„I didn’t think you would, Abe. I just didn’t want you blindsided.“
No, she wouldn’t. Faithful to her children to the bitter end was his mother. And he loved her for it. „Consider me warned.“ He dropped a kiss on her cheek. „Thanks for dinner, Mom. I’ll drop by as soon as I can.“
She pressed her palms against his face, keeping him in the slight bow that put him in her reach. „I’m so glad you’re in a new job,“ she whispered fiercely.
„I know.“
„I worried about you every day.“
She was the wife of a career cop, the mother of two cops. She knew the danger and lived with it, but the undercover work had taken a toll on his family, and he knew it. Early in his undercover career, he’d chanced visits home once a month, but the deeper under he went, the further apart his visits became. The last time he’d risked a trip home had been the night Debra died. A full year ago. In secret, under cover of darkness. But all that was over now. As of this week, he could go home whenever he chose. „I know, Mom. But I’m fine. Really.“
Her hands didn’t budge, and his neck started to develop a cramp from bending so awkwardly, but he made no move to straighten. „I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much by coming down tonight. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.“
„I love you, Mom. You did a wonderful thing.“ Her eyes glinted and he grinned to break the solemnity. „But you probably don’t want to make it a habit. It’ll be like feeding a stray – you’ll never get rid of them.“
She laughed shakily and released him, then pointed at the window to the street. „Abe, help that woman. She’s too small to be carrying such a load.“
Kristen was trying to open the door with one hand, the other grasping at a large paper bag, and he remembered her errand. Dinner from the diner. He hoped she wouldn’t mind refrigerating it. He doubted anyone would be hungry after finishing his mother’s food. That anyone would choose diner food over his mom’s home cooking never even entered his mind. Quickly opening the door, he plucked the bag from her hands. „I’ll take that.“
Kristen rolled her shoulders. „Thanks. It didn’t seem that heavy when Owen was carrying it out to my car.“ She glanced over to where his mother waited expectantly for an introduction, then glanced back, her brows lifted in question.
„Kristen, this is my mother, Becca Reagan. Mom, this is Kristen Mayhew. She works in the prosecutor’s office.“
His mother eyed Kristen up and down. „You look taller on television,“ she said.
Kristen smiled politely. „You’re the first person to ever say that. Thank you.“
„Some days I’d like to smack that woman reporter, teach her some manners.“
Kristen’s smile wanned from polite to sincere. „What a kind thing to say, Mrs. Reagan. Most days I want to do the same.“
„My daughter wants to be a lawyer,“ she said thoughtfully.
„Annie?“ Abe asked in surprise.
„No, not Annie,“ his mother returned with a frown. „Annie’s got a career. Rachel. Keep up, Abe.“
„Rachel can’t want to be a lawyer. She’s just a little girl.“ His parents’ late-life surprise. Actually, more of a shock. There were twenty-two years between himself and his youngest sister, so she was more like a daughter to them all.
„Rachel’s thirteen,“ his mother pointed out sharply.
„And you’d do well to remember it on her birthday come May. No silly stuffed animals this year, she’s grown out of it.“
Abe huffed in frustration. Rachel couldn’t be thirteen. It just wasn’t possible. Thirteen meant makeup and boys and… boys. He shuddered at the very thought. He and his little sister needed to have a talk. „Then what does she want for her birthday?“
„Cash.“ She turned back to Kristen. „She’s talking about being a lawyer like you.“
Kristen’s eyes widened. „Like me?“
„Sure. She sees you on the TV. Would you be willing to have a chat with her?“
Kristen’s mouth curved in amusement and Abe’s breath caught in his throat at the sight. It was impish and fun and not like any expression that had crossed her face so far. „You want me to talk her out of it, Mrs. Reagan?“
„I don’t know. Should I?“
Kristen shrugged. „Some days yes, some days no. But I’d be glad to talk with her. Your son has my office number.“
Your son
. It rang of the same formality she’d used in addressing him all day, since last night. It was starting to annoy him. He had a first name, dammit. She called Mia and Jack and Marc by their first names. It was a damn courtesy. „We need to be going, Mom. They’re waiting for us to start the meeting. Be careful driving home.“
His mother blinked at his brusque tone. „I will. Don’t forget to return my dishes.“ With a wave she was gone.
Kristen looked up at him warily. „What dishes?“
„Dinner plans have changed. Mom brought a little snack.“
Kristen started up the stairs, unbuttoning her coat. „How little of a snack?“
„How does fried chicken strike you as a breakfast meal?“
She shrugged. „Like normal.“
Thursday, February 19,
7:15 p.m.
Spinnelli was just scraping the last morsel from his plate when they came in. „I was about to send a search party.“
„Not me.“ Mia licked her fork. „If you never came back, there’d be more for me.“
„Did you leave any for us?“ Abe asked, peering into a casserole dish.
Mia grinned. „Only the vegetables.“
Abe set Kristen’s paper bag on the table and retrieved two of the Styrofoam containers. „Well then, let’s get started. Julia, what can you tell us about the bodies?“
Julia drew out a notepad. „I received all five bodies by two o’clock this afternoon.“
Handing Kristen one of the containers, Abe took the seat next to her and once again she felt the heat of his body, reminding her of how he’d stood behind her at the Dorsey house. Of how safe she’d felt. What she felt now was crowded. He took up all his space at the table and some of hers, but to scoot her chair a few inches out of his way seemed rude so she stayed where she was and focused on the subject at hand. There were five new dead bodies in Julia’s morgue. And the man who put them there was still walking around, likely planning number six. „Cause of death, GSW to the head?“ she asked.
Julia shook her head. „If only life were that simple. This is going to get complicated so everybody get your score-cards ready. Five bodies. All had gunshot wounds to the head, but the head shots only killed your three gang boys.
Head shots on Ramey and King were inflicted postmortem and by a different gun.“
She had the attention of everyone in the room.
„Ramey was strangled. X-ray shows his larynx was crushed. I was able to get a good picture of the ligature marks. Your killer pulled hard. The grooves are deep.“ She handed a photo to Jack, who studied it before passing it down the line. „I may even be able to make a plaster cast of the chain links. I’ll let you know. Ramey also had a fracture at the base of his skull. It looks like your killer hit him with a blunt object before he strangled him.“
„Any idea of what kind of blunt object?“ Mia asked.
„Not right now. I’ll let you know if I do. Ramey has no defensive wounds, nothing under his fingernails. I found traces of gunpowder residue around the hole in his head. He has abrasions on his wrists and ankles.“
„So he knocked Ramey out, tied him up, strangled him, popped a bullet in his head, then moved him and buried him.“ Spinnelli noted the details on the whiteboard with a frown. „The head shot is overkill.“ He rolled his eyes at the snickers that rippled through the room. „You know what I mean.“
„He gets his revenge, but it isn’t enough,“ Reagan said thoughtfully. „Then he gets him to the burial site and has one more go at him. Being dead isn’t enough, so he puts a shotgun shell through his pelvis.“
„We sifted the dirt at the site,“ Jack said. „Found shotgun pellets. Same with King.“
„He couldn’t have silenced that,“ Mia mused. „Somebody heard something.“
Spinnelli nodded. „We’ll canvass the area tomorrow.“ He crossed to the board, drew three columns, labeling them
Ramey, Blade
, and
King
. „When was Ramey last seen?“
Mia flipped open her notepad. „His mother says she last saw him on January 3. His girlfriend confirms it. She was sure because Ramey stood her up for a date that night“
Kristen drew a breath as Spinnelli noted the date in Ramey’s column, his squeaking marker grating on her nerves.
Blue stripes
. She’d decided on the blue stripes that night, but hadn’t taken the samples down until two nights later, when insomnia prompted her to start papering that wall. „He would have put the Ramey crate in my trunk the next night or the night after at the latest.“ She glanced at Spinnelli whose mustache bent down in concern. „That’s when the samples came down. You can try asking around my neighborhood to see if anyone saw anything, but everybody is usually in bed by eleven.“
„What samples?“ Julia asked sharply.
Spinnelli tilted his head in Kristen’s direction, indicating she had the floor. She blew out a breath. „The killer left letters in my trunk.“
„I heard that part. What samples?“ Julia repeated.
„In the letter he refers to some wallpaper samples I had on my living room wall.“
Julia leaned back in her chair with a frown. „He’s been watching you?“
„Looks that way.“ Kristen felt a shiver of new worry slide down her spine. „Don’t stare at me like that, Julia.“
Shooting her an intense look, Julia brought out new photos and Ross King’s bruised face stared up from the glossy film. „Ross King had blunt force trauma to the head and shoulder area.“ She held up a photo and pointed with her pen. „Fractures behind the right ear and the left temple. Based on the shape of the bruising, I’m thinking it was a bat.“
„He was their Softball coach,“ Kristen said softly. „More poetic justice.“
Reagan pulled one of the pictures toward him. „Wood slivers?“
„No, not a trace. I’m thinking it was an aluminum bat.“
„He beat him to death?“ Mia asked.
Julia shook her head. „I don’t know. I won’t know until I’ve had a chance to open him up, but King may have died from a bullet to his chest.“ She held up another photo, an enlarged close-up of the stitches running up King’s torso and pointed to a half-moon-shaped area of missing skin.
„Could be a bullet hole,“ Reagan agreed.
„I’m guessing he went after the bullet.“ Julia handed him the photo. „His X-rays show no bullet, but half his left lung is gone. Also, there’s no exit wound. As to why your killer wanted the bullet back, that’s your bailiwick, not mine.“
„And the material he used to stitch him up?“ Spinnelli asked, coming to look over Reagan’s shoulder.
„Linen twine.“ Julia shrugged. „Available at any hardware store.“
„A bullet for his head and a bullet for his heart.“ Kristen stared at Julia. She knew the woman well enough to know there was more. „What else?“
Julia stared back, her eyes worried now. „King’s knees were popped, Kristen.“ She pulled another photo from her stack and handed it to Jack, who sat to her left.
„We saw the knee damage when we dug him up,“ Jack mused, „but we didn’t know what caused it.“
„A bullet caused it,“ Julia said. „My information is from X-rays, because I haven’t had a chance to probe inside. The films show both kneecaps are shattered. Pulverized, actually. The shot was a direct hit. Whatever weapon your guy used had one hell of a kick.“
„He immobilized King so he couldn’t get away,“ Kristen murmured. Somehow, the thought of it bothered her more than the actual killing itself.
Julia brought out one more set of photos. „That’s what I thought. One more piece of data for your board, Marc. Your gang boys were brought down with a single bullet to the forehead. No powder residue. No blows to the head like the others. No defensive wounds of any kind.“ She looked up and caught Kristen’s eye. „Again, you’ll want to get an opinion from ballistics, but from the angle of entry and exit wounds on each boy, I’d say your killer shot from above. Coupled with the absence of powder residue, well above.“
Mia leaned across the table to look at the photos, her face intense. „How far above?“
Julia shrugged. „Twenty, thirty feet maybe.“
„He could have cleaned the residue away,“ Mia said, but her tone said she didn’t believe her own words.
Kristen let out a breath. Now Julia’s worried frown made sense. „He didn’t knock them out first, so they were conscious when he shot them. I can’t imagine even a junior Blade going down without a fight.“ She looked up to find Reagan’s blue eyes fixed on her face and this time found it oddly comforting. „They never saw him,“ she said quietly. „He waited for them on a rooftop.“
Reagan nodded soberly, then said the words they were all thinking. „We have a sniper on our hands.“
Mia leaned back in her chair. „Who disables his victim with premeditation, then beats him senseless.“
Kristen shivered, suddenly ice-cold despite the heat radiating from Reagan’s body beside her. „And he’s watching me,“ she murmured.
Spinnelli capped his marker. „Shit.“
Thursday, February 19,
7:45 p.m.
The whiteboard was covered with Spinnelli’s notes and Kristen had the feeling they’d only touched the tip of the iceberg on their humble servant.
„So we know he killed his victims in one place, moved them somewhere indoors where he took the Polaroids and cleaned them up, then moved them to yet another place where he buried them.“ Kristen stared at the facts on the whiteboard. She’d been shaken, knowing the man watching her had a sniper’s rifle and scope, but she’d pulled herself together with the help of a slice of lemon meringue pie Reagan’s mother had left behind. Mrs. Reagan was a good cook, better than Owen, she was forced to admit.
„You forgot the postmortem pelvic-ectomies,“ Mia said, tongue-in-cheek.
Kristen sighed. „No, we can’t forget about that.“
Reagan sat back, crossed his arms over his chest. „The murderers he dealt with cleanly and efficiently. The sex offenders got something extra.“