The Kill (3 page)

He approached Cohn as the tech directed his team of three to check the perimeter of the lights first. Fifty and almost completely bald, Cohn had a youthful face and calm disposition. “Thanks for taking it yourself,” Zack told him.

Cohn shrugged it off. “Sleep’s overrated.” He paused. “I heard it’s the missing kid.”

“No positive ID yet, but yeah, it’s her.” Zack swallowed thickly. Jenny Benedict had been missing for three days, abducted late Tuesday afternoon while playing with friends in a neighborhood park.

Zack knew where he would be going when he left the scene. It was one stop he didn’t want to make, but couldn’t avoid.

“Witness?”

“A computer tech almost literally stumbled across the body while riding his bike.”

“At night?”

“Running backup reports or something.”

“What do you think?”

“Of the witness? He had nothing to do with it. But I had him stick around. He swears he didn’t touch her, but I thought you should check him out.”

“Will do as soon as I’m done with her.” Cohn frowned as he pulled on gloves, knelt next to the tarp, and lifted it. “Sweet Jesus.”

Under the lighting, the girl’s skin looked far whiter than it should, the deep red stab wounds attesting to her death. Cohn’s assistant took photographs, then Cohn inspected the body.

“She’s been dead at least twelve hours, I’m guessing even longer. Maybe as long as twenty. We can probably get a more precise time frame from the autopsy. Appears that she bled to death, looks like one went directly into her heart chamber. Gil can give you an exact accounting of the wounds.” Gil Sparks was the coroner.

Cohn lifted her skirt. She wore no panties. “External evidence of sexual assault.”

He turned her head to the side. “What’s this?” he said, almost to himself.

“What?” Against his will, Zack leaned closer.

“It appears that a section of her hair has been cut. A good inch, right up against the scalp, with scissors.”

“He took her hair?” Zack’s gut clenched. Sick bastard. And sick bastards didn’t stop with one victim.

“Looks like it, unless her parents have something else to say. Maybe she cut it herself, or a friend did it . . . “ Cohn’s voice trailed off. He didn’t believe what he was saying any more than Zack did.

“Shit,” Zack said, rubbing a hand over his face. He was about to ask another question when Cohn mumbled, “What’s this?”

“What?” Zack asked, thankful that Cohn had closed the girl’s eyes.
Rest in peace
.

“See these marks?”

Cohn was pointing to the girl’s forearm. At first, Zack couldn’t see anything. Then a few small dots, like odd-shaped commas, became evident under the light. “I have no idea what made these marks,” Cohn said. “I’ll talk to Gil about it. There’s at least a dozen small punctures, but they were definitely made postmortem. Perhaps from something used to transport her, but I’m only guessing.”

At least it was something that could tie the killer to his victim.

“Anything else you can tell me before I go see her parents?”

“Only what you’re thinking.”

Serial killer
. One victim, and already Zack feared the worst. But it was the manner of display, the stab wounds, and the missing hair that told him the killer would strike again. “I hope we’re wrong.”

“We’re not.”

Zack walked away from the scene, leaving the victim in Doug Cohn’s sensitive and capable hands.

Nine-year-old Jenny Benedict had been missing for three days and her mother had feared her ex-husband had taken her. They’d found Paul Benedict yesterday, working in a steel mill in Pennsylvania, unaware that his daughter was even missing. He’d been avoiding his wife’s calls because he was late on his child support.

Zack called for a counselor to meet him at the Benedict house. A kid was dead. He thought it couldn’t get worse.

He was wrong.

Three weeks later another blonde girl went missing, and Zack knew for certain he had a serial killer on his hands.

Freedom. At last. His idiot lawyer, Miles Bledsoe, actually did what he said he was going to do, and Brian was now a free man.

Brian Harrison Hall—shit, he
hated
his middle name, but that’s what the dumb-asses in the press repeated in every article about him. And the judge at his sentencing.

Brian Harrison Hall, you’ve been found guilty by a jury of your peers and are sentenced to death in the electric chair, pursuant to
. . . some stupid law.

He thought he’d never feel as good as he did three months after he was locked up. Because three months after he went in, the California court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. Fucking
cruel and unusual punishment
. Damn straight. Especially since he was innocent.

Innocent, dammit!

But no one believed him. They believed that little bitch, that little girl who said she saw him.

And that fascist cop, the one who came to each of his parole hearings and went over how he “found” the evidence in his truck. Bull-fucking-shit. The cop couldn’t have found anything in his truck unless he put it there himself. Brian hadn’t killed that girl.

Brian had been at home when the girl was killed. He had nothing to do with it. And now the bitch who squealed and the cop who lied were being shown for the fucking
hypocrite liars
they were.

It felt so damn good to breathe free air.

Then why did his heart hammer so hard? Why did his hands tremble? He felt light-headed, and he didn’t like it one bit. Something was wrong.

“Hey, Miles, I don’t feel so good.”

They were standing outside Folsom Prison. Miles Bledsoe, the latest in a long line of public defenders, had been yapping at him about something inane, which Brian ignored. He was good at that. He’d had to ignore the stupid fucks on his cell block yapping all the time, the sisters screwing each other in the dark. Blocking out the bullshit became second nature.

Miles frowned at him. “You look pale. But it’s probably just relief at being out of prison after thirty-four years. I was saying the state rented you an apartment for six months. Enough time to get you back on track, time to find a job.The standard reimbursement for wrongful imprisonment is $100 a day, which I calculated to be just over $1.2 million. It’ll take six to eight weeks to process the claim, then the Legislature has to approve it before they can disperse funds.”

“Speak English, college boy.” Brian shook his head, trying to clear the uneasy feeling that clung to him. Everything was too bright, almost like he was detached from his body and watching the exchange with his attorney. He wasn’t sick. It was something . . . else.

“You’ll get $1.2 million, but it might take some time,” his attorney said.

“Holy shit.” A million
dollars
? He’d be set for life.

“The only problem,” Miles continued, “is you did lie to the police when you were arrested, and your truck—”

“Who cares? I didn’t kill that girl.”

“But the district attorney can still file charges if—”

“Look, Miles, just do your job and let me do mine. The D.A. won’t file charges because I’m innocent. I didn’t kill that girl; I didn’t kill anyone. Where’s my pad?”

Miles blinked, then handed Brian the notebook he held.

Brian threw it to the ground. “Shit, Miles. My pad. My
apartment
.”

“Oh.” He blinked again and Brian wanted to bitch-slap him. He didn’t, of course. Miles was his ticket to a million bucks.

A million bucks would set him up for life and help him find that bitch who put him here.

And the cop.

And that old fucking prosecutor who stared at him with such contempt in the courtroom.
This man raped and killed a child
. Bull-fucking-shit. He didn’t touch children like that. Only disgusting, sick perverts got their kicks from kids.

Payback. A million dollars would go a long way toward payback.

But somehow, it didn’t seem enough for thirty-four years of his life.

Incredible. Harry was out of prison.

He’d read the article twice to make sure he had the facts straight. Truth be told, he was surprised Harry had ever been convicted in the first place. The evidence was circumstantial at best. But Harry—being the stupid dumb-shit he was—had lied to the police.

Served the blowhard right. In his fifty-five years, he’d rarely met a blowhard, lazy-ass jerk like Brian “Harry” Hall.

“Hey, dude, come to the Bay Area with me and we’ll score.” By “score,” Harry had meant find a couple of women to take two Vietnam vets under their wing. Console them and give them blow jobs whenever they wanted.

Harry had no comprehension of
women
. Just like he had no understanding of discipline. Cleanliness. Order.

But Harry did have a job lined up and promised to get him in. So he had joined him in California.

Neatly, he folded the newspaper along the creases and placed it at the corner of the small, glass-top table in the cottage he’d been renting on Vashon Island for the past year. He didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was time to leave. The sun crested over the Sound, a lush, vivid sight of which he never tired.

He could retire here.

But he wouldn’t. Settling would be foolish; moving was the only way to truly cover his tracks.

He’d be moving again soon.

For now, he had a job to do.

The cottage didn’t have a dishwasher, but he didn’t mind. He took care to wash his coffee mug, plate, utensils, and the single pan in which he’d prepared his bacon and eggs. He dried them completely and put them where they belonged. He folded the damp towel and hung it precisely on the rack he’d installed on the wall next to the sink. His chair was pushed in
just so
; the crumbs on his place mat carefully shaken into the garbage; then the garbage—only a quarter full—taken out to the trash can by the side of the house.

The thought of letting garbage rot in his house all day made him ill.

Another quick glance at the newspaper got him thinking again about Harry as he locked up the cottage and walked to his job at the beachside restaurant.

Stealing Harry’s truck that long-ago night had been a spontaneous act. He hadn’t known exactly what he was doing, just a vague idea. Then he saw
her
and knew. She’d been sent to him, to replace the Angel he’d lost. He had quickly formed a plan, and it had been almost perfect. He frowned, thinking of the spunky little brat who had tried to stop him. Then he returned the truck before Harry had even noticed its absence.

What he hadn’t expected was the police finding the truck, but that discovery ended up being a blessing.

He’d learned many important lessons after Harry was convicted of murder.

Be careful. Don’t leave any evidence of yourself anywhere.

Keep moving. Be patient. Don’t rush. Let the sweet anticipation build, but control it. Don’t let the need control you. Be smarter than the cops. Know when to move on.

It was all a matter of discipline. Something he’d been taught well.

One niggling mistake soured the otherwise pleasant day. Harry had been released because of DNA evidence, which meant the authorities had
his
DNA.

He would have to be doubly careful from now on.

Olivia grabbed the paper as it slid off the laser printer, her eyes scanning the information, her heart beating fast as her theory solidified.

Patterns.

Missy’s killer had left Redwood City after her murder, probably because Brian Hall had been arrested and was going to take the fall for Missy’s death. He lay low for a couple years before resurfacing in New York, where he raped and killed four blonde girls in the Albany suburbs before disappearing.

Then two in Lawrence, Kansas. A known sex offender was arrested, tried, and convicted and was now sitting on death row for those murders. But Olivia was ninety-nine percent sure that man was innocent of those particular crimes.

Four more girls killed in Atlanta.

Four in Nashville.

The list went on. Years separated his crimes, but Olivia had uncovered twenty-nine murders in thirty-four years that fit the same pattern.

Blonde girls between the ages of nine and twelve.

Sexually assaulted. Underpants taken.

Dumped facedown in a relatively public location, usually a rest stop off a sparsely traveled road, or an industrial park at night.

The reports she had access to were sparse. She wished she could view the autopsy reports and the lab notes, but most were not computerized. The older the crimes, the less information she had. But the key commonality, the factor that convinced Olivia she had found the link, was the missing lock of hair. The killer had been taking “souvenirs” from his victims, a piece of his victims he could see or touch to relive his crimes.

“What are you doing?”

Olivia jumped, her hand to her chest. “Greg! You startled me.”

“You were deep in thought. So deep you missed the senior staff meeting.”

She glanced at the clock. Noon already? How did the time escape her? “I’m sorry, I was working on . . .” She bit her cheek. She couldn’t think of a convincing lie, especially on the fly.

Greg frowned and pulled the document from her hand. His scowl deepened as he opened the file folder on her desk and realized what she’d spent the last two weeks doing.

“I can explain,” she began, though she had no idea what to say.

“You don’t need to explain to me, Olivia. I understand you need to find out who killed your sister. But why didn’t you talk to me first?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of personal.” More than personal; guilt sat like a lead weight on her shoulders. Her testimony against Brian Hall had enabled an evil predator to go free.

“Personal?” He sat down across from her and ran his hands through his hair. “We were married for three years, we’ve been friends for ten more, and you couldn’t share this with me?”