The Christine Murders (7 page)

“Did you recognize the man?” Lawrence asked her. “Ever see him up here before?”

Lenore shook her head. “No, sorry, I didn’t. Maybe someone else up here would. I’ve only worked here about three months. But I can tell you he was a classy type of guy. Very well dressed, nice looking, and polite.”

“About how old would you say he was, Lenore?” Kinsella asked.

She thought about that a minute or two. “Oh, maybe in his forties somewhere, or late thirties. Not old, not super young. Good looking though, tall and dark.”

“Did you notice how long these two people remained in the lounge?”

“Almost until closing time. I know I served several more drinks to their table. But they weren’t drunk or noisy or anything. They were both very nice, talking a lot, seemed to be enjoying themselves.”

“How was the bill paid?”

“With cash. He paid it. Left me a very big tip, too, I’ll say. Very generous.”

Kinsella’s spirits dropped slightly. He’d hoped there would be a credit card trail. That, however, was probably asking for too much, especially if this guy was his killer and had Ann as his target. He asked one more question. “Did you see them leave together?”

Lenore shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I did not. He paid the bill, and about that time I was very busy clearing up with other people. I just noticed that suddenly they were both gone, and so were so many other folks. I cleared off their table. But no, unfortunately I didn’t see either one of them leave here. “

“Would you be able to come to police headquarters and work with an artist to see if we can come up with a good likeness of him?” Phil Lawrence asked her. “We can send a car for you.”

“Yes, of course, whenever you want me there,” Lenore said. “Do you think he really killed this nice woman?”

“We don’t know that,” Kinsella told her. “We know very little right now and we’re trying to find out as much as we can about Doctor Heald’s activities last night. But what you’ve told us has been very helpful, and we’re grateful for that.”

They made arrangements for the girl to work with an artist, thanked her, and left.

“So, we have a man, and with luck we should soon have a face,” Kinsella said as they walked to their car. “If only we could have found someone who had seen them leaving together.”

“If anybody did,” Phil added. There had been few people in the lobby at the time Ann and perhaps her friend had left the hotel.

“It sounds like this guy deliberately hit on her,” Kinsella said. “Maybe he was stalking her. And I don’t think she called another cab back to the Hyatt. I’ve got somebody checking into that, but we know the driver who took her over here didn’t come back for her. Lenore said she was enjoying herself with this guy, so she just might have accepted a ride after they left.”

“Ann Heald was not a bar pick-up type,” Lawrence said. “She was behaving totally out of character, from what we know of her. The drinking and all. This was a highly respected professional woman. So whoever this guy is, he must really have impressed her.”

“Kelley Grant’s friends all say she’d never have picked anybody up either,” Kinsella added. “So we are looking for a charmer, a good-looking guy with a special something he uses on women. He comes across as fully trustworthy and respectable.”

Kinsella climbed back into their car, thinking about countless serial killers over the years. Way too many of them fit that description: charming, handsome, intelligent, and able to lure countless unsuspecting women to their deaths. Could history be repeating itself once again, this time here in San Francisco?

***

TUESDAY EVENING – OCTOBER 11
th

In the studio apartment on Chestnut Street where he had lived since his divorce, John Kinsella studied the composite that had been made with the help of Lenore from the Mark Hopkins Hotel. It showed him a man with well-sculptured cheekbones and straight black hair combed back from a high forehead. His eyes, so Lenore had stressed to the artist, were a brilliant blue. It was an unusual face, Kinsella thought, handsome and striking certainly, yet somehow repellent.

So now he had a face. But whose face? The killer’s, or just some guy who’d spent a few hours talking to and drinking with a pretty woman on a Saturday night? How much of this was coincidence? How much was fact? Maybe this guy just went home or back to his hotel room alone when the evening ended. Maybe Ann was accosted on the street when she came out alone in the dark.

Was her death connected to Kelley’s Grant’s death? The medical examiner certainly seemed to think so, if only on the basis of the preliminary lab reports they had thus far. And both women had been strangled with identical dark blue silk scarves, a very popular brand made in France and sold once in Neiman Marcus but not in stock right now.

Kinsella was still up against a brick wall. He had his composite and little else. No one who had been on duty at the Mark Hopkins late Saturday night and early Sunday could recall seeing either Ann Heald or her companion leaving the hotel. Nor had there been any taxi pickups from the Mark Hopkins later in the night. With a reduced staff on duty after midnight, Kinsella knew it was possible that the lobby had been deserted when Ann and their suspect left the hotel. And nobody resembling the man with the strange blue eyes was registered as a guest there either, ruling out the possibility that Ann had gone with him to a room in the hotel.

That really didn’t hold water in any event, since Ann, like Kelley, had not been killed where she was found. Both bodies had been moved. They had both been killed elsewhere, yet it was just as improbable to consider that Ann had been killed in a hotel room and carried out as it was that Kelley Grant’s husband had murdered her in their apartment and taken her body miles away to dump.

Frustrated, Kinsella pulled a cold beer and a block of cheese from the refrigerator, and hunted through the kitchen until he found a package of crackers to complete his meal. He winced when he thought about what this would do to his stomach.

Briefly, he thought of Katherine, the last woman he’d been involved with. That hadn’t worked out either, but she sure had been a good cook. One of these days he would have to hire a housekeeper, someone who would stock up on some decent food for him and perhaps leave some nicely cooked meals. He’d rather have a wife, however. And not just for cooking. He was lonely and wanted a decent home life again. He was sick and tired of living the way he did.

He took his food to a small table near the window. The studio was sparsely furnished with remnants of his married days, the few spare pieces his ex-wife had decided she could live without.

Except for a clutter of books – history, science, psychology, fiction – and some movies and music CDs, and his computer, the place was surprisingly neat for a single man. But Kinsella had always been an orderly person. He could not tolerate a mess, considering it to be symptomatic of a lack of discipline. Unfortunately, however, his personal life had become a mess, and he didn’t like what that told him about himself.

Since his divorce, he’d become a playboy. Tales of his exploits and constant stream of attractive girlfriends provided plenty of gossip and good-natured joking among the men and women he worked with. Kinsella the Stud, tall, dark, handsome - and insatiable. He went along with the jokes, never telling anyone the truth. He may have dated many different women, but he’d remained basically celibate since his divorce, only getting involved in a sexual relationship with Katherine. He had hoped and believed that might last, and he’d been devastated when she had left him, unable to live with his work and the hours he was forced to keep.

He thought about his parents, good solid Irish Catholics who hadn’t approved of his marriage to begin with; yet they had assumed he would stay married. They had been horrified when he’d divorced. Now they didn’t know what to think of him, living alone here and dating a variety of women. At work, he was sick of the constant remarks about his superb love life. If only they knew. His life was a lonely hell and he saw no way to change it. Women he met either wanted open sexual relationships with no ties or the exact opposite: marriage and kids and a husband who worked nine to five and came home to dinner every single night. That would be so nice, but not possible now with his job.

He sipped his beer and forced his mind back to the killings, trying to decide what to do next. Should he release the composite to the media, or wait for more concrete evidence that he had some reason to look for this particular man? Issuing the composite would bring in an avalanche of identifications. Suddenly, everyone in San Francisco would know someone who exactly resembled the picture. Every one of them would have to be checked out. And yet there was no solid proof at all that this guy was the one he was looking for. Maybe it would be better to wait. But for what? Another murder?

He drained the last of his beer and stood up and stretched. He ran one hand through his thick black hair. He was tired, but he couldn’t relax. All he could think about were Kelley Grant and Ann Heald and the similarities in their murders, their looks, and the lack of any hard leads. And one other thing: If a serial killer was responsible, the only certainty was that there would be more murders ahead, and no way to predict who and where and why.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Luther phoned Christine once more, leaving what he hoped was a cheerful message on her answering machine. He berated himself for not asking for her cell phone number, but she probably would have refused to give it to him, so this method would have to do for now. At least he had a number.

She would be back either tonight or possibly tomorrow evening, if what she’d told him was correct.

In his lap was a copy of a Google street map he’d printed out, a red check mark showing the apartment complex where Christine lived. It had been easy enough to find an address using her listed phone number. He had considered driving past her building tonight to see if there was any sign of her, but he didn’t even know where in the complex Christine’s apartment was.

Luther pulled heavy drapes across sliding glass doors, effectively blocking out the darkening view of the city below him. He wanted no distractions now. It was vitally important that he sit in the dark and remain quiet and calm and, above all, that he keep himself under control. He had already made enough terrible mistakes.

There were moments when he wished he had never seen Christine. He had tried to ignore her on that flight, pretend she wasn’t there, look the other way when she was nearby. But he simply couldn’t.

She was so like Alyson. He had been successful for years burying memories of Alyson. He had been able to immerse himself in his work, building and enriching his business. And he had lived a respectable life here in San Francisco. He wasn’t popular, but he was respectable, and that was all that mattered to him.

How strange, he thought, that a man of his class and breeding would be forced to earn respectability, especially from his own family. The only side they had ever known of him had been the dark side. That had always been there, of course, since his childhood, and after Alyson he had been plunged into a black pit of hell from which he was sure he would never again emerge. Yet he had. Eventually, he had fought his way back.

He had been young and very new to America when he met Alyson. She had been sightseeing one afternoon in the deYoung Museum. She had been an art student, working part time in a gallery in the city. She wanted to go to England and France. She was fascinated by everything British and French, and she became fascinated by him as well, and had fallen in love with him.

She was so lovely, and so full of life. Luther was deeply unsure of himself with women. He’d never had any success with the opposite sex; despite his good looks, his strange ways and violent temper were too well known for any woman to want to get close to him. But he was in a new country, and then he met Alyson, and he realized that he had never wanted anyone as desperately as he wanted her.

They had begun to date, and Alyson soon taught him how to love. He had been awkward and shy at first, but with her he had learned and developed a charm and warmth that he would put to excellent use later in his business dealings and the few personal encounters he had with other women.

Their dates at first were an innocent round of lunches and dinners, visits to museums and galleries, picnics along the coast, and evenings of theatre and ballet. And boating. Alyson had loved boating. He was just beginning to build his San Francisco business, but Luther had sufficient inherited money from his family to afford whatever he wanted. All he wanted in those days was to make his golden girl happy, and he had showered her with expensive gifts. Even
The Gemstone
, the handsome old Taylor cabin cruiser he had read about and bought and kept moored in Sausalito, had been a gift for Alyson. He had let her name it; Alyson loved jewelry, so
The Gemstone
was her choice.

All too soon the relationship had started to fall apart, however. The gentle lovemaking Alyson had expertly taught him became increasingly too rough and had frightened and hurt her. Over and over Alyson complained that he had hurt her, and yet Luther admitted that he had enjoyed causing pain. It was all part of his need to own her.

Soon she refused to make love with him any longer - and then came the awful night when she had told him she no longer wanted to see him. She told him he needed professional help. And then she had told him she’d met another man.