Cold Truth (19 page)

She swallowed a lump and tried to smile. “It’s funny what you remember, isn’t it? The things you remember from your childhood?”

Cass sighed, and looked up at him. “What do you remember from your childhood, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”

“Falling out of the hayloft in my grandparents’ barn when I was three,” he answered without hesitation.

“Were you hurt?”

“Broke both arms.” He moved aside the hair that hung slightly over his forehead to show off a jagged scar. “Landed face-first on the dirt floor.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t crack your skull open.”

“Apparently I had a hard head. I also took some hay with me when I pitched off the loft.”

“Like I said, lucky.”

“It was only the first in a long series of mishaps. I had a bumpy childhood. I was a bit on the reckless side, I guess.”

“Did you spend a lot of time on your grandparents’ farm? Is this the grandmother who taught you how to bake?”

He smiled that she remembered.

“Yes. I lived with them pretty much until I was five.”

“And after that?”

“I still spent a lot of time with them. I just didn’t live with them full-time.”

“And your family? Brothers? Sisters?”

“Two half brothers, two half sisters. All younger. One mother, one stepfather.”

“What happened to your father?”

“I never got to know my biological father very well. I was the product of a youthful indiscretion, as the saying goes. My mother married my stepfather when I was five. He’s really the only father I know.”

“They’re still in Texas?”

“Yes. All of them.”

“Do you go back often?”

“Not so much anymore,” he said softly. “I did while my gram was still alive, but now there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to the trip.”

Cass wished she could ask about that—about why there would be no point to visiting his mother or the others—but knew better than to pry. She knew what it was like to carry around things you hated to talk about, about the feeling you got when someone started to probe amongst all those places you kept to yourself. As sure as she had her secrets, Rick Cisco had some of his own.

She found herself hoping that maybe someday she’d find out what they were.

Rick looked at his watch.

“The afternoon is just about gone. You want to hang around here for a while longer?”

“I guess not.” She glanced up. The sun was well off to the west. “We missed breakfast. And lunch. We should probably get something to eat.”

“Amen to that.”

She smiled. “There’s a place not far down the road that makes great burgers.”

“You’re reading my mind.” Rick stood up, suddenly aware that he was still holding on to her hand. He pulled her off the step, but did not let go. “Feel any better?”

“I do. A little. Maybe a little more at peace.” She made no effort to pull her hand away as they walked toward the car. “I always feel more settled after I’ve been here for a while. I know that must sound crazy, after everything that happened here.”

She smiled almost apologetically and added, “We were such a happy family, Rick. I know, it’s easy to idealize your childhood, your family . . . but truly, we were all very happy.”

She stood next to the car and looked back at the house, her eyes darting from one window to the next before focusing on a bay window on the second floor. He followed her gaze, but saw nothing there.

Maybe she’s imagining someone there,
Rick thought as he walked around the front of the car.
Could be she needs to see someone there. Well, if it gives her comfort, who’s to say . . .

He glanced up again as he opened his car door, and for a split second wasn’t sure that he hadn’t seen something in the bay window. A shadow maybe. He looked over the roof of the car to where she stood, then back up to the window. Whatever he’d thought he’d seen was gone.

Power of suggestion,
he told himself as he got behind the wheel.
Nothing more than that.

N
ineteen

Through the open conference room door, Cass could hear the approaching
click click click
of high heels on the tile floor as they moved briskly, efficiently, in her direction. She looked up at the precise moment that the wearer of those shoes stepped over the threshold.

“Ah, here’s Dr. McCall,” Rick announced, and rose to greet the attractive blond woman who carried herself and her handsome leather briefcase with confidence.

“Agent Cisco.” She smiled. “And you must be Chief Denver.”

She left her briefcase on the chair nearest her and walked to the head of the table to offer her hand, which Denver shook somewhat gently.

“Thanks for coming, Dr. McCall.”

She nodded and moved on to the next chair, where Cass sat.

Rick made the introductions. “Annie—Dr. McCall—this is Cass Burke. Detective Burke.”

“It’s good to meet you.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr. McCall,” Cass said. “Agents Peyton and Cisco tell me you’re one of the best at what you do.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have formed your own opinion by the time we’re through here.” She looked at the empty chairs that stood around the table and asked, “Where is Agent Peyton? I understood he’d be sitting in on this meeting.”

“I spoke with him about an hour ago,” Rick told her. “He’s been tracking information about some older kills that he believes may be related to these. He said something about being in the middle of receiving some faxes and wanting to stay until everything had come through.”

“Then he’ll be along in his own time. Or not, knowing him. He did say he had information that would put a new light on what’s going on here.” She returned to her place at the table. To Rick, she said, “Let’s hope he makes it in the next twenty-four hours. We both know how he is once he gets a hold on something. He has a tendency to lose track of time.”

“Annie—um, Dr. McCall . . .” Rick started.

“Let’s keep this somewhat informal, Rick. I have no problem with first names, if everyone agrees?” She glanced around the table. Cass and Denver nodded.

“Go ahead, Rick, you were about to say . . .”

“I was going to ask if you’d had an opportunity to review the files we sent.”

“Not as thoroughly as I’d have liked, but I did get through most of it.” She opened her briefcase and took out a pad of yellow legal paper, skimmed several pages of notes, then folded the pages back until she came to a blank sheet. “It appears you have a serial killer—apparently the same one you had . . . let’s see, twenty-some years ago.”

Denver nodded. “That’s correct.”

“But no suspects, then or now.”

“Right again.”

“You were on the force at the time?”

“Yes.”

“Then I would think you’d be the obvious one to start with, Chief. Since I didn’t have time to completely read through everything, why not bring me up-to-date. From then till now.”

Annie sat back in her chair while the chief recited all the known facts about their killer. As she did so, Cass studied the profiler, who wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Dr. McCall—Annie—appeared to be in her mid-thirties, and was so petite, she made Cass feel uncomfortably like an Amazon in comparison.

A somewhat slovenly Amazon, at that. Cass looked down at the clothes she had pulled on in haste earlier in the day. Light gray sweatpants and a short-sleeved sweatshirt. At least they matched, she reminded herself.

In contrast, the profiler wore a linen suit that had yet to wilt, a pale pink tank under the unlined jacket. She wore large round gold earrings, and a gold bracelet next to a watch with a brown leather strap. The diamond on the ring finger of her left hand caught the afternoon sun from the adjacent window. Her makeup was perfect, not overly done, just enough to enhance, as Lucy would have said.

At the thought of Lucy, Cass rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. Poor Lucy. That she had been attacked was bad enough. How would she feel if she was forced to recover back in Hopewell, with that miserable excuse for a husband . . .

“Cass?” Rick touched her arm.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Annie was asking if there was anything else you picked up from the crime scene that you might want to add.”

Cass gave it some thought before shaking her head. “Nothing that isn’t in the reports. I tried to be as thorough as possible.”

“And the reports from the other towns . . . ?” Annie looked back at her notes. “Dewey. Hasboro?”

“We haven’t received all the written reports yet,” Chief Denver told her, “but in speaking with the chiefs of police in each of those towns, I can tell you we have identical crime scenes.”

“With the victims posed in the same manner?” she asked.

Denver nodded.

“I wonder, Chief, if you could call those chiefs of police and request that they fax over the crime scene photos?”

“I’ve already asked, Dr. McCall. We only received the ones from Dewey.”

“I’ll take a look at those, if I could. Meanwhile, Rick, please put a call in to home base and request that someone call the Hasboro police chief and remind him Chief Denver is still waiting for copies of their files.” She smiled. “Remind him it isn’t nice to not share.”

Rick excused himself from the room.

“May I see the original photos from your crime scenes?” Annie asked. “Only the recent ones for now.”

Denver handed her several envelopes. The profiler removed the photos, one by one, studying each, occasionally glancing back at her notes.

“So we have someone who is highly organized. He’s studied his victims well enough to know where they go and when they’re most vulnerable. Obviously, the fact that these women are all of the same general physical appearance is key. He’s repeating something. Over the years, he’s perfected his technique. Brings everything he needs with him, leaves little behind.” Her voice was low, as if speaking more to herself than the others at the table. “And he’s fixated on leaving them in a particular manner. The posing, the hair fanned out . . .”

She tapped her fingers on the table absently, then looked at the chief.

“Are there photos of the earlier victims? The ones from 1979?”

“Not as many, and not as good. Back then, I remember we thought it was a little ghoulish to take as many pictures of the body as we do now, from all the different angles.” He passed several envelopes to the opposite end of the table. “I wish we’d taken more.”

Annie poured over the images of the old crime scenes.

“Are these in order?” She frowned. “I’d like to see them in order, to study the progression.”

Denver started out of his seat, but Cass had already slid down a few chairs.

“They should go like this,” she was saying. “Alicia Coors, she was the first one. Here in Bowers. Then Carol Jo Hughes—also in Bowers—then Cindy Shelkirk. She was the first victim in one of the other bay towns, she was killed in Tilden. Terry List, she was from Dewey. Mary Pat Engles . . . Tilden . . .”

And so on, through all thirteen victims. Annie sat quietly and watched Cass as she placed the victims in order of their deaths.

“Well, then, let’s take a look and see what these ladies have to tell us.” Annie’s eyes went from one to the next.

“He was much younger then, I’d say. Not yet an adult. He was unskilled in this business, these first times out. And he didn’t have his game on back then. He hadn’t evolved.”

“What do you mean?” Cass asked. “He hadn’t evolved into what?”

“Into the methodical killer he is now,” Annie responded without hesitation. “Here, in these early kills, these crime scenes have little in common with the recent ones. There’s no thought whatsoever to placement of the body . . . see how carefully the arms and legs have been positioned in these current scenes? Back then, it was all about the killing. There seems to have been an anger, a recklessness at work there that I don’t see in your latest victims. Notice the bruises on the side of this woman’s face? He smacked her around a bit before he got down to business. And this one, too. His technique was raw then, the killing had an almost desperate quality.” She paused to take a sip of water from a bottle she retrieved from her oversized handbag. “The current kills are almost passionless.”

She screwed the white plastic cap back on the bottle as Rick came into the room and gave her a thumbs-up, meaning the requested files would be on their way. She nodded an acknowledgment and continued.

“The victims themselves, though, there’s where he was making his statement back then. All around the same age, same body type, and of course, the hair. Whoever he was killing, over and over, he had been totally fixated on her hair . . .”

“Ah, Annie, I think there’s something you need to know that isn’t in that file we sent you,” Rick said.

“Oh?”

Rick turned to Cass as if asking a silent question, to which she responded with a slow nod.

“Cass’s mother was the victim of a murder here in Bowers Inlet twenty-six years ago. Her entire family was attacked. Cass was the only survivor.”

Denver bristled. “That was completely different, I told you. Why are you bringing it up?”

“Chief, I can’t help but see the similarities—”

“What similarities? Don’t you think if there’d been similarities, we’d have noticed?”

“—and with Lucy being attacked—Lucy, who looks so much like Cass’s mother . . .”

“Whoa, wait a minute. I don’t have a victim named Lucy.” Annie skimmed her notes. “Who’s Lucy?”

“Lucy is my cousin. She’s been staying with me for the past week,” Cass told her. “Sunday night, she was attacked.”

“By this killer?” Annie tapped on the photos.

“We believe so.”

Before she could say anything else, Rick touched Cass on the arm and said, “Tell her what Lucy told you.”

“He called her Jenny,” Cass said. “Repeatedly. He called her Jenny the entire time.”

“Wait, wait.” Annie held up both hands to stop them. “Start from the beginning. Who is Jenny?”

“Jenny was my mother’s name.”

“Your mother . . . who was murdered that summer.”

“Yes.”

“Before or after the other killings?”

“Before.”

“Cass . . .” Rick touched her arm. “I think you need to tell her the whole story.”

“Is this necessary?” The chief stared at Rick.

“I think it is. Annie?” Rick sought her input.

“I agree. If Cass is in agreement . . . ?”

Cass nodded.

“Let’s start by you telling me everything you remember about the day your family was attacked.” Annie paused, then asked, “Cass, may I record this interview? I’d rather be concentrating on what you’re saying instead of having to take notes.”

“Absolutely, do.”

Annie took a small recorder from her bag and placed it on the table between her and Cass. After the initial introduction and the asking and granting of permission to record, Annie repeated the question.

“Cass, can you tell us what you remember about the day of the attack on your family? What is the first thing you remember?”

“I woke up early—the sun wasn’t up yet. I went into the bathroom and it was still dark, but I heard my father downstairs. He was taking a charter out that day, so he’d be gone long before dawn. I stood on the top step and was going to go down to the kitchen to ask him not to take the last brownies with him—we made them the day before, Mom and Trish and me. Well, Trish didn’t do a lot, she was only four . . .”

“How old were you, Cass?” Annie asked.

“I was six. I’d turn seven later that summer.”

“Okay, go on.”

“I was going to go downstairs, but then I heard the back door close, and I knew I’d never catch up with him. My dad was very tall and he walked really fast. By the time I’d have reached the kitchen, he’d have been in the car and backed down the drive, so I just went back to bed. My sister and I had started summer camp that week, and I was excited about going, so I couldn’t fall asleep. I was still awake when my mother came in to get me up.”

“What were you excited about?”

“Oh, just the whole camp thing. It was different from my everyday. One of my friends was having a birthday party that afternoon. It was going to be a picnic on the beach. And I was still all revved up from the day before. The bird sanctuary had been officially opened, and we’d spent the entire day there.” Cass paused momentarily, remembering. “My mother drove us in the morning—we stopped to pick up Lucy. She was my age and my best friend. When camp was over for the day, Lucy’s mother—my Aunt Kimmie, my mother’s sister—picked us up and drove us home.”

“What time was it, do you remember?”

“After lunch. Sometime around two.”

“When you arrived home, did you go directly into the house?”

“Yes. Well, that is, Trish went in first. The minute we pulled up in front of the house, she jumped out and ran for the door, crying because Aunt Kimmie was going to take Lucy and me to the party, and Trish hadn’t been invited. She ran into the house before I was even out of the car.”

Cass swallowed hard and Rick left the room momentarily. Through the open door, they heard the thump of a can of soda being ejected from the machine outside the conference room. He returned in an instant and handed the can of Diet Pepsi to Cass, the tab already popped.

“Thank you.” She took a long drink. “Thanks.”

“What happened next?” Annie asked.

“Lucy and I got out of the backseat. I went up to the house. It was so quiet . . .”

“Wait a minute. Lucy got out of the car with you?” Rick asked.

“Yes.”

Rick frowned. “I don’t remember seeing her name in any of the reports I read. Did she go into the house?”

“No.”

“Where did she go, if she didn’t go with you? Did she just stand there by the car, waiting?”

“I think . . .” Cass tried to recall. “I think she might have gone into the backyard. I think she said she was going to wait on the swings. You saw them, they’re still there, in the yard. To the far right of the house.”

He nodded.

“Anyway, I went inside. I heard something on the second floor, so I started up the steps. It all happened so fast after that. I saw . . . I saw Trish. He threw her.” Cass’s hands began to shake. “He just picked her up and threw her, like a doll.”