Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (21 page)

“What?”

“You haven’t added the stuff I already sent you?”

“I’ve been busy with wedding stuff,” I told him by way of explanation.

“That’s more important than thirty dead people?” He frowned at me.

“No, but I’ve been busy. Let’s do it together.” I pulled the stack of papers out of the desk.

“At least you printed them,” Justin huffed.

Okay, I was being reprimanded by a kid. It didn’t feel right. Especially since he was right and I was wrong. Thirty dead people were more important than wedding plans, but they were already dead. It’s not as though I could have stopped them from being killed since some of them have been dead for eight years.

Justin must have seen the frown on my face because he said, “I didn’t mean it like that, Teach.”

“You’re still right.” I patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s just that I’m so bored. Veronica is camping with her family, Mom is working, David is at vacation Bible school and I’m stuck at home.”

“Why don’t you take your car up and visit Veronica?”

“It’s in the shop this week.”

I handed him the first piece of paper. “Then let’s get started.”

We matched up the information I printed first. Around eleven, I said, “I skipped breakfast, let’s get something to eat.”

I turned the board around and went out to the kitchen. The video displays in the kitchen were on and Art, George, and Bill were playing cards.

“Who’s winning?” I asked as Justin and I came into the kitchen.

“Art’s winning, as usual,” Bill whined.

“I’m hungry. Can we get an early lunch?”

“Sounds good to me,” George said.

“What do you want, Liza?” Art asked.

“We’ve eaten so much heavy food in the last several days. Can we just get a salad at the local deli?”

“Do they deliver?” Art asked.

“No, but if we order it, maybe one of you could go and get it?” I suggested.

“Do they have other things besides salads?” George asked.

“It’s a full deli. You can get any kind of sandwich you want,” I told him.

George nodded.

“I’ll go,” Bill said. “I’ve lost my allotment for the day to Art already.”

I ordered a chef salad and Justin got a chicken Caesar salad. Bill took Art’s and George’s orders and left.

“What are you and Justin doing in the office?” Art asked.

“Wedding planning,” I told him.

Art looked at Justin and back at me.

“I’m really good on the computer, so I’m designing the wedding program, newspaper announcement, and menu cards,” Justin told him.

Art nodded and Justin and I went quickly back into the office.

“Quick thinking, Justin,” I told him when we settled back in front of the board.

“It’s not really a lie. I will design you a wedding program, newspaper announcements, and menu cards. It just isn’t what I’m doing right now,” Justin said.

“Thanks,” I told him.

“You’re welcome, Teach.”

“Now back to the boards. These people are so different.” I pointed to some of the pictures, “He’s a doctor, this one was an electrician, and there are three lawyers, a chiropractor, several blue collar workers, and even a minister. The women are just as diverse. What serial killer would target these people?”

“There has to be a common link unless you think this serial killer just picks people at random and kills them,” Justin suggested.

“What I don’t see are the typical serial killer victims. There isn’t one prostitute, runaway or homeless person in the lot.”

“That’s probably significant, if we knew what we were looking at.”

“And the cause of death is just as dissimilar. Of the thirty people, there are ten stabbings, nine gunshot victims, three bludgeoning, four electrocutions, two hangings and two suicides by pills. And four of the others were deemed as suicide for a total of six suicides.”

“The last two women were the worst. The other stabbing victims were stabbed only once, but the last two were stabbed fifteen and then twenty times,” Justin said.

“If I go by what they say on television, I’d say the serial killer is escalating and becoming more violent.”

“That’s true,”

I walked closer to the board and said, “Actually now that you’ve pointed out that the stabbing victims were only stabbed once, I can see that all the kills, except the last three, are relatively quick and efficient.”

Justin pointed to the pictures, “You’re right. The people who were shot were only shot once – a single shot into the middle of their forehead. They look like they were executed.”

“And the bludgeoning was just one hard blow on the head. It’s like the killer didn’t want them to suffer, he just wanted them dead.”

“Oh, and there is something else. Most were killed with things from their own homes,” Justin said.

“What?”

“The stabbings were from kitchen knives.”

“The electrocutions?”

“Appliances in their houses.”

“The hangings?”

“Ropes from their garages.”

“What about the gunshot victims?” I asked.

“There is no definitive proof since the guns weren’t recovered. A couple of the victims owned guns which were the same caliber as the one that was used to kill them but the guns weren’t found in the victims’ homes by the police.”

“So the killer either killed them with their own gun or brought one of his own.”

“Yeah, and either way the guns were removed from the crime scene.”

“But in the other cases, for sure, the killer isn’t bringing the weapon with him. So does that make these a crime of opportunity rather than a planned killing?”

“I don’t think so since the killer
is
bringing jewelry, knick-knacks, and a snow globe to put on the bodies.”

“That’s weird,” I said.

“I agree.” Justin said.

“There are also no children.” I got closer to the boards and read the ages of the victims. “The oldest is seventy-eight and the youngest is forty-three, except the last two women. They were only in their early thirties.”

“That’s significant,” Justin mused.

“Probably, but I have no idea why. We’ve got them in order by cities, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s try a different way.”

“How?” Justin asked, pulling down the pictures and cards.

“Date of death.”

Justin and I rearranged the pictures.

“I don’t see anything,” Justin said.

“The only thing I see is that the first ten kills all were either married or had a girlfriend or boyfriend in their lives,” I replied.

“You think it has something to do with spousal abuse?” Justin asked.

“If so, this killer is taking the ‘till death do us part’ section of the wedding vows very seriously.”

“But the next five victims didn’t have any significant partner, so why did the killer switch victim types?”

“You think like a profiler, Justin. Are you sure you shouldn’t go into psychology in college?”

“Boring,” he huffed.

“Let’s try a different way. Can you plot these on a map by date of death?”

“You thinking the killer is going up a highway or freeway and killing people along the way?” Justin suggested.

“Maybe.” I shrugged.

Justin brought up a computer map on my laptop and put in red points for all the deaths.

They were all over the map, literally – on a highway, freeway, city street, or country road. There was no pattern that either Justin or I could see.

“If this is a serial killer, we’re missing something.”

“I think we’re missing the why. If we knew that, we’d probably see the pattern.”

“I agree, unless these are just random kills.”

“I don’t think so,” Justin said, then continued, “the ages, jobs, and lack of ready victims makes this calculated. I just don’t know what it is a calculation for.”

“All of the people were gainfully employed. There isn’t an out-of-work person in the lot.”

“Maybe the killer lost his job and is killing them because they have jobs.”

“I don’t know. What was the new information you brought today?” I asked Justin.

“I pulled the information from the police files about the victims’ last twenty-four hours.”

“That should help,” I said, optimistically.

But it didn’t. Almost all of them went to work that day, a few were on vacation, and a couple called in sick. They didn’t visited the same place for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. None of them had gone to the same store, either. All the information told us nothing and it was giving me a headache.

“Lunch is here,” Art called from the kitchen.

“Good, let’s take a break. Maybe I need some caffeine and food to recharge my thought processes.”

Justin shrugged. He was as confused by all the information as I was.

We went into the kitchen and ate lunch with the guys. George talked about his next vacation. He was taking a cruise to Mexico. I told him about my last cruise, leaving out the part about the professional killers and how many of my parents’ cruising friends were killed. Bill’s wife is pregnant with their fifth child and, according to him, big as a house and twice as hungry as an elephant.

“She has cravings twenty-four hours a day. I’m glad I’m here because I get no sleep at home. She’s constantly waking me up to go and get her some food.”

It was a nice lunch and my salad was just what I needed. I drank several glasses of tea and felt a hundred percent better.

“How’s the wedding stuff going in the office?” Art asked.

“Teach is so particular about her wedding program, I think I’ve designed twenty different styles,” Justin lied. It was scary how easily he lied and how believable it sounded.

After lunch, we went back to the office.

I walked up to the board and said, “The group is so diverse. We’ve got to be missing something.”

“But what?”

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? So let’s consider any reason – why do people kill?”

“Self-defense,” Justin said as he wrote the word on our board.

I nodded, then added, “fear for themselves or someone else.”

“You’ve got the crazies, the religious nuts and the greedy.”

“And mercy killings and those that kill out of anger or desperation,” I added to our list.

“Which of these is motivating this killer?” Justin asked.

“Well, I think there are some motives that we can eliminate.”

“Why?” Justin asked.

“I think a religious nut would want us to know that it was about religion, so that lets out religious fanaticism. These people weren’t sick and didn’t provoke the killer, so that eliminates mercy killings and self-defense. And the pattern is too methodical and efficient for a crazy person.”

“That makes sense.”

“That leaves fear, anger, desperation, or greed.”

“None of these people had huge life insurance policies, and some were just barely scraping by. I already checked on the money angle,” Justin said.

“So that eliminates greed and just leaves fear, anger, or desperation.”

“Does that help?”

“I don’t know but whatever it is, it isn’t on the surface, it’s got to go deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?” Justin asked.

“We’ve looked at these people and their lives. They’re just ordinary folks.”

Justin nodded.

“But some of these people make my gut twist, just a little, especially a couple of the men and this woman.” I pointed to the picture of a woman who had a scowl on her face. “And it may just be a reaction to their photos, but I don’t know.”

“Your gut is usually right,
Teach.”

“I think it’s possible that all these victims had a secret and that’s what got them killed.”

“I’ll keep digging on them,” Justin said.

I turned the board around and then walked Justin to the door, got a book and went into the back yard. The afternoon was warm so I read a bit and watched Zoie and Shelby play. I feel asleep quickly since I hadn’t really gotten any good sleep last night. I woke up when Art brought me three slices of ham and pineapple pizza.

“Thanks,” I told him.

“Maury will be here in the morning. If you get up as late as you did today, I won’t see you again until Monday.”

“What kind of take-out does Maury like?” I asked, taking a bite of my pizza.

“He hates take-out.”

My eyes widened. “He doesn’t expect me to cook, does he?”

Art chuckled. “No, he’s a cook. He’ll probably bring several pots and pans with him. And I told him you have nothing in the
way of spices in your house, so he’ll have several bags of groceries, too.”