“Done your research, I see.”
“Of course.”
“Why do you want this case?” I asked. “Yes, you can probably soak me for some serious cash, but your firm isn’t struggling for business. I’ve done my research, too. You’re successful enough that you don’t need to shill for clients.”
He opened his mouth.
I lifted my hand. “No, let me guess. Anything I can deduce is infinitely more trustworthy than anything you’re going to tell me.”
“Careful, Ms. Jones, you might offend me.”
“I owe you one for the Jimmy Choo jab. By the way, I’m a Louboutin girl, and their new line isn’t out until fall, so I won’t be going home for money until then.”
The faintest quirk of a smile. “I stand corrected.”
“As for why you’d do this? If you freed Pamela Larsen, your professional star would ascend into the stratosphere. That’s why you took her appeal. Except she didn’t like your strategy, so you lost your chance. This evidence isn’t good enough to pursue without a paying client. I can be that client.”
“You could be.”
“No, Mr. Walsh. I’m not that gullible. Or that desperate. Bill me for this morning, as per our original agreement.”
So what was in those pages Gabriel had removed from the file? That most valuable and elusive prize for any defense lawyer: a plausible alternate suspect. Jan Gunderson’s older brother, Christian.
On paper, Christian Gunderson was ideal. Midtwenties. A loner. Socially awkward. Anger-management issues that had led to three arrests for assault. Two charges had been dropped, probably because they’d been against family members—his father and his sister, Jan.
The police had zeroed in on Christian as soon as Jan and her fiancé were killed. Shortly before the deaths, Christian apparently had a huge fight with his sister, and Peter had interceded, whereupon neighbors swore they heard Christian threatening him.
But that didn’t explain the first three pairs of murders. You could suggest Christian had killed only Jan and Peter and then made it look like the other deaths, but the pattern fit too well, including details never released to the press. There was no evidence that Christian had access to those details.
Then investigators found a link. Christian and the first female victim, Amanda Mays, had both attended City College. The police theory was that pretty, vivacious Amanda rebuffed an advance from Christian. Maybe she said she was engaged, which she was. Maybe he’d stalked her, watched them together. Then he snapped and killed them both and tried to make it look like an occult murder.
Police found a more tenuous link to victim number two, Lisa Tyson. She’d worked within two miles of Christian’s job. Police postulated he’d seen her. Maybe he asked her out. Or maybe after his experience with Amanda, he just stalked her. Then he killed Lisa and her husband, Marty.
There was no obvious connection to couple number three, but police didn’t care by then. He’d killed four people and decided he liked it.
Then came his fight with his own sister, and he decided to make it four. After all, he’d gotten away with it so far. It was like being his own copycat killer.
So why wasn’t Christian Gunderson arrested? Because within hours of the police questioning him in his sister’s death, he hanged himself. The family—the parents and their remaining daughter—closed ranks after that. They could not recall why Christian and Jan argued and the neighbor who heard the threat was angry with the Gundersons for refusing to contribute to a new fence. Amanda Mays? Never heard of her. Not Lisa Tyson, either. And besides, Christian had been home every time a couple was murdered. Friday was family movie night. Check with the corner video store—Mrs. Gunderson rented a movie every Friday.
The police kept trying but found no solid evidence to link Christian to the crimes. Then they processed the blood that linked the second murder to Pamela Larsen and left the Gundersons to their grief.
The evidence against the Larsens still held. Of course they’d explained it away. The blood? The Larsens did a lot of hiking with little Eden. They’d been to that patch of woods before the murders, and Pamela vaguely recalled cutting her hand on a fruit salad lid. The knives? Again, they were outdoorsy. Todd fished. He also had a bad habit of leaving his knife uncleaned in the tackle box, until Pamela found it and swore the smell would never come off, so she made him buy new ones. The eyewitness? Everyone knew eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable.
The jury didn’t buy it.
The Larsens were tried and convicted. The public had their monsters locked up where they belonged.
Chapter Twenty-seven
I’d lied to Gabriel. I couldn’t just drop this. Not yet. I needed to know more. I was sure I could get more. My dad used to give me every problem-solving task that could arise in a department store, from shoplifting to public relations. That did not give me the skills to investigate murder, but if I had more details, maybe I could interest one of those innocence projects, which—unlike Gabriel Walsh—wouldn’t charge me for its efforts. I still wanted these answers, needed these answers. Which meant I had to do what it took to get them.
After leaving Gabriel, I stopped back at the apartment to grab my memo pad and headed to the library.
My research did not go well. The only mentions I found of Christian Gunderson were newspaper accounts dramatically labeling him another victim of the killers. Unable to cope with the horrific death of his sister, the sensitive soul took his own life. If that was his epitaph, no one was going to appreciate me suggesting he may have been her killer.
The articles had mentioned a younger sister, Anna. I could speak to her … if I could find current contact information. I couldn’t. I did find something on Christian’s mother, though. An obituary. She’d died three years ago. The only address I found for a living, close relative was for Niles Gunderson—the mentally unstable father who’d mistaken me for Pamela and attacked me.
Definitely not.
Sunday morning I was in a cab, taking the first step in my investigation. Ida and Walter had offered me the use of their car anytime I needed to make a trip “to the city,” but I didn’t feel comfortable taking them up on that offer. Not yet.
So I was footing the big bill for a cab to Chicago. And where was I going? To pay a visit to Niles Gunderson.
Madness, of course. But it was the only avenue of investigation I could see. He must have been off his meds when he came to the house. By now he’d be back home, on his regime and lucid. With my new look, a little role-playing, a few shadows, and a lot of luck, I might be able to convince him that I was an old friend of Anna’s looking for her phone number. I’d tried calling of course but he wouldn’t answer. Maybe because he didn’t recognize the number.
When I reached the apartment, I knew the “few shadows” part of the equation would be easy. A week ago, I’d have said Gunderson’s building was little more than tenement housing. Now, having seen actual tenements, I knew better.
It was just a tired building on a tired street, filled with people who looked equally tired, trudging along without even a glance my way. Inside, the building was quieter than I might have expected. Darker, too. Hence the shadows. It was like walking into a tunnel, gray and gloomy and empty, with dark walls and irregular lighting.
As I made my way up to Gunderson’s fifth-floor apartment, I began to think that maybe this desolate place wasn’t exactly where I wanted to meet a man who’d tried to kill me.
This was crazy. Bat-shit crazy. With every step, I thought of new and more colorful descriptions of my decision to visit Niles Gunderson. But I kept walking.