Justifiable (30 page)

Kirsten heard suffering in his voice that had likely been there all along.
Have I been too bullheaded to hear it?
He’d asked about the bartender’s mother and in spite of the woman downstairs oozing sexuality, Riley hadn’t flirted with her. Just asked her like a friend.

Did he actually
have
any friends? His cameraman worked with him, but was Biddy a friend? Would anyone befriend a man with Riley’s history?

The additional details J. T. had shared earlier today on what happened to Riley in Detroit had forced her to see him in a new light.

What had this man gone through the night he watched a kidnapper blow the top half of his head off only an arm’s length from his face? How had he survived knowing the only person who could find that child had died in front of him? Riley Walker was no saint, but now she had to admit that he bled inside like most people would when a child was harmed.

He might still be hemorrhaging from Detroit.

Well, duh, he was human so of course he was. If she hadn’t been laying the sins of her father at his feet she might have noticed sooner.

When the silence stretched too long she realized he was still waiting to hear what she knew about Enrique’s blanket.

She shook her head. “Nothing new on his blanket and we sent a team to dust Sally’s apartment, but that didn’t produce anything either.”

“Okay.”  Riley studied his glass, finger wiping condensation down the side.

“We matched the bullets in all three bodies. Definitely a .38.” 

“Not surprised by that.”  He lifted his glass and took a drink.

Kirsten had one last bone to offer him, but it was her best negotiating piece so she had to make the most of it. “We do have one more piece of evidence that ties the killings together.” 

That pumped up his interest to high again. Riley put his fork down. “What?”

“This can’t be leaked to anyone.”

“I think I’ve proven I’m safe with evidence.”

“I mean it, Riley. I
will
put people in jail for leaking anything to do with this case to the public, even if I have to dig up obscure laws to do it.”

He didn’t offer any more assurances, which she honestly didn’t need from him, so what was she doing, other than covering her ass? She sat back in her chair. “We found a clear oil on all three victims.”

Riley’s forehead puckered. “What kind?”

“All we know right now is that it’s a high grade olive oil.”

“Where was it on the bodies?”

She was a DA investigator stepping over the line and had to figure how far she could go. But if she didn’t give him an answer he’d go digging around to get it. She
could
give him a half answer that would protect pertinent information. “Inside the wrist.” 

And on the vic’s forehead.
Why she felt guilty about lying to Riley she had no idea, since he was media after all, but something had changed today. He’d given her a second chance when she hadn’t been willing to give him a first one until now.

Riley frowned in concentration. “What could the oil mean?”

Kirsten had speculated and didn’t like the direction she’d gone. She sure as the devil wasn’t sharing her first thoughts, that priests would put oil on the head and wrist. Not with Riley, since he would see it as more reason to go after St. Catherine’s. The bad thing was that she was starting to see it that way too. She needed to give Riley enough that he could help the investigation, without completely blowing the doors out of her sworn ethical standards. 

She tapped the napkin in her lap then squeezed her fingers to stop the nervous habit. “Who knows? Maybe the wrist means something to the killer. That’s why we need a lab to test the oil, but our labs are backed up for months. I’ve asked for special funding but it hasn’t been approved yet, and even that will take six weeks at best. J. T. said you helped him with getting a DNA test run quickly on a case for another investigation recently.”

He gave her a sharp look for that.

“J. T. trusts me with that information. The sooner we get the oil from these three vics tested, the sooner we find the origin and might have our first solid piece of evidence.”

“I’ve got a lab that’ll test it immediately.”

A better answer than Kirsten had hoped for. “How much will it cost me?”

Riley sat still, contemplating so long that Kirsten started to withdraw her request.

“If I get the oil tested at no cost, I want a real dinner with no business talk after this is over as payment. I choose the place and pick up the tab.”

Kirsten just stared at him, dumfounded. Like a date? No. She didn’t date anyone here, didn’t have plans to stay in Philadelphia past finding Elicia even if the city
was
growing on her.

The point was that she didn’t want to date anyone, especially someone connected to the media.

Delaying her answer on Riley’s offer turned the heavy silence into a living, breathing thing that could destroy what she’d worked to gain tonight.

But she couldn’t just blurt out “no.”

How could she reject his offer when the police so desperately needed this oil tested? What would J. T. say if he found out she’d refused to help with the case because she wasn’t willing to go out to a social dinner with Riley?

And when had this pushy newsman become Riley?

She cleared her throat, acting as if that was the holdup to answering him. “I accept, but only after this case is closed.”  J. T. had to solve it first. “Thanks for getting the oil tested.” 

“Done. Now, what about looking into how St. Catherine’s is tied to these killings?”

Kirsten shoved her plate away. “Unless you can prove someone directly connected to the church is either shielding evidence or involved in these killings, no one in the city or the police department is going to drag St. Catherine’s or any other church into this when it’s not warranted. Me included.”  She held up a hand to stall his protest. “But, I
will
do my part to put away any person we can prove is killing citizens and kidnapping innocent children.
Anyone
.”

Riley finished his meal. “Fair enough. I’m going to hold you to that when I hand you evidence.”

If he found out where the oil had been on the bodies and the design created by the oil on the vics’ foreheads, Riley Walker would have all he’d need to point a finger at a church, and St. Catherine’s was first in the line of fire.

Which was why Kirsten and J. T. had to break this case before it exploded and left Philadelphia in a pile of ashes.

Chapter 40

Six in the morning and no call from the killer yet. Could that be good news or bad?

Riley poured coffee in the chipped mug with a faded fishing scene. One of the few things he moved everywhere he went that reminded him of his foster dad.

Jasper always had a simple way of dealing with problems. When Riley moved here three months ago, he saw Jasper first and told his foster dad how badly he’d messed up his life in one night. Jasper had listened then said, “Everything heals. Some cuts heal faster than others.”  Then he cooked up eggs and bacon just like he used to do after some scrape Riley’d gotten into as a teen.

Breakfast would be nice now.

Riley opened the door of his refrigerator and stared at the empty racks. Why would there be any food in here when he didn’t like to cook? The financial package he’d been given by WNUZ was decent, but wouldn’t cover a housekeeper, or cook, so food wasn’t going to miraculously show up.

A phone rang. The landline in his condo, not his cell phone. Riley picked up the cordless receiver and closed the refrigerator, resigned to waiting for an early lunch since it was only mid morning. “Walker.”

“Turner. Got your email with the address of the lab in Trenton and sent an officer with the oil samples.”  Someone in the background asked J. T. a question. He answered, then came back. “How soon you think they’ll get the results back to me?”

Right after they call me with the results
. “Might be tonight, tomorrow worst case.”

He wouldn’t leak a thing to anyone, particularly the media, but Riley wanted to know what the oil on the bodies represented. Why had the oil been put on the wrists?

“Thanks for doing this.”

“Glad to do it.”  Riley noticed J. T. didn’t rib him about the dinner trade with Kirsten. So she hadn’t told J. T. that she fell on the blade for the PD, huh?

Riley grinned, knowing she’d considered it a huge sacrifice, then he remembered something he had to tell J. T. about getting the samples tested. “Tell your officers delivering the oil samples to Jersey not to call Dink by his nickname if they happen to hear about it. He hates to be called Slim Dinkens.” 

“What’s the deal? He some skinny little prick?”

Riley chuckled. “He’s five-ten and weighs two-forty.”

“I don’t get the nickname Slim?”

“He used to weigh three hundred and sixty pounds.” 

J. T. snorted, then got right back to business. “No calls?”

“Can’t believe you asked me that.”  Riley carried his mug to the living room where one wall of glass looked out toward the Delaware River. Some overpriced decorator his ex-wife would have loved had adorned the place in contemporary glass and stainless steel.

“Just surprised,” Turner said. “I thought with the last two killings so close together we were seeing a pattern.”

“You’re sure this Bruno Parrick didn’t have kids at all?” 

“Married for five years. My detective who interviewed the wife said she had half-healed bruises. Massey said you think the kids are key to this. Think now it might be the women?” 

“Not if he killed Sally.”

“True.” 

“The killer said ‘children are held in God’s hands’. That still points at the church to me, but maybe he means figuratively and not literally.”  If Riley used cold logic he’d realize how ridiculous that sounded, but the killer hadn’t given up a child’s body yet so he had to believe Enrique might still be alive. 

“You know how many killers have blamed God for directing them?”

“I know. But Sally was a member of St. Catherine’s and lived at Philomena. What about Bruno?”

“Stop beating that horse, Walker. Got another call. Let’s touch base later.”  J. T. was gone in a flash.

Riley tried to convince himself J. T. really had another call, but his news sixth sense told him J. T. had just dodged a question. About Bruno Parrick and St. Catherine’s.

Biddy might have information.

The chiming noise of his cell phone played once then repeated, growing louder from the bedroom. Hot damn, Biddy must be channeling him.

Riley hurried into the bedroom and dug the phone out of his coat jacket, but it stopped ringing by the time he flipped the device open. 

He played the voicemail...one unplayed message.  The recording started without any indication of the caller’s ID, but there was no mistaking that scratchy male voice.

“
Body’s in the Dumpster behind the Philly police station. Kid’s in a car in New Liberty at
– ”  The connection died.

Riley played it again, but the message cut off in the same spot. No matter how hard he squeezed the damn phone it wasn’t going to spill any more news.

Had he said kids as in “a kid is in the car” or as in “the kid’s body was in a car?”  Riley’s pulse jackknifed through his body. And who had died?

Could the kid be Enrique Stanton?

Where was that car? Outside? The temperature had fallen to freezing overnight.

Riley hit the speed dial for J. T. When the detective answered, he told him, “Just heard from our caller again and the news is worse.”

Chapter 41

Police buzzed around the back lot of the Philadelphia Police Station like a swarm of blue wasps.

Kirsten parked her city-issued Crown Victoria along 8
th
street. She kept scouring the area for Detective Turner as she climbed out and reached for her wool overcoat on the backseat.

The temperature was trying real hard to reach thirty with a bold sun doing its best to warm the brittle air, but wind sliced through her like a dagger of ice. She hustled the coat on and swapped her dress shoes for rubber-bottom snow boots then locked her car.

Parking this close to a police station should be safe, but what better place to pilfer through a vehicle than when all the cops were focused on a dead body in a Dumpster?

She picked her way across patches of dirty snow hiding slick panes of ice just waiting to twist an ankle or put someone’s back out. The driveway to the back of the police roundhouse, or the cop shop as some called it, slanted downhill to the loading dock at the lower basement level.

Television vans with beanpole equipment sprouting out the top had parked as close as they could get.

She nodded at the officer manning the entrance who kept them at bay and scanned for Riley’s silhouette, but he wasn’t here. That shouldn’t concern her, but it did.