The Dead Man (27 page)

"I think it fits, not well, but it fits."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Delaney's books aren't just souvenirs, they're evidence that the killer staged the murder to look like suicide. Another homeless person could have taken Regina Blair's jewelry, just like your friend Vinny said. I agree that Anne's amputated finger is a classic serial killer souvenir but Wendy's letter would make more sense as a souvenir if the killer took the envelope as well."

"Except for one thing," Lucy said. "We didn't pick up on Delaney's books and Blair's jewelry the first time around. Same with Wendy's letter. If the killer took the envelope and the letter, no one would have ever known. I mean Enoch didn't keep an inventory of the stuff he stole. But there's no way we couldn't know the letter was gone if the envelope was left behind, especially since it was the only piece of stolen mail that was opened."

"So the killer wanted us to know that he'd taken the letter. He's playing a game with us, taunting us. That's what serial killers do," I said.

"The books, jewelry, and letter were more subtle. It took a while for us to figure them out. There's nothing subtle about Anne Kendall's amputated finger. I'd say the killer is getting impatient with us."

"He's telling us how stupid and incompetent we are. We didn't get it the first three times, so he's making it easier on us. That's why Anne's murder was so violent and her body was staged for maximum shock and her finger was amputated," I said.

"And that fits with the shorter time frame between murders. All of which means that there's going to be another victim sooner rather than later if we don't get a lucky break. The first four victims were connected to the institute. Stands to reason the next one will be too."

Anthony Corliss was the one person with ties to all four victims, though his connection to Anne Kendall was less direct than with Delaney, Blair, and Enoch, limited to the fact that he and Anne worked at the same place. Connie Nichols might know whether their paths ever crossed.

I grew uneasy thinking about potential victims, realizing that there was at least one other vulnerable person in Corliss's immediate orbit. Maggie Brennan. I'd see Tom Goodell at the retired cops' lunch today. If my Maggie and his were one in the same, I wouldn't let her suffer the same fate as her parents.

I scanned the walls. There was a Post-it titled DREAM PROJECT VOLUNTEERS with five names I didn't recognize. I assumed that their background checks had turned up something of interest. Another page titled DREAM PROJECT STAFF listed Anthony Corliss, Maggie Brennan, and their research assistants, Janet Casey and Gary Kaufman. A third page had the names of the other project directors that had accessed the dream project files.

Milo Harper and Sherry Fritzshall's names were on a separate page along with another name, Peggy Murray. Hers was the name Jason Bolt had waved at me like a sword. Lucy had circled it in black and underlined it in red.

"Why did you put those volunteers' names on the wall?"

"Just covering the bases. They're the only ones with anything hinky in their backgrounds. Couple of DUIs, one domestic abuse complaint, stuff like that."

"What about Corliss's research assistants and the directors of the other projects?"

"Janet Casey and the directors are dull, boring academics."

"What about Gary Kaufman?"

"He's got a juvenile record but the details are sealed. Whatever he did, the record was expunged when he turned eighteen."

"Couldn't have been that bad," Lucy said, "if he got into college and grad school."

"His parents could have known the right people," I said. "Keep working on it. Find out what he did."

I pointed at the Post-it with Peggy Murray's name. "Jason Bolt, the lawyer for the Delaney and Blair families, says she's his secret weapon. Where does she fit in to all of this?"

"Hey Jack, you got an extra razor around here?" Simon asked before Lucy could answer.

He had come down the stairs and into the living den, barefoot, wearing yesterday's chinos and an undershirt, rubbing his chin stubble. I looked at Lucy who blushed and kept her eyes on the floor.

"Sure," I said. "Check the cabinet under the sink in my bathroom."

"Thanks. Any chance you got a spare toothbrush to go along with it?"

I nodded. "Same place. Keep the razor and the toothbrush but do me a favor and leave the towels, okay?"

"No problem. Hey, Luce," he said to her. "I'm going to take a quick shower."

He grinned at me, mouthing
Simon Says
, and disappeared up the stairs.

"Luce?" I asked her. "Since when are you Luce? What is he, Sim?"

She took a breath and planted her hands on her hips. "He's nice and really smart, both of which are a change of pace for me so don't give me a hard time. Besides, it's been a while."

"Just tell me he didn't ask you to play Simon Says." She blushed again. "Okay, never mind," I said closing my eyes and covering my ears. "I don't even want to know."

"Luce, honey," Simon called from upstairs. "Can you run up here for a second?"

She took the stairs two at a time. I heard her giggle and a door slam as Roxy and Ruby raced in from the backyard, their paws muddy and wet. They slammed into my legs, ran circles around me, and flew back to the kitchen, a sure sign they hadn't had breakfast.

I followed them, poured their food, and watched them chow down. "Well," I told them. "Life goes on."

They didn't look up. When they finished eating, Roxy nipped at Ruby's hind legs, Ruby chasing her through the doggie door into the backyard. The banker's box with Simon's files was on the kitchen counter, the files still in alphabetical order except for one labeled
Peggy Murray
that lay on top. The names on the other files were typed on labels that had been neatly applied to the folders. Peggy's name was handwritten, proof it was a late entry.

Inside her file were printouts from a blog titled
The Milo Harper Files
authored by Jamie Del Muro who wrote that her mission was to expose the truth about Harper. She gave a laundry list of his sins, everything from stealing the idea for the social networking Web site that made him rich to engaging in insider trading of the stock in his company. The home page of the blog carried a dedication that read
For my sister, Peggy Murray. No Retreat! No Surrender!

According to Del Muro, Peggy Murray came up with the idea for what became Harper's Web site, building the first version of the site while she was a student at Stanford and dating Harper. They both quit school to work on the Web site. Then Peggy had a bike accident when she and Harper were riding together on a country road alongside a gorge. According to the police report, which Del Muro included on the blog, Harper claimed that Peggy lost control of her bike going down a steep hill and fell a hundred feet to her death. Del Muro accused Harper of running her off the road so that he could have the Web site to himself. Later, Peggy Murray's parents accepted Harper's gift of stock in the company, which proved to be worth more than a million dollars when it went public. Del Muro accused her parents of taking blood money and being accomplices after the fact to the murder of their daughter.

No doubt Harper knew all about Jamie Del Muro and her blog and his lawyers would be ready when Jason Bolt played this card. Under normal circumstances, I expected Harper to brush the whole thing off as the rant of a crazy person. But these circumstances weren't normal. Dead bodies were piling up around Harper and his institute. Bolt was right about one thing. Harper wouldn't want Jamie Del Muro's story hitting the papers where it would get more play than in the blogosphere. And if the public interest got ginned up enough, an ambitious prosecutor might reopen the investigation.

The better question was whether the story was true, whether Peggy Murray was the first victim of Milo Harper's whatever it takes credo. If she were, Harper wouldn't have broken a sweat over ruining Kate's practice. I added those questions to the ones I had about Harper accessing Delaney's, Blair's, and Enoch's dream project files before and after their deaths.

Even though the institute was closed for the day, I was certain Milo wasn't taking the day off. I'd only been on the job for three days but it was time for a performance review. His, not mine.

Lucy and Simon were on the sofa in the living den, feet up on the coffee table, bare toes touching, when I came downstairs after showering and shaving. Lucy's hair was wet. Simon's bald pate was glowing, radiating heat.

It was her house. I was just living in it. She wasn't my underage daughter and he wasn't the bad kid who'd led her astray. I knew all that but still felt like I'd walked in on Wendy and the pimple-faced boy who took her to prom so he could get in her shorts; my problem, not theirs.

"Simon, are you still on the clock?" I asked.

He craned his head toward me. "Punched out last night, boss."

I joined them, standing near one end of the sofa. "I read Peggy Murray's file. Did you know her when you were at Stanford?"

Simon sat up, feet on the floor. "'Course I knew her. We were like the Three Musketeers. We had classes together, lived in the same dorm freshman year. She was what we called geeky hot. I had a crush on her but I didn't have a chance against Milo so I settled for swimming in their wake."

"Any truth to Jamie Del Muro's story?"

"Peggy worked on the Web site with Milo. I did too, for that matter. Milo always told me it was his idea. I never had a reason to doubt that."

"And the bike accident?"

"Milo said she lost control of her bike. The police agreed. What else is there to say?"

"Any of that sound familiar?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that's what the KCPD said about Regina Blair. It was an accident. And they also said that Tom Delaney committed suicide."

Simon planted his hands on his knees, his face coloring. "Give me a break, Jack. Jamie Del Muro is a whack job. She started this crap when Peggy died and she's kept it going all these years. Her parents disowned her, for Christ's sake! You can't paint Milo with that brush."

"Then why did you put all her crap in a file for me to read and why did Lucy write her name on the wall?"

Lucy put a hand on Simon's arm. "We struck out on the rest of the background checks," she said. "You told Simon to dig up anything he could find on Harper. When he told me about Peggy Murray, I told him we had to tell you even if it was bullshit."

"Think like a cop, Lucy, not like someone who just got out of the shower with one of Milo's musketeers, and tell me how you know it's bullshit."

She jumped to her feet, squaring her shoulders. Simon grabbed her wrist and she shook it off. "I know it the same way I know you didn't kill Walter Enoch and you didn't help Wendy steal five million dollars."

"That's isn't what you know. It's what you believe. There's a difference."

Simon stood. "I know Milo and that's good enough for me."

"Well it isn't good enough for me."

I grabbed my car keys and headed for the institute. It felt good to be behind the wheel instead of buckled into the passenger seat.

I passed a grocery on Sixty-third Street. The parking lot was jammed and people were streaming out of the store with full carts, trusting the weatherman's forecast more than the sun-spackled sky, not weighing the difference between what they knew and what they believed about the coming storm before stocking up. They were preparing for the worst while hoping for the best, same as me.

My cell phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket and saw Joy's name on the caller ID.

"Hey," I said.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?" she asked.

It was the same reflex question she asked whenever she called after our son Kevin died, most of those times bad times. After she left me, we softened toward each other until Wendy disappeared, her death another blow to our relationship. In spite of everything that had happened, we both acknowledged a lingering connection, kept alive through Roxy and Ruby. The dogs gave us a safe way to stay in each other's lives, sharing canine custodial duties, neither of us willing to explore why that was important or why we could manage that but nothing else.

"No, this is fine. I thought you were going to be gone all week. Are you back in town?"

"I'm coming home tonight. I'll pick up Roxy on my way from the airport."

"No problem. Where are you anyway?"

"Houston," she said, her voice fading.

"You okay?"

"I'm just tired. My plane gets in around eight."

"Don't count on it. We're supposed to get hammered with a snowstorm."

"Well, I'll get there eventually. How's Roxy?"

"She's great."

She hesitated a beat, her voice hopeful. "Maybe Ruby can come over for a play date next week."

"I'll check her calendar but I'm sure she can squeeze you in."

She brightened, her voice rising an octave. "Thanks, Jack, for taking care of her. I'll see you tonight or tomorrow."

I wasn't surprised to find Milo Harper in his office. He was at his desk, his back to the door. Sherry Fritzshall stood at his side, one hand on his shoulder, both of them staring out the window. They turned when I knocked. His face was grim, hers ashen. I repeated Joy's question.

"Is this a bad time?"

Harper waved me in as Sherry gave his shoulder a final squeeze and walked past me without a word.

"I told her," he said. "About the Alzheimer's."

"Why now?"

"I had to. My latest memory lapse just cost me a couple of million bucks on a deal I thought I'd made but I hadn't. I thought I could outrun it if I just ran fast enough but I can't."

"What are you going to do?"