The Lady Killer (14 page)

“Well, fearless leader, from what Jenny found out in the three months that she has worked there, Amy also sleeps with her employees and then fires them when they get tiresome.”

Laura was amazed at Amy’s antics. “Who keeps hiring all these guys?”

“Until recently, apparently Emily did all the hiring and firing. Maybe that gave her another reason to leave. In this economy it’s hard to get a good job. Then to lose it because you slept with the boss, sucks. She probably felt sorry for these guys and judged Amy for it. Doesn’t she look like a very reserved or even prudish woman to you?”

Laura took the file and looked at the picture. Emily had mousy, brown hair pulled back in a bun with straight cut bangs. The file said she was thirty-eight, but her horn-rimmed glasses and hair style made her look much older. She was wearing a tweed blazer and buttoned-down collar shirt. There was something about that picture that bothered Laura, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Okay, run her Social for me, and check the guys on that list for priors. Burns, go to her home address, and see if you can get in touch with her or anyone who knows her. I’m going to go through the files again. Every time I do, I find something new.”

She took her coffee and went to the break room. It was a daunting pile of files and information. How many times had she been through them already? It made her tired just thinking about it, but she dove in anyway. About an hour later, Burns and Murphy came in to find her. She could tell from the looks on their faces that it wasn’t good news. “Okay, Murphy, you go first?”

“The Social for Emily only brought up her current job with Amy and nothing else. So, I dug deeper and found a death certificate for a baby thirty-eight years ago. This is a fake identity.”

Roy couldn’t wait any longer. “Now me! The address in the file is for a condemned apartment building that is scheduled for demolition. It has been vacant for two years and tied up in some lawsuit thing. The management company in charge of the building is Searchlight.”

Laura stared at the two of them wide eyed. “You guys have got to be kidding!”

“I wish we were. Murf even has a copy of the death certificate. What’s next, boss?”

She thought for a moment. “Was there an application filled out by Emily?”

Dan smiled at her. “Yep, and after I discovered the false identity, I called some of the references. They are real places, but no one has ever heard of an Emily Anderson.”

“Wow, let me think this one through! Why would she go to all that trouble to set up a fake ID, work there for less than a year and then leave without a trace? Let me see that picture again. Murphy, you have a good rapport with Jenny. See if you can find out who hired Emily and why no references were checked.”

“On it right now!”

Laura studied the file intently. “Roy, something about this picture has bothered me since I first looked at it. What’s your impression?”

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but she sure isn’t very pretty. She almost appears a little scary to me. You know, like your second grade teacher. That’s when they really started getting on your case about paying attention in school!”

“Is there anything in the file about height and weight?”

“Yeah, she’s a big woman, six feet tall and one hundred seventy pounds!”

Dan came back into the break room. “Hey, Jenny doesn’t know who hired her, but she said that Emily was very gruff and intimidating. No one there liked her. Jenny was glad when she left, because she said that Emily had scary vibes.”

Roy nodded his head. “See, I told you, big and scary!”

Dan started to look through the file again. “The signature on this new-hire form is Amy Montgomery’s. It would be typical of her not to check the references, since she just wanted someone to do the dirty work she didn’t want to do herself. On paper, Emily looks like she had the experience to handle the job. I guess once she got there and worked out well, Amy didn’t bother to check any further.”

“Good work, both of you. I want you guys to look at this picture again, only with a really open mind this time. Does she look masculine to either of you?”

“Hang on, Murf. I think we’re headed for another one of Peterson’s magic leaps!”

“You’re right! I think this is a man in drag. What if our psycho boy posed as a woman to get the info he needed. No one would suspect him, and he could get all the low down on the properties and availability. It would have also given him access to Searchlight, since they do business together, and he might have known about Amy’s affair with the security guard.”

Dan was excited. “Wow, that’s an amazing leap! I’m all over this! Let me call Jenny back and see if she thinks there’s any possibility of that. She worked with Emily for about three months.”

“Thanks, and tell her we need to get CSU in there to examine Emily’s desk for prints. I’ll get a warrant coming in case Montgomery objects. Well, Burns, what do you think? Am I nuts?”

“I’ve seen you be right with these crazy intuitions of yours too many times to disagree. It totally makes sense to me. Foote is going to love this one! Can I be the one to tell him?”

“He probably will, but make sure he’s the only one you tell. We need to keep this among ourselves. If the killer works here now, we still don’t know who he is. Also, if he’s a cop, and we can pull a print from Emily’s desk, we should have his prints in the system.”

Roy made a zipped mouth motion. “Gotcha, boss, my lips are sealed!”

Laura called Captain Rutledge and asked if she could come see him. Armed with Emily’s employment file, she marched into his office and sat down.

He eyed her with a curious suspicion. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to tell me something that’s going to make me toss and turn all night long, Detective Peterson?”

She got a sly grin on her face. “Would I do that to you, Sir?”

“Yes, you would. Okay, lay it on me!”

“I think that Amy Montgomery’s assistant, with the fake identity, is in reality a man who now works on our police force.”

Captain Rutledge sat back in his chair. “Whew, that is a big leap, Laura!”

“I know that, Sir, but it would explain the tie-in to all the crime scenes and how he’s succeeded in being invisible all this time. I suspected that he knew these properties so well because he worked for her, but not as a woman. Also, the surveillance guy said that Amy Montgomery’s assistant offered them the building across the street from the crime scene for their stakeout. That way psycho boy knew where they were stationed when he wanted access to deliver that letter and rose for me.”

“When you put it that way, it all makes sense. What’s your next move, Detective?”

“I would like to have that list of police department transferees narrowed down using the height and weight of Emily Anderson.”

“I’d be happy to do that for you. I’ll have them to you by tomorrow morning, at the latest. In the mean time, I want to commend you on following orders.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been letting us know where you are at all times. I want you to keep that up. We all care about you, Detective, and want you safe.”

“Thank you, Sir; we’ll get on that list first thing in the morning.”

CHAPTER 10

T
he next three weeks went by like a blur. The two sets of DNA, from the previous crime scene, were domestic violence offenders just like all of the other Butt Men. But the guys both had alibis for the nights of Tamara’s and Julia’s murders. Emily’s desk had been taken over by Jenny. She had cleaned so thoroughly that CSU came back empty handed, but she did agree that Emily could have been a man.

Captain Rutledge had provided a list of department employees, which got narrowed down to thirty-eight. Laura was happy, considering that they had started out with about one hundred. All three of them worked on going over personnel files as discreetly as possible. It was very important that they did not tip off the suspect and cause him to leave town. Each man was looked at by what department he transferred to, what access he had to their own department and the hours he worked. They were not having much luck. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and they were running out of time. The eleventh of the month was looming, and they didn’t have any idea who the killer was, or where he would strike again.

One afternoon, Laura was sitting at her desk going over a file when her phone rang and made her jump. “Peterson….. Thanks, Roy, just head back upstairs, you can tell me then.”

Dan came over to her desk looking concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, every time that phone rings, it’s so damn loud it startles me. I’m already nervous, because I’m expecting it to be a call about the next body.”

“Why don’t you put in on vibrate? You always keep it in your pocket anyway, and you’ll feel the call instead of hearing it.”

“That would be great, if I could just figure out how to do that!”

“Here, I’ll do it for you.” He took the phone from her, hit a couple of keys and handed it right back. “Okay, now put it in your pocket, and I’ll call you.”

She could feel the vibration in her pocket, and a big smile came over her face. “That’s fantastic! Thank you so much. How did you do that so quickly? I hate it when a phone is smarter than I am. I used to keep my old one on vibrate, but I just couldn’t get this new one. I can’t stand making a trip to the phone store. Those smartass kids, who work there, make you feel so stupid when you can’t figure it out by yourself.”

He was happy that he could do something for her. “You’re welcome. Now keep it that way. Who knows, it might save your life someday. If your phone rings when you’re sneaking up on a bad guy, he’ll know where you are.”

“Good thinking! And thanks for taking care of me. I know I don’t say that enough. I see all the little things you do for me around here. Just don’t think that I’m not grateful.”

“It is my pleasure, Madame.”

They were sharing a very long stare when Roy walked in. “Hey you two, am I interrupting something?”

Laura picked up a file and started shuffling it around nervously. “No, what did you want to tell me?”

“I ran into Foote earlier, and he had a message for you. He said that he went over that photo from the freezer. He’s sure it’s Tamara, because of a broken tooth visible in the picture. Also, there was a stamp on the back of the photo that someone had tried hard to erase, but he did one of his wizard tricks and got me the info. It was a chain in Indiana. I called around and found out that they closed down two years ago. No one I talked to knew where the owner went after that, but Indiana is a start. The Captain narrowed down the list to ten men from Indiana.”

“Great work, Burns! Ralph Foote to the rescue again! Let’s get on that list.”

“I’m already starting on it. You know, you’re the one who sent him on that mission in the first place.”

“Yes, something about that photo just called out to me, but I have to give credit to Ralph.” Suddenly, her phone vibrated. “Peterson….. Yes, we will be right there!” She looked at her partners with an expression of anguish, and they both knew what that meant. “Let’s go, guys!”

It seemed to her like happiness was always fleeting. She had just shared a pleasant moment with Dan, and now they were racing to another ugly murder scene. Her mind was focused on the job at hand, but she was beginning to wonder if a cop ever had a normal life. Was there ever going to be a time when she could just relax and not have this psycho plaguing her? He had struck again, and it was the same location as the last one!

They pulled up in front of the now familiar deli property and walked inside. The body was hung in the middle of the warehouse, just like Julia White’s. She was surprised to see that Dr. Foote was at the scene already. “Hi, Ralph, how did you get here so fast?”

“I was in the area responding to a wild goose chase someone had sent me on. When I got the call, I was just a couple of blocks away. At least it wasn’t a wasted trip.”

She looked at Dan. He was just staring at the body in a state of shock. “Are you alright, Murphy?”

“Peterson, do you realize who this is?”

She looked at the woman more closely, and her stomach flipped. “Wow! That looks like Amy Montgomery. Ralph, do we have ID on this woman?”

“Yes, and that’s exactly who it is.”