The Cruelest Cut (9 page)

Jack tried to concentrate on the stack of files on his desk, but the last riddle kept nagging at him until a sense of urgency swept over him. This case was like nothing he had ever come across, and the normal methods of investigation didn't apply. Murphy's Law said that if something could go wrong it most likely would at the most inopportune moment. Not only had Maddy Brooks broken her promise to the captain, by going on the six o'clock news and hinting that the police suspected the recent killings were the work of a serial killer, but she had also claimed the police had dubbed the killer “Mother Goose.” That would bring every nut job out of hiding to get their faces on camera.

These cases had been screwed from the beginning, which only confirmed the rule. There were no witnesses to interview, the bodies were hacked into sushi, and the victims seemed to have nothing in common.

That last thought brought him out of his reverie. “Liddell,” he said.

“Huh,” Liddell said, his nose still buried in a file.

“What if these victims
are
all connected somehow?”

Liddell stopped reading and looked at him. “Connected how?”

“Well, why did the killer pick these particular people? What did they have in common?”

“We've been through this, buddy. They didn't have anything in common except dying a horrible death.”

“I knew Timmy Ryan,” Jack said. “And Anne Lewis's name sounds familiar. She was a psychiatrist or psychologist, right?”

Liddell leaned back, and his chair creaked loudly with his weight. “But she wasn't your psychiatrist, was she?”

“No,” Jack said, and wondered if his partner could ever be serious. “Wait a minute. Where's that file?” He rummaged around on his desk and found the case file on Anne Lewis and her husband. Flipping through some of the reports, he finally stopped and pulled a page out.

“Here it is,” he said, holding up the paper. “Jansen worked on this case,” he said, and Liddell moaned and covered his face with both hands. “Let me finish. Jansen said in the one and only supplement he wrote that besides her private practice, Anne Lewis worked as a court-appointed psychiatrist.”

Liddell caught his meaning. “And what if she knew the killer?” he finished Jack's thought. Then he looked at the pile of paper on his desk. “That means more files, Jack. We'll need someone to put all this stuff into a database so we can search for connections.”

“I'll see the captain,” Jack said. “See if he can spare some
real
help.”

“Better get that corporate shrink of Maddy's in here, too,” Liddell said, causing Jack to turn and look questioningly at him. Liddell explained, “Well, he seems to be an expert on Mother Goose.”

“Don't you start it, too, Bigfoot,” Jack said and left. He'd had all of the Mother Goose crap he could stand for one night. Even the mayor had come in to ream the chief and demand to know what was being done about “Mother Goose.” When the chief couldn't produce a solid suspect, the mayor suggested that the police should “bring in a psychologist, like on
CSI
.”

Jack wondered if the mayor really didn't know that
CSI
was just a television show, and not real life. Also, that the police department didn't use psychologists to solve cases. But then he would have to explain that
Ghost Hunters
was also just entertainment for the weak-minded or bored, and that they probably wouldn't be able to speak to the spirits of the deceased to get information. Sometimes it's better to just keep it zipped and let them think they're helping. But if the mayor kept this up, the investigation would turn into a circus and Jack would be just another clown.

 

“The bitch clawed me, Bobby!” Eddie screamed. He sat on the floor of the cabin with his hand clamped to his right ear. Blood seeped between the fingers of his hand, and his ear burned like hell.

Eddie picked up the corn knife and started to get up. “I'm gonna take her fuckin' head clean off.”

Bobby just shook his head sadly. “She's dead, bro. Besides, that would mess up the message.”

Eddie dropped his arm. Of course, Bobby was right. When she was found, she had to look just like this. If he did any more cutting it would screw things up.

“Okay, I guess we can get out of here, Bobby.” Eddie started toward the door, but then remembered the note. He took it out of his pocket, grabbed the woman's face roughly, and forcing the jaws open, shoved the note into her mouth and as deep as he could into her throat.

Eddie stood back and looked at his handiwork.
Something's missing,
he thought. He dipped his finger in her blood, and then dabbed it on her nose.

“That's better,” he said and smiled.

 

Captain Franklin had promised Jack someone to help sort through the mounting files and, thankfully, had rejected the idea of bringing in a psychologist. But before Jack went back to his office, he had to see someone. He left headquarters and drove the short distance to the neighborhood he had grown up in, and parked a little way down from the familiar house so he would have more time to think up a good reason for being there. But the truth of the matter was that he wasn't sure himself why he was there.

The sky was dark, threatening rain, and the air had turned cool. Winter was months away, but, according to the old-timers, it would be an especially harsh one.

He walked down the brick walkway that he and his father had laid when he was a kid, and up onto the porch of the house he had grown up in. His ex-wife, Katie, opened the door before he could knock. When they had divorced, they'd agreed that she would keep the house, and he moved into the river cabin that his grandfather had built.

“I saw you coming up the walk,” she said, and smiled at him.

Even with everything that was happening, Katie's smile warmed him, and he wondered, not for the first time, how he could have managed to screw up their marriage so completely.

“Hi, Katie,” he said, and waited to be shown into the house they used to share. He knew every nook and cranny of the house, from which floorboards creaked to how the wind would sometimes whistle in the bathroom window if it wasn't shut tight. She led him into the living room and sat on the recliner, leaving him to the couch, and the thought struck him that Katie had remembered that he couldn't sit in the chair when he was wearing his gun. He'd always sat on the couch, where he had more room. But even with the fact that she had remembered such a trivial point, he still felt uneasy here. It didn't feel like his house anymore.

“How've you been?” he asked, inwardly groaning at his stupid question.

She averted her eyes and said, “Oh, you know…fine, I guess. How's Susan?” she asked.

The remark had surprised him. Embarrassed him.
Why should I feel guilty? It's not like Susan and Katie aren't on friendly terms. Sometimes a little too friendly.
In fact, Katie and Susan had become such good friends that he sometimes felt like the outsider. He would have understood it better if Katie and Susan had felt threatened by each other, but instead they had formed a bond around a common cause. And that cause was Jack Murphy.

He also knew that Katie was dating an attorney. How could she possibly be attracted to an attorney? He had often wondered if she was doing that just to spite him, but Katie wasn't like that. After he had been released from the hospital, both she and Susan had taken turns caring for him, feeding him, changing his bandages.

But recently it had all become very uncomfortable for him. And when he was alone with Katie, which didn't happen often, she seemed uncomfortable as well.

He realized she was talking to him, and said, “What?”

“Why are you here, Jack?” Katie asked. Her features clouded with a familiar look of worry. He wanted to apologize for coming over without calling and then run for his car. But he needed someone to talk to that had nothing to do with the case, or the police. When they were married, no matter how serious a case he was investigating, he would sit with her and talk about nothing. Just being near her helped him clear his head, helped him realize that there were still good people in the world, and that he was putting up with this job in the sewer of society for the protection of people like Katie. He had never shared his concerns or the ugly part of his life with her because he was protecting her. He had to keep her clean of all of that. He had to have something unblemished, untouched by evil, to come home to.

But he knew, in his own way, he had ruined the very thing that he needed the most. She had been right to divorce him. He thought he should leave before he made her worry, or made more of a fool of himself. But then he had an idea.

“Look, Katie, do you still have those—” He paused, almost saying Mother Goose books, and said instead, “nursery rhyme books you use for class?” Katie taught sixth grade at a school for troubled children, and he knew she had a score of children's books lying around. He had the book Maddy had acquired from her company shrink, and he was sure he could find hundreds of articles on the Internet, but he had needed to see Katie, to see that she was okay, and to tell her…to tell her what?

“What's going on, Jack?” she asked.

Now it was his turn to look away.
Shouldn't have come,
he thought. “Oh, it's nothing important. I just need to look up some stuff. Research, you know?”

“You're doing research with a Mother Goose book?” she asked incredulously, and he shrugged in response. She left the room and came back with a stack of books of various sizes with colorful covers.

“And this has nothing at all to do with that ‘Mother Goose killer' they were talking about on the news tonight?”

Jack didn't answer.

“If you don't want to tell me what you're doing, it's okay,” she said.

“There's nothing to tell, Katie,” he said defensively. “Why do we always have to do this?”

“
We're
not doing anything, Jack,” she said.

Why do women have to be so complicated?
he wondered.
Everything they say has two or three meanings.

“I didn't come to argue,” Jack said, and picked up the books. “Thanks. I'll get them back to you.”

“There's no hurry.” The iciness was gone from her voice.

Jack stopped in the doorway and turned around. “Maybe you should go and visit your sister in Maine,” he said. “Just for a few days.”

“Why?”

“Dammit, Katie! Why can't you just go and visit your sister for a while?”

She pushed him out of the door. “We're not married anymore, Jack. I don't do things just because you tell me to.” She looked worried again. “What's really going on, Jack?”

The last thing he'd wanted was to worry her, but that was what he had done. He really had no evidence that this killer was sending these messages because of him. The only victim he even had a passing acquaintance with was Timmy Ryan, and he had barely spoken to the boy. Fished with him a couple of times.

“I'm sorry,” he said, not wanting to leave on an angry note. “You're right—I shouldn't tell you what to do. Just promise me you'll keep your doors and windows locked for a while.”

She looked at him and then asked, “Does this have something to do with the murders I saw in the news?”

“Just promise me you'll be extra careful for a while. Okay?”

“Okay, Detective,” she said, and smiled. “I'll lock up. But I'm not leaving town. Not unless you can give me a good reason.”

That was something, at least.

 

Liddell was still at his desk poring over arrest records when Jack came in. There were no second-shift detectives still in the office.

“Where'd you get the Mother Goose books?” Liddell asked with a smirk on his face.

“You're a detective,” Jack said. “Figure it out.”

Before Liddell could start ragging on him, Jack said, “How's Jansen doing with the mayor's mother?”

Liddell's smirk widened into a full-blown shit-eating grin. “Get this,” he said. “Jansen starts going ape-shit on the station manager for not having security cameras outside the building, and the old lady, the mayor's mother, comes to the manager's defense.”

Jack was surprised that Jansen would be interested in the case enough to go to that trouble, but then he remembered that Jansen was probably trying to impress Maddy Brooks or some other young lady. He had a reputation for fancying himself a ladies' man. “So what happened?”

“Jansen called her an old biddy,” Liddell said, barely able to contain himself.

“That's it?”

“Guess where Jansen's at right this minute,” Liddell said. “Go on. Guess.”

“I give up,” Jack said. “Where is Jansen this very minute?”

Liddell looked around out of habit. “In the mayor's office with the mayor, the chief, Double Dick, and Captain Franklin.”

“You think that means we're rid of him?” Jack asked.

“Probably not,” he conceded. “But I'd love to hear what's going on.”

“That's why I love you so much, partner. It doesn't take much to entertain you.” Jack started rummaging through his desk drawer.

“What're you looking for?” Liddell asked.

“I've got a ball of yarn here somewhere. Thought I'd throw it for you.”

“Asshole,” Liddell said.

“Let's get something to eat. I can't think anymore.”

“Two-Jakes?” Liddell asked.

“Where else?”

Two-Jakes was the adopted name for Two-Jakes Marina and Restaurant, a combination restaurant, bar, and water-craft storage facility. It was the largest of its kind along the stretch of Ohio River from St. Louis to Louisville. In the winter, the rich folks stored their large summer crafts there with confidence that the boats would be serviced and pampered until they were ready to play ship captain the next spring. In the summer, visitors would travel up the Mississippi River from as far away as Tomato, Mississippi, or come down the Missouri River to just north of St. Louis where it joined with the Ohio River.