it, like something pushing at her.

Unnerved, Hollis lost both concentration and the desire to keep trying. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t hear you,” she said, her own voice unsteady now.

An expression of pure frustration crossed Jamie’s lovely face, twisting it, and she threw up her arms in the gesture of someone reaching the end of her limits.

Half the folders on the conference table spewed their contents into the air.

When the rain of paper and photographs had ended, Hollis found herself sitting in the middle of a mess.

Alone.

Ginny came into the room a moment later, looking around in surprise. “Hey, it looks like somebody lost her temper.”

“Yes,” Hollis said. “Somebody did.”

“Okay,” Paige said, “getting creeped out here.”

Isabel and Rafe looked at each other, then stopped holding hands.

Paige reached up to smooth down her hair, and they could all hear the crackle. “Jesus,” she muttered. “I’m going to have to write a detailed report on this one. It’s the first time that my ability to tap into other psychics’ abilities actually manifested itself physically.”

“Some psychic abilities do manifest themselves physically,” Isabel reminded her.

“Yeah, but not many. I know your visions do that. Have you had one of those, by the way?”

“Not since I’ve been in Hastings.”

“I wonder if you could now.”

“I don’t know. I assume not, since the visions are just another aspect of the clairvoyance.”

“And both are boxed up inside a shield that might as well be Fort Knox.”

“You’re serious? It’s that tough?”

“And then some. Bishop had me test his and Miranda’s shield once, and it hit about eight or nine on our scale. Of course, we don’t know how consistent that sort of ability is; it may vary widely according to the circumstances-i.e., why the shield is being used by the psychic at that particular moment. When we did the test, they weren’t especially motivated or feeling driven to protect themselves. If they had been… who knows?”

It was Rafe who said, “So if the reasons were powerful enough, or the-the psychic desperate enough to protect himself or herself from some perceived attack, then the shield would be even stronger than… normal.” He felt odd just using the word-hell, any of these words. But Paige was nodding, again matter-of-factly.

“The human mind has a hundred ways to protect itself, and it’ll use whatever it can whenever it has to. Fear creates energy, just like any other strong emotion does, just like psychic ability itself does. A psychic’s mind virtually always uses that extra energy for some kind of wall or shield.”

“Except for Isabel.”

Isabel shrugged. “We’ve never been able to figure out why my abilities won’t shield themselves.”

Rafe looked at her oddly. “No?”

“No.” She frowned at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.” But when he looked back at Paige, he lifted his brows slightly.

“Even those of us with extra senses can be incredibly blind to some things,” she said. “Keep doing that, by the way. It’s working.”

Isabel looked from one to the other of them, baffled. “What’s he doing?”

“Reaching through his shield.”

“He is?”

“I am?”

Paige nodded. “I’m sure you’ll both figure it out. Problem is, there’s this killer, which doesn’t give you a whole hell of a lot of time in which to do it.”

“Any advice?” Isabel asked wryly.

“Yeah. Hurry.”

Hollis propped her elbows on the table and pressed her fingers against her eyes. “God, I’m tired. What time is it, anyway?”

“Nearly nine,” Isabel told her. “I was ready to call it a day hours ago.”

Rafe looked at her but didn’t say anything, just as he hadn’t said much since they’d left Paige at the motel. Isabel had filled the silence-and possibly tried to distract him-by briefly discussing Ginny’s situation, a matter Rafe was kicking himself for having completely missed and one he wasn’t at all sure how to handle.

Oh, yeah, he was psychic. Sure he was.

In any case, Isabel had offered a few suggestions, and Rafe was more than ready to accept her counsel and approve her plan. He just wished she was as forthcoming with advice regarding this peculiar new ability he supposedly had.

Hell, she hadn’t even mentioned it since they’d left the motel, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He knew Isabel was dealing with issues of her own at the moment, and he knew he was a complication in her life. He was even reasonably sure that the simplest thing he could do would be to leave her alone to sort out what she had to.

But as Isabel herself had said, the simplest thing wasn’t always the smartest thing.

So what was the smartest thing?

Studiously not looking at him, Isabel said, “Okay, we’re agreed that the note doodled by Tricia Kane suggests she was one of Jamie’s clients.”

“More than suggests,” Hollis said. “The only thing on that old highway of any interest is Jamie’s playroom.”

“Agreed, but that doesn’t mean Tricia was a client. We don’t know why she was meeting Jamie. Hell, maybe she was painting her.”

“There were no sketches of Jamie or anybody who looked like her among Tricia’s work. Besides, do you really think Jamie would commission a painting of herself in full S amp;M ensemble?”

“No.”

“Then what other reason could they have for meeting there?”

“Maybe Tricia was interested in buying the building. It was one of those Jamie planned to sell after what happened with Hope Tessneer.”

“We checked that out,” Mallory said. “At least as far as we could. Jamie kept her official appointments in her date book, and that included appointments to show her own properties during the last couple of months. No appointment listed for May sixteenth.”

Rafe spoke finally, saying, “Odds are, Tricia was a client. Or a potential client. You did say at least one of Jamie’s partners could have been from Hastings.”

Isabel nodded. “I did say that, yes.”

Hollis looked from Isabel to Rafe curiously. There had been no opportunity to discuss what they had found out from Paige, since both Mallory and Ginny had been in the room and other officers had come and gone fairly steadily, but it didn’t take a sixth sense to feel the tension between them.

Hollis had been debating whether to tell them about the visitation from Jamie, though she had pretty much decided just to tell Isabel later, when they were alone. After all, it wasn’t as though she could provide anything new in the way of information or evidence.

Rafe said, “Then Tricia might have been a regular.”

“Another Hastings blonde with a secret sexual life?” Isabel leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “And it seemed like such a nice little town.”

“I said the same thing,” Hollis murmured.

“It was a nice little town,” Rafe said. “And will be again. Just as soon as we catch this bastard.”

“And all we’ve got to help us catch him,” Isabel reminded the group at large, “is a fairly useless profile and what we know about the victims.”

“You haven’t revised the profile as you’ve gotten deeper into the investigation?” Rafe asked Isabel almost idly.

“Not really. This guy leaves so little behind that the only real thing we have to study are the victims he kills. All single white females, all smart and savvy, all successful. Beyond that, and until now, all we really had connecting them was the color of their hair. Cheryl Bayne’s disappearance puts the importance of that into question-definitely.”

“But even before then,” Mallory said, “we found Jamie’s secret. And her secret playroom.”

Isabel nodded.

“Which could have been an aberration as far as the victims go, having absolutely nothing to do with the killer or his motivations. But then Hope Tessneer’s body turned up, having very likely been a… toy… for our killer after she died, probably accidentally, and probably at Jamie’s hands. Connection. And now this note, which is a pretty fair indication that Tricia Kane was or planned to become involved in Jamie’s S amp;M games.”

“Another connection,” Rafe said.

“But there is absolutely no sign that Allison Carroll led anything but a perfectly traditional sex life. Also no sign that she even knew either of the other victims.”

Rafe shook his head. “Maybe we missed something. Or maybe there was nothing there to miss. Maybe she was as good at keeping secrets as Jamie was. As Tricia was.”

“Regarding Tricia, there were no regular withdrawals from her bank account in the last few months,” Mallory noted. “But that isn’t to say she might not have sold some of her sketches or paintings for cash. A couple of her friends mentioned that she’d sold things to them. She could have paid Jamie without leaving any trace of the money.”

“Yeah,” Isabel said, “but how did she find Jamie? I mean, how did she know the services were available? I doubt Jamie advertised in some bondage magazine.”

“Word of mouth?” Rafe suggested. “A referral from another client? All these women had something to lose in the sense of not wanting their… extracurricular activities to be made public. Jamie could have been pretty sure of their silence.”

“Still, she would have wanted to have control-” Isabel broke off with a frown, then continued. “Wait a minute. The photos we have show Jamie unmasked. What if that’s the reason Emily took those particular photos? Because they were the only ones that showed Jamie’s face?”

Finishing her supposition, Rafe said, “What if Jamie was always masked when she met clients? Except for the client she trusted, the one in the photographs?”

Mallory said, “According to all that info you guys got from Quantico on the S amp;M scene, that actually makes sense. For the submissive to not know who was dominating her-or him, I guess-could be an important part of the experience. For some of them, it might even be necessary that they not know the identity of their… mistress.”

“We have got to find that box,” Isabel said. “And I want to talk to Emily again first thing tomorrow. The patrol’s still watching her, right?”

Rafe nodded. “When she’s out of the house, they follow; when she’s home, as she was last time I checked, I have a squad car parked across the street from her house. If anybody asks, they’re under orders to say they’re making sure none of the media bothers the family.”

“Good cover story,” Isabel said.

“And plausible. Since Jamie was the first victim, the family really has had to put up with a lot of media attention. Allison and Tricia didn’t have family in Hastings, so nobody can really know if those families are being watched as well.”

“Hey,” Ginny said suddenly, “did you guys take a good look at these doodles?”

“I was just looking at the time and place of the appointment,” Hollis admitted, unwilling to explain that images often blurred or faded oddly when she looked at them, particularly those drawn two-dimensionally on paper.

“What’d we miss?” Rafe asked his young officer.

Ginny hesitated, then pushed the note across the table to him. “Look at that doodle on the right. The two circles connected with a sort of chain.”

Rafe had to look for a moment before he realized what he was seeing. “Jesus. Handcuffs.”

“It’s about time you got off,” Ally told Travis. “I didn’t have to hang around the police station waiting for you, you know. I do have other offers.”

He grinned at her. “Then why didn’t you accept any of them?”

“You’re getting too goddamned cocky, I’ll tell you that much. Here I am, wandering around downtown on a Sunday evening when the only other women out are brave, and needless to say brunette, hookers-”

“I think those are other reporters, Ally. Hastings doesn’t have hookers.”

“You sure about that?”

Recalling a certain trip to a certain house when he was about sixteen, Travis felt his face heat up. “Well, not streetwalkers, anyway.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. Your old man took you to a cathouse for your first sexual experience.”

“He did not.” Travis sighed. “My brother did.”

Ally slid off the hood of his car, laughing. “You should send her flowers on every anniversary, pal. She done you proud.”

“Thank you. I think.” He pulled her close for a long kiss, then said, “Dammit, Ally, it really bothers me that you’re wandering around town alone, never mind after dark, especially since Cheryl Bayne disappeared. It’s been nearly a week since the last murder; we know we’re running out of time. Every other woman in town is jumpy as hell, and you’re breezing around like nothing can touch you.”

“I’m not blond.”

“We don’t know he’s just after blondes. Cheryl Bayne wasn’t-isn’t-blond. Besides, the other times, he went after brunettes and redheads.”

“Other times?”

He grimaced. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

“Look, I promise I won’t report a word until you say it’s okay. Scout’s honor.”

He stared at the fingers she held up. “That’s a peace sign, Ally.”

“Well, I was never a scout. But that doesn’t mean you can’t trust me to keep quiet-until I get the word it’s okay to report.”

He took her arm and escorted her around to the passenger side of his car. “I say we pick up a bag of tacos and head for my place.”

“Tacos at this hour? God, you have a cast-iron stomach, don’t you? Besides, didn’t I see a pizza delivery to the station a couple of hours ago? The poor guy was staggering under the weight of those pizza boxes.”

“One of the feds offered to buy,” Travis said. “Naturally, we took her up on the offer.”

“And you’re still hungry?”

“Well, that was a couple of hours ago.”

“But tacos? On top of pizza?”

“It’s Sunday night in Hastings, Ally; we don’t have a lot of choices here.”

She sighed and got into his car, waiting until he was behind the wheel to say, “Okay, but only on the condition that you fill me in on the investigation so far.”

“Ally-”

“Look, either you trust me by now or you don’t. If you don’t, please be kind enough to drop me off at the inn.”

“So that’s it? I talk or it’s over?”

“Come on, Travis, give me a break. We’re not lovers, we just roll around in the sheets together and have a good time. It’s fun and we both enjoy it, but I haven’t heard a suggestion that we start picking out china patterns. You’re not going to take me home to Mama, and we both know as soon as this maniac is captured or killed, I’m outta here. Right?”

“Right,” he said grudgingly.

“So don’t get all indignant with me now. I’m having a good time with you, and that’s cool, but I also have a job to do. Either I get what I need from you, or I start looking someplace else.”

“At least you’re up front about it,” he muttered.

“I am nothing if not totally honest,” she said, lying without a blink.

He eyed her for a moment and then started the car. “Ally, I swear, if you air one single word-or even tell your producer-before I give the okay, I’ll figure out a way to throw your ass in jail. Got it?”

“Got it. No problem. So who’s Jane Doe, and how did she die?”

“Hope Tessneer, and she was strangled. She lived in another town about thirty miles away.”

“And turned up dead here because…?”

“Beats me. I think the chief and the feds know more than they’re saying, but they ain’t sharing. At least, not with me.”

Accurately reading the tone of his voice, she said, “They’ve brought somebody else into the investigation?”

“Into the inner circle, anyway.” He shrugged, trying hard for indifference. “Ginny McBrayer seems to be in their confidence, or at least of the two agents. Figures. You females always stick together.”

“Please don’t make me call you a sexist pig,” Ally requested dryly.

“I’m not. And that’s not what I mean. Women talk to each other in ways men just don’t. That’s all.”

Ally looked at him with faint respect. “We do, actually. I’m surprised you noticed.”

“I keep telling you I’m not an idiot.” He sent her a glance, smiling oddly. “You really should pay attention, Ally.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I really should at that. Where’re we going, Travis?”

“The taco place. If I’m going to spill my guts, I’m going to need sustenance first.”

“I really wish you’d used a different phrase,” Ally said. “Really.”