“You’re a genius,” Jessica told her.
“Why is that?”
She poked a finger at a picture at the far left of the table. “This is one of many cold cases now linked to the Sacramento Strangler. See the pearl earring on the woman’s ear?”
Lizzy nodded.
“The killer used the earring to pierce his victim’s ear. Her other ear was not pierced. One pearl earring.”
Salma entered the room and took the baby from Jessica. She was wearing a robe and had a towel wrapped around her head. “Thanks for letting me take a shower.”
“No problem,” Jessica said, not missing a beat as she continued with her line of thought. She turned the photo around. There was a smaller picture taped to the back of it. “Look at this. I did an Internet search and printed off some famous paintings. The copies I made are black and white so you can’t see that the band around the woman’s head in the painting is blue, which is very close to the blue-colored band that was wrapped around the victim’s neck. Guess what the picture is called?”
“I have no idea.”
“Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer.”
Lizzy listened, waited.
“Here’s another one.” Jessica handed her one of the pictures she’d seen when they met with Jimmy and Kenneth Mitchell. It was the male victim—the one with the wreath of red roses around his head. “Although you won’t see it in the picture, crime scene technicians found a smoking pipe buried close by. That picture is in the files at the bureau.” Again, Jessica turned the picture around and showed her another copy of a painting taped to the back. “This painting is called Boy with a Pipe, by Pablo Picasso.”
Lizzy tried to pay attention, but her mind was still back in the garage with Wayne Bennett. She’d lost control. She could have killed the man. If she hadn’t seen him twitch before she left, she might have believed he really was dead. And where would that have gotten her or any of them? And yet maybe Hayley was right. Maybe it would have been better if she’d finished him off. If he knew who was responsible, they were all in danger. Her heart raced, and her mind whirled. What should she do? Talk to Detective Chase? No. Not yet.
Her hand went to her belly. A slight bump perhaps, but more likely she felt something because Hayley had put the idea in her head. It was true that she hadn’t been feeling well lately. She’d thrown up more than a few times in the past few months, but she’d put it all down to stress. The truth was she couldn’t recall the last time she’d felt so-called normal. She would make a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked.
“I’ve had a rough go of it today, but I’ll be fine. Go on.”
Jessica didn’t look so sure. “You look pale. Maybe you should lay down for a bit.”
“I’m OK. What about the victim found covered with irises? Did that mean anything?”
Jessica shuffled through the photographs, picked up the one showing the victim covered in flowers, and turned it over. “Irises, by Vincent van Gogh. It goes on and on, just like this. Mitchell is impressed, Lizzy. It looks like you might have found the missing link.”
Lizzy blindly sorted through the pictures, her mind still reeling. A baby? She couldn’t raise a baby amid this crazy life of hers. Was it possible she could be carrying Jared’s child? She grabbed hold of the edge of the table.
Another worried look from Jessica.
“I’m fine,” Lizzy said flatly. “Go on.”
Jessica had known her long enough to know it would do her no good to argue. “We have a suspect,” Jessica blurted. She reached over the table and retrieved another picture from the bottom of the pile. “His name is Jovan Massing. He’s an art dealer who did time for hiring master forgers and selling fake paintings for millions.”
The man was short and stocky. He looked like a bulldog, with pinched nostrils and baggy jowls. The only thing missing was a drool-slathered tongue hanging to one side. This was the man who’d killed so many? It just didn’t compute. Not just because of the way he looked, but . . . “A master forger suddenly becomes a serial killer?”
“He also did time for attempted murder.”
All right. That was something. But still, it didn’t fit. Something niggled at the back of Lizzy’s mind although she couldn’t pinpoint what it was. “What about Zachary Tucker?”
“Nothing has come up. It’s as if he never existed.”
“What about the house on Canyon Road where the Tuckers used to live? Did anyone visit the current home owners to see if they knew anything?”
“Yes, of course,” Jessica said. “Mitchell sent one of his agents to talk to the owners. They said they did, in fact, buy the house from the Tuckers, but they never met them face-to-face. They know nothing about Zachary Tucker.”
Lizzy thought about Kathryn Church and what she’d seen as a young girl. It might be time to pay her another visit.
“Lizzy, I’ve put Zachary Tucker’s name through every available database. There’s nothing. But Jovan Massing is promising as hell. The years he spent in prison fit the gap where no victims at all turned up in the Sacramento area. At the time, investigators figured the Sacramento Strangler might be dead or in prison, which could very well be exactly what happened.”
“Where is Massing now?”
“They have yet to find him, but they’re confident they’re closing in and will have him in custody soon.”
“What about Kathryn Church seeing Zachary kill his own sister?”
“Think about it, Lizzy. There’s really nothing to link Zachary Tucker to any of this. You said yourself that Kathryn was just operating on a hunch. A ‘feeling.’ ” Jessica shook her head. “The woman obviously has some issues. And maybe for good reason—if she really saw what she thinks she saw, that would be a hell of a thing to witness when you were a little kid, and a hell of thing to keep to yourself all these years. But what did she expect Jared to do for her? It all happened thirty years ago.”
Lizzy scratched the back of her neck as she tried to think clearly.
“Lizzy, I understand your frustration. Maybe, just maybe, Jovan Massing was Kathryn’s neighbor. Maybe he is Zachary Tucker.”
“You would have checked that out already. You have Massing’s whole history, his every address.”
Jessica lifted her hands in question. “What else would you have me do?”
Hayley had been waiting in a recliner in Donald Holmes’s living room for over an hour when she heard the rattle of a key in the front door and slipped out of sight into a hall closet.
Just as she thought—he’d brought home the young woman she’d seen him talking to at the club earlier. The girl’s words were slurred but clear enough to be heard. “This isn’t my apartment,” the girl said. “Where are we?”
“It’s all right, sweetheart. I thought we could have one last drink and watch a movie.”
“You said you would bring me home.”
“Come on, baby—don’t be a drag.”
“I want to go home. Now.”
A scuffle ensued. The sound of a chair toppling over and then a grunt before all went quiet. Hayley readied the TASER and sauntered out to the front room.
Yep. It was the same girl she’d seen at the club. Holmes was standing over her where she lay on the couch, her body twisted at a weird angle, her face a bloodied mess. She was out cold but clearly breathing.
Holmes turned her way. “What the fuck?”
Hayley smiled. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
He pointed a stubby finger her way. “You’re that chick. The one who was in here with that other girl. You bitches broke my damn nose. In my own damn house!”