Justice Served: A Barkley and Parker Thriller (17 page)

“The truth. That the damned car was at PSU
while I was giving a lecture.”

“And...?” She coaxed him for more.

“And that was that,” Stuart said flatly.
“They realized they had the wrong car and presumably went after the
right one.” He took a breath. “I have to tell you, Carole, the
whole thing really irritated the hell out of me. I may defend
criminals, but I’m not one of them. Yet. Certainly not this serial
killer they’re after.”

Carole put a finger to her chin. “Did they
ask about Vivian?” She was aware the common perception was that the
killer was an African-American female.

“Vivian does not drive my car!” he blared
protectively. “There was nothing to ask. Besides, she’s probably
the last person they need to be talking to in Portland. Next to
you—”

Their eyes connected in a moment of edgy
contemplation.

Carole sank back into her chair. “You don’t
think I actually—?” she could barely get the words out.

“Not for one second,” Stuart said quickly
with a chuckle. “Just making a point that this femme fatale, if it
is a woman, is not someone like Vivian or you. It’s a person with
no regard for the law and probably strung out on drugs or whatever
the hell else they’re into these days.” He paused. “Whoever the
killer is, she certainly hates men.”

“Not all men,” Carole felt she needed to
point out.

He cast her a knowing glance. “I’m not sure
this woman sees a difference between the abusers and
non-abusers.”

Carole begged to differ. “Obviously she does,
if you look at the victims—all men with a history of domestic
violence.”

Stuart shrugged, keeping his gaze fixed on
her. “I suppose. Unfortunately, it isn’t much comfort to men who
don’t beat up women, but could be mistaken as such assholes by a
killer who doesn’t seem to have a conscience.”

“I don’t disagree with you about the position
it places innocent men in,” said Carole carefully. “But I think
this person has a clear conscience in what she does and how she
chooses to do it. It may well be she thinks it’s the only option
available to her and women like her to stop the abuse.”

Stuart wrinkled his nose. “Clear conscience
or not, this bitch is not doing battered women any favors by
beating a few brutal men to death. If anything, she’s making it
worse for women who stand up to their batterers, by putting them in
an even more dangerous and vulnerable position against men freaked
out by this vigilante.”

Carole digested that for a moment or two,
trying to offer a rebuttal that did not make her sound supportive
of the killings or the killer.

She stirred vegetable soup while saying
evenly: “I think maybe in her own way the killer’s actually
empowering women to strike back even harder at their abusers. Or at
least is giving them second thoughts about hitting someone who
could turn the tables on them in a deadly confrontation.”

Talking mostly to himself, Stuart muttered:
“Either way, this lady needs help.” He stared at Carole. “Let’s
hope when all is said and done, she gets it before she takes out
the whole damned city.”

Carole felt that spoke for itself, offering
no further comment. Instead she turned her thoughts to Ray. She
wondered where they were now on the investigation. Would the sketch
point them to someone? Anyone?

Am I still considered a suspect?
The
thought was unsettling.

Could they possibly make a case against a
sitting judge with nonexistent or insufficient evidence? Did the
police have any real evidence?

They ate in contemplative silence.

Before long, Stuart raised his eyes. “So, how
did you become involved with Detective Ray Barkley?” he asked
studiously.

Carole sipped her water. “He and Detective
Parker came to see me to talk about the case they were working
on.”

“The Vigilante Batterer Killer,” deduced
Stuart. “Yeah, of course. Did you give them anything they could
use?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m not sure
they know what they’re after or who...”

“Well, apparently the man’s after
you
—” Stuart told her.

Carole blushed. “Maybe I’m after him,” she
suggested, the thought arousing her as she recalled their frenetic
and nonstop lovemaking.

Stuart breathed through his nose. “Good
luck,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Just hope you know what
you’re getting yourself into. Cops don’t always make for the best
partners—”

Carole thought the same thing about
attorneys, in case he missed the irony. “I’m a big girl, Stuart,”
she told him firmly. “I can take care of myself.”

Carole wondered if she truly could. Or would
her fragile past catch up to her and jeopardize everything she held
dear—including Ray Barkley?

Stuart smoothed an eyebrow. “I’m not trying
to get into your business,” he said. “I just want you to be
careful, Carole, that’s all. Wouldn’t want Barkley to have ulterior
motives in mind for this romance—at your expense...”

Carole pondered his words.
Ulterior
motives?
She hated to think Ray could actually be using her for
his own purposes other than romance. Not that the thought hadn’t
crossed her mind. If so, would she be able to spot such motives and
deal with them before it was too late?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Ray drove to the house where Thelma Kennedy
lived. The thirty-eight-year-old, single mother of two had crippled
her abusive ex-husband, shooting him with his gun and severing his
spine. She had beaten him with a bat afterwards, claiming it was
the result of years of abuse and pent up anger. The court had gone
along with this to a degree, convicting her on one count of
aggravated assault rather than attempted murder, for which she
served five years in state prison.

Her parole report suggested Thelma had been a
model citizen since she was released from the Oregon Women’s
Correctional Center a year ago. She had since regained custody of
her daughter, who had been placed in a foster home. Records
indicated that before doing time Thelma had been a frequent guest
at the Rose City Women’s Shelter. More recently, she had been one
of the volunteer staffers at the shelter.

Ray pulled up to the modest sized red brick
home in a subdivision. There was a blue Pontiac Bonneville in the
driveway. A bicycle lay against the side of the house as if holding
it up.

Ray rang the bell twice before an
African-American girl about ten years old opened the door. On the
chubby side, she had long, black corkscrew braids interlocked. She
looked up at Ray through thick glasses.

“Is your mother here?” he asked
presumptively.

“Yeah.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Who are you?” she asked suspiciously.

It was a good question, but he didn’t want to
scare her half to death, so Ray answered: “Mr. Barkley.”

“Mama!” she screamed, running inside. “A man
named Mr. Barkley is at the door to see you.”

A few moments later, a woman appeared in the
doorway. She was around five-five and heavyset with a dark brown
complexion, blonde micro braids, and black eyes with heavy bags
underneath.

“How can I help you?” she asked
irritably.

Ray put on his detective face. “Are you
Thelma Kennedy?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Her eyes widened
nervously. “Who’s askin’?”

“Detective Barkley,” Ray introduced himself.
“I’m with the Portland Police Bureau, Homicide Division.” He
flashed his identification. “I need to ask you a few
questions.”

“Questions about what?” she stammered.

Ray laid it on the line, telling her about
the murder of Blake Wallace, in particular, and all the victims
they knew of, in general. Thelma reacted as if she had been sucker
punched, but quickly recovered.

“Come on in,” she said.

Ray stepped into the house, the smell of
fried chicken infiltrating his nostrils. The living room was small,
but neat with an old rolled-arm sofa and chair, a cherry veneer
coffee table, and television that was turned on.

After sending her daughter scurrying
upstairs, Thelma turned off the TV and offered Ray a seat, sitting
directly across from him.

“Look,” she began uncomfortably, “I’m real
sorry about what happened to those men, but I don’t know nothing
about it.”

Ray reserved judgment for now. “The victims
were all beaten to death with wooden bats,” he said equably.

“Yeah, I heard. So...?”

“So you used a wooden bat when you attacked
your husband—” Ray said pointblank. “It doesn’t look good, under
the circumstances, if you know what I mean?

She hit him with a look of indignation.
“Yeah, I took a bat to my husband. That don’t mean I went after
those men!” Her nostrils flared. “I defended myself against a man
who beat up on me because it made him feel superior. I don’t have a
beef against nobody else.”

Ray leaned forward. “Not even some other
batterers who were set free, perhaps prematurely, to hurt their
victims again?”

Thelma’s jaw hardened. “Hey, I did my time
for what happened between me and my ex. He’ll never walk again or
touch me again. I got a kid to raise. Why the hell am I gonna beat
to death some abusive sons of bitches—even if they deserved it—only
to end up back in prison? Who would take care of my little girl
then?”

Ray ignored for the moment the logic in her
words, knowing that killers were rarely logical in their actions.
“Even abusive bastards don’t deserve to die the way these men did,”
he pointed out.

Thelma’s eyes bulged. “And we don’t deserve
to get our asses whipped by men just for the hell of it. Nobody’s
willing to lift a finger to help us, neither. Till now...”

Ray found himself in an uncomfortable
position of actually having to stand behind men who battered their
wives, girlfriends, and even children—though in no way did he
support their actions in any way, shape, or form. He hesitated to
even refer to them as men. But as an officer of the law, he was
duty bound to uphold it. Killing a few assholes was not the answer
to doing justice for the masses victimized through domestic
violence. He just wished that women like Thelma had been able to
get better protection and not just a temporary reprieve like the
shelter before all hell broke loose, one way or the other.

Ray fixed the suspect with cagey eyes. “I’ll
need to verify your whereabouts during the times these men were
killed.”

“No problem,” she said confidently. “I ain’t
got nothin’ to hide.”

“Do you keep bats in the house?”

Thelma clearly resented the question. “No. It
was
his
bat I used. He used it on me more than once. But
nobody wanted to hear ‘bout that, did they?”

Ray flinched. “I understand you’ve been
volunteering your time at the Rose City Women’s Shelter.”

“I do what I can, when I can, to give
something back,” she said proudly. “They helped me out when I
needed it.”

Ray narrowed his eyes. “Do you know of any
other volunteers or people who stayed there who might have decided
to take the law into their own hands?”

Thelma shifted unsteadily. “All the women I
see there are decent people—not killers.” She paused, adding: “If
they wanted to kill anybody it would be their own abusers!”

“My theory,” stated Ray matter-of-factly, “is
someone there decided other abusive men would be just as acceptable
to target.”

She shrugged. “That’s your theory. Sorry.
Can’t help you there.”

Can’t or won’t, he wondered.

Ray left the house doubting that Thelma
Kennedy was the woman they were looking for. He saw no signs of a
black BMW, which they still believed might have been driven by the
killer. But he still didn’t rule out that this woman, an embittered
ex-con, or others associated with the shelter knew a hell of a lot
more than they were willing to let on. Except maybe to each
other.

And the victims of the Vigilante Batterer
Killer.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ray and Nina stepped into the KJM studio in
Northwest Portland that afternoon. They came to talk to Laura
Gleason. The twenty-eight-year-old legal reporter had been a
regular in Judge Carole Cranston’s courtroom during every domestic
violence trial that year. Her nightly reports had a decidedly hard
edge on the victimization of women and the injustices of the legal
system when it came to punishing batterers.

It made her a good suspect in the vigilante
slayings of four men.

“She’s visible,” hummed Nina as they made
their way through several corridors with various personnel in
stages of production. “And she takes no prisoners when it comes to
giving her views on air.”

“Makes you wonder what the lady does off the
air,” Ray remarked. “Maybe that’s when she takes the prisoners
fatally
. Only the sentence of death is carried out swiftly
and without mercy—”

The door was slightly ajar with the nameplate
on it reading: Laura Gleason, Legal Reporter. Nina knocked as she
opened the door.

Laura was seated at an ergonomic laminate
desk piled with papers, what appeared to be court transcripts, two
coffee mugs, and a computer. She was tall and slender with a
honey-brown skin tone, wearing a light gray silk twill suit and
amber cami. Cinnamon colored yarn braids bordered her square face.
Brown eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses took in her visitors with
curiosity.

Ray tried to imagine the attractive reporter
wearing a blonde wig, armed with a wooden bat and a killer
swing.

“How can I help you?” She spoke in a soft,
friendly voice.

Ray showed his badge. “Detective Sergeant
Barkley, Portland Police Bureau,” he emphasized. “And this is
Detective Parker. We’re investigating a recent rash of
murders—”

“Ahh, the vigilante killings,” said Laura,
her wide eyes showing instant recognition. “Yes, I know all about
them.”