Chuck Hustmyre - A Killer Like Me

Landry looked like his head was about to explode. She had grabbed him by his balls and squeezed them.

Gaudet was smiling.

Landry cleared his throat. Hesitated. Then cleared it again. “As for Detective Murphy-assuming for a moment that your past relationship with him does not create a conflict of interest for you-I can tell you that he is not under investigation for exploring a possible link between a series of homicides. He is under investigation for violating department policy regarding unauthorized contact with the media, specifically with you, Miss Sparks.”

Kirsten felt her face flush.

No one spoke. For at least twenty long seconds everyone in the room found something to do and avoided eye contact with her. The newspaper people flipped pages in their notebooks. Gaudet took a sudden interest in his shoes. Even Darlene Freeman decided to check her BlackBerry for messages. Only Landry kept his eyes fixed on Kirsten, his hawklike face betraying a hint of a smile.

A short series of beeps broke the silence. Gaudet reached in his jacket for his cell phone. He stared at the screen and read a text message. His face tightened. He bumped Landry with his elbow and held the phone out for the PIB lieutenant to read.

While Landry read the message, Gaudet looked across the table at Charles Redfield. “We have to go,” he said, “but just so everybody understands, we do have an agreement about the story, right?”

Redfield looked at Mrs. Freeman. She nodded. Everyone avoided looking at Kirsten.

“Yes,” Redfield said.

Gaudet slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket.

“Did that message have anything to do with what we’ve been talking about?” Redfield asked.

The two detectives shared an almost imperceptible glance. Kirsten only noticed it because she was looking for it. She had been around a lot of cops.

Gaudet shook his head. “No.”

Kirsten was sure he was lying.

Tuesday, July 31, 5:10 PM

Murphy was still fighting to get back to sleep after Kirsten’s call when his phone rang again. He had to be at work at 10:25, semirested and semisober.

He snatched the phone from the nightstand and jabbed the volume button on the side with his thumb to silence his new ringtone. With little sleep and a hangover, even the macabre genius of Warren Zevon could be irritating.

He flipped open the phone. “Hello.”

“Murphy, it’s Romano. You awake?” Lieutenant Louis Romano was the deputy commander of the Homicide Division.

“I am now.”

“I got a message from the captain.”

Murphy pushed himself upright. “What is it?”

“You got a car?”

“I already turned it in.”

“No, I mean a personal car. The captain wants you to go somewhere.”

“I want him to go somewhere too. I want him to jump up my ass.”

“This is serious, Murphy. He wants you to meet Gaudet at a crime scene.”

A knot formed in the pit of Murphy’s stomach. “Why?”

“Your boy struck again,” Romano said.

Murphy felt his grip tighten on the phone. It wasn’t another prostitute. They wouldn’t have called him for that. “Where?”

“On Freret, above Broadway. It’s bad, Murph, really bad. There’s three dead.”

“Three?”

“A mother and two kids.”

“Jesus Christ,” Murphy said.

“The captain and the assistant chief want you ten ninety-seven ASAP,” Romano said, using the police code for arriving on the scene.

“I’m assigned to CE amp;P.”

“Not anymore.”

The two-story house was immaculate, except for all the blood on the kitchen floor.

Murphy stood with Gaudet at the edge of the den, a foot away from the kitchen. They wore latex gloves. Crime-scene techs and a couple of uniformed cops waited in the foyer. The coppery smell of blood hung in the air.

The coroner’s investigator hadn’t arrived yet.

The victim lay on her stomach, legs apart, wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of running shoes. Cotton shorts lay crumpled on the floor two feet from her body, the panties still inside.

She didn’t fit the profile the serial killer had followed so far. She was white, middle-class, and killed inside her own home. But a black plastic cable tie was cinched around her neck.

Murphy tried to look at every new case as a blank slate. If he had a theory about the case going in, he attempted to disprove it. He had seen firsthand during the Houma investigation how eager most police officials were to dump every open murder case on a serial killer. It was called stacking the deck, and it was an easy way to clear unsolved homicides.

In Houma, Murphy had spent more than thirty hours interviewing Rudolph Dominique. Dominique confessed to twenty-three murders, every one of which he knew details about that the investigators had not released to the public. Still, law-enforcement agencies from as far away as Shreveport sent detectives to Houma to try to get Dominique to confess to murders he knew nothing about.

“What makes you think it was him?” Murphy asked Gaudet.

Gaudet tiptoed across the kitchen floor. He stood astride the dead woman’s legs and aimed a flashlight at her right butt cheek.

Murphy stepped into the kitchen. Standing beside the woman’s head, he looked down at the circle of light. He saw a series of lacerations on her skin that seemed to form a pattern.

“What is it?” he asked.

Gaudet jerked his head in a “come here” motion. “Look at it from this end.”

Careful not to tread in the blood, Murphy stepped around the body and stood beside Gaudet.

“Read it,” Gaudet said.

Murphy stared hard at the cuts. The longer he stared the more they looked like two letters and a numeral. “ L-D -6?” he said.

Gaudet shook his head. “ L-O-G. As in Lamb of God.”

“How many people know what was in the letter?”

After a sideways glance at Murphy, Gaudet said, “Apparently, one more than I thought. Kirsten told you?”

Murphy shrugged.

“After that hit piece she did on you, I’m surprised you’re still speaking to her.”

“You spoke to her.”

Gaudet smiled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I appreciate you trying to help me out.”

Gaudet switched off his flashlight. “Anything for a brother.”

“What did you hold back from the letter?” Murphy asked.

“The name, for one. Also that the killer said he was going to mark his future victims for us. We’re all idiots, he said, all except you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kirsten didn’t tell you the guy mentioned you in his letter?”

Murphy shook his head. “What did it say?”

“She tell you about the finger?”

Murphy felt a flutter deep in his bowels. “The what?”

“Crazy motherfucker put a chopped-off finger in with the letter, said it was from the girl under the Jeff Davis overpass.”

“And he mentioned me in his letter?”

“He said you were the only cop smart enough to recognize his work-his words-so he promised to mark his future victims so we could identify them.” Gaudet turned on his flashlight and again angled the beam down at the letters carved into the woman’s skin. “I’m guessing this is his mark.”

“Is the finger legit?”

“It’s a real finger,” Gaudet said. “The crime lab is trying to match the print right now with a criminal record so we can see if the photo and description match the victim under the overpass.”

Murphy nodded toward the dead woman at their feet. “Who found her?”

“Boyfriend.”

“Where’s the husband?”

“Divorced.”

“Boyfriend got a key?”

Gaudet shook his head. “He knocked. No one answered. The door was unlocked, so he let himself in. Found the woman here, kids upstairs.”