Night off. Callie. “What about my friend, Callie? He has her cell phone number. He may know where she lives.” She heard the panic in her voice and swallowed it back.
Olivia frowned. “How did he get her cell phone number?”
“Jeremy Lyons. He didn’t believe me yesterday morning so he told the reporter-guy how to get in touch with my friends, who’d give him the real story.”
“Where’s Callie now?” Olivia asked.
“Taking my shift at Sal’s.”
Olivia nodded. “Then she’s safe where she is. I’ll make sure the word gets out that if he shows up at Sal’s, they should keep him there. I’ll have someone escort her home. As for you, we’ll leave you here if you do not leave the waiting room. We’ll give hospital security a copy of the artist’s sketch, so they’ll be watching for him.”
“I’ll stay here where it’s safe,” Eve promised. “I’m not stupid.”
Wednesday, February 24, 4:55 p.m.
“Is Eve okay?” Jack asked when Noah sat next to him at Abbott’s small round table.
He and Olivia had arrived for Abbott’s five o’clock update to find everyone already gathered around the table except for Ian, who was in the middle of an autopsy.
“Yeah. She was here at the time, actually,” Noah answered, “working with a sketch artist to identify the guy who’s been impersonating Kurt Buckland.”
Jack’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Somebody’s been impersonating Kurt Buckland? When were you going to tell me this?”
Noah let out a sigh. Somewhere in his frazzled mind, he thought he had. “I’m sorry, Jack. We haven’t had much time to talk today, what with us driving separately.”
Abbott cleared his throat, moving over to give Olivia a seat. “Let’s share all that in turn,” he said frowning at both Noah and Jack. “Anything from last night’s scene?”
“We got the composition of both the accelerant he used,” Micki said, “and the flame suppressant. Both are common brands, available anywhere. No way to trace them. We’ve combed four scenes now, including Samantha Altman’s after the fact. We’ve found no prints, no hairs, nothing to track this guy forensically.”
“He’s probably shaved himself all over,” Carleton said. “It’s common with serial killers. The really successful ones know how not to leave a trail.”
“Thank goodness they’re overachievers,” Abbott said sarcastically. “What about Rachel Ward? Do we know where she met this guy?”
“At the Last Call Bar,” Kane said. “We should thank Eve, by the way. Her narrowing the list to the later-closing bars saved me a lot of time.”
Carleton turned to Kane. “Did Rachel Ward normally hang out at the Last Call?”
“No,” Kane said. “The bartender said he’d only seen her last night. She was waiting for a man, and got drunker the longer she waited. He took her keys and called her a cab. I confirmed with the cab company. By the time the cab arrived, Rachel was gone.”
“Security cameras?” Abbott asked.
“Broken. Probably for years,” Kane replied. “No help there. I can go back tonight and see if any of the regulars spotted anyone hanging out in the parking lot.”
“Do that.” Abbott drew a frustrated breath. “Let me get this straight, so that I don’t misrepresent us when I give the commander his evening update. We have no forensics at any of the scenes. Donner’s alibied by his wife and Girard is alibied by us. Jeremy Lyons is still missing. Everyone else has a solid alibi, including the brother of the latest victim, or the first victim, Amy Millhouse.”
“I thought you said you checked all the suicide reports,” Carleton said.
“We did. But we missed it because her brother cut her down and changed her clothes. Cleaned her face and everything,” Noah said.
“I take it you brought the brother in, then, Jack,” Olivia said. “But he’s alibied, too?”
Jack nodded. “He’s in Interview Four with his lawyer. He was flying back from a business trip in Chicago and I confirmed that he was there this morning. I thought if Millhouse wasn’t in any meetings this morning that it would have been possible for him to drive there after he killed Rachel Ward, then fly back, establishing an alibi.”
“It would have been a clever thing to do,” Carleton allowed. “Very much in keeping with this killer’s profile. It would have been good thinking, Jack, had it worked.”
Jack sighed. “Thanks. But Millhouse was in meetings from 8:00 a.m. right up until the time he left for the airport and he was in his hotel at seven. There’s no way he could have made it from here to Chicago, even if he’d driven straight from Rachel Ward’s house. He’s not our killer, even though he works with glue. It would have been perfect.”
“Did he say anything about his sister Amy playing in Shadowland?” Noah asked.
“No. He hasn’t said a word. Called his lawyer right away.”
Abbott scowled. “Ramsey says the most they’re willing to charge him with is disturbing a corpse, and they probably won’t do that. We’ll talk to the brother once more when we’re done here, then cut him loose.”
“What about Amy’s residence?” Noah asked, but Jack shook his head.
“New tenants already. I doubt we’d find anything after all this time. Building manager said they overhauled the place, painting, cleaning carpets. It’s a shi-shi neighborhood.”
“So do we know what the scene looked like?” Micki asked.
“Only that they changed her clothes,” Jack said. “That’s all Mom said earlier and brother Larry hasn’t spoken. Ian will call us with Amy Millhouse’s autopsy report. Amy was cremated, so we couldn’t exhume her if we wanted to.”
“Thanks,” Noah murmured.
Jack jerked a nod. “Sure.”
“We do have a little good news,” Abbott said, but his expression didn’t show it. “Axel Girard’s financials show he was issued a credit card two months ago and it was mailed to a post office box in St. Paul.”
“That seems way too obvious,” Noah said, “like catching Girard’s car on the surveillance video while he waited for Christy Lewis. It seems too simple.”
“Because it is,” Kane said. “I went to the box in St. Paul with a warrant but it was empty. There was a forwarding order-all mail was sent to a mailbox store downtown. Which was forwarded to another P.O. box right across the street.”
Abbott pointed to his window. “You can see the post office branch from here.”
“That box,” Kane said, “was full. Mostly junk mail, but the credit card was there.”
“So far no charges have been made to the card,” Abbott said.
“He never intended to use it,” Olivia said quietly. “He set this up, just like he’s set up the scene of every crime, to divert us.”
“And he was successful.” Kane shook his head. “Had me running all over town, all afternoon, when I should have been talking to Rachel Ward’s coworkers.”
“How is this good news?” Micki asked.
“Because it adds to the profile. He’s playing with us,” Carleton said sourly. “He hasn’t missed a step.”
“Yet,” Noah said grimly.
“Yet,” Carleton repeated. “This man, and it’s almost assuredly a man, exhibits a compulsion for order and control. Every scene, just right, exactly the same. The clues you’ve found are of his design-the dress, the shoes, the scene itself. No hairs, no fibers left behind. He knows what you’ll look for and how you’ll search.”
“He could just watch a lot of television,” Jack grumbled.
“Perhaps,” Carleton said. “Or he could be trained.”
Abbott leaned back, troubled. “He could be a cop?”
“Perhaps,” Carleton repeated with a slight frown. “The need for order and control are often characteristics seen in law enforcement. No offense intended, of course,” he added quickly when everyone around the table frowned. “I see a contempt for women, in the way he lures them away from their homes, and there is a cruelty as he forces them to experience their worst fears. This is also another show of control.”
“Why contempt for women?” Abbott asked. “Does he hate his mother or something?”