“He’s interested,” Will said when she came back into the living room. “He’s calling Al. They’ll meet us at the building.”
CHAPTER 37
Lonnie was in his office when they arrived. He told them Al was stopping at the paper to get back issues containing the divorce notices of the four victims.
“It may mean nothing, Lonnie,” Jen protested, taken aback by his enthusiasm.
“Maybe not. But at least it’s the first decent sounding idea we’ve had.”
He leaned back in his chair, half-smiling. It was Saturday morning, the two of them were together, and Will had called Lonnie to pass on her idea. Lonnie didn’t have to be a detective to figure out the scenario.
“You two are sure gung-ho,” he said, smirking. “Starting work so early on a weekend.”
“With a partner like Jen, a man can get very motivated.” The corners of Will’s mouth curled up as he looked at her tenderly.
“You two should be ashamed,” Jen said. “I think you’ve conspired against me from the beginning.”
“Not against, but for.” Lonnie looked serious. “You two look good together.”
“It’s not all appearances.” Jen smiled at Lonnie. “Okay, boss, I’ll go so far as to say you might have known best after all.”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
Al came in, looking like the proverbial cat that had swallowed the canary.
“I think we’ve got something, thanks to you.” He handed Jen copies of the newspaper’s divorce announcements. “Check it out. The divorce notices of all four were in the same edition. And all four initiated the divorces.”
There had been two printings since the one listing the victims, the latest being two days ago. Each contained approximately thirty notices. She laid the last two aside and looked at the list containing the names of Judy, Carla, Vicki, and Trish. As she stared at it, she wondered if she was looking at the killer’s to-do list.
She pointed to the names. “We need to find out how many of these women live alone.”
Lonnie rummaged in a drawer and came out with a copy of the contact numbers for all the officers on the department. He handed it to Al.
“See if you can get about half a dozen task force members in here as soon as possible. Then call the rest and get them on standby to come in tonight for surveillance. I’ll call Hardesty and get him to contact his people.”
Al took the sheet and went out into the detective section to use the phone at his desk.
“We’ll canvass names on the first list,” Lonnie said, “then start on the next one. Beginning tonight, I want surveillance on any women off that first list who live alone.”
“That’s going to take a lot of coverage,” Jen said. “We can’t even be sure that it’s anything more than a coincidence that the names were printed at the same time.”
“What else have we got? It’s as good a lead as any.”
“Something about it feels right,” Will said.
Jen thought for a moment.
“Does going after divorced women sound like something Arthur Kelty might do?”
“I don’t know.” Will shrugged. “I heard from social services that he always seemed angry when the subject of his mother was brought up, like he’d never forgiven her for leaving him.”
“But you said you think Wayne killed her.”
“I do, but chances are the boy didn’t know that.” He thought for a moment. “Remember, I told you Wayne considered killing a game, a sport. The hunt, he called it. Hunters generally have a plan or system that they think works for finding game. Could be that this is the system Artie devised. If it is Artie, that is.”
“Okay.” Lonnie picked up the first list. “Let’s divide this up, starting with the women who initiated divorce proceedings. We’ll do as many as we can by phone.”
“How do you want to do this?” Will asked. “I assume you don’t want to spook the women.”
“We could pretend to be doing a phone survey,” Jen said. “You know, the kind that says the computer called you at random. Then we ask demographic questions, like how many children reside in the household, how many adults, that sort of thing.”
“Good, good!” Lonnie nodded excitedly. “The ones we can’t get hold of or the ones who hang up on us, we’ll do in person.”
Jen felt a surge of excitement. Will was right—it did feel right. Maybe they did have a chance of catching Arthur Kelty after all. Somehow she was sure it was him—that felt right, too. Unexpectedly, a chill ran up her back, and she shivered.
“You okay?” Will said.
She nodded, perplexed. She had never thought of herself as a superstitious person, but for the second time that week, she felt as if someone had just stepped on her grave.
***
By four that afternoon they had covered the list containing the names of the victims, as well as the one following it. They hadn’t started on the list printed two days before, since it seemed doubtful the killer would take a victim from it while he still had the others to choose from.
Since each list contained approximately thirty names, they were pleasantly surprised to find that only four more women from the first list lived alone and only ten from the second list.
“I suppose that makes sense,” Don said. Will had given the agent a call, and he had joined them before noon. “Chances are the women who filed for divorce already had somebody else in mind to live with—a roommate, someone they were involved with, or maybe just moving back in with parents.”
“And don’t forget,” Jen said, “women usually get custody of any children.”
Lonnie had called Buchan with the theory, and the chief had okayed the surveillance. Mike Hardesty had accomplished the same with the sheriff. The other task force members had been notified. A few were scheduled to work that evening, but their departments all agreed to relieve them from
