She looked at Kitt. “I don’t care what we have to do to get this son of a bitch, how many rules we need to break. I want him.”
Kitt held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Any means necessary.”
42
Friday, March 17, 2006
11:20 a.m.
Kitt sat at her desk, staring at the notes spread out before her. She liked to make notes on Post-its. They were like puzzle pieces. She could move them around, shuffle them, tack them up, create a time line.
M.C. sat slumped in a chair across from her, lost in her own thoughts. They had just endured a lengthy meeting with not just the Sarge and Sal-but their boss as well. They had been grilled for forty minutes over the case, their progress-or lack of-and the latest murder.
The chief didn’t want to accept the fact that Derrick Todd wasn’t their man. He was too perfect. A convicted sex offender working at a kid’s party place. He insisted they take another look at the ex-con. An arrest would go a long way to reassuring the public.
Never mind that the poor bastard didn’t do it.
She picked up the Post-it that read Derrick Todd and crumpled it. He was out of it. He couldn’t have committed this last murder-his ass had been sitting squarely in jail for violating the state’s sex-offender-registration law.
Of course, she doubted he would be in there much longer. Dale had delivered the diary to her. She, in turn, had handed it over to Todd’s lawyer.
Her phone rang and she reached for it. “Detective Lundgren.”
“Sorry about the angel,” he said.
Kitt snapped her fingers to get M.C.’s attention, then pointed to the Post-it with “Peanut phones” written on it. She nodded and dialed CRU, initiating the trace. That done, M.C. wrote Cell/11:41 on a card and set it on the desk in front of Kitt.
“Was she yours?” Kitt asked.
“Did I kill her? No, Kitten, I didn’t.”
“And you expect me to believe you? Just like that? After the little warning you left me?”
“I hope it doesn’t devalue your ride too much. I wanted to be creative.”
“I suppose you consider picking a brunette this time your idea of ‘creative’?”
“I told you, I didn’t have anything to do with this girl.” He lowered his voice to a husky drawl. “I would choose someone closer to you, Kitten. Someone you have a connection with.”
Tami. “Give me a name, asshole!”
“You don’t play well with others, do you?”
“Fuck you. I’m tired of your games.”
He laughed, clearly pleased. “I hate it when we fight. Can’t we make up?”
“Tell me what I want to know and you’re my best friend again. We’re both on the same side. We both want to stop the Copycat.”
“We are indeed two of a kind,” he said, sounding pleased. “Hurt by people who were supposed to love us. Betrayed by them. Cheated out of the life we deserved.”
She took a stab. “And we’re fighters. Both of us.”
He was quiet a moment. When he replied, his voice sounded deeper. “Yes. Fighters.”
“Then help me. Please.”
He ignored that. “What’s it like to bury your child?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about my daughter. I want to talk about the Copycat.”
“But it’s my show, Kitten. Give me what I want and maybe…maybe I’ll give you what you want.”
Kitt experienced a tickle of excitement. She glanced at the clock. “You’re a professional at delivering death, maybe you should know how it feels for those left behind. Sadie’s death left a hole inside me, a yawning chasm that nothing could fill. I wanted to die myself. Wished I was dead. Considered doing it. Killing myself.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked, tone rapt.
“I don’t know,” she answered simply, honestly. “Or perhaps I did try, one drink at a time.”
“What brought you back?”
“AA, the people I met there.” She paused, thinking of Danny, the night before, how she had hurt his feelings. “They reminded me that I’m not the only one in the world who hurts. That we’re all interconnected.”
“And that Sadie wouldn’t want you to give up.”
She paused, caught off balance. How did he know that? “Yes,” she said.
M.C. set another card on the desk. 11:43.
Three minutes to go.
A group had gathered. Sergeant Haas, several of the other detectives, Sal. They were all watching the clock, praying, she knew from experience, that this time they’d nail him.
“You think you know me so well?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Now, Kitten,” he chided her, “you don’t really expect me to tell you all my secrets?”
“Why not? I tell you mine, you tell me yours. A partnership.”
“A partnership,” he repeated. “I like that. In fact, I like you, Kitt. I respect you, despite your screwups.”
“That’s good to know. But will you still like me when I bust you?”
He laughed. “Maybe more. Of course, that’s not going to happen.”
“You’re so certain?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at her partner, who held up two fingers. “How?”
“Because I’m better than you,” he said simply. “I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s true. I’m better than you all.”
“I’ll take that challenge, Peanut.” The ease with which the nickname slipped off her lips surprised her. “Let’s make it official.”
“Competitive, even when you feel so hopeless. When you’re so lost. See why I admire you?”
“But I feel neither hopeless nor lost.”
“I feel so hopeless,” he said, tone mocking. “As if nothing will ever be good, or right, again. I wonder sometimes, should I just end it? But thoughts of Sadie stop me-I fear taking my own life would keep me from being with her in the afterlife.”
Kitt felt ill. She recognized her own words, her thoughts and feelings, being spit mockingly back at her
An entry from her journal.
He had been in her house that day. Maybe more than once.
Kitt fought to keep how exposed that made her feel from showing. “So, you were in my house. You read my journal. Make you feel like a big man?”
He ignored that. She heard the flick of a lighter, the hiss of a cigarette catching, coming to life. “Did you warn the little girls? The ones in the periphery of your life?”
“There are no little girls in my life.”
He clucked his tongue. “Now who’s playing games, Kitten?”
“I don’t play games.”
“We all do. In fact, life’s one big game. We’re all vying to come out the big winner. Top dog. King of the hill.”
“Queen of the hill, thank you. Besides, playing at life and really living it are very different things.”
“I would love to continue this discussion but our time’s up.”
“No, wait! You promised-”
