Cuts Like a Knife: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

18

THE CALL CAME in at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday. Be at the precinct ASAP. I whipped my Miata into the parking lot by five, as the sun rose over the lake and lit up the Chicago skyline. I was going to sleep in since today’s Snowflake game—one of two left—doesn’t start until noon. I need to call my assistant coach, a mother who knows nothing about soccer, but who is very good at organizing after-game snacks. Today she has to coach, too.

I pound up the steps and hear voices as I enter the office. Am I last on the phone chain or what? And if I am, is it by design? He’s gruff with me, but I don’t think Captain Zaworski dislikes me. He’s gruff with everybody. But you can never tell with him. I hate being late. Why am I always the last one to show up for meetings? My sister, Klarissa, the perfectly coiffed news reporter, can vouch that I am not wasting time playing with my makeup. I barely put it on in the first place. A little foundation and usually a quick swipe of red on my lips, is about the extent of my cosmetic indulgences.

It wasn’t the starter on my Miata that delayed me either. I got a good spot on the hill in front of my apartment, so starting it was easy. I just did my normal rolling start—shifting into first, turning the key to the “on” position, taking my foot off the brake, letting the car roll forward with the clutch pedal pressed to the floor. Once I hit fifteen miles per hour, I popped the clutch, and after only one or two jerks and heaves, was off to the races. Just slower than everyone else out of the gate. Once she starts, my Mazda’s engine easily hits eighty on the crosstown highway, so yeah, I’ve got to be getting called last. I still need to spring for the 300 bucks to get the starter replaced. It crosses my mind to call Dell to see if he knows anyone in the supply-chain world who can get me a great deal on a starter, but it doesn’t seem quite right to ask for help after the week we’ve had. Or more accurately, not had.

They’ve started without me. Don, Zaworski, Blackshear, Martinez, Konkade, and Reynolds are in their regular places, plus there are a couple new faces, most notably another woman.

I open the door carefully, but it still creaks like the entrance to a haunted house. Everyone looks up—except for Don who keeps his head down out of fear of being deemed guilty by association with his partner. Zaworski stops speaking. I feel like a ninth-grade truant and the captain looks like a displeased teacher as I bring his presentation to an abrupt halt. Everyone mumbles their greetings in my direction.

The other new face is Tony Scalia, who I’ve known ever since I tagged along to the precinct with my dad on Saturday mornings as a kid. Big Tony hasn’t changed a bit in twenty-some years. He’s got to be sixty now. Of course, he looked like he was sixty years old back then, too. He still has a full head of the darkest, shiniest black hair that a bottle of Just for Men can dye. His face is pockmarked with scars from what had to be one incredible case of adolescent acne. He’s at least six foot three and has the barrel chest of a weight lifter. I’ll bet he goes 260 or 270 pounds. He’s actually soft spoken, but then you don’t have to be loud when you exude the raw strength of Big Tony. If he wasn’t a cop, he would have made a great gangster. Or better yet, he could have played gangsters in the movies.

Big Tony, ever the gentleman, is the only one to stand up. He doesn’t say anything but gives me a sideways hug and a wink.

“You know Major Scalia,” Zaworski says, stating the obvious. “And this is Dr. Leslie Van Guten with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“A pleasure,” she says, giving me a firm handshake. She is wearing a matching black skirt and jacket with white blouse, which sounds rather austere, but she has a good tailor who has fitted the outfit to accentuate her nice figure without being offensive or over-the-top in the conservative “man’s world” of law enforcement. Her second button is undone to show off a large diamond pendant on a simple gold necklace. No wedding ring, so I’m guessing she salvaged her engagement ring after a divorce. I’m just guessing. If I’m right, that might suggest I have the finely honed instincts of a great detective. If I’m wrong, it probably means I’m just a jealous, catty, small-spirited female who has never been married.

I don’t smile because I’m embarrassed beyond belief for being late, and more importantly, the business at hand is gruesome. Pictures have been tacked to a cork strip that goes around the conference room. I’m jolted up to speed without hearing a single word. The pictures tell a familiar story. Another woman. Based on furnishings and decor, seemingly successful. Single. Living alone. Murdered. Murdered is a harsh word, but it doesn’t come close to conveying or describing what someone is up to in my city.
Butchered?

It’s been fourteen days since I visited the first crime scene. In contrast to standard operating procedures, we are once again meeting off-site first. There’s a downside. The clock starts ticking once a murder takes place and every minute, every second counts. Other than family members and close acquaintances—who account for half the homicides in America—if you aren’t chasing a specific person with a name within twenty-four hours, there’s a good chance the killer is going to get away.

The upside to huddling together before hitting the victim’s home en masse is that we can each receive assignments that allow us to go into greater detail at the scene. At least that’s what Zaworski thinks. And since it’s automatic that all gathering, handling, and analyzing of evidence is going to be vigorously challenged in the US legal system, this gives Zaworski and Reynolds a chance to remind us to mind our
p
’s and
q
’s. No good deed goes unpunished, so if you have a question, you ask before acting—and touching. No seeking forgiveness later. Usually I chafe in this kind of environment, but I have to be honest, I am nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. I don’t have a cat so I’m not familiar with their habits, and I’ve never seen a tin roof, not even down by the tracks where the homeless create warrens of refrigerator box huts, but suffice it to say, the description seems apt.

“According to our experts, this second homicide proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have a serial killer in our city, and one who has evaded arrest and detection for close to a decade.”

• • •

An hour later, Zaworski finishes detailing evidence protocols. Routine stuff, but a good reminder that our break in this case is probably going to come through a small detail. He looks to Reynolds and nods. Reynolds clears his throat and begins.

“If you haven’t finished reading the previous factor notebooks, you need to do so within the next forty-eight hours. Come Monday morning everyone knows everything the FBI does. Nothing we say leaves our situation room. That stays the same. But before we head over to the CS, we’re going to give each of you an executive summary of everything Operation Vigilance has correlated. We’re then going to have you put your signature on a sworn affidavit that the materials will not leave your possession, will not be shared with anyone not on the task force—even if that someone is your superior—and will be returned within twenty-four hours. We’ve got to get everyone up to speed on this thing, fast. No excuses.”

Reynolds nods in my direction. There’re two ways to interpret it. Positively, it may be recognition that I’ve been doing overtime reading on six of the seven notebooks at FBI’s HQ, even before it became “assigned reading.” Negatively, it may be Reynolds’ way of telling me to finish what I’ve started. I’ve been working fourteen-hour days since the first murder. Apparently that isn’t enough. I don’t care how long we are on the crime scene. I will not go to sleep without reading every page of the last notebook and the executive summaries today.

“You’re going to notice a significant change in pattern with the current murder. Anyone have an idea already?”

“Time between murders,” says Blackshear.

He answered way too quickly. That can’t be right. I purse my lips to say something.

“Nicely done,” Reynolds says to Blackshear. “He’s been a once-a-month predator, but this time it’s less than two weeks.”

“Any chance we got a new perp at work?” Martinez asks in his heavy accent. “A copycat?”

“Great question,” Reynolds answers. “But there are just too many signature acts for this not to be the same predator that Project Vigilance has identified and that Dr. Van Guten has profiled.”

He nods deferentially in her direction when he says that. She must be a big shot. Good old Virgil is always on the job, but his outfits aren’t as nice as Van Guten’s.

“We’re going to hit the scene together,” Reynolds continues. “We’ve got transportation lined up that will accommodate all of us.” Apparently, it’s a Gray Line bus, which seems like a weird choice. Last time I was in a Gray Line vehicle, I was in eighth grade, and me, my parents, and my two sisters were on a trip to New York City as Kaylen’s high school graduation present. But Reynolds has a plan.

“We’re dropping the team off in pairs on each corner of the block. We’re all walking up slowly, very slowly. We’re going to look around. We’re going to look people in the eyes. We’re going to see who’s watching, who’s avoiding eye contact, who doesn’t fit there. If someone wants to talk to any of us, we’re going to stop and talk. Ask them what they saw and if anything has seemed out of place in their neighborhood. I know this is a different
modus operandi,
but honestly, what you’re going to see at the crime scene is something you’ve already seen before.

“We met here at CPD because the media is stalking our FBI regional office. I don’t want the circus we had at the first scene. If anyone from the media is already there, I’ll assume a neighbor called or someone was paying very close attention to a very subtle message on the police band, but I’m still going to check everyone’s home and cell phone logs.”

I think he just looked at me. I am suddenly very self-conscious that my sister is a news reporter for one of the city’s largest stations.

Reynolds gives the floor to Van Guten, referencing that she has a doctorate from Harvard, and explaining that she is a psychiatrist under contract with the FBI. She is a profiler and will now be an official and permanent member of the team until we apprehend our butcher in Chicago or he moves to another city.

“Be on the bus in five minutes,” Zaworski barks. “You got anything to take care of before we leave, take care of it fast.”

“Más le vale a ese tipo que no sea yo el que
lo encuentre,”
Martinez says to Don and me as we exit the situation room.
“Va a
desear nunca haber nacido.”

He strides off, his jaw jutting out, and nearly knocks the door to the men’s restroom off the hinges as he disappears from sight. I look to Don for help. I took French, which was probably a mistake, but my mom pushed so hard for me to take Spanish that I suddenly developed a love for
lingua François
in eighth grade. Don isn’t fluent in Spanish but is our interpreter when necessary.

“I think he wants to meet our killer in a back alley,” he says with a shrug. “You never know with Antonio.”

I stop to pee and take care of it fast, wash my hands—probably a mistake based on Reynolds’ five-minute order, but good for public safety—and hustle down the steps and out the back door into the employee parking lot. Unbelievable. It’s 7:00 a.m. and there are more than ten local TV and radio station vans with satellite equipment atop outside the chain-link fence, plus what looks like a fancy Winnebago from Mars with CNN printed on the side. I take back the Winnebago part. How about a country music star’s home away from home? I have a fleeting thought that it would be kind of cool to look inside.

There is a horde of reporters with microphones, digital recorders, and even a few old-fashioned flip notebooks with yellow pencils. Three squad cars block the entrance to our lot and six uniforms are keeping the jackals at bay. I keep my eyes on the ground and hop up the three steps and into the bus.

I’m last one in. Everyone is looking at me. Reynolds and Van Guten have commandeered the whole front row. They are leaning into the aisle and speaking to each other in hushed tones. They have to stop and lift their heads so I can pass. The rows aren’t close to being filled up, but the aisle seats sure are. I’m reminded of the scene in the school bus from
Forrest Gump
. But there’s no one to play the role of Jenny and share a seat with me. I plop into a seat by myself and look at my cell phone with horror. I realize I called Klarissa on the way over to cancel our coffee date. I look forward. Reynolds is on his phone. I can only guess what order he is giving.

He’s going to have our phone logs checked and think I called the story into Klarissa.

I feel sick to my stomach. But not as bad as I’ll be feeling in about thirty minutes.

19

“CAN I SEE your gun, Aunt Kristen?”

“James, you know your mommy doesn’t think it’s polite for me to brandish weaponry at the table.”

Klarissa gives me a dirty look—she has made it known that she is not a fan of the Second Amendment and thinks we live in a gun-crazy society—which brings a smile to my face. I think it’s my first smile of the week. But I guess Sunday is the first day of the week, so that doesn’t quite account for the way the last seven days have gone.

“Please. Pleeeease, Aunt Kristen.”