Justifiable Page 22

  And on the vic’s forehead. Why she felt guilty about lying to Riley she had no idea, since he was media after all, but something had changed today. He’d given her a second chance when she hadn’t been willing to give him a first one until now.

  Riley frowned in concentration. “What could the oil mean?”

  Kirsten had speculated and didn’t like the direction she’d gone. She sure as the devil wasn’t sharing her first thoughts, that priests would put oil on the head and wrist. Not with Riley, since he would see it as more reason to go after St. Catherine’s. The bad thing was that she was starting to see it that way too. She needed to give Riley enough that he could help the investigation, without completely blowing the doors out of her sworn ethical standards.

  She tapped the napkin in her lap then squeezed her fingers to stop the nervous habit. “Who knows? Maybe the wrist means something to the killer. That’s why we need a lab to test the oil, but our labs are backed up for months. I’ve asked for special funding but it hasn’t been approved yet, and even that will take six weeks at best. J. T. said you helped him with getting a DNA test run quickly on a case for another investigation recently.”

  He gave her a sharp look for that.

  “J. T. trusts me with that information. The sooner we get the oil from these three vics tested, the sooner we find the origin and might have our first solid piece of evidence.”

  “I’ve got a lab that’ll test it immediately.”

  A better answer than Kirsten had hoped for. “How much will it cost me?”

  Riley sat still, contemplating so long that Kirsten started to withdraw her request.

  “If I get the oil tested at no cost, I want a real dinner with no business talk after this is over as payment. I choose the place and pick up the tab.”

  Kirsten just stared at him, dumfounded. Like a date? No. She didn’t date anyone here, didn’t have plans to stay in Philadelphia past finding Elicia even if the city was growing on her.

  The point was that she didn’t want to date anyone, especially someone connected to the media.

  Delaying her answer on Riley’s offer turned the heavy silence into a living, breathing thing that could destroy what she’d worked to gain tonight.

  But she couldn’t just blurt out “no.”

  How could she reject his offer when the police so desperately needed this oil tested? What would J. T. say if he found out she’d refused to help with the case because she wasn’t willing to go out to a social dinner with Riley?

  And when had this pushy newsman become Riley?

  She cleared her throat, acting as if that was the holdup to answering him. “I accept, but only after this case is closed.” J. T. had to solve it first. “Thanks for getting the oil tested.”

  “Done. Now, what about looking into how St. Catherine’s is tied to these killings?”

  Kirsten shoved her plate away. “Unless you can prove someone directly connected to the church is either shielding evidence or involved in these killings, no one in the city or the police department is going to drag St. Catherine’s or any other church into this when it’s not warranted. Me included.” She held up a hand to stall his protest. “But, I will do my part to put away any person we can prove is killing citizens and kidnapping innocent children. Anyone.”

  Riley finished his meal. “Fair enough. I’m going to hold you to that when I hand you evidence.”

  If he found out where the oil had been on the bodies and the design created by the oil on the vics’ foreheads, Riley Walker would have all he’d need to point a finger at a church, and St. Catherine’s was first in the line of fire.

  Which was why Kirsten and J. T. had to break this case before it exploded and left Philadelphia in a pile of ashes.

  Chapter 40

  Six in the morning and no call from the killer yet. Could that be good news or bad?

  Riley poured coffee in the chipped mug with a faded fishing scene. One of the few things he moved everywhere he went that reminded him of his foster dad.

  Jasper always had a simple way of dealing with problems. When Riley moved here three months ago, he saw Jasper first and told his foster dad how badly he’d messed up his life in one night. Jasper had listened then said, “Everything heals. Some cuts heal faster than others.” Then he cooked up eggs and bacon just like he used to do after some scrape Riley’d gotten into as a teen.

  Breakfast would be nice now.

  Riley opened the door of his refrigerator and stared at the empty racks. Why would there be any food in here when he didn’t like to cook? The financial package he’d been given by WNUZ was decent, but wouldn’t cover a housekeeper, or cook, so food wasn’t going to miraculously show up.

  A phone rang. The landline in his condo, not his cell phone. Riley picked up the cordless receiver and closed the refrigerator, resigned to waiting for an early lunch since it was only mid morning. “Walker.”

  “Turner. Got your email with the address of the lab in Trenton and sent an officer with the oil samples.” Someone in the background asked J. T. a question. He answered, then came back. “How soon you think they’ll get the results back to me?”

  Right after they call me with the results. “Might be tonight, tomorrow worst case.”

  He wouldn’t leak a thing to anyone, particularly the media, but Riley wanted to know what the oil on the bodies represented. Why had the oil been put on the wrists?

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “Glad to do it.” Riley noticed J. T. didn’t rib him about the dinner trade with Kirsten. So she hadn’t told J. T. that she fell on the blade for the PD, huh?

  Riley grinned, knowing she’d considered it a huge sacrifice, then he remembered something he had to tell J. T. about getting the samples tested. “Tell your officers delivering the oil samples to Jersey not to call Dink by his nickname if they happen to hear about it. He hates to be called Slim Dinkens.”

  “What’s the deal? He some skinny little prick?”

  Riley chuckled. “He’s five-ten and weighs two-forty.”

  “I don’t get the nickname Slim?”

  “He used to weigh three hundred and sixty pounds.”

  J. T. snorted, then got right back to business. “No calls?”

  “Can’t believe you asked me that.” Riley carried his mug to the living room where one wall of glass looked out toward the Delaware River. Some overpriced decorator his ex-wife would have loved had adorned the place in contemporary glass and stainless steel.

  “Just surprised,” Turner said. “I thought with the last two killings so close together we were seeing a pattern.”

  “You’re sure this Bruno Parrick didn’t have kids at all?”

  “Married for five years. My detective who interviewed the wife said she had half-healed bruises. Massey said you think the kids are key to this. Think now it might be the women?”

  “Not if he killed Sally.”

  “True.”

  “The killer said ‘children are held in God’s hands’. That still points at the church to me, but maybe he means figuratively and not literally.” If Riley used cold logic he’d realize how ridiculous that sounded, but the killer hadn’t given up a child’s body yet so he had to believe Enrique might still be alive.

  “You know how many killers have blamed God for directing them?”

  “I know. But Sally was a member of St. Catherine’s and lived at Philomena. What about Bruno?”

  “Stop beating that horse, Walker. Got another call. Let’s touch base later.” J. T. was gone in a flash.

  Riley tried to convince himself J. T. really had another call, but his news sixth sense told him J. T. had just dodged a question. About Bruno Parrick and St. Catherine’s.

  Biddy might have information.

  The chiming noise of his cell phone played once then repeated, growing louder from the bedroom. Hot damn, Biddy must be channeling him.

  Riley hurried into the bedroom and dug the phone out of his coat jacket, but it stopped ringing by
the time he flipped the device open.

  He played the voicemail...one unplayed message. The recording started without any indication of the caller’s ID, but there was no mistaking that scratchy male voice.

  “Body’s in the Dumpster behind the Philly police station. Kid’s in a car in New Liberty at – ” The connection died.

  Riley played it again, but the message cut off in the same spot. No matter how hard he squeezed the damn phone it wasn’t going to spill any more news.

  Had he said kids as in “a kid is in the car” or as in “the kid’s body was in a car?” Riley’s pulse jackknifed through his body. And who had died?

  Could the kid be Enrique Stanton?

  Where was that car? Outside? The temperature had fallen to freezing overnight.

  Riley hit the speed dial for J. T. When the detective answered, he told him, “Just heard from our caller again and the news is worse.”

  Chapter 41

  Police buzzed around the back lot of the Philadelphia Police Station like a swarm of blue wasps.

  Kirsten parked her city-issued Crown Victoria along 8th street. She kept scouring the area for Detective Turner as she climbed out and reached for her wool overcoat on the backseat.

  The temperature was trying real hard to reach thirty with a bold sun doing its best to warm the brittle air, but wind sliced through her like a dagger of ice. She hustled the coat on and swapped her dress shoes for rubber-bottom snow boots then locked her car.

  Parking this close to a police station should be safe, but what better place to pilfer through a vehicle than when all the cops were focused on a dead body in a Dumpster?

  She picked her way across patches of dirty snow hiding slick panes of ice just waiting to twist an ankle or put someone’s back out. The driveway to the back of the police roundhouse, or the cop shop as some called it, slanted downhill to the loading dock at the lower basement level.

  Television vans with beanpole equipment sprouting out the top had parked as close as they could get.

  She nodded at the officer manning the entrance who kept them at bay and scanned for Riley’s silhouette, but he wasn’t here. That shouldn’t concern her, but it did.

  Kirsten kept inching her way down, taking her eyes off where she stepped only long enough to keep from running into anyone.

  One officer stood at the top of an A-frame ladder that had been propped against the Dumpster. He was talking to the ME who stood several feet away, shaking his head. The ME pulled his ball cap off and used the same hand to scratch his head.

  Who would have ever thought to look for a body in the police Dumpster? Why did the killer drop it there?

  The aroma of coffee, in practically every hand circulating the area, was lost the closer she got to the Dumpster. A rancid smell snuck in on her next breath and threatened to ruin what had been a tasty breakfast an hour ago. The body wouldn’t have decomposed enough to stink unless it had been there a long time. Not in this cold. She might toss her cookies later, but she damn sure wouldn’t do it here in front of all these officers.

  The next inhale undermined her conviction so she switched to breathing through her mouth.

  Detective Turner met her halfway. From the strong whiff of his clothes she could guess where he’d been.

  “We’re securing the body and photographing before they pull it out for the ME.” He sniffed at himself and moved downwind of her. “He saw rats running out of the bin and won’t get inside.”

  “I don’t blame him.” She shivered against the visual that invoked, then glanced around. Still no Riley. “Same MO?”

  “Best we can figure.” Turner paused to yell at one of his men to keep the damn media from blocking the entrance. “The call Riley got this morning came from a phone booth. I sent a warrant over to get the location of the call, but getting an answer from one of the fly-by-night phone companies won’t be easy or fast.”

  Kirsten felt for Turner. This had to be the most frustrating job on earth. “Hell of a place to dump a body. I suppose there’d be a certain irony to his choice of locations if not for the gravity of this situation.”

  Turner cut his head around, lips twitching. “Is that the same as saying this would be funny if finding dead people didn’t suck so bad?”

  “You could say that, yes.” She licked her lips to keep from smiling over the macabre humor. Could they be getting a break? Had the killer made a mistake with this bold action of dropping the body here? “How long could the body have been here to smell that bad?”

  “The body doesn’t smell. Someone threw a dead possum in there right after it was last emptied. That’s the odor.”

  Ah. “Anyone see a person or vehicle here last night?”

  “Back here? Uh-uh.” He was shaking his head. “No one’s back here after 5:00 PM unless they’re trying to sneak out early on a shift.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “Here? Be serious.”

  Kirsten stared at his sarcastic laugh. “Are you saying no one saw this person drop a body at the back of a police station?”

  Any soft line in Turner’s face disappeared.

  She held up a hand. “Hey, I didn’t mean that to sound like criticism. I’m just surprised by a body dumped in the PD’s backyard.”

  “Don’t apologize.” He crossed his arms and let a whistle of disgusted air slip past his lips. “I said almost the same thing but in a much more...colorful way when I found out. This is a brilliant place to dump a corpse. All they have to do is cruise along 8th Street then swing down to the Dumpster. No one would look twice at a vehicle coming back here, especially in the middle of the night. Hell, I wouldn’t come back here after dark without my weapon drawn.”

  She stared at the scene of policemen scrambling across the lot looking for any piece of evidence and the tedious job of removing garbage from the receptacle before the body was lifted out. Hours and hours of work just sifting through trash when she knew they wouldn’t find anything more than a body with no prints, no hair, no DNA. No calling card of the killer like a personal mark. Not if it was anything like Sally Stanton’s body. Unbelievable.

  She considered all the common denominators and one was missing from this picture. “Where’s Riley?”

  “Been here and gone. WNUZ got overhead shots, but nothing from Riley. He gave me a statement and left.”

  “Any idea who the vic is?” She’d walked out of a meeting with the DA to find a blunt message to meet Turner about a body at the station. She could see how this was newsworthy due to the corpse being left at a police precinct, but not why she had to come immediately. Unless...they knew who it was.

  “No ID yet. White male, mid thirties, dressed in discount store jeans, beer insignia T-shirt, stainless-steel biker emblem earring, calluses on his hands and work boots. I personally checked the body before anyone else got in there. Gunshot wound to the head.”

  Kirsten grimaced.

  When Turner continued speaking his voice dropped down to a conspiratorial level. He glanced around then said, “There’s a clear liquid on his head and wrist.”

  “So how are all these deaths related?” she asked in an equally low voice.

  “Hard to say for sure. The profiler said so far the one constant is all the inconsistencies, but the kills are specific enough to not be random. I’ll get a sample of this oil to Riley’s lab.”

  He studied her for a moment, looked away as if considering something, then back at Kirsten. “Here’s the thing. If you mention around City Hall that we got an outside lab to test the oil samples, they’ll want me to move up testing on some other cases.” He leveled her with a judgmental gaze, prepared to pass sentence on her response. Waiting to see if he’d offered a sliver of trust to the wrong person.

  “You’re absolutely right. I totally agree that we keep our source private.”

  The glimmer of admiration in his eyes counted as one of the best gifts she’d ever received, because it meant his trust came with it.

  Turner yelled direct
ions at two of his men then turned back to her. “If this oil comes back as all being from one source, we’re going to have to at least consider Riley’s point about looking at St. Catherine’s.”

  “I agree. I’ve been thinking about oil being marked on the forehead in a cross design.”

  “Can’t let Walker find out.”

  “No way.” Kirsten shoved her hands in her coat pockets and worked her fingers to keep circulation moving. “That’s all he’d need to add to his theories.”

  “Speaking of Riley’s theories, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you,” Turner added. “The caller said something about a child in a car.”

  “What child? Enrique? What car?”

  “We don’t know. The message on Riley’s phone was cut off before the caller finished.”

  She saw kill-Riley-red. “If he’s jerking us around to get to that child first – ”

  “Whoa.” Turner chuckled softly, which surprised her. “I don’t think he’s yanking anyone’s chain. I heard the message myself. Sounded legit, plus Riley’s pretty stressed out over trying to find that kid. If it’s not Enrique....” Turner shook his head in pity.

  She hadn’t even considered that possibility. Her heart had plummeted to her knees last night at how Riley had looked when she’d told him about the blanket. But that still didn’t mean she could let anyone with something to prove screw around on this investigation. “Riley’s suspended, so that means he’s not reporting this at the station himself, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Turner scratched his chin and started looking around like he planned to exit this conversation the minute he saw a viable reason.

  “So where is he?” She was beginning to feel like Turner and Riley’s rapport was a little too solid, leaving her excluded. Silly, but that rubbed since she’d worked hard to build a professional bond with the police, and in particular Turner. She didn’t like being odd man – woman – out.