The Lady Killer (28 page)

“Actually, I have you to thank for saving my life. I don’t know what Della had planned, but I’m sure I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, if she had her way.”

Dan looked deeply into her eyes. “There was no way I was going to let her take you away from me. I was so frightened that I wouldn’t get there in time.”

He was wearing his shirt without a tie and the top two buttons were open. Laura leaned over and unbuttoned the next button down. “Hm, I’ve never seen you without a tie on. You have a very, hairy chest. Come to think of it, even when you stayed over with me you never took your tie off, just loosened it. Must be bashful, huh?”

He laughed. She had two glasses of wine with dinner, and he wondered if it was hitting her too hard already. “Yes, I do have a lot of hair. Is that alright with you? I can’t really shave it all off.”

She reached over, unbuttoned another one and ran her finger across his chest. “Yes, I think it’s absolutely wonderful. I love hair on a man. It’s very dark. I thought Irishmen had red hair.”

He laughed again and shook his head. “Not if their mother’s Italian. Better be careful with those buttons. Turn about is fair play, lady.”

She smiled up at him and looked deeply into his eyes. “I’m not worried about the buttons, are you?”

He reached over and unbuttoned one of hers. Then he ran his index finger down her neck and across the top of her left breast. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him close to her mouth. He gave her a passionate kiss and then looked at her thoughtfully. “Are you sure this is what you want? I can wait; I don’t want to scare you away.”

“Dan, I think we have waited long enough.”

He got up and dimmed the lights. Then he gently picked her up and carried her to the bed. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Laura Peterson.”

“You’re not alone in that, Dan Murphy. I’m having the exact same problem.”

CHAPTER 19

A
couple of days later, Roy saw Dan and Laura walking into the office together. “Hey, you two! Welcome back from the honeymoon.”

Laura laughed at him. “You’re about as subtle as a thrown brick, Burns.”

“I’m teasing, you guys deserved the break. Besides, look at me, not a single dead body in sight. I guess we’re all getting a little vacation.”

Dan looked at his partner with a playful grin on his face. “Oh, I see, all you’ve done is slack off while we were gone?”

“No, actually, Michael Vitale and I have been double checking everything, so we can get this serial case closed. He didn’t want to be alone, and thought this would give him some closure. It’s been pretty quiet in SVU.”

“Did you guys get to Della’s apartment?”

“Yeah, we did a search and found journals that described all of the crimes and her reasoning. It went all the way back to her childhood, starting with a mommy dearest who thought she was the center of the universe. The common thread that we had been looking for in all of these cases was inconsiderate, self-centered women. And you were right about the pornography, Laura. She had a bunch of it, which had pictures of her mom’s head pasted over the other women. I guess every woman she killed represented her hatred for her mom. The ironic thing is that she was being as self-centered as her mom, and thought she was doing the world a favor by killing off inconsiderate women.”

Laura shook her head. “This is the strangest case I have ever worked. Nothing would surprise me at this point. I’m just glad that it’s finally over.”

They looked up and saw Captain Rutledge coming in with Michael Vitale and Ralph Foote. Laura was happy to see him, but she wondered if there was a problem that she didn’t know about. Everyone walking in together like that didn’t sit well with her. “Hi, Captain, it’s good to see you. I hope this doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong.”

“No, everything is fine. I just wanted all of us to have a meeting together. Every one of us has been deeply affected by this case, and I hope that we have all learned some things along the way. I apologize, Laura. I have learned to never again label one of your gut instincts as indigestion.”

Everyone broke out in laughter. “That’s alright, Sir. I know that they get pretty crazy sometimes, but they are almost never wrong. There was something about that woman that I didn’t like, from the first time I laid eyes on her. I just knew that David wasn’t our guy, but I
was
wrong about the psycho being a man. So, I guess one of the things that I’ve learned is to not get caught up in preconceived notions. Always look outside the box.”

Rutledge smiled at her. “Actually, Laura, you weren’t all that wrong. Dr. Foote has some interesting forensics for us. Go ahead, Ralph.”

“Thanks, Paul. I think everyone will be surprised by this news. I’m not certain how that sixth-sense intuition of yours works, Laura, but don’t ever lose it. Della Warren was born Dillon Warren and had a very sophisticated sex change operation.”

Laura looked shocked. “Well, when I said nothing would surprise me, I wasn’t prepared for this!”

Ralph nodded. “I’m sure you weren’t. So, if you look at this purely from the physical side, Della
was
a man in drag, taken to the absolute extreme. From the psychological and emotional side, she was a woman trapped in a man’s body. Somehow you were picking up on that male influence.”

Dan shook his head. “Wow, I guess I owe Sam and Bob an apology. When Laura first came up with the male dress up idea, I thought those guys had some strange taste in women. No offense, Vitale, but you don’t look great in those composite photos.”

“None taken, Murphy. Burns showed them to me, and I got a good laugh. I just wish she could have left David out of this. I just don’t understand how she could be cold hearted enough to kill both him and Stacey, we were all friends. Now, I’m the only survivor.”

Laura felt bad for him. “Michael, you’re not alone. You have a new group of friends right here in this precinct. I know that won’t bring David back, but we are here for you.”

Roy looked thoughtful. “Man, I guess I learned that there is nothing like having friends who you can trust. I owe you an apology too, Laura. I should have listened to you the other morning, instead of being a wiseass.”

“Roy, the important thing is that you listened when Dan needed you to. Thanks for all the help. I wouldn’t be here right now, if it wasn’t for all of you pitching in. I’ve learned not to isolate myself so much and try to do everything on my own. It’s good to have help from your friends sometimes.”

Captain Rutledge smiled to himself. “Laura, I guess I should pay attention to my own intuition, instead of ignoring it. When Warren came into my office with those bright red nails, all I could think of was the dream you had just told me about. I just brushed it aside, and let her walk right out the door.”

“Don’t feel bad, Sir, I didn’t pick up on the nails either, and it was my dream!”

“What tipped you off?”

“She asked me about my big jock. It was like getting struck by lightning. I knew instantly that it was her. Maybe I should listen to you more also, since it looks like I was in danger all along.”

Rutledge gave a little scoff. “Not until the very end. She was in love with you! That woman had volumes written about you in her journals. She had planned all these little run-ins with you around the precinct, just so she could be close to you. Della wanted to end the killing spree and use David as a patsy. What she really wanted to do was start a relationship with you. Dan was her big problem. The warning she sent about ‘getting too close’, was actually about him and not the case. In the end, when she saw how close you two really were, she decided to finish it one way or another. That bottle of wine she brought was laced with cyanide, and she was going to enact a murder-suicide scenario. If we hadn’t gotten to you when we did, you would be dead.”

“I have Dan to thank for that. He believed in me all along.”

Dan looked at her lovingly. “I wasn’t going to let that psycho get you. Sorry, Captain, but I think I broke quite a few laws driving to her apartment.”

Rutledge laughed. “You are definitely forgiven, Detective. When I think how close we came to blowing this, it scares me to death. And knowing how it turned out doesn’t help. Normally, we think of serial killers as men. This turned out to be a woman who was a man originally. I don’t have any idea where that fits into the scheme of things. That was some kind of great detective work, Dan. You saved our girl’s life.”

Roy looked very sad. “I just wish we could have saved Stacey’s life. Captain, I was very wrong when I told you that she couldn’t be sleeping with the psycho. Who knew that it would turn out to be a woman?”

“We all made mistakes throughout this whole case, because we were sure it was a man we were looking for. What amazes me is that many of these serial types are able to maintain relatively normal relationships in everyday life. I don’t think Stacey had a clue about who she was involved with. She was so intent on making Laura out to be the bad guy; she couldn’t see that the enemy was her own partner. Now, I would like to see both Dan and Michael in my office for a few minutes. Come on, Ralph, walk out with us.”

Roy and Laura watched them leave with Captain Rutledge. “I hope everything is alright.”

“Relax, Laura, I’m sure it’s just some formality. I know that Rutledge has a great deal of respect for Murf.”

“So, I guess Della’s journals made for some interesting reading.”

Roy let out a low whistle. “You can say that again! All of the stuff left under the bodies, were symbols of the inconsiderate behavior of the woman at each scene, like the dog. Tamara paid so much attention to that animal, that Della was jealous and felt slighted. The bride’s veil was because that woman only married men for money and was looking for the next one when Della met her. The mirror was under a model, who she considered very vain, and the broom was under a woman who owned a cleaning service. She hired illegal aliens and paid them dirt, while she got rich. Della thought that Julia White was gouging women, because of the price of her clothes, and we all know how she felt about Amy Montgomery’s antics.”

“Wow, all that was in the journals?”

“Yep, she ranted on for pages about each woman for the entire month she stalked them. Like I said, in her warped mind she was ridding the world of selfish women. And the Butt Men were cases she had seen in the files from SVU. The guys, who were the most violent and had their DNA on file, got the honor of having their butts placed at a crime scene. She would call them in for follow up interviews, let them smoke and then save the butts. She hated that security guard that Amy dated. Apparently, he mouthed off to her when she was interrogating him.”

“That’s amazing! She really was a psycho, wasn’t she? That’s why we didn’t connect her to the cases. She wasn’t the arresting officer.”

“Yeah, and you were right about the anniversary being on the eleventh of each month. That was the date that Tamara left. Della suspected her of getting ready to leave and was having her followed. Tamara didn’t stand a chance, because Della knew right where she was from day one. It just took time to set the whole thing up. She took a sadistic enjoyment in toying with the idea of killing her. She planned the whole thing and then kept an eye on Tamara for weeks. She wanted September eleventh to be a day of terror for Tamara.”

“Did she say anything about poor Stacey?”

“Yeah, once she fixated on you, she just used Stacey and then needed to get rid of her to pave the way for a relationship with you. Like most psychopaths, she had a total disregard for anyone other than herself and her own needs. Stacey was just a dispensable object to her. She also carried on about how all of us were so stupid and easy to manipulate. In her mind, she was so far superior to us that she would never get caught! Even though she admired your work, she still didn’t think you would catch on, because you were focused on a man.”

Laura just shook her head in disbelief. “Thanks, Roy. You guys did a lot of work while I recuperated. I really needed that time off. Let’s get going on the final paperwork, while all is quiet. Having no dead bodies to worry about, sounds like a really good thing to me!”

Down in Captain Rutledge’s office, he asked Dan to sit outside while he talked to Michael. “Tell me about this domestic violence charge against you, Detective Vitale.”

“I was in an abusive relationship with another man, Sir. It got pretty rough one night. The neighbors called the police, and we both got taken down to the station. Once it became obvious that I was the victim, the charges were dropped. Because I was gay, they hinted that I should find employment elsewhere. David was the responding officer on my case. That’s how we met. My ex filed an excessive force charge against him, and he got demoted. I called Stacey, and she suggested that we move here for work.”