Cold Truth (20 page)

“This is all in the file. Does she have to go through this?” Chief Denver protested.

“I’m afraid so, Chief.” Annie took over again. “Cass, you saw him?”

“No, no. I didn’t see him. I wasn’t looking at him, I was looking at my sister. She had flown through the air . . . and I was wondering how she was doing that. I ran up the steps and he grabbed me.”

“From which direction?”

“I don’t know. I only remember being surprised. I don’t know where he came from. He started stabbing at me then . . . with the knife.” Cass fought to control herself, and Rick moved his chair closer to hers but did not touch her.

“Then you saw his face.”

“No. No, I didn’t. I’m sure of that,” she protested. “I think I blacked out after the first time he cut me.”

“Now, all this time, your cousin, Lucy, was outside, playing on the swings?”

“I guess she would have been, yes.”

“Did anyone talk to her about what she might have seen?” Annie directed the question to the chief.

“No. No reason to. We found the killer in the garage.” Denver’s jaw tightened. “The girl was in the backyard when we got there.”

Annie’s attention returned to Cass. “What happened next?”

“I don’t know. Chief, you would know more than I.”

“Mrs. Donovan—Cass’s aunt—started to wonder where her niece was. She got out of her car and went into the house to find out what was taking so long. She stepped inside and heard some sound—she described it as a soft moaning sound—from the kitchen. She went in, and found Wayne Fulmer—he had a room in one of those old motels out along Route Nine, hung around town most days—Wayne was crying, sitting on the floor next to Bob Burke’s body. His hands and clothes were covered in blood. According to Mrs. Donovan’s testimony, she started screaming, ‘My God, what have you done?’ And Wayne, he started screaming back at her, ‘No, no, not me. Not Wayne.’ Then he ran out the back door, and she went upstairs, screaming for her sister. She found you where you’d fallen,” he nodded to Cass, “on the steps.”

“Who called the police?” Annie asked.

“Someone driving past saw Wayne running down the road, covered with blood. By the time we got there, he had run back into the Burkes’ garage to hide, that’s where we found him.”

“Was the knife recovered?” Rick asked.

“We found it on the floor at the bottom of the steps.”

“Prints?”

“The handle and blade were so slick with blood, we couldn’t get a print.”

The chief slanted a glance in Cass’s direction to see her reaction, but there was none.

“When you questioned him about why he was there, what did he tell you?” Rick asked.

“Said he’d run into Bob down at the marina an hour earlier and that Bob told him he’d had a big catch, that if he stopped by the house, Bob would give him some fish.”

He began to fiddle with his glasses.

“You have to try to understand how this hit the community. Everyone in town knew and liked the Burkes. Bob’s family lived here before there was a town. Nothing like this had ever happened in Bowers before. As far as I knew, nothing like this had happened anywhere around here. It left everyone speechless. Everyone was up in arms when the news leaked out about us finding Wayne hiding in the garage. That we had had that murderous scum living right here in Bowers Inlet, walking our streets . . . well, people were pretty outraged. But relieved, you know, that he’d been locked up.”

“Frankenstein’s monster,” Annie murmured.

“What?” Denver frowned.

“The scene from the old
Frankenstein
movie just popped into my head. The one where the angry mob is chasing the creature.”

“We were angry, Dr. McCall. Good people—a wonderful family—had been massacred in their own home. Everyone felt that if it happened to them, it could happen to anyone.”

Denver sighed heavily. “I knew Bob and Jenny, had known them all my life. My brother had gone to school with them, and back in high school, he had the biggest crush on Jenny.”

The chief felt everyone’s eyes on him then, and shook his head. “Don’t even think it could have been him. We lost him in Vietnam. He was long gone, come the summer of ’79.”

He cleared his throat.

“Anyway, we were talking about the day . . . that day. We—me and Jack Cameron, he’s dead now about six or seven years—we went into the house, and it was like walking into a horror movie. Cassie was there on the floor upstairs, covered with blood. We thought she was . . . well, we thought there were no survivors. Then we noticed that she seemed to move, and we called an ambulance. Gave her mouth-to-mouth to try to keep her going.” He wiped a tear from his face without seeming to notice he had done so. “I’d never seen anything like it. The carnage. That little girl, her neck snapped like it was a twig. And Jenny there on the bedroom floor . . . Bob on the floor in the kitchen. And Wayne Fulmer cowering in the garage, whimpering and shaking and covered in Bob’s blood.” He looked at Rick. “Who would you have thought did it, Agent Cisco, if you’d walked into that scene?”

“Well, I admit it looks pretty bad for Wayne.”

“We had no DNA back then, just fingerprinting. And that wasn’t always accurate, depending on who was reading the prints. None of this electronic matching. No profilers to come in and tell us what kind of personality we were supposed to be looking for.” He stared at Annie with dull resentment.

“Chief, I’m sorry. We’re not accusing you, we’re not judging you—” Annie began, but he cut her off.

“Yes you were, Dr. McCall. You were judging, and you were criticizing and you were accusing us of shoddy police work. Don’t judge our actions or our decisions twenty-six years ago by the way we do things today. We didn’t have the tools back then.” Denver got up and left the room before anyone could stop him.

“Shit,” Rick said softly.

Cass rose to go after her boss.

“Let me, Cassie. This was my fault. I’ll talk to him.” Rick followed Denver from the room.

“Cass, could we finish up here? I only have a few more questions for you.” Annie reached over and laid a hand on Cass’s arm.

“I think I should go in and see if he’s okay.” She gestured in the direction of the chief’s office.

“Rick made the mess, Cass. He’ll clean it up.”

“All right. I’ll give him five minutes to come back in. If he hasn’t cooled off and come back by then, I’m going to go and talk to him. It usually doesn’t take him much more than that to calm down, no matter what he’s angry about.”

Just then, Cass’s cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number displayed on the small screen.

“I need to take this,” she told Annie.

“Khaliyah. How are you?” She rose and walked to the window.

“I’m okay, Cassie. I was wondering how you are. I saw on the news, about your cousin. I wanted to make sure that you . . .” The girl paused, her voice shaky. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay, that’s all.”

“That’s really sweet of you. I appreciate the call. But I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m fine.”

“I went by your house and saw the cops there and stuff and the yellow tape all around the place and I got scared,” Khaliyah admitted.

“No reason to be scared.”

“I wanted you to know you can come and stay here, with me, if you need a place to stay.”

“That is the nicest offer. Thank you, Khaliyah. But I have a place.”

“Someplace safe?”

“Absolutely safe, yes.” Cass’s throat caught, so touched was she by her young friend’s concern.

“But if anything changes, if you need to . . .”

“You will be the first person I call. Promise.”

“I guess our one-on-one is off for a while.”

“Nah. I’ll be there.”

“You will?”

“You betcha.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Cass hesitated for a moment, then added, “But let’s try to get there a little earlier this week. That way we can wrap up while it’s still light.”

“Okay. Six?”

“Six is good. Unless you hear otherwise from me.”

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

“Khaliyah . . .”

“What?”

“Ask Jameer if he can drive you this week, okay? Until this is over? I don’t think you want to be walking around town.”

“Okay. I’ll ask him.”

“If he can’t, you’ll call me, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you then. And thanks, Khaliyah.” Cass closed her phone and dropped it into her pocket.

“Sorry,” she said to Annie. “Where were we?”

“We were—” The door opened behind Annie and she turned in time to see Rick and the chief coming back into the room.

“Sorry for the interruption.” Chief Denver nodded at both women.

He took his seat at the head of the table, and Rick sat down next to Cass again as if nothing had happened.

“What else did you want to ask me?” Cass asked Annie.

“Do you remember anything else about that day? Do you have any other images in your mind?”

“Going down the steps for breakfast, behind my mother. Thinking she looked so pretty. That I’d never be as pretty as she was.”

“What was she wearing?”

“A white shirt. Pink-and-white Capri pants,” she answered without hesitation. “She had her hair tied back in a ponytail, like she always did, and it was swinging . . .”

She demonstrated with one hand.

“I used to untie it whenever I could. It was sort of a silly game between us. That morning as we were going down the steps, I reached out and grabbed hold of the ribbon and pulled it, thinking her hair would fall free, but she had used a rubber band, too, so the ponytail stayed. She laughed, like she’d outsmarted me that day, and she tied the ribbon back into her hair.”

“Maybe we should give Cass a break,” Rick said abruptly, looking directly at Annie. “I think we could all use a little break.”

Cass frowned. “We just had a little break.”

“Oh. Excellent idea.” Annie had noticed his expression, which said,
Just trust me.
“You know, I sat for several hours in the car on my way over here, and I would dearly love a chance to stretch my legs.”

She turned to Cass and asked, “Is there any place close by where I could get ice cream? I’m dying for an ice-cream cone.”

“There’s a place a few blocks from here.”

“Would you mind showing me? Are you up for a little walk?”

“Sure. Why not? Let me get my purse. I put it in my office.”

After Cass left the room, Annie turned to Rick and asked softly, “How much time do you want?”

“As much time as you can give me.”

Annie nodded, and walked into the hall, closing the door behind her.

Rick turned to the chief and said, “We really need to look at the Burke homicide file, Chief. I’m sorry. I meant what I said back in your office. I’m not trying to step on your toes and I’ll apologize in advance if you think otherwise. But right now, I need to see that file if it’s still around.”

“Of course it’s still around. There are a couple of boxes of stuff that we found at the scene. We’re not total rubes, you know,” Denver snapped. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Whatever the evidence can tell us. Whatever there is that can tell us something we don’t already know.”

T
wenty

“You’re sure this is everything?” Rick looked up at Denver. He’d just gone through the contents of the three boxes of evidence that they’d lugged in from the department’s storage room at the end of the hall, where they’d been since being moved from the garage of the former chief of police when the new municipal building was dedicated. “These are the only boxes?”

“That’s all we have. Three boxes. I can vouch for that myself. All we ever had.”

“Any chance that another box of evidence was left in the garage when this stuff was moved here? A smaller box, maybe, that could have been overlooked?”

“No. I was one of the officers who cleaned out the chief’s garage after he died and brought the files here and put them in the storage room. I can tell you, every speck of evidence that was put in there came back out. The room is always locked, and Phyllis has the only key. You want something, you have to ask her for it, like we had to do.”

“The chief . . . what was his name?”

“Wainwright.”

“How was it that all your evidence boxes found their way into Chief Wainwright’s garage, anyway?”

“No other place to store the stuff. The old station was only three small rooms.” Denver shrugged. “Didn’t seem like a big deal back then. We didn’t think about things like chain of control or evidence being tampered with. We didn’t have anyplace else to store the old files, so when he built that big new garage, we took over part of it. Besides, it was a solved case. We had our man. He’d been tried and convicted. You can say what you want now, Agent Cisco, but that jury was convinced. There was no damned reason to think that anyone other than Wayne Fulmer was involved. I’m still not certain there is now.”

“Let’s both keep an open mind, Chief. I’ll allow that the evidence was pretty solid against Wayne and you’ll allow that maybe things weren’t what they seemed at the time. Now, what did Chief Wainwright keep in the other part of the garage?”

“He had an old car he was working on. Restoring. Don’t remember what it was, frankly.”

“So anyone could have gone into the garage and gone through the boxes?”

Denver frowned. “Not likely. Wainwright’s property was all fenced in back there. Top of that, he had the biggest, meanest dog on the Jersey Shore, had the run of that garage. The chief had one of those dog doors and the dog used to come and go. I can tell you from my own experience, that was one unfriendly dog. I can’t imagine a stranger getting past him.”

Rick took one more quick look through the box holding Jenny Burke’s clothing.

“You want to tell me what it is you’re looking for?”

“First thing, I’m looking for the ribbon Jenny had in her hair that morning. Cass said she wore a ribbon in her hair.”

“Yeah, I remember seeing it at the trial. The hair ribbon, her earrings. A thin gold chain she wore around her neck, it had a little heart on it. All those little things were in separate envelopes.”

Denver looked at the inventory.

“Says here there’s a ribbon, look right here.
One pink ribbon.
” Denver leaned over the side of the box, pushing Rick aside. “It went in, it’s still here . . .”

He rooted around in the box for a few minutes, muttering, “Could’a fallen out of the envelope, gotta be in here someplace . . .” then looked up, puzzled.

“It’s not here.”

“I didn’t see it, either.”

“Where could it be?” Denver frowned. “It would have gone in, right after the trial.”

He began to remove items from the box, one by one.

“Here’s the chain with the heart . . . the earrings. No ribbon. Maybe in this box . . .” Denver started searching through a second box. When he came up empty-handed, he moved on to the third.

“Why would someone take the ribbon and leave the gold jewelry?” Rick wondered aloud.

“Right. If you were going to steal from the evidence box, why wouldn’t you take the items that had some value? Of what use is—” Denver stopped in mid-sentence and turned to look at Rick.

“Those pink fibers the lab found in the victims’ hair,” he said flatly.

“That’s what I’m thinking. Question is, how did he get it?”

“How did who get what?” Cass came into the room, followed by Annie, who, realizing that Rick could have used a little more time, gave him an apologetic smile. “We got you both some ice cream.”

Cass proceeded to unpack the bag. “Chocolate for the chief . . . I know that’s his favorite. Annie thought you liked coffee, Rick.”

Rick nodded. “I do. Thanks.”

“What’s in the boxes?” Cass frowned, then glanced at the label on the side of the box closest to the end of the table.

Burke homicide.

Cass looked from Rick to the chief and back again.

“You know, you didn’t have to send me out for ice cream, as if I were a child.” She addressed the men, angry with both. “I’m really insulted neither of you thought I could deal with this, that I wasn’t professional enough or stable enough—”

“Don’t blame them,” Annie interrupted. “That was me. I could tell from Rick’s expression that something was bothering him and it appeared he needed us to clear out. I wasn’t sure why. Ice cream was the only thing I could think of, since I skipped lunch and ice cream is the first thing I ever think of when I’m hungry. I apologize. It wasn’t intended as anything more than a means to buy Rick a little time for . . . whatever it was he wanted to do.”

“Apparently what he wanted to do was go through the evidence without me present. I’m not that fragile, Rick. I know what evidence boxes contain. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been a detective for several years, I’ve seen dead bodies . . . hell, who do you think took the photos of those victims?” She pointed to the stack on the table.

“I’m sorry, Cass. It just occurred to me to look for something specific, and I didn’t want you to be upset if we found it.” He blew out a long breath. “I’m sorry. I was absolutely out of line. I should have thought it through. If I had, I would have realized that you didn’t need to be patronized. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Find what you were looking for?”

“No.”

“And what was it, may I ask?”

“The ribbon you pulled out of your mother’s hair that morning.”

“It wasn’t there?” She frowned.

“It’s gone. The chief remembers that it had been there after the trial. But it’s gone now.”

“He took it. He has it.” Cass stared up at Rick, her anger pushed aside for now. “The fibers Tasha found . . . she said it was from ribbon that hasn’t been manufactured for years . . .”

“How’s that fit in with your profile, Dr. McCall?” Denver asked.

Annie set her bag on the conference table and reopened the file. She drew out the envelope of photographs the chief had given her when she arrived and spread the pictures across the table. Without being asked, Denver took a folder from one of the boxes and removed a photo, which he handed to Annie. She studied it for several minutes, then placed it on the table, ahead of the others.

“This puts it all into perspective,” she said matter-of-factly. “This has it all make sense.”

Her eyes went from crime scene photo to crime scene photo.

“Explain it to me, then, because I’m not following.” Denver crossed his arms over his chest. “How do you explain the fact that he killed all the Burkes? Except you, of course, Cass, though God knows he tried.” He paused to ask her, “Are you sure you’re up to this? You know, no one would think less of you. This is your family we’re talking about here.”

Cass waved away his concern and nodded. She’d never seen the photos of the crime scene from her own house, and, despite her bravado, wasn’t looking forward to it now. At that moment, her pride kept her in her seat and focused on the photos on the table between her and Annie.

“See, I’m saying the Burke homicides don’t fit the pattern, Dr. McCall. Jenny Burke was attacked along with her whole family. And Jenny Burke was not raped. All the other victims were attacked alone—every one of them raped and strangled—none of them in their homes.”

“It all falls into place when you realize that Jenny Burke was his first victim.” Annie turned to Cass. “Earlier you said your father always left the house very early in the morning. That he took charters out on a regular basis.”

“That’s right. He fished just about every day, took charters out at least five times a week in the warm months.”

“What time did he usually arrive home?”

“It must have been around four-thirty, most days. I don’t know that I could tell time when I was six, but I do remember my mother saying, ‘It’s time to clean up for dinner, Daddy will be home before the clock strikes five.’ Knowing now what I know about charters, I’d guess that by the time he got back to the marina and tied up the boat, cleaned it up from the trip so it was ready to go again the next day, four-thirty might be closer. If they had a really good morning, though, if the fish were running really strong and everyone in the party caught what they wanted, he’d have brought the boat back in early. There would have been no reason to stay out.”

“Which apparently was the case on that day.”

“According to Henry Stone—he worked for Bob—they were back to the dock by twelve-thirty, and left for home shortly before one,” Denver told her. “Actually, when Bob was attacked, he was standing at the kitchen sink, cleaning that morning’s catch. Had his back to the door.”

“And what time did the attack occur?” Annie asked.

“We got to the house around two-thirty or so, I think. So it had to be before that.”

“Earlier I said I thought our man was young. Disorganized. That maybe this had been his first kill. Now I’m convinced that was the case.” Annie lowered herself into her seat. “I don’t think he went to the Burke house intending to kill anyone. I think he went there to see Jenny—he knew her from someplace. I think he was totally fixated on her. Maybe he fancied himself in love with her. Maybe he fancied that she was in love with him.”

“Obsessed,” Rick offered.

“Exactly.” Her gaze returned to the photos. “See how Jenny’s body is positioned? She’s fallen onto her side, her arms are over her head. And every one of his subsequent victims is in the same position, the more recent ones more carefully staged. I think he’s carried that picture—that memory of Jenny—in his head for all these years.”

“You’re saying you think he’s killing her over and over?” Cass asked.

“I think it’s more accurate to say that each time he’s hoping it ends differently,” Annie murmured. “I think he attacks these women because they remind him of Jenny, but each time he’s thinking, ‘This time I’ll get it right. She won’t fight me, I won’t have to hurt her.’”

“How could he possibly think a woman isn’t going to fight being raped and strangled?” Cass asked.

“He doesn’t think of it as rape. He thinks his victim wants to be intimate with him. He only strangles her when she doesn’t cooperate,” Annie explained.

“Then you think that he believed that my mother wanted to have sex with him?” Cass asked, indignation on the rise.

“I think he did believe that, yes. Which is no reflection on your mother. Please keep in mind, we’re talking about a delusional personality here.” Annie opened the Styrofoam container that held her ice cream, and almost unconsciously began to swipe off small bites with the plastic spoon. “Assuming that we’ve discovered the why, we still need to discover the who.”

She licked at the spoon, a faraway look on her face.

“Who would she have been in contact with . . . someone young, inexperienced . . .”

“The department secretary and I have been going through yearbooks, trying to compile a list of who would have been around back then, who’s back in town now. Within a certain age limit, of course.” Denver explained to Annie that a large multiclass reunion was occurring that week. “We’re trying to pin down some likely suspects, but our list is only partially complete.”

“What criteria are you using to cut the list?”

“Well, since we got word that there were other identical killings, in different states—even different countries—over the years, we figured someone whose job required them to move around a lot. Or someone in the military, perhaps,” Denver said.

“Peyton is going to put the names into the Bureau’s computer, see what spills out, once the list is complete,” Rick said.

Denver remained skeptical. “I’m still not sold one hundred percent on your theory that the Burkes were killed by the same man, Dr. McCall. How do you explain the fact that Jenny wasn’t raped and all the others were?”

“Jenny Burke’s clothes were ripped, according to the report you sent me, Chief. He didn’t rape her, because he was interrupted. Which probably infuriated him. Bad enough that he hadn’t expected her husband to be there, bad enough that he had to kill him. Which must have rattled him big-time. He would have panicked when he found that she wasn’t alone in the house.” Annie appeared to be speaking to herself. “That would have thrown him off completely.”

Rick nodded. “I’m following you. He comes into the house, expecting it to be empty, except for Jenny, who he might even think is expecting him, that she wants him to come to her. He sees Bob in the kitchen, and maybe acts impulsively, sees the knife and uses it. Then he goes upstairs, probably covered in Bob’s blood . . .”

Rick stole a glance at Cass. She was white, but holding her own.
Trying to be professional, even while the details of her parents’ deaths are being discussed,
he thought.

Denver told them, “Jenny’s clothes had blots of Bob’s blood. We thought she was surprised upstairs, and tried to fight him off . . .”

“Which would have confused and incensed him,” Cass added a comment for the first time.

“It’s likely that you and your sister arrived home at right about that time,” Annie said. “And then he really panicked. Your mother would have tried to warn you.”

“So he panicked again and strangled her. When Trish came up the steps, he was probably in a rage.” Cass squeezed her eyes closed. “And when I came in . . .”

“He would have been completely out of control by then. Totally out of his league. He panicked and ran out of the house . . .” Rick paused. “Why didn’t anyone see him?”