Count to Ten (45 page)

“He’s not home, dead or otherwise,” Spinnelli said. “I’ve got an APB out for his car.”

“And it doesn’t appear that his keys are in the pile,” Reed added.

“So he could be alive and hiding, or dead and hidden. What else?” Spinnelli asked.

“Just something Jeremy said,” Mia mused. “Remember, Murphy, he said that White buried something in the backyard last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. If he killed somebody then, we haven’t found them yet.”

There was a knock at the door and an officer stuck his head in. “Lieutenant Spinnelli? I’m from Impound. I have some evidence for you.”

“Thank you. We hope this is good.” Spinnelli handed the book to Mia when the officer from Impound was gone. “Do the honors, Mia.”

Mia pulled on a pair of gloves and slid the book from the paper evidence sack. “One math book. And inside...” She looked up. “Newspaper clippings. Hill and Burnette.” She grimaced. “And me. Here’s the one of me taking down DuPree and here’s the one with my address, thank-you--Carmichael, and... hello.” She grinned. “One clipping from the
Gazette
in Springdale, Indiana. thanksgiving night fire leaves two dead. It’s dated the day after Thanks-giving.”

“The first time Jeremy saw White burying something in the backyard,” Murphy murmured. “Who did he kill?”

Mia scanned the article, her heart picking up. “One of the victims was Mary Kates. Kates is one of the names on the Social Services list.” Hurriedly she found the list. “Two names. Andrew and Shane Kates. They’re brothers. Andrew would be the right age.”

“This is good.” Spinnelli paced. “Very good. Now that we know who the hell this guy is, we need to know where he’ll strike next or where he’ll hide or run. The four of you find out. I’m going to call the captain and tell him we finally made some progress.”

Mia felt invigorated. Renewed. She stared at the table with all his souvenirs, her heart pumping gallons. “Andrew Kates. Your days are numbered, you sonofabitch.”

Saturday, December 2, 5:15 P.M.

The wig was making his head sweat. “How much is the rent?” It was an empty apartment in Mitchell’s building. The super held the key in her hand. He was waiting for the right moment to get the information he needed. If she couldn’t tell him, he’d take her keys and investigate Mitchell’s place -himself.

“Eight fifty,” the old woman said. “Due first of the month.”

He made a point of looking in the closets. “And is the neighborhood safe?”

“Very safe.”

No more than a couple of shootings a week on the street outside. The woman lied like a rug. “I read about that detective in the paper.”

“Oh, that. She’s moved out. It’ll be very quiet from here on out.”

Panic rose in his throat. But she was probably lying again. “That was fast.”

“Well, the movers haven’t come yet. But she’s out of here. No need to worry.”

But there was every need to worry. He wanted Mitchell. He needed to get into her place before she moved all her things. Surely there was some clue to where she’d gone. He considered shooting the old bag where she stood, but the new gun in his back waistband would be loud. Tyler had built quite a gun collection. He’d wanted to take them all, but he still had to travel light, so he’d taken only two. A .38 and a .44, both of which would bring people running if he fired them. So he’d do it the old-fashioned way. From under his jacket he pulled his pipe wrench and smacked the old lady’s head. Like a rag doll she crumpled, blood from her wound starting to soak the carpet. He bound her hands and feet and gagged her before stuffing her in the closet.

With her key he let himself into Mitchell’s place. She needed a good decorator. Methodically he checked the coat closet. Other than a trifolded flag on the shelf, it was empty. Her kitchen cabinet was filled with boxes of Pop-Tarts, her freezer with microwave meals. She needed a good nutritionist more than a decorator.

Her bedroom was a mess, blankets in a pile on the floor. But interestingly, a box of condoms sat open on the nightstand. Her closet was such a mess, there was no way to know if she’d taken clothes or not. Frustrated, he returned to the living room. A pile of mail covered a lamp table. Greedily he searched it. The only thing remotely personal was a postcard with a crab on the front. “Dear Mia, wish you’d come with us. Miss you. Love, Dana.” Dana? A friend with whom Mitchell might stay?

He opened the lamp table drawer and pulled out a photo album with a grin. He’d struck gold. He lifted the cover and sighed. Mitchell was no more organized about her photos than she was about anything else. None of the photos were put into the plastic sleeves. It was just a pile, as if she threw everything in here with the plan to someday do it right. How had she ever managed to get as far as she did?

On the top of the stack was an obituary she’d ripped from the paper without even trimming the edges. He fought the urge to trim them himself and read it. Her father had died four weeks before. Interesting. He was survived by her mother. More interesting still. She’d come to heel if her mother were in danger.

He kept searching. Lots of kids’ school pictures. And a wedding picture. Mitchell in pink with a tall redhead in white lace. On the back it said “Mia and Dana.” Bingo. But Dana who? And where would he find her? Ask and you shall receive. Under the wedding photo was an invitation. dana danielle dupinski and ethan walton buchanan request your presence... It was completely intact. He smiled. She’d been a bridesmaid so there’d been no need to send in the RSVP. He pocketed the card and the obituary. Dana Dupinski lived a good half hour from here. He’d better hurry.

Saturday, December 2, 6:45 P.M.

“Talk,” Spinnelli said from the head of the conference table. They’d regrouped, Reed and Mia, Murphy and Aidan, and Miles Westphalen. “What do we know?”

The table was again full, this time of paper. After more than seven hours of phone calls, faxes, and e-mails, they’d been able to put together a great deal of Andrew Kates’s past. Reed was energized. They were closing in.

“We know where Andrew Kates has been,” he said, “where he’s likely to go, and importantly, why ten is the magic -number.”

Mia stacked her notes. “Andrew and Shane Kates were born to Gloria Kates. Aidan tracked Andrew to the Michigan juvie system, who faxed us copies of their birth certificates. No father listed for either boy. Andrew is older by four years and served time in Michigan juvie for stealing a car when he was barely twelve. Nobody there remembered him, but it’s been about ten years.”

“Is that the count to ten?” Westphalen asked and Mia shook her head.

“Be patient, Miles. This took us seven hours. You can listen for ten minutes.”

“Sorry,” Westphalen mumbled, properly chastised and Reed swallowed his smile.

“Anyway,” Mia said. “I talked to the head caseworker for the juvie facility. She didn’t remember him, but she looked up his file. He was a model resident. Claimed he’d been forced to steal the car by his mother to feed her drug habit. Gloria Kates had a yellow sheet full of drug possession charges, so this was probably true.”

“Obviously he got out,” Spinnelli said.

“Yeah.” Reed took up the story. “When Andrew got caught stealing the car, his mother, Gloria, skipped town, leaving him to hold the bag.”

“Which would explain his hostility against women,” Westphalen said. “Why hasn’t he gone after her?”

“Because she’s dead,” Reed answered. “Heroin overdose, a few months later.”

“So he has to go after substitutes,” Westphalen mused. “Interesting.”

“It gets better,” Reed promised. “When Gloria left, Andrew went to juvie and Detroit placed Shane with his maternal aunt, Mary Kates, in Springdale, Indiana.”

“The Thanksgiving night fire,” Spinnelli murmured.

“Yes,” Reed said. “I talked with the sheriff and the fire chief there about the Thanksgiving fire. The chief said they found gas cans in the backyard, but no eggs or evidence of solid accelerant. Just a gas and match affair. No fingerprints, no nothing. The sheriff said the aunt and her common-law husband, Carl Gibson, were found dead in their bedroom, close to the window. Their legs were broken so they couldn’t get away.”

“Same as the Atlantic City rape victims,” Aidan said.

“And some of our victims,” Reed agreed. “Nobody in Springdale was sorry or surprised to see it happen and the locals are having trouble making any headway on the case. Gibson had a history as a child predator. He was out on parole.”

Westphalen nodded. “Ah. This makes sense.”

“When was Gibson arrested?” Spinnelli asked.

“I checked out Gibson,” Murphy said. “He had no complaints on his record when Detroit social services first placed Shane. The first charges were filed on behalf of Shane Kates. Gibson pled out, but later he was nailed for molesting two other kids.”

“That’s the trigger,” Westphalen said. “Gibson molested Andrew’s brother, then nearly ten years later this boy at Hope Center, Thad, is molested. That same night Gibson and Andrew Kates’s Aunt Mary die. But ten years is a long time for such rage to lie dormant.”

“That’s because you got ahead of our story,” Mia said. “Be patient, Miles.”

Westphalen grimaced. “Sorry. Please continue.”

Reed nodded. “Okay. Shane was molested by Gibson at some time during the year he was there. Based on Gibson’s profile, probably multiple times. He’s a sick bastard.”

“Was,” Mia corrected. “Now he’s a dead bastard.”

“Was,” Reed echoed. “Shane would have been seven or eight at the time.”

“Same age as Jeremy Lukowitch,” Murphy noted and Mia nodded, troubled.

“I don’t know what to make of that. Maybe that’s why he didn’t hurt Jeremy, just his mother. Sorry, Reed. Go on.”

“Andrew was in juvie a year. When he got out, he was placed with his aunt, but before the first sundown, Andrew took Shane and ran away. They were picked up by Indiana police a few days later, but Andrew told them what Carl -Gibson did to Shane and since the aunt had permanent custody of both of them they were put in foster care in -Indiana versus being sent back to Detroit. That’s when the first charges were filed against Gibson.”

“It was hard to place two brothers together,” Mia said, “especially with one of them having a juvie record. The local social services agency couldn’t place them, so they transferred the case to Chicago, who had a lot more homes available. Penny Hill was their caseworker. She placed them with Laura Dougherty, who had developed a reputation for success with troubled kids. And she was willing to take them both.”

“What did Laura Dougherty do that was so bad that Kates tried to kill her three times?” Westphalen asked.

“That took a little more digging,” Mia said. “The Social Services manager didn’t know and Penny Hill didn’t write it in the file. I finally had to drive out to see Mrs. Blennard, their old friend. She remembered Shane. He was beautiful, blond and blue-eyed. At one point, Laura had considered adopting both boys, then Shane started in on one of the younger boys who was only five.” She looked resigned. “Shane fondled him.”

“The abused became the abuser,” Westphalen said and held up his hands when Reed frowned. “It happens, Reed. However you choose to explain it, it happens.”

“Well, it happened with Shane Kates,” Mia inserted when Reed would have responded. “When Laura brought Penny Hill back to discuss it, Shane started breaking things on the sly. He blamed this younger boy, but Mrs. Dougherty didn’t believe him.”

“So who ultimately threw the boys out?” Westphalen asked.

“Mrs. Blennard said Andrew begged Laura not to send them away. Nearly broke Laura’s heart. Penny got them counseling, but Shane did it again, and that time Laura caught him in the act. So Laura told them they had to go.”

“So where did they go?” Spinnelli asked.

“It got harder to keep them together, but Penny Hill tried. She found a place in the country, a real rural area. She thought it would settle the boys, fresh air and chores.” Mia shrugged. “Cows. This was Bill and Bitsey Young’s house. They had two biological sons, older, high school age.”

“This is where the records start to break down,” Reed said. “It answers questions for us, but it raises a whole host for Social Services. All of this information comes from Andrew’s file. Nobody can find Shane’s.”

Spinnelli’s eyes widened. “They lost the file?”

“So it would seem,” Mia said uneasily. “The boys were placed with the Youngs about ten years ago, but there aren’t any more entries in Andrew’s file for a whole year. Not by Penny Hill or anybody else. They were essentially abandoned.”

“Abandoned by another woman,” Reed added.

“Penny Hill forgot about them?” Westphalen’s gray brows shot up. “That doesn’t sound like the woman everyone described as dedicated to a fault.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Mia frowned. “Penny’s daughter said she worried about dropping the ball, that a kid would get hurt. Maybe they weren’t foundless worries. At any rate, the next entry in Andrew’s file is a year later when he’s transferred to another foster home. Andrew was noted as a quiet kid, very withdrawn. Straight A’s.” She lifted a brow. “Math club in high school. But after placement at the Youngs’ there isn’t another word about Shane in the state’s social services files.”

“We don’t know what happened in the Youngs’ house.” Reed pulled a photo from his folder. “But we do know the house ended up looking like this.”