Deadly Dreams (17 page)

She looked up from fastening her seat belt. “Ordinarily I might assume the pattern meant escalation. It’s the victims he’s chosen that makes me wonder. Like we mentioned, cops aren’t exactly easy prey. They’re usually more observant than civilians, more aware of their surroundings. They’ve had plenty of selfdefense training. And there’s a chance they’ll be armed, even off duty. Not to mention that once the murders start, word is going to spread among the force, making everyone doubly cautious.”

“Meaning we can expect him to vary his approach.”

“Yes. It also means if there’s a next one, the timeframe might have more to do with how much he was able to stalk them prior to starting the crimes.” She stared meaningfully at the keys, which he’d put in the ignition but had failed to turn. “If you want me to drive, the offer still stands.”

“Not a chance.” He started the car, began backing out of the parking space in the lot. “You didn’t help with cleanup this morning. You’ve forfeited any chance of taking the wheel.”

“Life is a series of trade-offs.”

The expression on her face said she wasn’t unhappy about the one she’d made. “Okay, he stalks them. Learns their routines.”

“He does, yes. Maybe simultaneously. He also bides his time. That opportunity with Christiansen couldn’t have been planned. All he could do was watch him. He couldn’t know the man would go out on that precise night. He followed him, saw his chance, and made a move.”

He narrowed his eyes in thought. “If the offender was following Christiansen, he had to have left a car nearby. Somewhere easy to slip in and out of.” He made a mental note to look at the area surrounding the convenience store more closely to search for likely spots. If the offender left a car, he had to come back for one. Either way, if there were security cameras anywhere in the vicinity, maybe they’d caught the guy on tape. Slim as the possibility was, he’d make sure it was followed up on.

He came to a halt at a stoplight. Saw a punk elbow his buddy on the sidewalk and point. Then cup himself and thrust his hips forward shouting, “Yo, cop, suck this!”

It occurred to him that some of his coworkers would have even more pithy comments to make. “I’m requisitioning a new vehicle as soon as I get back to the station house,” he muttered. The light turned green then, and he pulled away before giving in to the urge to draw his weapon.

“Good luck with that. The dented piece of tin I had to drive when I was on the force remains the stuff of legend.”

She was right. Requisitions were notoriously stingy, and requests for vehicles were the slowest to process, with the highest incidence of rejection. But he was blessed with imagination and stubbornness. He’d finagle something.

“You realize he’s already picked his next victim?”

Her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. “A moment ago you said ‘if.’ Now you’re assuming there will be a next victim.”

She stared straight ahead into the thick congestion of the normal midday Philly traffic. “These guys were specifically targeted. Someone’s going after cops, yeah, but not just any detectives. The UNSUB selects these particular guys, he stalks them, he makes his move. And I’m guessing the whole thing is tied up in a messy little pile of revenge for him. So when that need for revenge is satisfied, ostensibly he’d be done.”

“But you don’t think he’s finished yet.” It wasn’t a question. The ball of dread that seemed permanently lodged in his chest intensified.

He felt her eyes on him. Met her gaze.

“I hope I’m wrong. But I have the feeling he’s just getting started.”

The man the media had unimaginatively dubbed Cop Killer had indeed picked out his next victims. He wasn’t fussy about the order in which they died, except for the one he was saving for last. He’d been focused on this for years and had planned out every last detail. But a man had to be flexible. Ready to adapt to the unexpected.

Marisa Chandler was unexpected.

He’d been prepared for cops. Was delighted by the task force. He liked the idea of a whole army of cops running around trying to figure out where he’d hit next. He was smarter than all of them. He was proving that.

Chandler didn’t worry him. Not yet. But it bothered him that no one seemed to know what her role was. None of his contacts had come up with anything.

It was always the unknown that tripped people up. Chandler wasn’t going to be allowed to trip him up.

She’d been a cop; he’d found out that much. Supposedly a good one. Then she’d left. Got herself hurt last winter in Minneapolis, although the details on the Internet had been sketchy. There’d been a few photos of her and a story that had been short on answers.

So he’d get them himself. It’d be easy enough to wait for her to leave work. Follow her home. Maybe get a feel for how big a threat she might be.

The answer to that particular question would determine if he allowed her to live.

Bonnie Christiansen wore the slightly shell-shocked expression Nate had seen on the faces of those who life had suddenly hit too hard. When he introduced Risa and himself, her smile was perfunctory but her eyes held the vacant look of someone who probably wasn’t going to remember details of this time a few years down the road.

What she would recall was the vicious way her husband had been taken from her, altering her life forever.

“We’re sorry to disturb you at this time,” Risa was saying gently. “We don’t want to intrude.”

“Have you . . . Is there news about Patrick?” They were seated in a small family room that seemed dominated by the empty leather recliner in the corner. A slight indentation was permanently worn into the seat. Nate didn’t have to be told that the chair had been her husband’s.

“The autopsy has been completed. You should receive word today about the body being released. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“Good. That’s good.” Her words were vague. She reminded him of a small bird, with her short cap of smooth hair and skittish manner. Her hands on her lap fluttered as if she didn’t know what to do with them. Finally she clasped them tightly together. “I’ve been talking to Pastor Warren about the service. And our children have been helping choose pictures. We’ll need pictures. We can’t . . . Patrick isn’t . . .” Her voice choked as she repeated, “We’ll need pictures.”

“That’ll be nice.” Risa reached over and covered the woman’s hands with one of her own. “Surrounding yourself with memories always helps.”

“Thirty-one years together, we had plenty of memories.” Her attempt at a smile trembled at the edges. “Some good, some bad, like most marriages, I guess. But it’s all about the good outweighing the bad. In the end, that’s what matters.”

“Mrs. Christiansen, would you mind looking at a couple photos for me? See if you recognize the people in them?”

At her nod, Nate took the pictures of the other two dead detectives and handed them to her.

“I’ve seen them. Both of them,” she murmured.

He and Risa exchanged a glance. “You have?”

“In the newspaper.” She seemed to release the words on a little sigh as she handed them back. “They were the other detectives that died, weren’t they?”

“That’s right. But I was wondering if you recognized them from a time before that. If maybe they’d been to the house. If you saw Patrick speak to them somewhere?”

She frowned, as if trying to focus, then shook her head. “Not that I recall. Of course if he spoke to them at a police function, I wouldn’t remember. Those things are so huge, so many people . . . Patrick loved crowds, but I’m more of a homebody. After a few years I started making excuses to send him alone.”

“I don’t like to go to them myself,” he offered, and she sent him a grateful look.

“We developed our own interests. Couples do,” she added defensively, as if they’d judge her marriage and find it wanting.

“Maybe that’s the secret to a lasting marriage,” Risa told her, and a bit of tension eased from the woman’s frame. “Mine crashed and burned after three years, so I’m hardly in a position to know.”

Shock jolted through him, and it took effort to keep it from his expression. He hadn’t realized Risa Chandler had been married. There was no reason he should know, probably. But he couldn’t help wondering what kind of man had successfully peeled away the many layers to get to the real woman beneath the smart humor and sharp mind.

And there was no excuse for wondering what it would take to discover that woman for himself.

“It happens.” Bonnie was nodding sympathetically. “And the incidence of divorce is even higher for cops, I hear.”

“Well, that explains it then. We were both on the force. Young and stupid.” She stopped, as if reconsidering. “At least I was young and he was stupid.”

The two women laughed a little and Nate blinked. The vague, shell-shocked woman who had greeted them at the door had undergone something of a transformation in the last few minutes, and he knew he had Risa to thank for putting her at ease. For drawing her out of her grief, at least briefly. Even if it didn’t help her open up a bit more to them, it was worth it just to give the woman a couple minutes reprieve from her sorrow.

“What sort of outside interests did Patrick have?” Risa asked.

“Oh, guy things. He used to be quite an outdoorsman, loved fishing when we first got married. He’d steal away on weekends sometimes to go to the river. A few times he went on a bigger trip.” She screwed up her brow, searching her memory. “He went to Canada once, I recall. But mostly to Lake Erie and Raystown. He’d fished other lakes but those were the ones he liked best.”

“Pennsylvania has a lot of good fishing,” Nate put in.

The woman nodded uncertainly. “I guess. I was never much for the outdoors. He did less and less of it after he took that second job. He didn’t have as much free time, I guess.”

But Nate’s interest was caught. Keeping his tone mild, he asked, “He had a second job?”

One of Bonnie’s hands began to flutter again. “Oh, I know it used to be frowned on by the department, but Patrick said everyone did it. And he only worked the odd night or a few hours on the weekend, filling in for a friend. Security guard at some warehouse, he said.” She looked nervous. “Is this going to get him in trouble with the pension board?”

“No,” Risa assured her. “There’s no reason they need to know about it.”

The woman relaxed again. “That’s about it, I guess. I had my quilting and the church choir. After working all day, I mostly like to stay in and relax. But I know men need their time, too. That’s why I never said a word about his monthly card group. Some women try to keep their husbands on too short a leash, but I always thought as long as you can trust them, you need to give them a little space to run.” She looked at Risa then, her narrow face alight in dismay. “When I said some women, I wasn’t talking about you, dear.”

“I know. Although as it turned out, I’d have needed to forgo the leash and use a choke collar.”

They shared another laugh but Nate’s mind was racing. Hobbies. Edwards and Tomey were focusing on finding intersections in the victims. He made a mental note to tell them to check out the men’s leisure activities. The link they were looking for might lie in the victim’s outside interests.

“Where did he meet his card buddies? Were they neighbors? Old friends?”

Bonnie’s hand went to her throat and she frowned. “No-o. I just assumed they were on the force. Can’t recall if Patrick ever did say or if that was in my mind.”

“Did he ever play cards with his group here?”

She shook her head. “No, they always met in a bar they were fond of. Don’t ask me the name. And since he didn’t come home too late or wasted, I never put up a fuss.”

“But you know the names of the men he played with?” Risa put in.

“Oh, he’d mention a few of them from time to time. Let’s see.” Her eyes slid closed for a moment. “There was a Juan, I remember that name. And Jonas, he mentioned him a few times. Mostly I remember him speaking of a Johnny. If I’m not mistaken, Johnny went fishing with him on one of his lake trips about ten years ago.” She smiled faintly. “The only reason I remember that is because it was the trip Patrick caught that huge trout. We have a picture of him with it somewhere around here. He knew a picture was all he was going to get, because there won’t be any stuffed fish mounted and hanging anywhere in
my
house.”