Kiss Me, Kill Me (24 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Lucy prepared Suzanne and Detective Panetta for the interview. She first convinced Suzanne to interview Dennis Barnett at NYPD headquarters, because the bustling atmosphere with uniforms and guns screamed authority and Lucy believed Dennis Barnett would be unusually obedient to authority.

She then cautioned the cops against leading or browbeating him in any way. “Any competent defense attorney will get a confession thrown out.”

Panetta said, “His IQ isn’t low enough to qualify for medical deficiency, and even if it were, the D.A. would still prosecute. There’s enough precedent.”

“It’s low enough that counsel could argue his natural obedience to authority led him to say whatever he thought you wanted to hear.”

“How many interviews have you conducted, Ms. Kincaid?” Panetta asked.

Lucy couldn’t respond. The detective was right; she wasn’t a cop. Her experience hadn’t prepared her for this; what was she even thinking agreeing to act as psychologist? She had a master’s degree, that was it. No experience other than what life had handed her.

Suzanne said, “We’re not going to browbeat anyone. But I want to nail him, and I want it airtight. How do we get a confession?”

Lucy said, “He wants to please, and you have to convince him that only the complete truth will make you happy.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“I read his statement to you, when you talked to him in his brother’s apartment. He wants to be good and do the right thing, but because of his relationship with his brothers, I think he’ll respond better to the detective.” She glanced at Panetta and encountered his disbelieving frown. She straightened her spine and continued.

“His entire life he has looked up to CJ and Wade,” she said. “He parrots what they say, as you can tell if you read his statement closely. CJ’s disapproval over Wade’s lifestyle came through clearly, though Dennis doesn’t feel the same. He sees Wade as both his corrector and defender. Wade wants Dennis to be normal because he wants a brother, so he takes him to the parties and to shows and other places. But Dennis is slow and clumsy, and Wade gets frustrated. Dennis will do anything to please Wade, and Wade will say anything to protect Dennis. If Wade is innocent, and believes Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess.”

“If he’s innocent?” Panetta shook his head. “Only in the movies. I get people confessing to everything under the sun mostly for attention, but I’ve never had anyone confess to protect someone unless they were threatened.”

“He
is
threatened,” Lucy said. “If Dennis goes to jail for murder, the guilt will eat him up. He’ll blame himself for not seeing it, or not stopping it.”

“Or Wade will be in prison, too, if they did it together,” Suzanne said, “Probably on death row.”

“He’ll consider himself a failure because he couldn’t raise his brother.”

“He’s only five years older.”

“Their mother abdicated the responsibility for raising Dennis to CJ and Wade. CJ became the father, a financial genius who turned their settlement into a fortune, and Wade became the mother, the playmate.”

Lucy was losing them. She wasn’t good at this; she’d always had Hans or her brother Dillon to bounce her ideas off of first.

“I’ve read every interview and statement, and all articles I could find on the brothers. It’s clear that when their father was killed in the workplace accident, CJ became the male father figure—he was fourteen. He pressured Wade to grow up, which is why Wade is both responsible outwardly—historic preservation, philanthropy, civic responsibility—and extremely childish. He sleeps around with numerous women, he’s obsessed with baseball, and he’s jealous of Dennis.”

“Why?”

“Because Dennis gets to be a kid forever. Wade was forced by his father’s death and his older brother’s disapproval to grow up before he was ready.”

“So is Dennis guilty?” Suzanne asked. “Or were they a team?”

“If Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess. He’ll tell the truth, whether Wade was involved or knew about it. He’s scared of getting in trouble. I can’t be certain without seeing Dennis with his mother, but his brief statement, and the fact that he didn’t ask for his mother or want her with him, makes me think he doesn’t have a strong bond with her, which also supports my theory that the brothers raised him. I can speculate why, but I honestly don’t know without interviewing her or seeing them together.”

Hicks stuck his head into the interview room. “Barnett and his lawyer are here.”

“Put him next door,” Panetta said.

Hicks handed Panetta a file. “This came in from the lab last night. The FBI called Friday to find out where it was.” He shot Suzanne a look.

“I didn’t call about a lab report,” Suzanne said.

Lucy cleared her throat. “I did. It was the residue test from the first victim. The report wasn’t attached to the autopsy, and I didn’t know if it had gotten lost or they hadn’t gotten to it.”

Hicks said, “They ran it yesterday, put it at the top of the pile.” He winked. “Must be your sexy voice.”

“Get our suspect,” Panetta ordered and opened the report. He skimmed it. “The black powder is ninety-eight percent ultrafine charcoal and two percent gum.”

“Gum?” Lucy questioned. “Could she have aspirated a piece of gum when she was being suffocated?”

Panetta handed her the report. She read it, but didn’t understand it—except it wasn’t chewing gum.

“As you pointed out,” Suzanne said, “the first murder was spontaneous. You were at the crime scene this morning; those abandoned buildings are neither clean nor sanitary. The killer could have grabbed whatever was handy.”

“Maybe our suspect had charcoal in a bag to go home and barbecue after he killed her,” Panetta reasoned.

Lucy gathered up her files. Panetta wasn’t serious. She thought this report was important simply because it was an anomaly, but she needed to think it through, and right now both Panetta and Suzanne were itching to talk to Dennis Barnett.

“In your first conversation, Suzanne, he talked about Wade’s girlfriends who were mean to him,” Lucy said. “Find out how they were mean. What they did, how that made him feel, what his actions were. Did he ever defend himself and how? Was it always Wade standing up for him? And you’ll have to ask about his mother, his childhood.”

“So he has mommy issues,” Panetta said, obviously irritated.

“Everyone has mommy issues,” Lucy countered. “I didn’t say it was an excuse to kill.”

They left the small conference room and went next door. A one-way mirror showed Dennis Barnett with his attorney. Dennis was wide-eyed and curious. Maybe a bit scared, but more interested in the room. His attorney was older and dressed in a suit. He didn’t look happy.

Lucy focused on Dennis. He was broad-shouldered and muscular. He had blue eyes and an inquisitive childlike gaze. He also fidgeted.

He turned around to look behind him, at the blank wall, and Lucy had a flash of recognition. She stopped Panetta from opening the door.

The detective looked at her, irritated. He hadn’t liked her assessment, he was old-school—the “psychobabble” wouldn’t appeal to his investigative approach.

“Suzanne, where’s the witness drawing?” Without waiting for her response, Lucy riffled through her file folders until she found a copy.

“It’s him. His profile.”

Suzanne looked at the drawing, then at Dennis Barnett. “I didn’t see it at first, but I think you’re right.”

Panetta walked over and frowned. “I didn’t see it either, but it’s the profile. But everything is a bit exaggerated in the picture.”

Lucy agreed. “He looks mean in the drawing, but not sitting in the room. He appears harmless now.”

“It was done from an older memory,” Suzanne said. “Unless the witness views a lineup and identifies him, I don’t think we’ll be able to use it.”

Until now, Lucy hadn’t believed that Dennis Barnett was guilty. She was certain that the killer was obsessed with Wade Barnett, either an ex-girlfriend or someone who knew him well, such as a secretary.

She was wrong. How many other things had she been wrong about? Why was she even here in the first place?

She sent Sean a message.

I was wrong. The man the witness drew with Alanna Andrews the night she was killed is Dennis Barnett.

Sean considered breaking into Charles Barnett’s Brooklyn Heights penthouse apartment a challenge. It was a secure building with state-of-the-art locks, a doorman, and a security camera. But it was still just a place, and Sean had never yet been defeated by a building, or a computer system.

It took less than ten minutes to assess the best approach to breaching the twelve-story building, then one minute to bypass the electronic lock that led to the parking garage under the building.

He smiled as he drove his GT into the structure and parked in 12A, Charles Barnett’s empty slot. He was in Europe, Wade Barnett was still at Rikers, and by now, the FBI would be interviewing Dennis Barnett. The apartment should be empty.

Once he was upstairs, Sean picked the lock of Barnett’s apartment and slipped inside, quietly closing the door behind him. He had left his gun in his trunk—on the off chance that someone was living in Barnett’s apartment, Sean might be able to talk himself out of an arrest for breaking and entering, but not if he was armed. Still, if his hunch was right, no one would be there.

He listened for any hint that someone was in the apartment, but it was dead silent. The place was tidy but not immaculate. There were a few glasses on the counter in the kitchen, the kitchen chairs weren’t pushed in, and the cushions on the couch weren’t aligned. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.

But even through the steady drizzle, Sean could see the Brooklyn Bridge outside the picture windows.

There were three bedrooms. One was small and appeared unused. The second had a hastily made bed, the dresser littered with coins and crumpled dollars. Sean went through the items and found a receipt from Abercrombie & Fitch for $310.07. The credit card was in the name of Dennis Barnett.

He’d brought the tag from Kirsten’s shirt with him. It, too, was from Abercrombie & Fitch, and he compared the item number to the receipt.

Match
.

Dennis had bought her two pairs of sweatpants, a sweater, two shirts, and four pairs of underwear. Sean searched the bedroom and found no other clothing from the receipt.

He then went to the master bedroom and knew this was where Kirsten had stayed for five days.

The bed had been stripped and made, but the dirty bloodstained sheets were in the hamper. Bloody bandages were in the bathroom garbage, and supplies from a local pharmacy were spread out on the nightstand: gauze, bandage tape, topical antibiotics, pain relievers.

Sean went to the den and booted up the computer. He looked through the browser history and saw that Kirsten had definitely sent the message from this computer on Thursday morning.

He stared out the window as he put together the final pieces of the puzzle. Dennis Barnett had been caring for Kirsten here in this apartment. Why had he not taken her to the hospital when it was clear that she was very sick? Had she convinced him that someone was trying to kill her? Or had she gradually gotten worse, leaving him with no choice?

Did Wade Barnett know? And if he did, why hadn’t he gone to the police or the hospital? What was he trying to hide?

Sean didn’t have all the answers, but if Dennis Barnett had gone out of his way to bring Kirsten home from the party, nurse her, then leave her at the church when he couldn’t care for her any longer, he didn’t see how he could coldly kill five other young women.

He sent Lucy a message detailing what he’d found, letting her reach her own conclusions.

He saw her message about the man in the drawing being Dennis Barnett. What had the artist said? That she’d seen someone with Alanna the night she died. Dennis Barnett already admitted to being a driver to the parties that his brother attended; it didn’t mean he’d killed Alanna.

Sean sat back down at Charles Barnett’s computer and logged on to the secure RCK East server to access the
Party Girl
website that Patrick rebuilt. But Patrick had taken it one step further: He’d created an index of all content, including all registered users.

He scanned the list of registered users for any name that might be Wade Barnett. Most people used something familiar to them, something that was part of their personal identity. He clicked through a couple of promising names; neither of them was Wade Barnett.

Then he found what he was looking for near the end of the alphabetical list.

YankeeFan00

He clicked through and smiled. While it didn’t have Wade Barnett’s photograph, it had two important pointers:

He’d posted that he was a twenty-six-year-old preservationist from New York.

And among his friends were Erica Ripley, Heather Garcia, Jessica Bell, and Kirsten Benton, all under false names, but all with their real images.

He sent the data to Lucy and Suzanne, logged off the RCK site, and wiped memory of the visit from the computer while leaving all else intact, then left.

In his car, he called FBI agent Noah Armstrong. He and Noah didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but Noah had vouched for him with Suzanne Madeaux.

He needed someone with the clout to get him into Rikers Island.

TWENTY-NINE

After fifteen minutes of relatively softball questions, Dennis Barnett was becoming confused and agitated. Lucy didn’t think it was because of guilt. Dennis had been eager to help at the beginning, but he didn’t understand why the questions were about him.

Suzanne asked for the third time, “And how did that make you feel when Wade’s girlfriend called you a dumbass?”

Dennis frowned. “I’m slow, not stupid. You asked me that.”

“I’m trying to understand your feelings.”

“No you’re not. You’re trying to make me feel bad.”

Panetta said, “Why would we want to make you feel bad? Unless you have something to feel bad about?”

Dennis looked at his lawyer. “You said we were coming here to help Wade.”

“We
are
here to help Wade,” the lawyer said. “That’s why you need to tell these officers the truth.”

Lucy’s instincts started buzzing. The lawyer had to know that Dennis was a suspect; had he not told him? Or had Dennis not understood?

Suzanne noticed the same thing and said, “Dennis, another young woman was killed last night.”

He frowned.

“I’d like to show you her picture. It would help if you tell us if you know her or have seen her anywhere.”

He nodded.

Suzanne showed him Sierra Hinkle’s driver’s-license photo. Lucy watched his face closely. It was completely blank, except for his forehead, which was crinkled in concentration.

“I don’t know her.”

Suzanne then showed him Jessica Bell.

He stared and bit his thumbnail. “If I saw her, is that going to get Wade in trouble?”

“If you lie, Wade will get in trouble,” Lucy said. She’d been quiet most of the interview, but she sensed a turn in Dennis’s demeanor.

The lawyer broke the moment. “I don’t understand this line of questioning.”

Suzanne said, “And I don’t understand who you’re working for, Dennis, or someone else.”

Lucy focused on Dennis and said, “Dennis, do you know why Wade is in jail right now?”

“Because she”—he looked at Suzanne with a childish expression of anger—“thinks he hurt Alanna.”

“Actually,” Lucy said, “we don’t know who hurt Alanna.” She felt Panetta turn his gaze to her. He was not happy. “Wade is in jail because he lied to Agent Madeaux. Did you know that lying to the FBI is a crime?”

He nodded. “She told me.”

“It’s true. If you lie and we can prove it, then you will have to go to jail, too. I like you, Dennis. I don’t want you to go to jail.”

“I don’t want to go to jail.” He looked at Jessica’s picture. “That’s Jenna.”

“Jenna?” Suzanne said. “How do you know her?”

“I stay with Wade sometimes. She was talking on his computer.”

“Talking?” Suzanne prompted.

Dennis turned bright red and whispered, “She was naked. Wade didn’t see me come in at first. Then he got mad and yelled at me.”

Panetta steered the conversation away from that angle and asked, “Were you mad at Jenna?”

“No, I—”

“Because I would be,” Panetta said.

Lucy wanted to shut the detective down. Dennis was getting agitated again, and it was because he was embarrassed, not because he killed her.

“I wasn’t mad at anyone. Wade told me to knock from then on, and I said the door was open, and then he just turned off the computer. That was a long time ago. Last summer.”

Suzanne put the pictures of Erica Ripley and Heather Garcia in front of Dennis. “What about these two? Do you know them?”

He pointed to Heather. “I don’t know her. But that’s Erica. She works at the Java Central coffeehouse. She came with us to a party once, but—” He frowned, thinking.

“What party?”

“It was real hot. Labor Day weekend and I wanted to go to Martha’s Vineyard with Charlie, but Wade wanted me to drive him to a party. He just lost his license because he was drinking. He said I was the only one he trusted. So we went. He made me come in because it was too hot to sit in the car. I did
not
like it. It was so loud my head hurt. And Wade was drinking, and he gets stupid when he drinks.”

“Who says that?” Lucy asked him.

“Charlie. It’s why Wade lost his license. Charlie said, ‘You deserve it, you get stupid when you drink.’ ”

“What stupid thing did Wade do that night?” Suzanne asked.

“Lots of them. He wanted me to have sex with a girl I never met before and I didn’t want to. Alanna was mad at him about that. Then he hurt Alanna’s feelings because he brought Erica to the party. She said, ‘I don’t care if you fuck around here, but don’t bring it home.’ ”

Lucy wondered if Dennis had an eidetic memory, or at least an enhanced auditory memory.

Suzanne prompted, “You told me earlier that Wade and Alanna broke up. But they went to a Yankees game together after that party.”

“They broke up, then Wade said he was sorry and gave her the tickets. She said, ‘This is your last chance.’ Charlie said it would never work out because they had an open relationship.”

“Do you know what an open relationship is?” Lucy asked.

“When you have a girlfriend but still have sex with other girls.”

“And after the Yankees game?” Suzanne asked.

“I don’t know what happened. But Wade was real upset about it and said he fucked up again.”

Panetta asked, “Were you mad at Alanna?”

Dennis shook his head. “She was nice to me.”

“Was Erica nice to you?” Lucy asked.

Dennis shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“What about Jessica?”

“Who?”

Suzanne touched the photo. “Her name is Jessica.”

He shook his head. “Her name is
Jenna.
”

“She only pretended her name was Jenna.”

He brightened. “Oh, I get it.”

Lucy glanced at her phone, then opened Sean’s message.

Found Kirsten. She’s in the hospital sick with an infection. Dennis was taking care of her at his brother Charles’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights. I have proof. More in a sec.

Lucy opened her files and pulled out a picture of Kirsten. “Do you know this girl?”

His lip trembled. “What happened?”

“Can you tell me?”

He looked panicked. “You’re only showing me pictures of dead girls! Did she die?”

“No,” Lucy said. Suzanne narrowed her gaze at Lucy, telling her to back off. Lucy swallowed. She was certain her first instinct was right, that Dennis didn’t kill those girls, and neither did Wade. “She’s fine. She’s in the hospital.”

He breathed easier. “Okay, good. Wade told me—” He stopped talking and looked at his hands folded on the table.

Suzanne said, “You need to tell the truth.”

He wrestled with it for about thirty seconds. “If I tell you the truth, promise me you won’t get mad at Wade and make him stay in jail.”

Suzanne said, “If Wade didn’t kill these girls, I promise he won’t stay in jail.”

Lucy knew that Suzanne couldn’t promise any such thing. Already, Wade was in serious trouble for compromising an investigation and for attempting to destroy evidence.

Dennis believed her. “Okay, I found Kirsten last weekend and she was real scared and hurt and I wanted to take her to the doctor, but she was crying and said no. Wade told me I shouldn’t have kept her at Charlie’s because she was real sick, and then she wouldn’t wake up. Wade thought I hurt her, but I told him I didn’t, and he believed me but said it looked bad because he knew her.”

“Wade knows Kirsten?” Suzanne said.

“He said he did. He said something weird was going on and that he would figure it out, but he told me—remember you promised he won’t get in trouble.” He was looking at Suzanne for an answer.

“Yes I did.”

He accepted the nonanswer and said, “He told me he knew all the women who were killed by the Cinderella Strangler. He was really scared.”

“Because he killed them and didn’t want to go to jail?” Panetta asked.

“No!” Dennis slapped his hand on the table in his first physical burst of anger. “No, no, no! He didn’t kill anyone.”

Suzanne said, “Wade is in jail because he told me he didn’t know the four girls who were killed. That he knew them, had sex with them, and lied about it—that looks very bad.”

“But he didn’t! I know it.”

“Did you kill those girls?” Panetta demanded.

Dennis’s eyes widened and he shook his head.

Suzanne prompted, “Maybe you were upset because Wade was spending more time with them than with you.”

He continued to shake his head.

“He embarrassed you at that party,” Panetta said. “Told you to have sex with someone you didn’t like. Did the girls laugh at you? Or did they want Wade but not you? Did you love Alanna? Is that why you killed her—because she loved your brother, who didn’t deserve her?”

Dennis was crying. “I didn’t kill Alanna. I didn’t. I didn’t.” He put his head down. “I want to see Wade. Please.”

The lawyer said, “This conversation is over.”

“One more question,” Lucy said. She reached out and touched Dennis on the arm. He was trembling. He looked at her when she said his name softly.

“Dennis. You have a good memory. I want you to think back to when you found Kirsten running.”

He sniffed. “She wasn’t running. She fell down. That’s when I got out of my car and picked her up.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said, ‘Don’t let her get me.’ ”

   Noah came through.

Sean arrived at Rikers Island just before two on Sunday afternoon, hauling ass the entire way because of a mandatory two p.m. registration deadline that even Noah couldn’t get the Department of Corrections to waive. But after being cleared and given a visitor’s pass, Sean was approached by a guy in a suit. “Mr. Rogan, Special Agent Steven Plunkett, the FBI liaison for Rikers.”

Sean shook his extended hand and followed him down a series of corridors. At several junctions, they stopped and waited for the guard to release the lock and allow them to pass.

Sean supposed that he should have gone through Suzanne Madeaux, but they were in the middle of interviewing Dennis Barnett, and Sean was concerned about Kirsten’s safety. If the killer found out that Kirsten was in the hospital, she was in jeopardy.

Lucy hadn’t had enough faith in her analysis to follow up on her theory, but Sean didn’t doubt it. Lucy thought the killer was a woman.

And Sean suspected Wade Barnett knew who it was.

Plunkett ran through the rules with Sean about prisoner interaction, but Sean was only half listening. By the time they reached a private room—the type where lawyers met with their clients—Sean had his game plan set. He wasn’t surprised that Plunkett stayed in the room.

Wade Barnett didn’t smile when Sean entered. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Sean Rogan, private investigator. Kirsten Benton is my cousin.”

There was partial recognition in Barnett’s eyes, and Sean added, “You know her as Ashleigh.”

Barnett closed his eyes. “I didn’t know Dennis was keeping her.”

“I believe you.”

Barnett looked at him. “Why? No one has believed a word I’ve said.”

“That happens when you lie to the cops. If they find out, they don’t believe anything else you say.” Sean had some experience with that principle. “I’m going to tell you what I think. You correct me. I need answers, and I need them now—because Kirsten is in danger.”

He seemed surprised. “But—”

“Yes, a priest found her and took her to the hospital, and I found your brother’s apartment and know she was well taken care of. Except that she has a serious infection and is still unconscious.”

“I took her in as soon as I found out, believe me—”

“You didn’t take her to the hospital, but I’m going to overlook that. I think, when the FBI and NYPD came to talk to you about the murders of four women you had sex with, you panicked. You knew Alanna had been killed. But I don’t think you put the others together. There wasn’t much press on Erica Ripley’s murder, and it wasn’t until after New Year’s that the press dubbed the killer the Cinderella Strangler.

“You ran the
Party Girl
website through an offshore company that hosted it for you. When the police talked to you Thursday morning, you finally put the murders together. But it wasn’t just because you had sex with those four women. It was because you thought you’d be liable for their deaths because they were all members of the
Party Girl
website. You thought someone was using your site to target their victims. So you paid to have the site taken down.

“Fortunately, my partner and I are smarter than you, and we retrieved cached data and rebuilt the whole enchilada.” Sean watched Barnett’s face register complete surprise.

Sean continued. “You probably started thinking Thursday night that you personally knew these victims. There were nine hundred sixty-one female profiles on
Party Girl
. What are the odds that four who live in New York would be killed? What are the odds that you would have slept with all four women?”

Sean leaned forward. “That’s when you tracked down your brother Dennis. I don’t know if you thought he was killing them, or—”

“Stay away from my brother,” Wade said. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“That’s what my girlfriend said. But the police are interviewing him right now. You want to know why?”

“Dennis would not survive in prison. How could they? He didn’t kill anyone!”

“And neither did you. A fifth victim turned up last night.”

Wade’s entire body sagged. “What?”

“Sierra Hinkle. And my partner already checked—she wasn’t on the
Party Girl
site under any name. Did you know her?”

“No.”

“She was a waitress in Brooklyn.”

“I didn’t know her.”

Sean took Sierra Hinkle’s picture out of his pocket and showed Barnett, just to be certain.

“I’ve never seen her.”

“Do you want to know why she was killed?”

“You’re going to tell me either way.”

“Because you’re in prison. That’s not what your ex-girlfriend wanted.”

“You’re insane. Alanna’s dead.”

“She wasn’t your only girlfriend. Think back. A woman you dated who didn’t take it well when you broke it off. Someone who has been in and out of your life, probably for many years.” Sean thought back to what Lucy had said about Dennis and Wade’s relationship, and how Wade protected his younger brother. “She didn’t like Dennis, was probably mean to him, but never around you because she knew you wouldn’t put up with it. Dennis would not have liked her.”