Every Wickedness (17 page)

Kearns took a small spiral notepad from his inside jacket pocket. “Listen, when Anne’s belongings were removed from your guestroom, did you notice anything missing?”

“Missing? She had so little to begin with. When I say Anne was running from an abusive husband, I
mean that literally. She jumped off the plane, appeared on my doorstep clutching a copy of the newspaper with my ad for a roommate circled. All she had was her flight bag, some toiletries, a change of underwear. During the six months she stayed with me, she’d bought some casual outfits, two pairs of shoes. She didn’t own a dress, and her only jewellery was a Bulova wristwatch.”

Kearns remembered Inspector Anscombe’s list of Anne’s things. It had included the watch.

“My guest room is small,” Beth continued. “You remember. But Anne’s possessions weren’t cramming the drawers or closets. Not by a long shot.”

“Sounds sad.”

“It was.
She
was. I should have gotten to know her.”

Kearns heard the regret in her voice for about the hundredth time.

“Why do you ask if anything’s missing?”

“It seems, true to the organized killer’s profile, our perp is taking trophies. Wondered what he might have of Anne’s.” Kearns levelled a gaze at Beth. “You realize this is privileged info. If Devereaux were to get wind of this, I’d have to kill you.” He smiled, but Beth didn’t. Her expression was pained, tense with forced recollection. She wanted so badly to help, yet Kearns knew chances were slim to none that Beth would remember if anything had been taken. The Spalding trophy would turn up, with the remaining treasures, on the killer’s premises, when and if they caught him.

Something must be missing, but Kearns didn’t know what it was, and Beth couldn’t help him. He was pleased to see Beth concentrating so hard, and knew he’d done a good job setting up the trophy issue as the reason for their meeting. Now he could really get down to business.

He glanced at his watch. “I know you’ve got to be getting back soon. Let’s talk about more pleasant things. How’s the boyfriend?”

Beth frowned. “Mad at me.”

“Oh-oh. Trouble in Dodge. Is that why you’re not sleeping?”

“Something like that. You know, Jim, I’d make a good textbook chapter for a shrink. Anne Spalding lived in my house, and I treated her like a stranger. Rex McKenna, whom I loathe, gets treated with kid gloves, and he walks all over me. Ginny drives me crazy with her insecurity, but do I sit her down and tell her? No. And just when I think I finally find someone I might want to share my life with, I drive him away. I’m thirty-five, for God’s sake. When am I going to get it right?”

“That’s how we learn, Beth. By our mistakes,” Kearns said and meant it, knowing he didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times he’d screwed up. “So you and the pilot are kaput?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. But Jordan hasn’t returned any of my calls, and I haven’t seen him since Saturday night —”

“Cheer up, Beth. Plenty more where he came from. Nothing since Saturday, you say?”

She shook her head. “It may not sound like a big deal, but you have to understand, Jordan and I spent most of our evenings together since the day we met. We’d been to a party last Saturday and I — well, I’m not proud of how I behaved.”

“I can’t imagine you doing anything so wrong that some guy would just stop speaking to you. Want to talk about it?”

“I’d rather not. Jordan dropped me off curbside. I went my way. He went his.”

Yeah. Straight home to check on his latest victim
.

Kearns avoided Beth’s gaze, not wanting her to see what had to be a glimmer in his eye. He doodled on his notepad. “Pilot, huh?” He looked up. “Those guys must have a tough time staying on the ground once they’ve experience the wild blue yonder. Probably not lasting-relationship material.” He watched her face. That comment struck a nerve. “Beth, it hurts now, I know. But you were moving kind of fast with this guy. Maybe this is a good thing in disguise.”

She frowned again. “It sure doesn’t feel like it.”

Kearns knew he was walking that fine line now, where he had to pretend his questions were nothing more than friendly concern, when in truth, he was a full-fledged cop on duty. He had to know how Bailey drew her in. “What did you think was so special about this guy?”

To Kearns’s relief, Beth’s frown softened, and her eyes took on a faraway look. She was ready to talk all right.

“He made me realize that I needed balance in my life. That everything doesn’t need to be about work. A simple lesson, I know, Jim. But until Jordan came along, I was moving too fast to learn it.”

“He encouraged you to open up, is that it?”

She nodded. “About things that really count. My conversations with Ginny and my clients are so superficial. In the context of those relationships, that’s fine. But Jordan gave me something more. I really connected with him.”

“What about
him
, though? He reveal anything about himself?”

He caught it again, that look.
He hid things from you, didn’t he, Beth. Like what?

“You don’t learn a person’s life story in a few weeks,” she said.

Touché, Kearns thought. “Well, you know what they say about ‘if it was meant to be.’ You never told me how you two met.”

She told him, and he knew his expression concealed nothing. “Lower those eyebrows, Jim, and stop being a cop for a second. Jordan is shy. Following me from this café to my store is kind of sweet, really. Romantic. If he’d plied me with liquor in some singles bar, would that have seemed normal to you?”

“You’re right, Beth. Everyone’s mating ritual is different.” Again, he avoided her gaze, his pencil
scratching across the paper.

Jordan Bailey custom fit the profile. Kearns didn’t like the way Bailey and Beth had met — what Beth had called sweet sounded a lot like stalking to Kearns. As far as he was concerned, the pilot could stay the hell away from her. He punctuated his drawing with a series of exclamation marks.

“Jim,” Beth said suddenly, “that does it. I’m definitely signing you on as an apprentice. Drafting board, unlimited supply of pencils, enough to satisfy the frustrated artist in you. What exactly are you drawing?”

He managed a sheepish grin. “You should rescind your offer. I’m no Picasso.”

He turned the notepad toward Beth. Her pupils fully dilated. A small gasp escaped before she could compose herself to feign nonchalance. “I give up,” she said. “What are those?”

The sheet was covered in Chi Rho monograms of varying sizes, thicknesses, some adorned with ornate serifs, wreaths of olive branches.

“Privileged information, part two,” Kearns whispered, leaning across the small Arborite table. “The killer carves this symbol on the victims’ bodies.”

So the way she muttered a hurried “my gosh, look at the time” and bolted from the restaurant confirmed Kearns’s suspicions.

He steepled his fingers together, took a deep breath, and glanced around the café. Framed children’s drawings from the Monart School of the Arts
decorated the walls. The noon-hour crowd still sipped lattés, munched on salads, and appeared as bright and cheery as the artwork surrounding him. At once, the clanking of silverware against clear glass plates made Kearns ravenous. This wasn’t the sort of place to satisfy a truck driver’s appetite, nor a cop hungry for an arrest, but Kearns went to the counter and ordered a hot pastrami and Swiss anyway.

Back at the table, with no female to observe his table manners, Kearns wolfed the sandwich. His brain raced alongside his metabolism.

He flipped the page of his notepad and wrote.

1. mentioned Anne’s boyfriend — Beth nervous? What does she know?
   

2. fight with pilot; SATURDAY — Bailey left for Europe on Sunday.
   

3. In town for Mowatt’s death. Mowatt kept alive/starving while pilot overseas? Possible?
   

Kearns knew he had thrown Beth off balance, which was exactly what he’d set out to do. She wouldn’t be seeing the pilot again, that was for sure, not after all the doubts Kearns had so carefully planted. The Christograms, though, had done the real trick. Kearns had played out a spur-of-the-moment hunch, not knowing if his doodlings would lead anywhere, but the look in Beth’s eyes, the panic he’d seen there, told him one thing — she recognized the symbol.

B
eth locked the door to Personal Touch, relieved to be finished for the day. Though the afternoon had been slack, Beth bustled around the showroom, dusting furniture, rearranging accessories, and straightening piles of invoices and fabric swatches on her desk.

At home she found her mind still racing. Samson was clearly annoyed that his owner wasn’t ready to settle into the bedroom chaise for their nightly cuddle. The cat raised its head in a haughty display of disgust and padded from the bedroom in search of serenity. Though Beth had performed her usual ritual — face scrubbed clean of makeup, long hair tied back, work clothes swapped for leggings and a sweatshirt — she still couldn’t relax. Her lunch meeting with Jim Kearns had left her on edge.

Beth set her mug of tea on the English tray table beside her chaise. The tea was stone cold anyway. With determined steps, she walked across the hall to the guest bedroom.

The room appeared exactly as it had when Anne occupied it. A large Nova Scotia pine dresser stood against one wall, a Bull’s Eye coal oil lamp on top of it. Cherry Windsor chair against another wall. Round skirted table beside the pullout loveseat. Inside the armoire, a 24 “Toshiba television, VCR, a
CD player. All Beth’s. Well, what did she expect? The killer wouldn’t have marched in here to claim a trophy. If one of Anne’s possessions were missing, the Spiderman would have removed it from her purse. Or her body.

Beth struggled to recall her last brief conversation with Anne. What had they talked about? Anne was leaving for Amsterdam, a city Beth loved. They spoke of canals and bridges, flower markets, the Van Gogh Museum. Antique shops in the Singel. And diamonds. Anne planned to tour a diamond factory, and Beth had given her a blank cheque. “If you have time,” she’d said, “I’d love a pair of diamond earrings.” Anne had agreed.

She didn’t want to think about Anne anymore. She needed a break from Jim Kearns, too. His obsession with the Spiderman was quickly becoming her obsession, fuelling her already turbo-charged anxiety. She hadn’t received any more creepy letters either, so there was no need to be in such close contact with Jim. Too, she didn’t like the direction their conversation had taken today.

He’d asked her about Anne’s boyfriends before, of course. She’d answered truthfully — she hadn’t known of any. Now, with the full knowledge that Jordan had dated Anne, Beth kept this information from Kearns. Why? What difference would it make telling Jim, after all? Jordan and Anne’s relationship had been brief, not even a relationship at all, really. Then Anne had met someone else.

How would that have made Jordan feel, a shy man who found dating so awkward, so difficult. Dejected? Jealous? Betrayed?

Consumed with rage?

As if sensing Beth required a response, Samson opened one eye and meowed.

“You’re absolutely right, Samson,” Beth said, scooping up the cat. “I’m being ridiculous. And I’ve got to relax before I drive us both crazy.”

In her bathroom, Beth placed Samson on his usual perch, the toilet seat. She filled her whirlpool bath, lit some candles, then sunk into the steamy water, hot jets pummeling the tight muscles in her neck.

She thought about Jim’s profile of the killer. Mobile. Charming. Kearns was no dummy. He knew Beth had attended his presentation at the Fairmont. Why repeat the speech?

And why did he want to know so much about Jordan, even to the point of asking how she and Jordan had met? He seemed oddly pleased that they had quarrelled and weren’t seeing each other.

Had that been Jim’s real intent, to quiz her about Jordan?

Patricia Mowatt’s body had been found on Friday.

And Jordan had arrived home from Europe on Thursday night.

The longer she stayed in the water, the worse her tension became. Now her shoulders ached, and she
felt her scalp tighten. The overture of a monstrous headache.

The Christograms had done the damage — Kearns’s absurd little drawings on his omnipresent notepad, symbols that looked exactly like the one on the medallion Jordan wore around his neck. Towelling herself dry, Beth realized Jim’s doodling had been quite deliberate, meant to elicit some kind of reaction from her, and she’d sure given him one, vaulting from the café like a launched rocket.

How much did Jim know about Jordan and the parochial school?

What
was
there to know?

Right now, she had no answers, only more questions.

In her bedroom, Beth slipped into paisley silk pajamas, curled up in her chaise, and draped a mohair throw over her bare feet. She reached for her remote and clicked on the television, which Samson took as his cue to come aboard. In seconds, the cat had nestled snugly in Beth’s lap and was purring contentedly.

As a sedative, the television proved no more effective than the bathtub, and soon Beth realized her hyperactivity had been nothing more than a frenzied attempt to prevent her from thinking. A press of the volume button rendered the bedroom silent, save for Samson’s purr and the ticking of the old-fashioned brass alarm clock on the bedside table.

Ten forty-five. Beth was wide awake. Jim needed a killer, wanted an arrest so badly anyone would do.

What better way to get Devereaux and her brood off his back than to announce he had someone in custody?

Jordan. The sacrificial lamb. Beth was certain that Kearns did suspect him. Jim had tried everything short of voodoo to steer her away from any kind of relationship with Jordan, hardly the behaviour one would expect from a friend.

What was it Kearns had said at the Fairmont?
This particular type of killer loves to travel. A possible arrest for voyeurism
. Jordan. A pilot. With a telescope in his bedroom.

She needed to know what Kearns knew. Then she could make up her own mind about Jordan, whether to fight for the survival of their relationship, or stay as far away from him as possible.