Critical Pursuit (12 page)

“EITHER THE SHOOTING
or that article Tracy Michaels wrote about me brought a nut out of the woodwork.” Brinna sat in the mobile operations van and rubbed her face with both hands. “I should have known better.”

“Don’t beat yourself up.” Chuck placed a cup of coffee in front of her. “This creep was out there already. Now that he’s made his presence known, he’ll slip up and we’ll catch him.” He sat down next to Brinna. “It’s obvious the body has been there for a month. No telling if it ever would have been discovered. Yet he came back to place the sign, send us the map, and taunt you.”

Brinna gulped the hot
 
—bad
 
—coffee, ignoring the burn in her throat and working to target her thoughts on catching the bad guy, not on how Heather’s parents would react to this news. She’d lost this one. She’d failed Heather and her family. The least she could do was hound the guy responsible and get him off the streets.

“He’s got to be one of the sex offenders from my Wall of
Slime,” she said. “He’s probably got an ax to grind and he’s trying to get to me.”

“That’s a thought.” Chuck rubbed his chin. “How many do you have up there now?”

“Twenty. I’ll send you a list as soon as I get home.”

“Any stick out in your mind?”

Brinna shook her head. “Nope, but they are all high risk.”

“If it is one of them, that will make it easy, but I’ll admit I’m not optimistic. I’ve got a couple pictures to show you.” Chuck grabbed a file and opened it. He was about to lay down some photos when the door opened and the coroner’s investigator poked his head inside.

“We’ve gathered the remains and are heading to the morgue. Do you need anything else before we leave?”

Chuck shook his head and the man left. Brinna heard the transmission engage as the coroner’s van left the lot. Heather’s gap-toothed grin tortured her thoughts.

“Earth to Brinna.” Chuck tapped the table and pointed to pictures. “Study these, and check out the MO. We’re running a computer search for similar cases.”

Brinna blinked and turned her full attention to the photos.

“A serial killer?” Jack asked.

Brinna glanced up. He’d been so quiet she’d almost forgotten he was there.

Chuck nodded. “The way we found Heather matches two others in California so far
 
—one in San Diego a year ago and another in San Luis Obispo two years ago. We’ve expanded our search parameters, widened them. If it is one
of the twenty on your wall, we’ll connect the dots quickly.” He tapped a photo. “There is one unique aspect to the way he left the kid. Does anything seem familiar, Brinna?”

Brinna set down her coffee and picked up the photo.

“Heather was tied to a tree, most likely alive, and left to die,” Chuck continued, “probably shortly after she disappeared. The killer left her and returned sometime yesterday or the day before to place the sign.”

“And then he mailed you a note so you’d finally find her,” Jack added.

Brinna’s gaze bounced from the photo to Chuck and back again. “There is something here.”

“What is it?” Jack asked.

Brinna blew out a breath. “The knot, or loop, he used to secure her to the tree. When I was left in the desert twenty years ago, the kidnapper used the same kind of knot. It’s called a perfection loop. Fishermen use it.”

“That same knot was found in the other two cases I mentioned,” Chuck said. “It’s not a difficult or uncommon knot, but in these cases it’s always used to secure a victim at some remote spot. This mutt doesn’t kill his victims. He leaves them to die from exposure, starvation, or worse, animals.”

“Are you saying that the same guy who grabbed Brinna twenty years ago is still out there snatching kids and has been doing that all these years?” Jack asked.

“It’s a possibility.” Chuck nodded.

“No, it’s not,” Brinna said.

“Why?” Jack and Chuck asked simultaneously.

“I’m surprised you don’t know, Chuck. But maybe you
don’t because he was never officially charged with what he did to me.” Brinna slid the photo across the table to him. “Nigel Pearce
 
—the man they think kidnapped me
 
—was killed ten years ago in a standoff with police. It can’t be him; this has to be a copycat.”

“WALL OF SLIME?”
Jack asked as they passed the newest gleaming resort hotel on PCH in Huntington Beach. It was almost five in the morning before they left Chuck and headed back to Long Beach. Exhausted emotionally and physically, Brinna had turned the driving over to Jack.

“Yeah.” Brinna yawned. “I have a wall in my home office dedicated to high-risk sex offenders, guys that mess with kids. It helps me to keep tabs on them. If I catch one anywhere he’s not supposed to be, I recognize him right away.”

Staring out at the landmarks they passed under a slowly brightening sky, Brinna wished it were Milo next to her and not Jack.

“I guess that’s a good idea. You really think one of them is Heather’s killer?”

Brinna closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. “I don’t know. Who else would want to get to me like this? But I went over each of them with a fine-tooth comb after Heather disappeared. They all had solid alibis.”

Brinna couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so helpless. Some psycho nutbag was out there hunting kids to make a point with her. Milo would know how she was supposed to feel, how she was supposed to handle this. A madman just killed a little girl because of her. And he was hunting more. The thought felt like a punch to the gut.

Jack turned left from PCH onto Second Street as they entered Long Beach and started for the station.

“Hey, are you up for some more coffee?” Brinna asked.

“Yep, I’m hungry too. Hof’s?” He yawned and Brinna wondered if she looked as bad as he did. His eyes were bloodshot, and bags weighed them down. Thick stubble darkened his chin.

At least I don’t have to worry about stubble,
she thought as she dragged a hand across her chin. In spite of the desire to talk to Milo and not Jack, Brinna considered O’Reilly and admitted that he had behaved like a partner at Crystal Cove. There was light in his eyes while they talked to Chuck, nothing creepy.

“Yeah, Hof’s is good.”

Jack parked at Hof’s Hut, a chain restaurant with locations all over the city. It was a favorite with cops because it served good food and stayed open twenty-four hours.

“Wow,” Jack said as they walked to the entrance, “I can see it’s going to take time to get used to these hours again.” He twisted and stretched.

Brinna gave an agreeing grunt. The vest and gun belt felt like cement at this time of the morning. A fleeting picture of Mr. and Mrs. Bailey and a thought about the news that would
greet them sometime today tempered Brinna’s feeling of discomfort. Swallowing a lump, she heard Milo’s words:
“The only salve for the family of the victim is justice. Catch the bad guy.”

The early shift waitress, Molly, had her hands behind her back, tying her apron, as Brinna and Jack walked in. She pointed to the dining room with her chin. “Anywhere you like.” The restaurant was empty but for a couple of old guys at the counter.

Brinna yawned again as she slid into the booth and squirmed in the seat to get comfortable, wishing she could shed her belt. Morning breakfast smells stirred her stomach and Brinna realized she was very hungry. The microwave dinner she’d eaten before shift seemed days ago.

“Good morning, Brin. I see you have a new partner.” Molly brought coffee and menus.

“Yeah. Molly, Jack; Jack, Molly.” Brinna grabbed her coffee as soon as the cup was full, needing a flavorful caffeine jolt after the bitter dishwater taste of the FBI coffee.

“I’ll give you guys a few minutes.” The waitress flashed Jack a toothy smile and returned to the kitchen.

“You already know what you want?” Jack asked as he opened his menu.

“Yep. I like the plain buttermilk pancakes here. I always get them.” She gulped her coffee and then refilled her cup from the carafe Molly had left.

“Pancakes sound good.” He closed the menu and yawned, then poured himself some coffee. “You know, the first thing you learn when you make it to homicide is not to let any cases get under your skin. Don’t take this thing personally.”

“Of course it’s personal. He left the note for me.” Brinna shot him an irritated glance.

He peered down his nose at her, his eyes still normal, not creepy. “It’s not personal. This nut doesn’t need you or what you do to be a killer. He’s chosen to thumb his nose your direction. It could have been anyone in a blue suit.”

“I’m lucky, then?” Brinna responded bitterly.

Jack hiked his shoulders and studied his coffee, saying nothing for a minute. “Maybe you were a target because of your high profile. But I’d bet this guy wants to bait a cop
 
—any cop. He kills kids; he’s evil. You can’t blame yourself for the evil in the world.” Jack sat back in the booth, scrunched up a napkin in his hand. His eyes took on a faraway stare.

“Milo says that. He also says good cops are the antidote for evil. Especially when someone is murdered. We’re the last voice a dead victim has.”

“Milo?” Jack focused on Brinna, seemingly coming back to the here and now.

“Yeah, he’s the cop who rescued me twenty years ago. He’s retired now, but when he was on the job, he taught me a lot.”

“Even good cops lose one now and then. We fight a war that can’t be won. The best we can hope for is a draw.”

“And Maggie calls me a glass-is-half-empty person. I won’t settle for a draw. I want to win every time.”

Jack shot her a glance that Brinna felt meant he thought she deluded herself.

Silence reigned at the table until Molly returned to take their orders. When the waitress left them again, Jack broke the silence. “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Nope, shoot.”

“Brinna is an interesting name. Is there some special meaning to it?”

The question couldn’t have surprised Brinna more if it had been an invitation to a date. She stuttered, laughed, and turned away with nervousness. “No, other than it’s a testament to how screwed up my family is. My dad is a full-blooded Italian who believes boy children are a sign of his virility. He was determined his firstborn would be a boy. He picked out the name Brian, painted my room blue, and refused to believe a girl was possible.”

“And then he had a girl.”

Brinna nodded. “My parents never even considered girl names. It took them three days to name me. All they did was switch the
N
and the
A
and add an extra
N
to name me Brinna. Two years later he got his boy and named my brother Brian.” She stopped, suddenly uncomfortable talking about herself.

Jack smiled. “It’s a conversation piece.”

Brinna shrugged. “I’ve always called it my insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“Yep. I’m absolutely positive I wasn’t adopted because my parents never would have picked a girl.” She gulped her coffee, feeling like an idiot for revealing so much to a stranger. A stranger she wasn’t even sure she liked.

Molly’s return with their breakfast eased her angst. As soon as her plate was in front of her, Brinna slathered on butter, poured some syrup, and dug in.

She was halfway through her stack when she decided
to turn the tables and poke. “Since we’re being inquisitive, why’d you ask to leave homicide?”

Jack stared at her a moment, and at first she didn’t think he’d answer. Finally he cleared his throat. “Uh, let’s see,” he began, looking at Brinna like a person in pain but dealing with it. “After my wife, uh . . . passed, I developed queasiness when it came to the bodies. Lieutenant Hoffman let me work a desk job for a bit, but it wasn’t permanent.”

He blew out a breath and continued. “I didn’t want to go back to work as a homicide investigator. I didn’t want to be preached to by Ben Carney. I needed a change. Patrol seemed like the place.”

“Ben
is
a preacher. He says you also used to be a Christian.”

Jack grunted and rubbed the back of his neck. “Used to be. I can’t believe in a God who’d take my wife away like he did. She didn’t deserve that.” His eyes misted.

Brinna turned away. “We agree on something. I can’t believe in a God who lets innocent kids like Heather suffer.” For a moment, she thought maybe this was her chance to ask him about her fear that he had a death wish. But it wasn’t a topic she wanted to get into right then. Instead, she asked, “Did Heather’s body bother you?”

Jack stared at Brinna before he answered. “No.” He shook his head slowly as if the answer surprised him. “No, not that way, it didn’t.”

“Maybe you were right, then; maybe patrol is better for you. Your wife got hit by a drunk driver, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did.” Jack’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth;
then he put it on his plate. “His sentencing is less than two weeks away.”

Brinna didn’t miss the anger flashing across his eyes and the tightness of his jawline. “I read about it. First-time offender. He’ll probably get five years. Bet that ticks you off.”

Jack grunted and nodded, slopping more coffee into his cup. “You got that right. The puke deserves the death penalty.”

“At least you have closure. You know he’ll be punished and pay for the crime he committed. Even if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”

“That’s supposed to be consolation?” Though his eyes burned with anger, Brinna liked it much better than when they were creepy.

“Sure. They never caught the guy who kidnapped me. They think Pearce was good for it, but I couldn’t ID him. Other kids are found dead, no one is ever caught, parents never get closure, and perpetrators aren’t punished. If I did believe in God, that would be one conversation I’d have with him.”

“God.” Jack spit the word out and reclined against the booth. “Like I said, this is a perfect example of why there is no God. The wicked get away with stuff and the innocent, like Vicki and Heather, pay the ultimate price.”

“So why give up the fight?”

“What?” Jack stared at Brinna, his eyes now bright with surprise.

“You left homicide. Everyone says you’re burnt out. Why quit?” Brinna toyed with her coffee cup. “A kid like Heather,
she’s just as important to her parents as Vicki was to you. In homicide you could help find them justice, yet you want to quit. I don’t get it.”

“I’m not a quitter,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “It’s just sometimes, when there is nothing to go home to, I think, what is the point? We are fighting a losing battle
 
—admit it.”

“There you lose me. Maybe we don’t catch them all and maybe I can’t save them all, but I owe every one of them the effort. I may not be a Christian, but I agree with your preaching partner, Ben. We have to fight the good fight. If Milo had given up on me, I’d be dead in the desert. Guys like him, you, me
 
—we owe it to the innocent to keep fighting.”

Jack said nothing, just stared. After a minute he looked away. “Sounds like you’re trying to pass an oral board. You really believe all that?”

Brinna pushed her finished plate away and took a final swig of coffee. “I don’t care if you think it’s corny. It’s why I’m a cop. And it’s why I’ll catch the guy who killed Heather or die trying.”

Molly’s return interrupted Jack’s response. They paid their bill and left.

They made the drive to the station in silence. Brinna decided she could probably stand a couple of weeks with Jack if he left the creepy eyes at home.