Deadly Dreams (9 page)

“Edwards, you and Tomey will look for links in their personal lives. Go way back. Schools they attended, neighborhoods they grew up in, families, friends, church . . . find us an intersection.”

“There may not even be an intersection,” one of the men muttered, flipping through the folder. “Any crazy can get our names off the department website. Or by calling the station houses.”

“Except that Parker was retired,” Nate reminded him. “Eighteen months ago. Maybe the murders are random, but I think it’s more likely there’s some sort of connection. We just need to find it. Brandau and Recker will take Christiansen’s family and neighbors, and cross-reference with those of the first two victims. Hoy and Mendall trace his steps his final day. I want to know everywhere he went. Everyone he talked to. Get the security tapes from any place he might have passed by.” He took a quick look at his watch. “That’s enough for now. My cell number is in the folder. Call if you get anything. Otherwise we’ll meet back here tomorrow morning.”

Chairs scraped as the detectives began to rise. They sank into their seats again as Captain Morales went to Nate’s side to speak for the first time. “This case is top priority.” The room went as still as a tomb. “Everyone on the force wants to get this guy. We’ve no shortage of manpower, and we’ll have more volunteers than we can use, which is great. But that also means everyone we work with is going to want to know about the progress of the case. They’ll be quizzing you about it.” He looked from one face to another. “I shouldn’t have to remind you, but confidentiality is an issue on any task force, and this one is no different. Let’s keep the details in this group. If I find out that anyone’s talking—to anyone—that will be grounds for immediate dismissal from the investigation.” Risa noted that a few of the detectives exchanged glances, but none said a word as they filed out of the room.

She also observed Cass shooting a final look at McGuire before exiting with Brandau at her side. She took a moment to wonder if there was something personal going on between the two before dismissing the thought. The man’s personal life was nothing to her. And it certainly had nothing to do with the case.

When the room was empty save for Morales, McGuire, and Risa, the captain spoke again. “Nate, you’ll be paired with Risa for the duration of the case.” He seemed to watch the detective’s face closely. “Will that be a problem?”

It came to her in a flash that the assignments had been determined by the captain, although he’d allowed McGuire to run the briefing. Which explained why the man wasn’t working with his regular partner. She, too, observed Nate for a reaction to the assignment. But his expression remained impassive. “No, sir.”

“She’ll have access to all details pertinent to the case,” Eduardo went on. A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth as he looked at Risa. “Let’s hope you still have those famous instincts of yours.”

The words started her heart hammering in her chest.
No pressure. No expectations.

Yeah, right. “I hope I can be of some help,” she managed inanely, and searched for something, anything, to change the subject. “What about the tape?” She looked at both men in turn. “I’m sure IT isn’t done with it yet, but did anyone come back for it last night?”

Nate shook his head. “We put a dummy camera in the place of the one he left. I’ve had some undercover officers posted there around the clock since we left the scene. There have been a few people in the area, none of whom approached the tree. But they questioned and ID’d all of them.”

“He’d be expecting a police presence at what’s still a crime scene,” Risa mused. “He may wait a while before returning.” The UNSUB could afford to be patient, up to a point. There was no rain in the forecast this week. All he risked was a dead battery on the camera. And it had been well hidden in that fork between the branches. Chances of it being discovered were small. Most would never have noticed it.

Most wouldn’t have dreamed of the scene.

“We’ll keep someone posted there for the duration.” The corner of his mouth pulled up briefly. “We can only hope it gets solved that easily.” Taking a sheet from the folder on the table in front of him, he continued, “Results of the latents test were back this morning. No prints on the ID, toy badge, camera, or the tape. They’d been wiped clean.”

“IT will make a dub of the tape for us before going to work on the original,” the captain put in. “I’ll let you know when that’s ready.”

Nate nodded. “In the meantime, I finally tracked down Sam Crowley, the guy the witness was meeting when she happened on the body yesterday morning. No doubt she’d given him a heads-up that she’d named him, because he did a good job of making himself scarce last night. But we grabbed him when he was going to work this morning. He’s in the interview room right now.”

Morales pursed his lips. “He’s the ex-con, right? Anything in his background that rings a bell?”

“He did a two-year stretch for embezzlement. Before that he had a couple arrests for simple assault and leaving the scene of an accident.”

“Might’ve seen something on his way to meet Bixby,” Risa put in.

Morales jerked his head toward the door. “Go find out.” They got as far as the door before his voice stopped them. “Nate, swing by Darrell’s desk and pick up a visitor’s badge for Risa until we get her a temp ID.”

She followed the detective out of the room and through the maze of cubicles and desks to the front of the district house. Darrell turned out to be the red-haired man who’d brought coffee to the conference room. He barely came up to Risa’s chin, was whipcord lean, and from her few seconds of observation, was never still.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he was saying as they approached his glassed-in cubicle, turning away from the woman, waiting impatiently for his help, to answer the phone. Risa knew from her time on the force that the glass would be bulletproof. If the woman were waiting for a copy of an accident or police report, it would be slid to her through the small horizontal opening where the glass met the counter. The precautions had never seemed overly cautious to her. There were a lot of crazies in the world, and a full moon seemed to draw every one of them to the police station.

“Philadelphia Police Department, Seventh District, will you hold please?” He stabbed his finger at a button and answered yet another call. Then he twirled toward them on his wheeled office chair and beamed. “Nate, I took a message for you while you were in conference. From your not-so-secret admirer.” He opened up the door to the cubicle to hand him a note. “Your person of interest is in interview one. And you’ll want this for your guest.”

Nonplussed, Risa took the visitor badge he handed her. It had a photo ID on it, although she hadn’t posed for one. With one glance she noted that an old department photo had been affixed to it. Distractedly she observed that her unsmiling persona from seven years ago looked almost impossibly young.

The rest of her focus was on Nate’s admirer. He’d given the note one quick glance before shoving it into his pocket. But she didn’t think it was her imagination that a slight flush of color was spreading beneath the stubble on his jaw.

After shooting them both a blinding smile, Darrell was back in his glassed cubicle, wheeling to the phone to answer it. “How may I direct your call?”

“Thanks, Darrell.” Nate’s mouth quirked at Risa’s expression as she fell into step beside him. “Radar, we call him around here. Like that character from the old
M.A.S.H.
reruns? Has a knack for knowing what we want before we do sometimes.”

“That must come in handy.”

They went down a corridor with doors on each side. Nate placed his hand on the knob of the first door on the right, hesitated. “I’ll take the lead on this.”

Hardly earth shattering. “All right.”

“With the runaround Crowley gave us when we were trying to pick him up, I don’t expect him to fall all over himself being helpful. But if I’m not getting anywhere and you see an opening, a different direction that might work, feel free to jump in. We’ll play off each other.”

He’d managed to surprise her, but there was no time for a response. Nate was pushing the door open into the room. She followed him inside.

Sam Crowley had crimped brown hair, a square jaw, and the pumped-up body so many ex-cons exited prison with. His hands were laced tightly on the table in front of him, but nerves showed in the way his knee bounced under the table. And the door had barely opened before he started talking.

“Hey, do I need a lawyer? I can’t get this guy to say one way or another.” He jerked his head at the uniformed officer standing in the corner of the room. At Nate’s nod, the officer went out the door.

“I don’t know, Sam, do you?” Nate’s voice was mild enough as he and Risa sat across from the man at the table. “I imagine you’ve got one on speed dial after your last run-in with the law, right?”

Crowley’s lips tightened. “Can’t ever let a guy get clear of it, can you? One mistake, and I’m paying for it the rest of my life. Does that seem fair? I’m cooperating here. Came in on my own free will, and all that.”

That claim took some imagination, given the fact he’d been dodging them for the better part of twelve hours, but apparently Nate was willing to let it pass. “We appreciate your cooperation. Good citizens like you make our job easier.”

The man looked at him suspiciously, but Nate’s expression was impassive. “Yeah. Well. Honestly, I got nothing to tell you. I was on my way to meet a friend of mine. You talked to her. Heather Bixby? And she called to say don’t come, things are a mess here and all that, so I turned around and went home. Like I say, I don’t need any more trouble with the law. My parole officer tells me to think through situations, avoid them if they’re going to get me jammed up, right?” He looked at them carefully, as if to assess their appreciation of his decision making.

“And what was the nature of your visit to Wakeshead Park yesterday morning?”

Clearly prepared for Nate’s next question, he gave a grin that encompassed both of them. One that was clearly meant to disarm. “Me and Heather, we got a thing going. Just hooking up. No harm, no foul.”

“Her husband might disagree with that.”

The smile abruptly vanished from Crowley’s face. His weight shifted. “Last I heard, getting a little on the side wasn’t a matter for the cops.”

“Ordinarily it isn’t. But when an affair is used to hide a crime,” Nate’s voice hardened, “then it concerns us. A lot.”

Risa watched the other man closely. A faint sheen of perspiration glistened on his brow. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. “Whatever happened in that park, I had nothing to do with it. I hadn’t even gotten there yet.”

Nate turned to her, a sardonic twist to his mouth. “And there’s the cover.”

Taking his cue, she nodded. “Start something up with a new woman in the area and then just happen to suggest that particular park as a rendezvous point. Gives him a perfect opportunity to scout the area, figure exactly how he’s going to pull it off. Then just set up a meet for the morning after he offs that cop—”

“I didn’t kill any cop!”

“—and he has a ready-made alibi.” Her gaze cut to Crowley then. “Except you don’t. Bixby never even saw you yesterday morning before she called and told you to stay away. And she certainly can’t attest to your whereabouts the night before, during the time the murder was committed. So I hope you have another lady lined up for that time frame. Say two nights ago between nine and four A.M.? Because otherwise, we’re looking at you for the murder, and we’re looking hard.”

The man swiped at the moisture beading above his upper lip. “How stupid would I have to be to take Heather to a place I was planning to commit murder?”

Risa looked at Nate. “I’m guessing that chair he’s sitting in has known any number of stupid occupants.”

Nate nodded, his eyes flinty. “I can’t even begin to count them.”

“Well, if I were going to commit murder”—Sam lurched forward in his seat—“I’d be smart enough to arrange for someone to vouch for my whereabouts, wouldn’t I? I was home alone. Watched TV until ten or so before going to bed. I get up early when I’m meeting Heather.”

“And what time was that?”

He lifted a bulky shoulder. “I was running late. Didn’t wake up until five, and I was supposed to see her in a half hour. I barely got into the park before she was calling and telling me there were cops all over the place.”

“Because she knows that would make you uncomfortable?”

Crowley aimed a derisive stare at Risa. “Uncomfortable. Yeah. The terms of my parole are pretty clear. I have to steer clear of trouble, and that’s what I did. I went home and went back to bed. Figured I could catch another couple hours before work.”

She nodded. “I can see that. No use getting caught up for several hours answering questions, right?”

“Questions I wouldn’t have had the answers to. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t get close enough. Didn’t see anyone at all going in or on my way out.”

Her senses heightened. They always did when a suspect offered information that they hadn’t gotten around to asking yet. “Did that seem odd to you?”

“What?”

“That you didn’t see anyone around. That park is a known hangout for druggies. Lots of users, buyers, and sellers. I’d think you’d have run into some of them.”

He shook his head emphatically.

“But you’ve seen them there before?”

Hesitating, he considered the question for a moment before deciding it was harmless. “There are always losers around there, I guess. I don’t pay much attention to them.”

“But you paid enough attention to notice none of them were in the area two mornings ago.”

Crowley’s eyes darted to Nate. “Like I said, I was running late. I was barely inside the park before Heather called and I left.”

In an aside, Risa told Nate, “It goes to figure he might not see anyone if he didn’t get deep enough inside it.” She shifted her attention to the other man. “Heather was in the northeast corner. What entrance did you use?”