WILL THERE BE MORE?
UNTIL THE TWELFTH,
NO ONE CAN BE SURE.
She was suddenly as cold as if she’d been dropped into the North Atlantic.
What the hell did the message mean?
Was the Grave Robber talking to her?
Or…or was it a prank?
Her mind raced. Hadn’t Cliff said just last night that the Grave Robber had sent Reed notes?…What about E-mail? Oh, God. What was the return path…? She tried to respond. The message could be a hoax, of course. Lots of people these days got their jollies by sending spam, but she had a sense, an intuition that the killer was reaching out to her. Because of her stories. Because she’d named him. Paid attention. Somehow puffed up his sick ego.
Biting her lower lip, she replied, sending an E-mail asking for the sender to respond and identify himself. It bounced back nearly immediately. She printed out the E-mail, making two copies and on the second one, cutting off the message. Then she searched through the offices until she found Kevin, earphones in place, browsing the vending machines in the lunchroom. He was just punching in his selection when he saw her from the corner of his eyes.
“Don’t tell me, you can’t make the machine work,” he said, his eyes nearly arrogant as they stared down his nose at her. The corners of his lips twisted up slightly, as if he were pleased with himself.
Because he was smarter than she?
Or because he’d expected her to chase him down?
“No. No. The system works fine. But I need a favor,” she said, grateful, for once, that she’d found him alone.
He pulled down his earphones. “Another one?”
A bag of M&M peanuts dropped into the tray. Kevin snagged them up quickly, as if he thought she might snatch them from him.
“Yeah.”
“It’ll cost you,” he said, and flashed a smile that bordered on a leer.
“Oh, right…look!” She handed him the E-mail address. “Can you find out who sent this to me?”
“Maybe.” He scanned the paper, his eyebrows drawing together thoughtfully. “Why?”
“Because it’s important, okay? Someone sent me a strange message and when I tried to reply, the E-mail bounced back.” She handed him the response again, with the message cut out.
“Is it about the serial killer? That Grave Robber guy?”
She didn’t want to lie and hated the fact that she needed Kevin’s help. “Yes. Really.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“It’s your job!”
“I got lots of work to do.”
Frustrated, she stared at him. “What do you want, Kevin?”
He hesitated and she felt her chest tighten. Oh, Lord, he wasn’t going to ask her for a date, was he? Or some kind of kinky sexual favor disguised as a joke?
“What?”
“Credit, okay? You and a lot of people act like I’m useless, or…or that I don’t exist…or that I’m stupid…or that I only got the job because Tom’s my uncle, but the truth of the matter is that you and Trina and Norm and everyone in this damned place need me.” He hooked a thumb at his chest emphatically, the candy rattling in its bag.
“Credit?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay…” she said, still unsure. His anger had flared so quickly, as if it had smoldered for years. “You got it.”
“I mean it, Nikki.” He grabbed the paper from her hands and started reading it. “I’ll get back to you.”
“Fast. This is important.”
His eyes flashed again. “Like I don’t get it? I know that.” Again with the undefinable smile. He left her standing there and she realized that he was the last one who’d used her computer. He knew the system inside and out. He could have sent the E-mail and inserted it between the others…
Oh, for the love of Mary, what was wrong with her? She was seeing everyone as a potential killer these days. She hurried back to her desk and started working up an interview for Reed. This was her shot. She might not get another chance.
CHAPTER 18
“The good Lord don’t like anyone messin’ with graves,” Bea Massey insisted. She was a tiny, stooped black woman with teeth too big for her head. So far, she’d given Morrisette no information that could help the investigation. Nearly blind, she petted a raggedy old mutt who sat at her feet at the kitchen table. “Once a person is laid to rest, he ought to stay that way.”
Amen, sister, Reed thought, but kept his viewpoint to himself as Morrisette interviewed Thomas Massey’s widow. From his vantage point near the window, Reed inspected the grounds. Bantam chickens roosted on the back porch. A vegetable garden, gone fallow, was wedged behind a garage that listed badly and was home to a 1967 Buick Skylark. In the house, handmade lace cloths covered every table and surrounded the windows. Mrs. Massey swore she’d never met Jerome Marx, nor had she heard of him. “But I told Thomas that he had no business bein’ buried in the city. He belonged out here in the country, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Wanted to be with the rest of his family in Savannah…. Now look what’s come of it.”
They left the house with not much more information than they’d come with. Bea Massey had been the second stop. They’d already interviewed Beauford Alexander at the assisted care facility where he’d lived since his wife’s death and thought that neither he, nor Pauline, had ever met anyone named Barbara Jean Marx. Or Thomas Massey. Or Roberta Peters.
“Two strikes,” Reed muttered as they drove toward Savannah.
“What does it matter? You’re out already.” Morrisette punched in the lighter and glanced his way as she drove toward the city. “Remember?”
“I was thinking of you.”
“And I’m touched,” she mocked as the lighter clicked. She managed to light up and switch lanes as they neared the city.
Reed scowled out the window and watched the wind whip through the tall grass and scattered brush of the low country. The case was getting to him. He thought about it constantly, couldn’t concentrate on the rest of his work, and was having a helluva time sleeping.
“I’ve been thinking about this twelve thing. Even checked on the Internet. A dozen as in doughnuts, or signs of the zodiac, or months in the year,” Sylvie said.
“Right, I checked, too. There are boxcars in a dice game, jurors on a jury, twelve apostles, twelve inches in a foot and the Big Twelve Conference.”
“What? Big Twelve?”
“Sports. College teams in the Midwest.”
“I knew it sounded familiar. Bart was a sports nut.” She snorted derisively. “I’m still paying on the big screen to prove it.” She drew hard on her cigarette and scowl lines creased her forehead. “But I don’t think this case has anything to do with sports.”
“Probably not.” But what did it mean? So far they’d come up dry with forensic evidence, at least nothing solid yet. No fingerprints, no shoe prints, only partial tire tracks, no blood or hairs or fibers on the victims, no hint of sexual abuse. Whoever the guy was, he got his jollies from their terror and death, maybe even jerked off as he heard them scream through the damned microphone, but he hadn’t left any definite leads. Aside from the notes Reed had received.
Morrisette shot out a stream of smoke. “Okay, this much we know: the last person to see Barbara Jean Marx alive was her ex. Jerome Marx was at her house around six the night before.”
“So he kidnapped her then, dug up Pauline Alexander, hauled them both by truck to Lumpkin County and buried them, then hightailed it back here.”
“Trouble is, he drives a Porsche. As far as I can see he didn’t rent a hearse.”
“Maybe he stole one,” Reed suggested. “Or a truck.”
“Maybe. But he didn’t know Roberta Peters or Thomas Massey.” She flipped on the wipers as the rain that had been threatening all afternoon began to fall in thick drops. She cleared her throat and didn’t look his way as she added, “We’re supposed to get blood typing back on the baby ASAP. DNA is being rushed, but it’ll take a little longer.
Maybe next week.”
To think that Bobbi was carrying his baby. Or Marx’s. Or someone else’s completely. While wearing her wedding band. Hell, he’d been a fool for that woman. But then, that was his M.O. Women, the wrong kind, had always been his downfall.
“The department is going to issue a statement today,” she said, and he felt a jab of jealousy that he wasn’t the one giving her the news instead of the other way around. Morrisette stubbed out her cigarette. “Yeah, explain a little more about the murders, warn the citizens, ask for their help, the same old stuff.”
“And talk about a serial murderer?”
“Mmm. Looks like.” She slid a glance in his direction as she took the corner and headed toward the heart of the city. She licked her finger and drew an imaginary line by her head. “Score one for Nikki Gillette.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Other than that she’s a major pain in the ass?”
“Yeah…”
Passing a slow moving truck, Morrisette said, “Now, wait a minute, you’re not interested in her, are you?”’
“Just curious. She’s got the jump on the department.”
“Yeah, but she’s attractive, if you like pushy, bullheaded blondes.”
“Don’t know any,” Reed drawled, looking at his platinum-haired partner. “You’ve been around here longer than I have. What’s the story with Gillette?”
“Just that she’s a spoiled brat who decided to become a journalist. She’s never been married, that I know of, but then, I don’t know all that much about her. I think she’s been working for the Sentinel since she got out of school or maybe even in the summers while she was going to college…I think she got into trouble with the Chevalier trial while she was still going to college…you remember that. You were here then, right?”
“I helped collar the guy.”
“And now he’s been released. What a waste of time and effort. Anyway, about Nikki Gillette, I think she’s always trying to prove herself to her old man. Somehow she never measured up to the older boy, the one who was killed or offed himself. Her older brother, oh, hell, what was his name….
“Andrew.”
Morrisette slid him a glance as she slowed for a light. “So you already know. Why the hell am I running off at the mouth, then?”
“I just want your take on it.”
“Well, the older brother was a star athlete and the real brain in the family. Damned apple of his father’s eye. The kid breezed through college and applied to some fancy-schmancy law school, Harvard or Yale…whichever one of those Ivy Leaguers his father went to. Didn’t get in, even with Daddy’s pull. Soon after, the kid dies. Falls off a deck. Or was pushed. Or jumped. No one saw or at least anyone who did see what happened kept his or her mouth shut.”
Reed had heard most of the story, remembered some of it from his earlier years in Savannah.
“Anyway,” Morrisette said, “from what I heard, the family fell apart. The Judge nearly threw in the towel and the old lady really went around the bend. The other kids, and there are a couple besides Nikki, I think, didn’t seem to count. Not like the firstborn boy. Well, at least that’s what I heard.” She punched it as the light turned green. “I really don’t keep up too much on old Nikki. I just know that she really blew it during the Chevalier trial, but you know that.”
“Everyone does.” Reed had been a junior detective in Savannah at the time. One of the first homicide cases he’d worked on had been the Carol Legittel murder and he’d helped collar LeRoy Chevalier, who had been the victim’s boyfriend. Before being assigned to homicide he’d been out to the Chevalier home on domestic abuse calls that had never really stuck. Because of all the red tape and the fact that Carol would never press charges.
Hell, it had been a mess. So Chevalier had finally snapped and had killed her as well as two of her kids. Judge Ronald Gillette had presided and his daughter, a college kid working for the Sentinel, had overheard some private conversation and reported a little of it, nearly enough to blow the whole damned trial. Not that it mattered now. Chevalier was now a free man; could never be retried for those murders.
Reed had lost touch with most of the people involved. Soon after the Chevalier trial, he’d taken off for San Francisco.
“You know how the creep got out? A little while back. Some slimy attorney should be shot for that one. I don’t care what those DNA reports say—the blood at the scene might have been contaminated. In those days, we just didn’t have the techniques we have now. In my book Chevalier’s a cold blooded murderer. He sliced and diced that poor single mother as well as her kids. Then, because of Nikki Gillette, there was nearly a mistrial. Fortunately the bastard is convicted and now…now he’s out? What is the world coming to?”
“You tell me.”
“To hell in a handbasket, that’s what. Nikki Gillette was just a kid at the time, working at the paper as a stringer on her summer break from college, I think. Man, even then, she had too much ambition.”
Reed grunted but didn’t confide that he intended to talk to the reporter later. The less Morrisette knew about what he was doing on the side, the better, for her and her job.
He’d decided to find out how Nikki got her information and from where, though she’d probably protect her sources and pull out that First Amendment crap. And that’s what it was. No one could convince Reed that the Founding Fathers’ intent with Amendment One was to protect jerks who gave out bad information and jeopardized legitimate investigations of criminals. But Nikki wouldn’t be easy to shake down. She was tough and dogged. Determined to do her job. Last summer during the Montgomery case, she hadn’t left him alone. Tonight she expected an exclusive interview. Well, she’d get one. Only Reed was going to do the interviewing. Nikki Gillette knew too much. It compromised the investigation. And it was dangerous. For everyone. Including her.
He glanced at his watch and saw he had a few more hours before he’d meet with her. It would be an interesting conversation. If nothing else, Nikki Gillette was intelligent and easy on the eyes. Attractive and smart—a deadly combination in Reed’s opinion. She was also more than a little spoiled from being born privileged, a silver spoon wedged firmly between her near-perfect teeth.
Morrisette dropped him off at the station. For the next few hours, he turned his attention to a domestic violence case where the wife had “accidently” pumped five rounds of bird shot into her husband. He might have survived the spray of BBs but one had nicked his jugular and he’d bled to death before the wife had come out of her state of “confusion, hysteria and panic” long enough to dial 911. When the first officer arrived at the scene she was calmly sitting in a chair at the dinette and smoking a cigarette. In Reed’s estimation, this case was a slam dunk.
He was about to leave and was reaching for his jacket when the phone rang. “Reed.”
“Rick Bentz, New Orleans Police,” the caller said, identifying himself as once being Reuben Montoya’s partner. “I got your message. You called about a guy named Vince Lassiter.”
Reed let his jacket slide back over his chair. “That’s right. He’s the brother of a homicide victim. We need to locate him. Not only do we want to notify him about his sister but we’d like to check on his whereabouts on the day she disappeared.”
“What happened to the sister?”
As images of Bobbi Jean teased his mind, pictures of her alive, vibrant and sexy as well as thoughts of her in the cold, dark coffin gasping for life and the very real view of her in death, Reed managed to tamp down his rage at the animal who had killed her and, as calmly as possible, filled Bentz in, ending with “…so we’d like to locate everyone associated with Barbara Marx.”
“Don’t blame you. The son of a bitch buries them alive?” Bentz swore under his breath. “We’ll keep searching, but my guess is it’ll be hard to reach Lassiter. He took off about three months ago. Didn’t report in to his parole officer and didn’t leave a forwarding address. The woman he lived with can’t or won??
?t say what happened to him and he hasn’t turned up anywhere. Some of the guys at the station think he tried to run out on a bad debt, was caught and killed, his body dumped in the bayou somewhere, but that’s just conjecture. I can’t tell you what happened to him because we just don’t know.”
Another dead end. Reed drummed his fingers on the desk. “Figures. Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“I did pull his file.” Reed heard pages being flipped. “He’s been in and out of trouble with the law since he was fourteen, nothing serious, I think, though those records aren’t available as he was a minor. When he was nineteen, he was involved in armed robbery. He sold out his friend, copped a plea, served his time and got out of prison a couple of years back. From there, he looked like he was on the straight and narrow. Got himself a job as a telemarketer selling cleaning supplies, hooked up with a woman he met through AA. Her name is…let’s see…yeah, Wanda Parsons. Lassiter was a model citizen until the end of August. Then he vanished. Just didn’t come home one night. Either managed a convincing disappearing act or ended up on the wrong side of a gun somewhere. We found his truck ditched near Baton Rouge. No one saw what happened.
“We checked with all the people who knew him, including the sister, in October. No one’s heard word one.”
“You think he was offed?”
“Me, I don’t know, but that’s the popular bet with the department.”
“Keep me posted if anything changes and Lassiter turns up.”
“Will do. And you’ll do the same?”
“You got it. Thanks. And say hi to Montoya.”
“I’d like to,” Bentz said, “but I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s taken a hiatus.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“If you see him, tell him to give me a call,” Reed said.