Sense Of Evil

18

DUSTIN FOUND IT,” T.J. reported. “He knows cars better than I do. Since it’s a guy thing and all.”

Rafe said, “So the cruise control was engaged. McBrayer was drunk; he could have done it accidentally.”

“Dustin says he couldn’t have. Something about the way the cruise button is on the wheel. Of course, the wheel is mangled as hell right now, but he swears it’s a safety issue or something.”

Isabel straightened after looking into what was left of Hank McBrayer’s car, and said, “Dustin thinks somebody else set the cruise control?”

T.J. shrugged. “I admit I thought it was pretty far out. But we checked the rear end of the car, which is mostly intact, and found signs of a jack. Lift the rear wheels off the ground, put it in gear and push the accelerate button on the wheel, set the cruise control, and, when you’re ready, shove the car off the jack. The marks on the car are consistent.”

“There would have been tread marks on the road at the point it came off the jack,” Rafe said.

“Dustin’s out now, backtracking from the scene of the so-called accident. We also found a bit of rope on the front floorboard. I’m thinking it was used to tie off the steering wheel to keep the car going in a straight line. And if that’s not enough, I’m pretty sure the headlights were off.” She shook her head. “A nice, neat little way to kill somebody. With McBrayer reeking of alcohol and enough in his blood to knock out a squad of marines, who would suspect it was anything but an accident?”

“Good work,” Rafe told her. “You and Dustin.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell him you said so. And I’ll send up the report when he gets back and I finish up with the car.”

As they left the basement garage of the police station and headed upstairs to the offices, Isabel said, “A diversion. That accident happened only a couple of miles from the Brower house; the patrol on watch outside would have been the closest squad car.”

“I wonder if he aimed McBrayer’s car at one he could see coming or just trusted to luck he’d hit something or someone eventually?”

“I don’t think our boy trusts much to luck,” she said. “Finds a dark, straight stretch of road in a little-frequented area, sets up the car with McBrayer passed out inside. And waits until he sees headlights. By the time the other driver even saw the car coming at her, it was too late.”

“The pay phone he called Emily from was only a few blocks from the scene of the-accident. He probably waited for the patrol car to pass him, then called her.”

“I have the feeling that killing two more people just so he could lure Emily out was another of his taunts: Look at me, look how clever I am.”

“You don’t think it was a personal grudge against McBrayer?”

“No, I think he was convenient. From what I got talking to Ginny last night, her father’s Sunday-night binges were hardly a secret around here. The killer found McBrayer, maybe even followed him to one of those basement bars you talked about. Then all he had to do was wait for his mark to pass out or be thrown out.”

“And use him as a tool to get what he wanted. Emily.” Rafe grasped her arm to stop her as they entered the hallway leading to the conference room. “Tell me something. Truthfully.”

“Sure, if I can.”

“He’ll come after you next.”

“Maybe. Probably. Especially if the news breaks that I’m psychic. He’d view that as an increased threat, I think.”

“Will he wait a week?”

Isabel hesitated, then shook her head. “I’d be surprised if he did. Emily was damage control; she knew something he didn’t want her to tell. Or at least he believed she did. I’m guessing something about that box of photographs.”

“But you he wants.”

“Even without the psychic nudge, yeah. Me and the last blonde on his list, whoever she is. And he’s moving faster, getting sloppy. We shouldn’t have found jack marks on that car, far less a bit of rope that didn’t belong in it. He’s feeling pressure, a lot of it. Whatever is driving him is driving him hard.”

Rafe hesitated, but they were alone, and he finally said, “Whatever happened earlier did open up the shield for you, didn’t it?”

“A bit. But the voices are still distant.” She looked at him steadily. “There’s still a part of you I can’t get at.”

“I trust you,” he said.

“I know. You just don’t trust you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

Isabel had to smile. “I’m not surprised. See, I think I figured out something. We both have control issues and we both know it. The difference is, I don’t trust someone else to run the show, and you don’t trust yourself to.”

“That’s a control issue?”

“Yes. I have to learn to let go, to trust someone else without giving up who I am. And you have to learn to trust yourself in order to be who you need to be.”

Somewhat cautiously, Rafe said, “Are you channeling this Bishop of yours?”

“I know how it sounds, believe me. Why do you think I’ve been fighting this so hard? But the truth is, neither one of us has enough faith in ourselves.”

“Isabel, that sounds to me like something that will take time to get itself resolved. We don’t have time.”

Isabel began moving down the hallway toward the conference room. “No, we don’t. Which is why we’ll have to take care of our issues on the fly.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“Don’t worry. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few years it’s that we can make giant leaps when we have to.”

“That’s the part that worries me,” Rafe said. “Why we might have to.”

“Alan, I don’t have time for this,” Mallory told him as they stood just inside the foyer of the police department.

“Make time,” he insisted. “Look, Mal, I know you don’t want us publicly linked, but I’ve been doing some digging, and there’s something you need to know.”

Warily, she said, “About the case? Then why tell just me?”

“Call it a good-faith gesture. I could have put it in today’s paper, but I didn’t.”

After a moment, she said, “I’m listening.”

“I know there were two other sets of murders, one five and one ten years ago, in two other states.”

“How did you-”

“I have sources. Never mind that. I also know that the FBI has sent investigators back to those towns to ask more questions.”

Mallory hesitated, then said grudgingly, “We don’t have the reports yet.”

“There hasn’t been time, I know. But one of my sources had occasion to talk to an investigator from the second series of murders.”

“‘Had occasion’? Alan-”

“Just listen. The investigator said there was something about the first murder that bugged him. It was just a little thing, so minor he didn’t even put it in any of his reports. It was an earring.”

“What?”

“They’d found her body out in the open, of course, the way all the others would be found. But the investigator checked out her apartment. And when he searched her bedroom, he found an earring on her dresser. Never found a match for it.”

“So? Women lose earrings all the time, Alan.”

“Yeah, I know. But what bugged the investigator was that the victim didn’t wear earrings. She didn’t have pierced ears.”

Mallory shrugged. “Then a friend must have lost it.”

“None of her friends claimed it. Not one. A valuable diamond earring, and nobody claimed it. It was an unanswered question, and it bugged him, has ever since.”

Patiently, she said, “Okay, he found an earring he could never explain. How do you expect that to help us?”

“It’s a hunch, Mal, and I wanted to let you know I was following it up. I’ve already talked to a friend of the second victim in Florida, and she claims to have found a single earring among her friend’s things. I have somebody checking out the Alabama murders too. I think it has something to do with how he got the women to meet him.”

“Alan-”

“I’m going to check it out. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Mallory thought he said something else, but a crash of thunder made it impossible to hear whatever it was, and a moment later he was gone.

She stared after him.

4:00 PM

“It’s no use,” Hollis said finally. “I don’t know if it’s the storm or me, but I just can’t concentrate. And the energy of you two is not helping. If anything, it’s hurting.”

“We were with you the first time you saw Jamie,” Isabel reminded her. “Right here in this room.”

“Yeah, but it was before you two started seriously sparking,” Hollis reminded her.

“Just tell me we don’t have to hold hands or light candles,” Mallory begged, pulling another folder toward her and looking through it with a frown.

Hollis shook her head. “What I’m telling you is that if Jamie is hovering anywhere around a doorway, it isn’t mine. Or I can’t open the door. Either way, it’s not going to happen today.”

Rafe leaned back in his chair, saying, “Look, there has to be another way to do this. Plain, old-fashioned police work. If Jamie had a secret place, there has to be a way for us to find it.”

Hollis said, “And we need to do it before the six o’clock news. But no pressure.”

Mallory said, “Reports coming in from all area banks have been negative. Nobody has recognized Jamie’s photo or her name, and there’s no way for us to guess what alias she might have used. If she’s been socking away money for years with her little S amp;M sideline, she’s had plenty of time to construct a really solid one we may never find. And I can’t find anything about stray or missing jewelry, so I think Alan’s off track with that one.”

“It’s that note I don’t like,” Rafe said.

“It doesn’t change anything,” Isabel said. “We knew I was on his list.”

She pulled the note toward her and frowned down at it. “Our trust. They weren’t worthy of our trust.”

“Maybe he really is schizophrenic,” Mallory said.

“Yeah, but even so, the first note made a clear distinction. He wasn’t killing them because they were blondes. This note links the one who wrote the note and the killer. They weren’t worthy of our trust. If he’s schizophrenic, then I’d say he’s on the edge of a major identity crisis.”

“He didn’t have one before?” Hollis murmured.

“I don’t think he knew he had one. I mean, I think there was a part of him listening to whatever it was urging him to kill, and another part of him that had no idea that was happening.”

“A split personality?” Hollis asked.

“Maybe. They’re a lot more rare than people realize, but it is possible that’s what we have in this case. One part of his mind, the sane part, may have been in control most of the time.”

“And now?” Rafe asked.

“Now,” Isabel said, “I think the sane part of his mind is getting lost, submerged. I think he’s losing control.”

“It’s all about control.”

“No, it’s all about relationships. It’s still all about relationships. Look at this note. He believes these women have violated-or, in my case, will violate-his trust. There’s a secret he’s protecting, and he’s convinced the women he kills threaten to expose that secret.”

“So they know him.”

“He thinks they do.”

Rafe looked at Isabel steadily. “Then he thinks you know him.”

“I think I do too.”

The looming storm only fed their sense of urgency, at least in part because it seemed to surround them all day long without actually hitting Hastings. Tree limbs were blown around, power crews were kept busy repairing downed electrical lines, and thunder boomed and rolled while lightning flashed in the weird twilight.

It was as if the whole world was on the verge of something, hesitating, waiting.

By five o’clock that afternoon, they had paperwork scattered across the conference table, pinned to the bulletin boards, and stacked on two of the chairs. Forensics reports, background checks on the victims, statements from everyone involved, and postmortems complete with photographs.

And still they didn’t have the answers they needed.

When Travis came in with the last batch of reports from area banks, Mallory groaned. “Christ, not more paper.”

“And not even helpful,” he told her as he handed the notes to Rafe, then leaned his hands on the back of an unoccupied chair. “Nobody recognized the name or photograph of Jamie Brower-except to say they’d seen her picture in the newspapers and on TV.”

Isabel waited out another rumble of thunder, then said, “We need a fresh mind. Travis, if you wanted to bury a secret someplace you could be sure it wouldn’t be found, where would you put it?”

“In a grave.” He realized he was being stared at, and straightened self-consciously. “Well, I would. Once somebody’s buried, they’re not often dug back up. So why not? It’d be easy enough to strip the turf off a grave, bury whatever it was I was trying to hide between the surface and the casket-assuming it was the right size-then cover it back up and re-lay the grass. As long as I was careful, nobody’d even notice.”

“Son of a bitch,” Rafe said.

Isabel was shaking her head. “Why isn’t he a detective?”

Travis brightened. “I was right?”

“God knows,” Hollis said, “but you’re sending us in a new direction, so I say good for you.”

“Hey, cool.” Then his smile faded. “We got lots of cemeteries in Hastings. Where do we start looking? And what’re we looking for, by the way?”

“We’re looking for a box of photos,” Rafe said, feeling the younger cop had earned the knowledge.

Isabel added, “And it has to be connected with Jamie Brower. We need to know where any deceased family or friends are buried.”

“I’ll go back to my phone,” Travis said with a sigh. “Start calling all the local clergy and asking them. I do not want to have to call the Browers directly, not today. Or tomorrow, or next week.”

“Yeah, let’s avoid that if possible,” Rafe told him.

When he’d gone, Isabel said, “You really should promote him.”

“He was on my short list,” Rafe said. “The only reason I’ve hesitated is because he’s currently sleeping with a reporter who isn’t quite what she appears to be.”

Hollis asked, “What is she?”

“According to my sources, she works for the governor’s office, and is sent in quietly during tricky investigations to keep an eye on local law enforcement. So we don’t do anything to embarrass ourselves. Or the state attorney general. They’re keeping a very close eye on this investigation.”

“That shows a distressing lack of faith,” Isabel said, but without surprise.

Mallory was looking at Rafe with lifted brows. “You know that for a fact.”

“Yes,” he replied with a faint smile. “I keep a fairly close eye on my people.”

Mallory stared at him, then said, “Oh, don’t tell me.”

“You and Isabel have something in common. Neither one of you is as subtle as you think you are.”

“I resent that,” Isabel said.

“Besides,” Hollis said, “Alan Moore is the one who isn’t subtle. Even I picked up on it.”

Mallory got to her feet with great dignity. “Being outnumbered by psychics is hardly fair. I’m going to use the computer in the other room. Excuse me.”

“I think we pissed her off,” Hollis said absently as she opened the local phone book to begin making a list of churches and cemeteries.

“She’ll get over it.” Rafe shook his head. “Although I don’t know if Alan will. Never seen him fall so hard before.”

Isabel pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Mallory doesn’t strike me as the settling-down type.”

“I don’t think she is. I also don’t think Alan has realized that yet.”

“It’s always about relationships,” Hollis murmured, with a sidelong glance at Isabel.

Ignoring the glance, Isabel said, “We need to go back through every piece of paper associated in any way with Jamie’s life and death and check out the names of all family and friends.”

“Chicken,” Hollis said.

“We have more imperative things to think about,” Isabel told her. “Like finding that grave.”

Rafe said, “You think it’s there, don’t you? You think Jamie buried that box in somebody’s grave?”

“I think it makes sense. She was burying a part of her life, so why not put it in a grave? And I’m betting it won’t be a family grave, but the grave of someone else who was important to her. A teacher, a mentor, a friend. Maybe her first lover.”

“Male or female?”

“At a guess, female.”

“That does help narrow the field.”

“Let’s hope it narrows it enough.”

Of all the family and friends who had died during Jamie’s life, Isabel considered three women the most likely candidates for Jamie’s burial of her secrets. One was a former teacher that friends reported Jamie had seemed especially close to, one was a close friend from high school who had been killed in a highway accident, and the third was a woman who had worked in Jamie’s office, dying young of cancer.

Three women, three cemeteries.

“I think we should check these out before the storm breaks,” Isabel told Rafe.

Rafe wanted to argue, but he was reluctant to put off doing anything that could help them catch the killer before he took aim at his next target. Isabel.

And before the press took aim at her.

“It’ll be faster if we split up,” she was saying. Since she had already told him privately that she wanted to stick close to Hollis because her partner seemed to be so affected by the tension of the storm, Rafe didn’t object when she added, “Hollis and I will take Rosemont.”

“You’ll also take Dean Emery,” he added. “There’s only one entrance to Rosemont, and it’s fenced; he can stand by at the entrance while you two find the grave. Mallory can take Travis along to Sunset.”

“And who will you take to Grogan’s Creek?” Isabel asked politely.

“I might take the mayor,” he answered wryly. “I need to stop and see him before he blows a fuse.”

Mallory said, “We’re doing all this on the way home, right? Because I’m beat.”

Rafe nodded. “Check out the cemeteries, phone in reports-once you’re out of the storm, that is-and then head home.”

“Got my vote,” Isabel said.

Twenty minutes later, Hollis was saying, “You had to pick the largest cemetery, didn’t you? The one with all the tall monuments and acres of graves.”

“And don’t forget the pretty little chapel with the stained-glass windows,” Isabel reminded, raising her voice a bit as the wind tended to snatch at it.

“I just wish the place had a caretaker on duty to point out Susan Andrews’s grave,” Hollis said, pausing to squint at a headstone. “Because unless…”

“Unless what?” Isabel asked, half turning to look at her partner.

Hollis would have answered, but she was hardly aware of Isabel in that moment. The sounds of the wind and the thunder had retreated into that peculiar hollow almost-silence. Her skin was tingling. The fine hairs on her body were stirring. And in the strobe flashes of the lightning, she could see Jamie Brower several yards away, beckoning.

“This way,” Hollis said.

Isabel followed her. “How do you know?” she demanded, raising her voice again to be heard over the rising wind.

“It’s Jamie.” Hollis nearly stopped, then hurried forward. “Dammit, it was her. But I don’t see her now.”

“Where was she?”

“Somewhere in this area.” Hollis jumped as thunder crashed, feeling her skin literally crawl. “Have I mentioned how much I hate storms?”

“You might have, yeah. This area? We’ll find it.” Isabel paused as thunder boomed, and added, “Unless we get struck by lightning, that is. I just think we need to do this now. And if you saw Jamie, that makes it even more imperative, I’d say.”

Hollis didn’t argue, just began checking the headstones in the area, flinching with every crack of thunder and flash of lightning. “I hate this,” she called to her partner. “I really hate-”

“Here.” Isabel knelt by a simple headstone with the name Susan Andrews engraved on it.

“It doesn’t look disturbed,” Hollis said, then swore under her breath as Isabel dug her fingernails into the turf and neatly lifted a perfectly square section.

“You’d think it would have rooted by now,” Isabel said, folding back the turf. “It’s tight, but not that difficult to pull up.”

Hollis knelt on the other side of the grave to help. “A very neat section just at the headstone. Now I’m glad we brought the shovel Dean had in the cruiser’s trunk.”

“I’m an optimist,” Isabel said, unfolding the small emergency shovel.

Hollis sat back on her heels suddenly. “You knew we’d find it, didn’t you?”

“I had a hunch.”

“You heard a voice.”

“A whisper. Help me dig.”

“We should call Dean,” Hollis said, but it was only a minute or two before the shovel scraped across something metallic and they were able to drag a small box about twelve inches square and five or six inches deep from its resting place at Susan Andrews’s headstone.

“I think we’d better take this back to the station to open it,” Isabel said, the reluctance in her tone clear despite the gusty wind and rumbles of thunder.

“You just forgot to bring your lock-pick tools,” Hollis said, a little amused. “Need help carrying that?”

“No, I’ve got it. You get the shovel, will you, please?”

As they started back across the cemetery, Isabel carrying the box and Hollis the shovel, the latter stopped suddenly.

“Shit.”

Isabel stopped as well, following her partner’s gaze. “What? I don’t see anything.”

“Jamie. She’s-”

At first Isabel thought the rumble of thunder had drowned out whatever Hollis had been saying, but then she felt a sharp tug at the small of her back and whirled, instinctively dropping the metal box, filled with the sudden cold certainty that she had been blindsided again.

A flash of lightning brilliantly lit the scene before her. Hollis falling on the ground with blood blossoming on the back of her pale blouse. Mallory standing hardly more than an arm’s length from Isabel, a big, bloodstained knife in one black-gloved hand and Isabel’s gun in the other.

“You know,” she said, “I’m really surprised you didn’t pick up on it. All those vaunted psychic abilities, yours and hers. And Rafe’s, I suppose. It was so clear, and none of you saw it. None of you saw me.”

Rafe was able to soothe the mayor’s worries, but just barely enough to allow his own escape. He headed toward Grogan’s Creek church and the cemetery behind it, a name neatly printed on a piece of paper tucked in his pocket.

But when he reached a stop sign, he found himself hesitating, looking not east toward Grogan’s Creek, but west toward Rosemont.

There was no reason to worry, of course. She could take care of herself. Besides which, she wasn’t alone. Hollis was with her, and Dean.

He started to turn the wheel toward the east, then hesitated again. “She’s okay,” he heard himself say aloud. “She’s fine.”

Except that his gut said she wasn’t.

His gut-and the blood on his hands.

Rafe stared at the reddish stains, shocked for an instant because it had happened so suddenly.

But then, just as suddenly, he knew the truth. He understood what it meant.

And he knew Isabel was in deadly danger.

He turned the wheel hard, heading west, and reached for his phone to call Dean.