The Killing Ground

“…will be used against you in a court of law.”

Chapter 26

Rebecca set her case file down and settled into the chair across from Meghan. She was handling the interrogation alone. It was the general consensus that she was the least threatening. Jordan was too close to the case, and Rick would be seen as a threat. Rebecca flicked her eyes across the table, meeting Meghan’s gaze. “I just want to remind you that you do have a right to have an attorney present.”

Meghan shrugged, her face cryptically nonchalant. Not the reaction that Rebecca expected from a woman who was certain to go to prison for multiple homicides.

Okay, Rebecca thought. That’s how you want to play this. “Meghan, why don’t you tell us why you killed all these women?”

Rebecca set pictures of all the victims in front of Meghan. She waited for her to react. Nothing. She didn’t even blink. Rebecca narrowed her eyes. Time to play hardball. “What about Christine? Why did you want to kill her?”

Finally, a twitch. Meghan shifted in her chair. “If, and I do emphasize if, I wanted to kill her, she deserved it.”

“Why did she deserve it?” Rebecca looped her hands together.

“That bitch left me.” There was the twitch again. Christine was the only thing that seemed to faze Meghan. “Married for twelve years and she leaves me for a man. I gave her everything.”

“Why did she leave?”

Meghan’s eyes glazed over, and Rebecca knew that she was talking to the killer now. Her voice dropped to menacing low and Rebecca could see where she could have been confused for a man. “We wanted children. We tried the non-conventional methods, but nothing took. With my job, I could have done it, but she didn’t want to mix our home life with my work.”

Rebecca flicked her eyes to the two-way mirror where she knew the interrogation was being watched. This was the story they were looking for, and it was her job to stretch it into a confession. “That must have frustrated you. Especially knowing that you had the power to get your wife pregnant.”

Meghan’s eyes shifted, and Rebecca thought she lost her again, but just as quick the sneer returned. “She knew how good I was. I told her that this wouldn’t fail. It was our only chance. But she wouldn’t listen to me.”

“How did that make you feel?” Rebecca gave the line another tug, just a little bit more, and she had her right where she wanted her.

The muscle in the side of Meghan’s temple started to pulse, a steady but noticeable tempo. “Angry. I was so angry. I begged Christine to let me help. But she wouldn’t. She pushed me away.”

“How did you handle that?”

Silence. Meghan took several deep breaths. “I snapped.”

Yes. Rebecca thought. This is it. Come on, baby. I just need you to confess to one murder. “Snapped how?”

“It consumed me. I had the power to fix everything, and she wouldn’t let me. I went off the deep end trying to convince her. My job suffered. Everything suffered. But she kept refusing. Said that she wasn’t going to allow me to foster my God complex with our child. If she did that, all that child would be in her mind was something grown in a petri dish.”

“That must have hurt. Obviously, she knew you wanted children as badly as she did.”

Meghan slammed her hand on the table, causing Rebecca to jump back. “It killed me. She was being unreasonable. The more I pushed, the more she pulled away. Before she left, she could barely look at me. All those years together meant nothing.”

“And she threw all that away and walked out of your marriage?” Rebecca tugged again. Ever so slightly, just enough to remind Meghan that she wouldn’t get away.

Anger. Fury. Meghan’s eyes flashed darkly. “She left me for a man. Some piece of shit with a dick because she wanted a baby and sleeping with him was less deplorable than just letting me do my fucking job.”

Rebecca smothered a smile. She was so close. “What did you do when she left?”

Meghan calmed down slightly. She was a roller coaster of emotions, reliving the years that drove her to kill. “I tried to get her back for a while. She made it clear that it was over and there was nothing I could do or say that would change that. She eventually filed a restraining order. I turned to the only thing I could to dull the pain.”

“What was that?”

“I drank. Did coke.” Meghan swiped her finger across her nose subconsciously. “Started skipping work. The only thing I cared about was forgetting Christine. After a while, Dr. Stein had enough. He pulled me aside and pretty much told me if I didn’t straighten up, he would have the board kick me to the curb.”

And there’s the reason you wanted us to focus on him. “Did you clean up after that?”

Meghan shrugged. “Enough to fool him. Stupid fuck. He couldn’t fire me anyway. He needed me. I ran that place while he sat on his ass and used it to pick up women.”

Bring it back to Christine. “Did you ever see Christine again after all that?”

Meghan nodded slightly. “Once. She was shopping downtown.”

Her face dropped. “She was pregnant.” She stated it so matter-of-fact that Rebecca almost believed that she had accepted it with nothing but stoic resignation, but she knew better. “That must have really hurt your feelings.”

“I died that day.”

“Was that when you started killing the other women?”

Meghan jumped. Her eyes cleared up. “Uh-uh, Detective. Did you really think I would fall for that?”

Rebecca leaned forward, her gaze locking in on Meghan’s face. “Just for argument’s sake, let me tell you what I think happened.”

Meghan smirked, but nodded and gave her the go ahead, as if she was just listening to some funny anecdote.

“Here’s what I think.” Meghan pulled out the picture of the first victim. “I think you saw Christine pregnant, and you went ballistic. All these women coming into the clinic looking to you for help to get pregnant, and the one woman you wanted to help most, leaves you. The only way to get back at Christine is to take punishment out on innocent women. So you start picking women from the clinic, follow them, assault them and kill them. Every time you slice a woman’s throat, it’s Christine that dies.”

“Interesting theory, Detective.” Except for the vein in her temple pounding furiously, Meghan looked almost bored.

“But it’s not enough to just kill them. You had to rape them to get back at Christine for fucking you over. But you don’t stop there. You take her baby.”

A ghost of a smile broke out on Meghan’s face, but she said nothing.

“You robbed her of the one thing she wanted more than anything.” Rebecca took the next picture out and slammed it on the table. And another one until she was done. She was angry, and she trembled. “You killed every single one of these women.”

Meghan glanced at the pictures again. Still no reaction.

“Eight women and none of them was Christine.” Rebecca pulled out the last photo and set it on the table silently.

Meghan’s eyes dropped to Julie’s photo. She picked it up wordlessly, her jaw tightening. She studied it a moment longer then flung it on the table.

Rebecca picked up the photo and showed Meghan the back where Julie’s name had been written. “See that? Julie Keppler. Not Christine.” She flipped it around and shoved it in Meghan’s face.

Meghan flinched. No, this wasn’t Julie. This was her Christine. She belonged to her, and she had left. She left and had a baby with someone else. She felt a dull pounding at her temple, and she massaged it with her fingers.