Allison Brennan - Killing Fear

It wasn’t just the brutal slayings, or the blood, or Glenn’s sick humor-it was Glenn himself during interrogation.

From petty thieves to hardened murderers, most criminals lied or cast blame elsewhere: “It’s not my fault,” “She wanted it,” or “I didn’t mean to kill her, it got out of hand, it was an accident.”

Theodore Glenn had not one ounce of remorse. Not one grain of empathy. He’d looked at the crime scene photos with the interest of a bored scientist. He had even criticized the way the crime scene technician had photographed the scene.

“The lighting is awful. Had she only increased the aperture, you’d be able to see the definition of the blood against the rug. You call this evidence?”

Will had faced many brutal killers. He’d faced psychopaths. He’d faced gang leaders who would just as soon shoot a cop as talk to one.

But Theodore Glenn was no typical killer. He had a picture-perfect background. Upper middle class upbringing. No hint of violence in his childhood. After interviewing his parents, Will couldn’t even imagine them so much as spanking their beloved son. Was that the problem: lack of discipline? Too much and it’s abuse, too little and your bratty kid runs wild.

It was human nature to cast blame, to search for a specific reason why someone like Theodore Glenn killed. But the truth was simple: He had no conscience. Will saw it in his face, in his tone, in his arrogance. This bastard killed because he enjoyed it, because he enjoyed getting away with deviant acts. Was it just for the thrill? Maybe. Will wasn’t a shrink, but he knew Glenn wasn’t like most killers.

Something else about the Glenn murders haunted him.

Robin.

Out of self-preservation, Will didn’t like to think about Robin McKenna. Even bringing her to mind now brought conflicting feelings of love and lust, anger and remorse, fear and need. He had made huge mistakes with her-on the case, in his life.

Now he had to warn her. He’d never wanted to see her again, and at the same time he desperately wanted to make love to her. Hold her. Be with her.

He ran a hand through his short-cropped brown hair.

“What’s wrong?” Carina asked as she efficiently separated the files.

“Nothing.”

“Hooper, I’ve known you for how long?”

“Seriously, just the past creeping up on me.”

“We’re going to catch Glenn. Every cop in the state is looking for him.”

“How many people will die first?” Will tensed. Glenn would go after Robin. Will had to protect her. The thought that she might suffer at Glenn’s hands caused sweat to break out on his forehead.

Protect her? He’d be lucky if she let him through her door. Robin had made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Not that he blamed her, not after what he’d said and done.

Chief Causey walked in, poured a cup of coffee. “You’re on, Hooper. Now make it fast. I got the press breathing down my throat, Descario screaming about protection, and the Feds calling.”

“The Feds?”

“The California Highway Patrol are working with the FBI’s San Francisco regional office. They have huge issues up north-a severely damaged bridge, power out-ages, looting. The usual loonies running amok after a major natural disaster. They’ve offered to loan a Suit to us to facilitate communication and share resources.”

“Whatever you think best,” Will responded. “It might be helpful to have an insider, as long as we don’t get the shaft.”

“I’ll feel them out, see what’s happening, and let you know.”

Carrying his box of photos and information, Will led the way into the interview room he’d turned into the task-force command center. He wanted to make sure that everyone working the case knew exactly what Theodore Glenn had done to those women.

There were four cops in the room who Causey had dedicated to Will for the time being. In an hour, Will would be speaking at shift change, but for now these were the three men and one woman who, apart from himself and Carina, would be working exclusively on the Theodore Glenn case.

“We have a lot of work to do in the next twenty-four hours,” Will began. He glanced at Officer Diaz. “You’ve contacted everyone involved with the Glenn prosecution? Witnesses?”

“Still working on the list, sir. I reached about half of them last night.”

Will wanted to ask if he’d talked to Robin, but refrained, trusting that Diaz would do a thorough job.

“Keep going. Give me a list of everyone you haven’t spoken to personally before end of shift.”

“Yes, sir.”

Will looked around the room. Other than Diaz and Carina, no one else had been on the force seven years ago when Glenn was at large.

“A little background on Theodore Glenn. Seven years ago he killed four strippers who worked at RJ’s in the gaslight district. The club is no longer there. It was bought out and renovated during the big redevelopment push a few years back. Glenn had been a regular at RJ’s for about a year. He had dated at least three of the victims.”

Will took out crime scene photographs and placed them on the whiteboard with magnets. First an enlarged snapshot of a gorgeous young woman. She was twenty, blonde, and had a dazzling smile.

“Bethany Coleman was Glenn’s first victim. She dated Glenn for three months before, according to witnesses, they parted friends.” He put up a picture of her dead body. Glenn had cut her skin more than forty times, feet to face, one-to two-inch-long shallow cuts that would have scarred and defaced her. Painful, but not fatal. When he’d finally tired of torturing Bethany, he’d slit her throat.

“Was Glenn a suspect from the beginning?”

“Way down on the list. Bethany had seven former boyfriends the year before she was murdered, and Glenn hadn’t been the most recent. There was some evidence at the scene and it was being processed by the crime lab when Brandi Bell was murdered fourteen days after Bethany.”

Will put up Brandi’s photograph. She was an unnatural platinum blonde with another winning smile and huge brown eyes. “There was a witness in Brandi’s homicide. An elderly woman across the street gave a description of a man leaving Brandi’s duplex to canvassing officers. From that, Robin McKenna, a friend and colleague of the victim, identified Theodore Glenn, a regular patron of the club who had dated both Bethany and Brandi.”

“The wounds on the bodies look different,” Carina interjected. “The cuts on Bethany’s body are a mess, blood smeared. On Brandi they look like they were cleaned. Did he wash the victims after killing them?”

“Good guess, but no,” Will said. His jaw tensed as he imagined what Brandi had suffered in the final minutes before Glenn slit her throat. “He poured bleach over her body.”

“To destroy evidence?”

“Possibly.” He paused. “The bleach was poured over the wounds while his victims were still alive.”

Carina shivered as if she’d heard nails scratch on a chalkboard. It would have felt like being burned alive to the victims. It had the added benefit of destroying potential evidence.

Will continued. “We pulled Glenn in for an interview and court-ordered DNA test, based on Robin McKenna’s identification. The killer had left DNA at the scene of the first murder-three strands of hair, pulled from Glenn’s scalp as Bethany struggled.” He took a deep breath. This was the part that was totally fucked. “We had him. We had him in custody and we had the DNA test. We handed the case to the D.A.’s office. Immediately, the case was thrown out.”

“Why?” one of the newer cops asked.

“The criminalists had come directly from another homicide. The DNA collected at the scene was contaminated: the hair samples got mixed with hair samples from the other crime. Descario tossed out both cases. Without the DNA, we had nothing to tie Theodore Glenn to the murders.”