Twisted Hunger (33 page)

His first order of business in the detective’s home was to measure the broken window. As soon as he was certain all blinds and drapes were closed, he turned on a light and surveyed the premises. The detective was a neat man. He found the phone directories sensibly placed in the cabinet under the kitchen wall phone and looked up companies that repair glass. Of those that offered emergency service, he called the one with the smallest ad. He knew he’d selected well when a sleepy man answered the phone “Hello” rather than by company name. “Is this Clearview Glass Company?” he asked.

The man cleared his throat. “Yes. Can I help you?”

“I hope so. This is Detective Harris of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Someone broke into my house during the night—it’s okay, I caught him—but he broke my kitchen window. I have to leave for work by noon and I can’t leave the house with it like this.”

“Not a problem. I can be there within the hour.”

As soon as he hung up, he made a room-by-room search. It would have been most convenient if he found some evidence of a drug habit or an actual medical problem that could be utilized, but he had a number of options in mind if nothing simple turned up.

What he found in a drawer in the master bedroom swiftly narrowed his choices of action down to one.

The arrival of the glass repairman postponed his scrutiny of the contents of the expansion file he’d discovered, but seeing the words “The Eye Doctor” assured his return to that task as soon as possible.

Before answering the door, he removed the latex gloves and hid them inside his sweatshirt pocket. Next, he donned a pair of non-prescription glasses with wide, tortoise-shell frames, and checked the position of the wig and moustache in the mirror. As soon as he had the repairman set to work, he went back upstairs.

He was not an excitable man under most circumstances, but discovering that Detective Harris had a file on The Eye Doctor covering over twenty years got him quite agitated. He had already given the man the death sentence for having the audacity to raise the question of where the good senator was at the time of a gruesome murder. That was unforgivable. But to find
this
…

He calmed down considerably as soon as he realized that finding it here suggested it was a private obsession. All he had to do was take the file and burn it after he left. He found nothing else like that, but just to be certain, he concluded that the only guarantee would be a fire, one great enough to burn every piece of paper that might be hidden in the house before the fire department arrived.

Once he had a plan, he perused the file. It was amusing to note how many of the earlier ritual killings were missing and, of course, none of the “clean-up” jobs had been connected with the cases—except for the kid who’d witnessed the one in East L.A., and even that one was only a suspicion in Harris’ mind.

At the back of all the subject folders was a cardboard post office mailer. The recent Sacramento postmark made him curious enough to pull it out and examine it more closely. Inside he was shocked to find an artistically altered press photo that was actually quite attractive. Someone had stumbled upon a truth and was trying to convince the detective of their conclusion.

So it was not some anonymous crackpot who happened to leave Harris a note on his door. Whoever sent this knew the detective well enough to know that he’d been following the case for over two decades. The note was signed only with the drawing of a winged insect with a long stinger, like a wasp or hornet. What was most important, though, was that the artist was in Sacramento this past week, apparently for the secret purpose of discrediting Abraham Lincoln Jones before the whole world…
before he was named a vice presidential candidate
.

Who had recently entered the inner circle?

Ellery.
He eliminated her as the sender of this slander since he thought he knew the reason she had come on the scene. Besides that, she was not the doodler type, nor did she seem daring enough to be hunting down a dangerous killer. Beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated, efficient and perhaps overly idealistic, but not daring. She had too many imaginary fears to confront anything physically threatening.

Diane Oliver.
A curious female, to say the least. Vivian had thought so too. But she knew her stuff and she
had
come with Mother’s recommendation.

Brandon Ross.
Although he was incredibly eager to be “part of the team”, one conversation with the television star had been enough to know how limited that man’s attention span was. Besides, his fate had already been determined… for the good of the cause.

Only one other possible suspicious character was left—Lucas Madigan. He reviewed all the facts and questions added up about the man and deduced that he had to be the sender of the package.

The clean-up on this matter just got more extensive than originally determined.

“Detective Harris?” the repairman called from downstairs. “I’m all done.”

He went down, admired the man’s work and paid him. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet. There was plenty of time left to do everything that had to be done.

After checking the refrigerator and cabinets, he knew that Harris used his microwave oven more often than his stove. It would take some delicate adjustments, but the end result would be determined an accident caused by a combination of faulty wiring and a scrap of aluminum foil inside the microwave. All Harris had to do was push the power button.

As soon as everything was set, he scrutinized the area around the window and on the counter beneath it to make sure there was no evidence that it had been broken or replaced. He had no doubt that everything was exactly as it had been before he’d arrived. Harris would never know he’d had a visitor that day.

He trusted the gods not to let the detective discover that his folder on The Eye Doctor was missing. There was simply too great a chance that some vile scrap of paper might escape total destruction in the fire. No, he needed to personally watch every last piece burn to ash, and there was plenty of time to take care of that after he was finished here.

Using the extra set of keys he found, he locked the front door when he left, completely unnoticed, as expected.

* * *

Ellery read the same page of the environmental report for the third time and still had no idea what it said. Her mind was too distracted by the scenes from last night that kept replaying over and over again. If she had any control over it, she would at least erase the ones of dancing and laughing, and especially the ones where kissing was involved. But those wouldn’t go away any more than the one where she saw him drop her office keys.

Like a scratched recording, she kept hearing his feeble attempts to explain away his subterfuge. Her gaze drifted to the manila envelope on the table.
More nonsense.

Luke had lied to her, goaded and heartlessly seduced her. He had made incredibly passionate love to her. All of it had been nothing more than steps in his premeditated plan to use her to get information. He was a pig. He was worse than a pig—he was a slug that lived in a pig’s mud.

Four hours after she had thrown him out, he’d returned with that envelope. When she refused to let him in again, he talked to her through the door, even though she had given him no indication that she was within hearing range.

His last words were still echoing around her apartment.
“I wasn’t lying about my feelings, Ellery. It wasn’t part of my plan to fall in love with you, but I did. I’ve never told another woman that I loved her before, and I didn’t have to say it to you. Hell, you even warned me not to talk serious. It doesn’t make any sense for me to lie about that. Okay. I’ll go away, but I’m leaving an envelope outside your door. Please take a good look at what’s inside no matter what you think of me.”

She had waited thirty minutes before opening the door, but it hadn’t mattered. He was still out there, standing to the side so she couldn’t see him through the peephole. Handing her the envelope, he had tried again to get her to listen. She had quickly closed and locked the door, but not before the believably pitiful expression on his face was engraved in her mind.

For the past hour she had managed to fight her curiosity by forcing her attention onto the environmental reports, but it was useless. Finally, she gave up and looked at what was inside the envelope. As much as she hated to acknowledge it, the contents seemed to bear testimony to his explanation.

Obviously expecting her to deny him entry, Luke had written a long cover letter explaining all the enclosures. The story about what he saw when he was fifteen and how his friend was probably killed was so extreme and emotional, it almost had to be true. And he
had
told her about his nightmares.

The details and statistics he had collected—assuming they were valid—were enough to convince her that he had finally told the truth about why he was in Sacramento. She could accept the idea that his mission was a self-appointed one that had nothing to do with politics.

The doctored photo and police sketches had similarities, as he pointed out. Similar enough to raise questions… unless they pointed a finger at a popular politician or his family.

Luke actually believed Teddy was a murderer. No, worse than that, a psychopathic killer who had been mutilating people and getting away with it for twenty-six years. It was completely preposterous! She didn’t know who was crazier, the real “Eye Doctor” or Luke for coming to the conclusion that he had.

Or her, for giving it even the slightest consideration.

He wanted to know the senator’s travel schedule to match up dates and, whenever possible, verify that Teddy was with him. He knew she could access the schedule information easily. Whether Teddy accompanied him was much harder to verify, but it was common knowledge that he rarely traveled without both his wife and brother.

Her reluctance to ignore the whole absurd theory was that she already had one piece of information he was asking for, because she had been working for the senator by then.

On the afternoon of Thursday, May 16, the Jones trio drove to Los Angeles, where the senator was to give a luncheon speech to the Sierra Club the next day. She had understood that he intended to drive back to his residence in Sausalito immediately afterward.

But she didn’t know that as absolute fact. She wondered if anyone, besides Teddy and Vivian, knew for certain exactly when they left Los Angeles. However, that didn’t mean Teddy was a cold-blooded killer.

On the other hand, her mother had believed there was something strange about the senator and his wife. Then she had died following an incident in his home. Alternatively, she had never mentioned a word about Teddy one way or the other.

Brevowski believed there was some secret that Audrey had uncovered, something serious enough to scratch him as a vice presidential candidate. Should she tell him about Luke’s supposition, as outlandish as it was?

Suddenly she remembered the peculiar way the senator had touched her face and head, and a cold shiver ran through her. What had he really been thinking when he was complimenting her eyes?

Was it possible that Abraham Lincoln Jones—rather than Teddy—was The Eye Doctor?

Despite all the questions and her mother’s suggestions, the bottom line was that it was nearly impossible to believe either man could have gotten away with murder all these years.

She should let it go. Forget about checking the other dates. Forget she ever saw this collection of nonsense. That way, she would never have to speak to Lucas Madigan again.

She didn’t like admitting it, but she was actually more afraid of that than finding out whether or not one of the Jones brothers could possibly be a psychotic killer.

She wanted to hate him and damn him to eternal hell. She also wanted to turn back the clock and rewrite the end of their story, but neither was possible.

Unable to put any of it out of her mind, she decided to do the one thing that
was
possible. She got dressed and headed for her office to check on a few dates while no one else would be around.

* * *

He was momentarily frustrated when he heard Brandon Ross’ answering machine pick up instead of the man himself. He quickly hung up the pay phone and considered his options. After deciding it would be safe enough to leave a vague message with a promise to try him again in an hour, he dialed the number again. “Brandon, this is Senator Jones. Miss Winters told me you might be interested in assisting us, and I was wondering—”

“Hello?” Brandon said breathlessly. “I was in the tub.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to disturb you. Would you rather I call you back later?”

Brandon held a finger to his lips to hush the two giggling girls in the bubble bath. “No, no. What can I do for you, sir?”

“I’m looking for a celebrity spokesperson to be part of… well, I really can’t get into any details over the phone. Actually, it’s all highly confidential at the moment, but I can assure you that it would mean massive exposure for you.”

The two girls began kissing and stroking each other’s breasts and Brandon had to turn his back on them to keep his mind on what the senator was saying. “I want to help any way I can, sir.”

“I need a private meeting with you, as soon as possible, so that we can make our decision. I’m in West Hollywood for a meeting today. I understand you live in Beverly Hills?”