Killing Fear

“Will?” Carina asked softly.

He ignored her, gave her a glance that said, not here, not now.

“Save who?” Carina asked, skeptical, still pushing for answers. “Who’s he talking about? The daughter?”

“Robin McKenna.” Will cleared his voice. “Anna Clark’s roommate who testified against him. Or he could mean Julia Chandler or the old woman who saw him leaving Brandi Bell’s house.” But Will was just saying that. Glenn was talking about Robin, no doubt in his mind.

“You talked to them today, right?”

“I talked to Robin and Julia,” Will said. “I sent patrols to talk to the other witnesses who Diaz couldn’t reach on the phone.” And he’d just spoken to Sherry this morning. She of course had heard about the prison break. She’d been scared.

“Connor is going to flip.”

“Lieutenant, would you mind if I asked our criminalists to work with yours?”

“No problem. We contract with the Sheriff’s Department for most crime scene work. Our lab is bare bones.”

“Thanks. I’ll have them send a team immediately.”

Will would never forget when Sherry Jeffries told him and Julia the story about her cat while they prepared her for testimony.

“No one believed me. Theodore was a perfect kid. A straight-A student. Never raised his voice. Kind and polite. But with me he was different. Jekyll and Hyde. And he broke my kitty’s neck, looking at me the whole time. Watching my face, my reaction, my pain.

“I buried Muffin. I cried and buried him. Theodore dug him up that night and put the body in my bed. I woke up in the morning with my dead cat at my feet.”

Sherry hadn’t been a good witness. She’d fallen apart on the stand and she had no firsthand information about the murders. With her history of juvenile delinquency and drug use, it didn’t matter that she’d been clean for more than a decade before the trial. When on the stand, the judge sustained every one of Glenn’s objections. Nothing Sherry said was on the record. Only during the penalty phase did her testimony help.

Now she was dead.

“How did he get her address?” Carina asked the same question Will had been thinking. “I thought she’d moved since the trial.”

Will’s stomach dropped as the only plausible answer sunk in. “Call a patrol immediately and send them over to Carl and Dorothy Glenn’s house.”

The elder Glenns were alive and hadn’t seen their son. Will believed them.

But Will’s instincts told him that the only way Glenn could have found out where Sherry lived so quickly was through their parents. He called Jim Gage, head of their crime lab, who’d just arrived at the Jeffries homicide. While the Glenns hadn’t seen their son, he could easily have walked inside, even with the unmarked unit watching the front of the house.

The Glenns were distraught over the death of their daughter, yet didn’t believe their son had killed her. Will didn’t push it, not wanting to add to their anguish. They’d never believed their son capable of the heinous crimes of which he’d been convicted.

Carina came back from her inspection of the house and motioned for him to follow her out. “There’s a key under the mat at the back door. Want to bet the Glenns have always had a key under their back mat?” Carina had also found an address book on the top of the Glenns’ neat desk. She had bagged it. “Sherry’s current address and phone number are in here.”

Will confirmed the information with the Glenns. They’d lived in the same house for forty-two years, since they married. For all those years, they had a key under the mat.

“We’ve never been robbed,” Mrs. Glenn stated emphatically.

Only robbed of your daughter.

Will gave his condolences and received permission to take the key and address book. He went back to the Jeffries crime scene and handed the evidence off to Jim Gage, who was talking with the El Cajon technician.

“You’ll find Theodore Glenn’s prints on these,” Will said.

“He’d probably wear gloves,” Jim said.

“He doesn’t care. He knows we know it’s him. He’s already on death row. It’s a game with him, don’t forget that for a minute. His parents are both borderline deaf. He could have walked into the house while they sat watching television at ten thousand decibels, found Sherry’s address, and left without them suspecting a thing.”

“How’d he get down here so fast?” Jim asked.

“The Feds are tracking stolen cars. Glenn stole a Dodge Ram truck on Point San Pedro Road, which is on the bay north of San Quentin, dumped it in Fresno and nabbed a Honda. It was nearly out of gas in Frazier Park at the top of the Grapevine and he grabbed another truck, this time a Ford Ranger, but it was hot because the owner saw him, so he dumped it near Disneyland. The Feds aren’t so sure after that. There were six cars stolen within a two-mile radius of where the Ford was found at nine a.m. this morning.”

“So in the five hours after he dumps the truck in Anaheim, he arrives in San Diego, locates his sister, kills her, and is still at large.”

“For the time being, that just about sums it up.”

SEVEN

“An anonymous tip has led to the capture of Robert Gregory Cortez, one of the twelve convicts who escaped from San Quentin during the San Quentin earthquake forty-eight hours ago,” the newscaster said.

“Turn it up!” Will called, crossing to the stand where the break room television had been brought into the task force command center.

A cop punched the remote and the San Francisco-based newscaster said louder, “…and authorities have not released the identification of the caller, though a source close to the investigation spoke on condition of anonymity that it was in fact another escapee who detained the convict. Drew?”

“What?” Will leaned forward, temporarily forgetting his confrontation with Robin that afternoon, the murder of Sherry Jeffries, and the fact that Theodore Glenn was in his city.

The shot turned to a reporter standing outside of San Quentin State Prison where smoke still rose from the recent fire on the far side of the compound.

“Sources close to the investigation have stated that Robert Gregory Cortez was found tied to a lamppost in Vallejo, about seventeen miles northeast of San Quentin. An anonymous 911 call gave police the location of the suspect and when they arrived on the scene, they discovered Cortez beaten and naked.”

“Drew, do the police speculate as to who the tipster was?”

“No, Joan, the police are being tight-lipped not only about the tip and the capture of Cortez, but also his condition.”

“Any similarities between Cortez and the apprehension of Porter and Douglas Parks?”

“Yes, and the police refuse to comment. However, both Parks and Cortez were beaten and tied in a very public location, followed by an anonymous call to 911.”

“Vigilante?”

“The police refuse to speculate at this point, but now three of the twelve escaped convicts have been recaptured and are being processed in Alameda County, across the bay from San Quentin.”

The camera turned back to the studio and Joan said, “Cortez was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the 1998 kidnapping and murder of six young boys in the quiet community of Laguna Niguel in southern California…”

Will said, “That’s two of them captured by the same guy.”

“Could be coincidence.” The cop shrugged.

Will shook his head. “I don’t buy that.”

Carina walked into the room talking on her cell phone. “Connor, chill. She has the best security system money