The Love Killings (12 page)

CHAPTER 25

Matt found Brown sitting at a table by the window in the cafeteria. It looked like all she had was a glass of ice water. She gave him a look as he walked over. She was still wearing the same emotions on her face that he’d seen in the operating room. He could tell that she was disappointed in herself.

“It’s okay, Kate,” he said. “It’s over.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not. It’s not okay, and it’s not over. How did it go?”

He reached out for her hand. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go someplace quieter.”

She got to her feet, and they walked out into the hall, heading for the lobby.

“We can do that later,” she said. “Rogers wants us downtown. Something’s come up.”

Matt checked his watch. It was 7:30 p.m.

“Did he say what happened?”

“No. He just said that he wanted us to drive straight back once the autopsies were over. He said that it’s important.”

They reached the hospital’s main entrance, walked outside into the frigid air and down the steps to the parking lot.

Brown gave him a look. “You never answered my question. How did it go in there? What’s the official cause of death?”

“If the tox screens come back clean and there aren’t any surprises, then it’s the gunshot wounds. The ME said that it would have been a slow death. An hour, maybe even longer. He thinks that’s why the wounds were taped over. The killer was regulating their blood loss.”

“Baylor,” she said in a dark voice.

Matt remained quiet. He wanted to tell her what he was thinking, but knew that holding back was the right move for now.

“What about puncture wounds?” she said.

“They didn’t find any. Not on any of them. They think the tox screens could come back clean, Kate. That the loss of blood from the gunshots would have been enough to keep them docile.”

More evidence that Baylor really wasn’t the killer, Matt thought. More evidence that a ghost was out there. An alien working in the dark with no one even looking for him. Baylor had used a drug that still hadn’t been identified to keep his victims in a vegetative state for days while he sexually abused them. Matt had seen the doctor inject something into Anna Marie Genet, an eighteen-year-old college freshman, who was the only known victim to survive.

They reached the car. Brown clicked open the door locks, then turned and stepped in front of Matt. She was standing close to him again. He could feel her left arm find its way around his waist, her right hand on his chest exactly the way she had held him in the operating room. Her eyes were smoked out and hot.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t with you,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”

“Everything’s good, Kate. You’re covered. I’m glad I was here to help.”

She didn’t say anything. She stood there holding him and looking at him. Matt could feel her thighs brushing against his thighs, her warm belly pressing into his belly. In the operating room, they had been wearing their hazmat suits. Now they were wearing street clothes and their jackets were open. The moment was decidedly sensual, even erotic.

And then it passed. And then Brown let go, opened the car door, and climbed in behind the wheel as if nothing had happened. Matt didn’t know what to make of it. As he got in the car and fastened his seatbelt, he wondered if he should say something. In the end, he decided to let it go. The last woman he’d been with, the way it played out and ended, was still too close. He had spent the last month and a half working through it with his psychiatrist from the LAPD’s Behavioral Science Section. Over and over and over again. It was essential to his recovery that he let go of his feelings for her, make a clean break, and move forward. On most days he was fine. On others, not so lucky.

But tonight he’d felt something.

He looked over at Brown as she pulled the car out of the lot. He wondered if she wasn’t exactly what he needed. He could remember his shrink saying that the sooner he had sex, the better off he’d be.

Matt watched her switch on the radio, then settled into the passenger seat. He’d missed another night’s sleep, but was afraid that if he closed his eyes, he’d replay the last eight hours in his head. All those horrific images of the Holloway family being cut into pieces and then sewn back up with a heavy black twine. All those hideous memories that he knew would never go away.

CHAPTER 26

Matt followed Brown past their desks and across the floor to the conference room. He could see them through the glass. Rogers and Dr. Westbrook were seated at the table, while Doyle paced back and forth along the far wall.

Rogers swung the door open and waved them in. “There’s been a development,” he said.

Matt could tell by looking at the somber expressions on everyone’s face that whatever happened wasn’t good. Once he closed the door, Rogers returned to his seat and shook his head.

“A development,” Doyle repeated. “That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.”

Matt leaned against the credenza and watched Doyle walk the length of the room, then turn back.

“What happened?” Matt said. “What is it?”

Doyle clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged. “The lab report came back, and this time it’s definitive. The semen found in Tammy Stratton doesn’t match Baylor’s DNA.”

It hung there. Matt couldn’t believe it. Definitive proof. Finally.

“No,” Rogers said in a low voice. “The DNA doesn’t match the doctor’s. It’s worse than that. As bad as it gets.”

Matt turned to the special agent. “What could be worse?”

Rogers met his eyes. “The semen came from the boy, Jim Jr.,” he said. “He was only thirteen.”

Doyle nodded. “They had intercourse, Jones. The way the boy was draped over his mother, we thought the semen had been contaminated by his blood. Now we know that there was no contamination at all. Baylor forced the boy to have sex with his mother. It’s a safe bet that the Holloway boy was forced to do the same thing. Forced to have sex with his mother while his sisters and father watched.”

The idea, the image, the thought and all the darkness that came with it, settled into the room like nerve gas. No one said anything for a long time.

But Matt’s mind was spinning. He looked at Doyle and Rogers, then Westbrook and Brown. He looked at their faces and knew that he had to say something.

“I don’t think it’s Baylor,” he said quietly.

Doyle jerked his head up, aghast. “What?”

“I don’t think that Dr. Baylor is responsible for these murders. I think there’s someone else out there.”

Rogers slammed the table with his fist and got to his feet. “You’re young, Jones. You’ve been a homicide detective for what? Is it two months or is it two and a half? I told you before what I thought about you being here. But this is different. What you’re saying, what you’re thinking, could get you into a lot of trouble.”

Doyle stepped forward, measuring Matt carefully with a brutal expression on his face. “What makes you think it’s not Baylor, Jones? Give me something that would stand up in court.”

“I can’t do that. But from everything I’ve seen, especially tonight with the lab report, these murders wouldn’t seem to relate to what we know Baylor did in LA and New Orleans. All four of those murders were about greed.”

Doyle cocked his head, his voice loud and angry. “But these murders
are
about greed. Stratton treated his healthy patients for cancer so that he could steal a fortune from the insurance companies. Holloway stole the lives of animals on the endangered species list for his personal pleasure. My God, the two match up like twins.”

“I know who they are and what they did,” Matt said. “There’s no doubt that they’re from the same pool. I’m just saying that this time around I don’t think the motive is greed. I don’t believe that either one of them were the targets.”

“Then who was?” Doyle shot back.

Matt realized that he’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have said anything. Everyone in the conference room was visibly outraged. Doyle’s face had turned beet red, his jugular vein pulsating on the side of his neck. Rogers and Westbrook reminded him of a pair of rattlesnakes all coiled up and ready to strike. But it was the disappointment he saw in Kate Brown’s eyes that really got to him. She was staring at him like he’d just committed treason. He could remember the things Baylor had said to him as they stood on the Holloway’s second-floor landing and gazed at the victims and what had been done to them. He could hear Baylor making his final argument so clearly that the doctor might have been standing right beside him at this very moment.

You’re working with people who have their heads in the sand, Matthew. It’s the corporate way, you know. Special Agent Rogers and Assistant US Attorney Ken Doyle have blinders on and can’t see who and what they’re really dealing with here. They want it to be me. They need it to be me. They get more stuff if it’s me. Bigger headlines and better jobs. That’s why I left my fingerprints. That’s why I sent you that text message tonight.

Doyle shouted at him. “If you don’t believe Stratton and Holloway were the targets, then what’s the goddamn motive, Jones?”

Matt grimaced. “Their wives,” he said.

Doyle’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Their wives?”

“The killer’s got a problem with Mommy.”

Dr. Westbrook cleared his throat, looked at Matt like he was the world’s biggest loser, and spoke in a low voice that had a certain shake to it. “Detective Jones, did it ever occur to you that Dr. Baylor might have a problem with his mother? Most serial killers have issues with their parents and their childhoods. At this point, it’s a cliché, and I’m surprised by the lack of originality you’ve shown tonight. I think Special Agent Rogers put his finger on something important here. You’re playing with fire, Detective. What you’re saying could derail the investigation and spin it off in an entirely different direction. What you’re thinking could destroy your career.”

Matt tried to control his anger. He was afraid that he might hurt Westbrook. Afraid that he might grab the man by his head and smash it through the glass wall. He turned to Doyle.

“How do you explain the text message Baylor sent me? If he’d just killed these people, why would he call a cop?”

“I have no idea,” Doyle said. “Psychopaths aren’t usually known for being very logical. They do just what you’re doing, Jones. They do all sorts of things that make no sense.”

Matt clenched his teeth, his heart pounding. Baylor had been right. They wanted him to be the killer. They needed him to be the killer. And if they had to, they’d
make
him the killer. Doyle wanted the headlines and the media attention that went with a nationwide manhunt. Doyle wanted to move up the food chain.

Matt had seen it before and knew that he would see it again. Any piece of evidence that pointed to Dr. Baylor would go into the file. Anything that pointed in another direction or raised doubts would be left out.

It’s the corporate way, you know.

Matt heard Doyle say something but missed it. Then the federal prosecutor grabbed Matt by the shoulder. Matt gave him a long, dark look—a dangerous look—then pushed Doyle’s hand away. When Doyle spoke finally, his tone of voice sounded offensive, like an angry father talking down to his son.

“How do you explain the one piece of hard evidence that we’ve got, Jones? How do explain the fingerprints? Are you so naive that you really did believe Baylor when he told you that he left them on purpose? That he thought it might bring you into the case? Why would his fingerprints bring you into the case? Why would he leave a fingerprint, knowing that it would irrevocably link him directly to the murders of an entire family? Why would he want to lock himself into two crime scenes as horrific as these? How could you not see through his explanation that his presence at the Strattons’ and the Holloways’ was a series of coincidences? I’m not going to be as hard on you as these guys. You’ve missed two nights’ sleep in almost as many days. But when you walk away tonight, please understand two things. Dr. Baylor is a psychopath. And a fingerprint isn’t a feeling. It’s a lead. It’s a fact. It’s something that a prosecutor can go to trial with, and everyone in the courtroom understands exactly what it means, including the jury.”

CHAPTER 27

A sudden wave of doubt shook Matt’s soul as he walked back to his desk and sat down. On top of the argument Doyle had made was an errant memory that surfaced. It was something the medical examiner had said about halfway through the autopsies this afternoon.

The killer knew something about human anatomy.

The gunshots had been carefully placed to avoid a quick death. No major organs had been violated. The arteries in each victim were intact. Baylor was a skilled surgeon who would have known where to fire his weapon so that he could regulate blood loss and keep his victims conscious, but easily managed.

The doubt only lasted for a second or two. When Matt glanced back at the conference room and saw Rogers and Doyle shouting at each other with the door closed, his skepticism vanished.

He could remember something his favorite instructor at the LAPD Police Academy had told him on the firing range one day. Crimes were solved in exactly the same place they were created. That place was the imagination, the human mind. He could recall his instructor saying that a homicide investigation was more like a journey, and that most of the trip would occur in utter darkness. Crimes were solved by someone who could rely on their instincts to lead them through that darkness. Someone who soaked in evidence without bias or rushing to an early judgment. Doyle could make his argument about the value of a fingerprint in the courtroom. But Matt knew that a fingerprint was just a fingerprint until they made the case. In order to solve these murders, they would need to know what the fingerprint really meant.

Matt felt certain now that the doctor had been telling him the truth. In this case, the fingerprint wasn’t an error, but a call for help.

He should have kept his mouth shut. He should have kept his thoughts to himself.

But even worse, Baylor had been right about something else. The man who had murdered these people was completely depraved. The killer was truly someone
special
. Matt glanced out the window at the lights to the city, wondering where he might be. The idea that he had no real need to hide, no need to cover his tracks, the idea that the entire task force refused to believe that he even existed, cut to the bone.

An image surfaced—the one he couldn’t get out of his mind. The two boys forced to have sex with their mothers while their families watched. Their sisters and fathers. The image was more horrific than anything he’d dealt with in LA. More devastating. More radioactive. He knew that he would be living with this gruesome reality for the rest of time, and it made him angry.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up and saw Kate Brown getting into her jacket.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat and call it a day.”

He was surprised. The disappointment he had seen on her face in the conference room was completely gone. He nodded, packed up his things, and grabbed his jacket. Kate Brown was a tough read.

As they exited the building and headed south on Sixth Street, Matt slung his briefcase over his shoulder and lit a Marlboro. When Brown tapped her first two fingers together, he handed over the cigarette and watched her take a drag.

“Where do you want to go?” he said.

“I know a quiet place off Walnut.”

They walked the next block and a half sharing the cigarette but not speaking. When they reached Walnut, Matt checked the light at the corner and spotted Dr. Westbrook scurrying across the street. He gave Brown a nudge with his elbow and picked up the pace.

“Hey, Westbrook,” he called out. “Wait up.”

Dr. Westbrook turned and didn’t seem very pleased to see them.

“I want to ask you something,” Matt said.

“What is it?” he said in an impatient voice. “I’m meeting someone.”

“I want to know what a profile would look like if we didn’t already know that Dr. Baylor was the one.”

Westbrook glanced at Brown, then gave Matt a long look without saying anything.

Matt took a step closer. “What would the profile look like, Doctor? You must have considered the possibility. With your reputation, I can’t believe that you’d take anything at face value.”

Matt followed Dr. Westbrook’s eyes to all the people walking up and down the sidewalk. They were standing at one of the entrances to Washington Square.

“Let’s go into the park,” Westbrook said in a lower voice.

Matt traded looks with Brown as they followed the profiler into the square. He could tell that Brown was nervous. That this wasn’t the corporate way. That if either Doyle or Rogers found out that Matt was continuing to pursue an alternate line in the murder cases, there would be more trouble.

Westbrook stopped at the first bench, looked around, and seemed okay with the surroundings. Matt checked the shadows and didn’t see anyone within earshot.

“What is it, Dr. Westbrook? If Baylor was out of the picture, what would the profile look like?”

Westbrook glanced at Brown again—tossing something over in his mind—then gave Matt a hard look. “If Baylor was out of the picture, if his fingerprints hadn’t turned up, I’d be looking for a white male in his twenties. A white male still living with his mother, probably abused by her in some fundamental way and for a long period of time. I’d say that he was probably abused from as far back as he can remember. Based on who his victims are, I’d be looking for someone without much money, someone feeding a fantasy of a happier, richer life that’s out of reach and impossible to obtain.”

Pay dirt. And Dr. Westbrook was no idiot. Matt lit another Marlboro.

“So what you’re saying, Doctor, is that if Baylor wasn’t on the map, we’d be looking for a sexually abused white male who’s seeking a way out of his despair by selecting victims and then punishing them for his situation, a private hell, a world he can’t seem to escape.”

Dr. Westbrook was measuring him, his eyes shimmering through his thick glasses. “I didn’t say that, Jones, but you’re quite right. He’s punishing his victims for the hand he was dealt. That’s what makes him so dangerous. So vicious. For him, there’s no end here. There’s no way out.” Dr. Westbrook raised his eyebrows and seemed amused. “But there’s no real need for a profile, is there, Jones? It’s Dr. Baylor. We already know who we’re looking for. We’re all moving down the same track.”

Matt took it in without reacting. “Because of the fingerprint.”

Dr. Westbrook hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

“Any surprises, Doctor?”

Matt watched Dr. Westbrook’s face change as he thought it over. That odd look was back in his eyes.

“Now that you mention it, Jones, I am surprised.”

“By what?”

“I’m going to make an assumption. The semen found in Mimi Holloway will turn out to be her son’s just like the semen found in Tammy Stratton belonged to her son. We won’t know for a day or two, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that the lab confirms they match.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Okay. But what’s the surprise?”

“Both boys were forced to have sex with their mothers. Now that we know this, there’s no indication that Baylor sexually abused anyone. Other than the one fingerprint found on Kaylee Stratton’s nipple, there’s no evidence of a sexual component here. Kaylee and her mother weren’t raped. You were at the autopsy today. I know that we don’t have the results from the rape kits yet, but what did the medical examiner say about the Holloways?”

Matt shook his head, trying to ward off the memory. “The girls weren’t touched,” he said. “No one was raped or violated in any way.”

Dr. Westbrook zipped up his coat. “You’ll recall that in LA and New Orleans, the sexual component was even stronger than the actual motive. No semen was ever found, but evidence of rape was loud and clear. Kaylee Stratton was seventeen. Victoria Holloway was nineteen. Both of them shared the same look and style as his first four victims. Young and normal from wealthy families with a parent who went out of their way to screw everybody. It just seems odd to me that Baylor left the girls alone.”

Matt took another hit on that Marlboro as the idea settled in. Dr. Westbrook pulled his coat tighter and turned to leave.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said. “I won’t mention our conversation to Rogers or Doyle. It’s probably best for all concerned if we pretend it never happened.”

Matt shrugged. He didn’t care either way. He watched Dr. Westbrook walk off and vanish into the crowd moving up and down Walnut Street. When he turned back to Kate Brown, she motioned for his cigarette and took another deep pull.

Trouble ahead. Matt could feel it in the darkness, the raw air.