So Close the Hand of Death (18 page)

N
ashville’s skyline rolled into Taylor’s view, the lights of the Batman Building glowing in the darkness, the new Pinnacle tower with its tiny branding sign, so understated. Blue, red and yellow lights reflected off the Cumberland River as they drove across the Shelby Street Bridge, the colors mingling with the dark water, rippling and shimmering in a seductive dance.

Baldwin drove them straight to her office at the Criminal Justice Center. She’d called the team in, too, rousting them from their warm beds. McKenzie met them in the Homicide offices, yawning, with coffees and a homemade chai tea for Taylor courtesy of his partner Hugh. Baldwin accepted one of the coffees and peeled off from the group, went to one of the interrogation rooms to make some phone calls. Marcus rolled in five minutes later looking like he might not have gone to bed yet. Only Lincoln was impeccably dressed, looking sharp in a crisp white Armani shirt tucked into darkwashed Seven jeans with black tasseled loafers, topped with a dark purple suede jacket.

“Clotheshorse,” McKenzie said to him as he handed over the steaming cup of coffee.

“I could help you sometime. We could go shopping. The poindexter look went out a few years ago.”

“What, you want to be my girlfriend now?”

“You already have Hugh for that, sugar.”

“He’s my wife, dumb ass. Husbands don’t go shopping with their wives. That’s what they save for their mistresses.”

“Ouch,” Marcus said, laughing. “He got you there, Linc.”

“Boys,” Taylor warned. “Play nice, or Mommy will take all your toys away. Thank Hugh for the chai, Renn. It’s delicious, as always.”

McKenzie shoved Lincoln’s hand away from his cup of coffee, just saving it from being doused in cream. “I will. He says you owe him dinner.”

Taylor smiled at them. She was happy to see McKenzie fitting in so well with Marcus and Lincoln. He was a very capable detective, and she knew he’d earned their respect on that front. He’d earned hers, too, that was why she’d brought him on as a permanent member of the team. But respect and friendship were two very different things. The three seemed to have bonded quite well. Which was good. She could stop worrying about it. Maybe Fitz would come back to Homicide, too. Lord knew she’d take him back in a heartbeat if he were willing. Becoming the collateral damage of a serial killer wouldn’t be an easy thing for him to put away; he could take his twenty and run off forever. He’d been considering doing just that when he’d been kidnapped—he and Susie had been on a decision vacation, planning out their future.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. The loss he must be feeling overwhelmed her—she only knew Susie casually and she was torn up about her death. She hated
that he was lying alone in the hospital. She just wanted to go back to Vandy and hug him, just so he knew she loved him. Later. She’d go tomorrow. He’d kill her if he knew she was fretting about him instead of focusing on the task at hand.

The Homicide office was crowded with the overnight shift, so Taylor led them to the conference room. As she turned on the lights, her cell rang. She didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway. There was too much happening to miss any opportunity to learn something new about the case. She vaguely recognized the voice on the other end.

“Lieutenant Jackson, this is Paul Friend. I’m a producer at Fox News—we actually worked together the last time you were on, with Kimberley? During the Snow White case?”

Ah, that was it. Paul Friend had produced the segment, had been the voice in her ear instructing her of breaks and fresh camera shots. “Yes, Paul. How are you?”

“Awake at this ungodly hour, unfortunately. We’ve gotten an unconfirmed report about a murder victim. Make that two victims. Out in San Francisco. Staged to look exactly like the Zodiac Killer’s first kill. A letter was sent to the
Chronicle
and everything. Turns out the victims were participants on a blog called Felon E, and my sources tell me you’ve been talking to the owner of the blog. We’re running the story during the morning show. Would you be willing to confirm for us?”

“Confirm what?”

“That this anonymous blogger knew the Zodiac Killer was picking victims from the blog and didn’t share that information with the police, or warn the other participants? Oh, and I should mention, we had another
set of murders here in New York that looks strangely like the Son of Sam case. The men who were shot were also frequent commenters on the Felon E blog. And just so happens there was a note left near the bodies that said, and I quote, ‘There are other Sons out there, God help the world.’ Since I don’t think David Berkowitz has managed to escape from prison…”

Oh, crap.

“Sorry, man. I don’t know the first thing about it.”

“You don’t? Because I would think you of all people could understand the need to warn people if a copycat killer is on the loose. Especially since you may know exactly who is responsible. Come on, Lieutenant. Just between us, off the record. After your involvement with the Snow White case, and your attendance at the massacre in North Carolina yesterday morning, it’s obvious what’s happening. Listen, I’ve been watching things. I know the Snow White’s apprentice got away. He’s out there, and he’s been quiet for too long. This feels like him. You have to admit that, at least.”

“You’re making some pretty big assumptions there, Mr. Friend.”

Friend was quiet for a moment. “Lieutenant, we’re on the same side here. I want to help you catch these guys. See real justice done. Who knows how many of them are out there?”

“I don’t know anything. I’m sorry. Seriously, Paul, you’re sharing new information with me, not the other way around.”

“You don’t want to be like this, Lieutenant. You want to work with me. I can help you.”

“Really, Paul, I haven’t heard anything about it. Sorry. You’ll have to double-source somewhere else. Have a good night. Morning. Whatever.”

She hung up and turned to the guys. “We need to move, now.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “You just lied. Naughty, naughty.”

“Yes, well, you can spank me later. We need to save Colleen Keck’s ass first. Who knows about her calling in outside of us? Dispatch?”

“No one that I know of. Lincoln talked to her, he called you.”

“We might have a leak, so pay attention to anyone who’s showing an interest in this case. Let’s find out what Ms. Keck has managed to uncover.”

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Charleston, WV

Dear Troy,
Rocking in the free world.
44

“I
could do it right here. Right now.

“Fucking McDonald’s. Happy, nasty children playing. I’ve got the AK, it’s loaded and ready to go. I could just spray them all. That would get their attention.”

Not such a good idea, homey. There aren’t enough. You need more. Many, many more
.

He counted them—fourteen. His rancor subsided. The angel was right, fourteen wasn’t enough. He needed to make it a proper mass killing. Like that rag head down in Texas. He put on quite a show, but the dumb fucker got himself shot and was paralyzed. No, suicide by cop wouldn’t work. He didn’t want to die, not now, at least. He had things he wanted to do. Books to read.
Especially that, and if he managed a death penalty case, he’d have years to fill.

He loved to read.

I love to read, too. Remember that great one, about the stalker who cuts the woman in half?

“Hush. I’m trying to think here.”

No, he needed to make sure he was in Tennessee before he went postal. They killed their criminals dead, dead, dead, dead. And death row was his goal. He giggled. Going postal. That was exactly what he was going to do.
Falling Down,
like Michael Douglas when he lost his shit and went on that righteous spree. That was cool, but Douglas was weak in the end. That was before his facelift, too. What stupid motherfucking man got a facelift?

He’d enjoyed killing those faggots in the park in D.C. They hadn’t expected him, the Avenger, to glide up to them and open fire. The look on their faces was priceless. They were about to ask him to join their little party, to be a third. Probably wanted him to be on bottom. Dickwads.

The angel start to rap.
All the little dickwads, sitting in a row. Pow. Kapow. Blammo, and so. You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re dead, and gone-o.

A thought came to him. A big, beautiful thought. He could find a gay bar. They are always crowded, every night of the week. Oh, imagine that. A whole room full of the abnormal assholes. He knew there was a gay bar in Nashville, a big one. He could go in there, shoot it up. Mow. Them. Down. Oh, my. Oh, that was just perfect.

He got goose bumps, felt them parading up and down his body. His erection was nearly instantaneous. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

The angel was quiet for once, savoring the idea. Fuck the game. Fuck that twisted asshole running it. He was done playing by other people’s rules. He was in control now.

He reset his GPS. Instead of stopping in Louisville and shooting the senator’s gay-as-a-three-dollar-bill aide like he was supposed to, he was heading straight for Nashville.

Good plan, homey. You’re finally getting it
.

He lit a cigarette, looked at the bottle of medicine in the console. Rolled down the window and threw it in the trash, followed a moment later by the still-lit cigarette. He was going for broke. No more pretending, no more pills. No more games. Screw the target, that Jackson bitch. He didn’t care about her anyway.

I’m coming for you, motherfuckahs.

Kill the gays, kill the gays, kill the gays.

The angel yelled,
Wheeeeeeee.

C
olleen couldn’t find the place to park that Lieutenant Jackson had suggested, so she went to the underground parking garage across James Robertson Parkway from the CJC instead. She drove down the ramp, surprised at how well lit it was inside. Not bad for the middle of the night.

She positioned the car under a bright light for a little extra safety. She slung her laptop bag over her shoulder, lifted a sleeping Flynn from the backseat of the car, and hurried into the elevator. There was no one around, which made her feel a bit better, but she wasn’t about to take any chance. She had one of Tommy’s old guns tucked into her jacket pocket. She’d be damned if someone would hurt her or Flynn.

The streets were empty. The Cumberland River shone brightly to her right, the murky dark water lit up by the array of lights on the bridge. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. A cold, slithery finger of fear slipped under her scarf, and she pulled Flynn tighter to her chest, no longer worried if she woke him. She sprinted across the street and up the stairs to the CJC. She could have sworn she saw a
man follow her, saw a dark blur out of the corner of her eye, but then she was at the door to the building. She rang the buzzer, gesticulating wildly to the guard who was seated behind the glass partition. He buzzed her in and she pulled the door shut behind her, felt it latch securely.

“I think I’m being followed,” she whispered to the man. “Can you watch out for someone who doesn’t belong?”

“I’ll do what I can, ma’am, but we don’t get a lot of normal folks running around in the middle of the night. Are you Mrs. Keck?”

She only flinched a little bit at the Mrs. designation. Too young to be a widow, too old to be a Miss. And
Ms.
always sounded like a mosquito buzzing out of the person’s mouth. At Flynn’s school they simply called her Miss Colleen, in that quaint Southern way that kept children on a more formal but still personal level with their parents’ female friends. Of course, it was only for the women, she didn’t have a single recollection of someone ever saying Mr. Tommy.

The guard was looking at her, perplexed.
Oh, please tell me I didn’t say that aloud
. She tried again.

“Yes, I am. I’m here to see Lieutenant Jackson.”

“Yep, you’re on the list. Sorry about your husband, ma’am. They’re waiting for you. Just go knock on that door over there, someone will let you in.”

“Thank you.” She fought back the urge to tip him, almost laughed out loud. After her years as a journalist, she was so used to handing out the twenties when she was in need of information the reflex was ingrained into her.

Flynn had miraculously stayed asleep during her panicked flight from the parking garage. She blessed
his father’s genes. Where Colleen would start and wake from the tiniest click or knock in the house’s night, Tommy could sleep through a tornado siren going off next to his bed. He was forever sleeping through his alarm. Flynn was the same way: easy to fall asleep, hard to rouse.

Her third knock was answered by a handsome black man, about six feet tall, impeccably dressed. She almost laughed out loud—who looked that good, that put together, at three in the morning? He smiled at her and she saw the gap between his front two teeth. He looked like a rock star, someone she couldn’t place. She had his CDs though. Damn, what was his name? Lenny something. She racked her brain. Kravitz. That was it.

He saw her trying to place him and smiled wider. He must be used to the double take people did when they saw him. Of course, that was what most folks in Nashville did—the country music capital of the world attracted a bevy of famous musicians, songwriters and singers, not to mention several actresses and actors who enjoyed the illusion of privacy Nashville afforded. Folks might look twice when Nicole Kidman wandered into Starbucks with Keith Urban and Sunday Rose, but they’d never do anything more than smile politely and say good morning. It just wouldn’t be polite to hit them up for an autograph when they were just trying to fuel up on caffeine.

He ushered her inside. “You must be Colleen Keck. I’m Detective Ross. Sorry about all this.”

“You and me both, Detective. Have you heard anything?”

Ross closed the door behind them and gestured for her to follow him. “No, nothing yet. We all just got here.
The LT is on the phone to some of her contacts. I think she’s expecting you to brief us, can you do that?”

“I can. Is there someplace I could lay Flynn down? I’m not sure I want him hearing this.”

“Yeah, we can finagle something. I’ll ask one of the shift detectives to keep an eye on him and page me if he wakes up. They’re slow tonight. Will that work?”

“You must be a father, Detective.”

He smiled at her. “Nope. My mom was a reporter, and my dad worked the overnight shift. I got used to waking up in strange corners of the city. Always felt better if someone was around to tell me she’d be back in a second.”

They came to the conference-room door. He took Flynn from her arms and made his way back out of the room.

Taylor Jackson was on the other side of the room, sitting on what looked like a countertop, one long leg dangling beneath her, talking rapid-fire into a cell phone. She must have been sitting on the other foot, she looked like a very blond crane. Two other men were sitting at the table, flipping through files. One was cute, rangy with floppy brown hair, the other more obviously reserved, with blond hair graying at the temples. She mentally dubbed them Frick and Frack. Wondered where the hot guy had gone with her kid. Wondered why she was thinking that.

Colleen took a couple of deep breaths. It was all going to be all right.

Jackson was wrapping up her phone call now. She flipped the cell shut, stowed it in her pocket, and crossed the room to Colleen. She didn’t smile, exactly, but her face was welcoming.

“Hell of a thing,” she said, sticking out her hand to shake. Colleen took it, grateful for the warmth.

“Good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

“Take off your coat, have a seat. Detective Ross took care of you?”

“Yes, thanks. He’s just put Flynn down for me. I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment.”

Jackson cocked her head and looked at her, but said nothing. Damn. She must have sounded a bit possessive of Detective Ross. Strange, she was
feeling
possessive of the man. She’d only met him five minutes before for God’s sake. Hormones. Her hormones must be in gear. It was probably getting close to her time; she always got a little horny when nature was about to make a visit.

God, Colleen, get your head in the game
. She was getting punchy. No sleep plus a bucketful of stress and a healthy dose of fear did that to a girl. She tried to redeem herself by resorting to her most professional tone.

“So, Lieutenant, what do you have?”

Jackson turned and went to the table, sitting across from Colleen. “Trouble. A boatload of it. I need you to tell me everything you know about the murders.”

“Where should I start?”

“How about telling us where you got the information about the killings in San Francisco in the first place?”

Colleen shook her head. “I can’t do that. I have sources. If I burn them, they’ll never speak to me again. I can’t give you their information. I’m sorry.”

Jackson stared at her, then sighed. “Okay, we’ll come back to that. Why don’t you just start at the beginning and share what you’re comfortable with?”

Colleen could tell the woman was trying hard not to
be adversarial, but there was the tiniest bit of anger in the soft words. She didn’t blame her—of course Jackson would want the names of the sources. But Colleen had no intention of burning anyone if she could avoid it.

“I knew there was something up when I got a couple of emails from San Francisco telling me there had been a murder that looked like the Zodiac. You have to remember, this happens a lot. People love to imitate him, and there are false alarms all the time. But something felt different about this. Right afterward, emails came in from New York and Boston. At first I thought it was some kind of joke, but it felt wrong. So I started digging. The reports I was getting were right on. I double-sourced everything. Two nights ago, three different cities were struck by copycat killers. They imitated the Boston Strangler, Son of Sam and the Zodiac. Yesterday morning, you had a fiasco in Nags Head, North Carolina, that I’m convinced was related.”

“
You’re
convinced. No one in the law enforcement community was drawing correlations between these four sets of murders, but you, a semi-pro true-crime blogger, immediately recognized a pattern. So you went off half-cocked and posted your theories on the blog, thus drawing the ire of some creep who decided to spook you.”

Colleen raised her chin a fraction. She refused to be condescended to. When Jackson said it aloud, she had to admit, it sounded absurd. But she knew she was right. Knew it in her heart.

“Say what you will, but I was right. And that’s what I do, Lieutenant. I run a crime blog. Sometimes the criminals I’m discussing read that blog. It’s a free world. But here’s the important thing—I help the police solve
cases all over the country. People have an inherent mistrust of the police, of the system. They think if they tell the truth, or rat on a friend, the police will somehow sweep them into the case. I provide a forum for people to share tips, insight and information with law enforcement anonymously. I’m very good at drawing conclusions. I’m self-trained to some extent, but please don’t forget, I worked the crime beat for years and I was married to a cop. A good cop. Tommy taught me everything he knew. And you were one of the ones who taught him.”

Jackson gave Colleen a half smile. “Touché.”

“Please don’t blame me for all of this. All I’ve done is report the facts as I’ve seen them. Just like any good investigator would.”

Jackson ran her hands through her hair. Colleen was jealous, because the more rumpled it got, the sexier it looked. Her own hair would do nothing of the sort; when it was mussed up, it just looked like she’d slept on it for days.

Jackson put her hair into a fluffy ponytail, then started playing with a ballpoint pen. “No one is faulting you, or blaming you, Colleen. I wish you had come to me before you shared your theories with the rest of the world, yes. But what’s done is done. We just want to know what’s going on, and why you and the Felon E blog are being used as the vehicle for these murders. We’ve confirmed that everyone that we know of who’s been killed was a participant on your blog. Did you issue some sort of challenge to them recently, a contest or something?”

“Not that I know of. I went through my archives before I came down. I’ve done a couple of blogs on the Zodiac in the past, especially when they did the
movie, but none on the Boston Strangler or Son of Sam. I haven’t ever run a contest, that’s not my kind of thing. As for a challenge, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Could you have accused someone of something, or asked your readers to rally around a certain case or victim?”

Had she? She racked her brain and came up with nothing. She shook her head mutely.

“Then why would he decide to use your blog in particular, of all the ones that are out there in the world? Why you, Colleen?”

Why me indeed.
A deranged fan? A killer she’d helped put away who’d gotten parole?

“I can’t tell you that. I have no idea why. All I know is what I reported, and the fact that my commenters are dying because of it.”

“Not because of your story, I don’t think. Your blog’s been in play for a while. I wonder if you simply stumbled across something you weren’t supposed to.”

“Well, yesterday’s hacking certainly left no doubt that whoever is responsible is aware of the blog, at the very least. There must have been a hundred comments that said, ‘I know who you are.’ And no one,
no one,
knows who I am.”

“
Someone
obviously does. Your contacts know who you are, don’t they? Or is everything you do anonymous?”

Jackson had a disconcerting way of leaning forward as she talked, right into Colleen’s personal space. It was a good, solid interrogation technique: make the victim feel like they mattered, that you were hanging on every word. Colleen got the sense that very little passed by Taylor Jackson. She paid attention to every word out of Colleen’s mouth, but was reading the context, her body
language, the unspoken as much as the spoken. Tommy had said she was one hell of an investigator. Colleen understood how that could be the case—she was able to pry information out of the littlest details.

“Everything I do is supposed to be anonymous. I protect my identity as much as possible, especially from my contacts. They call me Felony. It’s a private joke—”

“Yeah, on the blog’s name. I get it. So if they don’t know who you are, how do you get them to talk?”

“Any way that I can. I give them a sympathetic ear, mostly. Some want money. I’m willing to donate a little bit to the cause, twenty here, twenty there. I won’t pay up front for a scoop. They have to be willing to share without recompense, I’ll only pad their paws after they give me verifiable information. Honestly, you’d be surprised at how many people want to help for free, simply to see the right thing done.”

“How many people do you have in Metro?”

Colleen almost laughed. Almost. Jackson’s face had hardened; she didn’t like this. Colleen couldn’t blame her. The idea of her whole department leaking like a sieve might be a difficult point to swallow.

“I don’t have anyone in this office, if that’s what you’re asking, Lieutenant. That’s as far as I’m willing to go discussing my contacts. Right now, they aren’t relevant. What we need to be worrying about is the fact that the victim pool is my commenters.”

“I don’t think anything is irrelevant, Colleen. We’ve already had a leak. One of the news stations in New York called here just a bit ago, asking questions. So first things first. Take down the blog,” Jackson said.

Colleen stiffened in her seat. “No.”

“Colleen. Be reasonable. You’re putting your readers at risk every moment they’re still in play. They count on
you for entertainment, for news. Let them know they can count on you to keep them safe, too.”