“Why do I sort of doubt that?”
“Okay, fine. But I do have time for coffee. If, you know, if coffee sounded good to you.”
Ellie looked at her brother’s worried face. She pictured Peter boasting to some editor about his relationship with her to sell a book. She remembered his attempt that morning to blame his boss for the story about Chelsea Hart’s shorn hair. She looked at his smiling photograph on her open laptop screen.
“Coffee would be good.”
AN HOUR LATER, the man sat at his desk and watched another minute tick by on his computer’s digital clock. He had a little time to spare.
He opened Mozilla Firefox and typed “youtube” in the address box. Once he was on the site, he entered the search he had memorized as the quickest method for pulling up the clip he wanted: “Dateline College Hill Strangler.”
A list of videos filled the screen. He clicked on the top one and waited while the data loaded. There she was, face to face with Ann Curry against a severe black set, in her white turtleneck sweater and black skirt. He’d seen the entire segment many times-her walking in front of the site of William Summer’s first kill, kneeling at her father’s grave, the childhood photograph with those little blond pigtails-but this was the part he liked best.
It wasn’t about her childhood. It was about the present. It showed the woman she had become-smart, cocky, joyously uppity with that I’ve-got-your-number half-smile.
“How do you explain the fact that it took the Wichita police thirty years to capture this man? Was he that much of a master criminal?”
There was the half-smile. “Oh, no. My father had a profile that was spot-on: he’d be a man who craved authority, maybe a badge bunny. Like a wannabe cop,” she said, quickly clarifying her use of the police slang. “The people who worked with him would describe him as petty and autocratic. He might be in a relationship but would frequent prostitutes. All of it turned out to be right. The problem is, the WPD shut down the investigation. My father was one man working out of his basement around his other cases, and without any support. This person was no master criminal.”
“So if the department dropped the ball, how did they finally catch the killer?”
“He did himself in. It was his own desire for recognition and notoriety that led police to him. His desire to taunt and to show off-the letters, the drawings, the poems-were the equivalent of a billboard pointing directly to him. Killers like William Summer get caught because of their insatiable egos.”
The man hit the pause button at that moment. Such confidence.
Killers like William Summer get caught because of their insatiable egos.
On that point, he had to take issue. Summer got caught because he was stupid. He, however, was not.
Still, he hoped he had not made a mistake getting rid of the gun he’d fired only three hours earlier. In a straight contest of strength, he would always have the upper hand against a girl, so he had avoided guns until this afternoon. Too noisy. Too unpredictable.
But as he looked at the face of Ellie Hatcher, he wondered if he couldn’t use the extra help.
He went to the Tools menu and clicked on the Clear Private Data command, erasing his search information on YouTube before closing the browser window. Rachel Peck would be leaving work soon and enjoying her night out on the town.
CHAPTER 35
ELLIE HAD SUCKED DOWN half of her grande peppermint mocha by the time she finished giving Donovan the play-by-play of the events at Leon Symanski’s house.
“Unbelievable. When Susan Parker showed up at the courthouse this morning with Jaime Rodriguez, I really assumed it would all turn out to be b.s. Either Rodriguez was lying, or his friend was lying, or maybe Symanski was some insane criminal wannabe.”
“Instead, he’s some insane criminal actually-be who says he killed Chelsea Hart. Although,” she quickly added, “Rogan did float the possibility that Myers is still our man.” As things stood, she had mixed feelings about meeting alone with Donovan. Until Rogan was around, the least she could do was to sound neutral.
“Well, with Symanski’s confession, we’ve got enough to prosecute him, but whether we’d win at trial is another question.” Donovan broke off a chunk of the banana bread they were sharing. “They’ll argue the confession’s coerced. And then even if we can use the confession, we need other evidence to corroborate it. At least we’ve got the earring. That would get the case to a jury, but convincing twelve people beyond a reasonable doubt wouldn’t be easy.”
“Rogan thinks a good lawyer can argue the earring fell off while Chelsea was at the club and Symanski found it.”
“It also doesn’t help that the guy who pointed us in Symanski’s direction was a drug dealer who runs with one of Jake Myers’s buddies. They’ll argue Rodriguez was sending us in the wrong direction as a favor to his pal.”
“So it all comes down to Symanski’s confession in the alley. Either it’s real, or I forced it out of him at gunpoint. Terrific. Now I can see why Eckels sent me home.”
“That’s why Knight wants to see you. Eckels thinks it looks bad if you’re working the case after what happened between you and Symanski in the alley, but Knight thinks it looks a lot worse if you get pulled. If the department treats you like a bad apple, a jury might be inclined to see it the same way. The key is to keep you on this. You and Rogan work well together, right?”
“Yeah. No question.”
“All right. So you work it side by side. Two good detectives, backing each other up. That way there’s not too much pressure on the word of either one of you. By benching you, Eckels is causing major problems for us at trial.”
“Between me and you, Eckels doesn’t care if he causes problems for other people.”
“Hey, stop worrying about it. Knight will work something out. You saw that the Daily Post broke the story about the victim’s hair being chopped off?”
“Although I believe they said ‘shaved.’ Salacious just the same, though.” She’d seen the update on the paper’s Web site at her apartment. Byline: George Kittrie and Peter Morse. Ellie wondered if breaking the story had been worth it all to Peter.
“So, come on, you haven’t given me your take yet. Is Symanski our guy or not?”
“I don’t know.” Neutral. Report the facts. Present both sides. Let Donovan make up his own mind.
“Oh, come on. The guy told you he did it. What’s in your gut?”
I strangled her, and I cut her up, and I took her earring. There were only two possible explanations for what happened in that alley. Either Ellie forced Symanski to speak those words, or he had murdered Chelsea Hart. And whether anyone accepted it or not, Ellie knew that Symanski hadn’t simply recited that sentence. He’d looked her in the eye. He’d spoken with a pleading desperation that was unambiguous: he had truly wanted her to believe him.