For a second, there was quiet. Then the woman catapulted to her feet, her chair screeching across the floor and ricocheting against the wall as she made a beeline for the kitchen. “I’m calling the police. Nobody talks to me like that.”
He ignored her, pulling the curtain back and staring out the window. He watched the little girl, the delight she took in picking out stones and hurling them into the bay. She was fruit of the poisoned tree, but still innocent, like an angel. The way Misty used to be.
He let the curtain drop. Looking down, he realized he had crumpled the paper bag holding his recent purchases. Also, he’d forgotten to take a breath mint.
It didn’t matter now.
10
When Laura arrived at the Bisbee Police Department the next morning, she looked for Buddy Holland, but he wasn’t at his desk. She’d planned to divide up the phone work, but that didn’t look like it would happen now.
Chief Ducotte had scrounged up a phone and phone jack for her computer and given her the table by the window where they kept the coffee urn. Fortunately, the coffee urn had been moved so she’d have some privacy. She sat down in the folding metal chair, thinking that if she sat here very long, her back would be in agony. She scanned the list of contacts at other law enforcement agencies in the state. Might as well get started.
In the next hour, she reached close to a dozen of her counterparts in other jurisdictions, but none of them had encountered a similar crime.
She knew this wasn’t this guy’s first kill. Dressing the victim up was the killer’s signature—something he’d do every time. It would have taken him time and practice to perfect a ritual like this one. Unfortunately, looking for one piece of information in the staggering wave of data from VICAP was a daunting task. VICAP—the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program—was only as good as the agencies entering the data. The FBI database cross-referenced violent crimes nationwide, but participation was voluntary and many smaller jurisdictions didn’t use the system.
Somebody standing at her elbow— Officer Noone. “Ma’am?”
She straightened up, felt a twinge in her back. Smiled at him.
“I heard you were looking for a saxophone player? My sister dated a guy who played the sax. I heard he lived on the Gulch, so I asked around and I found him. Name’s Jeeter.”
“Jeeter who?”
“Just Jeeter.”
Through the window Laura saw Buddy Holland and Officer Duffy approaching from the parking lot. Duffy looked pissed. Laura got the impression that was a permanent condition.
As Buddy approached the window, he ducked his head to look in at her. No, not at her. He was looking at himself.
“Jeeter doesn’t have a last name?” Laura asked Noone.
“Apparently not, ma’am.” He looked chastened, as if Jeeter’s not having a last name was a reflection on him.
“What’s Jeeter’s story?” she asked.
“Guess you could say he’s a night owl. Itinerant musician, takes up the slack with odd jobs.”
Laura glanced at Buddy Holland’s desk, at a faded but eye-catching photo of Buddy, a woman, and a little girl posing in front of Old Faithful at Yellowstone. “Did Jeeter happen to look out his window?” Laura asked Noone.
“As a matter of fact he did. He likes to sit next to an open window when he plays. Feel the night air.”
“Great for his neighbors. Did he see anything?”
His broad handsome face lit up—what he had been building up to. “He saw a motor home.” He consulted his memo pad. “He noticed it for a couple of reasons. Almost nobody drives down the Gulch in the wee hours of the morning. And this motor home went up and back on the Gulch twice.”
“What time was that?”
“Between two and three.”
“Did he notice anything else?”
“Just that it went slow. He wasn’t thinking make, size, anything—just noticed it driving down the street a couple of times. Here’s his number.” He handed her a While You Were Out slip, the name Jeeter, his phone number and address neatly printed on it.
He lingered.
“Yes?” Wishing he would go so she could think.
“If there’s anything else I can do—“
She glanced at her watch, thinking she should get out to see the Parris family soon or she’d have to wait until early afternoon—and that would be cutting it close. She was meeting the owner of the Cooger & Dark shop at eleven and the autopsy in Sierra Vista was at four. She looked at Noone. “As a matter of fact there is something you can do. I want you to look up motor homes—you can do it on the Internet. Go back at least fifteen years and get a representative sample. Go show them to Jeeter and see if anything jogs his memory.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do that right now.”
“When does your shift end?”
