Murder Comes by Mail (18 page)

Whitt looked up and locked eyes with Michael. “The letter’s to you, Deputy.” Slowly he turned the page around and pushed it across the desk. Michael moved closer to read it. Chekowski stepped up beside him and took a picture of the letter.

SHE THOUGHT YOU WERE A HERO AND THAT SO WOULD I. I WONDER WHAT SHE WOULD THINK NOW IF SHE HADN’T HAD TO DIE. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET, MR. HERO? YOU SHOULD HAVE LET MY NIGHTMARE END. THEN HOPE AND KIM WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO LIVE THEIRS. WHO’S DREAMING NEXT?

The all-capital letters were plain block, extra-dark font. Michael stared at the letter until the words seemed to lift up off the page and attack his eyes. The last sentence struck terror in his heart. Who would be next?

“He didn’t waste any time between victims.” At last Michael looked up from the letter.

“He’s a go-getter for sure.” Whitt leaned back in Michael’s desk chair and surveyed the office. His eyes landed on the coffeemaker. “Any chance for some coffee?”

“Sure.” Michael measured out the coffee and wondered how he was going to bring up the earring.

He’d waited too long. It was going to strike Whitt as odd. It struck Michael as odd. So odd that he thought about just letting the earring stay in his pocket. Whitt was already looking at him as if the nightmare was his fault, that he’d set things in motion just by being country bumpkin enough to keep the poor schmuck from jumping. Hero of the day. Monster of the decade. More like lifetime.

The coffee machine gurgled. What was it Hank had said? That the poor Joe on the bridge hadn’t looked like monster material. But then how many psycho killers had Hank actually met? About as many as Michael.

Behind him, Chekowski read her notes of Rebecca Ann’s story out loud to Whitt. Michael listened with half an ear while he rummaged around in the cabinet under the coffeepot for Styrofoam cups. Betty Jean kept them hidden because she said if the cups were in plain sight, every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town would be lining up for free coffee. She had no intention of stealing Cindy’s business at the Grill.

He finally found five or six of the cups stuck in behind Betty Jean’s stash of tissue boxes.

Michael asked about sugar or creamer and sat their coffee in front of them. He didn’t waste any more time wondering about the earring in his pocket. Every fact in an investigation could prove helpful in catching the perpetrator, and he wanted to catch this man. Besides, he had no reason to feel like a kid who’d just put a dent in the fender of his dad’s new truck and was afraid to drive it home.

Michael pulled the plastic bag holding the earring out of his pocket and placed it on his desk in front of Whitt.

Chekowski spoke first. “Victim one’s other earring.”

19

“What’s going on here, Keane?” Whitt frowned up at Michael. “You lift this from the crime scene yesterday?”

The red exploded in front of Michael. He put both hands flat on the desk—his desk—and stared at Whitt. “It’s time we got a few things straight, Detective Whitt. I may be a small-town deputy but that doesn’t make me dumb.”

“Being a deputy doesn’t.” Whitt leaned forward in the chair and locked eyes with Michael. “Tampering with evidence does.”

Chekowski circled them. “I think everybody needs to calm down.”

Michael kept his eyes on Whitt. “I don’t tamper with evidence. I bag it and label it and give it to the officer in charge. Now do you want to know where I found it or do you want to keep on trying to prove who’s got the biggest nightstick?”

Whitt rose up out of the chair until his face was inches from Michael’s. “No contest there, Deputy. You keep messing with me and you won’t even have a nightstick.”

“All right, guys, get a grip.” Chekowski put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and pushed him back. “While you’re yelling at each other, this psycho could be zeroing in on victim three.”

Michael slowly straightened up and took a deep breath. Chekowski was right. Nothing could be accomplished by butting heads with Whitt. What he needed to remember were the killer’s words.
Who’s dreaming next?
The guy had been to Hidden Springs. Was he picking out a victim here? Thank God, not Rebecca Ann.

“Sorry, Detective. I got out of line,” Michael said.

“You got that right. It happens again, I’ll slap you behind bars so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“Aaron,” Chekowski started, but after a swift look from Whitt, she didn’t say anything else.

Michael tried counting to ten, but only made it to five. “On what charges? Last I heard it wasn’t against the law to stop a suicide.”

“Maybe not, but there’s obstructing justice and concealing evidence.” Whitt sat back down in Michael’s chair, leaned back, and put his long fingers together in a tent shape as he stared at Michael, almost as if he were waiting, even hoping, for another outburst.

But the anger drained out of Michael. He was exhausted, and all he wanted to do was get this man out of his chair, out of his office, and out of his life. He kept his voice level. “No evidence has been concealed. At least by me. I called you, left a message, and didn’t get a return call. So there it is in front of you now. I found it in the bottom of my washing machine this morning and put it in that bag. I would have shipped it over to you, but then things went haywire around here.”

“Your washing machine?” Whitt motioned to Chekowski to pull out her notebook. “You want to explain to us how that could have happened?”

“The only way it could have happened. Jackson must have come into my house and planted it in a pile of dirty clothes in the middle of my bedroom floor.” Michael sat down in the chair Hank had collapsed into earlier and waited for the next question.

“Break and entry?” Chekowski asked.

“Doors weren’t locked.” Michael glanced over at her. She had pulled Betty Jean’s chair out away from the desk and was scribbling in her notebook propped on her knee.

“You always leave your doors unlocked, Deputy?” Whitt asked.

“I live out on the lake. It’s a very remote spot. Nobody comes down that way unless they’re coming to see me, and I have an open-door policy for my friends who fish there. There’s never been any need to lock the doors before.”

“What a place,” Chekowski muttered over her notes.

Whitt stuck to business. “Nothing missing? Out of place?”

“No. My dog was acting funny when I got home last night, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Acting funny? What do you mean?”

“Growling, hackles up, barking at shadows. The way he does if there’s a coyote or fox around.”

“Or a stranger?” Whitt asked.

“Or a stranger,” Michael said.

“So what time was this? Eight? Nine last night?”

“Three-forty-five a.m. when I went inside and checked my messages.”

Whitt raised his eyebrows a little. “Sort of late for a working day, wasn’t it, Deputy?”

“I met a friend in Wayland, West Virginia, last night for dinner.”

“Wayland? That has to be three hours or more from here, right?”

“About four if you drive the speed limit.”

“And did you drive the speed limit?” Whitt settled back in the chair, making it squeak.

“Not always.”

“Anybody know you went? That is, besides this friend you met?”

“Betty Jean Atkins. She works in the office here.”

Whitt leaned forward to prop his elbows on the desk. “Okay, now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You find out this miscreant you so heroically kept from jumping just murdered a poor innocent child of a girl and you take off for a town a few hundred miles away. Not your typical law officer response to crime.”

“The murder wasn’t my case.” Michael met Whitt’s stare straight on. “I had been told expressly not to get involved in any way with the investigation by the detective in charge.”

“Okay, you made your point.” Whitt picked a pen up off the desk and leaned back again. He twirled the pen through his fingers. “So you go home. It’s almost 4:00 a.m. Your dog’s nervous. How about you? You nervous?”

“I thought it might be more than a coyote, but when I went inside and nothing was out of order except my sink was dripping, then I decided my imagination was running away with me.”

“Your sink was dripping?” Chekowski looked up from her notes.

“Right. That’s how I can usually tell if somebody’s been there fishing. They come in and wash their hands and don’t know they need to give the sink tap an extra shove to keep it from dripping.”

“Any of your friends say they were there yesterday?” Whitt asked.

“I haven’t had a chance to find that out. I’ll check around tomorrow.”

“So nothing messed with except your sink,” Whitt went on. “So what did you do then?”

“Checked my phone messages and went to bed.”

“Any messages?”

“Yes. One about a date I’d forgotten. Two from my friend saying she wasn’t sure she would be able to meet me in Wayland, and one from that Dr. Colson who treated Jackson at the hospital, and one hang-up.”

The doctor’s name got Whitt’s attention. “Why was Colson calling you?”

“When I called him back today, he said something about wanting to help the law enforcement agencies as much as he could. I told him to call you, but he claimed you didn’t seem interested in his theories.”

“Is that right? What kind of theories?” Whitt asked.

“Something about how Jackson wasn’t following any typical patterns with his choice of victims.”

“Typical patterns.” Whitt made a sound of disgust and shook his head. “Save me from amateur detectives, but I guess I’d better hear it all. Go on.”

“He thought Jackson was trying to get my attention with the murders. That perhaps Jackson might be hoping in some sick way that I’d catch him and stop him since it appeared the killer was getting personal with me.”

“You didn’t tell him about the killer’s letters to you, did you?” Whitt’s voice was strained as he leaned forward again and glared at Michael.

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Michael kept his voice level. “He was the one doing the talking.”

“Hmph.” Whitt sat back in the chair. “Sounds like the doc was chock-full of information. I don’t remember him being that talkative to us, do you, Chekowski?” Whitt glanced at his assistant.

“No, sir. He claimed to be extremely busy and offered to reserve an appointment for us the next day.”

Michael tamped down on the urge to smile as he recalled Colson’s analysis of Whitt. Rude and arrogant fit. You didn’t need to be a psychologist to figure that out.

“The twerp.” Whitt snorted. “I told him he’d make time to talk to us right then. He did, but he clammed up. Claimed doctor-patient confidentiality. Then he calls you up and spills his guts. When was it you talked to him?”

“This afternoon. Right before Hank showed up with the pictures.” Michael pointed toward the envelope.

“He tell you anything other than his half-baked theories?” Whitt asked.

“Mostly he asked questions about how it felt to save a murderer.”

“Cheered you right up, I guess,” Chekowski said.

“He’s probably writing a book.” Whitt rubbed his hand across his eyes. The man looked tired. “Everybody wants to read books about pretty girls getting killed. If they were out there seeing those dead girls, they wouldn’t want to read about it, would they, Chekowski?”

“No sir.”

Whitt took a drink of coffee and got back on track. He stared across the desk at Michael. “Anything else you need to tell us?”

“There is one more thing. Dr. Colson said Kim Barbour had called him to see if he could help her locate Jackson to do an interview. She knew Jackson had left the hospital. It was his opinion that Ms. Barbour would have agreed to meet Jackson if he contacted her. I stressed the importance of him reporting their conversation to you right away, which he said he would. That he knew the rules.”

“Make a note to call this shrink, Chekowski.” Whitt took another gulp of his coffee, sat back, and began twirling the pen again. “Okay, Deputy, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You got home at 3:45, got the heebie-jeebies, didn’t find anything amiss in the house, listened to your messages, and hit the sack. Right?”

“After I fed Jasper.”

“Jasper?”

“My dog.”

“Right, the dog. You said your friend left messages about not meeting you. She show?”

“Late, but she came.”

“Close friend?” Whitt’s eyebrows went up as he started twirling the pen again.

Michael wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but decided to get it over with. “Alexandria Sheridan, the niece of Reece Sheridan, a lawyer here in town. I’ve known her since we were kids.”

Whitt ruminated on that a moment as though he wanted to ask more about Michael’s late-night trip, but instead he got back to business. “Okay. So you get up this morning, can’t find any clean shorts, and throw some clothes in the washer before you come to work. Right?”

“Pretty close.”

“And then?” The pen slipped out of his hands and dropped on the desk with a clatter. He picked it up and began tapping the end on the metal desk.

“I pulled the clothes out of the washer to put in the dryer and noticed something shiny down in the bottom of the washer. It was the earring.”

“Did you recognize it?”

“I knew it matched the one in the victim’s ear, if that’s what you mean.”

“So why didn’t you call the department?” Whitt asked.

“I already told you that I did, but you weren’t in. I left a message. Then I heard the news about Kim Barbour, and Hank comes in with the pictures. The earring didn’t seem to be first priority after that.”

“You better let me prioritize the information and determine what’s important and what’s not.”

“There it is.” Michael pointed at the plastic bag holding the earring. “Prioritize away.”

Whitt’s lips turned up in a small smile. “Your doors locked now, Deputy?”

“Locked, but nobody would be close enough to hear if a window was smashed.”

Whitt stood up. “At least you can feel comfortable. I don’t think this miscreant offs guys. Just females.”

“I don’t think we can be sure what Jackson might do,” Michael said.

Whitt picked up the plastic bag containing the teddy bear earring. “Except get personal with you.” Whitt settled his eyes on Michael. “I can agree with the doctor on that.”