Face Off (3 page)

Amy and Jessie. The lights of his life. So different, yet both devoted to one another, and to this land he and Martha had toiled over to make a success. He could not have asked God to send him any two more precious daughters. Amy, with her love of books, of drawing, her music. He could still remember the joy on her face when she received the letter saying she had gotten the job of design artist at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. “Don't worry, Dad,” she had said, hugging him. “I promise to call home twice a week and write you almost every night!” Amy, with her mother's blond good looks and quiet reserve. Still waters running deep.

Now his Jessie was another story altogether. He could picture her racing Higgins, her stallion, over the fields, her long red hair flying in the wind. Jessie had never known a moment's fear in her short life. She was a whirlwind of activity, and it was this trait that worried Jake when he thought of her alone in Kansas City. Jessie wouldn't be cautious. It was completely against her nature. He should have paid more attention when she first started talking about that Richards woman. God knows when she got something in her head there was usually no stopping her. But to travel all the way to Kansas City alone! He shuddered to think what might have happened. And for what? So some kind of lamebrained gypsy could look into a crystal ball and tell them where Amy was? Jake suddenly felt foolish for running out in the dark because this woman almost six hundred miles away said she knew where his cow was. Knowing Jessie, she had probably told that Richards woman to tell him that story to get him out of the house so Jessie could work on Martha.

All of Jake's common sense told him to turn his Ford pickup around and head back to the house, yet he continued on, following the river road. Up ahead, the headlights picked up the ravine which ran for about a quarter of a mile along the road. He stopped and looked down along the north side of the deep ravine. He had traveled this road a dozen times during the hours he had spent looking for Sally, but had seen no evidence of the cow. He got out of the pickup and walked along the grassy edge, shining his flashlight down among the brush. He heard a long, ragged lowing sound and quickly scrambled down the ravine. Sally was on her side, almost hidden back among the trees. He could see one small leg protruding from her body.

Chapter Two

Detective Harry McDermott pulled his Ford Crown Victoria onto Broadway and headed for the downtown area. Maybe word on the street would give him a starting place. Right now he was up to his ass in speculation, and with at least three young ladies still missing, he was feeling the weight of the investigation. The investigation that was the largest single investigation in K.C. history. The investigation that he, personally, had been heading up for eighteen long months. To make it worse, instead of sitting back and crowing at the arrest of Randal Clark two weeks ago, Harry was squirming like a dog with an itch it couldn't quite pinpoint to scratch. Some little bug was just biting away at him, making him nervous as hell.

He turned to his partner in the seat beside him. “Damn it, Jim, what's the matter with Clark? He acts like he plans on being released any minute. Our guys found enough shit in his apartment to hang him ten times over, yet he just looks at us calmly, like he hasn't a care in the world. I can't figure him. I just simply can't figure him!”

Jim Stahl shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “Harry, you gotta quit taking everything so personal. I'm telling you, you won't make it if you don't quit that shit.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry answered. “How many months now until retirement, Jim? You planning on coasting out, or what? Am I supposed to cover my own damn backside if we run into trouble?” Harry turned and grinned at the sixty-three-year-old man sitting beside him. His hair, what he had left of it, was gray, and his face was lined deeply from countless nights of lost sleep during his forty-three years of police work. Not for a minute did Harry think his partner wouldn't be there when the chips were down. Jim Stahl would go at his job full force right up to his last hour of duty. He was just that kind of man.

“I'm sure as hell not planning on getting myself shot up, if that's what you mean.” He glanced down at the date on his watch. “Not with two months, four days to go. And I'll be damned if I'll lose sleep over three girls who are probably scattered all the hell over Johnson County!”

“Right.” Harry nodded. “And last night when I talked to Ruth, she must have been dreaming when she said you were in at the kitchen table working with a Magic Marker and a K.C. map trying to see if there was any pattern to where Clark dumped the bodies, hoping to figure out where the last three girls are.”

“Huh!” Jim grumbled. “You'd think after being married to a cop for over forty years, Ruth would have learned to keep her mouth shut!”

“Well, you old fart! No one but a bloody saint would have put up with your sorry ass for that long!”

Jim had the grace to look sheepishly at his partner of sixteen years. “Can't argue there. I know how luck—” Jim swung his head sharply to the right. “There, Harry! There's Willie now.” He sat up straight and pointed to a thin, dark man leaning against a street lamp.

Harry hit the siren. “I'll get the cherry top,” he said to Jim. “Make us more official.” He quickly reached out the car window and attached the flashing signal light to the roof of the car.

Willie Rodriguez started to run, his stiff leg swinging out awkwardly in the attempt.

Jim jumped from the still-moving car and yelled after him. “Hold it, Willie, or I'll shoot.”

Harry swerved the car into the curb, exiting the vehicle just as Willie came walking back, arms high in the air and speaking rapidly. “Don't shoot! Don't shoot, man!”

“You know the routine,” Jim said. “On the hood!” He grabbed Willie by the shirt and pushed.

Willie quickly placed his hands on the hood of the police car and spread his legs. “Shit, guys. You don't have to make it look
that
damn real, do you?”

“Didn't want to blow your cover, Willie me boy!” Jim smiled wryly at the skinny Mexican. “What have you got for us?”

Willie stole a quick look around. “You wanted something on Randal Clark? The one they call the Kansas City Butcher?”

“Yes,” Harry answered impatiently. “What do you have?”

Willie sniffed, running a bony finger back and forth under his nose.

“Word on the street is he ain't the one.”

“Ah, shit!” Harry had to control himself not to yell. Willie was one of their best informants. He had really counted on a solid lead when Chief Caswell had told him Willie had called and wanted to see Jim about Clark. “What are you talking about? We have him nailed every way but Sunday. His apartment even had body parts in it!”

“I don't know, man. I'm only tellin' you what I hear. They say some guy stayed at Clark's pad once in a while. They say maybe
he
done it.”

“
They,
who are
they?
” Jim barked. “Just who is feeding you this line of horseshit, Willie?”

Willie shrugged, knowing Jim didn't mean anything by his remark, and knowing the detective trusted him completely. “Everyone, man. Hit a few of the other boys. They'll tell you the same, Jim, I swear. And another thing, this guy, he ain't got no prints.” Willie held up his fingers. “Burned off, so they say. Smooth as a baby's bottom!”

Chapter Three

Suzanne walked over and sat beside Jessie on the cluttered couch. “We need to talk.”

It was a statement, not a question, so Jessie popped the last of the bologna sandwich into her mouth, took a long draw on the can of Diet Coke her hostess had provided, and looked expectantly at Suzanne. Her father had phoned less than an hour ago, grudgingly giving his approval to her staying with Suzanne for a few days. The two newborn calves were doing fine, thanks to Jake's arriving when he did, and even Sally had pulled through the ordeal. The miracle of it had not been lost on Jake. When he talked to Jessie, she had heard the hope in his voice when he gave his permission for her to stay. “All right, baby. I suppose if there is a chance that lady can find Amy, we have to take it. But you be careful, you hear me?”

Once the decision to stay had been made, there seemed to develop a certain reserve between the woman and the girl. Suzanne had tried to figure out a hot meal she could actually prepare for Jessie, but had to admit defeat. When Jessie emerged from the shower, Suzanne had thrust the sandwich at her, apologetically. Now they sat on the couch, an awkward silence between them.

Suzanne reached over and took Jessie's hands in her own. “I promised your father I would take good care of you, and that includes your mental health. You have got to understand that this might not turn out the way you want it to. Even
if
we find Amy, the odds that we'll find her alive aren't good.”

“The odds weren't good that I would make it all the way from Pueblo to Kansas City and find a lady I had only read about in a book, who had no address or telephone number listed. But here I am sitting on her couch! And I don't believe in preparing for the worst. If that's what you expect, that's probably what you'll get. Me, I always expect the best. Haven't you ever heard about the power of positive thinking?”

Suzanne snorted loudly. “Jessie, my girl, I am about the most negative person on this planet. We might just as well clear that up right now. I don't have much faith in anything anymore, including myself. If you want a Pollyanna, you came to the wrong place.”

Jessie brushed long strands of damp, frizzled red hair from her face and grinned at Suzanne. “That's okay. I'm enough of a Pollyanna for the both of us. And who knows, maybe some of it will rub off on you. Now, how are we going to get you into the jail to see Randal Clark?”

“Jessie, I can't possibly do that. Do you want to take a chance on Clark going free because I interfered?”

“Well, no, but—”

“No buts! It's out of the question. Understand?”

Jessie jumped to her feet, swinging her arms up in a dramatic gesture. “Aren't you even going to
listen
to me? I'm not stupid, you know! All the way here, I worked on a plan. I knew you couldn't just go in there and see him, because of what happened with Underwood. But…” Jessie stopped, then finished in a rush. “What if you dressed up like a nun and went to see him?”

“What?” The words exploded out of Suzanne's mouth. “Are you nuts?”

“Now wait a minute,” Jessie said reasonably. “Don't get excited. Let's think about this. When the police called Mom and Dad they said Clark's apartment had several rosaries and statues of saints in it. They were checking to see if Amy was Catholic, to see if they could get any kind of a pattern established with the women he has killed, but as near as I can tell, they drew a blank and that means
Clark
must be the one who is Catholic and since
you
lived in a convent for a while when you were young, I figured you should be able to pull this off.” Jessie took a deep breath. “Well, what do you say?”

Suzanne arched her eyebrows. “What do I say? I say it is a little hard to follow your conversation. Have you ever heard of a run-on sentence?”

“Is that anything like running off at the mouth?” Jessie asked, an impish grin playing across her face.

Suzanne nodded. “Exactly!”

“Okay, then.” Jessie's face lost the grin and turned serious. “This is the way it is. Amy is alive. I've lived with this psychic stuff enough to know I can't be mistaken about that.”

“How do you see it?” Suzanne asked quietly. “Death, I mean. Is it horrible for you?”

Jessie gazed down at her hands, remembering the visions she had of her aunt Vera's death. For hours she had watched as the mental picture of her favorite aunt got darker and darker. She was somewhere in the Bahamas, scuba diving with a group of school teachers on vacation. Amy had tried to reach her by phone—to warn her—but had been unsuccessful. She had confided in her mother then, and told her of her concerns. Her mother had nodded, accepting what this youngest daughter of hers was saying without question, then contacted the tour group and left word for Vera to call as soon as she returned to her motel. Unfortunately, perhaps inevitably, Vera never came back to the motel. A sunken ship they had been exploring, after years of stability, had suddenly shifted, pinning Vera and another teacher under the hull. Both women, novices at scuba diving, had panicked, not giving the instructor time to get to them.

“You don't have to talk about it,” Suzanne said. “I know how rough it can get. Believe me, I know.”

“No. It's okay. It's sort of neat to have someone to talk to—someone who really understands what I'm saying. I tell Nicole, she's my best friend, just about everything, because sometimes I think I'll just bust if I can't talk about it, but I know she doesn't really believe me always. I told her about Aunt Vera, though, and she was really spooked when she found out about the accident.”

“What happened?”

“It was the first time anyone close to me had died,” Jessie said quietly. “Even my grandparents are alive. So at first I wasn't certain what I was seeing. But the vision was similar to what I had seen when different animals of mine on the farm had died. First I sort of
see
them in my mind, then the image begins to get darker and darker. Momma and I tried to reach Aunt Vera in the Bahamas, but we were too late. She died in a scuba diving accident.”

“I'm sorry. You know it wasn't your fault, don't you? That's the hardest lesson a psychic has to learn.”

Jessie nodded with an assurance that belied her young years. “That's what Momma said. She said it over and over until I believed her.”

“I think your mother sounds pretty special.”