The Dead Man

Chapter Sixty-two

Cops, ambulances, news crews, and gawkers came in predictable succession, sawhorses and yellow tape keeping people where they belonged. Lucy and I had found the body so our place was inside the perimeter until Carter cut us loose. He put Lucy in the backseat of his unmarked and me in a squad car. We weren't suspects but he was playing it straight, making certain that he got each of our stories instead of one we'd told each other.

Carter gave McNair the perfect job, one where he could do no harm, stationing him at the entrance of the Gallery, deciding who got in like a bouncer working the rope line at a hot nightclub. McNair was in his element, strutting without straining.

I looked out the window at the gathering crowd. People love a parade. They're drawn by the pomp and pageantry, the marching bands and smiling faces. Fathers hoist little kids on their shoulders, those too big for shoulders climbing lampposts or straddling mailboxes for a better view.

The dead man is just as big a draw, the spectacle of the crime scene offering a dangerous whiff of mortality. Its attraction is hypnotic. Though some people are afraid to look while others can't bear to look away, no one wants to miss any of it. The visceral reminder of our shared vulnerability tweaks a primal fear, leaving us entranced and relieved that this time wasn't our time.

Rachel Firestone jostled her way to a sawhorse directly across from me, waving until I nodded, holding her thumb to her ear and her pinky to her mouth, gesturing me to call her. Jason Bolt tapped her on the shoulder, saving me from responding. Rachel gave me a parting wave and followed him into the crowd.

I settled back against the seat, my assumptions about this case once again upended. Corliss wasn't the perfect fit but he was the best fit I had, not because the evidence against him was overwhelming. It wasn't. It was circumstantial, reinforced by more assumptions predicated on his relationships with the victims, their shared history of abuse, and what had happened to Kimberly Stevens in Wisconsin. My suspicion of Corliss depended as much on what I didn't know as what I did know. The biggest gap in my knowledge was that there was no plausible alternative.

Having guessed right about the Gallery was small consolation, though Corliss's murder had given me that plausible alternative-Gary Kaufman. He had picked up the key to the Gallery from Sherry Fritzshall's secretary. When I talked to him on Monday he was nonchalant about the deaths of Delaney and Blair, saying that we all died, adding that it made no difference if a few people went ahead of schedule. I passed it off as lame humor and even more lame philosophy, though his wife, Janet, had recoiled, admonishing him that two people were already dead, as if to say that was enough. It was a reach to now put the murders on Kaufman, but that's what you did when you guessed wrong and had nothing else.

If Gary Kaufman were the killer, I had little doubt that Maggie Brennan was next on his list. He'd save his wife for last, debating whether to end his spree with a murder-suicide or just another murder. I knew my latest scenario was a castle in the air, the foundation built on missing pieces. I called Simon, hoping he had found some of them.

"What's up chief?" he asked.

"Corliss is dead." I gave him the quick and dirty.

"Since Kaufman had the key to the Gallery, sounds like that puts him at the top of the leader board."

"Only because there's not much competition. You told me he had a juvie record. What did you find out about that?"

"Those records are impossible to get into. Best I could do was check newspaper reports, see if there were any stories that matched the location and time frame."

"And?"

"Kaufman grew up in a suburb of Las Cruces, New Mexico. I found a story in the local newspaper about a kid charged with animal cruelty around the same time Kaufman's record pops up. The kid in the newspaper story was put on probation. The paper didn't identify him because he was a juvenile. A week or so later, there's a letter to the editor from a woman who says it was her cat the kid killed and that he should have been tried as an adult and sent to jail."

"Tell me you found the woman and talked to her."

"Got off the phone with her about twenty minutes ago. She's old and hard of hearing and she slurs her words like she's half in the bag or maybe she had a stroke. Anyway, from what I could make out, she claims the kid strangled her cat, gutted it, and amputated its paws. When I asked her if the kid's name was Gary Kaufman, she started crying."

"Kaufman wouldn't be the first kid to graduate from torturing animals to being a serial killer."

"One weird thing," Simon said. "She asked what kind of trouble Kaufman was in and I asked her what made her think he was in trouble and she says mine was the second call she'd gotten about him. The first one was from a policeman but she couldn't remember his name or where he was calling from."

"I'm betting it was Quincy Carter. How about Tom Goodell? Any luck tracking him down?"

"That's not as easy I thought it'd be. He's not on the grid. No address, no utilities, no credit cards."

"He's an old guy, probably in his eighties and not in the best health. I remember him saying that his son is a cop. Works in Lenexa or maybe in Leawood. Could be he's living with his son. Check it out."

"I'm on it," he said, hanging up.

Carter opened the door and slid in beside me. "Next time, I'll take your call."

"Wouldn't have mattered. We were both late."

"The coroner will figure the time of death but I'm betting Corliss has been dead at least twelve hours."

"Maybe longer than that," I said. "There were no tracks in the snow on the sidewalk or on the steps. The snow probably covered the killer's footprints and it stopped snowing during the night."

"No tracks in front but there's a door in the back. Leads into an alley. We found footprints and tire tracks."

"I guess I'm rusty. I should have sent Lucy around to the back and taken the front myself."

"No. You should have stayed out of it," Carter said. "Like I told you. And I should have known you wouldn't. Would have been better if I had arrested you when I had the chance."

"Don't feel bad. I found a body for you."

"But no killer. Thanks a lot. I've got to admit that Corliss looked like the right guy especially after I got an earful from that lawyer, Jason Bolt."

"He tell you about the coed at the University of Wisconsin?" I asked.

"You too, huh. Even had the lawyer from up there call me. So, I talked to the detective who investigated that girl's death. Said it was accidental or suicide. No evidence it was a homicide."

"Everyone we look at in this case has dirt on them, but not killer dirt."

"Including your boss. Bolt also told me about Peggy Murray, tried to convince me that Milo Harper murdered her. We ran the traps on that one too. Another accident."

"Bolt's doing what lawyers do. Stir up a lot of shit, hope enough of it sticks to turn into money."

"Harper's problem, not mine. I didn't buy him or Leonard Nagel as killers and I started falling out of love with Corliss when we had a handwriting expert examine the list with the victims' initials on it that you found in his desk. Preliminary analysis says it's not Corliss's handwriting. We're trying to match it with handwriting samples from other people at the institute but that will take time."

"Maybe the killer wrote it and planted it in Corliss's desk, same as he planted Anne Kendall's ID badge in Leonard Nagel's desk."

"Or maybe Corliss found it and knew who the killer was, which got him carved up. Tell me how you tripped to the gallery."

I ran through it for him. He took notes on a spiral pad, stuffing the pad in his shirt pocket when I finished.

"So Kaufman is in the mix."

"Not just because he had the key to the gallery. He was busted for strangling and mutilating a cat when he was a teenager. That shit is like an advanced placement class in serial killer school."

He looked at me, eyes wide. "I don't want to know how you know about Kaufman's juvenile record."

"Then don't ask. How did you find out about it?"

Carter smiled. "You think I'm sitting on my ass waiting for you to call me? I'm like Santa Claus. I've got a list and I'm checking it twice."

"What's your take on Kaufman?"

He shrugged. "Could be him but the cat story doesn't do it for me."

"Why not?"

"It may not have happened."