Touch of Evil (14 page)

Using both a state database and a search engine to check news sources, she went on the hunt for recent hanging deaths in Texas and Louisiana, from suicide clusters to suspicious cases. She found some suicides, some accidents, with most of the dead male and far too young.

Her eyes widened as she read of a Jane Doe—an unidentified woman found hanging in a tree on the pale bluffs of a state park near Lake Whitney. Dead for days when her body was found in early August, the victim had never been identified, as far as Justine could learn.

She followed up with a phone call to the sheriff’s department in Hill County, where a deputy confirmed the account.

“Never did find out who she was,” he said, “and the body was in such rough shape, what with hanging out there in the heat like that, we weren’t even sure of the age or race or nothing. Hell, even the height was hard to figure, given the way she was all stretched out. And once one foot touched down, then the ants started marching in a little convoy and—”

“Thanks a lot.” Justine could’ve gone all day without getting those pictures stuck in her head. “You figure it for accident, suicide, or murder?”

“Suicide, most likely, but considering the decomp, it’s hard to say for sure.”

After telling him a little about her rash of lakeside hangings and giving him her contact information, Justine hung up and scratched a few more questions in her book. Lake Whitney, she’d learned when she checked, was almost three hours from Preston County, so she jotted down the questions:
Poss. suspect traveling? Shortening time between deaths? Serial killer, or victim-specific?

With no answers on the horizon, she made another call.

The first was to her father’s fishing buddy, the toxicologist from the Dallas medical examiner’s office. But this time, rather than clamoring for information on her cases, as she had a tendency to do when under the gun, she concentrated on the many such calls she’d heard her dad and Lou make over the years. Calls where it was apparently deemed impolite to bring up one’s actual objective.

Telling herself,
I can do this. I speak fluent Good Old Boy,
she asked Dr. Wagner, or Mike, as he preferred to be called, how the fish had been biting lately.

“Haven’t had time to wet a lure in what seems like forever,” he said, “but I’d sure like to. I hear the fishing’s pretty good out your way.”

Rolling her eyes at the hint, she drew in a deep breath. “Then you’ll have to take some time off, Mike, come and visit while the old man’s around,” she said, struggling to master the Zen of I’ve-got-all-day-to-sit-around-making-offers-I’m-praying-you-won’t-take-me-up-on. “Bone Lake’s known for trophy bass, and I’m sure he’d love an excuse to rent a boat and try to find some.”

They chatted for another minute before finally, just as Justine was about to explode with impatience, Dr. Wagner said, “Well, I suppose we both need to get back to work, and anyway, I’ve found some interesting results you’re going to want
to hear. About the samples from the Tyson and Willets cases we tested?”

“Great, that’s great.” Justine jotted notes as Wagner ticked off a number of substances found in each man’s system. In Tyson’s case, he named what Justine recognized as a blood-pressure medication, along with a moderate blood-alcohol reading. For Jake, he listed several drugs, all but one of which, the toxicologist responded to her question, might well have been prescribed for the treatment of ALS or depression.

Justine was disappointed. “That’s it?”

“I was saving the best for last. I did get some unusual results from both samples, which led me to do a…” Wagner described his procedures in excruciating detail while Justine impatiently tapped her pencil and wondered what it was with scientists that they had to wow a person with everything they’d ever learned instead of simply getting to the desired nugget of information.

“I found scopolamine in both men,” Wagner finally said. “We don’t see a lot of it. Not in this country, anyway. Usually it’s GHB or Rohypnol—roofies—or sometimes ketamine. I never even would’ve tested for it if your father hadn’t said you were wondering how someone could get grown men to go along with being hanged.”

Finally, something Justine understood. “You’re talking date-rape drugs? Something that could make these victims compliant?”

“Scopolamine has a lot of off-label uses. Rumor has it U.S. intelligence has tried it as a truth serum for interrogations; it’s been used to induce hallucinations by native shamans in South America—”

“Yeah, we get a lot of those around here,” Justine said wryly.

“And it’s very commonly used by Colombian criminals, who dump it into victims’ drinks or food to coerce them into
emptying their bank accounts or engaging in sex acts, even giving up their own infants to traffickers without a fight. This is one scary drug—turns people into robots.”

Justine blew out a breath, imagining the horror of having free will stripped away. “Thank God we don’t see much of it here, then.”

“And in addition to suppressing a victim’s barriers to resistance,” Wagner continued, “scopolamine also prevents the formation of new memories, so victims can’t testify later against their abusers.”

“They don’t testify either,” Justine added grimly, “after they’ve set their own necks inside a waiting noose.”

Death is a debt we all must pay.

—Euripides

Justine could have sent a deputy, someone she trusted, like Larry Crane or Calvin. But as uncomfortable as seeing Ross again would be, he had called her personally to say he’d found something he would like to show her, something he didn’t want to talk about over the phone. From the tone of his voice, she had her doubts he would be comfortable showing anyone else.

But the closer she drew to the house, the more certain she became that he would have called his attorney friend, rather than her, had he found anything that might incriminate Laney. No, he had some other reason for asking Justine to come back.

Pulling the old Expedition to the curb in front of the house, she grabbed her notebooks but hesitated to get out, wondering if he might have used the situation with his missing cousin as an excuse to see her again.

Justine dismissed the notion. Ross was too honorable a man, and far too deeply committed to his family, to sink to doing such a thing. Besides, in his heart, he must by now feel relief that she had nipped their “backsliding” in the bud. Surely, several hours later, he would have seen the folly of becoming involved with her again.

And if Ross really had decided he was ready for a serious relationship, maybe even thinking of remarrying, Justine knew he wouldn’t have long to wait or far to look for a woman
with far less baggage. She’d seen that truth in Debbie Brown’s pretty blue eyes, felt it in the way other women looked at him.

With that thought, a spasm of grief tightened her stomach, but she’d made her decision, and she would live with it.

By the time Ross met her at the door of his aunt’s home, Justine had arranged her features into what she prayed might be some semblance of professionalism. Even so, the look he gave her, of regret tempered with concern and longing, tested her resolve.

Checking herself, she said, “Dr. Bollinger,” inclining her head in lieu of a more personal greeting. Safer that way, she told herself.

“Sheriff Wofford,” he countered, the desire in his eyes now walled off. “Thanks for coming. There’s something in the bedroom I think you ought to see.”

Your etchings?
Justine restrained herself from asking.

“I found a couple of things in Laney’s room,” he said, moving close enough for her to smell his clean scent, “one of which could be a threat.”

As he ushered her inside a sunny yellow bedroom, she automatically cataloged the contents, from a window hung with delicate white curtains, their scalloped edges embroidered with tiny blue flowers, to a twin bed, with its rumpled chenille spread. A closed white laptop computer sat atop a small desk painted white to match the dresser. Other than the guitar leaning in one corner and a clutter of band photos tacked to a bulletin board, the space was fairly neat, but not unnaturally so.

Justine flipped open the blue spiral and jotted a few observations with a needle-sharp pencil she’d pulled from the box in her truck. Because writing, even thinking, with a dull one in hand was all but impossible.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Ross said carefully. “What’s with the two notebooks?”

She smiled. “Just a little habit I picked up from my old man. The red’s my Book of Questions. Every time a question’s raised, I write it down on its own page. Then I can jot down ideas, possibilities as they occur.”

“And the blue one? Book of Answers?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I call it my Book of Known Facts. As for answers, I leave those for the jury to determine.”

Before Ross could comment, Justine’s phone rang.

“You need to get that?” Ross asked.

She glanced at the screen long enough to see that it was Erik Whatley from Southern Humane Detention calling. Though she supposed she ought to thank him for the flowers, it chapped her hide to think that he was banking on it, watching and waiting for his opening, regardless of the fact that she had murder, mayhem, and a missing woman to contend with. Not to mention Ross, whose unblinking regard made her feel as if she’d swallowed a fistful of live wasps.

“Nothing important,” Justine said, allowing the call to go to voice mail.

Ross pulled out the desk chair and indicated Justine should sit. Once she had, he pulled a phone number from the top drawer and told her about his conversation with his coworker Kenneth Fleming.

Justine knew the name immediately. Last spring, her department had investigated some missing narcotics at the hospital. But soon after the deputies had narrowed their focus onto Fleming, the hospital’s chief administrator had called to tell her they’d prefer to handle the problem in-house, using rehab and extensive supervision. Since the court would probably do no more to a first-time offender, Justine had been happy to divert her men to more pressing issues.

“So is this the doc with the…problem?” she asked, trying to gauge how much Ross knew. Though she suspected that there were few real secrets among the hospital staff.

“Drugs, yes,” Ross said. “He’s been out of rehab for a while,
though. Attending counseling and passing the tests he’s been given. Seems better, too, but I have to tell you, Kenneth Fleming’s still not the sort of person I’d pick for my cousin. Even discounting the drugs, he’s got twenty years on her, at least.”

Justine flicked him a look and tried not to take the comment personally. Still, she couldn’t help thinking of all the grief she and Lou had gotten after they had married, all the snide remarks and coarse assumptions about his motives and hers.

To his credit, Ross flushed, saying, “Please don’t think I mean…We’re talking about Kenneth here, an unstable man who’s still grieving over a recent divorce. And Laney, who’s barely started with the grieving process.”

“I understand,” Justine said. Did she drop her guard when she was around him, or was there some other explanation for how he so often seemed to know what she was feeling? “I’ll question Fleming personally. Could be he’ll be more willing to talk to me than one of Laney’s family members.”

Especially after she gave the man her patented Atomic Death Stare.

“You’ll let me know what he says, won’t you?” Ross asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Just the same as you can’t tell me about a patient’s medical condition.”

He gave a curt nod, not liking it but clearly comprehending.

“Was that it?” Justine asked, her gaze settling on the laptop.

Ross bent to open the desk’s bottom drawer, the muscled curve of his upper arm brushing past the inside of her knee, a simple, accidental touch that all but made her vibrate.

Justine flinched at the contact, at the heightened reaction of her own sensitized body. But fortunately, this time Ross
didn’t seem to notice. Or at least, he locked down his response.

Pulling out a file, he spread it open on the desk before her. “All these are notes from admirers of Laney’s,” he explained. “Or I guess that’s what you’d call them. Most seem harmless but some get pretty personal, mentioning her body and how she looked in this outfit or that. But this one…” He pulled out a plain white envelope and gave it to her. “This really bothers me.”

Reading it, Justine felt the fine hairs behind her neck rise. The red-lettered note was written in the language of a stalker, and when she looked back at the other notes that had made Ross uncomfortable, she spotted similarities in the writer’s cross-strokes.

“See that?” she asked, pointing out the phrase
LAUGHING AT ME WITH THEM,
then peeling a cocktail napkin note that praised not perfect pitch but the
FEARFUL SYMMETRY OF YOUR BREASTS.
“Doesn’t that look similar to you? The print, I mean.”

“I didn’t notice it before, but yeah. And look, it’s tilted the wrong way, too,” he said.

“A back slant,” Justine said, recalling some testimony she’d once heard about it in a courtroom.

“Does that mean he’s left-handed?” Ross asked.

She shook her head. “Not necessarily.” And the wording of the notes didn’t guarantee the writer was male, either, though statistics favored it. “Experts would argue over what the left slant means. I’ll leave that part to them, but you
can
tell a few things from the text itself.”

“Like what?”

“Well, this person’s reasonably well educated. Words are all spelled correctly, and look here: he ended this line with ‘as pitiful as I am’ instead of ‘as pitiful as me,’ which is how most people around here probably would say it.”

Ross nodded, looking at her closely. “I can’t believe you caught that so fast. I never would have seen it.”

She shrugged. “It’s experience, that’s all,” she said. “You’re probably a lot better at picking up a bad appendix or collapsed lung.”
And life…you’re definitely much better at not screwing yours up.

“This ‘fearful symmetry,’” he said, pointing to the commentary on his cousin’s breasts. “That’s from some poem, isn’t it? So the guy’s pretty literate as well.”

“See, you’re catching on already.” Never much for poetry, Justine couldn’t place the quote but made a note of it to look up.

But instinct told her this wasn’t about literature. “This has all the earmarks of erotomania.”

Rather than asking for an explanation of the psychological disorder, Ross nodded, looking grim. “Some nut job of a fan thinks Laney’s secretly in love with him.”

“A lot of celebrity stalkings—and more than you’d think aimed at ordinary people—start out this way. These things can escalate over time.”

“Enough so the obsessed person might try to eliminate anyone he sees as competition?” Ross asked.

“I’ll need to take this file,” Justine said without answering, wishing he hadn’t already handled its contents. “And I’ll want to fingerprint you so we can eliminate yours from whatever we find on these.”

She knew getting usable prints other than her own, Ross’s, and Laney’s was a long shot, and that matching them to a subject already in the system—most likely a prior stalker or a sex offender—would be even less likely. But Justine had no choice except to try, using every means at her disposal.

“Fine,” Ross told her. “I’ll cooperate. But do you think, based on your experience, that this bastard might have her?”

Seeing the horror in his gaze, she wanted to tell him Laney was just off with some friend. Or assure him that if the obsessed
individual did have her, he would never hurt her. But Justine couldn’t lie to him that way.

“I don’t know where she is,” Justine answered. “But I promise you, Ross, I am going to find her.”

One way or another.

Guarded, always guarded. That was Justine’s expression, Ross thought. One could spend a lifetime looking for cracks in her dark-eyed composure, waiting for glimmers of the light inside to shine out.

It had become, for him, an addictive pastime. Unhealthy, he suspected, but one he couldn’t seem to give up.

What he glimpsed at the moment convinced him she was thinking there was a good chance Laney had been taken last night, abducted by the same sick stalker who might have killed three times already. And a better-than-even chance she’d already been murdered, maybe even while Ross had been seducing the one person who should have been coordinating a search.

“I know that look,” Justine said. “Don’t give up, Ross. And don’t waste time beating yourself up about it either.”

Turning away from her, he shuddered, his teeth gritted so tightly the muscles in his jaws ached. Though Justine was right that there was no point in it, he couldn’t stop thinking how Laney would still be safe if he hadn’t left her alone while he went to Noah.

“Is it possible,” Ross wondered aloud, “that this person, this potential stalker might have taken your son to lure me away from Laney?”

Justine’s gaze drifted. Her thinking look, Ross knew.

“How would the stalker know you might be called to leave the house? Who would ever guess that?” she asked. “Unless we’re talking about someone who knows all the players well. Including things that you and I have kept to ourselves.”

After thinking for a moment, she added, “Would Kenneth
Fleming happen to know you’ve treated Noah in the ER on a few occasions?”

“Sure, it’s possible, but still, I don’t see why that would click with him. He has no idea you and I were ever”—Ross groped for a word—“together.”

An uncomfortable silence wedged itself between them as Ross reflected that they never really had been. Not in any way that mattered. And because he’d waited too long, he’d lost his chance with her.

Frowning, Justine added, “Laney could’ve mentioned to him that Gwen was working with my son.”

Ross shook his head. “I just can’t see it, even if Kenneth did know all this. The man’s an out-of-shape, middle-aged crybaby. It’s hard to imagine a guy like that even knowing how to
tie
a noose, much less having the guts to use one to hang three men. Besides, if Kenneth couldn’t cover his tracks to rip off drugs from the hospital, do you really think he could have pulled off something like this?”

“I’ll talk to him, lean on him hard to get some answers. But I’ve met Dr. Fleming, and on the surface, I agree. I never got that kind of vibe from the man.”

Ross swore, wondering if not Kenneth, then who? Who the hell else might have Laney?

When Justine’s hand settled on Ross’s upper arm, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lean toward her—for them to gravitate toward each other to seek comfort. Except this time neither made the first move, and the possibility slipped past them like dried leaves caught on a current.

Looking uncomfortable, she dropped her hand. “I’d better take this file and get back to the office.”

Before he could reply, her phone rang again.

“Sorry, need to take this,” she said after looking at the caller ID.

He left her in the room alone, but she caught up with him
in the kitchen only minutes later, determination written in her expression, new purpose in her brisk strides.

“Guy from the cell carrier called me with GPS coordinates,” she told him, “on your cousin’s phone. They tried some power-boosting strategy—I don’t really understand it—and came up with a weak signal.”