FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7) (10 page)

3:00 p.m. Saturday

“So if it’s the same killer,” Tim said, “then something shifted with that 2002 case.”

They’d compared the crime scene photos from the cases prior to that. The wounds on those victims’ stomachs were similar but they didn’t match the template exactly. They’d also compared the cuts and burns on other parts of the victims’ bodies. The New Haven student and the five later victims were a match. The earlier victims were close but not exactly the same.

“It sure looks like that’s some kind of turning point,” Kate said. “We’ve got five cases with
similar
torture and rape before he kills the victims, somewhere from thirty-six to seventy-two hours after they’re abducted. Then a decade gap, and now the torture is postmortem, the marks are
identical
and the victims are posed showing remorse.”

“And there are notes indicating the time of death, exactly forty-eight hours after they were discovered missing.” Tim shook his head. “Too much is similar for the cases not to be related. But too much is different. I think we’ve got a copy cat.”

Kate snorted. “A copycat with obsessive-compulsive disorder, if he’s using a template.”

She meant it as a joke but Tim’s face was dead serious. “Could be.”

“Someone who knew the first guy,” she said. “A colleague, or a protégé. Or maybe a family member, a brother or son?”

Tim tossed his notepad onto the table. “That only helps if we knew who the first unsub was. We didn’t even realize those cases were related until Jane dug them up.”

“Whoever our current killer is,” Kate said, “he knew exactly what wounds were inflicted on the 2002 girl. So either he was there when she was killed, or he had access to the crime scene photos.”

“And if he was there, he’d have to have a photographic memory to remember them exactly a decade later. No, he had the photos, or the body, in his possession at some point.” Tim picked up the phone and punched in numbers. “Hey Jane, Tim Cornelius. I need you to check to see if anyone requested the file on the 2002 New Haven murder once the case went cold. If you come up blank there, get me the names of everyone who worked that case. Every police officer, crime scene tech, the EMTs, the works.”

“What about the funeral home?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, and all the personnel at whatever funeral home the body was released to.”

“You thinking a copycat?” Jane asked from the speaker.

“Maybe.”

“This is gonna take awhile.”

“As fast as humanly possible, Jane. A lady’s life is hanging in the balance.”

~~~~~~~~

Sally was alone again in her prison.

She’d made it as far as the living room door, hobbling as fast as she could, only to realize she had no way to turn the knob. She’d opened her mouth, but her scream was cut short when her captor tackled her.

She’d braced herself for his fury.

He’d stood over her, catching his breath. Then he’d smiled down at her. “Now why would you want to leave me, my dear?”

He’d hauled her to her feet and shoved her back into the hidden room. He’d stood in the living room, a superior grin on his face, as the opening in the wall slowly closed.

At least he hadn’t put the gag back on. Either he’d forgotten it or he was now afraid she’d choke on it again. He didn’t want her to die other than by his hand.

She sat down on the side of the bed and took a deep breath. It came out on a shudder that threatened to turn into a sob.

Stop that! Get a grip! What do you know now that you didn’t know before?

It was the question she asked herself when a therapy session didn’t go well. What had the botched interventions, the client’s resistance, told her about where she should go from here?

She closed her eyes to better conjure up the details of what she had seen outside the hidden room. A long, narrow living room. An open doorway of a kitchen. A hallway leading to other rooms. A window at the end of the living room, opposite the door she’d tried to get through.

She scrunched up her forehead, straining to remember the brief glimpse she gotten of what was outside that window. Clouds and the corner of a red brick building, windows evenly spaced along each story.

She was in an apartment, in an apartment building. Not a warehouse or a garage or a house. The apartment was not on the first floor. Otherwise, she would have seen a street, cars, people walking by.

And the wall between her prison and the rest of the apartment was not totally soundproof. But there was insulation over the windows in here, to soundproof them.

Think! Think like a kidnapper who wants to keep someone captive in an apartment.

She looked around the room. The bed and bedside table sat a couple feet away from the wall behind it. She’d never paid any attention to that wall before. Now she noted that it was a different shade of white than the adjacent wall.

She stood up and walked around the bed to get a closer look. The wall was covered with a layer of white styrofoam panels, the kind used for insulation or soundproofing.

This wall adjoined another apartment.

~~~~~~~~

4:15 p.m. Saturday

Skip made himself wait an extra fifteen minutes before calling Buchanan again, just in case the man was later getting home than expected. He didn’t want to make the wife suspicious with too many calls.

A male voice answered this time. “Hello.”

Skip let out his breath. “Mr. Buchanan?”

“That’s me.” His voice sounded jocular. Perhaps he’d been at the local pub this afternoon.

“Sir, my name is Skip Canfield. I’m a private investigator and I’m currently helping the police.” Julie had told him not to mention the FBI unless he had to. They didn’t want the press getting wind of the federal presence in town and catching on to what was going on. “I can’t give you any details of an active case but the situation is quite critical, a matter of life and death.”

“This some kinda scam?”

“Oh no, sir. All we need is permission to enter the apartment you rented for your employer down here in Towson, Maryland. We don’t really expect to find anything there, but we need to eliminate that apartment as a possible place where someone might be hiding.”

“Someone who?”

“Uh, as I said, I can’t really give out details, but it could be someone who has committed a criminal act.” He and Julie had discussed what he should say and they’d come up with this. They figured any legitimate businessman wouldn’t want his company’s property occupied by a criminal.

“I want a name if you want into that property.”

Odd response.

“Uh, we don’t have a name, sir. We just know that a criminal is hiding somewhere in a multi-block area. We’re checking all unoccupied residences in that area.”

“Oh, I see.” A hearty laugh that didn’t ring completely true. “I thought for a minute there that you were accusing one of our sales reps of breaking the law.”

“We were under the impression from the agent who’s handling the property for you that no one is staying there right now.”

Another chuckle. “Well, she’d know better than I would. I don’t know the activities of every one of our reps.”

“No, sir. We’d really appreciate it if you would call her right away and give her permission to let us in. We need to rule out that property so we can move on to other leads.”

“Well now, I, uh, don’t really have the authority to do that. I’ll have to get the okay from my boss. But I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. As soon as I’ve talked to him, I’ll call the agent.”

“Could you call me back first, sir?”

“Well, sure. I’ve got your number right here on my caller ID.”

“Thank you.”

“Is he calling her?” Julie asked as Skip disconnected.

“He’s gotta call his boss first, he says.”

“Say what? That definitely sounds fishy.”

“Yeah, but we could have just stumbled onto some kind of shady dealing. They may have something illegal stashed in that apartment.”

“You may be right. Serial killers are usually loners. It’s unlikely this Buchanan guy would be in on Ms. Ford’s abduction. Should we try to get a search warrant?”

Skip thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I still don’t think we have enough to convince a judge. Let’s wait to see if Buchanan calls me back, and what he says.”

“And in the meantime?”

“We’ve only looked at the apartments where there was a credit check. It’s possible someone could have rented a place to our perp without checking him out.”

“But you said that was unlikely in this area.”

“Unlikely, yes, but not impossible.”

Julie groaned. “So it’s back to knocking on apartment managers’ doors.”

“’Fraid so. Let me call my people to help out.”

This time, Julie Wallace did not object to
civilian
assistance.

~~~~~~~~

Kate’s vision was starting to blur. She and Tim Cornelius had been taking turns sorting through the images Jane was sending to them as fast as she could collect them. They’d narrowed the field to men who were at least thirty-three in 2002. Those men would now be forty-five or older.

But the number of people connected to the case was staggering. The investigation had gone on for months before it was declared a cold case. And several law enforcement agencies had been involved, plus EMTs, morgue staff, the coroner’s office, etc.

Tim leaned back with a sigh. “Talk about the proverbial needle in a haystack. And all this may be futile, if some police officer got their hands on the files unofficially.”

“They could do that?”

“Sure. Clerk gets distracted by someone else who’s filing a request, or somebody bribes the clerk even.” Tim pushed further back, balancing his chair on its back legs. “But why is the unsub being so precise, copying the cuts and burns exactly?”

Kate shrugged. “Maybe the guy really
is
OCD.”

“People with OCD aren’t usually violent.”

“But nothing says OCD can’t be comorbid with antisocial personality disorder.”

“True.” He dropped his chair back to the floor and smiled across the table at her.

Kate breathed out a small sigh. They seemed to have gotten past the awkwardness of the ill-conceived date request.

The phone rang. Tim answered it and hit the button on the speaker.

“Tim, uh, SSA Cornelius,” Jane’s excited voice, “I think I’ve got something. You know I said that the girl’s mother committed suicide, on the tenth anniversary of the murder. Well, I looked into that some more. There were domestic violence calls to the family’s house, three to five per year from the girl’s death to six months before the ten-year anniversary. Then two to three a month after that. Wife always refused to press charges once the police got there.”

“The father taking his anger out on the mother,” Kate said.

“Yeah, the mother said as much in her suicide note. ‘I can’t take it anymore, your anger, the pain. Please forgive me.’ And there’s something else.”

“Yes?” Tim said.

“You know how you guys are always saying that these serial killers are usually abused as kids. Well, I looked into the father’s background. He must’ve been a really accident-prone kid, because he spent a lot of time in emergency rooms.”

“Are you saying the father could be the killer?” Tim asked.

“Well, maybe.” Jane now sounded unsure.

“What kind of injuries did he have as a kid?” Kate asked. “Cuts and burns?”

“No burns in the hospital records but lots of broken bones and cuts and bruises.”

“A man who’s fifty plus,” Tim said. “He would’ve been a child in the 1950's or 60's.”

Kate shook her head. “Before there was such a thing as child protective services.”

“He was born in 1951,” Jane said. “First trip to the ER was two years later.”

Kate winced.

“Other than the domestic calls, any police record?” Tim asked.

“Just a couple traffic tickets.”

“Good work, Jane,” Tim said. “Do we have a photo of the father?”

“Not in our files, but I can find one.”

Kate leaned toward the speaker. “Thanks, Penelope!”

“Wha?” from the speaker.

Tim hit the button on the speaker. “Don’t do that!” he scolded Kate. But the corners of his mouth were twitching at her reference to the
Criminal Minds
’ technology whiz.

She grinned at him.

“I seriously doubt the father is our man,” he said. “They would have checked him out very thoroughly at the time.”

Kate sobered. “And looked for any signs that he had abused the daughter.”

“The types of wounds don’t match.”

“As obsessive as our guy is,” she said, “they would match if he’s re-enacting his own abuse. And for every abused kid who ends up a psychopath there are a hundred who don’t.”

“Thank God. Okay, back to work, woman.”

Kate groaned.

~~~~~~~~

Sally was about to start yelling for help when she heard the click and whir of the door opening in the wall. She rocked back and forth and got herself rolling across the floor. She came to rest, face down, a few feet from the bed. She prayed it was far enough.

The rustle of clothing as someone walked across the room.

“What are you doing down there?”

She turned her head, saw shoes and the cuffs of the now familiar light blue trousers. “I fell down and couldn’t get myself upright again.”

“Oh, my.” He rolled her over, then grabbed her upper arm through the straightjacket and hauled her to her feet. Still hanging onto her arm, he led her to the bed.

“I’m thirsty,” she said, as she sat on the edge of it.

For the first time, she detected anxiety in his body language. His eyes darted from her to the wall adjoining the rest of the apartment. “Okay, but drink fast.” He lifted the water bottle to her mouth.

She took a long pull on the straw and then let it go. “What’s the hurry?”

“We’re going to have company,” he said distractedly as he looked around.

Don’t let him notice. Please, don’t let him notice.

His gaze fell on the bedside table. “There it is.” He picked up the gag.

She groaned softly. “Not again.”