The Morning After (21 page)

“Just wanted to say bye,” the big man said.

“Goin’ home?”

“For a while. I went over all the information on the new one this morning.” His high forehead wrinkled. “Looks like we got ourselves a real nutcase on the loose. I’d like to stay, but there’s not much reason. The sheriff wants me to report in.”

“But you’ll be back?”

“I reckon. Until this case is solved, we’re all in it together.”

Reed nodded. “Need a ride to the airport?”

McFee shook his head. “Got one.” He crossed the short span of linoleum and shoved a hand across Reed’s desk. They shook. “Be seein’ ya. Good luck.”

“Same to you.”

“I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.”

“I appreciate it.”

With a nod, McFee turned and headed toward the exit. Through the open door Reed watched him leave and wasn’t too surprised to see Sylvie Morrisette catch up with him. The big man visibly brightened at the sight of her and for once Morrisette had abandoned her dark visage. She actually smiled up at McFee, flirted with him, appeared incredibly feminine. The big detective glanced over his shoulder, met Reed’s gaze, and one side of his mouth lifted almost smugly. As if to say,
This happens all the time, Reed. Take notes. The quiet country-boy charm can get you into a woman’s pants faster than a bottle of Chablis.

They disappeared down the stairs and Reed picked up the phone. Cradling the receiver on his shoulder, he found the number he’d written down earlier, then punched out the digits. It had been the last call Roberta Peters had made…no, it had been the last call made from Roberta Peters’s telephone. Either she had called Phoenix, or someone else had used her phone.

After three rings, a sweet-voiced woman answered. “Hello, this is Glenda of Faith Gospel Mission. May God be with you. How can I direct your call?”

Reed identified himself, stated his business and was redirected to several different voices, none of which deigned to give him any information. All soon gave up any sign of friendliness and the “May God be with you” greeting was dropped the minute he mentioned that he was with the police. His final connection was to “Reverend Joe,” who flatly told him that they didn’t give out any information about members of the mission’s flock, then summarily hung up. Reed checked with the Better Business Bureau and the Phoenix Police Department, making inquiries about Faith Gospel Mission and specifically about Reverend Joe. According to all sources, the good preacher and his institution were clean as a whistle. Reverend Joe hadn’t been charged with so much as a traffic citation. Almost too clean. Reed didn’t trust the man right from the get-go. Didn’t like the fact that he didn’t use a surname. Maybe old Joe was enough of a celebrity with the God-fearing crowd that he didn’t need one. Like Cher or Madonna or Liberace. Just Reverend Joe.

Despite his feelings, the call was a waste and brought him to another dead end. Strike one.

He took the time to grab a Coke out of the vending machine down the hall, then put in a call to the New Orleans Police Department. He was hoping to catch up with Detective Reuben Montoya, a young buck of a detective who had worked with him last summer on the Montgomery case, but was informed by a secretary that Montoya had left the department a few months earlier. Reed was referred to a detective named Rick Bentz, whose voice mail answered and Reed remembered having worked with Bentz in the past. He would have to do. Reed left a brief message inquiring about Bobbi Jean’s brother, Vince Lassiter, then left his number and hung up.

Strike two.

He finished his Coke, answered a few calls and caught up on some paperwork, but all the while the Grave Robber case scratched at the edges of his brain. As afternoon eased toward evening, he was still turning the case over in his mind. He was missing something, he thought, something vital. The damned killer was teasing him with notes, brazenly mailing some kind of clues to him and Reed wasn’t getting it. He pulled out a yellow legal pad, clicked his pen and started making notes. He started with the notes from the killer. Though they were already being analyzed by the lab and a police psychologist and probably an FBI profiler by now, Reed decided to mentally grapple with them himself. This was his communication with the killer. His link. There had to be something in the letters addressed to him that only he would understand. He wrote down the contents of the first letter, the one he’d received at the office with the return address of Colonial Cemetery on the envelope.

ONE, TWO,

THE FIRST FEW.

HEAR THEM CRY,

LISTEN TO THEM DIE.

This had been his introduction to the case. The killer was telling him that he was going to find two victims, even though Pauline Alexander had been buried for years and had died of natural causes. The way Reed read it, the killer was taunting him, not offering any information other than that these two were the first of what were sure to be more. Both Bobbi Jean and Pauline were victims of a sort.

TICK TOCK,

ON GOES THE CLOCK.

TWO IN ONE,

ONE AND TWO.

Again, the references to two victims, or…did the killer know about the baby?

If so, there would be three…one and two adding up to three…But at that point there had only been two bodies—unless it was a reference to Thomas Massey, who was already dead at that point. If Massey were part of the killer’s scheme, and not a random grave that the killer had happened upon.

“Think, Reed, think,” he growled. There was something else in here, something that had to do with time. What? Was the killer on some kind of schedule? Was he that organized? Why contact Reed?

“Come on, you son of a bitch, figure it out,” he growled as he wrote down the contents of the third note:

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR…

SO, NOW, DON’T YOU WONDER HOW MANY MORE?

More taunting. The killer was playing with him. And feeling superior. Speaking to him directly with the “you” in the second line. But there was something about the configuration of the last note that seemed off. Something that bothered Reed. “One, two, three, four.” Almost like a nursery rhyme, but it was obviously a reference to the bodies as well. Four victims, meaning that not only Barbara Jean Marx and Roberta Peters were victims, but also Pauline Alexander and Thomas Massey. Otherwise, why count up to four?
Unless the killer’s playing with you and there are two other victims stashed in occupied graves that you haven’t yet unearthed.
“Hell,” he muttered and was glad he could hand the note to the FBI’s psychological profiler. The Feds would have a heyday with this one.

He drummed his fingers on the desk, looked over all the reports and evidence again and searched his E-mail where he found the preliminary report on Thomas Massey. An African-American who had four children flung to the far corners of the country and an elderly wife living in a small house outside of the city. Massey had been a janitor for a private school years ago as well as a deacon in his church. His wife, Bea, had worked part-time as a bookkeeper while raising the kids. From all early accounts, Massey hadn’t had any run-ins with the law and he and his wife had been married forty-five years at the time of his death.

Then, there was Roberta Peters, sixty-three, a widow. No children. Lived alone in the old home she and her husband had occupied since 1956. He’d died four years earlier.

So what was the connection between the victims. Or was there one?

…
don’t you wonder how many more?

Reed’s jaw tightened. Obviously the murderer wasn’t about to stop. Reed wondered if there was a finite number involved. Probably not. The question was rhetorical. The bastard wouldn’t quit his deadly game until the police either cuffed or killed him and Reed was hoping for the latter.

Maybe he’d get lucky and could do the honors himself.

CHAPTER 13

“You don’t want to stay for dinner?” Charlene Gillette asked. Barely a hundred pounds, her skin pale, but her makeup impeccable, she was perched on the cushions of the window seat overlooking the terraced grounds of the Gillette estate. It was dark outside, the shrubbery illuminated by lamps strategically placed near the brick walls. On the kitchen table, near a bouquet of birds-of-paradise, was the morning’s edition of the
Sentinel
, laid flat, Nikki’s story visible, forgotten reading glasses mounted over the headlines.

“It has nothing to do with wanting, Mom,” Nikki said, her stomach nearly growling at the savory smells of pot roast emanating from the oven. Pecan pie cooled on the counter and potatoes boiled on the stove. Sandra, the sometimes maid, sometimes caretaker, was tossing a spinach salad with pears and blue cheese. Nikki stood near the counter, picking at pieces of chopped hazelnuts that hadn’t yet made it into the bowl.

“You’re always on the go. Would it hurt you to sit down and share a meal with us?”

“Of course not.” But Nikki was already thinking ahead, that she had to get the new key to her apartment, that someone had broken in, a little secret she’d keep from her parents. Otherwise they’d be worried sick and insist she go to the police or stay and live with them…neither being an option.

“I don’t know when you’ve relaxed,” Charlene observed.

“It’s not my nature.”

“Like your father.”

Sandra lifted an eyebrow as she scooped up a handful of the hazelnuts and sprinkled them atop the spinach leaves.

“Is that so bad?”

Her mother didn’t answer directly. Instead, she snapped her fingers as if she’d just remembered something important. “Oh, honey, by the way, guess who stopped by earlier today?”

“I couldn’t,” Nikki said honestly. “You know too many people around here.”

“Not me. Someone you know, er, knew.”

“Who?” Nikki asked, not really caring.

“Sean,” she said with a little glimmer in her eye, and Nikki inwardly groaned.

“Sean Hawke? What was he doing here?”

“He just stopped by to see me. His mother and I did go to school together, you know.”

Nikki remembered. Though she didn’t want to.

“He asked about you.”

“I already talked to him.”

“And?” One of her mother’s eyebrows rose.

“And nothing. He wanted to get together. I thought it was a bad idea.”

“Really? But I always liked Sean.” She lifted her hands to the sides of her head as if to ward off a blow. “I know, I know. It didn’t work out. He was interested in someone else, but you know, you were both too young, then. Maybe now—”

“Never, Mom, and I can’t believe you’re saying this. Sean was and is a snake. End of subject.” Nikki couldn’t help but be irritated. Charlene seemed to think she was an old maid just because she was over thirty. Which was ridiculous. “Dad never liked him,” she pointed out and thought she saw, from the corner of her eye, a curt nod of Sandra’s head.

“Your father is suspicious of everyone.” Charlene folded her arms under her small breasts. Her jaw was set in that hard, uncompromising line Nikki had seen all too often. “That attitude comes from being involved with the law and seeing the dark side of life every day.”

Nikki heard the garage door open. “Speak of the devil.”

Her mother’s spine stiffened slightly, as if she were bracing herself, and Nikki felt a pang of wistfulness. What had happened to her parents, who, when they were younger, had danced and laughed, their eyes crinkling at each other’s jokes, each trying to outdo the other? They had seemed devoted, yet independent, and above all else, respectful of each other. They had been kind. They had been happy. They had been in love, even after four children and over two decades together. Their happiness had eroded over the years, worn away by Andrew’s death and their own perceptions of ever-nearing mortality. Age and sorrow had sapped Charlene of her wit and her vitality, while those same two demons had embittered her father.

Sandra swept away the final crumbs of the nuts as the retired Honorable Judge Ronald Gillette opened the door from the garage and stepped into the warm light of the kitchen.

His cheeks were ruddy, his nose always red these days, his blue eyes sparkling despite too many visible veins. Some people thought he looked like Santa Claus, but he reminded Nikki of Burl Ives’s portrayal of Big Daddy in an old movie version of
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
. “Hey, Firecracker!” he boomed and gave his youngest child the bear hug she’d come to expect. He smelled of cigar smoke, rye whiskey and rain. “So, you finally made page one! Congratulations!” Another squeeze.

Nikki was grinning ear to ear as the embrace ended. “Finally being the integral word in that sentence.”

Big Ron chuckled. “It’s not as if you’re over the hill.”

“Yet.”

“Well, maybe we should have a drink to celebrate. Char—?”

“No.” She shook her head and tried to hide the knots of disapproval pinching the corners of her mouth.

“You will, though?” he asked Nikki.

She thought of her scheduled meeting with Cliff. “I’ll have to take a rain check, Dad. I’ve got work to do.”

“It’s only one drink.” He was already walking toward the den. Her mother turned her attention toward the darkened windows and Nikki caught sight of Charlene’s pale reflection in the glass, saw the pain and disapproval in that ghostly image.

“You okay, Mom?”

Charlene blinked, managed a smile. “Right as rain.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would ya?” Nikki plopped onto the cushion next to her and hugged her mother. Charlene smelled of Estee Lauder and powder. “You saw the doctor yesterday. What did he say?”

“What he always does. That everything is all in my head.” With a glance toward the hallway where her husband disappeared, she added, “He suggested I visit a psychiatrist.”