It’d been personal with Taylor and with Basque, and now I felt the same itch, the same intimate anger with this new killer who’d left the recorded message for me in Heather Fain’s mouth.
As I stepped out of the shower, changed clothes, and grabbed some breakfast, the message kept replaying in my head, making the case more and more personal each time it repeated.
“I’ll see you in Chicago, Agent Bowers.”
Maybe coffee would help. Give me a caffeine buzz. Help me think in a new direction.
I decided on Honduran estate-grown French Roast. After all, if Detective Warren was going to shuttle me around for the morning, the least I could do was offer her sixteen ounces of some world-class coffee. I ground enough for thirty-two ounces, brewed the coffee to perfection, filled two travel mugs-adding a little cream and honey to mine-and had just finished downing a bowl of oatmeal when she arrived at the curb.
Toting my computer bag and hugging the two travel mugs against my chest, I maneuvered out the door. I’d never ridden with her before, and now I saw that she drove a scrappy 2002 Saturn sedan. Maroon. Scratched up, mud-splattered. Homey.
Even though it was still early, the sky was already stark and blue, with just a single streak of cirrus clouds layered high in the west. A light, cool breeze wandered through the neighborhood, but other than that, the day had a still, solid feel to it.
Cheyenne rolled down her window. “Good morning, Pat.”
“Morning.” I set the cups on the roof and patted her car. “I have to say I figured you for a pickup truck kind of girl.”
“I’m hard to pigeonhole. Just throw your bag anywhere in the back.”
I opened the door and realized that following her instructions wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. The seats and floors were piled with papers, the skeletal remains of at least four trips to KFC, three crumpled shooting range targets, a pair of rusted jumper cables, a mountain bike wheel, a very old pair of men’s cowboy boots that I thought it best not to ask about, and a helicopter flight manual. I motioned toward it. “I didn’t know you flew.”
“Not quite done with my lessons. Just have to pass my solo.”
In order to make room for my computer bag I slid the targets aside. They contained some of the tightest center-mass groupings I’d ever seen, so as I positioned my computer bag on the seat I asked her, “How often do you shoot?”
“Mondays and Tuesdays. I try not to miss a week.”
After closing the door, I grabbed the travel mugs from the roof and joined her in the front seat. “Looks like you try not to miss the bull’s-eye either.”
“Part of growing up on a ranch. You need to be able to pick off coyotes from a full gallop.”
“Don’t tell my stepdaughter about that. She doesn’t believe in hunting: ‘Nothing with a face should ever be murdered.’” I offered her one of the travel mugs. “Coffee?”
“Naw. I don’t touch the stuff.”
“Ah, but this is good coffee.”
“That’s an oxymoron,” she said.
OK, now that was just uncalled for. “And here I thought you were a woman of discriminating taste.”
She gave me a furtive glance. “I am. When it comes to some things.”
OK. This woman was not subtle.
Before I could give her any sort of witty reply, she slid a manila folder across the dashboard toward me. “Some reading material for the drive.”
“Thanks.”
As I picked it up I noticed a St. Francis of Assisi pendant hanging from her rearview mirror. I would never have pegged her for the religious type.
She really was hard to pigeonhole.
Cheyenne wove through traffic, hopped onto I-70. “By the way,” she said, “Heather Fain was poisoned. Same poison that Ahmed Mohammed Shokr died of on Wednesday.”
Ahmed was one of the victims in the double homicide on Wednesday. His girlfriend, Tatum Maroukas, had been stabbed with a sword.
There are only four ways to poison someone-inhalation, ingestion, injection, and absorption-so I asked Cheyenne, “Do we know how it was administered?”
“Injected. Potassium chloride.”
“So,” I mumbled, “they found an overage of intravascular potassium without potassium in the vitreous humor.” It was more of an observation than a question.
She looked at me quizzically. “How did you know?”
“It’s a big clue that points to potassium chloride. But also, an obvious one. The killer must have known we’d find it.”
“You think? I wouldn’t suspect many killers would know something like that.”
“This guy would. He wants us on his tail.”
“How do you know he didn’t just make a mistake?”
“Like you said in the mine the other day: it’s about leaving a message. He’s not trying to cover his tracks, he’s purposely choosing to leave them.”
She took her time before replying. “One more thing. It was only one woman at the Cherry Creek Reservoir.”
“At least that’s one bit of good news.”
Cheyenne was silent for a moment and seemed to be deep in thought, then she said softly, “A ten-year-old girl found the body parts before the killer phoned in the location.”
I felt my throat tighten. And deep inside of me, in the place that matters most, I vowed to get this guy.
I opened the folder and began to scrutinize the files.
19
6:45 a.m.
Tessa would have slept in for at least another two hours if Dora’s stupid alarm hadn’t gone off.
When Dora just rolled over and ignored it, Tessa turned it off herself, then flopped back onto the trundle bed and stared at Dora’s desk. Her computer. The wall.
Dora’s breathing became steady again.
Over the past few months her friend hadn’t been getting nearly enough rest.
So Tessa let her sleep. She needed it.
Last winter, Dora’s parents had gone on a double date with one of her dad’s friends, Lieutenant Mason, and his wife. The girl who was babysitting the Masons’ baby texted Dora to find out when everyone was supposed to get back and Dora had replied to the text message. While they were texting back and forth the babysitter left the baby alone in the tub. And the little girl had slipped under the water.
Thinking about it still brought Tessa chills.
Only a few people knew that it was Dora who’d been texting Melissa, and as far as Tessa knew, she was the only person Dora had talked to about it. “If I hadn’t been texting her,” she’d told Tessa one time, “Melissa would have been paying attention to the baby.”
“That’s stupid,” Tessa had said. “It’s not your fault.” But it hadn’t helped. Nothing she’d said had done any good, so finally she just didn’t bring it up anymore.
For a while Tessa lay watching the screen saver on Dora’s computer scroll through pictures of her family. Tessa had never had two parents around, except, sort of, if you counted the couple of months before her mom died when Patrick was with them.
And all that made it hard to look at the pictures of Dora with her two happy parents.
Tessa picked up her cell, opened the photo suite, tapped to the cover flow view, and flipped through pics of her mom, hoping it might make her feel better, but it did just the opposite. Eventually, she put the phone down, rolled over, stared at the wall, and waited for her friend to wake up.
Cheyenne was quiet as we drove toward Sebastian Taylor’s house, and I appreciated the silence because it gave me a chance to review the case files in depth.
The candles surrounding Heather’s body were Chantels, a brand carried by nearly all candle and department stores; so trying to track down the purchaser was probably a dead end.
In addition, the recording device could have been purchased at any electronics store, so-just like the candles, almost impossible to track. No prints on the candles or the device.
The forensics team had been able to determine that the candles had been burning for nearly two hours.
The time gap between when the candles were lit and the anonymous tip was phoned in would have given the killer enough time to drive almost anywhere in the Denver metroplex.