Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (19 page)

We have. We’ve talked to every neighbor, every relative, every work associate, every club associate, and every other kind of associate of the past ten years for both victims. We’ve canvassed every store owner in a three-mile radius of each crime scene. We’ve checked every phone log. We’ve read every report that Virgil has spit out on previous crime cities. We’ve read all forty-nine case reports at least a couple times each. We’ve talked to lead investigators from the other cities and from similar cases. We’ve listened to Reynolds and Van Guten hypothesize on the motivations and habits of our killer. We’re all attending AA meetings now. Zaworski feels like it was a mistake to just put women in the meetings at the outset.

Konkade heads up that part of the investigation. We’ve read the reams of reports this has generated. I think he has them memorized. We’ve run background checks on close to 300 AA attendees. None of them look good for this kind of crime, but we’ve gone deeper and probed into the backgrounds and current records on about forty of them anyway. Konkade has mobilized about twenty surveillance teams to pierce the anonymity of a good and innocent organization. None of us are comfortable with it, but none of us are willing to let the only viable lead go unattended. I don’t know the religious orientation of the individual team members, but I’m guessing anyone who prays is praying that the press doesn’t get hold of our infiltration of a nonprofit service organization. None of us are ready to face the potential legal repercussions.

Stern and taciturn, Konkade is showing signs of stress. He keeps running a hand over the top of his head to smooth his hair back. Problem is, he doesn’t have any hair.

Scalia is old-school. Just like Dad. He listens and rarely speaks. Just like Dad again. He’ll occasionally interject a question about a conversation we’ve had with someone who might have information that can help us understand what’s going on. Otherwise, he’s not volunteering what’s on his mind. He’s a legend on the force. Could it be that he has no ideas in mind either? That’s scary.

Reynolds pops his head in the room. Zaworski and Czaka are behind him.

“Sorry to interrupt. Can we steal Detective Conner from you for a few minutes?”

“We’re wrapping up anyway,” Blackshear answers. “She’s all yours.”

Blackshear is now our official spokesperson. I am predicting a promotion for him in the not-too-distant future. Maybe Martinez too. His English isn’t the best but his Spanish is a very desirable trait in a multicultural city. Because of guilt by association, I may not be helping Don’s cause.

I look at my watch and frown. It’s 11:30. I was planning to get Kendra’s present from Vanessa over lunch break. I’m hoping this goes fast.

“Is there a problem, Conner?” Czaka asks, noting my frown and hesitation.

“No, sir.”

We give each other an icy stare, both willing the other to speak. Zaworski smoothly positions himself between Czaka and me and nudges me down the hall before I can hang myself. I feel like a fifth-grader being taken to the principal’s office.

I look back at Czaka and Reynolds following us. We enter Zaworski’s office. Van Guten is already sitting comfortably in one of the wingback chairs, legs crossed, kicking a high-heeled shoe up and down slowly, reading a report. She nods at Czaka, Zaworski, and Reynolds but doesn’t look up at me. I guess what she’s reading is too important to acknowledge a lowly detective.

I told Don after the first meeting that I didn’t think she liked me. He scoffed and credited it to my female insecurity. Maybe we’re both right. We all just stand around and get busy doing nothing. Zaworski scrapes at an invisible stain on his tie with the fingernail of his right forefinger. Reynolds races through emails on his BlackBerry or iPhone or some concept phone that only the FBI gets to test. Czaka has opened a green file folder and is looking at a two-page report of some kind. He signs the second page, shuts the folder, hands it to Zaworski, and exits without a word.

Van Guten is in no hurry to finish her reading. Power move. She looks back a couple pages, purses her lips, snaps her folder shut, and looks directly at me.

“Detective Conner, after almost four weeks of scouring for clues, it appears that you are the only law enforcement officer from local, state, or national agencies who has suggested even one possible lead for our quarry.”

My mind races around trying to remember what it was that I came up with. Jonathan. I saw him in one meeting at one location. He hasn’t been back. He fits the age profile that Van Guten has proposed. Even his story of multiple jobs and high intelligence fits. Could I have scared him off? Tipped him off with my inability to come up with my own story? Is that why they’ve hauled me in?

“As I mentioned, there are things I like about this Jonathan that you met at your first AA meeting and things I don’t like. What intrigues me is that on three separate reports you expressed a question as to what he said about the timing of his return to Chicago.”

“I think that says more about my memory over a quick remark than it does about him.”

“I agree with you on that,” Van Guten says smugly. “It suggests to me that something about this person triggered a response in you that may be LCR.”

I look at her blankly.

“LCR. Latent Case Relevant,” she clarifies.

Okay.
Everyone in the room is looking at me intently now. What the heck is going on?

“What I’d like to do, with your full consent of course, is put you under hypnosis, which just happens to be one of my areas of expertise.”

I’m not sure I’m comfortable with her knowing what’s on my conscious mind, never mind my subconscious; the thought of opening that part of myself to someone else is outright scary. I’m not sure even I want to know all that goes on in my head.

27

“SO ARE YOU going to do it?”

“I don’t know, Don.”

“I’m sure it’s safe or they wouldn’t ask you to do it.”

“I don’t know. I read a novel once where an FBI psychologist used hypnosis to murder victims.”

“Did he strangle them or what?”

“It was actually a she and she didn’t do it directly. She had them commit suicide.”

“Huh?”

“She’d call them and speak a key word prompt she planted in their minds when they were in a hypnotic state. So there were no clues.”

“Sounds like a tough conviction.”

“Wasn’t necessary. The good guy killed her.” “What kind of trash are you reading these days?”

“Who says I’m reading trash? It was a great book. A little far-fetched, but believable.”

“Using hypnosis to murder people is plausible?”

“Well, the way it was written, sure. But getting back on topic, the thing that worries me most about Van Guten hypnotizing me is that . . . well, she doesn’t like me.”

“You say that about everybody.”

“Well, if you had even a twinge of suspicion that somebody didn’t like you, would you want them to control you when you were vulnerable?”

“No, guess I wouldn’t. But I do let you drive and I even go to the shooting range with you. Both are acts of courage in conditions of extreme vulnerability.”

Normally I’d punch Don in the shoulder. Hard. But my mind is racing. Don clears his throat and knocks some imaginary lint off his jacket sleeve while he ponders murder by hypnosis and my concerns about Van Guten.

“So . . . don’t do it,” he says.

“Right.”

“I thought she said it was your choice.”

“What do you think? Do I really have a choice?”

“Sure you do. You can say no—and go back to checking parking meters.”

“I think I’ve worked every rotten job that CPD has to offer, but I actually missed the meter maid routine.”

“I didn’t.”

I can’t help but laugh. Don? Working the parking detail? How’d I miss that in my year and change as his partner? “I’ll bet we’ve never had a better-dressed maid on the force.”

“Keep laughing,” he says.

“I’m going to let my meter run out just so I can see you roll around in your little meter cart.”

“Like I said, laugh it up.”

It’s Friday morning. I have to give Reynolds, Van Guten, and Zaworski an answer by ten. We’ve been on this case close to a month and desperation has seemingly set in. Van Guten wants to hypnotize me based on my report of Jonathan at my first AA meeting. So what if Jonathan is the killer? He hasn’t been back.

I’m all for science and any technique that might help us catch a sick killer. But you have to be realistic, too. Hypnosis feels about one step above the work of all the so-called psychics who show up when a predator like the Cutter Shark emerges. My dad was actually intrigued by the psychics—or
the psychos
, as he called them. He said that if you believe in the spiritual world, including angels and demons, you never know when one of the whack jobs—his phrase not mine—was going to have an insight due to a special connection with the spiritual world.

Van Guten was actually reassuring in detailing the safety and efficacy of hypnosis with me, but there’s an arrogance there that still makes me very uneasy. Zaworski handed me the green folder from Czaka, which contained a liability waiver. He gave me instructions to meet with my union rep for sure and a lawyer if I wanted. CPD would pay for an hour of legal consultation. He stressed one hour about three times. I guess our budget is already shot for the year and we’re not half-way into it. I talked to my union guy, who said it was my call. I skipped the $300-an-hour legal fee for the department.

• • •

“So how’d Kimberly like her gift?” Don asks.

“You mean Kendra?”

“I can’t keep track of all the
K
s in your family. It makes me wonder if someone in your family tree wore sheets and rode a horse by torchlight late at night.”

I turn and give Don my hardest glare.

“I’m kidding.”

“It isn’t funny.”

“You’re right and I apologize,” he says magnanimously.

“She loved it,” I say.

Problem was the gift didn’t go over very well with Mommy. No one sent me the memo that Jimmy and Kaylen were avoiding Barbie stuff for Kendra. Don said his daughter, Veronika, loves her Barbie dolls. I guess they have a black model, but according to Don, the wardrobe is still way too lily white. But no problem. Vanessa sews Veronika’s Barbie’s clothes . . . when she isn’t selling houses and buying Don expensive shoes.

Vanessa got my text and was thrilled to help. She brought a Sporty Barbie and some accessories to the office, wrapped up in matching gift paper. She is good at this stuff. I could learn something watching her. She spent about ten bucks more than I would have, so I was feeling pretty generous when I showed up for the party.

Until I got the lowdown on the whole Barbie no-no. She and Jimmy think that Barbie sends the wrong message to girls about body image, Kaylen explained to me. Seems a little strict to me, but I don’t have kids, so it’s their call. I just know that Kendra squealed with delight and hugged on me the rest of the evening after opening her present. I don’t think she was worried about her chest size—or lack thereof—or not having six-inch heels with her soccer outfit. Maybe it will mess her up later. I somehow doubt it.

I thought I was doing well by forgoing sports equipment for something girly but missed the boat again. No good deed goes unpunished.

Dell must have finally listened to me. He didn’t show. But he did send an envelope with money in it. One for Kendra and one for James. My mom asked me if I knew why he wasn’t here. I finally had to get as direct with her as I did with Dell.

“Mom, I’m not comfortable with the way Dell pursues me. You need to stop egging him on.”

“But he’s so nice,” she started to argue.

“Mom, this is way over the top, even for you. I’m telling you it doesn’t feel good to me; it isn’t fair to Dell; and it needs to stop now.”

Between that exchange—Mom looked like she was going to cry—and the Barbie fiasco, I felt like a heel. Klarissa overheard the conversation and whispered some encouragement. I wouldn’t have minded if she stuck up for me with Mom. Out loud.

• • •

“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Van Guten asks me. “Kind of like waking up after a power nap, no?”

I resist the urge to say no back at her. First of all, I never take power naps. If I put my head down when the sun is still shining, I just pass out and slobber on the pillow. Second, what I really feel is groggy and disoriented; I don’t sense even a trace of empowerment.

I am tempted to tell her that I won’t be able to fully answer her question until I go for a full year without howling at the moon or running down the street naked when I hear the sound of a cell phone ringing.

I close my eyes to let my head clear a little bit more.

“Did you find out anything useful?” I ask Van Guten.

She doesn’t answer. I open my eyes and realize she has left the room. I appreciate her deep concern for my well-being. I’m probably just jealous that once again she looks beautiful and completely together in yet another outfit that probably costs enough to buy three new starters for my Miata. I get up and stretch my back, then gather my purse to head to the elevator bank.