Until Dark (14 page)

“Except for Julie Lohmann,” Chief Ford noted.

“Ahhh, this young girl.” McCall shook her head, her eyes showing real emotion for the first time since she began speaking. “This is different. He totally lost it with her. Who knows which of them surprised the other, but she was definitely a surprise. She probably tried to run, maybe screamed. That would have excited him. The autopsy showed a violent rape, a lot of vaginal tearing, bite marks on her breasts and neck, an excessive number of stab wounds. He simply hadn’t planned on her. There was no script, and so he just went with his emotions with this one.”

“Emotions?” an officer asked.

“Everything he’s suppressed with the others. Everything he held back.” McCall turned away. “This poor girl took the brunt of it.”

“So where do we go from here? I’m throwing this open for suggestions”—Lieutenant Barker stood to one side of the table after Anne Marie McCall sat down—“because I don’t have a clue, folks. This son of a bitch has walked past us like a phantom. He comes and goes as he pleases. He abducts his victims at will, kills them and drops them into our midst, then vanishes. We have seven dead women and no credible leads. He’s the invisible man. He’s not leaving much behind.”

“He may have left something behind these last two times,” Adam spoke up.

“You mean his DNA? He’s been leaving that all over the place,” Barker growled.

“More than his DNA. As you all know from studying the scene or the photos, Joanne Jacobson was found wearing a gold cross on a chain around her neck.”

“So what?” a detective from Walnut Crossing asked.

“So her sister claims never to have seen it before,” Adam said, turning to him.

The detective shrugged. “Maybe she has a boyfriend.”

“If she does, then Leslie Miller, last night’s victim, was seeing the same guy.” Adam tossed photos of both women onto the table. “Same cross, same chain. And Miller’s ex-husband swears she never wore anything around her neck.”

The eleven men and three women seated around the table moved forward in unison toward the table for a closer look.

“The earlier victims weren’t wearing these.” Miranda was the first to speak up. “So why now? He’s sending us a message, but what is it?”

“Maybe he found religion,” a uniformed member of the Dale Police Department offered.

“It feels more like a taunt, somehow,” Adam said, a thought niggling at the back of his mind. What was it that seemed so familiar about the cross? He stared at it, trying to remember.

“Maybe he’s asking us to pray for his victims?” the chief of the Windsorville Police Department ventured as the photographs were passed around the table. “Or for him.”

“Yeah, I’ll pray for him, all right,” the trooper nearest the door muttered. “Pray that he burns in hell.”

Hours later it hit him.

Then, even as his blood turned cold, Adam left his hotel room, his cell phone in his hand, dialing as he walked though the lobby.

“Rosello,” the Newkirk chief of police answered his private line.

“Can you get me a copy of the tape that one of your local stations made of our compositor showing off the sketch she made outside of Annie McGlynn’s last week?” Adam asked after identifying himself. “There’s something I want to check out. Can you arrange it? Yes, as soon as possible. I can be at your office in less than an hour. Thanks, Chief.”

Adam disconnected the call, slapping the phone on his palm without even realizing he was doing so, and walked to his car. He dialed Kendra’s number, then started his engine, pulling out of the parking lot as he counted the rings. She picked up on the fourth ring, just as the answering machine came on.

“Hey, Adam, hi.” She sounded out of breath. “Hold on, let me turn off the machine . . . how are you?”

“Good. I’m good.” He hesitated, then asked, “How are you?”

“I’m fine. I was just faxing my report to John. I figured my work on this case was done.” She paused, then asked, “My work is done on this one, isn’t it?”

“I think so. It’s almost pointless now to try to keep up with his disguises. He has a full, thick head of dark hair, he’s bald, he has a brown ponytail, he has a blond crew cut. He’s driving a Taurus wagon, a Chevy pickup, a Pathfinder, a sports car . . .”

“He’s very, very clever, isn’t he?”

“Very.” Adam bit the inside of his bottom lip.
It’s just a theory,
he reminded himself. And he could be wrong. He prayed he was wrong.

“Where are you?” she was asking. “Are you still in Pennsylvania?”

“Yes. I’m in Spring Glen, but I’m on my way to see Rosello in Newkirk.”

“Oh?” Curiosity caused her voice to perk up just a bit. “Something come up?”

“Just want to compare notes on something.”

“You going to tell me?”

“After I speak with Rosello.” He accelerated as he pulled onto Route 30 and eased into the fast lane.

“Are you going to make it to your father’s wedding?”

“Oh, shit,” he swore. “That’s tomorrow afternoon. Damn it. If I’m not there, he’s going to think it’s because I don’t
want
to be there.”

“I’m sure if you explain what you’re working on . . .”

“My future stepmother won’t care. She’ll see it as a slight.”

“Is it possible to take an afternoon off?”

“Tough to do in the middle of an investigation like this. But, maybe I can squeeze out a few hours.” He sighed, wondering if, in fact, his father would understand.

Adam changed lanes, darting around a tractor trailer to get to open road. “Kendra, tell me again about the dog being poisoned.”

“What?” He could almost see her frown.

“Tell me about the dog. . . .”

He kept her on the phone for as long as he could, on the one hand soothed by the connection, however remote, on the other, worried that he’d soon learn that his crazy idea wasn’t so crazy after all.

When he arrived at the Newkirk Police Station, Rosello had the videotape already in the VCR.

“I’ve watched it twice already,” the chief told Adam, “and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is you’re looking for.”

Adam caught the remote that Rosello tossed to him and rewound the tape, then hit play. The tape ran for almost forty-five seconds before Adam froze the tape.

“There.” Adam leaned closer to the screen. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

From his briefcase, Adam removed a folder. He dropped it in the chief’s lap, then watched for a reaction as Rosello thumbed through the pack of photos.

“You’re looking at the cross.” Rosello looked up. “The one your compositor is wearing.”

“It’s identical to the ones placed around the necks of the last two victims, apparently by the killer. The families of both of these women swear they’d never seen the victims wear such a cross.”

“Why do you suppose he did that?” Rosello looked back at Kendra’s image, motionless on the big screen. “Unless he’s trying to get her attention.”

“God knows he’s got mine,” Adam said, hitting the eject button and pocketing the tape. “I’ll get this back to you.”

“It’s a copy of the copy.” Sensing that Adam was in a hurry, Rosello stood up to walk him to the door. “I figured if the tape was so important that you’d drive all the way back here to watch it, that you’d want to be taking it with you.”

“Thanks.” Adam saluted as he headed for the exit. “I owe you one.”

“I just don’t get it,” Kendra yawned, then excused herself. She’d been reading in bed, had fallen asleep only to be awakened by Adam’s call. “Why would the killer be doing this? Because I did the sketches of him? My sketches certainly haven’t cramped his style at all, not as far as I can tell. If anything, he’s escalated his activity since that tape was first shown on television. And I’m not his customary victim of choice. I’m nobody’s mother. I’m not blond. I just don’t get it.”

“I’m not certain I do either, but it seems like too much of a coincidence. You’re on TV wearing a cross around your neck, he starts putting them on his victims.”

“Well, if he’s sending a message, it’s gone right over my head.” She stifled another yawn. “What does your profiler say?”

“She’s already said she believes he’s trying to get the attention of someone connected to the investigation.”

“I wonder why he didn’t do something sooner, like with the other victims. There weren’t any similarities with any of them, were there?”

“None that were readily noticeable, but Miranda is already checking on that. And think about this: Maybe it’s someone who was caught and convicted because of a composite that you did in the past. Or someone who loved someone you sketched.”

“Adam, I don’t know the whereabouts of every convicted criminal I’ve drawn since the beginning of my career.”

“No, but that would be easy enough to check. Can you give me a list of names?”

“Actually, I can do better than that. I can give you their names and copies of their composites. I’ve kept every one. But I can tell you that if I’d ever sketched this man before, I’d remember the face. It’s an intimate thing, drawing someone’s face. And I know I’ve never done this man before.”

“All the same, I’d like you to fax those sketches down to Mancini first thing in the morning.”

“Sure.”

“Kendra, what are your plans for the weekend?” he asked abruptly.

“Don’t really have any. Why?”

“Come with me to my dad’s wedding.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you said earlier that you wouldn’t be able to go.”

“I spoke with John after I left Newkirk, gave him an update. He thought I could spare a few hours.”

There was silence on the phone.

“Adam, John would never tell you, or any other agent, to leave a major investigation, even for a few hours. There has to be more to this than you’re telling me.” She bit her bottom lip, then said, “You don’t think he’s going to come after me, do you?”

“You may well be the party whose attention he’s trying to get. Someone has to keep an eye on you until we figure out why, and who. It might as well be me.”

Another silence.

Finally, she sighed heavily.

“What time will you be here?”

Chapter
Thirteen

“Look down in that valley,” Kendra said as she stared out the car window at the blurred scenery whizzing by the Audi’s window. “There’s another one of those pretty little towns, with the white-spired churches and all the pretty houses.”

“I don’t know that, up close, they’re all that pretty,” Adam replied.

“Why wouldn’t they be?”

“A lot of those towns were coal mining towns,” he told her, never taking his eyes off the road. “And when the mines closed up, so did a lot of the towns.”

“You mean the towns are abandoned?”

“Not entirely, but many of them have very little going on these days. No industry moved in to replace coal.”

“How do you suppose they make a living, then?” She turned back to him. “The people in those towns?”

“Any way they can.”

“When did the mines close up?”

“Most of the anthracite mines were closed by the 1920s. After that, there was a lot of strip mining, but this country was weaning itself off coal and turning to oil and gas.” He pointed off to the right. “If you look up that hill, you can see the scars the strip mines left behind.”

Her gaze followed upward, where a deep gash, like a ravine, seemed to cut the hill in two.

“There wasn’t a kid that I knew growing up in Hopewell who hadn’t been touched by coal, shaped by it, one way or another,” Adam added.

“How were you shaped by it?”

“Oh, I come from a bit of a mixed bag.” His mouth turned up at one side in a sort of half-smile. “On my father’s side I had a great-great-uncle who was in the Molly Maguires, and on my mother’s a great-grandfather who was one of the Pinkerton agents hired to infiltrate the group and bring them down.”

“Your family gatherings back then must have been interesting,” she noted, leaning back against the headrest.

“So they tell me.” He smiled, recalling the stories his grandfather used to tell.

“I guess you take after the Pinkerton side.”

“I admit to having been inspired by an old photo of my great-great-grandfather. I never really wanted to be anything except an FBI agent.”

“But you played professional football for all those years.”

“Eight years.” He emphasized the eight.

“And then you just stopped?”

“Yep. That was the plan.”

“Would it be too personal if I asked what the plan was?”

“The plan was to retire from football before I got so banged up I wouldn’t be able to pass the FBI physical.”

“But I thought playing professional sports was supposed to be every little boy’s dream.”

“It wasn’t mine.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“You grow up in coal country and you play sports because that’s what you do. Don’t get me wrong, Kendra, I love football. Loved playing it in high school. It was the best.” His voice softened. “And it was my way out. It was my ticket to Penn State. And around here, playing football for Penn State is as close to heaven as a guy can get. Not just for you, but for your entire family. My father got to wear the Penn State jacket, the sweatshirt. Everyone knew that Frank Stark’s son played linebacker for Penn State. It was a huge feather in his cap.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Penn State?” He laughed. “My God, you’d have to be dead to not love playing ball for them. I was grateful for the opportunity to go there, to play there. It had been one of my prime goals, to go there. And from there, to the FBI Academy.”

“But you decided to play professional football instead.”

“That was never really on my agenda.” He shook his head. “But my junior year, the defensive coach took me aside after a game and introduced me to the scout from the Cleveland Browns. Then a few weeks later, from the Patriots. Then the Raiders. The Steelers . . .”

He flicked on his right-turn signal and headed for the exit.

“And then I was drafted by the Steelers and on my way to Pittsburgh.”

“You must have been excited, though.”

“Oh, of course I was. Who wouldn’t be? The thought of being able to play for a few more years—and to get paid a lot of money to do it—well, that was amazing. It had all come as a bit of a surprise to me, that’s all.”

“I guess your dad was proud.”

“My dad was almost hyperventilating when I told him.” Kendra noticed Adam wasn’t smiling. “Any thoughts I might have had about turning down the offer went out the window. There was no way I could have disappointed him like that.”

“But surely he would have understood.”

“No. He would not have.” He slowed down as he started down the exit ramp. “The town I grew up in was—is—very working class. The kind of neighborhood where people still hang their laundry out back and stores will still give kids credit because the owner has known the family for generations. No one from Hopewell had ever played football for Penn State. No one had ever been drafted to play a professional sport. There was no way I could have, or would have, walked away from the opportunity.”

Adam pulled up to the self-serve pump at the first gas station he came to.

“Don’t misunderstand,” he said, opening his door, “I have no regrets. I was damned lucky, and I know it. I made the kind of money I know I’ll never make again. I wouldn’t take those years back for anything. But the whole time I was playing, I felt as if I was looking over my shoulder. I was so afraid I’d get hurt, that something would happen and I wouldn’t qualify for the Academy. I just wanted to get through that, to get to this. This—working for the Bureau—is what I was meant to do. What I dreamed of doing when I was a kid.”

He filled the tank, paid for the gas with a card, and got back into the car, glancing at his watch.

“It’s already two,” he said. “The wedding is supposed to start at three. We’re going to go directly to my grandmother’s. You can change there, if you like.”

“I would appreciate that.” Kendra looked down at her khaki pants and light blue sweater. Comfortable traveling clothes, but not wedding attire. Adam had told her there’d be a place for her to change before joining the rest of the family at his sister’s house for the festivities.

The signpost at the corner of the street Adam turned on to was bent at an odd angle, as if recently struck by a car and not yet repaired. The street itself was narrow, the cars parked on either side allowing easy passage of one vehicle at a time. The houses were all bungalow-style one-and-one-half-story structures dating from the early 1900s, some with enclosed porches, all with narrow driveways and cement walks leading the short distance from front steps to the street. Adam made a slow right into the drive of a small shingle house that was identical to those on either side except for the fact that its cedar shakes remained their original brown, while the house to the left had been painted white, and the one on the right had been recently re-sided with a cream-colored vinyl. There were hydrangeas and azaleas in bloom beside the open porch, and cement urns at the base of the steps were crowded with pansies. White curtains hung at every window, and in the doorway stood a plumpish woman who looked to be in her mid-seventies.

“Hi, Gran!” Adam called to her as he got out of the car.

“How in the world does a big boy like you fit into that little bitty car?” The old woman stepped out onto the porch, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I just fold myself up, and slide in.” He waited for Kendra, then took her elbow, whispering, “Ah, by the way, she thinks you’re my girlfriend.”

“Why did you tell her that?” Kendra murmured, smiling at the woman who had moved to the top step.

“It was that or tell her I’m trying to keep you out of the clutches of a serial killer.”

“You couldn’t have just said we were friends?” She nodded.

“No one around here would believe that.”

She was about to ask why not, when his grandmother called a greeting from the porch. They had reached the end of the walk and Adam dropped her arm to take the steps two at a time and embrace his grandmother.

“You look wonderful, Gran.” He kissed her soundly on the cheek.

“Thank you, son, so do you.” She patted the sides of his face with her hands, all the while peering over his shoulder to get a better look at the young woman who’d accompanied her only grandson on this trip home.

“Gran, this is Kendra Smith.” Adam draped an arm over his grandmother’s shoulder. “Kendra, this is my grandmother, Alice McGovern.”

“Good to meet you, Mrs. McGovern.” Kendra flashed her best smile.

“Good to meet you as well.” Adam’s grandmother smiled back. “Now, come in, come in. I thought we’d have time for tea before we go over to Kelly’s.”

Alice McGovern opened the door and waited for them to enter the dark, cool foyer.

“Come on back to the kitchen”—Mrs. McGovern bustled past her visitors—“the water is all ready. And I made some of those raspberry cookies you love, Adam.”

“Gran, do you think we have time for tea?”

Alice turned and glared at her grandson.

“Oh, right.” Adam nodded. “Tea it is.”

Kendra followed into a small, all-white kitchen that was surprisingly modern and equipped with all new appliances.

“I had to hide them from Alex and Melanie, of course, those two buggers are always into my pantry.”

“Alex and Melanie are my sister’s kids,” Adam explained. “They live a half-dozen doors down on the opposite side of the street, which is where the wedding is going to be.”

“They stay here after school until Kelly or her husband, Scott, gets home from work, whoever gets home first gets the kids. They’re only here for two hours or so in the afternoon, but they do keep me moving. I spend my days resting up for three o’clock when the school bus lets them off.”

The entire time Alice McGovern spoke, she was in motion, albeit somewhat slow motion, pouring tea into the teapot and then into the cups that had already been arranged on the kitchen table, set for tea for three, with porcelain cups and saucers and matching plates.

“Adam, you pull that chair out for your lady friend and show your manners,” she instructed.

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, then held a chair out for her as well, and remained standing until both women were seated.

“Now, then, we can have a nice little chat and get acquainted before we go to the wedding.” Mrs. McGovern nodded. “Kendra, Adam tells me you’re an artist.”

“A sketch artist, yes.”

“Lovely.” Alice passed Kendra the plate of fruit-filled sandwich cookies with hands distorted by arthritis. “Do you do landscapes or portraits?”

“I guess you could call them portraits.”

“Kendra does composite drawings, Gran. For law enforcement agencies. She’ll interview witnesses and then make a drawing.”

“Oh, like that one I saw on the news the other night? That man who’s been killing all those poor girls down near Philadelphia?”

“Yes, exactly like that.” Adam sipped at his tea, which he never drank, except when he was here. He wasn’t particularly fond of the beverage, but tea with his gran was a ritual left over from his high school days, and he’d never let on.

“Actually, that was my sketch,” Kendra said, wondering why Adam had neglected to add that.

The woman’s face went white. “Why, I can’t believe they’d let a pretty little thing like you get that close to a monster like him.”

“No, no, Mrs. McGovern, I don’t have to get anywhere near him. I just talk to people who have seen him, and they tell me what he looked like, and I try to draw him from their descriptions,” Kendra assured her. “I never get close to him.”

“She tries to make the picture look enough like the suspect so that if someone sees that person, they will recognize him and call the police.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Adam’s grandmother did look relieved. “I’d hate to think about you having to meet face-to-face with those awful people. I used to worry something fierce about Adam, until they gave him that nice desk job.”

Desk job
? Kendra mouthed the words silently.

Adam winked.

“Now, tell me how you learned how to draw faces like that? It’s an odd profession for a woman,” she frowned, then added hastily, “though I’m sure you’re quite good at it.”

“I’ve always been interested in faces.” Kendra suppressed a smile. “And I’ve always liked to draw. It just seemed natural to combine the two.”

“Did you go to art school, to learn how to draw faces?”

“No. I did have some formal art courses in college, but I really taught myself. I used to sketch the people sitting near me in class, and my neighbors, and the girls in the dorm. I’d go to Ocean City—that’s on the New Jersey shore—and sit on the boardwalk, and draw the people who walked by. When I got older and was looking for a career, I was lucky to be able to find one that let me use that ability.” Kendra left out the parts about her brother and the fact that her well-connected stepfather had opened the door for her first freelance job for the FBI. She had completely understood that while his influence had gotten her the opportunity, subsequent assignments would not be forthcoming if she didn’t get the job done. But there was no point in going into any of this with Adam’s grandmother. She merely said, “I was lucky to get referrals to other law enforcement agencies, but most of my work has been for the FBI.”

“Gran, we’re going to need to change for the wedding.” Adam touched his grandmother on the arm. “I’ll run out to the car and get our things so we can leave on time. I don’t think Dad would appreciate his best man being late.”

“I do appreciate punctuality,” Alice McGovern said to Kendra as Adam left the room. “Especially for an occasion like this. Why, I expect I’ll see some people I haven’t seen since Lynnie died.”

“Lynnie?”

“My daughter. Adam’s mother.”

“Oh.”

“Seven years come August, it will be. Can’t hardly believe it’s been that long, myself, but there it is.”

“Did you have other children, Mrs. McGovern?”

“No, just the one daughter.” The woman’s face brightened. “But she was enough. She was a treasure. A joy, every day of her life. It was the saddest day of my life, the day I buried her. Sadder than losing my husband, and he died when I was only thirty-one.”

“So you raised her alone, for the most part.”