Erica Spindler - Copy Cat

“He calls you, Kitt. Wants you to catch him. Says he will help you.”

“But the offer comes with strings,” Kitt continues. “He wants to toy with me. Watch me jump through hoops.”

“He’s in control. Proving his superiority.”

“And doing a damn good job of it, I might add.”

“Why’d he choose you?” M.C. asked.

“Because he saw me as vulnerable,” she said, though she hated the characterization. “He picks on the powerless.”

“Yes.” M.C. got to her feet. “Winning’s so important to him, he stacks the deck. He calls it being ‘smart.’”

“And the Copycat-”

“There isn’t a Copycat, Kitt.” M.C. swung to face her. “He’s SAK and Copycat. It’s not about killing the girls. It’s about engaging you.”

Kitt didn’t want to believe it, but it made sense. All the pieces fit together to create this scenario. “The hands-”

“Mean nothing. They were a way to pull you in. Get you involved, assigned to the case.”

It could be. A way to pull her in and keep them chasing their tails. “And the clean suit-”

“Proves he’s smart. That he knows about evidence and investigation. How to get in and get out, what we’ll be looking for. The minutiae we can nail him with.”

“He’s kept us running. He understands trace technology, what we can and cannot do.”

“He used Buddy Brown. Led us to him, knew we would run with the lead. He may, or may not, have counted on us finding his body as quickly as we did.”

They fell silent a moment. M.C. broke the silence first. “And Brian? How does he fit in?”

“After I talk to Allen, I’ll head down to ID, see how the ballistics search is coming along, then start retracing Brian’s steps.” Kitt glanced at her watch. “I think we should take one last crack at the contents of the storage unit.”

“Agreed. I’ll do it.” M.C. glanced at her legal pad, then back up at Kitt. “We’ve pretty much exhausted our options with the Angels, past and present. But what about the grandmothers?”

“I reviewed the case files. Brian and Sarge were the original detectives assigned to the case. I spoke with Brian about it yesterday.”

“What about questioning family and friends of the victims?”

“It was on my short list.”

“Since we’ve linked them to the SAK murders, there might be something there that makes sense now, that didn’t then.”

“From my short list to yours?”

“Bingo. Files?”

Kitt retrieved them from her desk. “Call me crazy, M.C., but I feel we’re close to nailing him.”

“Woman’s intuition?”

“Damn right.” She handed her partner the files. “You want to argue about it?”

“No way. God gave women ‘intuition’ to make up for childbirth.”

“Spoken like a woman who’s never given birth. Intuition so doesn’t cover it.”

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

11:55 a.m.

Traditionally, comparing firearms evidence from one crime to another had been damn near impossible. An investigator had to actually suspect the same weapon had been used in the commission of different crimes, then compare the evidence. Difficult enough within a single jurisdiction, but outside it? To compare to regional, even national, crimes?

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, had changed all that. NIBIN was a national, networked database of fired cartridge casing and bullet images. By way of a microscope attached to the system, images were scanned and stored within the system. An investigator could compare fired bullets and casings from a regional or national area.

Even so, without a suspect weapon, bullet or casing, the comparisons could take weeks-and unlimited manpower. Because, no matter how quickly the system could bring up the comparison images, the firearms examiner still had to visually study them and determine if there was a hit.

Sorenstein sat at the NIBIN terminal. Kitt crossed to stand behind him. Narrowing the type of gun the bullet had come from had been relatively easy. Now the tedious work began.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“As well as can be expected. This one felt like a regional search. Figured I’d widen the net if I needed to.”

She nodded. “Let me know if you get a hit.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Sal wants me to trace Brian’s steps. Do you know if you have a call log yet?”

“Cell and landline. On Snowe’s desk.”

“Thanks.” Kitt crossed to the other detective’s desk and retrieved the logs. “Catch you later.”

Sorenstein didn’t reply and Kitt exited the Identification Bureau and headed back upstairs. On the way, she got a call from CRU. She had a visitor-Valerie Martin.

Joe’s fiancée.

Guilt rushed over her. She had slept with another woman’s man. Never mind that she felt as if Joe still belonged to her, a ring said he didn’t.

Had she found out about her and Joe? How could she have? Maybe Joe had told her. Broken their engagement. He hadn’t said that was what he was going to do, and they certainly hadn’t parted with any promises. He had forgiven her-but made it clear that it was more complicated than the two of them.

Maybe he had come clean and begged Valerie’s forgiveness for the lapse.

And Valerie had come to the PSB to kick her ass. Figuratively, of course.

Kitt’s knees went weak. She could face a killer across a table, but the thought of facing Joe’s fiancée made her want to run fast and hide well.

She told the desk officer to send her up. She would meet her at the elevators on two.

Kitt was waiting when the elevator doors slid open and Valerie stepped off. She wore her nurse’s uniform. She looked shaken.

“Hello, Valerie. How can I help you?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s really important. But…I’m on my lunch break. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Kitt nodded. “Follow me.”

She led her to an empty interrogation room. Neither her desk nor the break room would give them the kind of privacy this conversation required.

They sat. Kitt thought about simply telling her everything-her love for Joe, how she had realized it. Then beg her forgiveness.

Shame kept her from speaking.

“I don’t know how to say this,” Valerie began, clasping her hands in her lap.

Kitt saw that she still wore Joe’s ring. “Just say it, then.”

She nodded, took a deep breath and began. “I lied to your partner. When she asked me about Joe. About our being together the night that little girl died.”

Kitt struggled to shift gears. To place what she was saying. “What do you mean, you lied?”

“Joe and I weren’t together all that night.”

Joe’s alibi for the night of Julie Entzel’s murder. He didn’t have one, after all.

How did she know Valerie was being truthful now?

Kitt struggled to keep her thoughts from showing and to pull herself together. Fact was, ethically, she should turn this over to another detective right now.

She should. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

That didn’t mean she was so stupid as not to cover herself-or protect the investigation.

“Valerie, because of the nature of this conversation, I need to both record it and take notes. Is that all right?”

The younger woman hesitated a moment, then nodded. “As long as it doesn’t take much time.”

“It won’t, I promise.”

Within moments, Kitt had set up the video recorder and was sitting across from Valerie, a tablet on the table in front of her. “Could you repeat what you told me earlier?”

She did, repeating it almost verbatim, adding, “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said, about Tami being in danger. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the girls who had died.”