Delusions With Murder: A Rilynne Evans Mystery (21 page)

“So has she been setting him up as the fall guy from the beginning?”  Rilynne wondered aloud.  “They are so close, though, that doesn’t make sense.  Nicole thinks of Ben as brother, she told me herself.  They actually would have been family if Justin hadn’t died.  Why would she go after the closest thing to family she has left?”  Rilynne asked, but neither of the men could answer.

They packed up the last of the items, and Wilcome and Rilynne headed back to the station.  Tylers set himself up in the security office, in case Nicole decided to make a trip home.  The three blocks from her building to the station took no time at all.  Two officers were sitting at the small table near the front doors, as if just relaxing on their break.  Due to the amount of sweat collecting under the collar of the one closest to her, Rilynne could tell these were the men Matthews had set outside to watch for Nicole on the street.  Wilcome had noticed it too. “Williams,” he said after stepping through the doors.  “Grab three waters and go join them outside.  After about five minutes, send Carter in,” he called to the female officer who was sitting at the closest desk.

They met Detective Matthews in the conference room.  “We have searched the building, but she’s not here.  Ochoa said he saw her heading down stairs about ten minutes before we got your call.  Are you sure it’s her?” he asked, almost hopefully.

Rilynne slid the box down the table towards him.  “Yeah, it’s her.  Something in this box has to tell us where she would have taken Ben.  She used the cabin because it had meaning to her, and connected her to Justin.  Everything with her is ritual; she would not just pick a random place.”

“Everyone in here now,” Detective Wilcome yelled through the office.  He waited until the last chair was filled to speak again.  “As I’m sure you know, Derek Hartley has woken up and informed us Ben Davis is not the killer.  The perpetrator we have been looking for is Nicole Benson.”

There was a mixed look of emotions showing on the faces around the table.  While everyone seemed to be relieved that Ben was not the killer, Nicole was just as known around the station.  It was like switching from poisoning to drowning; in the end you still had the same result.

“This is the stuff we collected from Nicole’s apartment.  Our number one priority right now is to find out where she’s holding Ben.  Rodriguez, Donovan, and Steele, I want you to look at Nicole’s financial statements, and map every single charge.  Also look into Justin Davis’s statements for the years leading up to his death.  I want to know every place they went together.”  They rushed out of the room without waiting for the rest of the assignments to be handed out.

“Davidson, Tylers, and Johnson, start going through these pictures.  I want to know where they were taken.  Focus first on the ones that have Justin Davis in them.”  He tossed them the large stacks of photographs they had collected from around her apartment.

“Everyone else,” he continued as they walked out,  “Look through everything.  There has to be something in here that can help us find her.  I also want her desk in the lab looked through.  Talk to all of the techs and see if anyone has any idea where she would have gone.”

“I will see about tracking her car or her cell phone,” Detective Butcher said.  “Her car is newer, so there is a good chance it has a tracking system in it.  And if her cell phone is still on and with her, the carrier should be able to provide us with a location.”

“I found her address book when we were at her apartment.  We can start by calling everyone in the area.  Someone might know where she is, or where she could be going,” Rilynne said.

“Good, although I want teams sent out to interview them instead of bringing them here,” Wilcome replied.  “I don’t want anyone tipping her off if we can avoid it.  Start calling anyone listed who isn’t in the area.  I want to know everything they know about her, and any place they may have visited together.  And make sure to inform them of the consequences of interfering with a police investigation.  If anyone tips her off, I will be seeking formal charges.”  He had a tone about him that told Rilynne that would be the least he would do.

Rilynne was surprised by how thin Nicole’s address book was.  For someone who has seemed so sociable, she did not have many people listed.  This could have been due to the fact that she appeared to have had torn several pages out.

Rilynne and Matthews took the first three names on the list.

The first, Abby, was an old classmate of Nicole’s.  She said that although they had been very close while at school, she had not spoken with Nicole in two years.  She did tell them, however, that Nicole had been dating Justin about six months the last time she had seen her.  From what she had seen, they were a very happy couple, and Nicole had been crazy about him.

The second person they spoke with was Ned Lipsey.  He had dated Nicole for a short time in high school, before he was ready to come out of the closet.  He told them that when he did, Nicole stood by him and supported him when a lot of people had not.  Since then, they had been very close.  He said she had never been as happy as she was when she and Justin got together, and she had not been the same since he passed.  “Something inside of her seemed to have broken,” he told them sadly.  He said that other than the cabin where Justin used to take her, he could not think of any place where she would go.  He did tell them, however, that she had been seeing a therapist and trying to keep it secret, even from him.  While he was shocked when they told him why they were looking for Nicole, he seemed to see the truth in it by the end, and said if he heard from her at all that he would call them immediately.

The final person on their list was Joey Fisher.  He claimed to not know Nicole at all.  It wasn’t until Rilynne showed him a picture of her that he seemed to even recognize her.  According to him, he had met Nicole once at a bar but didn’t know how she had gotten his number or address.  Following a hunch, Rilynne asked him if he had been involved in any police investigations.  He had indeed been the victim of a mugging just two months before.

“We didn’t find out where she could be hiding out,” Matthews told Detective Wilcome.  “We did find one of her potential victims, though.”  They had made it very clear to Mr. Fisher that he should call the police immediately if he saw Nicole, and under no circumstances should he go anywhere with her. 

“Her friend, Ned Lipsey, did tell us she has secretly been seeing a therapist, but he could not give us a name,” Rilynne said.  “I will see if her financial statements can give us an idea of who she has been seeing, and get a warrant for her records.”

“Good,” Detective Wilcome said.  “We were not able to get anywhere from tracking her car, and her cell phone appears to be turned off at the moment.  The provider is prepared to run a trace as soon as it’s turned on, though.”

Rilynne sat down and ran her fingers through her hair.  “How did we not suspect the killer was a woman?” she asked.  In fact, she had been asking herself that very question all morning.  Looking back at it now, it seemed so obvious.  “All she would have had to do was ask the men for a little help, and they would have gone right with her.”

“Female serial killers are almost unheard of.  Besides, we had assumed the victims were being taken by force, and none of them were exactly small,” Detective Wilcome said, trying to justify it to himself just as much as Rilynne.

“Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Rilynne heard from the doorway behind her.  She turned to see District Attorney Greene looking quite perturbed. 

“Please have a seat, Madam District Attorney,” Wilcome said, pulling out a chair. 

She hadn’t even fully lowered in the chair before she started again.  “So, let me get this straight.  The suspect we have been looking into is actually not the perpetrator, but is instead being held by the perpetrator, who happens to be another member of your department.  Did I leave anything out?”  The tone of her voice said that she was just as frustrated as they were.  “What is her connection with Justin Davis?”

“They apparently were dating for about a year and a half before his death, and were even talking about getting married,” Detective Wilcome said.  “Detective LaShad went back to the hospital to interview Derek Hartley about his time with her, and he stated Nicole was calling him Justin, and talking about how they would soon be together again, permanently.”

“Then how did the sample from the tires and fibers from Ben Davis’s car match the ones collected?  Is he in on it, too?” she asked abruptly.

“Ben said that Nicole had been borrowing his car.  All she would have to do is take it out to the cabin to collect soil in the tires, and collect a few carpet fibers to plant and she would have the perfect fall guy.  If we got close enough to suspect the case was related to Justin Davis, the investigation would follow Ben instead of Nicole.”

“How did the blood tests on the bedpan not show that it was a female we were looking for?” she asked.

“It would appear that Nicole tampered with the report, changing the sex to male.  We still have the original sample, which she did not have any contact with,” Wilcome explained.  “I’m having the sample rerun against a sample the DNA we pulled off of Nicole’s toothbrush.”

The district attorney nodded, rubbing her temple gently.  “Where are we on finding her?” she asked.

“We learned that she has been seeing a therapist,” Rilynne said.  “If anyone knows where she’s likely to go, they will.  We are working on trying to track down a name right now.”

“Good,” she said as she stood up.  “Let me know as soon as you have a name and I will get the warrant pushed through.”

*     *     *

“I think I may have something,” Steele said, motioning Rilynne and Matthews over.  “It wasn’t easy, she covered her tracks very well.”  He handed them a three-page bank statement. 

“What am I looking at?” Matthews said flipping through the pages.  “These are in Justin Davis’s name.  How does this help us?”

Steele pointed up at the top of the page.  “These are dated two months ago.  It would appear Nicole began using Justin’s credit card after he passed.  This one-“ he pointed at a charge on the second page, “-is a therapist downtown.”

“Great.  Did you find out if Nicole is a patient there?” Rilynne asked excitedly.

“Here is where it gets a little funny,” Steele said.  “They don’t have a patient listed by that name.”  Rilynne let out a low sign of disappointment.  “But, I played on a hunch and sent them a picture of her, and they confirmed she is a patient there.  She has been using the name Marie Davis.”

Rilynne dropped the statements down on the desk.  “Great work.  Call and have the warrant sent over.  Matthews and I will head over there now and see if we can get anywhere while we wait.”

Rilynne had never seen Matthews move through traffic so quickly.  Where it should have taken them nearly twenty minutes to reach the office building, they were walking through the front door in under ten.

“We need to speak with Dr. Gamboa,” Rilynne said, holding her badge up to the receptionist.

“He is just finishing up with a patient.  If you would like to have a seat, he will be out shortly,” she motioned to the chairs behind them.

Rilynne’s eyes found the clock on the wall, just before two.

“What do you think the chances are that she would have told him about the place she’s hiding Ben?” Rilynne asked Matthews.

He shrugged and answered, “It all depends on how strong her belief was that we would never be able to track her here.  Hopefully she thought we would not be smart enough to check Justin’s financial statements after his death.”

As she was about to respond, the door to the office opened.  Matthews and Rilynne both stood up to greet the doctor as he walked out.

“Dr. Gamboa, I’m Detective Evans, this is Detective Matthews, we need to talk to you about a patient you have been seeing,” she said, flashing him her badge.  “I believe she has been going by the name Marie Davis.”

He did not look like he could be a day over twenty, but Rilynne knew he must be.  His shaggy dark hair hung haphazardly across his forehead, ending just above his warm, insightful eyes.  “Please come in,” he said.  “What is it that I can help you with?”

“This woman has been coming to see you under the name of Marie Davis.  Is that correct?” Detective Matthews slid the photograph across the desk.

Dr. Gamboa picked up the photo and nodded.  “Yes, I have been seeing her for about a year,” he responded.

“We need to know everything you can tell us about her,” Rilynne said.

He looked from Rilynne to Detective Matthews, then leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.  “I’m afraid I can not divulge any information about Mrs. Davis,” he said firmly.  “Doctor-patient confidentiality protects what is discussed in our sessions.”

“This woman-” Rilynne stabbed her finger at the photograph still laying on the desk, “-is named Nicole Benson.  She has brutally murdered eight men over the last year, and currently is holding another one, a member of our police force, hostage.  You may have heard her referred to on the news as the Pirate Killer,” she said abruptly.  “Now, we need to know what she has discussed with you, so we can find her before it’s too late.  We have a warrant already on the way for her records, but surely the circumstances surpass the obligation of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

He let out a low moan of contemplation, before turning towards the cabinet behind him and retrieving a large file.  “Are you positive she’s the Pirate Killer?”  When both Matthews and Rilynne remained silent, he closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath.  “Marie, err-Nicole, started coming to me after her husband passed.  She was having a difficult time dealing with the loss.  Have you spoken with her brother-in-law?  She always spoke very highly of him, and said he was the only family that she had left.”