The Next Victim (12 page)

"Really?" This was interesting. No one had mentioned that Sloane might have had an ex-lover as well as an ex-husband. Affairs of the heart were always worth looking at where motive was concerned. "What do you know about him?"

"She didn't talk about it much." Janet sounded miffed at not being in the loop. "I don't suppose it's important anyway. The police have a pretty good idea who did it, don't they?"

"There's some question whether they're right," Sabrina said emphatically.

"Oh, I hadn't heard that. I certainly hope they aren't thinking it was some random nut case. It's frightening enough as it is."

A young voice called out from the street. "Mom! Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you."

"I'm coming, Beck." Janet scooped up the dog, who'd been busily sniffing Kali's feet. "If there's any way I can help, tell the family to give me a call. Fisher. It's in the phone book."

When she'd gone, Kali held up the house key. "Show me where this goes, will you? Then let's go see if Les Billings is in."

The Billings house had the same type of circular gravel driveway as Sloane's, but the yard was landscaped with metal sculptures of desert animals instead of live plants. The door was answered by a skinny man in baggy Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with what looked like mustard stains down the front. Kali guessed he was in his early sixties.

"You two look too pretty to be Jehovah's Witnesses," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

Kali humored him with a chuckle. "Mr. Billings?"

"That's right."

"We'd like to talk to you about the car you saw the night Mrs. Winslow was killed."

"You're reporters?"

"I'm a lawyer," Kali replied, a nonanswer that sometimes worked.

Sabrina piped in with a cheery "And I'm her assistant."

"My older son's a lawyer. The other one," he said with a grin, "could be a perpetual client. What is it you want to know?"

"Can you walk us through what you told the police?" Kali asked.

"There isn't really much to tell."

"We'd like to hear what you observed."

Sabrina nodded. "It's important we hear it in your own words."

Kali shot her a silencing look, but Sabrina was busy batting her eyelashes and probably missed it.

"Well," Les Billings said, "I was coming home from a very long and boring evening with my brother and his wife when I saw a silver Porsche parked in Sloane Winslow's driveway. It was a car I'd not seen there before. It started up and pulled away just as I drove past, and I saw that one of the taillights was broken."

"Did you get a look at the driver?"

"Not a good look. My impression was of a male, but I couldn't swear to it."

Equivocating witness testimony might earn points for the defense in the courtroom, but unfortunately it wasn't going to help them now.

"What time was this?" Kali asked.

"About eleven."

"Did you see anyone else? Any other unusual cars on the street?"

Les Billings shook his head. "But I wasn't really looking, either. It's just that the Porsche caught my eye, especially starting up just as I drove past."

As Sabrina had remarked, it was a foolish killer who parked his car in plain view. Kali now added her own corollary: it was equally foolish to draw attention to yourself by fleeing the scene of the crime in front of a witness.

Kali had called John many things in her life, but foolish wasn't one of them.

Erling was finishing his report on an assault of an elderly woman outside a Walgreens store when Michelle Parker appeared at his desk. She slid a plastic-encased drawing across to him.

"We've got a sketch of our Jane Doe," she said, brushing the hair from her face, "but no match with any of the missing persons reports."

Erling closed his eyes briefly, taking a moment to center himself before looking down and finally putting a face to the young woman whose nude body had been discovered two weeks ago in a wash in East County.

The coroner had pegged the time of death as a couple of weeks earlier, but the combined effects of decomposition and animal scavenging made it difficult to be certain. His best guess was that she'd choked to death on her own vomit as a result of being bound and gagged.

He estimated her age to be between sixteen and twenty.

Erling took pride in never losing sight of the fact that murder victims were more than case files. They were people with hopes, dreams, and fears. With families and friends. In living and in dying, they touched many lives. Erling carried their stories in his mind and heart; they touched him, too. And it was one of the reasons he liked working with Michelle. She felt the same.

Lately, though, he'd begun to wish he were more like his brethren who consciously distanced themselves from the crimes they were working. He'd about had his fill of perversity and death.

Erling took the black-and-white sketch from Michelle and pulled it closer. It showed a young woman with shoulder-length curls, round cheeks, and wide-set eyes. Neither homely nor beautiful, but attractive with the bloom of youth. She was more or less as he'd imagined, but seeing her likeness there on the page, as though she'd posed for a portrait at a local street fair, wrenched his heart. She was too young to have died at all, much less so tragically.

"Isabel says the mouth may not be right," Michelle told him. "She didn't have as much to work with as she'd have liked."

Isabel was the forensic artist who worked with the sheriff's department. She also taught criminology at the university. "So it's a good likeness," Erling asked, "but not perfect?"

"Right. With the identifying data of height, weight, and coloring, though, it ought to be close enough that someone will recognize her."

"Let's hope so," Erling said. He held on to the thought that somewhere this girl had family who loved her and were frantically trying to find her. He wanted that to be so, not because he wished them to suffer, but because the alternative, that no one cared about her, was worse.

Michelle reached for the sketch. "Too bad we don't have more to go on. "

"Yeah, even one little break would be nice." Nothing had turned up despite a thorough search of the area. And they'd yet to find anyone who saw the body being dumped. They didn't even have clothing or jewelry to trace.

"So we just sit on our hands and wait?" Michelle asked.

"If you've got any suggestions, feel free to share them."

She grinned at him. "When have I ever
not
shared my suggestions?" It was something of a joke between them because Michelle was much more vocal than Erling.

He managed a feeble smile in return. He liked Michelle, and she was a good partner, but he wasn't in a joking mood.

"And I actually do have an idea," she said, more seriously. "Remember the tattoo on her back? It's an unusual design. If she's local, maybe we can track down the artist and get an ID that way."

Erling nodded, though he thought the prospects of success were slim. "Give it a try," he said.

"Oh, and one of John O'Brien's sisters came by again today. Kali. She's an attorney, it turns out. She had more questions about her brother's death, and also about Sloane Winslow's murder."

Erling felt his stomach knot. "What did you tell her?"

"About the murders, not a lot. It's technically still an open case, after all. About her brother, there wasn't much to add to what we gave her yesterday. When the coroner's report comes in, I'll make sure she gets a copy."

Michelle's response had been on target. Erling felt himself relax a little. "I imagine they're having a tough time of it."

"Right." She turned to go. "Have a good weekend. See you Monday, if not before."

That was also a joke. They'd see each other before Monday only if they got called in for another homicide. This time Erling didn't even attempt a smile.

"Monday it is," he growled.

Mindy was on the computer in her room when Erling stopped in to greet her. As always, and especially in the years since Danny's death, the sight of his daughter filled his heart with bittersweet love and pride. The loss of one child made the other child all the more precious. He regarded her quietly for a moment.

Mindy complained that her softly rounded face and small mouth made her unattractive. Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton--
they
were beautiful. Erling didn't see it that way at all, and it saddened him that Mindy couldn't appreciate her own unique and very real loveliness.

"Hi, sweetheart," he said.

"Hi, Daddy," she said, without taking her eyes from the computer screen. "How's the body business?"

"Better now that the weekend's here. How was your day?"

"I've got a huge paper due Monday, and a test the same day." She groaned. "Good-bye weekend."

"The professors just sprang both on you at the last minute, I suppose."

"Ha-ha. I can't spend
all
my time studying."

He blew her a kiss and closed the door behind him when he left. It seemed like only yesterday that she and Danny had raced to him for a hug when he returned from work each evening, then peppered him with the news of their day. Now Danny was gone forever and Erling was lucky if he got thirty seconds of Mindy's attention. He felt an ache in his chest that radiated deep into his soul.

Children weren't supposed to die. But growing up, he reminded himself, was part of the natural cycle. Mindy was a young woman now. Her life no longer centered on her family. Still, if he had the power, no question he'd turn the clock back and do it all again.

Deena was standing at the sink tearing lettuce for the salad. "Hi, honey," she said, tossing the greeting over her shoulder.

The second member of his family to greet him with her back turned. Not like the early days when she'd flown into his arms. "Can I help?"

"You can put a pot of water on for the pasta."

Erling gave her a peck on the cheek. "Were the gremlins good to you today?"

"The gremlins are fine. It's their parents that I sometimes have trouble with."

"What happened?"

"Just the usual 'my kid can do no wrong.'"

"We were probably just as obnoxious when our kids were young."

"We? How many parent-teacher conferences did you attend?" Her tone was teasing rather than bitter, but the words called up past arguments and Erling felt himself grow defensive. He'd been working, for Chrissake. Logging in long, hard hours to pay the rent and put food on the table. But he knew, too, that if that clock somehow got turned back, he'd do it differently this time.

Deena handed him the pasta pot and gave his butt a playful pinch. "Fill it about two-thirds full."

"I think I can manage that."

"And if you really want to be helpful, you could set the table."

Erling put the pot of water on to boil, then got out three woven straw placemats. What did it mean that Kali O'Brien had returned with questions about Sloane's murder? Nothing, he told himself. She was a grieving sister who'd just learned that her brother was a killer. Of course she'd have questions. Anyone would. Especially a lawyer.

And that was what concerned him. He didn't want her poking around trying to discredit his case. He didn't want her running to the media with cockeyed stories of
alternative killers
.

He just wanted the whole thing to go away.

Sloane was gone from him forever. In his mind he knew she'd been gone months ago, but his heart wasn't so rational, and in the ten days since her death he'd felt the pain of losing her all over again. The anger he felt toward John O'Brien boiled in his blood every day. He was glad the bastard had gotten sloshed and ended up at the bottom of his pool. It was no worse than he deserved.

But Erling's pain and anger were mingled with relief. So far his secret had escaped detection. As long as John O'Brien remained tagged as Sloane's killer, Erling's affair with Sloane would stay hidden. The last thing he needed now was a nosy relative looking to save her brother's reputation. A nosy
lawyer
relative.

"Honey?" Deena was at the stove, stirring the marinara sauce. "I forgot to tell you--your optometrist's office left a message confirming Monday's appointment. You need to call and let them know you'll be there."

"They'll have gone home by now." He hated the practice of confirming a confirmation, but it seemed to be standard these days.

"They've got voice mail."

Erling hit caller ID to return the call. Inadvertently he hit the up arrow, rather than the down arrow, taking him to the top of the list, twenty-five calls ago. And he felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to his chest.

Two days before she'd been killed, Sloane Winslow had called his home number.

Had she left a message that Deena had forgotten to tell him about? What if she'd spoken with Deena directly? He recalled Deena's curious interest in the case. Was that because she recognized the name?

Erling's pulse raced. Beads of perspiration formed at his temples. What had Sloane wanted? What did Deena know? And with a meddling lawyer in the picture, how likely was it that Sloane's phone records would come to light?

Kali placed a call to Sloane's ex-husband, whose number she'd copied from Sloane's cell phone, and left a message. Then she took her glass of wine out onto the shaded patio, where she watched the play of light from the setting sun reflected on the Catalina Mountains. The evening was warm but not unbearable as it had been the previous night. Or maybe she was simply getting acclimated.

The rugged beauty of the desert was impressive, but it didn't soothe her like vistas of the Sierra or even the expanse of the San Francisco Bay she could see from her own back deck. In the desert, Kali felt isolated and exposed. Especially out here where John lived. She knew there were houses around, but from where she sat now, none were visible. There was no hum of human activity in the background, either. No neighbors' voices, no car doors banging or dogs barking.