“We’re still piecing it together,” Kent says.
“Okay,” Schroder says, knowing the scriptwriter would be disappointed. “Let’s focus on the timing of it all. Melissa or not, we could be dealing with somebody who’s going to make some kind of a statement. We could be looking at a courthouse bombing, or a police station bombing. We know Melissa likes killing people, but she’s more into the personal touch. I don’t see a mass bombing being her style. Her style is torturing people.”
“But if she tortured these people, we’d immediately know it was her,” Hutton says, “which would give her a good reason not to if she’s trying to hide the fact it’s her. And the only reason she’d hide that is if she has something planned that is much bigger than any of this, and explosives have a way of being used for bigger things.”
Schroder nods. It’s a good point. “What about Walker,” he says. “What’s the coroner say?”
“She says there’s three hours between the two murders,” Hutton says, “with Walker being the second one of the day.”
The three of them go quiet as they all don’t see it adding up together. There are other people walking around the scene—other cops, people looking for clues. Others are out in the street interviewing neighbors who all saw nothing. They can hear the rain on the roof, still hammering down, making a miserable night that much more miserable. Somewhere out there a dog starts barking and doesn’t want to stop.
“Who found the body?” he asks, hoping the answer isn’t going to be the kids.
“His kids,” Kent says. “Normally, he’d pick them up from school. He was late. A teacher gave them a lift home after they couldn’t get hold of him. So the teacher and the kids came by. I’m pretty sure you can figure out the rest.”
Schroder is pretty sure he can too. He’s spoken to other kids at other times who have found other murdered parents, just as other parents at other times have come home to missing or dead children. He imagines one of the children screaming, the other one shaking their father to wake him up, the teacher trying to pull them away from the body while phoning the police. He imagines those kids right now with relatives who can’t find a way to comfort them. He can’t afford to let his imagination continue down that path. It’s something he’s always had to block. Otherwise it would overwhelm him.
“So to sum up,” he says, “we don’t know if we’re dealing with Melissa, or if we’re even dealing with somebody relating to the trial or the case. Tristan Walker was going to be testifying for the prosecution, which maybe is a connection. And Rivers, well, he was in jail for twelve years and Joe is in jail now, so we need to see if there have been any cellmates in common.”
“I’ll look into the jail connection,” Hutton says.
“If it’s related to the case, it’s possible other family members of victims could be targeted too,” Schroder says, continuing to think it through. Kent and Hutton stare at him as this possibility sinks in, and the idea makes him feel sick. He glances at his watch. The day has been slipping away, most of it on the diner set for The Cleaner. He promised them that he’d be back. He has to remind himself that’s his job, not chasing down leads for a police department that fired him and no longer pays him and who will throw him onto his sword if the truth of what he did ever comes out.
“There’s a victim’s support meeting,” he says, then glances at his watch. “It’s going on now. In one room you’re going to have a whole lot of people involved with the case, people affected by Joe, some of them will also be testifying. It might be a good thing to go there. A way of speaking to most of the people involved in one sitting.”
Kent thinks it over. Hutton is doing the same thing, but his attention is probably divided by a chocolate bar he has stashed in his car somewhere.
“Okay, let’s go,” Kent says.
“Let’s?” Schroder asks.
“Yeah, you and me. I’ll even let you drive.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I have a question,” Melissa says.
She’s been here an hour now and all that’s happened is she’s gotten colder and older and bored. The new people to the group didn’t have to talk, they didn’t have to identify themselves or tell the others why they were there, didn’t have to go My name is Jed, it’s been fifteen days since my last sibling was murdered—Hi Jed. Some did, some didn’t. Mostly those who spoke were regular members, regular people, the kind of people you stood behind in a coffee shop and never thought of again. They moaned and complained and Melissa just wondered why in the hell they just don’t get on with life, like she did. Find a hobby, people! Fiona Hayward didn’t talk. She just sat silently clutching her hands, no doubt the same way she did at her husband’s funeral.
Everybody turns toward Melissa.
“Go ahead,” Raphael says.
She clears her throat. “Well, this referendum . . .” she says, and a murmur goes through the crowd, a unifying sound that tells her she’s touched a hot topic, one where everybody in this room is on the same side.
Raphael puts his hands up and waves his palms down slightly. The crowd goes silent. “Carry on,” he says.
“Well, this referendum coming up, we all get the chance to vote on the death penalty,” she says. “My sister, she was murdered,” she says, and she was murdered by a policeman who raped her first, killed her second, and took his own life for thirds. Some would call that a hat trick. She would call it a piece of bad luck followed by a piece of even worse luck followed by a piece of great luck. She doesn’t mention any of this. “And I’m thinking, if anybody deserves the death penalty, it’s Joe Middleton,” she says. “His trial starts next week, and trials can be tricky things. I mean, he deserves to die, that’s what I—”
“He totally deserves to die,” somebody calls out, a woman on the opposite side of the circle whose face is red and angry and hasn’t seen makeup in a long time, her black hair long and messy.
“I second that,” somebody else says, this time a guy a few seats away. Everybody pauses, waiting for more outbursts, and there’s only one more, a Kill the fucker from a guy two seats down.
“Go ahead,” Raphael says.
“Well, what happens if he gets away with it? What happens if he pleads that he’s insane and the jury lets him go? What then? He goes free? That’s not fair. Not fair to me, to my sister, not fair to many others in this room. What do we do then to make sure he gets justice?”
“It’s a good question,” Raphael says, and Melissa knows it is. It’s why she asked it.
“With a simple answer,” a man further along the circle says. “We kill him.”
Another man stands up. “Yeah, we kill him. Hunt him down and shoot the bastard.”
Raphael puts out his hand. “Sit down,” he says. “Please, we’re not here to condone violence.”
“We should be,” the woman who first spoke out says, and Melissa studies the people speaking up, adding them to her list of possible partners. At this rate everybody in the room would probably be willing to help. She could have an army.
“That’s not what this is about,” Raphael says. “Miss . . . what’s your name?”
“Stella,” Melissa says. “I couldn’t handle it if he got away.”
“Well, Stella, he won’t get away,” Raphael says, his voice hardening, and in that moment Melissa forgets about the others in the room because she has a strong sense about Raphael. It’s the same sense she got last year when she first met Joe Middleton. It’s something she’s developed over the years since her university professor raped her, a sense that was drummed into her as she lay pinned and bleeding beneath him. Raphael is her guy. She can sense it. Some people can see poets inside people, or a sense of peace; others have gaydar. Her thing is seeing the anger inside people, and there’s definitely something dark inside Raphael, the exact something dark she was hoping to find tonight.