Killing Spree (39 page)

“A dark red Infiniti,” Gillian replied, rolling her eyes. “And don’t bother asking me for the license plate number, because I don’t know it. Now, are you sure Ethan is okay? Can I talk to him again?”

“Yeah, here he is,” Ruth said. “I’ll get back to you in fifteen.”

Ethan came on the line. “Sorry I lost it for a minute there. I’m all right now. Hurry home, Mom.”

“I will, honey. You take care.”

“I will. So long.” There was a click on the other end of the line.

Sighing, Gillian switched off the cell phone, and then stashed it in her purse. She really couldn’t be angry at Ruth. After all, they’d run out of suspects. And Ruth didn’t know Jason.

Gillian smoothed out the wrinkles on Annie Hurrell’s bedspread. Then she folded up the blanket and went to return it to the closet’s upper shelf. As she opened the closet door, Gillian saw something that made her stop. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

She stared at the pair of saddle shoes on the closet floor. They seemed too big for an eleven-year-old girl.

Gillian put her foot beside one shoe. It looked like it would fit her. She picked up the shoe and compared it to one of the ballet slippers hanging from Annie Hurrell’s bedpost. The slipper was at least two sizes smaller.

Returning to the closet, Gillian set the saddle shoe back down on the floor. There was no other footwear in Annie Hurrell’s closet. Gillian sifted thought the hangers, checking the pants and blouses, a very limited hodge-podge of garments that looked new and unworn.

She checked the desk drawers: some pens and two blank writing tablets. Nothing else. It might as well have been a desk in a hotel room. Annie’s dresser drawers had two pair of socks and a few Gap T-shirts that looked brand-new.

Jason knocked on the door again. “Gillian?”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” she called nervously.

Gillian closed the last empty dresser drawer. There were photos in the kitchen and family room of a redheaded girl. In some, she was with Jason; and in others, she was alone. Was that girl really his daughter? Maybe the photos were of his niece or a neighbor’s daughter.

Gillian had a horrible thought. If her copycat killer had fooled Ruth by inventing a Montana woman named Hester, he certainly could have invented a daughter named Annie, too.

“They found the girl from upstairs,” a policewoman told Ruth. They stood on the front porch.

Ethan was inside, by the living room window, but he heard them through the glass.

For the last few hours, about a dozen people—half of them cops in uniform—had been stomping through the backyard, taking trips up and down the ravine. The first wave had gone down carrying shovels or picks. Someone had placed an ice chest full of bottled water by the edge of the ravine, and that was where a lot of them stopped to take a break. Ethan had watched from the windows in his bedroom and the kitchen.

A few neighbors and passersby had gathered to see what all the commotion was about. But no one was telling them anything, so most of the people moved on. Ruth said they were lucky no reporters or TV news crews had shown up yet.

About ten minutes after he’d talked to his mother on the phone, Ethan had witnessed a flurry of activity in the backyard. A couple of the diggers had come up to talk to their pals on a break. From what Ethan could tell, they’d made a discovery down in the wooded gulch.

Now the short, husky policewoman was confirming it with Ruth. They’d found Vicki.

“Are they sure it’s her?” Ruth asked.

The policewoman nodded. “At least she looks a helluva lot like the woman in the pictures we took from the photo album upstairs. She’s pretty hacked up….”

Hearing that, Ethan winced. But he wasn’t going to cry. He needed to stand here and listen—no matter how much it hurt.

“You think the perp used a sickle?” Ruth asked.

“Or something like it. There’s another body with her.”

“What?” Ruth murmured.

The cop nodded. “She’s sharing the grave with some guy. She’s lying on top of him. His throat’s slit.”

“So is your daughter tall—like you?” Gillian asked. She sat in the passenger seat of Jason’s dark red Infiniti. She noticed the sign for the airport at a busy intersection near a shopping mall.

“I’m glad Annie’s not around to hear you ask that,” Jason said, his eyes on the road. “I think she must have grown ten inches over the summer. Now she towers above all the girls and most of the boys in her class. Between that and her braces and just about everything else, she’s so sensitive—like a raw nerve. During her last visit, I made the mistake of saying she looked like she was starting to get a figure. Oh, God, what a mistake that was. She wouldn’t talk to me for half a day. I guess I came too close to mentioning her breasts, and even the most remote reference to them is strictly taboo.”

Gillian stared at him and wondered if he was making it all up. “Does Annie go to a private school? I noticed the saddle shoes in her closet.”

“Yeah. She packed her uniform but forgot the shoes during a visit last month. Those are her second pair. Most of her stuff is at her mom’s and stepfather’s. I bought a few things for her, sort of a back-up wardrobe, but apparently I have no idea what’s hip and what’s not in the preteen fashion world.”

Gillian just nodded. He was saying all the right things—as usual. “When you were driving me around the other day, you said it was your flying from place to place that put a crimp in your marriage. But today, you told me it was your gambling that ruined things. Which is the truth, Jason?”

Eyes narrowed, he glanced at her for a moment. “I haven’t heard that tone from you since Saturday on the ferry. What happened all of a sudden?”

“Nothing happened. Could you answer the question, please?”

He shrugged. “The truth is, I was flying from place to place gambling. The racetracks around Los Angeles were my favorite. But I also liked the casinos in Las Vegas and Reno. Anyway, I only gave you half the story the other day. I couldn’t have told you about my gambling; otherwise, you’d have connected me to Barry. And he didn’t want you to know he’d sent me.”

As he spoke, Gillian noticed they’d picked up speed. She saw a sign ahead with a left arrow, indicating the turn for Highway 10 and Missoula International Airport. “Well, you sure had me convinced that I was getting the whole story on Saturday,” she said, a bit distracted by the sign. “Aren’t you going to slow down?”

He didn’t. A moment later, he sailed by the turnoff.

“Hey—hey, you just missed the airport!” she said, leaning forward in the passenger seat.

“Relax. This way is faster, fewer stoplights.”

Gillian glanced over her shoulder—out the rear window. Almost everyone else behind them was taking the turnoff. She looked at the backseat. No bags or suitcases. Nothing. He’d said he was flying to Seattle with her. Didn’t he plan to stay a day or two?

“Are you upset with me again, Gillian?” he asked. “I’m getting this vibe….”

“No. I’m just tired, that’s all,” she lied. She kept looking for where the airport might be. She didn’t see any planes taking off or landing in the vicinity. Then again, Missoula wasn’t exactly an international hub. She couldn’t expect much air traffic. The road narrowed down to one lane each way. There weren’t any signs for hotels or gas stations—none of the usual indications that they were destined for an airport. From what Gillian could see of the road stretching in front of them, they were headed for a forest—and the mountain range.

“Are you spending the night in Seattle?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m going to see if they can take me at the Executive Inn again. I stayed there Saturday night.”

“So you weren’t at the Loyal Inn?” Gillian asked, though she already knew the answer.

“No, they were booked. And the Executive was on Ethan’s list.”

“You—um, don’t have any luggage,” she said, trying to sound unconcerned about it. “Not even a carry-on.”

“I keep an overnight bag in my locker at the airport,” he replied “My laptop is in the trunk. I’m taking it, too.”

Switching on his indicator, Jason slowed down and turned left onto a narrow road that wound through a forest.

Gillian’s cell phone went off. Her hands were shaking as she dug it out of her purse. She hoped Jason didn’t notice. She switched on the phone. “Yes, hello?”

“Gill, it’s me,” Ruth said—her voice chopped up by static.

Gillian glanced out the window at all the trees. “Hi, Ruth. Can you hear me all right?”

“Just barely.”

She shot a look at Jason, whose eyes were on the road. “Um, we’re driving through some woods,” she said into the phone. “According to Jason, it’s a shortcut to the airport. I—ah, can see some dark clouds. I’m hoping we don’t have a bumpy flight. The weather looks a little iffy.”

Jason frowned at her. “What are you talking about? I don’t see any clouds.”

“Gillian, I only got the very first part of that,” Ruth was saying. “This connection is awful. I”—Ruth’s voice skipped out for a moment—“tell me again. Are you all right?”

“I was talking about the
weather
,” Gillian said.

“Hon, I still”—another break—“maybe call you back? Or should I phone the police in Missoula?”

Jason took a curve in the road, and the forest area abruptly stopped. The land flattened out, and Gillian saw the airport tower directly ahead. She let out a sigh.

“Gillian, are you there?” Ruth asked, panic in her voice.

“Yes. I can hear you now,” she said into the phone. “It’s much better.”

“Are you okay?”

“So far, so good,” she replied. “It might be too soon to tell for sure.”

“Is there any news on Vicki?” Jason asked.

“Did you hear that? Jason wants to know—”

“I heard him, loud and clear. The concern in his voice is a nice touch. I almost believe him myself. Just the same, I’m going to arrange a welcoming committee for Mr. Hurrell when you two arrive at Sea-Tac. Our boys in blue will be waiting at the arrival gate.”

They turned onto Highway 10 and drove alongside a chain-link fence bordering the airport.

“You could be wrong, Ruth,” Gillian said into the phone. “As I pointed out, it’s too soon to tell. Now, what about Vicki?”

“They found her, Gill, buried in the ravine. She was pretty hacked up. They think you’re right about the murder weapon. Looks like he used a sickle on her.” Ruth let out a sigh. “And brace yourself. They found another body in the grave with her.”

“What?” Gillian murmured.

“Maybe your pal there knows who it is,” Ruth remarked. “Everyone around here was scratching their heads about it—including yours truly. Then your smart son came up with a very tangible lead. That creep, Joe, who paid us an unexpected visit yesterday, was asking about his friend
Al
. You know, the one who was last heard from on Friday night, when he was here, watching the house? Anyway, we’re following it up. In the meantime, I want to remind you that Ethan says the first time he saw Jason was late Friday night, and he was standing at the edge of the ravine. I mean, c’mon, you do the math.”

They were slowing down. Gillian noticed a sign on the chain-link fence:
AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY
. Jason lowered his window and turned into a little driveway. There was a break in the fence, and an electronic gate. He dug a card out of his wallet and swiped it in a machine by the gate, then punched some numbers on a keypad. The gate opened.

“Gill, are you still there?” Ruth asked.

“Yes. We’re just pulling into the airport right now.”

“I’m a gnat’s eyelash away from calling the Missoula Police. But I don’t think they’d hold onto him for very long. If you bring him here, we’ll have a better shot at nailing the SOB. Just—please, be careful on that plane with him. I keep thinking about
For Everyone to See
, when you had that charmer who liked to kill women in public places. He strangled a woman on a plane, hon. Remember?”

The scene took place on a red-eye flight in an airplane restroom. The killer trapped the woman he was stalking just as she emerged from the lavatory. He pushed her back in, locked the door, and strangled her. The woman’s corpse wasn’t discovered until the plane had already unloaded after landing. Gillian received about a dozen e-mails from people saying that could never really happen.

Now she hoped they were right. “I’ll be careful,” she said into the phone.

Jason pulled into a parking spot, cut off the motor, and then stuck an employee tag on the dashboard.

“So, hon, you wanted me to get Ethan out of here before they bring up the body—though I guess now it’s
bodies
. Anyway, I’ll take him to my place for lunch. I’ll give you another call right before we leave here. It should be in about fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks, Ruth,” Gillian said. She clicked off the phone.

Jason was staring at her. He looked so worried. “Did she have any news about Vicki?”