Dr. Stuart nodded briskly. “I think I’d better, there’s no telling what these monkeys might do if left to their own devices.”
“I just love it when he talks tough.” Monica winked, and Dr. Stuart flushed bright red. “See you later, sweets.”
He turned away without responding.
As they walked back toward the car, Kelly tentatively asked, “So, how is everything going with him?”
Monica shrugged. “Two steps forward, one step back, about par for the course with me.”
“Yeah?” Kelly said uncertainly, debating whether or not to press the subject.
Monica stopped her with one arm. “Look, I know how he seems. Just trust that I’m not a fool, all right? I’m a big girl, I know what I’m doing.”
“Of course.” Kelly flushed, regretting that she’d opened her mouth. Monica was right, of course, it was really none of her business. She would just hate to see her get hurt.
“Good.” Monica held a branch aside and nodded for Kelly to pass her. “Can I just say, though, that Howie is one hell of a kisser?”
“Really?” Kelly tried but failed keep the dubious tone from her voice.
“Trust me, honey, it’s always the ones you least expect.”
“You must be pretty goddamn pleased with yourself,” Doyle said, glaring down at her with his hands on his hips.
Kelly almost choked on her coffee; he’d surprised her, coming up as she turned the corner toward the task force conference room. “Lieutenant Doyle,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
“Your goddamn task force. It was supposed to be disbanded this week, now you’ve gone and added another member.”
“I did what?” Kelly stopped at the door to the command center, puzzled. Inside, a young man sat at the table flipping through one of the case files. A shock of red hair crowned a face covered with an amount of freckles that seemed almost obscene on an adult. That, combined with pale blue eyes and a tan that leaned more toward a sunburn, marked him as a prototypical Irish-American. When he saw her, he hurriedly pushed back his chair, knocking it over as he stood.
“Oh, crap, I’m sorry.” He fumbled with the chair, then strode forward and extended a hand, grinning. “Lieutenant Colin Peters, BCI.”
“BCI?” Kelly asked.
“Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Because there was another body found in Renssellaer County, the boss thought it would be a good idea to send someone to help out. But if you’re already all set, like Lieutenant Doyle said…” His voice trailed off and he looked embarrassed.
“Nothing’s set yet.” Kelly said firmly. “Welcome to the team. Lieutenant Lauer will be here in a minute, we’ll have a sit-down and get everyone caught up on the case. Lieutenant Doyle,” she said, turning to face him. He scowled at her from the doorway. She meet his gaze levelly. “Why don’t you grab some coffee and join us?”
Ten minutes later they were settled around the table.
Kelly crossed her hands in front of her and surveyed the room. “First off, what’s our status with Sommers? I understand he made bail on Saturday.”
“Pain in the ass,” Doyle grumbled.
“Not when you consider that by leaving prison he might’ve lost his best alibi,” Kelly pointed out.
“No such luck.” Monica shook her head. “Just talked to his lawyer, and the guy’s vouching for him. Says they drove to his house in Provincetown for the weekend, since Sommers’s place is still a crime scene.”
“Wow, that’s some attorney,” Kelly noted.
“Hey, for five hundred an hour, I’d take clients home with me, too,” Monica said.
“Can’t trust a lawyer,” Doyle said.
“Not always, that’s true,” Kelly acknowledged. Doyle looked surprised that she was agreeing with him. “Doyle, dig into the lawyer’s reputation, see if he’s the type to cover for his clients. But until I hear otherwise, that clears Sommers, at least for our latest victim. Because of the holiday, prints might take a few days, but the vic has tentatively been identified as Danny Smith.”
“Let me guess. Another boy toy,” Doyle mumbled.
Colin looked at him sharply, and Kelly gritted her teeth. “Lieutenant Doyle, am I going to have to remind you again to tone it down?”
Doyle lowered his eyes and shook his head.
“Okay. So this is our third victim in two weeks. Since Sommers has been cleared for now, we need to focus on other suspects. There’s a chance that we’re actually dealing with two perpetrators.”
“Working together?” Colin asked.
“Hard to say. They might be working together, or it could be a copycat. If they are colluding, this last killing might have been done to give Sommers an alibi so that we’d have to release him.”
“Do you have any concrete evidence proving that there are two killers?”
“Not so far,” Kelly said.
Monica said, “We found two of the boys at the same time, same place. One had been buried, the other hadn’t, and we got an expert says they were offed by two different perps.”
“Why was only one of them buried?” Colin’s brow furrowed.
Kelly shrugged. “We don’t know that, either. It looks like the earlier remains, the ones that were initially discovered in the Clarksburg State Park boneyard, had also been buried at one point.”
“And what, someone dug them up? Why would anyone do that?” Colin looked horrified at the thought of someone running around digging up bodies. Kelly wondered what his experience had been, if he had the stomach for this kind of case. She’d make a few calls, see if she could get a copy of his file. Last thing she needed was another task force member who couldn’t hold his own in the field.
Doyle snorted. “Because he’s a sick so-and-so. And don’t let the ladies fool you, son. I don’t give a goddamn what any lawyer says, the guy doing this is named Sommers and he strolled out of here nice as you please last Saturday. Had a whole day to track down another of his little boy toys to kill.” He jabbed a finger at them. “Mark my words, by Friday I’ll have his bail revoked and he’ll be on a fast track to Walpole.”
“My, that kind of work ethic would be a welcome change,” Monica said drily. “I hear they renamed Walpole, it’s called Cedar Junction now. For you out of towners, that’s the Massachusetts maximum security prison. Sounds a hell of a lot nicer than it is.”
“Let’s stay on topic, shall we?” Kelly said, repressing a sigh.
“What kind of MO are we looking at?” Colin asked, changing the subject.
Kelly cast him a grateful look before replying. “Pretty gruesome, at least from what we’ve seen with the latest three victims. Hard to say if the exact same MO was followed earlier, the decomposition of the bodies was too advanced. But on the fresh bodies we’ve seen clear signs of torture, everything from cigarette and acid burns to puncture wounds. The killer also gouges out the victims’ eyes postmortem, and removes the genitals.”
“Postmortem for that, too?” Colin asked.
Kelly shrugged. “We think. Again, a lot of this is supposition when it comes to the earlier vics. The ones we’ve ID’d so far all have records for solicitation, and they range in age from eighteen to twenty-four. Also, the last few victims had a stack of pennies next to them, which could be a sign that one of our killers was institutionalized at some point. But that could range from a kid who grew up in foster care to a former convict.”
“So that’s not really any help at all,” Colin remarked. “And the suspect, what’s his name…Summer?”
“Calvin Sommers. We’ve confirmed that he personally knew at least three of the victims and was, in fact, with one of the boys the night he died. He claims he doesn’t remember anything that happened, and he tested positive for ketamine.”
“Sounds pretty damning,” Colin acknowledged.
“Damn straight it does,” Doyle growled.
“But we just lost the only witness linking him to Jim Costello the night of the murder,” Monica reminded them. “And we got that pesky alibi to deal with now, don’t we?”
“For now. Let’s see if we can start chipping away at it. Doyle, since you seem to be particularly motivated, why don’t you dig into the lawyer’s background, see what turns up,” Kelly said pointedly. “Let’s keep in mind that Sommers still has the best motive for killing Danny Smith, as far as we know, so let’s stay on him. Lieutenant Peters, that’s the basic rundown, but why don’t you spend the morning going through the rest of the files, get more familiar with the details of the case. Let me know if you have any questions. Monica is going to try to track down a potential witness.”
“What potential witness?” Doyle asked.
Monica and Kelly exchanged a glance; there had been no sign of Jordan at the flophouse when they stopped by on their way back from the park. In fact, the house now appeared completely abandoned. Since Danny had turned up dead, that was worrisome. Monica was going to sniff around the local scene, see if she could find out where the boys were hanging now.
“I’d rather not say just yet,” Kelly said after a pause. “Peters, once you’re up to speed, I have another stack of files for you to go through. I want you to cross-reference arrest records with addresses and missing-persons reports. Now that we have the extra manpower, I want to see if we can put a name to some of our other remains. ID’ing them might help us find a connection.”
Doyle eyed the file box she was pointing to. “Who pulled those for you?”
“Officer Sayles has been working on this for the past week. I figured we should keep our options open in case Sommers was cleared.”
Doyle grunted. “Sounds to me like you’re assigning the kid busywork.”
“I don’t mind,” Colin piped up. “I’m actually pretty good at this organizational stuff.”
“And maybe with a fresh pair of eyes, you’ll see something we’ve missed,” Kelly said.
“So what’re you going to do?” Doyle asked suspiciously.
Kelly answered, “I’m going to see if Mr. Sommers’s lawyer is willing to meet for a chat.”
“Who knows, maybe he’ll tell you it was all a mistake, that he actually hasn’t been babysitting Sommers. Charm him a little,” Monica said.
“Stranger things have happened,” Kelly said with a sigh.
“Not likely,” Doyle said. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but charm ain’t exactly your strong suit.”
“Doesn’t seem to be yours, either,” Kelly retorted, but felt herself flush red regardless and dropped her gaze. She straightened the papers in front of her, tapping out the edges on the desktop until they were aligned before tucking them back in a file. A corner still poked out, and she tossed the folder on to the table, aggravated. Avoiding everyone’s eyes, Kelly grabbed her purse off the chair, yanked open the top drawer of the desk where she’d been storing her gun, and tucked it into her shoulder harness before leaving the room.
“What was that about?” Colin asked, looking between Monica and Doyle.
Monica had already crossed the room and was standing angrily over Doyle. He jerked out of his chair and stared her down. Despite the fact that her head barely reached his chin, she didn’t back down an inch. “You’re really pushing it, Doyle, you know that?” Monica growled.
“Hey, guys, I know I’m new here, but maybe we should all just calm down,” Colin said nervously, stopping uncertainly a few steps away from them.
“What, you’re pissed I said something nasty to your girlfriend?” Doyle said. “Get over it, blondie.”
“I’m just sick of you always being such an asshole.” Monica eyed him, inched a step closer. “What’re you going to do, Doyle, you gonna hit me? ’Cause you got that look on your face.”
“Sure you’d recognize it. Broad like you has probably been hit once or twice,” Doyle said.
“Um, guys? I really think we should all just take a minute…”
“Stow it, kid. I’m leaving.” Doyle cast one more glare down at Monica, then stormed out of the room.
Monica’s gaze shifted to the floor and she swallowed a few times, hard, before slowly sinking into a chair.
Colin stood a few feet away, shifting uncertainly. “Lieutenant, are you okay? I could get you some water or something, if you like…”
Monica laughed out loud once, sharply. She lifted her eyes to him before shaking her head. “That’s sweet, but I’m fine, thanks. Just had a bad flashback is all. Funny, never realized till just now who Doyle reminded me of. Explains a lot.”
“Yeah? Who?”
Monica shook her head again. “It’s not important.” She glanced at her watch. “Oops, it’s getting late. I better get going.” She clapped him cheerily on the shoulder as she left the room, saying, “Welcome to the team, kid. Chip away at those files—the sooner we solve this thing and get out of here, the happier we’ll all be.”
Twenty
He sat low behind the wheel of his wife’s BMW. It was another blazing day, heat rising off the pavement in waves. He watched as Dwight left his house, door slamming behind him, headed for the decrepit Tercel parked in the driveway. A ragged bandage covered one arm—the moron had probably gotten another tattoo for some organization that would never accept him. The house matched the car in that both had seen better days; swaths of faded paint were peeling in strips, a broken window upstairs was covered by a blue tarp. Probably had been there since the last big storm, the man thought with a snort. Disgusting, that people subjected themselves to these living conditions. He shuddered to think of what the interior would be like if the outside was any indication.
He could’ve guessed at the condition of the house, though, based on what he knew of its owner. It was so clear to him now, he was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him before. The problem was he’d credited his tormentor with more sophistication, when what he was actually facing was the peevish retaliation of a mental case.
He was parked up a short street that ended in a cul-de-sac and, thanks to the incline of the hill, it afforded a perfect view of the house through high-powered binoculars. He watched as the screen door banged open again, swinging against the side of the house as a woman burst forth. Dressed in a ragged dressing gown and—for God’s sake, were those actually curlers?—a cigarette dangling from her lips, she engaged in a heated argument with Dwight about something. His mother, the man guessed. And from the looks of things, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. As far as he was concerned, Dwight Sullivan redefined “waste of space.” It had been a while since he’d seen him, and on reflection Dwight’s resentment of him made perfect sense. Their final confrontation had been such a trifling incident in his own life that he’d almost completely forgotten about it. Poor dumb Dwight and his delusions of grandeur. Always had some story about how he was waiting to be called up for the CIA or the Navy Seals, when in truth he was a sad sack pushing thirty whose most notable accomplishment was his ability to name a song in three notes.