Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 05 - Till Death Do Us Part (26 page)

“Will you share?” Kenny asked. “I don’t have a new doctor out here.”

“Of course,” I told him, then made the call.

Tom was on the phone the entire time we drove, ordering up more security, and God knew what else. I kept my eyes closed and focused on breathing in and out and willing the pain to subside. I heard Tom tell George to stop at the pharmacy on the way home so we could pick up the medication my doctor ordered. God bless him. What a good man!

When we picked up the
meds, I took the maximum dosage and gave the same to Kenny. “You want some?” I asked Tom.

“I’ll take some later,” he said, continuing his calls.

“How’d they get to her car?” Kenny asked.

“Brandon left the cars alone for a few minutes,” Tom growled.

“Why?” I asked.

“He told me an old lady with a walker came out of the casino doors and fell. He went over to help her and then he went back to the cars. It was just long enough for Angelo to slide underneath and put a small incendiary device on your brake lines. He must have also done something to the acceleration system, but I have no clue. Brandon should
not
have left the cars.”

“He should have let the old lady lie on the ground and scream?” I asked.

“I almost lost you
again
today, don’t talk to me about an old lady that would have been helped eventually,” Tom barked, the skin on his face pulled tight.

I reached over and ran my fingers down his cheek, “I almost lost you, too.”

His featured softened. “I’m tougher than you.”

“I agree with him, Stretch. He’s tougher than both of us.”

When we got home, Ryder and George took Kenny over to his apartment. I handed him several more pills before he left.

“Bless you, Stretch,” Kenny kissed me on the forehead and let Ryder help him walk.

Tom just picked me up and carried me into the house and laid me down on the bed.

“Do you want some more drugs?”

I shook my head and said, “I think I’m just going to sleep.”

“You want me to help you get into your pajamas?”

Just the thought of moving my arms and legs to change made me shudder. “No, I’m sleeping in this.”

Tom smiled, kissed me gently on the lips and said, “Don’t get mad at me when I wake you up in a few hours to make sure you are okay.”

I chuckled, then he climbed into bed with me. I guess he didn’t want to change either. Within seconds I was asleep.

When I woke up, the bed was empty and my body felt worse. Tom must have already gotten up. I took only one muscle relaxer and one pain pill and then ran a hot bath. The mixture of the drugs and the warm water helped relax my hurting muscles. When the water got cold, I emptied the tub and refilled it with hot water. After that water got cold, I put on a bathrobe and went in search of Tom.

I found him in the office staring at the board with all the pictures of the victims on it, the ones that Justin and I thought a serial killer murdered over the last six years. My heart and stomach tightened in anticipation of his reaction.

Chapter 28

When Tom saw me come in, he nodded towards the board, “What’s this?” His voice was tight as he clipped out each word. I knew him well enough to know that he was fighting to keep his anger under control and his tone even. If nothing else, the man had learned not to over-react and bellow at me because it just made my spine tense up and my own anger bellow back.

“How’d you see that?” I kept my own tone light with a hint of playfulness in it.

Tom smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I was working in here, making some phone calls and getting the paperwork started on the accident. By the way, your insurance has definitely dropped you. They said that three major accidents in less than two years make you too high of a risk.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

Tom didn’t even make a comment, he just continued, “The wedding stuff was staring at me and as much as I love you and can’t wait to be married to you, I couldn’t concentrate, so I turned the board around thinking the blank side would help me keep my attention focused on my tasks.”

He glanced back at the board and then returned his glare to me. The smile was off his face. “I haven’t done a thing since. What is this?”

The tight tone was back and if I reacted to it, we would get in a huge fight over what I should or shouldn’t be doing. I’m a quick learner too. Being in a relationship meant knowing when
not
to push the other’s buttons, so I kept my voice light. “This is Justin’s and my new project.”

“Did you get an email or some message you
conveniently
forgot to tell me about?” Tom scowled.

“No, I told you that I’d never do that again.”

Tom nodded and sighed before he pointed to the board again. “Then I’ll ask again, what is this and why are you and Justin working another case?”

“It started when Justin looked into the two women’s deaths in Anaheim.”

“I see their pictures, there,” Tom pointed to Kathy Mitchell and Miranda Carter.

“We both thought it was strange that in each case, something was added to the crime scene.”

“I don’t get it.”

“My bracelet was on Kathy’s wrist and Miranda wore an Egyptian necklace that didn’t belonged to her.”

“How’d you find that out?”

I lowered my eyes and said, “Justin looked at the police files and watched the witness interviews.”

“I’ve got to talk to that boy,” Tom sighed. “What about all these other people?”

“We expanded our search, it was Kenny’s idea, by the way, and we found that there were lots of deaths where things were left at the crime scene that didn’t belong to the victim.”

“Kenny’s working with you and Justin on this?” Tom asked, that note of irritation in his voice, I knew so well. It came across when he felt left out of something.

“No, I was just talking to him and he made a suggestion and Justin and I went with it. He hasn’t seen this,
either
. How long have you been staring at this?”

“Long enough to realize that someone is killing people and leaving them with these trinkets, I need to call this in. You said Justin found all of this?”

“Yes.”

“That boy needs to work for the FBI. These killings have been going on for years and nobody suspected anything.”

“Does that mean I don’t get to work on them?”

“That is exactly what it means.” Tom’s voice was clipped and terse again. “You already have one crazy person out to hurt you, you don’t need another.”

“But Justin and I have been working on this for days. We’ve run several different scenarios and pattern analysis. We’ve even done some crime mapping.” I said, crossing my hand over my chest. I didn’t want another crazy person out to get me, either, but we had done a lot of work already on the case.

“You watch too much television, Liza.”

“Why?”

“Scenario and pattern analysis and crime mapping?”

“Isn’t that what it’s called?”

“Yes it is and I didn’t say they won’t want your input, but they need to give this to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit or assign a task force to work these deaths. I don’t know which, but this is bigger than a teacher and a high school graduate can handle.”

“A teacher and a high school graduate are the ones that found these,” I pointed to the thirty pictures on the board.

“Let me let Ryder take a look at this,” Tom suggested.

“The new FBI guy, why?”

“He used to work at the BAU.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but then he got married and his wife wanted to live in California and didn’t want him working in the FBI. Doing these protective custody details is a compromise.”

“Okay.”

Tom called over at Kenny’s house. “Ryder, can you come over to Liza’s house for a minute? We’re in her office. Thanks.”

He set the phone down, turned to me and pointed to himself and then me. “I thought you and I weren’t going to have any more secrets?”

I pointed to the board. “This isn’t a secret. It’s on a huge board in my office.”

Tom scowled.

“Okay, it was kind of a secret. I did deliberately put it on the back of the wedding stuff. But that was to keep the FBI guys from coming in and using the office. None of them want to stare at my wedding information. It wasn’t specifically to keep
you
from seeing it.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me you were doing it?” Tom raised his eyebrows at me.

“Okay, let’s say I called you a few nights ago and said Justin and I are going to look into the two women’s deaths. What would you have said?”

“Leave it for the Anaheim PD.”

I nodded, then continued “and if I’d have called later and told you that we were looking into several deaths where the killer or killers left trinkets on the bodies. What would you have said?”

“Don’t, leave it alone.” Tom let out a huge sigh, as if he were holding his breath since he turned the board.

“Tom, it’s like working a puzzle. Justin and I come up with an idea, we start investigating. We don’t have any idea who the killer is or why they are killing. We’re just working the puzzle.”

“Can I be specific here?”

“Sure,” I shrugged.

“I want to be in on the puzzle,” Tom used his fingers to put the word in quotes, then continued, “from the very beginning.”

“You won’t tell us not to investigate?”

Tom closed his eyes and sighed. Then he opened them up and said, “No.”

“Great,” I leaned over and kissed him on the lips. The kiss deepened, always a good decoy with Tom, but when he slipped his hands under my shirt, someone tapped on the door.

He pulled his hands out, just as Ryder stuck his head in, “What do you need Chief?”

“Come in and look at Liza’s board. Tell me what you think.”

Ryder came in and looked at each picture and the card underneath.

“Is there more?”

I pulled out the pushpin from a picture and turned it over. Attached was the information Justin found on each victim. He began at the first picture and worked his way through the entire board.

When he was finished, he said, “God, I miss this stuff, especially this old way of doing it. Now it’s all iPads and virtual charts. I like the feel of the paper.”

“What do you think?” Tom asked.

“I’d say you’ve got a serial killer whose been killing for almost a decade. I don’t think you have all the deaths. There are months missing and a killer wouldn’t quit for a month unless they were incarcerated or sick and there isn’t a pattern to the missing months. And it probably goes back further than six years, unless there was some kind of stressor at that point that started the killing spree. I like the suicides the best.”

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, it’s a nice touch. We never look at a definite suicide and think homicide. There was powder residue on this gunshot suicide’s hands and the blood spatter pattern is consistent with the suicide. It was a definite suicide. How’d he get the guy to shoot himself? And the snow globe is priceless. It’s my favorite trinket.”

“What now?” Tom asked.

“You better turn this over to the BAU. This is right up their alley. You need to send this to ViCAP.”

“
Vicap?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. They’re one of the four components of the NCAVC,” Ryder answered.

“What’s with the FBI and all their acronyms? What’s the NCAVC?” I asked.

“It’s the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.” Tom answered, then continued, “It’s the group you call when you got an unusual or repetitive violent crime. The BAU makes up three of the components, the
ViCAP is the fourth.”

I waved my hand in the air, done with acronyms. “Basically you’re taking this away from Justin and me and giving it to them.”

Tom nodded.

“Who’s Justin?” Ryder asked.

“He’s the one who found all of this and does all my research.”

Ryder’s eyebrows went up, “How does that work? He works for you? And what are you exactly?”

“A very inquisitive woman,” Tom grumbled.

An hour later the board was blank. An agent took all the information, cleaned out my hard drive and erased all the information from Justin’s too.

Ryder told Justin he should work for the FBI and gave him his card. “When you decide what college you’re going to, call me. I’ll get a hold of the local FBI office and get you working with them.”

This wasn’t the first time the FBI offered Justin a job. One of these days, he just might take it.

When they all left, Tom fixed me a waffle for breakfast, then finally took some pills and went into the bedroom to lie down for a while.

Justin and I sat in my back yard and watched Zoie and Shelby run around my yard, through the open fence and into Kenny’s yard.

“So that’s that. We’re done investigating,” I told Justin.

He laughed and handed me his iPad.

“What?”

“Everything is out on the cloud now, Teach. I can get all of the information back anytime I want it. We just shouldn’t print it out again. The idiot who wiped my hard drive wasn’t that good. I have a backdoor shield that is invisible. I keep all my information behind it. He never saw it. I can go in there and link into a different cloud account and get everything back.”

I smiled. “I don’t know exactly what you just said, but I’m glad. Can you send all the information to my iPad?”

“Already done,” he said. “It’s in your Dropbox.”

“I have a Dropbox?” I asked

“You do now,” Justin chuckled.

“What exactly is a Dropbox?”

“It’s a storage place. You’ll find an icon on your iPad. Just click on it and files will open. I’ve labeled one, Trinkets to Buy. When you first open it you will see files labeled: Jewelry, Knick-knacks, and Others. Anyone going in will see it and think you’re keeping a file on things you want to buy.”

“What happens when I open the files?”

“Jewelry is the victim’s photos, Knick-knacks is the information about all the victims, and
Others is the different scenario and pattern analysis that we did and the crime mappings. Does Tom know the password to your iPad?”

“No,”

“Good, keep it that way and he won’t be able to get into those files. I downloaded and installed a program on your computer called Cloudfogger. It will encrypt your files, so anyone going on your computer can’t access your Dropbox either.”

“Again, I say, I don’t have a clue as to what you just said, but thank you.”

Justin laughed. “Use your iPad when you want to review the files. Don’t worry about what is on your PC. I just wanted a backup copy if somehow mine is lost.”

“The chances of that are slimmer than Armageddon, Justin.”

“I still like to be extra careful,” he said, “Go get your iPad and I’ll show you how to get to the files.”

I nodded and got up slowly.

“Stiffening up?” Justin asked.

I nodded.

“That happens when you’re in a head-on collision with a FBI sedan, they’re built like tanks.”

“It was better than the alternative,” I reminded him. I had already told him all about what happened on the road from Sonora.

“That’s true.”

I got my iPad from the kitchen counter and took it to Justin. He showed me how to access my Dropbox and how to switch between two different programs.

“If you just use four fingers and push up on the screen the programs that you are using will pop up as icons on the bottom, then you can click on another one and go between the two programs.”

I practiced sliding between Dropbox and Pinterest. I looked at Justin and said, “I can look at victim’s photos and then pin something for my classroom. There is something really wrong about that.”

Justin chuckled. “Okay, I’ve got to go and you need to rest. What are your plans for later?”