The Christmas Killer (4 page)

It was after six when they got back to the station, then it took an hour to get through the formalities of booking, taking prints and samples of Sonny’s DNA. There was a numbness in the air – the station had been looking forward to the Christmas party that had been scheduled for the following day, but an unclosed case was likely going to put paid to that. Jake had heard the station administrator – a sardonic woman in her fifties named either Gina or Tina – sounding out others about rescheduling it to the new year. Assuming the murderer was locked up before the 31st.

Finally, with the district attorney called in, the detectives were ready to interview the boyfriend.

Ninety-nine cases out of a hundred …

‘I’m telling you,’ said Sonny, addressing every word to his attorney, ‘Marcia was fine when I left her last night.’

The suspect’s voice wavered, but that wasn’t necessarily a sign of guilt. Maybe he was just cold. Jake had had the heat turned off in the interview room, and with
his parka taken as evidence, Sonny’s thin black T-shirt wasn’t doing much for his core temperature in the small windowless interview room. Hard chairs, a black table and a tape recorder fixed to the wall made the place look about as luxurious as the average holding cell.

‘Lots of things can happen in a night,’ said Mills. ‘She’s dead now.’

Sonny fell silent. His big hands came up to his face and he clenched them. For a moment his hands struggled against the restraining cuffs. Then he dropped them again and scowled.

‘Look, she was my woman,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t hurt her.’

‘So what happened?’ Jake asked.

‘I don’t know. She left for work at seven. Dropped Kelly over to that nosey bitch who watches her.’

‘Why didn’t
you
watch her?’ snapped Jake.

‘Busy, man. I was out of there by eight.’ He looked again at his attorney, who nodded. ‘Spent the night with my girl over on Cherry Orchard,’ he admitted.

Jake looked at Mills. Cherry Orchard was a poor area very close to Glendale. That put Sonny near the dump site. He was looking better and better. On the other hand, his shock had seemed genuine. And he didn’t strike Jake as the sadistic type. Was there a way to get Sonny to confess? Jake’s plan was to bide his time with this one. Once the forensics were done and they could see if they’d found any DNA, they would have a better
idea of whether he was their man. But for now he’d ask some questions and see what happened.

‘And there’s me thinking you had a girl here on Washington,’ said Jake.

‘No law says a man can’t have two girls,’ said Sonny, his voice so quiet Jake thought it might not register on the tape.

‘OK,’ said Jake. ‘But it doesn’t make you look like a decent guy.’

‘My client has already told you where he was,’ said the attorney, George Vincennes, with an exaggerated sigh, his puff of breath visible. ‘He was dancing at the Boom Box, a nightclub in Indianapolis, with a Miss Penny Stokes.’

‘We was clubbing all night,’ added Sonny.

‘You weren’t clubbing all night,’ said Jake.

‘No, man. After we finished clubbing, we went back to her place.’

‘And were you doing a bit of dealing at the club?’ asked Jake. Sonny had a heavy rap sheet, lots of priors including possession and possession with intent. Speed, weed, blow – it didn’t matter to him. He had served time for an aggravated burglary rap. He had been out a little over a year.

Jake nodded to himself. Sonny was certainly violent – but sadistic? He didn’t see it.

And I’ve been wrong before.

‘Are you arresting my client for murder or for
possession?’ asked Vincennes, his tone telling them not to mess around.

‘We need this Penny Stokes’s address,’ said Mills.

Sonny shrugged. ‘Sure.’

It took them until after nine to locate Penny Stokes, but the story checked out. Stokes confirmed that Sonny had been with her all night, only leaving at six thirty in the morning, when he got up to go to his job at the city sanitation department.

By nine thirty Jake and Mills were back at their desks in a small cubicle at the end of the detective bureau, drinking coffee and eating drugstore sandwiches.

‘You still like him for this?’ Jake asked.

Mills paused over his sandwich and when he answered, he spoke slowly.

‘I don’t know. The alibi is holding, but we have nothing from the club. I’ll go over myself in an hour with his picture.’ He took a bite and carried on with his mouth full. ‘Let’s say he killed Marcia at midnight, dumped her, and got to this Penny girl by two. She loves him, or she’s scared of him, so she alibis him for the night.’ He swallowed his mouthful and shrugged. ‘I think we got the right man.’

Jake couldn’t dispute the logic. Forensics would throw light on it, he hoped – and with the low temperatures this time of year, Marcia’s time of death might not be so easy to determine.

Ninety-nine cases out of a hundred …

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. ‘But we don’t have enough to hold him tonight.’

Mills threw back a sigh at Jake like an echo. ‘And the sonofabitch knows it,’ he said. ‘It’s on us to build the case, I guess.’

Knowing they wouldn’t get any more by tomorrow, they cut Sonny loose. His home was still a crime scene, sealed by forensics, so he had to nominate a friend to stay with and give the police the address. They were not surprised when he chose Penny Stokes and Cherry Orchard.

When Jake got home, he was too frazzled from his shift to feel his usual irritation at the garish red reindeer on the roof of the house next to his. His own home was in darkness, which was no surprise. He crept into the kitchen like a burglar, flicking the light switch. He opened the fridge, feeling a pleasant sense of relief when he heard the clatter of beer bottles.

Just the one
, he told himself.

He took out a Miller Lite and brought it over to the table. He popped the top as he sat down, taking a long swig. And as the cooling liquid flooded through his chest, he began to go over the day.

The case should have been an easy one. Sonny – a violent criminal on probation – had obviously killed his girlfriend, probably in anger but maybe with a more complex motive. Prison can change a man. Maybe a distressing episode or two in the showers. Rape, humiliation – a lunkhead like Sonny surely didn’t have the psychological capacity to withstand such an experience. It might explain why he was cheating on his girlfriend, filling his time with an extra woman, looking
to reassert his manhood now that he was back on the outside. Had he confided in Marcia, perhaps? Had she thrown it back at him, prompting a new kind of rage and violence in Sonny?

Would such a sequence of events be enough to push a man like him to the madness of the man who had murdered Marcia?

Jake rubbed his temples as if he could erase the tumbling thoughts from his brain.

He took another long swig from the bottle, almost emptying it. Motive and explanation were irrelevant. All they had to do was build the case and secure the conviction. The lab work should help there. A messy killing like that always left plenty of forensics. As long as the killer wasn’t a pro. And Sonny, despite his record, was no pro. He would have made mistakes.

But Jake wasn’t happy.

There was the purse. It had been flung casually across the kitchen, suggesting that the killer had let himself in with Marcia’s key. Did the killer hold on to it? Sonny had his own key.

Jake cursed himself.

Why can’t I just accept the obvious? Sonny is the killer. Mills is right: I overcomplicate.

A noise – someone coming down the stairs. The light came on in the hall. Leigh.

He looked up with a grin as the door opened, but it wasn’t his wife who came into the kitchen. It was his mother. She was wearing a nightdress and fluffy pink
slippers. But she had her woollen overcoat on over the top.

‘Hi, Mom,’ he said in a resigned but gentle voice.

‘Hi, Bruce,’ she replied with a bright smile. ‘You’re home early.’

Bruce? That’s a new one
. His mother’s lucid moments were fewer and further between these days. She was beginning not to recognize family members. Her connection with the world was eroding.

‘What are you doing up?’ Jake asked.

‘It’s such a sunny day I thought I would take a walk.’

Jake’s eyes flicked to the kitchen window – seeing his vivid reflection in the sheet of black cast by the night. ‘I see.’

‘The air will do me good. I might take the dog.’

They didn’t have a dog.

‘That’s a great idea, Mom.’ He stood up and went towards her. ‘But have you taken your nap? I think you should take your nap first, and then go for the walk.’

Jeanette frowned deeply like he’d just asked her to solve a particularly complex puzzle. ‘Yes, I think I will have a nap.’

Jake took her by the hand and led her back to the hall, where he took off her coat. He hung it on the rack beside his own and Faith’s bright red coat. Then he led his mother up the stairs and into her bedroom. He stayed in the room until she had climbed back into bed, then he bent down and kissed her softly on the forehead.

‘Good night, Mom,’ he said.

‘Good night, Bruce,’ she replied.

Jake tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door behind him and wondering how he could keep her safe.

Time to call it a night. Outside his bedroom he shuffled off his shoes without undoing the laces. He crept into the bedroom and quickly stripped down to his boxers, dropping trousers, shirt, vest and coat on the floor at the end of the bed. Leigh would give him hell for it in the morning, but he was too tired to care.

He took a moment in the moonlight to look down at his sleeping wife. Her slim shoulders and golden hair still stole his breath. Then he took a quick glance at Baby Jakey, sleeping peacefully in his crib by the wall. They had converted the box room for him, but Leigh said he wasn’t ready to sleep on his own yet. Jake suspected it was she who wasn’t ready.

He pulled back the sheets and slipped into bed. Leigh stirred and rolled over.

‘Hi, babe. Good to see you,’ she murmured. She didn’t open her eyes.

‘You too,’ said Jake, stroking her hair.

‘Rough day?’ she asked, nestling into his chest.

‘The roughest. It’s too awful to think about.’ Jake changed the subject. ‘How’s my mother been?’

Now Leigh looked up at him. She considered her answer – maybe several possibilities – before settling on ‘The usual.’

‘When I came home she was all dressed to go out for a walk in the sunshine. Has she been like that all day?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Soon we’ll have to put a lock on her door. We won’t have to baby-proof the house; we’ll have to grandma-proof it!’

Leigh giggled into his chest, which turned into a kiss. Jake allowed himself a smile. Over the past few months there hadn’t been enough laughter in their house – or kissing, or anything else. Leigh’s fingertips lightly brushed over his ribs, sending a pleasant shudder through his torso. Jake decided to push his luck. He playfully cupped her butt, prompting more giggles. And another kiss to his chest, this one just below his nipple.

‘You’re very hot,’ she muttered.

‘Not as hot as you are, honey,’ he growled in his best Bogart accent.

‘You’re so cheesy,’ she said. She lightly blew on the small trace of saliva she had left on his skin. She knew that drove him crazy. Maybe he wasn’t pushing his luck at all.

He ran a finger down the path of her spine. His touch was light over her thin cotton nightie.

‘That feels good,’ she whispered.

Encouraged, he stroked her buttocks with his other hand, moving in big, slow circles, his fingers gliding over the cotton. Leigh drew in a sharp breath as she moved closer to him. Her body felt soft and warm. As his left hand continued to circle, his right reached the hem of the nightdress. Gently he pulled it up, but it
wouldn’t budge. Leigh’s weight was pinning it firmly against the bed. He tugged a bit harder and was rewarded with the sound of tearing fabric.

‘Jesus, Jake, have you torn my best—’

‘Fuck it, it’s ruined now,’ he said, and he ripped up the front of the nightie.

Leigh laughed. ‘You animal!’

Grinning, Jake turned Leigh on to her back and moved on top of her. His left hand pushed aside the torn nightie and slid down her body.

Suddenly, he heard a noise in the corridor. Jake reacted instinctively, sitting up and reaching for his gun. But a half-second later he realized it was his daughter, Faith. He took his gun from the bedside table and shoved it safely under the bed.

Faith stood in the open doorway, looking down the landing, not saying a word.

‘Honey?’ Leigh called out.

Faith didn’t say anything for a moment, then in a soft voice she said, ‘Mom?’

‘Are you all right, honey?’

But Faith just stood there, looking ahead with a fixed gaze.

‘I think she’s sleepwalking,’ said Jake, pulling up his boxers and reaching for his dressing gown. She hadn’t sleepwalked in years. The move and the strain of a new baby and a live-in grandma were obviously taking their toll.

He went over and took her gently by the shoulders.

‘Faith, baby,’ he whispered, ‘you need to wake up now.’

Slowly the fixed look left her eyes. ‘Hi, Dad.’ She blinked slowly. ‘Can I sleep with you guys tonight?’

‘Sure, honey,’ Leigh said. They wouldn’t get to finish what they had started but suddenly Jake was too tired to care. He led Faith to the bed. She got in and curled up against her mother, her eyes closing instantly. Jake sat on the edge of the bed, wanting to make sure she was OK before heading downstairs to sleep on the couch.

‘It was a bad dream,’ she said to no one in particular. Her voice sounded dreamy, far away. ‘I was running, but I don’t know from what. And then I wasn’t running any more. I was hitting someone in the face.’

There was a long pause, and Jake thought it was all over. But then she carried on, her voice thick with sleep: ‘It hurt him, and I felt bad about that. But I kept hitting him anyway. And I was holding Jakey, and I was worried about dropping him.’ She sounded shaken. ‘That’s all I remember.’

Jake leaned forward and stroked her hair. ‘You shouldn’t worry about dropping the baby, little one. I dropped you on your head lots of times, and you turned out fine.’

Faith smiled, then snuggled into her mother and was lost to the world.

Jake took himself downstairs. And a few minutes later he was asleep, and smiling too.