“You know, Ben, you can’t catch this guy all by yourself. Let some of the other cops do some of the work.”
“They are, I just like to know what’s goin’ on, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up.”
“Remember how worried you were when you thought I was dying earlier?” I asked.
“Yeah, what about it?” he replied. “That’s what bein’ a friend is.”
“You’re right,” I told him. “And I’m starting to get worried about you.”
He let out another heavy sigh and slowly tilted his head forward, opening his eyes as he did so. His gaze came to meet mine, and we sat there silently for a long moment.
“I know you are. I know the little woman is too. I appreciate it, I really do,” he finally said. “Let’s just catch this asshole, then I’m takin’ a vacation. True story.”
“Here you go,” Detective Deckert said as he slid a cup of coffee in front of Ben. “It’s still brewing, so this is a bit thick if ya’ know what I mean.”
A similar cup appeared in front of me, placed there by my wife as she sat down. She clutched a cup of hot water and was rhythmically dipping a tea bag in it.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Fine, but I’m tired,” she replied and leaned against me. “And a little queasy, but I’ll be fine.”
“Allison had morning sickness for the first six months,” Ben offered.
“Morning sickness?” Deckert stated rhetorically. “I didn’t know you two were expecting. Congratulations. How far along?”
“Early yet,” Felicity told him. “Six weeks.”
“Well, it’s nice to hear some good news in the middle of all this crap,” he said and lifted his coffee cup in an informal toast.
“I hate ta’ bring it up,” Ben interjected, “but we have to talk about the case. The way I see it, we still have an asshole out there killin’ women, and we aren’t much closer to knowin’ who it is than we were when we started. Now personally, I think R.J.’s pile of bricks is startin’ to add up on a side of the scale where he’d rather not be.”
“You still need to talk to Devon,” I offered.
“True.” He continued, “And his pile isn’t exactly tiltin’ the scale in a positive direction either, but the fact is, R.J. very possibly worked with the latest victim.”
“You know,” Felicity stated thoughtfully. “It might not be either one of them.”
“That’s true,” Deckert chimed, “but you follow the leads you have.”
“What about that partial fingerprint?” I queried. “How soon do you expect to know anything?”
“The lab guys should have somethin’ for us in a coupl’a hours,” Ben answered. “It’s all gonna depend on how soon they get finished at the scene and how much of the print we actually have…”
“And if its owner is in the system,” Deckert added. “If he isn’t, then it could be weeks before we get any replies from the non-participating municipalities.”
“We haven’t got weeks,” I told them flatly. “This psycho has killed three women in less than ONE week, two of them in as many days.”
“You got any better ideas?” Ben asked.
“No,” I replied candidly, “and it irritates the hell out of me.”
“Welcome to the club,” he replied.
They were still processing the fingerprint from the latest murder scene when Felicity and I left to go home. With Detective Deckert’s help, we convinced Ben to do the same, as repeated calls to the forensics lab had only served to frustrate him more. It was agreed that we would attack the situation anew after whatever modicum of sleep we could get. I half expected to find Ben at my door for breakfast the next morning.
CHAPTER 13
Felicity was feeling the effects of her first actual bout of morning sickness when the phone rang the next day. As expected, the person at the other end of the line was Ben, however, this time he was calling from the Major Case Squad headquarters instead of my driveway. His voice, though somewhat somber, sounded much less weary than it had only a few hours before.
“So are you free to come down here?” Ben’s voice issued from the earpiece.
“Yeah, I don’t have any client meetings today, so I can shake loose for a while,” I replied. “Felicity’s not feeling too well though.”
“Get used to it,” he told me.
“So what’s up?”
“We got the kid down here,” he returned, referring to R.J. “Says he doesn’t want a lawyer, but he wants you here.”
“Did you arrest him?”
“No, one of the local muni’s picked ‘im up on a DUI about the time we were at the crime scene last night… this mornin’… whatever.”
“Driving under the influence, huh,” I mused. “How’d you find out about that?”
“Since we decided we wanted to question him,” Ben began, “and I couldn’t find ‘im yesterday, I decided to run his tags this mornin’. Sometimes crap like that pays off, and it did this time ‘cause there he was. He looks like he’s fightin’ a hell of a hangover, but other than that, he’s no worse for wear.”
“Why does he want me there?” I queried.
“Somethin’ to do with the whole Wiccan thing, I guess,” he replied. “When we said we wanted to ask ‘im a few questions about Ariel Tanner and Karen Barnes, he got kinda paranoid on us.”
“You didn’t mention Ellen Gray at all?”
“Not yet. I still have a few things to check out before I play that card.”
“But if he’s not under arrest,” I puzzled, “can’t he just walk out?”
“He got a bit rowdy with the officer that stopped him, so they decided to set an example,” Ben explained. “City of Andrew Heights is gonna hold ‘im over for arraignment on the DUI and a resisting charge. I just got the muni to let me have custody for a while.”
“Okay,” I told him. “Better let me grab a shower and all that. I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“We’re not goin’ anywhere.”
As I was hanging up the phone, Salinger jumped up to the corner of our entertainment center and seated himself. He looked up at me with his bewhiskered face and large eyes forming a caricature of a wizened prophet then let out a doleful meow.
“You don’t really think R.J.’s guilty, do you?” I asked him rhetorically as I scratched him behind the ears.
He replied only by closing his eyes and purring loudly.
“Aye, Rowan, was that Ben on the phone?” Felicity asked as she trudged slowly into the room with soda crackers in one hand and a cup of what smelled like ginger tea in the other.
“Yeah, that was him,” I told her. “He’s at the MCS headquarters. They’ve got R.J. down there, and he’s asking for me.”
“Did they arrest him?” she asked with a start.
“Yes and no.” I explained, “He was arrested on a Driving-Under-the-Influence charge early this morning. Ben went looking for him again using his license plate number this time, and that’s how he found him. He borrowed him from the municipality that arrested him, so he could ask him a few questions.”
“Why is he asking for you instead of an attorney, then?”
“Who knows?” I shrugged. “Probably because I’m a Witch-at least that’s Ben’s theory. Apparently, he got pretty antsy when they told him they wanted to ask him about Ariel and Karen.”
“Aye, wouldn’t you?” Felicity asked.
“I suppose I would.”
