Cold Truth (4 page)

Coincidence, or copycat?

We’ll know soon enough,
he thought as he tossed the photos back onto the desk.
If someone’s following in the footsteps of the original Strangler, he’ll strike again in the next week.

And then, God help us, all hell will break out.

Again.

T
hree

Cass stepped over the heap of mail that lay like poorly dealt cards on the floor inside her front door. She snapped on the nearest lamp—an ugly old porcelain thing that had belonged to her grandmother—and picked up the litter, which she proceeded to sort. Junk, junk, junk, bill, bill, junk, magazine, junk. She took the entire pile into the kitchen and tossed the junk into the trash before setting the two bills and the magazine on the counter.

She turned on the overhead light and opened the refrigerator, took out a beer, twisted off the lid, and took a long, steady drink while she listened to the messages on her answering machine. Cass wasn’t sure which aggravated her more, the hang-up, or the message from her cousin, Lucy, reminding her that she’d be coming into town next week but hadn’t yet decided how long she was staying and hoped that Cass wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Damn.

The last thing Cass wanted right now was company, who would have to be, at the worst, entertained, and at best, tolerated, for an indefinite period of time. Even if that company was one of her closest living relatives and had been, once upon a time, her closest friend.

Her rumbling stomach reminded Cass that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and suddenly that seemed like a very long time ago. She pulled one of the two chairs from the table and sat down, then pushed back the other and rested her feet on the seat and her head in her hands. Seeing the dead woman’s body that morning had shaken her more than she’d let on. Being reminded that she’d have to share her home with Lucy for the next month was merely the icing on that day’s cake.

Between now and Thursday, she’d have to find time to put fresh sheets on Lucy’s bed. Stock the kitchen with real food. Have something to drink in the refrigerator besides a six-pack of beer and some iced tea from the local convenience store.

And she’d have to find time to vacuum. Dust. Clean the bathroom. All the chores she generally put off until she could avoid them no longer. She bit the inside of her lower lip, wondering when, in the midst of a homicide investigation, she’d find time to make the house hospitable.

The fact that Lucy’s ownership in the beach house was equal to hers wasn’t lost on Cass. Their grandparents had left everything to be equally divided between their only two grandchildren. That Cass had chosen to live in the house year-round had never been an issue between the two women. Lucy, who was married and had a lovely home in Hopewell, was content with her month at the Jersey Shore every year and couldn’t care less that Cass had made the bungalow her permanent residence. God knew Cass was grateful that the other eleven months of the year she had the house to herself. And she should be grateful—she
was
grateful—that Lucy was coming alone this year and not bringing her husband and her two kids with her as she had every other year.

What was up with that, Cass wondered as she took another swig from the bottle, well aware that she was deliberately focusing on Lucy as a means to avoid thinking about the body they’d found in the marsh.

The phone rang, and Cass stood to glance at the caller ID before answering. She picked it up.

“Hello.”

She listened for several moments without response, then said merely, “Thank you. See you in the morning.”

The body now had a name and a story.

Linda Roman.

Cass leaned back against the counter and picked at the label on the beer bottle until only slim shreds remained intact, the peeled-away slivers tucked into the fist of one hand.

Linda Roman had been thirty-one years old, a year younger than Cass. She lived in Tilden, she worked in a branch of Cass’s bank, and she had a husband of four years and an eighteen-month-old daughter.

Too young to really remember her,
Cass thought. All that child would ever know of her mother she’d learn from others.

Cass sighed wearily. At least she’d been older when she’d lost her family. She had vivid memories of her mother and her father and her sister. If she tried really hard, she could almost recall the sound of their voices. Almost, but not quite. It had been a long, long time ago.

Twenty-six years this month.

And now another little girl would have a sad anniversary to mark, year after year. It occurred to Cass that what Linda Roman’s daughter would most remember of her mother would be the date on which she died.

Cass emptied the bottle into the sink and tossed it into the bin, which she rarely, if ever, remembered to put out on recycling day. She opened the refrigerator and searched for something she could reheat in the microwave for dinner, but nothing appealed to her. She called in an order for takeout and took a quick shower in the bungalow’s one small outdated bath.

It was long past time to renovate the bathroom—not to mention the kitchen—but every time Cass thought about it, and considered the options, she got a headache. Once last summer, at Lucy’s insistence, she’d made it all the way to the local home-improvement store to check out what was available, but she’d returned home in less than forty minutes, her head spinning. All she’d wanted was a simple tub with a shower, a new toilet, a new sink. Some new tile. But she’d found all the selections overwhelming and left with less of an idea of what she wanted than she’d had when she’d set out.

I like things simple,
she was thinking as she dried her hair and towel-dried her legs.
Simple, easy, basic.

The only real improvements she’d made since she’d moved in were to purchase a new microwave—a necessary fixture because it enabled her to reheat leftovers or takeout faster—and a new refrigerator, because the other one had given up the ghost three years ago. Other than those two items, she hadn’t even bothered to change the color of the walls or the old carpets.

But I will,
she assured herself.
As soon as I have time, I will.

She recognized her procrastination for what it was. Just as she recognized that for the past hour, she’d thought of anything but the body in the marsh.

Linda Roman.

Cass dressed in sweatpants and an old rugby shirt left behind by an old boyfriend, and slipped into a pair of rubber flip-flops. She rarely wore anything else on her feet in the summer months when she wasn’t working, though she’d be hard-pressed to explain why they appealed to her so much. They were not very practical, as foot-coverings went, and yet she’d bought them in almost every color she could find. Pink, yellow, red, blue, white, turquoise, and this year’s new favorite, orange.

She walked the four blocks to the new Mexican take-out restaurant and picked up her order. She considered staying and eating there—the place was almost empty—but the owner of the restaurant was all too eager to discuss the crime with her.

“Hey, Detective. You in on that investigation? The body down by Wilson’s Creek?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, were you there? Did you see it?”

“Yes, I was there.”

“Must have been something, eh?”

“Yes.”

“So, you guys got some clues? Suspects? I know they’re saying on the TV that you got no leads, but sometimes they say stuff like that to throw off the killer, you know?”

“The investigation is just beginning.” She had her wallet out, waiting for him to give her a total for her order so she could pay and escape, but he was holding on to the bag containing her food as if it were a hostage. He held her captive and was going to take advantage of the situation, so he’d have some inside dirt to dish with the breakfast crowd in the morning.

“I heard they just found out who she was. Linda Roman was her name, they said. Didn’t ring a bell with me. Did you know her?”

“No. I didn’t know her.”

“Someone who was in earlier said they knew her from the bank. You bank there?”

“Yes. Now, if I could just—”

“Say, I’ll bet my cousin Roxanne knows her.” He snapped his fingers. “She works for that bank. Different branch, but I bet they all know one another. I think I’ll give her a call and see if—”

“Dino, I hate to cut this short, but I need to get moving here.”

“Oh, right, right. Sorry.” He laughed self-consciously and rang up the total on the old-fashioned cash register. “It’s just so weird to have something like this in Bowers Inlet, you know? When I heard about it this morning, I said, ‘Hey, no way.’ Then when some of the guys from the newspaper stopped in at lunch and told us what was going down, I said, ‘No shit!’”

Cass handed over a ten-dollar bill and waved off the change, anxious to leave the small storefront and its owner’s excited curiosity. She pushed open the screen door and headed back onto the quiet streets of Bowers Inlet. The sidewalks were deserted now at almost eight
P.M.
, the other year-round residents no doubt all at home watching the special news reports pertaining to the murder. She wondered who among them might have known Linda Roman; who, behind the shades of the houses Cass now passed, might be grieving over her death. As a cop, Cass knew she shouldn’t let it get to her, but it did. God knew, it did.

She turned up the narrow walk in front of her small house, noting that once again this year the grass grew in stubborn tufts from the coarse sand in the front yard. This weekend she’d make it a point to pull it all up and rake out the sand so that it lay flat and weedless. Maybe she’d even put a pot of some kind of summery flower out there near the sidewalk. If she got around to it. Which she probably wouldn’t.

Gramma Marshall used to keep pots of petunias out there at the end of the walk. Red petunias. The pots were still in some forgotten corner of the garage. Cass had never tossed them out, but neither had she ever filled them. Lucy, on the other hand, would look for them if Cass suggested it. Lucy couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes, and had never been one to let things be.

She went up the worn wooden steps and through the screen door that opened onto the porch that ran across the front of the house, noted the screening that encased the entire porch had a rip here and there.
Put it on the list of things to do,
she told herself as she unlocked the front door and headed for the kitchen.
Just put it on the list.

Cass slid some of the burrito from the take-out container onto a plate, and took a bottle of water from the small pantry. She tucked the bottle under her arm and grabbed a fork from the drawer next to the sink and carried her dinner into the living room, where she sat on the same worn sofa she’d sat on as a child, and looked under the cushions for the TV’s remote control. She caught the special report on the day’s events on the local station, and stared at the screen as the anchor repeated all the details of Linda Roman’s sad death.

Cass sat the bottle on the coffee table and rested her elbows on her knees. She’d been fighting off a bout of melancholy since early that morning, carrying it around inside her and trying to pretend it wasn’t there. Everything she’d done all day—from the interviews she’d conducted, to the photos she’d viewed and the reports she’d written, to the beer she now swallowed—everything had been calculated to keep her from focusing on what had happened to Linda Roman in that marsh, because thinking too much could take her down roads she did not wish to travel. It was too late now, however. She’d made eye contact with the still photo of Linda and her family. She’d allowed herself to feel what Linda Roman’s child would feel, and she knew she was lost.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered as videos of Linda Roman appeared on the television screen. Linda with her husband on their wedding day. Linda with her newborn daughter. Linda and her sister on the beach with their babies not two weeks ago. Watching was making Cass sick.

Literally.

She put the water down on the table and went into the bathroom, and threw up until there was nothing left in her stomach to be expelled. Only then did she return to the living room, where she turned off the television and the outside lights, picked up her plate of food, and carried it into the kitchen, where she dumped her food into the trash. She checked the lock on the back door, and went to bed. Once under the covers, Cass curled up in a ball and mourned for Linda Roman and for all the Linda Romans whose beautiful lives had been taken from them for no reason, other than that someone had
wanted
to, that someone could.

Sleep had been a long time coming, and had not lingered long enough for Cass to shake the fatigue that had been plaguing her. On top of everything else—or perhaps because of it—the dream had come back, and in its aftermath, Cass had dressed and fled the house, heading for the deserted beach. From half a block away she could hear the pounding of the surf, and it led her on through the night. She walked directly to the ocean and welcomed the cold spray as the waves threw themselves with abandon onto the shore, welcomed the sensation of the swirling tide tugging at her ankles in the dark.

She walked along the beach to the nearest jetty, where she sat in the company of her own ghosts until the sun came up. Then, knowing if she was to do her job she’d have to keep her own emotions in check, her memories at bay, she retraced her steps to the bungalow, her focus regained, her back straight with determination. She dressed for work, committed to bringing justice to Linda Roman, ready to begin the search for the man who had killed her.

F
our

Two days later, at 5:32 in the morning, Cass sat at her desk, rereading the report she’d come in early to complete. She made a few more changes on the computer screen before hitting the
Print
button. While the pages spit out, she stood for a much-needed stretch, her hands clasped behind her head. She’d been seated for well over ninety minutes, and found her knees and rear in want of a change of position.

The coffee in her cup was cold, and she needed the caffeine.

The remains of the pot in the lunchroom being the color of tar, she opted to make new. She rinsed out the carafe and filled it from the water cooler. Thanks to the chief’s obsession with drinking water and with the impurities contained therein, he’d insisted on a cooler for the department. Cass figured if it was better to drink straight, it would make better coffee. She used it every chance she got.

The old coffeemaker chugged and hissed as if in agony. The groaning ceased, and Cass started to pour a fresh cup, when she thought she heard a sound—a rustle? a shuffle?—from the hall. She peeked out the doorway and looked around, but there was no sign of anyone, no lights in any office other than her own.

Must have been the coffeemaker,
she thought, and she returned to the job at hand. She finished pouring, then picked through the plastic container of sweeteners in search of a pink packet amidst the blue and white ones. She found one, poured it and some creamer into her cup, and headed back to her office through the blissfully quiet hall.

Cass really liked coming in early, when the night shift was still on the streets and the offices were, for the most part, empty. It was worth the loss of a few hours of sleep to have time to think without the background noises, the ringing phones, the chatter. Not that she’d had a full night’s sleep since they’d found Linda Roman’s body. Three or four hours a night had been all she’d managed.

So far this morning she’d written up her reports on three of the seven interviews she’d completed since Linda Roman had been identified earlier in the week and was ready to put them into both the department file and her personal murder book. She’d never done this before—kept a murder book—but over the winter, she’d met a detective from Los Angeles who mentioned having used this as a means of logging in all the data gathered during an investigation. The orderliness had appealed to her, so on her way home the previous night, she’d stopped at a nearby shopping center and picked up a three-ring binder. Since arriving at the station, she’d photocopied the evidence list and the statements from the officers who had found the body. Later she would print off another set of the photos she’d taken at the crime scene and add those to the book.

She grabbed her pile of reports from the printer as she passed it, then returned to her office and sat down to proofread before printing out a copy for the chief.

All the interviews had been pretty much the same. There’d been no deviations. Everyone Cass had spoken with had assured her that Linda Roman had been well liked and admired by everyone who knew her. She’d been described as intelligent, fun-loving, caring, a wonderful mother, sister, friend. No one knew of any enemies, anyone who might wish her harm, anyone she’d had words with or who had cause to be angry with her. She’d graduated from the regional high school, gone on to Rider College, graduated, come back home, and married her high school sweetheart. She and her husband were hard workers, active in their church, and all in all appeared to be the all-American boy and girl, all grown up.

It really pissed off Cass that someone had robbed them of their happily ever after.

A sound from the hall caused her to glance up. A solemn-faced Craig Denver stood in the doorway of her small office.

“You’re early today,” she said, knowing that the chief almost never arrived before eight. “Just in time, though, to take a look at these hot-off-the-press reports—which are pretty good, if I do say so myself. I’m printing out a set for you, and you can . . .”

Something in his expression caused her to stop in the middle of the sentence.

“What?” She tilted her head to one side.

“We have another one,” he said, his words clipped and tense.

“Another . . .” She stared at him blankly.

He nodded. “Another body.”

“Another body . . .” She pushed back from the desk. “Where?”

“She was left in the alley behind the Daily Donuts on Twenty-eighth Street. Guys coming in this morning to empty the Dumpster found her lying near the fence.”

“Okay,” she said more to herself than to Denver. “I’m on my way. I’ll call Jeff . . . I’ll call Tasha . . .”

She opened her desk drawer and took out her digital camera and slipped it into her bag.

“I called Jeff, he’ll meet you there. Wife wasn’t happy to hear my voice, didn’t want to wake him. Don’t know how he’s going to handle that, but he’s going to have to address it, and soon. This wasn’t the first time she gave me a problem when I called. In case you’re wondering, though, I called you first. Didn’t get an answer at your house or your cell, so I called him. In any case, we have two uniforms there already, they responded to the call. They’ll keep everyone away from the scene until you arrive.”

“Are you coming?” She stood and hoisted her bag over her shoulder, then reached over her desk to unplug her cell phone from the charger and slipped it into her pocket.

“I’ll meet you there.” He nodded, and she went past him.

He stood in her office for a long minute before snapping off the light.

Craig Denver hated this. Hated the fact that someone was coming into his town and killing his people. Hated what it reminded him of, hated the memories it brought back, hated the way the whole thing made him feel inside. He walked ten steps down the hall to his own office, and stepped inside. He was halfway to the desk when he saw the flat white envelope that lay on the floor midway between the desk and the door. He stared at it, trying to will it away.

He knew what it was, and had a sinking feeling he knew what it would say.

Opening the top drawer of the filing cabinet, he reached in and pulled out a pair of thin rubber gloves, which he slipped on. Just a precaution, though. He knew there’d be no prints on the envelope, nor on the single sheet of paper he’d find inside.

He slid the paper out and held it up. It gave him no satisfaction to be right.

Hey, Denver! Remember me?

The body of the young woman had been left on the ground, uncannily positioned in much the same manner as Linda Roman had been. On her side, arms over her head, her long dark hair covering her face. It took all of Cass’s willpower not to turn her over, just to make sure it
wasn’t
Linda Roman.

Snap out of it,
she demanded when she realized she was simply staring at the body.
Take a deep breath. Do your job.

She put in a call to the station for some portable lights. Although the sun would soon be up, the cloud cover and mist would keep the scene too dark to gather much evidence.

She dug the camera out of her bag, set it for flash, and began taking pictures of the body, of the scene, the alley, the fence. She found herself growing angry with the person who had taken this young woman’s life and left her lying naked on the cold black asphalt, with the morning drizzle running off her body.

And probably washing away evidence.

She was grateful to see Tasha walking toward her. The CSI lugged her black bag, which some joked weighed almost as much as Tasha herself, who barely hit the scales at one hundred pounds and was maybe five-two if she stood up really straight. With her dark blond hair cut short, she looked like a pixie. A tiny pixie who had nerves of steel and a stomach of cast iron. Cass had never heard of Tasha backing away from anything, neither a crime scene nor an accident. It was said that even the most gruesome sights—those that made the big guys gag and cringe—barely made Tasha blink.

“Well, shit, would you look at this,” Tasha said as she set down her evidence bag and opened it. “Two in one week?” She shook her head and looked up at Cass. “I’d say we have a problem here.”

“I always admire the way you get right to the point, Tasha.” Cass crouched down and took another few shots of the body.

“What’s the point in pussyfooting around.” Tasha pulled on her gloves. “You got two bodies in what . . . four days? Two victims who, at first glance, bear a strong resemblance to each other. Bodies positioned the same way—and look at that hair, the way it’s covering her face. I’d bet you a month’s salary that she’s been manually strangled and raped, just like the other one, but you’re too smart to take a bet like that, Burke.”

Tasha bent down next to the body, and eased the hair from around the victim’s neck.

“Oh, yeah. There they are.” She studied the bruises, all the while murmuring to the dead girl, “Ah, honey, what did he do to you?”

Cass snapped a few more pictures.

“Burke, did you get her fingers?” Tasha asked, and Cass nodded. “One of them looks to be broken.”

“I’m pretty much finished with the body from this angle. I’m waiting for some lights so I can begin to look around the alley. I’d hate to kick evidence aside and miss something important.” Cass stood and straightened her back. “She’s all yours.”

“Well, don’t go too far with that.” Tasha pointed to the camera. “As soon as I’m done on this side, I’m going to want to turn her over. You can give me a hand. Let me see what’s what under these fingernails . . .”

Cass stood back and waited for Tasha to finish her ministrations. A car pulled into the driveway, its lights illuminating the scene. Jeff Spencer got out of the driver’s side and hurried up the walk.

“Where have you been?” Cass asked.

He shrugged, mumbling something unintelligible.

“Jeff, we have another homicide here,” she pointed out the obvious, taking care not to raise her voice. “Second one this week. We need—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what we need,” he muttered under his breath as he walked past her, toward the body.

Cass stared at his back, then shook it off.
Must have had a bad night,
she thought, then turned to wave to the officers that pulled into the drive and started to unload the lights.

“Yay. Lights. Up here.” She motioned them along. “Set them up right here . . .”

The lights brought new visibility to the scene, and the area was carefully searched for anything that the killer might have brought with him or left behind. Several cigarette butts near a hole in the fence went into a small plastic evidence bag, as did a drink container from a local fast-food restaurant and a dirty white sock. Any or none could have a connection to the killer. Only lab analysis would tell, and that not for a few more days, if ever.

“Huh . . .” Cass heard Tasha say softly.

“What?” She turned to see the CSI kneeling behind the body, a pair of tweezers in her right hand. She appeared to be inspecting something on the back of the dead woman’s head. Whatever it was, it was invisible to Cass. “What did you find?”

“Some fiber” was the reply. Tasha crooked a finger at Cass. “Take a shot of this for me before I remove it.”

Cass leaned forward to line up the shot as she was directed. Tasha slipped the thread into a bag, which she sealed and marked. She looked at Cass and said, “I found some similar trace tangled in the hair of our first victim.”

“The same type of fiber? Blanket? Carpet?”

“Too long to be either. It’s long and thin.”

“Rope, maybe? Something he might have used to tie them up with, subdue them?” Cass’s mind started to consider different possibilities.

“Nooo,” Tasha said slowly. She held the bag up as if inspecting its contents. “I don’t think it’s rope, it’s not that substantial. It looks thinner, more delicate. I can’t wait to get back to the lab to check it out.”

“Did you analyze the fiber you found on Linda Roman?”

“Not yet. I was concentrating on the trace from under her fingernails, trying to find skin cells, something that would give me DNA. The fiber is still in the evidence box, but I think it just moved to the top of the list.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“Do I get a set of those prints?” Tasha nodded at the camera Cass held in her right hand.

“I’ll run them off as soon as I get back to the office.”

“Then you’ll be the first to know what the little fibers are.”

“Chief, there are reporters from four television stations and nine newspapers in the lobby,” Phyllis announced through the intercom.

“Yes, I know,” Denver replied. “I haven’t decided what I want to tell them.”

“May I come in there for a moment?” Her voice sounded shaky.

“Sure,” he said, somewhat taken aback. Normally sure and confident, it wasn’t like Phyl to be so hesitant.

The intercom clicked off and seconds later the door between the chief’s office and his secretary opened. Phyl came into the room holding a can of Diet Pepsi in one hand and a chewed-up pencil in the other. She set the can on the chief’s desk, and twirled the pencil between her index and middle fingers.

“What’s on your mind, Phyl?”

“I just saw the pictures of this new one—this new murder victim—on Detective Burke’s desk. The body from this morning. I think I might know her. I think I might know who she is, Chief.”

“You do?” He frowned. His detectives were still checking missing persons leads.

“She does manicures at the Red Rose Salon down at Fifth and Marshall.”

“You have a name?”

“Lisa. I don’t know her last name. But I’m pretty sure her first name is Lisa.”

“Did you tell this to Detective Burke?”

“No. She was on the phone, and I was so startled, I just backed out of her office. It’s taken me a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I could be wrong.” Her eyes misted, and her hands, he realized, were shaking.

He pushed the button for Cass’s extension. “Burke, I need you to come in here. Now.”

Cass appeared in the doorway in less than a minute.

“Is something wrong?” She studied his face. “Please tell me there hasn’t been another body . . .”