The Perfect Murder

Eight

Could it really be over? After all the time he’d spent searching?

Sebastian almost didn’t dare hope. But as he drove Jane Burke to Ione-her car didn’t have GPS and he hadn’t yet sacrificed his Lexus-he called to share the news with Mary. He doubted he’d be able to reach her this early. She was at the hospital working in admissions until four. But he could leave a message she might get on her break. With those flowers showing up at her house this morning, he wanted to alleviate her fears as soon as possible.

The voice-mail recording he’d expected came on. He waited for the beep. “Mary, this is Sebastian. I think we have him. Don’t worry about anything, okay? I’ll be back in touch when I know more.”

As he hung up, he felt Jane watching him and glanced over. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of her. She seemed like such a contradiction. She dressed like a typical professional, in conservative business casual, but her hair-dark at the roots and jagged and bleached on the ends-was anything but conservative. Her low-pitched, raspy voice suggested she smoked and yet she was obviously in great physical shape. Then there were the tattoos. She had one on her breast. The V of her sweater came up too high for him to see what it was, but when she moved, he occasionally glimpsed the edge of it. The other was the word survivor written on the curve between the thumb and finger on her left hand.

The fact that she was working at a victims’ charity led him to believe that tattoo had nothing to do with being a fan of the popular reality show.

What had she been through?

The scar on her neck, noticeable when she turned her head, posed some frightening possibilities…

“You really think we’ll find Malcolm Turner?” she asked, shifting her gaze to a point outside the car, as if uncomfortable with his perusal.

“If this is the right Wesley Boss, I do.” Sebastian signaled so he could make a left onto Jackson Road. They were heading toward a string of historic gold-rush towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Since coming to Sacramento, Sebastian had studied the whole area. According to what he’d read, Ione wasn’t a mining town, but it had been a staging and agricultural center for the mining towns around it.

Jane braced herself with a hand against the door as he took the corner a little too fast. “DNA evidence is pretty reliable.”

“I know. Malcolm’s certainly been able to rely on it.” He passed the vehicle in front of him. They’d only left the office fifteen minutes ago, but his impatience made the drive seem interminable. “He was a cop. He knew the men who’d be taking the samples, how they’d go about it, where they’d store them after they were collected, where they’d be tested.”

“You think he traded them out or something?”

When she stated it that way, it sounded far-fetched, even to him. But stranger things had happened. He’d once read about a UCI professor who found that DNA evidence as evaluated by a certain police lab had resulted in a young man’s wrongful conviction of rape. Sloppiness, sample corruption, dishonesty, human error, overstatement of the odds-all of it could potentially “prove” the wrong thing. “He could have. They were bone-marrow samples. But it might not have been necessary to go that far. He had half a mil to buy the help he needed.”

She whistled softly. “I can see why the police might not have bought your accusations. If what you say is true, they have a bigger problem than one bad cop.”

“Definitely not a possibility they want to consider. I would’ve been happy just to convince them to take a new sample. But by the time I realized something wasn’t right, it was too late. Malcolm’s family had already cremated the remains of whoever was in that car.”

“Do you have any idea who that person was?”

“No.”

“No one else in the area suddenly went missing.”

“No. I’m guessing it was a homeless person or a corpse he dug up. Or he paid off some mortician who had a body awaiting cremation.” That was part of the reason the police were so convinced by the DNA match. There’d been no corresponding missing-persons report or disturbance of a cemetery plot-at least, that had come to their attention. They hadn’t bothered to look very carefully. Sebastian had tried, but he’d come up empty.

“So what tipped you off?” she asked. “How’d you figure it out?”

The Prius ahead of them was traveling more slowly than Sebastian would’ve liked, but it was only a two-lane highway and traffic streaming in the opposite direction wouldn’t let him pass at the moment. “There were too many unanswered questions.”

“Such as?”

“Why didn’t he shoot himself? He used his firearm to kill Emily and Colton. He could easily have turned it on himself and ended his life right there in the house with them. Instead, he ran his car off a steep embankment, after which it burst into flames.”

“Making it impossible to visually identify the body.”

Finding an opening in the traffic, he floored the accelerator. “Convenient, don’t you think?”

“What about dental records?” she asked.

He eased back into the right-hand lane. “What about them?”

“They’re often used to identify burn victims.”

“Not in this case. The police didn’t see any reason to go to the extra trouble. As far as they were concerned, they already had a positive ID. The car they found was Turner’s. They had a bone-marrow sample. They even had a suicide note he’d e-mailed to his sergeant saying that he’d lost a huge sum of money in an investment and his wife was having an affair with her ex.”

She held on to her seat belt as he swung out to pass again, but she didn’t complain about the aggressiveness of his driving. He suspected she was too preoccupied. “Wait, you’re the ex.”

“I’m the ex.”

“Was it true? Were you involved with Emily?”

He’d faced that question a million times. Just because he and his ex-wife had been able to maintain some mutual respect, a friendship, everyone assumed they were intimate. “She was very important to me-she was the mother of my kid. But I wasn’t sleeping with her. Malcolm’s claims were merely an excuse, a way to garner sympathy.”

They flew past an SUV before Sebastian had to move over to avoid a head-on collision with a Dodge truck. “You’ll get a speeding ticket if you don’t slow down,” she warned. “And getting pulled over will waste more time than you’ll save by going so fast.”

Evidently, she was paying more attention than he’d thought. And she was right. Grudgingly, he let up on the gas.

“What does Malcolm look like?” she asked as they slowed.

“Average. Five foot nine, hundred and seventy-five pounds. Irish background. Red hair. Blue eyes. Why?”

“Just curious.”

She might be seeing him in a few minutes. Until then, Sebastian had a picture he could show her. Leaning across the seat, he opened the jockey box and fished around inside, eventually coming up with the photograph he’d been using in his search. “That’s him,” he said, handing it to her. “Emily and Colton, too. It’s what they sent in their last Christmas card.”

She studied the photograph.

“So?” he prompted. “Have you ever seen him before?”

“No.”

“Is he what you expected?”

“Not really. He’s losing his hair.”

“You can tell in that picture?” he asked, surprised.

“I used to be a hairstylist.” She held the photograph closer. “He seems to have a nice physique, though.”

“Classic short man’s complex, trying to compensate with muscle mass for what he lacks in height.”

She didn’t respond to his comment. “Emily is beautiful.”

Bitterness overwhelmed him. “Was beautiful,” he corrected.

Jane hadn’t said anything about Colton, but Sebastian guessed she was studying the similarities between them. His son had looked so much like him, except he’d had his mother’s light-colored eyes.

Grabbing the photograph before she could mention it, Sebastian shoved it back in the jockey box. He didn’t want to talk about Colton. Not with a virtual stranger. And not with anyone who was close to him, either. That was the real reason Constance was moving on. He hadn’t been able to include her in what he was suffering. He’d withdrawn.

Fortunately, Jane said nothing. She watched the green rolling hills between Sacramento and Ione fly past her window-or stared at nothing, he couldn’t tell which-but she gave him some space and for that he was grateful.

Several minutes later, she resumed the conversation, and her question had nothing to do with the photograph he’d shown her. “What about the five hundred thousand dollars you mentioned? Where’d that come from?”

The money he could talk about. He’d been talking about it since Malcolm’s escape. It was the strongest proof that Malcolm was still alive. “That was Emily’s. She’d gotten an insurance settlement a few months before and cashed the check. She was saving it to build a new life for her and Colton. At least, that’s what she told me. But after the funerals were over and we went to clean the house, the key to the safety-deposit box was there but the money wasn’t.”

“Maybe she moved it.”

“Where? There was no record of it ever going into any of their accounts. And if she was ready to invest it, she would’ve asked for my help. I’m an investment banker. She mentioned doing something with it once, but Malcolm put a quick stop to my involvement. He said he didn’t trust me, and he accused us of having an affair.”

“More smoke and mirrors?”

“A way to make sure the money wasn’t tied up when he made his getaway.”

“Malcolm traded his profession, his family, his whole life for an amount that might last him five years-if he lives modestly?”

“People have killed for much less,” Sebastian said quietly.

“Usually those people are on drugs or looking for the money to get high. They’re not thinking straight. This was planned. Was he in debt?”

For someone who’d seemed a little out of her element when they were at the office, Jane was actually pretty savvy. She came across as sort of tough, certainly more streetwise than the typical middle-class white woman. Sebastian respected that. “Deeply. He probably wanted her to bail him out, but she wouldn’t do it. As I said, she planned to use her money to leave him and start over. Not only would he lose her, he’d have no insurance settlement to avoid financial ruin.”

“A major embarrassment, to say the least.”

“Exactly. But if he killed his wife and stepson and faked his own death, he could take the money, escape punishment and evade his creditors without ever having to face the people he’d hurt.”

“A good plan, provided you’re a monster,” she said. “So what kind of debts did he have?”

According to GPS, they’d already driven eighteen miles on CA-14. Sebastian slowed, looking for Ione Road. “His credit cards were maxed out, and he’d pulled all the equity from their house so it was way overmortgaged. He’d borrowed from his parents, his brother, his best friend. He’d even drained his retirement account.”

“Where was the money going?”

“Sports gambling. That’s all I can figure. I’m guessing he kept chasing his losses. I think he was even placing bets online.”

“Online gambling’s illegal, isn’t it?”

“Depends on the state. There’s only been one guy I’m aware of who’s been prosecuted for placing bets online. He paid a five-hundred-dollar fine, but his winnings were over one hundred thousand dollars, so I doubt he minded too much.”

“Did you tell the police about Malcolm’s financial situation?”

“Since he admitted to having financial problems in his suicide note, they weren’t overly concerned.” He shot her a glance. “But they didn’t meet the shady character who showed up at the house one night while I was there.”

“A loan shark?”

Sebastian found their turn. According to GPS they had another five miles before the next one. “He claimed to be a friend, said Malcolm owed him money. Apparently, he’d missed the piece in the paper announcing the death of the whole family. Or he was coming by to pick the bones.”

“What was his name?”

“Johnny DiMiglio. At least, that’s the name he gave me.”

“Did you tell him you thought Malcolm was alive?”

“I did. I was hoping he’d go after him. It would’ve saved me a lot of time and trouble.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

“I haven’t seen or heard from DiMiglio since. He probably figured he’d spend more to find Malcolm than he’d lose by letting it go.” Lord knows Sebastian had lost enough.

“Bottom line, Malcolm thought he had nothing to lose by murdering Emily and Colton and everything to gain.”

“That’s my guess.”

She adjusted her seat belt. “Now I know why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

He felt his eyebrows go up.

“I’d be doing the same thing,” she said.

There was no time to respond. They’d reached their destination.

Jane’s stomach muscles tightened with trepidation as Sebastian pulled to the side of the road, next to a canal, a good distance from the lonely rambler that matched the address Detective Willis had given her. They’d already driven by the house twice. Located at the edge of town, it sat on a large square lot that was mostly mud, thanks to a lack of landscaping and plenty of rainy weather. A dated Volkswagen Beetle, dented and rusted with a flat tire, took refuge beneath the attached metal carport.

The place wasn’t much to look at. If Wesley Boss was Malcolm Turner, he certainly hadn’t spent much of Emily’s insurance settlement on lodging. But Ione encompassed such a hodgepodge of housing styles that such a dilapidated ranch house didn’t surprise Jane. The thousand or so households in the area straddled a wide range of styles and incomes-everything from broken-down trailers to a handful of high-end mansions overlooking Lake Comanche.

“What I don’t understand is why there’s no deputy around,” she said. “We couldn’t have beaten him here. We had to drive all the way from Sacramento.”

That was the second time she’d mentioned it, and the second time Sebastian ignored her. Reaching under his seat, he retrieved a handgun and got out of the car. He didn’t seem to care about the deputy. He cared only about finding his man. But what would happen then? He couldn’t arrest Wesley Boss or Malcolm Turner or whoever the guy was.

“This can’t be good,” she breathed. She had her 9mm in her purse. She’d taken it out of her bottom desk drawer before leaving the office, but she was still very conscious of the fact that she hadn’t received her license to carry concealed. And Sebastian was from New York. Even if he had a license, California law didn’t recognize CCW licenses issued in other states.

“One way or another, we’re going to get into trouble. Where’s the damn sheriff’s deputy?” she asked again, only this time she was talking to herself. Sebastian was halfway to the house, keeping low to the ground and using every tree or bush he could for cover.

Briefly, Jane acknowledged that he looked good using the SWAT approach, like a professional. But she had more important things to worry about than admiring his athleticism and technique-like trying to stop him from taking the law into his own hands.

“Sebastian!” she hissed, standing on the triangle of soggy earth outside her car door. “This isn’t safe. Someone could get hurt.”

She knew he’d heard her when he looked back. But he wasn’t happy she’d broken the silence. With a dark scowl, he waved for her to get back in the car and shut up.

Obviously, he was going in whether she liked it or not. She could call David and try to find out where the deputy was, or she could follow him.

It would definitely be safer to stay in the car. But if Malcolm Turner was in that house and he was as dangerous as Sebastian thought, she should probably try to help. And what about Latisha and Marcie? They could be inside, too. Jane definitely didn’t want them to get hurt in whatever was about to happen.

With a curse, she stepped around the car door and closed it so softly it didn’t actually latch. Then she copied Sebastian’s SWAT performance. She was positive she didn’t look as good doing it, but there were no neighbors to witness her behavior-and she preferred to take any precautions she could to avoid getting shot.

“This is crazy,” she told herself over and over.

Sebastian was on the porch before she reached the front yard. He glanced in her direction, then did a double take. Pointing, he motioned for her to return the way she’d come, but she shook her head resolutely and continued forward, forcing him to wait for her.

Once they were close enough to speak without alerting anyone inside, she whispered, “I’ll go around the house, in case anyone comes out the back door.”

He’d been about to complain, or order her back to the car, even though he had no authority to do that. He had no authority to do anything, but he wasn’t asking permission, and she could tell by the crease in his forehead that he didn’t care if she had complaints.

Her plan must’ve made sense to him, however-or else he was pacified by the fact that she had a gun and could defend herself if necessary, thus removing the burden from him. Either way, his annoyed expression dissolved into the determination that’d been there before.

“Okay,” he said, his voice barely audible. “But make sure you have some sort of cover at all times. Do you understand?”

Ignoring the “Do you understand?”-who put him in charge, anyway?-she slipped around to the side yard. Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about running into any unfriendly dogs. There was no fence around the property. She could see that the backyard held nothing except a weather-beaten shed, some old tires and more mud.

“This is going to ruin my nice shoes,” she grumbled and did her best to hug the concrete foundation of the house-to avoid their destruction as much as her own.

It started to sprinkle as she took her position behind the shed. Although she was farther from the house than she would’ve liked, she couldn’t find better cover. The tires were lying flat on the ground, and there wasn’t so much as a tree between her and the back door.

Nothing seemed to be happening, anyway. Where was Sebastian? Had he knocked? He hadn’t fired; she would’ve heard that.

The wind whistled through the cracks of the shed, but there were no voices, no evidence of movement.

“Come on, come on.” Peering around the corner, she saw the same static view she’d seen before and wished it was all over. Her teeth chattered from the cold and rain. She’d been so concerned that a man she’d met an hour ago was approaching the house with a loaded firearm that she’d left the car without her coat.

A sudden noise-a loud crack-made her knees go weak. She was just reassuring herself that it hadn’t been a gunshot when Sebastian called out to her. “It’s safe. There’s no one here.”

Thank God. Leaning her head back to gulp for breath, she dropped her gun to her side.

“Hey, Burke!” he called when she didn’t answer. “You there? You okay?”

Burke? She hated going by Oliver’s last name. She would’ve changed it except that she would’ve had to change Kate’s, too, which would have hurt Oliver’s parents even more. They were good people. They didn’t deserve the pain he’d caused them.

“Burke!”

She leaned over to see him standing under the small covering that sheltered the back porch. The crack had been the wind wresting the door from his grasp and slamming it against the exterior wall. She could tell by the way he was hanging on to it.

“Name’s Jane,” she said. “And I’m fine.”

“You planning to stay out in the rain all day?” he asked when she didn’t budge.

With her free hand, Jane rubbed the wetness from her face. So many things could’ve happened in the past few minutes. She could’ve been shot in a gunfight-or shot someone else. Innocent victims might have been injured or killed. She could’ve been apprehended by the police and lost her weapon and any hope she had of obtaining a permit. Any of which would’ve cost her the job she needed in order to support her daughter.

All because of Sebastian Costas.

A surge of anger lent Jane’s legs fresh strength. Too furious to worry about damaging her shoes, she marched across the muddy yard, sinking a few inches with every step. “What did you think you were doing?” she demanded. “Trying to get us both killed? You’re not a cop! You don’t have a license to carry that gun in California! And no one put you in charge!”

“Calm down,” he said. “Everything’s okay.”

“Only because there was no one around for you to shoot!”

Obviously not intimidated by her, he looked her up and down as she came closer. “That isn’t strictly true, now is it?”

Jane narrowed her eyes. “Are you threatening me?”

Irritation carved another crease in his forehead. “Of course not. I’m just telling you to stop being such a pain in the ass.”

“I’m the pain?” she shouted. “I trusted you when I brought you here.” She ignored the fact that he’d driven, because she’d provided the address. “And then you pull out a loaded weapon and approach this house as if you’ve got the right to storm anyplace you want. What was going through your head? For all you knew, there were children inside!”

“Malcolm Turner is dangerous.”

“He doesn’t even live here anymore. What if someone else had moved in?”

His face an implacable mask, he shrugged. “Then I would’ve put the gun away.”

Blowing out a sigh, she shook her head. “If I report this, you could be brought up on charges. At a minimum, your firearm would be confiscated. You realize that?”

“Nothing happened,” he reiterated and walked inside.

Unwilling to be left in the rain, Jane followed. “You’re making me wonder who’s more dangerous-you or Wesley Boss,” she yelled at his back.

He didn’t respond. He went into the entry hall and checked the coat closet. Then he went into the garage.

She remained in the empty living room, staring down at her feet. Sebastian was to blame for her soggy shoes, too. But haranguing him about it wasn’t going to change anything.

After her blood pressure returned to normal, she began to look around herself. Obviously, whoever had lived here had packed up and moved on. There was some old furniture-just the bare necessities-but no signs of habitation. That had to be why the deputy wasn’t around when they arrived. He’d already come and gone.

Avoiding the kitchen because Sebastian had just gone in there, she walked from room to room. Brown shag carpet, matted from wear, covered the floors, except for a small patch of tile at the front door. There were three bedrooms, two baths, the standard kitchen and dining room combo with a large family room. Jane didn’t see any evidence that Latisha or Marcie had ever been here. But she didn’t see any evidence that Wesley Boss had been here, either.

When she returned from her quick tour, Sebastian was still in the kitchen, going through the cupboards and drawers. She wasn’t sure she wanted to speak to him, but now that her anger had dissipated, there didn’t seem to be any point in holding a grudge. Not if sharing information could help them both. Maybe he was reckless, but he seemed to be very capable. His approach to the house had been breathtaking in its confident precision.

“I smell only cleaning chemicals and room deodorizer,” she said, leaning against the doorway. “Makes the place feel as if it’s been vacant for a while.”

He looked up at her, met her eyes, then moved to a different drawer. “I think it has been. I’m guessing whoever lived here moved away months before the girls were abducted.”

“I’ll have to contact the owner to see for sure,” Jane said. “Maybe he can provide a forwarding address. Someone obviously went to some trouble to salvage his security deposit.”

“I’m guessing the only address the owner will have is the P.O. box connected to the phone,” he said.

“I could always do surveillance on the post office where that box is located. See if Malcolm shows up.”

“Problem is, you could be sitting there for a while. He could go days, weeks, even months without checking it.”

“It might be the best lead we have.”

The slam of another cupboard resounded in the empty house. “Not if I can convince him to meet me.”

Via their Internet chats. That did seem a lot less random. “What do you think the chances are?”

“Tough to say, but…” His words fell off. He’d found a drawer with something in it. From what Jane could see, they were manuals for the various kitchen appliances. She expected him to close that drawer like every other, but he didn’t. He riffled through it. A minute later, he pulled out the dishwasher manual and began to read some words that’d been written on the back.

“What is it?” Jane took a step toward him, but he tore off the cover and slipped it inside his coat.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”