Fractured (20 page)

Exhibit three.
Body in woods
. Maybe an identity, but it didn't connect anything except the slashed face, the drug, and the postmortem cross in the chest.

Exhibit four.
Dead drug dealer
.

She still wasn't sure how it fit in. Gurst could easily have just been a casualty of his dubious profession.

Maybe ticking off the boxes would help. Except for the shooting victim, all of them were done by one killer, of that she had no doubt. The signature was there in the form of the drug, the way their faces were cut up, and the cross in the form of stab wounds in their chests.

Wait a minute
. Remember?

She riffled through the papers and pulled out the autopsy reports to compare them. There were similarities besides the cause and manner of death. According to the medical examiner's reports, they were all about the same height and weight, blond-haired, and as disturbing as it was to read how their eyes had been destroyed, blue-eyed.

She wrote down:
physical characteristics?

Under normal circumstances she would call Santiago and ask him what he thought about that theory since he'd never had any trouble calling her at odd hours, but she had absolutely no idea what to say to him on this particular evening, so it would be a good topic tomorrow when they drove back to Milwaukee.

Better than the alternative conversation certainly.

 

Chapter 19

Her first two appointments had not shown up, but that was not unusual. One of the warnings professors had given everyone who aspired to her choice in profession when Georgia was still in college was that patients were notoriously unreliable, and needed to be treated for it.

She'd laughed at the time—everyone had—but it had proven to be true, so resignation now better described her attitude. It was protocol to bill their insurance anyway if they didn't at least call, but rarely did she take that route. After all, she was supposed to be their only friend in oh-so too many instances.

Mrs. Markinson was a chronic hoarder. Neat, elderly, polite, and a woman with a house that had stacks of plastic jugs, piles of papers, and according to her children, enough canned food to feed most of the African continent. Georgia listened to the classic excuses and denials and kept a pleasant and nonjudgmental expression on her face.

“They don't understand.” Mrs. Markinson was deferential and would have been a perfect candidate for grandmother of the year. She wore a high-collared dress with a prim bow at her throat, slip-on rubber boots over her sturdy shoes, and had a pious look on her lined face.

It was tempting to believe her, except there were rats in her house and her children refused to take any of their children near their mother.

Irrefutable fact. It was a very real problem. One of her sons had shown Georgia the exterminator's report.

This was their first session. Georgia said, “I completely understand your desire to not throw anything useful away. Have you thought about recycling?”

A hesitation. Short but telling. “Oh, yes. But who would do that for me?”

“Your sons say they have offered.”

“I would have to go through it and I don't really have time.”

“Mrs. Markinson, you are retired. True?”

The older woman said defensively, “I worked for fifty-two years. Cooked, cleaned, raised children, and kept house.”

“That is extremely admirable. Are you still keeping house? Your children don't think so.”

“One of my sons is a lawyer, and the other does some kind of financial work. They do not understand that I can't afford to throw things out.”

This was going to be a long road.

“Emotionally can't afford it?” Georgia kept her voice gentle. One of the challenges as a therapist was to understand and treat behaviors that were personally incomprehensible to her as an individual.

“I don't know what you mean.” Mrs. Markinson had a stubborn tone.

But she did. She knew full well, and Georgia stifled a sigh. Therapy was like quitting smoking. It only worked if you wanted it to work. She was not sitting in that chair voluntarily.

Forty-five minutes later, when Jason Santiago sauntered through the door, it was a relief to see him. Evasive was not his usual way of dealing with therapy. He wore the usual ensemble of jeans and leather jacket and though she always found the courtesy amusing, politely waited for her to sit down before he took a chair.

He began the conversation with the declaration, “I fucked up.”

An interesting statement. “How so?”

“Totally.”

He was pretty funny sometimes. She laughed. “The governor thing? What did you do? Step on his foot? Or more likely yet, put
your
foot in your mouth?”

She found it refreshing to talk to him because he didn't pull punches so what she got she was fairly sure was always the truth. She had no illusions—he was seeing her because he knew MacIntosh saw her and had some secret hope of insight into his partner's private life that he was not going to get—but his basic honesty was likeable. Did Georgia ever think he'd be capable of crossing the line of the law? Yes, she did, but was convinced only for a good cause.

“No feet. Just shook his hand.” Jason laughed ruefully. “I'm talking about Ellie.”

Ellie?
He'd almost always referred to her as MacIntosh until lately, so that was interesting. Georgia had been waiting for him to personalize it beyond his sexual attraction to his partner himself, not just because of her observations. A small milestone, but progress.

“So?”

“I kissed her.”

Had he now? She did have a front seat on an interesting relationship journey. “Her reaction?”

“We are basically not talking about it.”

“Denial. I see.”

“Oh, hell no. Not denial. It happened, we both know it happened, but we aren't hashing it over.” He shook his head, sprawled in his chair in his usual careless pose. “I really don't know what I was thinking. I mean she looked great, but that wasn't it. I see her almost every day anyway and always think she looks great. It was more that she didn't get it. How is it possible that we work together, literally risk our lives for each other, and she had no clue as to how I feel? She's the smartest woman I have ever met.”

“No offense taken, by the way,” Georgia said dryly. “I have to wonder if your evident frustration is really with her, or with your inability to just tell her the truth.”

“Ouch, I think you just jabbed me back.” His mouth curved. “I just meant how can it be that someone so intelligent could be so clueless?”

Georgia propped her elbows on her desk and gazed at him. “Do you think maybe you are interested in shifting the responsibility? You've been on your own for a long time. You take care of Jason Santiago and no one else. Suddenly you find yourself wanting to take care of her and it bothers you that you are not certain how to do it. What you'd like is for her to step in and teach you, but she is not fulfilling that expectation, and being on even footing with you professionally, she really doesn't need you to take care of her anyway.”

“Is emasculation supposed to be part of the therapy process?” he asked irritably after a moment. “Okay, fine, I'll own that she can handle herself. In fact, of the partners I've had, she holds her own, or maybe is better than any of the others. I trust her.”

Georgia settled for murmuring, “Tell me about the kiss.”

Predictably, he looked even more irritated. “What kind of question is that? You want details? It was a kiss. I shouldn't have done it probably, but I did. I wanted to. Do I think it was a mistake? Obviously. You're the one who keeps urging me to tell her, and actions speak louder than words, right?”

“I don't think every embrace is created equal.” Georgia stifled a smile because his reaction was so typically male. To a male, action was so much easier, and to a female, talking seemed to make the most sense. “How did she respond? That was my actual question.”

He blew out a short breath. “I don't really know.”

“Let me ask you this: Do you feel better?”

*   *   *

He felt like
shit.

Articulating it wasn't quite so easy, but that was the basic vibe.

MacIntosh wasn't talking to him. Their exchange earlier had been a brief update on the positive identification of Young as the third victim and she'd avoided even really looking at him. The return drive to Milwaukee hadn't been awkward in that she had just never referred to the kiss at all, talked on her phone most of the way and checked messages, and he'd also left it alone. It was going to be difficult for them to work as a team if they didn't resolve this in some way.

In short, he was an idiot, and so be it, but did he feel better? No.

Jason considered Dr. Lukens and raised his brows. “I think I just mentioned she isn't talking to me. How am I supposed to feel better?”

“She isn't talking about what happened, but I'd guess that's because she's still processing it. You know, like a detective might.”

He liked Lukens. Had she been some earnest know-it-all scholar he would have gritted his teeth to make it through the evaluation for the department, but never have set one foot back through her office door. So he regarded her with a look he hoped said he was serious. He didn't take this lightly. “Very funny. So you're saying back off until she says something?”

“You know full well that she and Bryce Grantham are at a sort of crossroads. I am not betraying confidence by pointing that out because you have mentioned it to me before, so I know you are aware of what is going on.” She tilted her head a little, studying him. “I want to ask you another question, Detective. I would like you to carefully consider the answer, understood? No knee-jerk response, please. If Ellie came to you tonight and said she'd sleep with you this very evening, one encounter, but absolutely no strings because she's waiting on what Grantham decides to do next, what would you say?”

His instinctive reaction would be to point out flippantly that it meant that had been one hell of a kiss then, but she'd asked him directly to not be a smartass. He started to respond, “I'd…,” trailed off, and then after thinking it over, said simply, “I guess I'd say no thanks. Don't get me wrong, I have some pretty wicked fantasies about the two of us naked in a nice, soft bed, but not under those circumstances.”

“Why?”

“Because I think about Ellie naked often and—”

“Stop that. We both know you are just avoiding the answer.”

He moved, shifting his entire body. “Look, Doc, I think you already know the answer to the question. Can we skip this?”

“I do think I know the answer, but until you tell me, it is just a guess.”

Fine
. “I'm not really interested in a glass that is half empty,” he explained rapidly, resisting the urge to shove his fingers through his hair because she probably knew by now that he did that when he was pushed and she was definitely pushing him on purpose. “Sex is great, but sex isn't everything. I can find someone for that if the itch gets bad, but meaningless sex is just that. I'd probably take it, but I'm pretty sure I'd hate myself in the morning.”

That joke certainly fell flat.

“Are you finally admitting that maybe this is important to you?”

“Have I ever said it wasn't?”

“Have you ever said it was?”

What kind of a question was that? Kate used to tell him an argument for the sake of the argument was counterproductive and he was starting to believe that. “Did Ellie tell you we have a decent lead on the slasher case?”

Georgia Lukens looked interested. “I am not going to tell you what she did or did not tell me, but go ahead, please, since you want to change the subject. I watch the news and haven't heard you have a suspect.”

“We don't. All the victims have similar characteristics in a physical sense, but nothing else in common as far as we can tell. We're not sure what it means, but possibly something. Coincidence is not a term we use often with a case like this one.”

“So your killer is targeting males that possibly remind him of someone? From a psychological standpoint, that's quite fascinating.”

“I don't think the victims would agree. Hell, it could be me. Blond and about my height. We don't have much more.”

“It is a possibility that whoever is murdering these men in such a heinous and violent manner was the victim of abuse at the hands of an authority figure such as a father or teacher.”

“Or minister or priest.” Jason thought about the postmortem cross pattern on their chests. “That's a viable theory, but only helpful if we can find someone and dig into their past. Other people would have to know about the abuse and be willing to tell us about it. When it comes to sexual abuse especially, men don't exactly open up. My father never did that to me as a kid, but he was pretty free with his fists. I had a few parents of friends and some teachers who asked me about the bruises and I just lied.”

He'd never really told anyone else that before now.

Dr. Lukens clearly contemplated her reply. “Why would you lie?”

He shrugged. “Didn't want to be a foster kid. The devil I knew was at least familiar and I learned at an early age to stay away from him when he was drunk. Otherwise he pretty much left me alone. It wasn't bad, all in all. I sure as hell have seen kids who had it worse than I did.”

“But surely painful, just the same.”

“I didn't really know anything else, so no, not really.” True. And if he'd gotten his only parent in trouble, he might go from only pretty bad to worse.

“Would you ever treat children of your own that way?”

“Jesus. Hell no.”

It came out more vehemently than he'd intended so he modified the tone of his voice. “I happen to love kids but my old man didn't. Not everyone who becomes a parent should be one. I think he knew it too, which is why I really didn't take it personally. At least we had that understanding between us.”