Unknown Means (29 page)

“Come on.” He sank to the floor next to her. “He’s just a man.

A crazy one, sure, but a man. We’ll get him.”

“We don’t know why he’s doing this or how he picks his victims or who he might go after next. We also don’t know how he materializes into and out of locked buildings. All I do know is I’m tired and I want to go home and forget that I even do this for a living. And maybe even eat something for a change.”

He tilted up her chin with one finger. “Remember one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s no such thing as magic. You told me that once—no magic. Either the victims let this guy in or he finds a way. He’s flesh and blood. He leaves a trail.”

She gazed at her collection of paper bags. “But how am I going to pick it up?”

C H A P T E R

27

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES ON THE PHONE WITH HER

mother, Evelyn had received a detailed update on the progress of her niece’s baby, learned of an anniversary party at her cousin’s in Pennsylvania, which they were expected to attend, and found out that Angel had gone home after picking at dinner.

Dialing her own phone number gave a busy signal, which, she hoped, meant that Angel was gathering information over their slow Internet connection about the ancient Romans, and not simply chatting with Melissa or Steve about her unreasonably strict mother.

Once the county gave her that whopping annual cost-of-living in-crease, she would spring for a DSL line.

The time clock read 4:25 p.m. With her arms full of evidence, she blocked her boss’s exit. “Tony, I need help.”

He tucked his thumbs into his back pockets, eyeing her. “No, you don’t. You never need help.”

“I do now. This guy is on a full-blown rampage, and Marissa is going to be kicked free of both cops and doctors any minute now.

Here, take this.” She thrust some of the evidence at him and guided him away from the door.

“You don’t have to push. I was only going next door for a

sandwich. It’s not like the ME’s going to let me go home on time with the media watching our every move.”

“You know Kelly Alexander?”

He dumped the packages on the large examination table. “Duh.

The one that owns the salt mine and walked out of jail after seven guys died, that Alexander. The one who just got murdered. Tell me there’s no justice in the world.”

“Marissa thinks she recognizes the name but can’t remember from where. I’m wondering if that’s Marissa’s connection to these other victims—a court case. No one has mentioned a homicide in our victims’ pasts, so perhaps they were involved in a nonfatal case.”

“A rape?”

“I can’t imagine what else our department would be involved in.

Fatals, sexual assault, and missing persons, that’s it. If it were drugs or DUI, Toxicology would be in court, not us. But the only way to search is to go through the index of each ledger, year by year. Can you do that?”

Tony stared as if she’d asked him to rip out a fingernail. “Did I ever tell you I’m allergic to dust?”

“Tony! Come on! I need you.”

As usual, direct confrontation confused him. “Okay, I’ll check the ledgers. Alexander, huh?”

“Thank you.”

Evelyn taped Kelly Alexander’s clothing and quickly searched the acetate sheets. More blue fibers, similar to the ones from the parking garage in Marissa’s attack, turned up. Three blond hairs, too sandy to be Kelly’s, stuck to her shirt.

To Evelyn’s surprise, the acid phosphatase test on Kelly’s under-wear came up negative. She had not been raped. Had he been rushed, interrupted by Giardino? Didn’t feel secure in an office instead of a home? Or had the injury Kelly inflicted put him right out of the mood?

Evelyn turned the alternate light source on the items, finding

only two streaks of crayon and a shiny spot on the left shoulder. She pressed it to the gold plate for FTIR analysis, leaving a thin streak for the machine to analyze.

She noted the results without surprise—the same oil found on Grace Markham, the stuff that didn’t match anything. The black streaks on the floor were almost pure carbon. As in Frances Duarte’s apartment, she would have suspected herself of carelessness with the black powder processing, but she had collected the carpet fibers before pulling out the fingerprint brushes.

She picked up the picture on its strange paper. The artist still refused to sign his work. His pictures had also grown more detailed.

Did that have significance? Hell, did any of it have significance?

Remembering what Henry Taylor had done, she switched the alternative light source back on and flooded the paper with ultravio-let light. Nothing happened, except the lime green headlights on the car glowed even brighter. She turned the paper over.

In regular light, the reverse surface had no markings. Under the blue UV light, however, a series of red letters sprang to life, clear and sharp as a filet knife. Evelyn nearly dropped the paper in shock.

Reversed print read “od Care Center” across one corner, in a fourteen-point Times font. Underneath that, “ng ter.”

This was not the first time Evelyn had seen a pattern emerge under UV when it remained invisible in regular light. She did not know exactly why the letters fluoresced, nor, at the moment, did she care. At one time this piece of paper had been pressed against something with “od Care Center” printed on it, and that was all that mattered. It seemed like her first real clue in three days.

She called David to tell him, but he had switched the phone to voice mail—probably to interview witnesses without interruption.

She didn’t bother dialing Riley; he’d have done the same thing.

Considering that the letters appeared on a child’s drawing, Evelyn assumed they belonged in the name of a day-care center. She pulled the yellow pages from the secretary’s desk and had another

shock, this one at the sheer number of such places listed for the area.

In ten minutes she had fifteen possibilities ending in “od,” with none of them listed specifically as “——od Care Center.” This could take forever, and she didn’t have that much time.

Tony shuffled out of the evidence closet. “Nothing. I don’t find a Kelly Alexander listed anywhere.”

Evelyn’s shoulders slumped. “Crap. I thought if—”

“Anything else? ’Cause I gotta go.” Then he remembered who had been named supervisor and reworded. “I’m going. Don’t forget to not put in for overtime for this.”

“Mmm.”

He swung several of his chins at the phone book. “What’s that?

Calling for takeout?”

She switched on the UV light and showed him the letters. “I’m assuming it’s a day-care center. Maybe if I can find this kid, they can tell me why all these dead adults have his pictures at their crime scenes.”

“What’s the letters underneath?”

She showed him “ng ter” again.

“Long term.”

“Very good.”

“I play Scrabble a lot,” he preened. “But what is long-term day care? You drop off a baby and then pick him up when he turns twenty-one? I’d have had kids if I knew that was an option.”

She slumped onto a stool. “You’re right. What an idiot I am.”

“I’m glad to hear you finally admit it.”

Evelyn held her forehead in one palm as if it hurt. “The kid isn’t in day care. He’s in a hospital, or a medical facility.”

“He’s sick.”

“Or injured. Or disabled. Or he’s perfectly healthy and visits someone in a care facility.” She pulled the phone book closer. “I’m not even sure what to look under.”

“Good luck,” Tony said, picking up his briefcase. “And good night.”

THE NURSE at the front desk listened carefully to Evelyn’s introduction, perhaps because she had flashed an impotent but official-looking county ID. Evelyn concluded with “This is going to sound strange, but do you have any children here?”

“Children?” The nurse asked around the wad of gum in her mouth. “As patients?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at the hallway, where an older nurse’s aide draped a sweater around the shoulders of a frail man in a wheelchair. “Green-wood is a long-term care facility. Most of our patients are elderly.”

“I know, but aren’t some disabled? They might be younger?”

“No,” she insisted. “No kids.”

“What about this?” Evelyn pulled out the latest picture. “Have you seen this picture or pictures similar to it?”

The woman shook her head and explained: “We use markers here. Crayons are too easy to eat.”

Evelyn thanked the woman for her time and returned to the car.

Convalescent-care centers almost outnumbered day-care centers, and facilities had a positive jones for names ending in “od.” Green-wood, Brynwood, even something called Elvenwood. Most were nursing homes for the elderly, and it seemed unlikely that they might have a child as a patient. But she did not want to eliminate them out of hand and risk missing her target. Of course, Marissa would be home and unprotected and probably murdered before Evelyn could canvas every place, and Riley and David could not help. They were tied up questioning everyone involved in Kelly Alexander’s life, which, especially in the past few weeks, had been extremely active.

She needed to think.

The second rape victim, the one in Parma, had always felt that she knew the man. She had also been the only victim attacked in a single-family home instead of an apartment building. She fell out of his pattern—why?

Because she was special, Evelyn thought. He varied his MO for her because she was not a random choice. He knew her, and he probably knew her house if he felt comfortable enough to enter it. He probably lived nearby.

She started her car, watching the windshield wipers push the rain out of their way. He might have lived across town and known the teacher from his child’s school or a social organization or just saw her in Tower City and followed her home for all I know, Evelyn thought, but just for the sake of argument, let’s say he lived around there. His kid is now in convalescent care. Wouldn’t he pick one close to home, easy to visit, bring his kid fresh paper and crayons?

Evelyn picked up the phone book she had pilfered from the lab and ran her finger down the addresses. Parma listed only two facilities, Corinthian and Brynwood. She set the book aside and pulled out of the lot.

The route took her past Parmatown Mall, where Evelyn had shopped for shoes and clothing all her life. The basement of May Co. had had the only hot-pretzel stand she knew of in the days before microwaves and the expansion of the frozen snack aisle. She thought of this as her stomach rumbled.

Brynwood Care Center had a small but lovingly appointed lobby, complete with a Pergo floor and antique furniture. Evelyn approached the three girls hanging around the front desk and explained where she worked, and that she needed to find a very young patient.

“I can’t give out any personal information.” The girl seated at the desk wore a cardigan sweater buttoned tightly over a white blouse. The other two girls wore scrubs.

One of them added, “And we don’t have any kids here.”

“Do you have crayons?”

They began to look concerned, as if perhaps they should call the security guard. Evelyn pulled out the picture left near Kelly Alexander and held it up.

“Does this look at all familiar? Do you have any patients who draw like this?”

The one behind the desk squinted at it. “That looks like any kid on the planet would have—”

“Craig.” One of the girls in scrubs said it; the other nodded her agreement.

“Who?”

“He’s in B301. He draws all the time. Stuff like that.”

Evelyn stared, making the girl nervous, but she couldn’t help it.

“I mean, I can’t be sure it’s his—”

“No, no, that’s fine. I’d be glad of any help. Can I talk to him, please?”

“I don’t know—” the receptionist began.

“I’ll be happy to talk to your director first, get permission.”

“But Mrs. Ellis is at dinner right now, and she really hates to be disturbed—”

“And she won’t let you do anything anyway,” the talkative aide in scrubs continued. “She’d tell us not to breathe if she could get away with it. Come on, if you can make it quick, you can be gone before she does her evening rounds. It isn’t going to do you any good anyway.”

She turned, and Evelyn left the other two in the dust before they could protest. “Why won’t it do me any good?”

“Because Craig can’t talk.” She held open a heavy metal door with a red placard Evelyn didn’t take the time to read. They passed a brightly lit gathering area, where patients watched a trivia show, some with interest, some with glazed eyes. “Didn’t I see you on the news? Outside the building where that rich lady got killed?”

“Is Craig too young to talk?”

“He’s too disabled. Here’s his room.”

Evelyn followed her in as her eyes adjusted to the dimmed light -

ing. Miniblinds kept out the depressing afternoon rain. Craig’s roommate slumbered, snoring from a toothless mouth, in the bed nearer the door. A bulletin board on the left held more drawings.

Evelyn stepped past the divider curtain.

Craig was not a child.

C H A P T E R

28

CRAIG SINCLAIR HAD PASSED HIS TWENTY-SECOND

birthday the week before. He had smooth skin, short black hair, and calm brown eyes, now turned toward the slivers of light from the window. He lay completely still, unconcerned by their entrance.

Evelyn turned to the pictures pinned to the board, felt the paper. It seemed identical. She turned on the overhead light and observed the scenes of rounded automobiles and stick figures, sometimes inside the cars or watching from a house.

Craig now looked at her. The light must have disturbed him.

“How . . . what is his condition?” she whispered to the nurse.