Tainted Pictures (13 page)

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           Liz shook Theresa’s hand as she stepped out onto the front porch in preparation to leave.  They had spent about two hours listening to stories of Clara and getting to know Theresa.  Liz had a notebook full of things she had written down but only one thing had been starred and circled, and then circled again.  

           She couldn’t wait to get back to the precinct and talk to her partner about it.  She hadn’t mentioned anything to Kate though because after the let down with Tracy Glen, she didn’t want to build up Kate’s hopes only to potentially dash them.

           Again.  

           Kate gave Theresa a hug that lasted a little longer than she would have liked, but knew that Theresa needed it.  She promised to keep in touch and then followed Liz to the car as Theresa went back into the house and closed the door.  Kate yawned, feeling a bit tired after all that activity and emotion that she had just experienced.  She was eager to get back to Derrick and his warm arms and cuddle in for a good nap, as well as other things.  Kate smiled to herself as she thought of him. She absentmindedly grabbed the car door handle to open it and then paused seeing an advertisement shoved into the window seal of the passenger side.  

           She grabbed it to toss it out but then squinted and looked at it again as something familiar jumped out at her.  She suddenly stepped back from the car and let out an audible gasp, causing Liz to turn and look at her quizzically.  Kate looked up and her head swiveled around.  She took a few more steps back from the car and spun in a circle, looking every direction in a panic.  

           “Kate? What?  What’s going on?” Liz hurried back to the passenger side of the car and grabbed her by her shoulders to still her.  She was shaking so hard that she couldn’t get any words out, she just held up the piece of paper for Liz.  Liz grabbed it from her and stared at it.  

           This wasn’t just a piece of paper, this was a photograph.  An instant photograph of Kate and Liz standing on Theresa McConnelly’s front porch.  The door was still closed and Liz’s hand was on the doorbell.  Kate was biting her nails and looking nervous, clearly fidgeting.  This picture was taken when they had arrived, just a few hours earlier.  

           “Get in the car, Kate.”  Liz said firmly, it was not unkind but it was also not to be questioned so Kate just nodded and did as she was told.  Liz looked at the photograph again and studied the angle to figure out where the Photographer had to have been standing to take it.  

           She looked around the yard and surmised that the row of bushes that separated Theresa McConnelly’s yard from the street was the vantage point.  She walked over and pulled out her phone, turned it to the camera setting, and took some photographs of the location.  She looked around on the ground for anything left behind, any scuff marks, anything suspicious but nothing glared out at her.  

           She clenched her jaw angrily, furious at herself for not having seen him there earlier or thinking to check that she could have been followed.  She slipped this new photograph into an evidence bag that she always carried on her and then walked back to the car climbing in.  Kate still looked pale and ashen, staring forward but clearly lost her thoughts and memories.  Liz didn’t say anything, she was so angry at everything and knew that there was nothing helpful that she could say.  

           She had failed Kate.  Again.  This was becoming an ugly pattern.

CHAPTER TEN

           “Kate, come on, I feel like you have practically shut the door on me.  You never answer my phone calls, you haven’t come up here to see me.  Can I come down there next weekend?”  Annie whined to her older sister in the phone.  Annie lived in New York City and the sisters normally visited each other once a month, rotating between who traveled.  Annie had been in Washington, DC a month earlier during the attack and had stayed several days.  

           “It’s only been like three or four weeks since I’ve seen you, even less I think. Don’t be so dramatic.” Kate joked to her sister.

           “Well, I wouldn’t have to be if you picked up your phone every once in a while!”  Annie said indignantly.  

           “Come down this weekend and we can have all the sister time you want.  I have some news I want to tell you anyways.”  Kate chuckled into the phone, purposefully being vague.  

           “What kind of news?  Good or bad?”  Annie questioned.

           “Guess you will have to wait and see!”  Kate teased her sister.  This wasn’t news she was going to tell over the phone so she was definitely going to make her sister wait.  

           “Alright, well I will be down maybe Saturday morning?  Do you think you can pick me up from Union Station?”  Annie asked.

           “You can figure out New York subways but not the DC metro yet?”  Kate balked at her, not looking forward to driving out to Union Station.  DC driving was always hell, especially if you got stuck in one of its infamous circles with eighteen different exits.  

           Kate would get stuck going around and around forever and even when she thought she had gotten off, somehow she found herself back driving in a loop.  It was infuriating so Kate always tried to convince Annie to take the metro to her apartment, but Annie had yet to give in on that.

           “Kate, how have you been doing with everything?  Any news from the police on the investigation?”  Annie said solemnly after a few moments of silence.  Kate tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and thumbed through the magazine that was on her lap, not really reading anything but rather releasing nervous energy.  

           “It’s been up and down, you know.  Sometimes they find something, other times they realize it was nothing, so I don’t know...I am just trying to not get my hopes up much.”  Kate stayed vague and left out everything about the new photographs and the discovery of her attacker being a renowned serial killer.  

           She was the big sister and although Annie had stepped up and taken care of her during her recovery, she didn’t want to keep putting that burden on Annie.  Kate was the older sister and she wanted to take care of her baby sister and shield her from the indecencies of life. Not that that was even possible, but didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.  

           “Yeah, I guess it’s not an easy case.  I have faith though, Kate.  Something will turn up, it will be okay.  What about Derrick?  How are things going with him?”  Annie asked her sister, curiously.  

           Annie had always liked Derrick and didn’t really fully understand what had happened at the hospital between the two of them but she had been hoping that they would work it out.  Seeing the way Kate was with Derrick, before the attack, was a revelation to Annie.  

           It was the first time she had seen her sister outgoing and truly happy.  The first time she had seen her sister actually taking time out to enjoy herself and make her needs a priority.  She had always been the caregiver and Annie was so glad to see someone was taking care of her.  

           “Oh, Annie, things are so wonderful.  I can’t wait to tell you all about it this weekend.” Kate was beaming into the phone.  

           “Really?  That’s awesome! So all is forgiven?”  Annie got a little nosier.  

           “Yes, everything is forgiven.  He made a mistake. A whopping giant mistake.  Lord, he couldn’t possibly have made a bigger ass of himself if he had tried.”  Kate laughed, she had to laugh at it now because what other way could you respond?

           “Damn straight.” Annie chimed in agreement.

           “But things are wonderful now, I love him so much Annie.  And we are closer than ever, I told him everything.  About mom and dad, my past, everything.”  Kate closed her eyes dreamily, picturing Derrick’s handsome face before her.

           “Really? Holy crap, Kate, that’s huge!  I am so proud of you!  This is the real deal then, wow.  Just wow.”  Annie was so surprised since Kate had never told that to anyone.  The two sisters were the only ones who were privy to the truths of the past and Kate had never trusted anyone enough before to tell them about it.  Annie could tell even in her sister’s voice that she wasn’t the same Kate who had been her sister a few weeks ago.  Kate had changed, she had grown and maybe the reason that forced it to happen was horrible but Annie couldn’t help and be proud of her sister anyway.  

~~~~

           Detective Liz Snow had come straight from dropping Kate off at her apartment back to the precinct to delve right into her research.  The moment she walked through the doors to the back of the precinct where the detectives’ desks were, she spotted her partner slouched over his papers and reading through a file intently.  

           “Mike! I’ve got something on the Jackson case.”  Liz called out to her partner, Detective Mike McCraig talking about Kate Jackson’s investigation.  He looked up at her and nodded in acknowledgment, putting his papers down.  She pulled up a chair from an empty desk to the side of his desk and plopped down, spreading Clara McConnelly’s file out in front of him.  

           “Remember Clara McConnelly?  Well, I think we are right, I think it’s the same perpetrator as in the Jackson case.  Look at these photographs that he took of them after the attack, same bruise patterns and everything.  They even are around the same age and height, same hair color.  He has a type.”  She was excited in her explanation.

           “Jeez, clearly.  I found six other matching cases in the FBI database that I think we can pin to him too but they are all murders.  I think Jackson is our only living victim here, which means that she is the key to all of this.  Why did he let her live?”  Mike batted the question around with Liz.

           “I don’t think he meant to, I mean she lost a lot of blood.  I think he assumed she would die.  But then why hasn’t he come back to finish the job.  I mean, he came in her apartment and left more photographs but he hasn’t just tried to clean up his mess and kill her, so there is something more here.”  Liz said, thinking about the case.  She was sure that there was something different about Kate versus the other victims, but she couldn’t pinpoint what that was.  She knew that Kate was the answer to solving this.  

           “I figured out something while you were gone, look at this.”  Mike opened up several files that were all from the other six cases and sprawled them out across his desk.  

           “Jenna Attwater, sold cosmetics in a retail store.  Nikki Herrera, realtor. Hayden Posen, sold advertising for a magazine.  And the rest, look, sales.  All of them were in some type of sales and all of these women were murdered after Clara McConnelly, a college student.”  Mike explained.  Liz nodded, her brain kicking into overdrive and pinning pieces together.

           “So, we are seeing a progression, you think?  Clara was a peer, he went to the same university as her and then got into business and has worked sales jobs since then which is where he finds and targets his victims.”  Liz thought aloud.  

           “I mean, it isn’t definite but it’s a hell of a lot more than we had this morning.” Mike said.  

           “Does the file say where Clara went to college?” Mike asked Liz, nodding to the file she was flipping through.

           “Uhm, yeah, hold on.  Yeah, right here, NYU, New York University in New York City.  Not much to go on there, it’s a pretty big campus with thousands upon thousands of students each year.”  Liz sighed.

           “NYU. NYU. God, why does that sound familiar to me?”  Mike tapped his pencil against the desk absentmindedly as he tried to remember why that school was ringing some sort of bell for him.  

           “Oh, I almost forgot, look what the hell happened today.” Liz switched topics as she pulled the evidence bag out of her pocket that held the third photograph Kate had received from The Photographer today.  She handed it to her partner.

           “What’s this?”  He asked her.

           “Asshole left it on the passenger car window of the cruiser while we were inside with Theresa McConnelly.  Wants us to know that he is watching and knows what we are doing.  It’s the same as the damn Tracy Glen situation, he murdered his own brother to keep us from finding anything and now he is warning us that he is keeping tabs on us.  I mean I don’t know whether to be frustrated that we always seem to be just out of his reach or whether it means he is scared that we are closing in.”  Liz ranted in frustration, standing up and pacing back and forth, pointing to the photograph while she moved.

           “It’s definitely the latter.  He knows we are close, I mean we have all the pieces of the puzzle, just not the glue to hold it together.  I really think we are almost there.”  Mike reassured her as he examined the photograph again.  

           “Did you write this up yet?”  Mike asked her.  Liz shook her head no.  

           “Alright, well get the report in fast and then lets call up any relatives of these other women and find out if there were any coworkers in common.”  Mike said, picking up the phone and starting to dial.  Liz just nodded and grabbed her stack of papers, heading back to her desk to get down to work.  

~~~~

           “So, he followed you guys out to Maryland?”  Derrick asked Kate, not that he didn’t believe her but rather that the situation was unbelievable.  He couldn’t even imagine how they had gotten into this tangled battle with an unknown foe.  He shuddered as he thought of Kate alone, being followed by this mystery man.    

           “Yeah, lucky that Liz was with me.  I don’t know what I would have done if I had been by myself.”  Kate shrugged nervously, worrying as she sat at his kitchen table and watched him putting together dinner for the two of them.  She didn’t want to be alone but she also felt like she never was alone because his eyes were on her everywhere she went...and he was making sure that she knew that.