Lethal Confessions (12 page)

“It’s okay if you don’t remember,” he said, his smile warm. “It was a while ago. I couldn’t help remembering because you’re such a beautiful woman.”

It had been some time since a man had called her beautiful. Guys had always found her attractive, with her long, copper hair and generous curves, but Tyler didn’t seem to have the word in his vocabulary. Not anymore. She lowered her eyes. “Why, thank you.”

He started to chuckle. “I also remember because you were ripping into Tyler Rist like a drill sergeant, telling him to ‘move his lazy ass’, as I recall.”

She liked his easy laugh, and that hint of a southern accent. “Tyler’s my husband. I get to ream him a new one, especially when he deserves it. Wife’s prerogative, right?”

His eyes narrowed. “He’s not hitting much this season, is he? I guess that must be a little rough. On both of you.”

Now there’s an understatement. I could write a goddamn book.
“Everybody goes through slumps. He’ll get out of it eventually.”

He glanced back toward the entrance. Ashley followed his eyes. Jody stood just outside the door, still talking on her phone.

“I know I’m probably out of line here, but could I buy you a drink later? After your friend leaves?”

Wow.
She inhaled a deep breath. He
was
out of line. But she was in just the mood to be a little out of line herself. The guy was kind of hot, and seemed decent enough.

“Maybe. But I’m expecting more friends. You might be waiting a long time.”

He gave her a satisfied smile. “I’m a very patient man.”

Friday, July 30

8:55 a.m.

Poushinsky had arched an eyebrow when Amy asked him to drive to Bartow. As neurotic as it made her seem, she usually did all the driving because she hated putting her fate in the hands of another driver. Thankfully, Poushinsky didn’t interrogate her about her uncharacteristic behavior, for which Amy was profoundly grateful. Just thinking about the reason, and the fact that it had to do with Beckett, made her cranky as hell.

Within hours of meeting Alex Poushinsky, she’d concluded that the laid-back detective had a fine brain. Despite his almost sleepwalking demeanor, there was a raw intensity under the surface that he’d let loose only once since they’d been teamed up. But it had been enough to see that he wasn’t the lightweight some of the detectives had initially taken him for.

But when it came to Luke Beckett, Poushinsky disappeared into some virtual phone booth and came out in full jock mode. And Mr. Baseball lapped it up big time. Except for a quick exchange of greetings, with Beckett giving her a sleepy grin, the conversation had been all baseball from the minute they got in Poushinsky’s Impala at HQ. As soon as they’d picked up their order at Starbucks, Amy plugged in her iPod and told the jocks to let her know when and if they wanted to talk about the case.

They’d barely exited I-95 for the Turnpike when the voice of the dispatcher boomed out over the soft tones of Sarah McLachlan in her ears. Amy yanked the buds out and listened.

“Poushinsky, Dispatch,” her partner answered, reaching for the volume control.

“What’s your twenty?”

“Turnpike, five miles north of Jupiter, proceeding to Bartow.”

“Divert immediately to Dickinson State Park, main entrance off Federal Highway. Martin County Sheriff’s Office advises a body was discovered there by a park ranger at approximately oh-seven-hundred. Same apparent M.O. as Okeeheelee yesterday.”

“Diverting immediately, Dispatch.” Poushinsky signed off.

Beckett glanced back at her. “Jesus,” he said in a hushed tone.

“I was thinking
calice de tabernacle
,” Amy growled. “This is un-fucking-believable. Two in twenty-four hours?”

Poushinsky gunned the Impala. “The Stuart exit’s just ahead. It’s probably just as fast to get over to Federal Highway and head straight down instead of going back on the Turnpike.”

“Do it,” Amy said. She took deep breaths to calm her accelerating heartbeat. If it was the same killer, would it be another baseball wife? The thought of seeing the naked body of another young woman tossed onto the ground like litter torqued her stomach into a tight knot.

She’d wanted this case. Wanted it bad. Nailing a serial killer had always been much more than a way to advance her career—more like a way to get closure on her twin sister’s murder. But now it seemed like all the old demons, barely put to rest, were being resurrected with nightmare force.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park sprawled across more than ten thousand acres of sand pine scrub and river swamp at the southern end of Martin County, just north of the Palm Beach County line. The park entrance off Federal Highway had been closed by patrol deputies. The actual crime scene was barely inside the park. The killer had dumped the body on the side of the road leading to the ranger station. As with yesterday’s murder, he hadn’t attempted to hide the corpse, instead leaving it in plain view in a wide-open park area.

Luke stood off to the side, watching the crime scene techs do their thing. The investigator from Martin County M.E.’s Office appeared to be wrapping up, sitting behind the wheel of her car making notes. The black bag containing the victim’s body had been closed to await transport to the morgue.

Martin Detective Christie Dale and her partner Kevin O’Byrne had already filled them all in on the essentials. The victim was female, between twenty and twenty-five years of age, with shoulder-length red hair and green eyes. Her face had been battered, probably by fists, and the left side had been slashed from temple to chin in a clean, curving line that looked almost medical. The word
OUT
had been carved post-mortem into her abdomen, just below the breasts. She’d been restrained, but there was no obvious evidence of sexual assault. Cause of death was indeterminate. The M.E. investigator estimated time of death as within six hours of her examination.

Luke had taken in the explanation with both rage and disgust.

“You’re welcome to view the body,” Dale said as she concluded her brief report on the scene.

“Thanks, we will,” Robitaille said, looking grim. “Sounds like the posing is just like our case.”

“I can have the photo tech show you the pictures,” Dale said.

Robitaille shook her head. “If he could email me a couple, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

“I assume you’ll contact all the Florida State League teams right away?”

Dale nodded. “Another squad is already on it.”

“Let us know if you want any help.”

Robitaille and Pushy headed for the body bag. Luke didn’t move, but Robitaille turned around and waved at him to follow. He went reluctantly, telling himself it was because he didn’t really belong at the crime scene. It was only because he’d been with the detectives on the way to Bartow that he ended up here, anyway. He had nothing to add, and there was no reason for him to examine the body. Anything he needed to know would be reported by the detectives.

He stayed back about ten feet as Pushy opened the bag’s curved zipper, starting from the victim’s ankles. Luke felt like a voyeur as he watched the progress of the zipper as it gradually revealed the body. When the young woman’s face appeared through the gap, horribly bruised and cut, he turned away.

He’d seen bodies in far worse shape. Most had been trained, seasoned fighters, although he’d seen civilian deaths that remained forever burned into his memory. But nothing he’d witnessed in battle zones hit him quite as hard as the ravaged body of this poor Jane Doe. The young woman had been butchered almost as barbarically as his sister.

He clenched his fists, a visceral hatred for the murderous bastard flooding his body.

Robitaille glanced at him. “Beckett, are you okay?”

He took one step closer. “Right now, all I can think about is how much I want to find the son of a bitch and kill him myself.”

She gave him a curt nod. “We’ll find him, all right. He’s a dead man walking.”

Fucking right
. And he hoped she didn’t mean death row and its years of appeals. He’d happily pull the trigger himself if he got the chance. Save the taxpayers a lot of money.

“This victim’s more like Krista Shannon than Carrie Noble,” Robitaille said. “It’s like he flew into a rage with both Shannon and this one, cutting and beating the crap out of them before he killed them.”

“Like you said yesterday, maybe they did or said something to push his buttons, and Carrie Noble didn’t,” Pushy said.

Robitaille nodded. “But it looks like he killed them all the same way in the end. We’ll have to wait for the autopsies, but you can bet he used the same drugs that he used on Shannon. And, no doubt, on Carrie, too.”

“Safe bet,” Pushy said, his voice tight with frustration. “Seen enough?”

“More than enough.”

He zipped the bag closed.

Luke didn’t want to interfere, but the timeline bothered him. “The killer has struck three times that we know about,” he said. “It was almost a month between the first two murders, but then only one day until the third. What does that tell you?”

Robitaille turned to him, her face bleached of color. Luke thought she looked five years older than when he’d first seen her forty-eight hours ago. Still beautiful, but much of the vivacity had vanished.

“It’s common for serial killers to ramp up the velocity of their attacks,” she said, starting to walk back toward Pushy’s car. “But this is wild.”

Luke fell into step beside her while Pushy headed over to check them out of the scene. “No theory yet?”

She shook her head. “It’s probably a matter of opportunity. But I don’t know what that means. Three murders sometimes aren’t enough for a true pattern to emerge.”

Luke almost choked. “I sure as hell hope we don’t have to wait for more before we can figure it out.”

She shook her head impatiently. “That’s not what I meant. We have three murders, almost certainly committed by the same killer. At least two of the victims are wives of professional baseball players. But nothing yet speaks to motive. Nothing I can see, anyway.”

“Got it,” Luke said.

“I’d hoped we could come up with some other connection between the Shannon and Noble murders. A reason somebody would want those particular women dead. Something that would have made it all end with the two of them.” She glanced over her shoulder at the body bag. “But now we’ve got a third, and it’s a hell of a stretch to think it’ll stop here.”

Luke impulsively rested a hand on her shoulder. She looked startled, but didn’t shrug it off. “We’ll make it stop, Robitaille.”

Halfway to Bartow, Poushinsky exited the turnpike onto Route 60. Beckett shifted in his seat and cranked his neck around to look back at Amy, gesturing at her to unplug.

“Miming isn’t necessary, Beckett,” she sighed. “I can hear you all too well even with these things in my ears.”

As soon as they left the state park, Amy had plugged her ear buds back in. She needed to think, not rehash what they’d just witnessed in all its raw, taunting brutality. It was beyond wishful thinking to even hope that this killer would end his spree at three. He’d kidnapped and killed another woman practically under their noses. Why? To demonstrate his power? To thumb his nose at their incompetence? Or was the sick bastard simply escalating to another level of violence?

She was the fool who’d wanted a case like this—even prayed for it But when Amy gazed at the broken form of the victim—her life snatched away with unspeakable cruelty—she’d recoiled, her mind wanting to shut down in the face of such evil. It had taken all her strength of will to maintain her composure and do her job.

Calice.
Maybe Cramer had been right to press her on whether she was ready for this.

Beckett’s deep drawl interrupted her downward spiral. “You could have boosted the volume to drown us out,” he said as he turned back to face the windshield.

“How many deaf cops have you met, Beckett?”

He ignored the jibe. “Can we talk about the case now? I have a question.”

“I’m breathless to hear it.”

“Don’t mind Her Grumpiness back there,” Poushinsky said, glancing over at his hero. “She’s in the zone.”

Amy tossed her empty paper coffee cup, ricocheting it off the back of Poushinsky’s dark head with no visible effect. “What’s your question, Beckett?”

He swiveled around again. “Assuming the killer’s motive is related to baseball, he could either be a player, a fan, or maybe even an anti-fan.”

She frowned. “Anti-fan?”

“Somebody who hates baseball, or baseball players.”

“Why would a fan want to murder a bunch of ballplayers’ wives?” Poushinsky asked. “And if the killer is someone who hates ballplayers, why wouldn’t he go after the players themselves?”

“Maybe because the wives are easier targets,” Beckett replied. “And the killer would figure their deaths would devastate the players. But, like I said, it could be an obsessed fan. A guy who follows the wives, sits near them at games, and tries to get them into conversations. Believe me, lots of wives and girlfriends have been bugged and even harassed by creepy guys.”

“I get that,” Poushinsky said. “But a player could become obsessed, too. And players have more access. If our perp is a fan, he’d have to be travelling around to different cities, following the teams. It’s possible, but not very likely, right?”

Beckett shook his head. “So far there hasn’t been much travel involved, Pushy. Lakeland and Jupiter are only a couple of hours apart. If the guy strikes farther afield next time, then yeah, I’d say that would make it less likely he’s a fan. But right now, my gut tells me it’s not a player.”

Amy finally jumped in. “All that’s very interesting, but I don’t see much point in speculating yet. We’ve just started to check up on the Palm Beach players. Let’s wait until we’ve gone down that road before we start thinking it might be a fan. There are only so many players to check out, but tens of thousands of fans.”

“True,” Beckett acknowledged as he faced forward. “I defer to your superior cop wisdom, Detective.”