Mystery: The Card Counter: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Thriller Mystery) (17 page)

“Did you attend this party that year?” I asked.

“No,” Cassie answered. “That was the year I went home right after exams to help Mom watch Abbey and Sandy. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“No, that’s all right,” I answered with gratitude. “I’m starting to think that if Jasmine Roberts is our link to this killer, then it might have something to do with that party prior to her suicide.”

“It would make sense considering those emails you showed Melvin. Whoever killed Wally was really, really mad at him,” Cassie said as she finally hopped under the covers of her bed and relaxed. We’d had sleepovers since she was 12 years old, so sharing a room wasn’t as earth shattering as it might be for some parents. There was a bathroom connected to the room anyway, so there was a bit of privacy available should either of us need it.  She looked back at me as I relaxed on the couch. “Wouldn’t you do the same thing if it was me?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If I did the same thing Jasmine Roberts did,” Cassie explained. “Wouldn’t you be angry enough to kill if you thought some jerk-off like Wally did something to push me to taking my own life?”

“It’s possible I could get that angry,” I said as I sat back up. “I understand where you’re going, but the possibilities could be endless. If these killings are in fact revenge for what happened to Jasmine, it could be a friend or a family member who didn’t take her passing very well.”

This made more sense to me than trying to work around the entire playing card crap. Revenge is a simple motive, and avenging the death of a loved one was a crime of passion. Something personal such as the torture and vicious killings we were finding over the weekend.

“I’m sorry you’ve gotten caught up in all this. You’re going have to stay here for your own protection. I think someone may have followed me here and that’s why Cody got stabbed.”

“He didn’t follow me, did he?” Cassie asked.

“I think it’s more likely the person followed me from the station.” Odds were the killer would have started at the station rather than on campus where Cassie lived. I was pretty tired considering what I’d been through that day, but it wasn’t over yet. My phone began to start buzzing in my pocket. I pulled it out and answered. “Peyton, don’t you feds ever sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m in a pine box,” Agent Collins answered.

“What’s going on there?” I asked.

“While you were taking over babysitting duties at the hotel, I decided to go over all the lab work done on the first few bodies found here and compare them to some of the bodies we had tested out of state. There were a few differences.”

“Such as?” I inquired, eager to know more.

“Traces left on the victims that were sexually assaulted,” Collins explained as I could hear him pace around whatever room he was in. “The first victims out of town had traces of latex in their rectums from the assault.”

“That’s not out of the ordinary,” I retorted. “Many serial rapists use condoms to prevent evidence from being left on the victims.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Collins said as he carried on. “The same latex trace was found on the coach and the second student you found here in town. The big discrepancy comes with this Wally Bennett kid.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, there was no latex trace, but there wasn’t any DNA either,” Collins said as he kept flipping through the papers. “I’m at a loss for words. I’ve never seen that before.”

“Neither have I,” I replied, as I was just as dumbfounded about it as he was.
”Did you guys find any other kind of trace there?”

“There is some trace here, but it’s more of a silicone base,” Collins answered. “I didn’t think they used that kind of material for condoms.”

“No, they don’t use silicone for condoms,” I casually corrected him. “Latex is much cheaper and people who are allergic to them would respond the same way to silicone. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Then why did Wally have traces of silicone on him?” Collins asked.

I was about to answer, but looked across the room to where Cassie was waving at me. “Hold on for a second,” I put the cell phone against my chest. “What is it?”

“Silicone is used for sex toys, especially dildos,” Cassie answered.

“Excuse me?” I called back as this was the last thing any father would want to hear his daughter confess.

“Many women at the campus use it because they’re too dedicated to their studies to have a steady boyfriend,” Cassie continued. “Silicone is the substance of choice these days in the sex industry ... says so on Wiki.”

I paused for a moment and then went back to Collins, who was still waiting on the phone. “I don’t know if we’re looking for a man here, after all, Peyton.”

“What do you mean, Jake?” Collins asked.

“Whoever is attacking these men is doing so with a sex toy, that’s where the trace of silicone could come from, I’ve just been informed,” I said sarcastically as I nodded to thank my daughter for helping me out at that particular moment, even if I’d rather not have gotten the information from her specifically. “This would suggest our profile has been wrong the entire time. If this is a woman... when she attacked Wally, she forgot to cover her weapon with a condom, which explains the lack of DNA and the presence of silicone.”

“So the assaults on the victims...?” Collins asked.

“They were not assaults, just another form of torture,” I replied. “That has to be a clue to motive. We have to keep digging!”

There was a brief pause as Collins took the new intel in. “So when we were scouring the neighborhoods for men covered in blood fleeing the Bennett house…”

“We should have been looking for a woman with blood on her,” I finished.

“Dammit! We’re going to have to start a new profile,” Collins cursed.

“Not entirely,” I quickly corrected. “I might have a lead here. Go to Officer Jones, who is doing research on deaths on campus the year we are focusing on. We need everything you can get on Jasmine Roberts. I got a hunch her death might have something to do with all of this.”

“All right, seems like as good a place as any to start,” Collins replied. “I’ll get my people to start a new profile with the information we now have.”

“Do not include the cards in the profile,” I added, knowing that would upset some of Collins’ people. “Leave them out as much as possible. Its only purpose is to confuse us and have us chasing our tails.”

“I’ll try, but that will be more difficult now that the info about the cards has gone public,” Collins stated. “We’re going to get a lot of questions about it.”

“Ignore them for now, but when you talk to the press, act like they are your central focus. If this is the decoy, and I think it is, admitting that we’re focusing on them will make the killer confident, and then she might make a mistake.” I could feel my eyes getting really heavy. “I’m going to hit the sack. I’ll interview the boys tomorrow since I’m going to be here all day anyway. I’ll contact you if I find out anything that helps our cause.”

“Good night, Walker,” Collins said before disconnecting.

I looked back at Cassie and laughed. “Just because you’re a grown woman doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. Understood?”

“All right, Dad.” Cassie huffed in embarrassment as she turned over in her bed and tossed the sheets over her head.

“Good night, pumpkin,” I called back to her as I reached up and turned off the light. As I stretched out on the sofa, which wasn’t too bad compared to some sofas I had been banished to during my tenure as someone’s husband, I kept thinking about Jasmine Roberts and whether or not her situation might have fueled the chaos that was going on in my city right now.

This was something I was going to have to interrogate the players about the next day. There was no way in hell that Cody was Wally’s only bud on the squad. He was an all-star quarterback that had a legitimate shot at being a first round pick. Everyone on the team was likely kissing his ass right, left, and center during his days on campus.

This, however, was the source of our problem: no one wanted to rat out a star player, even a dead one. This would present a problem for most people, but I was a father of three girls and nothing would infuriate me more than if I had to endure what Jasmine’s parents went through the year she took her own life.

If Wally and his buds did do something evil to Jasmine and it was never reported to the police, and likely swept under the rug by a university that cared more about college sports than justice for a young woman, I would have a hard time resisting the urge to burn down the football stadium.

If that was my little girl that was hurt so much by this boy that she felt she had no choice but to take her own life by overdosing on prescription medication, I would want to take my gun and stick it into Wally’s mouth, and then spend the next several minutes debating the pros and cons of pulling the trigger. It’s the last thing I thought of before slowly nodding off to sleep. Any parent would do that.

When I woke up the next morning, the sun was out and Cassie had already gotten up and taken off for breakfast with Melvin. It was something I was going to have to come to grips with, especially considering she was now old enough to drink and vote.

Fathers never want their kids to grow up, but time slows down for no man or woman in this matter, and they were all growing way too fast for my liking. I hopped out of bed and went straight for the bathroom. I didn’t have my kit there, so no shaving that day. I just straightened out my hair and went downstairs for breakfast.

I was still wearing the dress pants and shoes that I’d worn to last night’s date, but left the jacket and tie behind and rolled up the sleeves of my shirt to look very casual. I also left my gun behind in the room, but still had a backup piece strapped to my ankle should I need to have it. One reason why Flo and I had picked this hotel was because there was a huge restaurant in the lobby that served killer buffets, which would keep things varied and allow everyone to eat without having to leave all the time, or constantly complain.

I strolled into the big banquet hall and most of the players were already down and having breakfast. I walked up to the buffet and grabbed myself some scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and a few sausages before heading for the tables. I had a few to pick from but there was one in particular I was looking forward to crashing. As I sat down across from her, I could see the look in Cassie’s eyes that let me know I was not welcomed there. But I could sit where I liked because I was in charge of everything going on there. “Melvin! It’s nice to see you again.”

“Good morning, Mr. Walker,” the young man said as he was making a genuine effort to be polite. I think it had more to do with the fact that I was most likely packing heat more than that I was his girlfriend’s father.

Cassie, on the other hand, looked less than impressed. “Really, Dad? Can’t you sit with the other officers over there?”

“I could, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun as hanging out with you two lovebirds!” I said with a smile as I started to eat some of my bacon.

“Should I tell Mom you’re eating bacon again?” she asked.

“What I eat is no longer her business,” I replied. “I could have Irish Cream with my coffee every morning and there isn’t a thing she could do about it.” I finished off a sausage and took a sip of coffee before continuing. “Seriously, as much as I would love to tease and pester you throughout breakfast, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Melvin asked. I could hear Cassie sigh, knowing that she was less than impressed that I wasn’t giving her and her boyfriend a chance to have a peaceful breakfast together.

Given the circumstances, I couldn’t care less about her privacy at this moment. “Melvin, I need to know what other players were close friends with Wally. Someone I can grill about the things Wally did two years ago.”

“Oh,” Melvin said, as he seemed reluctant to rat out his friends.

“Unless you prefer to stay here for another four weeks,” I countered. 

“You might want to speak with Joey,” Melvin then responded. “He and Wally were good friends until two years ago according to what I was told. They had a falling out just before I starting attending. Chances are he might know what you’re looking for, as he was around a lot during those times.”

“Thank you very much,” I said as I rewarded them by grabbing my plate and moving to another table where the coaching staff was sitting. As I put down my tray, the men looked up at me as if I wasn’t welcome. I responded by flashing my badge. “Don’t think you’re going to stay here without answering a few questions.”

“Okay,” one of the older men said. “I’m Dick Vessel. Assistant Coach.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said as I resumed eating. “How long have you been working at the university?”

“Ten years,” Dick answered.

“Then you’re the man I’m looking for,” I responded. “Something big happened to Wally two years ago. He had something more than a falling out with friends and I have a feeling that, whatever it was, the university went to great lengths to cover it up.”

“What makes you say that?” Dick asked.

I pulled out the email that was sent to Wally and gave it to him. As I watched Coach Vessel read it, his face flushed and I could tell this was the first time he had seen the letter. “I take it by the look on your face that you had no idea he was getting letters like this for months prior to his death?”

“No idea,” Vessel confirmed. “There is a chance he might have told the head coach. It wasn’t uncommon for star players to turn to him with something that might be sensitive.”

“Might also explain why he’s dead, too,” I added.

“It might,” Vessel said as he put down his fork. He had suddenly lost his appetite. “How much longer do you think we’re going to be holed up out here?”

“It depends on how honest you are with me,” I answered. “The more you give me to work with the quicker I might be able to end this.”

“What do you need to know?” Vessel repeated, as he seemed eager to go home himself. I couldn’t blame him either. While the food wasn’t that bad, this place was hardly the Ritz.