“Anything on Cindy or Durham? If the copycat killed Scudder—”
“We believe we located Cindy. Her real name is Cindy Dobbins. She worked as a stripper for a while when she was younger. That’s when she started using the name Di Blasi. She’s been arrested half a dozen times in the past few years. Solicitation. Drug possession. Public intoxication,” Barbara Jean said. “Check your e-mail. I sent you a complete report about half an hour ago, along with several arrest photos. Cindy’s thirty-five. She looks fifty.”
“Do you have a last known address?”
“We do, but she’s not there. Hasn’t been there in three weeks. We sent a local Atlanta contact to check it out.”
“Do we know where Cindy was from originally?”
“Sure do. She was born and raised in a little wideplace-in-the-road town just over the Georgia state line, outside of Augusta. A placed called Apple Orchard, South Carolina. She’s got a sister who still lives there.”
“Maybe our little bird went home to roost,” Derek said.
“The sister lives on Lancaster Road, number fourteen twenty. Her name is Jeri Paulk.”
“Thanks, Barbara Jean. I’ll fill Maleah in.” He was pretty sure they would be heading straight to Apple Orchard, South Carolina. “By the way, anything else on Durham?”
“Durham owns three homes, a house in Tennessee, a condo in Aspen, and an apartment in New York City. But according to our investigation, he rents out all three. From what his agent told us, apparently he travels a great deal. The last time he checked in with her, he was in Virginia doing some Civil War research, but they haven’t been in contact for nearly two weeks. It seems Durham doesn’t own a cell phone.”
“Doesn’t this guy have any family or close friends?”
“He’s a widower. No children. We’re digging deeper to see if we can come up with relatives. According to his agent, the guy is a loner. He has dozens of acquaintances, but no bosom buddies.”
“Got any recent photos of him?”
“Book jacket photo,” Barbara Jean said. “I can send you a copy of that.”
“What about his age? His background? Any military service?”
“Durham is sixty-three. No military background. The guy is an academic. He’s got half a dozen degrees. Actually, he’s Dr. Albert Durham.”
“Doesn’t sound like the type who’d get involved with a serial killer.”
“Or become a copycat killer,” Barbara Jean said.
After his conversation with Barbara Jean, Derek relayed all the information to Maleah. And just as he’d thought, she didn’t hesitate to tell them they were going straight to Apple Orchard this evening. Checking online, Derek quickly found out that the small South Carolina town was a two-hour-and-forty-minute drive from downtown Macon.
“Let’s at least stop for fast food on the way,” Derek suggested.
She groaned. “You’d think you could skip a meal every once in a while.”
“Drive-through will be fine.”
She didn’t reply.
Maleah headed the SUV north and continued in that direction on the interstate.
Poppy Chappelle had no idea she was being watched. Otherwise, he doubted the teenager would have removed her bikini top while she sunbathed in what she believed to be the privacy of her grandmother’s backyard. No doubt, she and her cousins had spent the afternoon frolicking in the pool, but Court and Anne Lee Dandridge had left over an hour ago, only moments after he arrived. Poppy was now enjoying the late afternoon sunshine all alone while she stretched languidly on a padded chaise lounge.
It would be so easy to kill her. The grandmother probably hadn’t come outside all day. He suspected the old woman took afternoon naps and avoided the June heat by staying indoors. The housekeeper had backed the late- model Mercedes from the garage fifteen minutes ago and headed toward downtown Savannah.
A brick fence flanked the back courtyard on either side and connected to an eight-foot-high iron fence that ran across the back of the property. Towering crape myrtles heavy-laden with buds just beginning to burst open lined the fencerow. Although neatly maintained, an assortment of trees, shrubs, and flowers grew in profusion and partially obscured the view. He stood less than thirty feet from Saxon Chappelle’s young niece, just beyond the unlocked back gate. He had parked his rental car blocks away, wore a ball cap and dark sunglasses, and had tossed his hand up and spoken to neighbors down the street as he passed by. If they remembered him, it was doubtful they could give anyone an even halfway accurate description of him. After all, he was just an average-looking white guy. His ability to appear quite generic had always given him an advantage.
He didn’t especially like the idea of killing a sixteen-year-old, but she wouldn’t be the first. In order to get the message across, he needed for the victim’s death to matter. He supposed he could have chosen Saxon Chappelle’s mother or his sister or the nephew or even the other niece, but his employer had seen Poppy’s unusual given name as a sign, like a beacon glowing in the dark. She was the one.
Standing at the gate, he watched the rise and fall of Poppy’s small, perky breasts. Her tiny rosebud pink nipples puckered as a warm breeze swept over her naked skin. He reached out and quietly lifted the latch. His pulse raced as the pre-kill adrenaline rush swept through his body, but it was only the first stage of the incredible high yet to come at the moment of the actual kill.
The urge to kill her now almost overwhelmed him.
But years of experience had taught him how to control his urges.
“Poppy, what the devil are you doing?” a female voice demanded.
He dropped his hand away from the gate and took several careful steps backward while he searched for the source of the voice. An old woman, straight and tall, her white hair gleaming in the sunlight, came through the French doors that led into a back room of the two-story house.
Poppy reached down and grabbed her bikini top off the patio floor and hurriedly slipped it on before she got up and faced her grandmother. “I was sunbathing.”
“In the nude?” the old woman asked.
“I wasn’t nude. Besides, I’m all alone out here.”
“In my day, a proper young lady—”
“Please, don’t preach to me,” Poppy said as she walked toward her grandmother. “I get enough of that from Mom.”
Mrs. Chappelle sighed and shook her head, but when Poppy approached her, she opened her arms to give the girl a hug. “Your father was always testing my patience. He had a mind of his own and so do you. I can’t tell you how much you remind me of him.” She grasped Poppy’s chin. “You’re a Chappelle through and through. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well, come on inside and have a glass of the fresh lemonade Heloise made before she left to go shopping.” Mrs. Chappelle took hold of her granddaughter’s hand. “I do so love these weeks you spend with me every summer.”
“So do I, Grandmother.”
He waited until Poppy disappeared inside the house before he latched the gate and turned to leave. As he walked away, the excitement coursing through his body began to fade ever so gradually, allowing his heartbeat to return to normal by the time he reached his car. He had checked out of the hotel in downtown Macon several hours ago and driven straight to Savannah without stopping. Two hours and fifty minutes. He had been careful to drive at the speed limit. The last thing he needed was to be stopped by the highway patrol.
Despite the desire to kill Poppy right then and there, he had not acted on impulse. He hadn’t planned to kill Poppy today. In keeping to the Carver’s timeline, he knew that the body should never be found before morning. There was no hurry, of course. He could come back tonight or tomorrow night or even the night after that, and kill her before dawn. When the moment was right, he would act. He would slit her throat, remove the small triangular pieces of flesh, and leave her body floating in her grandmother’s pool.
