Daddy's Little Killer (17 page)

"Are you all right?"

"You have me at an unfair disadvantage,
Doc."

"What's that?"

"I would never hit a woman, no matter what
she does to warrant a physical response."

"Did you contact Detective Briscoe?"

Orion nodded.  "He's meeting us at my
office."

"I'll need the address.  I could be
delayed a few minutes."

"May I ask where you're going?"  Orion
rubbed the back of his head and checked his fingers for blood.

"Don't be such a baby, Orion.  You
didn't hit the ground that hard."

"Martial arts, huh?"

"Jujitsu.  I'm a black belt."

"I should've let Dumb and
Dumber have at you. 
They
deserve it."

"Thank you for preventing things from going
that far."

"Jesus," Orion muttered a second time. 
"Are you bipolar or something?"

"I merely illustrated a point.  Let's
not get to my lesson on patience, Orion.  I doubt you'd enjoy
it more than the one on respecting boundaries and personal
space.  Are we meeting at a specific location, or should I
contact Briscoe and ask him to meet me at Central Division?"

"My office is right across the street from
central in LaPierre Tower.  May I ask why you're going to
central?"  He regarded me warily.

"Questions are fine, Orion.  I'd think
twice before you yield to the urge to manhandle me again."

"So why central?  Why right now?"

"Research," I said.  "Make sure Briscoe
shows up for the meeting, and don't forget that you need to make
yourself scarce while I talk to him.  It's important,
Orion."

I drove downtown to central with three sets
of headlights following behind me.  Orion was a
no-brainer.  We were practically going to the same
destination, for one.  It appeared that in spite of my
demonstration, he was determined to keep watch over me and assure
my safety. 

Car number two in the procession was
probably the no-neck PI's following me at the behest of someone
Orion had yet to divulge.  I pondered the unusual timing of
their emergence in all of this and wondered if my earlier suspicion
was missing the mark.  I doubted that Sully Marcos would use
men so obvious and inept.  He favored the stealth and
competence of men like my father, killers for whom radar was
nonexistent, they kept such low profiles.

Which brought me to car number three and
reinforced another tidbit of paranoia.  Surely David Levine
and that snake Seleeby weren't planning to walk away after their
plan was so quickly foiled.  We hadn't gotten to the part of
the conversation where I explained to David why returning to the
FBI was impossible.  Probably unnecessary anyway.  If
they had been watching all along, no doubt they were aware of my
shiny new badge and gunmetal accessory.

I refocused on Maya's innocent comment on
Orion's reputation.  Part of the disparity between the Bennett
case and the Foster murder that had been nagging me was the
component of sexual assault.  Rapists who kill are not
necessarily killers. 

Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  Obviously
they're killers if they kill.  Anyone is.  But the
motivation in the crime is the key factor.  For a rapist, the
thrill is the act of sexual domination, power over another to take
sexual pleasure without consent.  The kill is a necessity to
avoid identification.  And why would a rapist become so
avoidant of identification that he would resort to
murder? 

He might've been caught, prosecuted,
convicted and incarcerated before.  The specific manner of
dismemberment also pointed to someone who wanted to delay
identification for as long as possible.  No
fingerprints.  No face to recognize. 

The snag for my profile was the disparity in
ages.  Gwen Foster was 34 years old.  Brighton Bennett
was less than half that age, fifteen at the time of her
death.  The preferential nature of sexual predators was
compelling, and a wrench in my profile.  Even monsters like
Ted Bundy had an age range that was typically consistent. 
Bundy's oldest known victim was 26 years old.  The youngest
was twelve.  The average age however was late teens.

Any woman who has crept up on 40 will agree
that at 26, it's a lot easier to pass for six or eight years
younger than it is at 40 to pass for two decades younger. 
Bundy had a type.  Whoever killed Gwen Foster and Brighton
Bennett had a type too.  What I needed was photographs of both
women, something recent for Foster in particular.  I also
needed to run a few details regarding sexual assault of younger
women through ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension
Program.  There could be a history of assaults on
middle-teenage girls, maybe even early victims who survived the
encounter.

My fingers drummed against the Prius
steering wheel.  "Fifteen years ago is a long time. 
What's this guy been doing in the meantime?  Why the gap in
crimes between Bennett and Foster?  If he was already
incarcerated before Brighton Bennett's murder, being the prompt
that pushed him to kill subsequent victims, why weren't there a
string of murders in between?"

Maybe there were, but outside Darkwater
Bay's jurisdiction.  I hoped that ViCAP would provide
answers.  Of course, it required a huge assumption – that
anyone from Darkwater Bay had bothered to enter the data from
Brighton Bennett's murder into the system.  If not, it was a
situation I planned to rectify tonight.

The detective squad room was quiet as a
tomb, save for the soft snoring of Flynn Myre, who rested his feet
on the top of his desk and reclined precariously in his
chair.  I tiptoed through the room to the office Rodney had
designated temporary work space should I need to access any
resources in the department.

I did.  The key slid into the
deadbolt.  I twisted it and pushed the door open.  The
resounding creak jolted Myre out of his slumber.  Feet clunked
to the floor.  I glanced over my shoulder.

"Oh hey, Eriksson."

"Sorry.  I didn't mean to disturb
you."

"What're you doing here so late?"

"Just a little research.  I won't be
long."  I stepped inside the door, cursing under my breath and
turned on the light.  The computer on the desk wasn't the most
modern beast I'd seen, a Dell from circa 2005 that had seen better
days. 

Without delay, I booted the software and
started searching.  Myre knocked on the doorframe. 

"Anything I can help you with tonight,
Eriksson?"

"No thank you."

"Surfin' the 'net, huh?"

"ViCAP," I said.

He scratched his head.  "What's
ViCAP?"

So much for my unfounded suspicion that the
Bennett case was nowhere to be found.  I explained the program
to Myre, how it had been designed in the mid-eighties, more than a
quarter century ago, to aid law enforcement in linking crimes and
closing cases.

"But … we had the son of a gun in
custody.  He'd be in prison right now if Orion hadn't tampered
with the evidence."

I gestured to one of the empty chairs in
front of the desk.  "You worked that case too, right? 
Didn't anyone find it odd that evidence that you and Orion didn't
collect was used to taint evidence that you did collect?"

"I don't follow," Myre frowned at me. 
A moment later, he popped a toothpick into his mouth and started
gnawing.

"The blood on the clothing had the chemical
EDTA present, which presumably came from a blood vial that would've
been collected by the medical examiner's office.  It's not
something that the police detectives would've had access to, yet
when questions were asked about the clothing, it was presumed that
you or Orion had tampered with it."

"It was plain as day who was behind
that.  Orion was frothin' at the mouth for something that
would link that little girl's murder to Datello."

"A man who worked for Datello hardly
incriminates him in the crime."

"That's what I said at the time.  Orion
don't listen, and he sure as heck don't play well with
others.  He ran that investigation straight into the
ground."

My fingers clacked over the keyboard when
ViCAP finally loaded.

"Whatcha lookin' for?"

"The Bennett case."

Myre snorted and almost lost the sliver of
wood between his lips.  It rolled back and forth as he spoke
with a hypnotic quality.  Roll, jerk, gnaw, roll.  "You
ain't gonna find it in no database if the criteria is unsolved
crimes, Eriksson."

I peered over the desk at him.  "I was
led to believe that this case is still open."

Myre's open palm rolled in front of
him.  "Technical thing.  Yeah, the case is still open,
but nobody around here looks at it that way.  We know who done
the deed.  We had him too, before Orion screwed the whole
thing up."

"Who considers it open – technically?"

"The brass upstairs.  The kid's
mother.  The stepfather."

"Wait a minute.  Brighton Bennett had a
stepfather?"

"Sure.  Sam Colton.  His wife was
Jennifer, formerly Bennett, Colton.  They're still around
here, and I reckon that when news of what happened to another
member of the Bennett clan finally leaks out in the papers that
they'll be downstairs demanding justice again."

"You
knew
that Gwen Foster used to be
Gwen Bennett?"

"It weren't no secret."

I gritted my teeth.  "No secret to
whom?  None of us investigating the case were aware of that
detail without doing some serious digging, Myre.  Did it occur
to anyone who did know that this might be an important detail to
share?"

"Us old timers knew it the second we heard
her name at the crime scene.  Didn't seem like anybody was
interested in what we had to say about it, so we kept our mouths
shut."

"I see."

"It ain't personal."

"Tell that to the family when they show up
demanding justice," I said.  "If I need any help, I'll let you
know, Myre.  In the meantime, I need to get back to work."

"Suit yourself.  Chief Lowe said that
if you needed anything, we was to cooperate to the fullest. 
It ain't right how Hardy and Weber are pulling this mess out of the
chief's hands.  I ain't his favorite person by any stretch,
but he's done right by me over the years.  You'd do well to
keep that in mind, Eriksson.  Havin' Lowe in your corner sure
as heck ain't gonna hurt, not when the negative stuff hits the
airwaves."

"I'll take it under advisement."

In the meantime, the details of the Bennett
case needed to be entered into ViCAP.  My thoughts drifted as
I input information.  A ringing endorsement of Jerry Lowe from
Flynn Myre wasn't what I'd call a plus in the Lowe column.  I
wondered again if he was quietly suffering the same fate as Hardy
and Weber.  Judging the faith Lowe put in his detectives told
me more about his character than anything else.  Unless he was
being blackmailed.  If the grand scheme of Central Division
was considered, Hardy and Weber looked as bad, if not worse than
Lowe.

"I wonder what the other divisions are like
in this city.  Forsythe seemed to indicate that the problem is
right here in central, but that the rest of Darkwater Bay isn't as
incompetent."  Maybe a deeper conversation with Briscoe would
shed some light.

With the particulars of Brighton Bennett's
murder entered into the national database, I entered my search
criteria.  I had one hit – the murder I just entered.

The search function worked much slower when
I changed my parameters for sexual assaults of girls aged thirteen
to sixteen.  I let it do its thing and grabbed my purse. 
I'd check the results after my conversation with Briscoe.

Myre was snoring again, this time
undisturbed by the squeaky door and the snick of the lock as I left
Central Division for the second time Wednesday.  I didn't see
his eyes following me out of the squad room.

Chapter 16

Orion flung open the door to his "office",
the penthouse at the very upscale LaPierre Tower, with damp hair,
bare feet, a pair of jeans hugging slim hips and a dark blue silk
shirt open to the navel.  Spots of damp skin made the flimsy
fabric cling in places. 

I cleared my throat.  "Am I
interrupting something?"

"Tony's in the den.  You can have your
secret conversation while I finish."

"The water's gonna ruin that silk
shirt."

Orion smirked.  "What, this old
thing?"

My eyes darted around the airy space,
minimalist decor, tastefully un-decorated in a fashionably
expensive way.  A chair here.  A black or white sculpture
there.  Gleaming hardwood floors.  Pristine white
walls.  Chrome light fixtures.  It felt warm and sterile
at the same time.  "Where's the den?"

Orion pointed to a pane-glass partition with
wood blinds muting the warm glow of light beyond.  "Den. 
Door.  Tony."

The aforementioned detective appeared in the
doorway recently opened and gave a little wave.  "Welcome to
Orion's babe lair," he grinned at me. 

"We need to talk, Briscoe."

"And we'd be glad to answer any questions
you have."  Younger Detective Conall appeared over his
partner's shoulder.  He eyed me with frank curiosity. 
"Should I be offended that your invitation didn't explicitly
include me, Dr. Eriksson?"

I groaned for two reasons – first that
Conall's creepy interest once again lurked at the periphery of my
world, and secondly, that Orion was complicit in an unwanted third
person at my party.   I shot Orion a dagger or two with
my eyes before marching headlong into the lair as it was.  "I
doubt you're old enough to have the information I need, Detective
Conall.  Or do my eyes deceive me?  Were you a detective
fifteen years ago?"