Set Up For Love (5 page)

She floor-boarded the accelerator. Her car lurched ahead and she took the next corner on two wheels. Jill slowed midway down the block and discovered that the van still tailed. If the vehicle had license plates, they were blacked out.

Jill used her cell phone to call the police, then Murphy. If the driver wanted to follow her, she’d give him some company.

She refused to lead this guy to her home. Instead, she headed for the nearest motel to get some much needed sleep. Could the tail have any connection to Charmaine Du Bois’s murder?
The driver wasn’t Dane. He was locked up. Then who?

Chapter Eight

Jill left the motel after a few restless hours of sleep. The van had disappeared as though swallowed by the morning fog. Only one car was parked nearby and Jill recognized the driver. Agent Murphy waved as she passed. She nodded and Murphy pulled out behind her. He stayed a distance behind, giving the tail ample opportunity to move in. But no one showed, and Jill arrived at her office relieved the van didn’t reappear, yet disappointed because now she might never know who the driver was. Perhaps he was looking to rob a lone woman. Or perhaps he was somehow associated with the Snuff Video Killer. Uncertainty and caution led her to call for backup.

Stop this guessing
! What she needed were facts. And coffee. The stronger the better.

She grabbed a cup on her way to her desk, took a couple of sips, then she and Gary Peters left the office to talk to Charmaine’s family.

Jill felt a mounting tension as she drove toward Sunnyvale. By the time she and Gary pulled up in front of the house, her stomach was in knots.

As usual, he let her do all the talking. He felt her background gave her special sensitivity and insight. She wasn’t so sure.

Jill gently explained what had happened, feeling sick at heart and inept. She followed the explanation with words that were meant to comfort, although she doubted that mere words ever could.

“Who could do such a thing?” Charmaine’s brother Nick demanded through angry tears. He held his sobbing mother close. She covered her face with the skirt of her apron and cried harder. “Check Charmaine’s apartment,” he said in a broken voice. “She kept a journal.”

Jill felt a rush of hope. Just maybe.... “We have people there now, securing her apartment. “I’ll check it personally.”

Nick’s grief and anger made questioning him difficult and painful, but he confirmed what Dane had told them. Charmaine had many friends and didn’t date seriously.

****

Later, those words reverberated in Jill’s mind. And unfortunately, she wasn’t alone on that account.

As Gary slid his lanky frame into the passenger seat of their unmarked car, he said, “I don’t believe for one minute Clark didn’t have something going on with that model, no matter what the family claimed. It would be almost impossible to have merely a platonic relationship with a hot number like that.”

She bit her lip. Had the reporter lied about his relationship with Charmaine? If he’d withheld the truth about that, what else had he kept to himself? Jill drove silently through the snarl of stop-and-go traffic for several minutes, her mind never quite leaving Dane Clark.

Why was Gary studying her so intently?

“Then don’t say things you can’t, or won’t back up.” She didn’t have time for petty office talk, and decided to let it drop. Gary had gotten under her skin several times today. Why? He never had before. Maybe it was her fault. She chalked it up to her lack of sleep.

“If you want to help, check out Cooper’s Gym this afternoon. Tess and Charmaine worked out there a couple times a week.” Jill handed Gary Bernie Franklin’s business card. “Also question this motel owner about his night manager, Bill Smith. See if there’s fingerprints filed, and maybe a lie detector test—Smith handles cash.” Jill pulled into the Federal Building parking garage. “I’ll see what I can find out about our suspect.”

Jill bristled at his tone. Did it bother Gary that she’d been promoted over him? She’d never noticed an ambitious side to his nature before. Or was it that he just didn’t like taking orders from a woman boss? Or was it her and this case?

****

The top message on the stack at her desk was about Dane Clark. His lawyer had sprung him. The police hadn’t managed to hold him even twenty-four hours. She called Agent Murphy to get the details, then walked down the hall to the conference room where her chief, the special agent in charge, waited.

The cold, impersonal, mahogany paneled room with its twelve-chair meeting table was the ideal place to do the grisly job that had to be done. A large screen television on wheels had been set up in front of the blackboard.

Ray Courtland met Jill in the center of the room. His round face was serious, making him look every bit of his forty-nine years. He’d already closed the blinds. The video-cassette the lab removed from the murder site had been dusted for prints and sent to her by special messenger. She handed it to Ray and he popped it into the VCR and switched off the lights. As usual, his movements were quick, tense.

Gary was already there. They exchanged unsmiling nods.

Ray raked his prematurely silver mane with stubby fingers. “I’m not sure I can stomach another one of these,” he said, shaking his head.

Jill clasped her hands so tightly they ached. She couldn’t blink or turn away. Her job depended upon it. It had become a test of her mental strength to stare unflinchingly at the macabre scenes. An ominous gray glow flickered from the screen, then the video came clear. The camera slowly scanned Charmaine’s scantily clothed body. She was backing up, shaking her head, her eyes full of terror. The camera zoomed in for a close up.

“The rotten, depraved...” Ray’s voice trailed away.

Colors blazed vividly on the screen, everything in clear focus: Charmaine’s ivory skin was starkly contrasted by her jet-black hair and trembling cardinal red lips. She put her hands up, fiercely trying to fend off a shadowy assailant. Mascara washed down her beautiful face, turning it into a grotesque clown caricature. Charmaine’s cries over a background of tension-building orchestra music tortured Jill. She wanted to cover her ears. But she sat stiffly, twisting a tissue in her lap, blinking to hold back tears. “No!” Charmaine screamed. The name of the killer was drowned out by music suddenly thunderous, deafening. A gloved hand ripped away her clothes. Then the knife sliced across her throat, weltering the scene in red gore.

Jill covered her mouth with her hand to hold back a strangled cry. She glanced at Ray and Gary, their faces were drawn, gaunt. Charmaine had been under the maniac’s control, his pawn, his ultimate possession as he snuffed out her young, vibrant life. Before Jill could stop herself she imagined her sister fighting for her life as Charmaine had done. Jill began to shake. It was all she could do not to run from the room.

Her chief replayed the cassette again, stopping it at the crucial points of action. She had to ignore her queasy stomach and concentrate on every frame. Behind Charmaine, on the painted set, the attacker was only a huge shadow, a bodiless, faceless maniac. Jill watched the knife, clutched menacingly by a gloved hand, as it sliced into view again. Even with gloves on, she knew the hand wasn’t Dane’s. His hand was more tapered, his fingers longer. She cleared her throat before speaking. “Dane Clark’s attorney sprung him,” she told her chief in a monotone.

“That was quick,” he said. “Do you think he’s our killer?”

“No. With all that blood, there would’ve been blood-spatter on him.” She slowly shook her head. “No, I’m sure it’s not Dane Clark.”

“He looked guilty as hell to me,” Gary said.

“Just grab the first suspect, right?”
Why was she so defensive about Dane? The blood, of course, the blood.

Ray turned off the VCR and television and switched on the lights. “Other than the blood, what makes you believe he isn’t your man?”

“It doesn’t add up. Everything was too pat, too easy. And his attorney showed proof that Clark has indisputable alibis for all the murders except this one.” Jill got up and paced the floor. “I watched him in interrogation last night—nothing suspicious about his answers or body language. And the computer files have nothing derogatory on him.”

“You’ve been busy,” Ray said.

“From the alibis his attorney presented and everything I’ve learned, plus the lack of blood-spatter on him, I think he was set up.” She didn’t mention that the gloved hands in the video weren’t Dane’s either. But it would be in her report. “No. He’s definitely not our man.”

“Well, maybe not.” Ray rubbed his jaw. “But someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make him look guilty. Getting him to the studio, tipping us off, planting all those photos of the murdered women in his filing cabinet.”

“We were getting too close. The killer wanted to throw us off.” Jill could hardly swallow past the lump in her throat. Poor Charmaine...and the other murdered women. Such pain, such terror, and all those lost dreams. She should have become used to the dark side of her job. But she hadn’t. Ray put his hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t get any easier, does it?”

She touched his hand and squeezed it. “I have to go. Clark’s been working on this story for a year and he has a lot of information I can use.”

Chapter Nine

Twenty minutes later, Jill stepped into the gray stone building that housed the
San Francisco Chronicle
offices. Her mood was as dark as the cold, misty day. She’d called a half dozen of the names in Tess’ address book. No one had seen her. She’d call the rest of her friends later. Now, she intended to drag out whatever information Dane had, then head for the university.

The serious, no-nonsense tone of her voice worked and he waved her on. Ignoring the stares of curious workers, she hurried, half walking, half running down the corridors. She knew where the newsroom was without asking.

As she entered, her gaze zeroed in on Dane like radar. She’d memorized the shape of his head and the impressive span of his shoulders. He was at a computer typing, his touch sure and rapid.

He raked a wavy strand of brown hair off his forehead. “Sure,” he said without smiling. “Just let me save this.” He pressed the exit key, then stood. “I’m glad you’re here. I have some questions, too.”

The reporter took her arm with a firm grip and steered her toward the door. His possessive touch disturbed her. She darted him a cool look, but couldn’t summon enough indignation to fight the unexpected and unwanted tingle of excitement that his touch aroused.

Dane’s dark eyes glinted. He was despicable. The arrogant newshound enjoyed her discomfort.

Dane paused, his attention caught by a redheaded man rushing down the corridor toward them. His step was as swift and energetic as Dane’s. After the man joined them, he said, “This is my assistant, Sammy Newcomb. Sammy, this is FBI agent Jill Grayson.”