The Next Accident

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I can’t tell you where I’m going.”

  “Did you hear me asking?”

  “You . . . you should probably find another intern. I mean, I would understand . . .”

  “At this late date? Bah. I can read my own notes for a change. Might do me a world of good. Jumping to obvious conclusions. Next thing you know I’ll be dreaming of the Washington Monument and blaming everything on my toilet training.”

  “Dr. Andrews . . . Thank you.”

  “Miss Quincy, it has been a pleasure.”

  There was nothing left to say. Kimberly rose. Held out her hand. Across the desk, Dr. Andrews also stood and extended his hand. Kimberly was touched by how grave he appeared.

  “One last piece of advice?” he asked solemnly.

  “Of course.”

  “Law enforcement, Miss Quincy. This man, he seems to specialize in identifying his victim’s vulnerability, the thing she thinks she needs or admires most. For you, it’s law enforcement. You have an inherent trust and respect for anyone wearing a badge.”

  “Point taken.” Kimberly hesitated. It was silly to say what she was going to say next. But then, she felt that she must. Day One, she thought. My sister is gone, my mother is dead, and I am learning to question everything. Her gaze went to the window, now robbed of the light of day. Outside, a car backfired, sounding like a gunshot on the crowded streets.

  “Dr. Andrews,” she said quietly. “If anything should happen, can you tell my father something for me? Tell him the last person I saw this evening was a newly hired instructor at my gun club. Tell him I met a man named Doug James.”

  1

  William Zane’s Office, Virginia

  “I want a name.”

  “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of AA; we don’t give out that kind of information.”

  “Fine. Screw the name; it’s probably just an alias anyway. I want a description.”

  “And one more time, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of AA. We don’t give out that kind of information.”

  “Mr. Zane, this is a homicide investigation. You give me information now, quietly, or to the police later as part of an official investigation that will be reported to the press. Now, do you want to provide one man’s description as a private exchange between you and me, or do you want word to get out that some psychopathic killer is using AA meetings to select his victims?”

  William Zane, president of Mandy’s AA chapter, finally hesitated. He was a big guy. Six one, two hundred and forty pounds. He wore a suit that screamed investment banker and carried himself in a way that suggested he was accustomed to people doing exactly what he said. Rainie figured he had at least three ex-wives and one helluva cocaine habit somewhere in his past. In theory, he was clean now and did an impeccable job of running the AA meetings. Someday, she’d be sure to send him a Hallmark card congratulating him on being such a nicely reformed human being. At the moment, however, she simply wanted the name and description of Amanda’s “friend” at the AA meetings.

  It was six P.M. Thursday, nearly twelve hours until departure to the relative safety of Portland, and for no good reason, Rainie was increasingly worried about Kimberly. In other words, she didn’t feel like dicking around.

  William Zane sighed. He’d agreed to see Rainie upon hearing that Amanda Quincy’s car accident had been reopened as a murder investigation. Now, he clearly regretted that decision. He got up from his chair in his posh office, moved his impressively clad bulk to the door and shut it firmly.

  “You have to understand what you’re asking,” he said. “The key to AA’s effectiveness is its simple operating principle—we provide confidential support to anyone willing to stop drinking. We aren’t beholden to the courts, or to the police, or to anyone. We’re an equal-opportunity support organization. And for a lot of people, we’re the only lifeline they’ve got.”

  “Amanda doesn’t need a lifeline anymore.”

  “You’re not asking about Amanda. You’re asking about current members.”

  It was Rainie’s turn to sigh. “Here’s the kicker, Mr. Zane. I’m a member of AA. I confess that I wouldn’t have walked into my first meeting if it hadn’t been anonymous and I wouldn’t have continued to attend meetings after I became a police officer if it hadn’t been anonymous. So as a matter of fact, I see your point. But this man murdered Amanda Quincy. He set up a scenario that sent her face crashing into a windshield at thirty-five miles per hour. And then there’s what he did to her mother. Would you like to see the crime-scene photos?”

  “No, no, no, no.” Mr. Zane shook his lily-white hands emphatically and managed to go another shade of pale. To the image of the three ex-wives, Rainie added the picture of him pacing outside the delivery room with a box of Cuban cigars. She wondered if he ever did manage to change a diaper.

  “I’m looking for a killer, Mr. Zane,” she pressed. “You want to be a lifeline, be a lifeline for the other women who are doomed to die unless you help me stop this guy. Be a lifeline for the future victims. Because at this moment, you’re the only chance of finding this guy that I’ve got.”

  “Perhaps,” Mr. Zane said finally. “Off the record. Way off the record—”

  “Deal. Sit, Mr. Zane; let’s talk.”

  Mr. Zane sat behind his big desk. She got out her notebook.

  “Do you remember Amanda Quincy?” Rainie asked.

  “Yes, she joined our meetings nearly a year and a half ago.”

  “Did she have a sponsor?”

  “She had a sponsor. I don’t see the need to give out his name unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Yeah, and here’s a photo of what happens to the human skull when it hits the rim of a windshield—”

  “Larry Tanz,” Mr. Zane said. “Nice guy.”

  “How did Amanda know Larry Tanz?”

  “He owned the restaurant where she worked. Larry’s been an AA member for ten years and has sponsored a fair amount of his staff in that time.” Mr. Zane slid her a look. “It’s amazing how many bartenders are drunks. And then there’re the cooks . . .”

  Rainie rolled her eyes, then jotted down a quick note. Larry Tanz, manager where Mandy used to work, which meant by definition, manager where Mary Olsen used to work. Interesting.

  “Did Mandy and Mr. Tanz seem to have any other kind of relationship? You know, beyond the sponsor-sponsee kind of thing?”

  “Our chapter suggests that people wait at least a year before dating,” Mr. Zane said promptly. “As I’m sure you know, quitting cold turkey is very hard. You don’t want to risk the additional stress of having a serious relationship end—it might send even the strongest person back to the bottle. We don’t recommend dating until the initiate celebrates his or her one-year anniversary.”

  “Sounds romantic. So was Mandy fucking Larry or what?”

  Mr. Zane said stiffly, “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “One, Larry is a good guy. And two, while he felt sad and disappointed by Amanda’s accident—perhaps even guilty—I wouldn’t call him crushed. Her death was tragic, but certainly not deeply personal for him.”

  “How nice for Larry. What about someone else? Someone she might have befriended at the meetings?”

  “She befriended lots of people—”

  “New members who may have joined around the time she did who seemed like particularly close friends.”

  Mr. Zane hesitated. Rainie stared at him. He picked up a laser-etched paperweight, a souvenir from some exotic vacation. She stared harder.

  “Well, there was one guy . . .”

  “Name.”

  “Ben. Ben Zikka.”

  “Description.”

  “I don’t know. Older. Late forties or early fifties, I would say. Not tall, five ten, maybe. Thinning brown hair. Soft around the middle. Not good taste in suits—definitely off the rack.” Mr. Zane ran a hand down his
own tailored jacket with authority. “I think he said he was a police officer or something like that. I could believe he’d eaten a lot of doughnuts.”

  Rainie scowled, then began chewing on her lower lip. This wasn’t what she’d expected. “Older, kind of frumpy-looking guy? You’re sure he was with Mandy?”

  “Fairly sure. They started leaving the meetings together. At one point, I noticed they now came in the same car.”

  “And we’re talking about the same Amanda Quincy, right? Twenty-three, slender, blond hair, big blue eyes? If the star quarterback hadn’t dated her in high school, it wasn’t from lack of trying.”

  “She was pretty,” Mr. Zane said with more enthusiasm.

  Rainie was getting a headache. “You’re sure Zikka and Amanda were an item?”

  “I don’t know. You asked about new members she’d befriended. He was the new member she’d befriended. To tell you the truth, however, he only came the first few months. Then he stopped coming. She showed up a few more times, but each time was farther apart. Larry Tanz was going to call her about it, when she had the accident.”

  “So she comes to AA, meets this guy, and slowly trails off.”

  “Yes.” Mr. Zane shrugged. He said, “It’s often like that in the beginning. Admitting you’re an alcoholic is tough. Staying sober is even tougher. Most of our members end up starting and stopping a few times before it sticks.”

  “Was there anyone else at this meeting who seemed to know Mandy? Say, someone six feet tall, well dressed, trim build, late forties, early fifties?” Rainie was working off Bethie’s neighbor’s statement to the police that she’d seen someone resembling Quincy enter the town house. But Mr. Zane shook his head.

  “Are you sure?” she persisted.

  “You haven’t been to an AA meeting lately, have you, Ms. Conner? You spend half your life overindulging in alcohol and drugs and you’re rarely the well-dressed, trim-build type. Maybe a Hollywood star can pull it off, but the rest of us, we’ve abused ourselves and we look it. Even Amanda Quincy was becoming harsh around the edges.”

  Rainie scowled again. One name and description later, she was more confused than when she’d started. She studied good old William Zane. His gaze was clear. He met her eye. Dammit, just when you were hoping someone was feeding you a lie, he went and told the truth.

  She glanced at her watch. T-minus ten and still two stops to go. She rose, shook Zane’s hand, and tried not to take his obvious relief at her departure too personally.

  At the door, however, she was struck by one last question. “At your meetings,” she said, “you talk about some very personal things, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Mandy talk about?”

  He hesitated.

  “Crime-scene photos, Mr. Zane. Crime. Scene. Photos.”

  “Mandy had self-esteem issues. Mandy . . . had a lot of self-esteem issues. She talked about how famous her father was. She talked about how beautiful her mother was. She talked about how smart her sister was. And she talked about— Let’s put it this way, she often categorized herself as a disposable blonde.”

  “A ‘disposable blonde’?”

  “Mandy had this obsession with violence, Ms. Conner. She liked to see slasher movies, to read true-crime novels. She told the group that when she was younger, she used to sneak into her father’s office and look through his homicide textbooks, even read his case files. They terrified her, but she still came back for more. It wasn’t a healthy thing. It wasn’t a face-your-fear kind of thing. She did it to punish herself. You see, most of us identify with the crime solver when we watch slasher movies or read mystery novels. Not Mandy. She identified with the pretty, blue-eyed, blond victims. Disposable blondes, Ms. Conner. Beautiful women who exist simply for the deranged killer to savage first.”

  Rainie was still shaken by the time she pulled into the tiny commercial real estate building that housed Phil de Beers’s office. Clouds had rolled in. The air crackled with electricity. A nearly full moon had to be up there somewhere, but the night had taken on a dense, suffocated feeling. Even the crickets had gone quiet.

  She got out of her car hunch-shouldered and skittish, ready to shoot first, question later. Nine P.M. Kimberly should be back in the relative safety of her apartment. Quincy had probably wrapped things up with his boss at Quantico and was now returning to New York City. Rainie just needed to finish up two last chores, then it would be her turn.

  Instead, she stopped in the middle of the empty parking lot and searched the inky black depths for something she couldn’t name. Beyond her line of sight, she could hear cars humming by on the distant freeway. Four streetlamps bounced puddles of light off shiny black asphalt. The scent of honeysuckles and blackberries came to her, cloying and thick.

  “Howdy, ma’am.”

  She startled, then whirled, her right hand already reaching for her Glock.

  Phil de Beers stood in the doorway of the building, the spitting image of his Internet photo as he gazed at her curiously. “Want to come in?” he asked politely.

  She shivered violently and nodded.

  “Brewed some coffee,” he said a moment later as he gestured her inside the building. “Don’t know what it is about thunderstorms, God knows they generate enough humidity to drown a rat, but they always make me feel in need of a good hot drink. Or whiskey. But on account of this being a professional visit, I thought I’d stick with coffee.”

  “Bummer,” Rainie said, and earned a wide, flashing smile from the small, neatly dressed black man.

  “You caught me. I do have some good ol’ sour mash. . . .”

  “Yeah,” she said gloomily, “but I’m an alcoholic. I only get the coffee.”

  “Bummer,” he echoed solemnly, and she decided that she liked him very much.

  They went first to the tiny kitchenette shared by all the clients in the building. Phil splashed a delicate mist of whiskey into his brew. Rainie poured in cream and sugar until the private investigator began to laugh.

  “I see some dependency issues,” he commented.

  “Sugar and fat are socially acceptable drugs.”

  “And you carry them well,” he assured her, conducting an unabashed sweep of her figure before leading her into his office. He took a seat behind his desk in a positively sinful red leather chair. That left a hard, spindly old kitchen chair that she figured was designed to discourage lengthy visits.

  Phil held up a small glass dish. “M&M’s?” Rainie shook her head. He took a large handful. “I got some dependency issues, too,” he admitted cheerfully and munched on the candy while she finished taking inventory of his office.

  The space wasn’t large but it was adequate. One wall contained two rows of bookshelves bearing thick volumes of Virginia State Law as well as piles of magazines. The other wall contained a gallery of framed prints. A diploma from the Virginia police academy. A variety of black and white photos showing de Beers with various men in suits. Probably important men in suits, Rainie thought, but now she was merely showing off her powers of deductive reasoning.

  “Important person?” she asked, picking one photo at random.

  “Director Freeh,” he said.

  “Director Freeh?”

  De Beers flashed her that wide grin. “Head of the FBI.”

  “Oh yeah, that Director Freeh.” Rainie shut up and drank her coffee. It would’ve been better with whiskey.

  “So,” de Beers said. “I’ve been watching Mary Olsen as you requested. Damn boring woman, Mrs. Mary Olsen. Didn’t leave her house yesterday or today.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “No, but I got a contact at the phone company. I’ll pull her records, give ’em a whirl. If you rattled the woman, she’s probably not passing the time merely watching TV.”

  “She’s checking in with people.”

  “There you go. I can get names, numbers, and addresses. Then what do you want me to do?”

  “Fax me the phone numbers and names o
f whomever she’s called the most. I know a state trooper who can check them out.”

  “I don’t mind doing it.”

  “I want you to stay on Mary, in case phone calls are no longer enough. Oh, and here’s a new name for you. Larry Tanz. He supposedly owns the restaurant where Mary Olsen used to work, and where Amanda Quincy worked up until the time of her death. I’d be curious to know if he suddenly paid his former employee a personal visit.”

  “Frightened women can be consoled long distance for only so long. . . .”

  “Absolutely.” Rainie hesitated. “You carry, right? All the time? Heavily?”

  De Beers gave her a look. “Uh oh. Now is when I get that not-so-fresh feeling anymore.”

  “We have evidence that my client’s daughter didn’t die in an automobile accident as originally reported,” Rainie told him. “It was murder. Then last night in Philadelphia . . . Most likely the same man murdered my client’s ex-wife. Brutally.”

  De Beers arched a brow. He got up. He found a folded newspaper on the side bookshelf. He tossed it on top of the desk so Rainie could see the headline. “High Society House of Horrors.” Some enterprising photographer had managed to snag a crime-scene photo of the hallway and its endless rows of bloody handprints.

  “I’d call this brutal,” de Beers said.

  “That would be the one.”

  “Says here she was the former wife of an FBI agent. Which would make your client—”

  “I can see how you’ve succeeded as a private investigator.”

  De Beers sat down again and studied her face. “Let me recap, darlin’. You want me to tail a woman who will hopefully meet a man whose current hobby is taking on the Federal Bureau of Intimidation and murdering the ones they love?”

  “Just one man’s loved ones. It’s personal.”

  “Personal?” His gaze strayed to the gruesome newspaper photo. “Hell, you’re talking a psychopath with balls of steel.”

  “Before you kick him, make sure you put on combat boots.”

  De Beers sighed. “I wished you would’ve told me yesterday that I should be carrying around kryptonite.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”