Killing Fear

TWENTY-ONE

Will and Carina arrived at Julia Chandler’s house less than twenty minutes after the first officers arrived on scene. Will was walking up the porch steps when Agent Hans Vigo drove up. Impatiently, he waited for the Fed to catch up with them.

As soon as he’d heard there was a box inside with his name on it, Will knew Theodore Glenn had broken into Julia’s house.

“Did you say that the D.D.A. left town?” Hans asked Will.

“Her boyfriend, an ex-cop, took her and her niece somewhere,” Will said.

“Montana,” Carina said. “My fiance owns property in Bozeman and they left yesterday morning.” She looked a little unnerved, and Will didn’t blame her. Julia was her future sister-in-law, and her brother Connor could easily have been here when Glenn showed up. The thought gave her chills. Glenn would have no qualms about killing “innocent” people-those innocent to his twisted mind-to make his point.

“The box is on the kitchen table,” the responding officer said. “Chief Causey said no one could touch it until the bomb squad checked it out. They’re in there now.”

“Bomb? Doesn’t seem like Glenn’s style,” Will said.

“I agree,” Hans concurred, “unless it was a bigger target, something that would cause mass devastation. Where he’d get a thrill out of being bold. By the way, we found Jenny Olsen’s Acura, abandoned, at the San Diego Public Library downtown. It had been left in the lot overnight and the security guard called for it to be towed. The impound lot ran the tags. Olsen admitted she let Glenn borrow the car.”

Will glanced at his watch. “If we leave now, we can make it to Anaheim by midnight.”

“I talked to Chief Causey and he agreed to allow an agent from the FBI’s Orange County field office interview her. Personally, I think he used her and left with her car-one that we wouldn’t be alerted to. And he dumped it when he picked up a safer ride.”

“He wouldn’t have told her anything important,” Will said. “He doesn’t trust women, and he’s too smart to trust a woman who struck up a letter-writing campaign with him in prison.” He frowned. “Unless there was something the woman could do for him, something he couldn’t do himself…Any word on Sara Lorenz? Where she works?”

Hans shook his head. “Between our two offices something is bound to break sooner rather than later. But she’s definitely a red flag. She’s the only one of the nineteen women in San Diego County we haven’t made contact with.”

“Did you get the phone number I left on your voice mail earlier?”

“Cash phone, pay-as-you-go. We did learn it was bought at Wal-Mart, and the merchandising manager is looking at which specific store it was purchased at, though I don’t think that’s going to do us any good.”

“Why?”

“It was bought eighteen months ago.”

“Where does she refill it?”

“She doesn’t.”

“If she uses it she’d have to put minutes on it.”

“She bought one thousand minutes. Only four hundred and seventeen have been used.”

“And the phone numbers?”

“Impossible to trace. There are no records kept.”

“All clear,” the bomb squad reported, coming out to the porch. “We opened the box, but didn’t touch anything inside.”

“Thanks, guys,” Will said, striding into the house.

He stared at the box, his heart rising in his throat.

It was a small, generic pink donut box. Inside was a bird. A robin.

Dead.

“Interesting,” Hans said.

Will spun around. “Interesting? This is a threat against Robin McKenna.”

“What I find interesting is that he came up here to deliver it. And he didn’t seem to be overly irritated that Ms. Chandler wasn’t around. But even more interesting is that I doubt it was easy to find a robin in February. A simple examination should determine if the bird has been frozen.”

That sunk in. “Which means someone kept a dead robin for him since last spring?”

Carina frowned. “What I don’t get is how could he have planned all this? Like Will and I talked about before, he couldn’t have planned for the earthquake. And even if he planned an escape during his next appeal, there was no guarantee he’d be successful.”

Vigo nodded. “I think it’s Glenn’s way of making his time in prison bearable. San Quentin is filled with men of low to average intelligence. Someone with Glenn’s IQ and background would have a difficult time of it, at least mentally. And even though loss of freedom is a huge problem in the psyche of the average prisoner, for someone like Glenn it would be devastating. He fixated on Robin to keep his mind focused. While he may have had an obsession with her before, it intensified while he was away.”

Will’s gut twisted. “Then why hasn’t he just gone after her?”

“Because he’s shrewd. He knows you have cops on her house and business. He may even suspect that she would hire a bodyguard. He’s going to wait until he’s confident he can get to her. He doesn’t want to go back to prison, but I think that his ego would demand that he take her out even if that means he dies, too.”

“He has nothing to lose.” Will realized for the first time. “He’s having fun with this.”

“That he is,” Hans agreed.

“There’s a letter here,” Carina reminded him. “Addressed to you, Will.”

Will put on gloves and picked up the #10 white envelope.

WILLIAM

Will carefully opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper.

It began: William:

The first two sentences had been crossed out. They were: I’m truly sorry I had to kill Julia Chandler. She really was just a puppet of the prosecution, hardly more to blame than an enlisted soldier during war.

After scratching them out, Theodore had scrawled on the side: You win this one. Julia is a smart woman, I hope she’s enjoying her vacation. I’m sure her door can be fixed.

The letter continued. He’d obviously written it before he arrived at Julia’s house.

Julia Chandler was never the problem. It was the asshole she worked for. I will admit I enjoyed seeing Bryce Descario skewered in the media during his failed reelection. But public embarrassment isn’t quite the same thing as death, is it?

I am tiring of the game, William. I may leave for a while. Or not. Does that scare you? I doubt it. You don’t scare easily. The only time you were really scared was when you thought Robin was dead. Those were the days.

Do you really think that the bodyguard, the police, you, or Robin’s pathetic attempt to protect herself with a gun will keep me from her? Lock her up tight. You can’t keep her from me forever.

Sooner or later I will kill her. And I promise you, William, it will hurt.

Maybe I’ll even let you watch.

Carina carefully extracted the paper from his hands as Will’s fists clenched, wrinkling the evidence. “He’s doing this to get to you.”

“He got to me, dammit.” He breathed deeply. It would do Robin no good if he lost his focus. The anger was still there, but contained.

“Descario,” he said.