Flashback, p.8
Flashback, page 8
“I’m afraid I prefer the artist persona, Bill,” Kendra said gently. “You look a little odd toting a gun.”
“You could get used to it.” His voice was wistful. “I kind of like the idea of protecting you. Think about it. I do get a little bored occasionally. It seemed something that would be worthwhile.”
“My sincere thanks,” Kendra said. She meant it. She could see how Bill would have moments when life would seem a little dull. Didn’t everyone? “Maybe we can set up something when life isn’t quite so hectic. But Perry seemed determined to keep me on his radar after what happened. Check with me tomorrow or the next day. And please don’t tell Olivia anything more about what happens to me.”
“Ah, an undercover assignment,” Bill said. “It would be my pleasure to spare her that worry.”
“I don’t believe pleasure will be the correct word,” Kendra said. She linked her arm in his and said cheerfully, “But in the meantime, let’s go eat one of Olivia’s wonderful dinners before I walk you back to your car this evening.”
“I look forward to it.” Bill was frowning a little. “If you’re certain Perry is going to furnish you with an armed escort to keep you safe…”
CHAPTER
7
NEXT DAY
SAN DIEGO POLICE DEPARTMENT
DOWNTOWN HEADQUARTERS
Detective Perry was waiting for Kendra when she stepped off the elevator at the police department’s third floor. The downstairs desk sergeant had made her wait almost fifteen minutes before reaching Perry and permitting her to go upstairs.
“What brings you here, Dr. Michaels?”
“You called me this morning, didn’t you?”
“You could have just called back. That’s how it’s usually done.”
“I like the personal touch. Or maybe I was moved by your concern for my welfare.”
“Well, when you left us last night, you were sporting a big bump on that blood-drenched head of yours. I wanted to make sure you woke up today.”
“Still here, still in the fight. I hoped you were calling with something more important, but I guess it’s a little early for DNA on that sample I helped collect for you.”
“Afraid so. But I thought you’d be interested in some news on that garrote.”
“Uh, maybe a little.”
“That is human blood on it.”
The news took her breath away. “Any idea how old?”
“Not yet. But they’re running DNA on it.”
Kendra nodded her approval. “Definitely worth a phone call, Perry. Thanks. Breen tells me you already started digging into the Morgan sisters’ case files.”
“You could say that. Want to see what I’ve been doing?”
“Sure.”
He motioned for her to follow him down the corridor. “I’ve mostly been trying to get a handle on what those women were doing and the leads they were following. There’s about ten years of work to wade through.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Trust me, a lot of the case files I see around here aren’t nearly as thorough. I was looking at the dates on some of the transcripts, and those girls were seventeen and fifteen when they took their first witness statements. They could give a seminar.”
“Find them, and maybe they will.”
Perry pursed his lips and looked slightly pained. He clearly didn’t believe the sisters would be found alive. “I’d love to sit in the front row for that.”
“You and me both.”
They rounded a corner, and he gestured for her to enter a doorway ahead of him. “Welcome to my makeshift command center.”
Kendra entered a long conference room where every square inch of wall and table space was taken up by the Morgan sisters’ files. Perry had neatly separated the files according to each of the Bayside Strangler’s victims, with photographs and newspaper clippings higher up, and interview transcripts down where they could be more easily perused. Each of the written records was color-coded with strips of removable tape, though Kendra couldn’t immediately discern his coding system.
“Nice,” she said. “I flipped through my scans, but sometimes it’s easier to grasp when you can look at them this way.”
“Well, my boss is going to want this conference room back soon. Especially since these cases aren’t active. Right now, we can’t even prove they’re a relevant part of our investigation.”
Kendra looked at photos of the last two murder scenes, which for some reason were especially vivid and disturbing. “Has anything jumped out at you?”
“Rather than look at the facts of these cases, I’ve just been trying to follow the chronology of the sisters’ investigation. That’s what the colored tape is for. Ever since the Morgan sisters started this project, they’ve been focused on adding to their body of knowledge by interviewing new subjects and finding new and different evidence and written material.” He pointed to an interview transcript with green tape placed on the upper-right-hand corner. “That all changed here, last August. For the first time, they doubled back and re-interviewed someone they’d spoken with years before. For the past six months or so, that’s pretty much all they’ve done.”
Kendra followed the green-tape-marked transcripts down the length of the room. “You’re right. That’s a cold-case technique, isn’t it? Re-interviewing the witnesses years later to see if the stories have changed?”
“Exactly. Once again, those sisters knew what they were doing. In the intervening years, people may die, relationships might fall apart, witnesses could have guilty feelings about things they withheld… There are all kinds of reasons why a round of fresh interviews might shake loose some new information.”
“Did it work for Chloe and Sloane?”
“I’m still studying that. You might follow up in your files. They definitely got more information. At first glance, it seems like there’s less of a tendency to place the victims on a pedestal, but that’s not uncommon with the passage of time. At least two of the victims’ acquaintances now admit to a sexual relationship with them, where they didn’t before.”
“Seriously?”
Perry tapped the green-coded transcripts. “Victims three and five, Leah McLane and Katrina Burge. One guy knew that the significant other is always the number one suspect and didn’t want the heat. And the other guy was married at the time, so there’s that. There’s no reason to think one of them is our guy. It’s just the kind of thing that shakes loose when you re-interview so long after the fact. But there may be something else here, I don’t know.”
“Good work, Perry.”
“Thanks.”
She turned and walked out of the conference room.
“What happened to you?”
They were the first words out of Marlee Davis’ mouth when Kendra turned up at her front door. Kendra had been trying to fool herself into believing that her forehead wound was barely noticeable, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
“Oh, this.” She waved her fingers over her forehead. “I’m afraid Sloane is going to need a new window.” Kendra handed her Sloane’s door key.
“What?”
“My visit to your niece’s condo was… eventful.”
Marlee opened her door wide for her to enter. “Get in here.” She motioned toward her sofa. “Can I get you anything? Water? Cold compress? Paramedic?”
“It looks worse than it is.”
Marlee made a concerned face. “Are you sure?”
“Well, that’s been my story since the moment it happened, so I guess I’m sticking to it. But seriously, I’m fine.”
“If you say so. Do you plan to tell me what happened?”
“Yes.” Kendra gave her the blow-by-blow of her visit to Sloane’s condo, making sure to repeat every word that came from her attacker’s mouth.
“Damn,” Marlee said when she finished. “You have no idea who it was?”
“He didn’t leave his card. At first I thought it might be a friend of Sloane’s being overly protective, but when he said that stuff about wanting to know what I gave the detective, it was pretty clear he’d been following us.”
“Yes. Scary.”
“That’s why I thought you should know. It seemed very clear I was the main target, but you should be careful, too.”
“I will be. Thank you.”
“But there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. You said Sloane had a fiancé who was completely unsupportive of her and Chloe’s investigation.”
“Yes. Charlie. She was crazy about him. Things were going well between them until Chloe drew her back into the case. He never understood the obsession that both sisters had with their mother’s murder.”
“Have they stayed in touch?”
“I’m not sure. If they have, she never talks about him. If anything, she seemed relieved that he wasn’t around to fuss at her about the case.”
“I’d like to talk to him. Do you have a phone number or email address for Charlie?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. But he’s a car mechanic. He owns a garage that specializes in exotic foreign cars.”
“Do you know the name?”
“I think his name is on it. Charlie Davenport. It’s in Chula Vista.”
“Thanks.”
Marlee made a face. “I’m not certain that you have anything to thank me about. You’ve evidently been taking quite a bit of punishment since we came together.”
“But we’re making progress, and I may have come close to the man who killed Paula. We might still have valuable clues from that encounter, and the authorities are keeping an eagle eye on me. In any case, you should be careful and stay aware of your surroundings.”
“You think I might be in danger?”
“I don’t know. It depends if the killer thinks Chloe and Sloane told you about whatever lead they discovered.”
“But they didn’t.”
“The killer may not know that. Just keep an eye out. If there’s any indication you’re in danger, we may be able to arrange protection. You’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything else, please let me know.”
Marlee nodded doubtfully. “I guarantee I intend to watch my back. You do the same.”
“Absolutely.” Kendra smiled and headed for her car in the driveway. “Thanks again for your help. I’ll let you know if I learn anything from this Charlie person…”
It took Kendra all of two minutes on Google to find Davenport Exotic Auto Service and Repairs in south San Diego County, and only another fifteen minutes to drive there from Marlee’s house. A few questions later, she was standing in front of a tall, slender man wearing a protective face mask as he leaned into a McLaren Spider’s engine compartment.
“Can I help you?” He didn’t look up from the car.
“Are you Charlie Davenport?”
“If you want an update on your car, the guy at the inside counter can help you with that.”
“I’m not here about a car. I’m here about Sloane Morgan.”
He finally looked up warily. “And who are you?”
“My name is Kendra Michaels. I’ve been asked to look into her disappearance.”
He stepped toward her. “It isn’t just Sloane, you know.”
“I know. Chloe, too.”
He still didn’t pull off his mask. “What does this have to do with me?”
“It wasn’t that long ago that you and Sloane were going to be married. You didn’t keep in touch with her? She didn’t talk to you about the case she was investigating with her sister?”
He muttered a curse under his breath. “I heard enough about that damn case. It’s all she wanted to talk about when we were together. I knew about her family history when we started dating, but I had no idea it was still such a big part of her life, you know? Sometimes I wanted her to just leave it behind for a while. She wouldn’t do it.”
“Did that make you angry?”
He glared at her over the mask. “You think I had anything to do with what happened to her and her sister?” He cursed again. “I was frustrated that we couldn’t just live our own lives. I was pissed that this killer still had so much power over her and our relationship. And yes, I felt sorry for her, too. But it wasn’t a recipe for a great marriage, so I finally broke it off.”
“I think most people could understand that.” Kendra stepped back, knowing that the next words out of her mouth could royally piss him off. “But tell me… at what point did you start sleeping with her sister?”
His eyes literally bulged. “What?”
“When did you start dating Chloe? Before or after you broke up with Sloane?”
“After!” He spoke so loudly that he felt the need to repeat it again in a quieter voice. “After. No way I would’ve cheated on Sloane, especially not with her sister.”
“Then why the big secret? Nobody seems to know anything about it.”
“Sloane wouldn’t have understood. How could she? She probably never would have forgiven Chloe or me. It’s nothing we planned. It just… happened.”
“Relationships are rarely that simple.”
He nodded. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t. Chloe reached out to me after Sloane and I broke up. I think she felt guilty.”
“Guilty? Why?”
“Because of how she got Sloane so involved in their case again. They were like a couple of addicts. Nothing else in their lives mattered to either one of them. When Sloane and I split up, I think Chloe felt it was partially her fault. She called me a couple of times, and we started spending time together down at the beach. One thing led to another.”
Kendra said slowly, “You do know how bad this looks? You were involved in something of a romantic triangle in which both women are now missing. And it’s something you’ve kept hidden.”
Charlie was looking down and away from her. For an instant he appeared ashamed. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“That’s up to the police to decide.”
“To be honest, I didn’t think anyone would find out about me and Chloe. It’s the last thing she would have wanted, and I sure as hell didn’t tell anyone. I was too embarrassed. Who told you?”
“No one. As far as I’m aware, you and she are the only ones who knew.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Then how the hell did you find out?”
“I’ve been to Chloe’s house.”
“Yeah?”
“I saw the bottle of Gojo skin cleaner in her shower. It’s very popular among mechanics, pumice-based, and it has a distinctly orange scent. That’s what is coming off you right now. I guess you scrubbed with it here before lunch.”
“A lot of people use that. How do you know it wasn’t Chloe’s?”
“I didn’t, although I never saw any indication that she got her hands dirty enough to use a product that could scrape her skin raw. But more than that, I could smell what I presumed to be a hair product on one of her pillows. It wasn’t a product I could recognize. It wasn’t a common one, whatever it was, but you’re wearing it now. Some kind of mousse?”
His glance sidled away. “Conditioner. I buy it online. It doesn’t hold the grime from this place like a lot of the stuff out there.”
“When was the last time you saw her, Charlie?”
He thought for a moment. “I was there two nights before she went missing. After Chloe and I started up, we almost never talked on the phone. I usually just swung by after work. If I saw her car, I’d go in and we’d hang out. She was spending more time at her sister’s, though. They really thought they were onto something lately.”
“Any idea what?”
He was quiet as a co-worker in a jumpsuit walked past. “Chloe went out of her way not to talk to me about that stuff, especially after she saw what it did to my and Sloane’s relationship. But I did overhear some things when they were talking on the phone.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not totally sure what it meant, but Chloe seemed pretty intense when she was talking about ‘the bomb place.’”
“The bomb place?” Kendra frowned. “As in explosives?”
“Yeah. That kind of grabbed my attention. I even asked her about it after she got off the phone, and she told me not to worry about it. She said it wasn’t what it sounded like.”
“I don’t know. It sounds pretty clear to me.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. I know. And of course, after she went missing, I wished I had followed up with her more. But in those last few weeks, she didn’t talk about it to anybody but her sister.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“It’s the truth,” he said defensively. “None of this would have happened if she’d have talked to me. I loved her. Maybe if I hadn’t been so impatient, she wouldn’t have left me. I did love her.”
“I think maybe you did,” Kendra said quietly, her gaze on his glittering eyes. His face was twisted with pain, and there had been no hint of a threat in his demeanor when confronting Kendra. He seemed almost relieved to tell her about his affair with Chloe. “You wouldn’t by any chance have an alibi that would explain what you were doing on the night those women disappeared?”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I think I spent at least part of the night at a bar in town getting drunk as a skunk. Someone might remember me. Why?”
Wow. This guy was pretty dense, she thought impatiently. “Look, it’s my duty to notify the FBI of what you told me, and I will do it. But I’ll give you three hours before I make the call. I want to give you time to make a few arrangements before they haul you into the interrogation room.” She stared at him for a long time, studying him. “I won’t be the last one who will be questioning you. If I were you, I’d call the cops and the FBI right away and tell them everything you’ve told me. All of it. It will be better if you tell them yourself. Get yourself a lawyer. If you can present alibis for the time when those women disappeared, try to do it before you turn yourself in.”
