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“Cris,” Charley supplied.
“Cris,” he repeated, “was the serial killer’s first victim?”
That was taking something for granted and she wasn’t altogether sure they could, given the nature of their killer. “Alleged first victim,” she corrected.
Nick stopped, slightly annoyed at the second interruption. “Don’t you let someone get a question out without interjecting footnotes?”
“If that someone gets it right, no,” she answered simply. And then, because she didn’t really feel like butting heads this morning, entertaining though it might be, she decided to explain why she’d just corrected him. “Call it a gut feeling, but I don’t think we have found all of the victims. It’s a big country, Special Agent Brannigan. There might be graves in places we haven’t even thought to look. As of now, we know of three states where the Sunday Killer has struck. They were all California natives, but he obviously targeted them and followed them out of state. Given that, there might be more victims that, for one reason or another, we don’t know about yet.” She frowned. “There’s no real common thread to link the women or give us a reason why he chose them and not some other women to kill.”
Traffic was picking up again, and she shifted in her seat. “The only thing the victims have in common is the way they died.”
Charley detailed the similarities that connected the deaths to one another. “He kills on a Sunday. Always. He doesn’t abuse them sexually. No penetration in any manner, no clothes even moved out of place. Every body is found in what could be described as a ladylike pose. The killer strangles them with his bare hands. That means, through the magic of science, we have an approximate idea of how big a man he is—”
“Unless he has freakishly large hands,” Nick interjected. When she shot him a look, he tagged on, “Sorry, the footnote thing is catching.”
Charley made no comment. She didn’t know if she’d been partnered with a wiseass or someone whose dry sense of humor she was going to like. For the time being, she continued. “The women are under forty and are all reasonably attractive. That is, they were before he branded them.”
This was the first he’d heard of any disfigurement. “Branded them?”
Charley moved the windshield wipers to the last position. They began to slide back and forth across the glass in double time, maintaining clear visibility for half a cycle.
“It might have something to do with Sundays,” she guessed. “Maybe the killer’s some kind of religious fanatic—we haven’t determined that yet. But he lightly carves a tiny cross in the middle of all his victims’ foreheads.”
“A cross,” he repeated. A vision of Rasputin from an old Russian history textbook materialized in his mind. A mad monk, or someone in that vein. Nick shrugged. “Maybe the killer thinks he’s saving them somehow.”
“Saving them from what?” Charley demanded. “From breathing?” She shook her head, dismissing the notion. “Your theory might hold water if these women were all prostitutes, or each in her own way had committed some kind of heinous crime, but as far as we can see, the victims are just a group of average middle-class women. We’ve got a waitress—” she referred to the latest victim “—a supermarket checker, a teacher, a would-be actress, an insurance clerk, an airline stewardess, a bank teller, a private in the army, a girl who worked in a stationery store, a nurse, a paralegal and a grad student.” The last was her sister. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to tie them together. They didn’t belong to the same club, see the same doctor, like the same movies.”
Charley pressed her lips together. She could taste her frustration rising like bile in her throat. There were days she was hopeful and days, like today, when she thought they were never going to get Cris’s killer. Maybe it was the rain, she reasoned. The rain always made her think of Cris. And that she’d lost half of her soul.
“They didn’t even have the same things in their medicine cabinets,” she said in frustration. Every angle had been checked and rechecked. But obviously, they were going to have to check again.
“And yet there has to be some kind of link,” Nick pointed out, saying out loud what she was thinking. “At least in the killer’s mind.”
“Which could be totally psychotic and delusional. For all we know, he thinks he sees the same person over and over again when he kills his victims.”
And when he saw Cris, did the killer think he was seeing her instead? Charley wondered. It was something that continued to haunt her. She and Cris had been identical, right down to the tiny white crescent birthmark on their left hips. There’d been times when their own mother hadn’t been able to tell them apart. It was their personalities, not their features that enabled people to distinguish between them. Asleep, which was the way the killer had found Cris, they could easily be mistaken for each other.
No, you’re not going to do this to yourself, Charley silently insisted. Getting bogged down in endless self-questioning wasn’t going to get Cris’s killer. Wasn’t going to find him before he could kill another girl.
She stepped on the gas and made the light before it turned red. Barely.
“You always drive like that?” Nick asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re running a race with the traffic light to see who makes it to the finish line first.”
“I don’t like to dawdle.”
“No, but some of us might want to live to see our thirtieth birthday.”
She raised her eyes to his as she turned into a parking lot. “Then you picked the wrong profession, Special Agent Brannigan. You want a long life expectancy, become an insurance investigator.”
As she pulled into the first available spot, rain began to fall as if someone had upended a barrel. Pausing only to pull up the hood of her jacket, Charley got out of the vehicle. She waited for her partner to emerge on his side before she hit the security button.
Nick turned up his collar. Not that it did much to protect him from the rain. He glanced in her direction as he made a run for the apartment building.
“No umbrella?”
She hated having to carry anything. Everything she felt she needed was stuffed into one small shoulder bag she resented having to drag along. An umbrella would have been too much.
“Too inconvenient. Besides, haven’t you heard? It never rains in California.”
Reaching the doorway, he turned his collar down again and wiped the rain from his hair with his hand. “Isn’t the rest of that line ‘but it pours?’”
Throwing open the door that led into the building’s foyer, she looked over her shoulder. A spark of mild interest rose within her. “An oldies fan?”
He’d never cared for labels, preferring to go from one thing to another. “My taste’s eccentric. I like most music. Helps while the time away.”
Stacy Pembroke’s apartment was on the first floor, in the rear of the building. Since she was the only one of them who knew that, Charley led the way. “Time hang heavily on your hands, Special Agent Brannigan?”
He kept pace with her in the narrow hallway, refusing to follow her like an underpaid servant. “It did when I was a kid, sitting between my brother and sister in the back seat of my father’s station wagon, traveling from Texas to New Jersey.”
She made the connection instantly. “Army brat?”
“Army.” Nick allowed part of her label. “But I was never a brat.” His mouth curved slightly. “Just ask my mother.”
“Maybe I will.”
The moment Charley walked across the apartment threshold, she sobered. Someone had died here, had the life squeezed out of her by the hands that belonged to a maniac. No matter what that woman’s offenses might have been, the victim deserved some sort of dignity.
Just like Cris had deserved.
CHAPTER SIX
A SINGLE LINE of yellow tape separated the apartment from its brethren. That, and the aura of death.
Only one man was stationed inside the confines of the late Stacy Pembroke’s one-bedroom apartment. The man was shifting his weight from foot to foot like a bird marooned on a tiny slab of ice, floating down a river and nervously trying to decide which foot would keep him steadiest.
From his short-cropped haircut to his crisp white shirt down to his neatly pressed brown trousers, the man reeked of newness. Not new to the scene like Brannigan, but new altogether. New to the Bureau. New to the sharp reality of murder. He had the smell of someone who had just graduated from the academy and had drawn the Santa Ana office as his first assignment.
Because he was thin, he appeared taller than he was. And nervous. Throwing off his restlessness, the special agent came to attention the moment she and Brannigan walked into the small, tastefully furnished apartment.
In a beat, he was going to go for his weapon, Charley thought. She judged that he was more likely to shoot his own foot than get a bead on either one of them.
Something made her doubt that the man behind her had ever been that nervous, that raw. Brannigan exuded confidence with every move he made.
Charley raised her hand, as if she was gentling an overanxious poodle that fancied himself a guard dog. “Relax, newbie. I’m Special Agent Dow, this is Special Agent Brannigan. We’re on the task force that’s investigating this murder.”
To back up her claim, Charley withdrew her wallet and showed the young man her ID. His eyes moved from line to line, then looked at her photograph carefully before stepping back. Only then did relief relax his features.
“Newbie,” the man repeated, digesting the term. A tinge of color rose up on his cheeks. He had the kind of face that would always be boyish. “Does it show?”
“Only when we look,” Charley told him. “Don’t worry about it. Even God had a first day. What’s your name?”
“Jack Andrews, ma’am.”
Nick noted that Charley winced ever so slightly at the polite salutation. His sister hated to be addressed that way. It made her feel old, she’d confided. Probably did the same for Dow.
“Special Agent Dow will do, Special Agent Andrews,” Charley addressed the younger man. And then she surprised Nick as well as the new recruit by smiling and adding, “If we solve this case, you get to call me Charley.”
The look on Jack Andrews’s face said that he would never presume to call her by anything so familiar.
Nick turned to look at her, puzzled. “Charley? How did you get Charley out of Charlotte?”
But even as he asked, Nick decided that the nickname probably suited her a great deal better than the name she’d been given at birth. Charlottes did not carry concealed weapons or relentlessly pursue serial killers. They served tea to their friends at a country club and made sure they stayed out of the sun so that their fair complexions wouldn’t freckle.
“I didn’t. My sister did.” For a precious moment, she allowed herself to remember when she’d felt a part of something greater than just herself, and yet was very much an extension of who and what she was. “Cris couldn’t wrap her tongue around the name ‘Charlotte’ when we were little. All she could get out was ‘Charley.’” Her mouth curved as she raised one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I like that name better. ‘Charlotte’ belongs to a woman on a verandah who has vapors. Like my father’s mother.”
Whom, judging by that slight frown, she didn’t much care for, Nick thought. “Let me guess, you’re named after her.”
Charley snorted. “See if you can put that finely honed guessing talent to work here.” And then she turned toward the newly minted special agent. “Did the police leave us any information?”
Obviously happy to be of some use, Jack rattled off the particulars of the discovery. Nothing new.
“Any of the neighbors hear anything suspicious?”
Jack shook his head. “They haven’t been canvassed yet.”
She didn’t hold out much hope, but all ground had to be covered. And sometimes they got lucky. “Why don’t you nose around, see what you can find out?” she suggested.
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Jack vanished from the apartment, eager to do her bidding.
Nick watched him leave, amused. Chronologically, probably only five years separated him from Andrews, but he couldn’t recall ever being that young. “Well, you made him feel useful.”
“It’s a gift.” She stopped when she saw that Nick was heading for the door. She hadn’t meant for both agents to canvass the neighbors. “Are you planning on going with him?”
Nick stopped just shy of the door. If she thought that he was going to clear every move with her before he made it, this partnership wasn’t going to work out.
“No. Just wanted to check something out.” Crouching, he carefully examined the lock on the door and the area around it. “No sign of forced entry.” He rose again. “Looks like she knew her killer.”
“Maybe.” This was a first-floor apartment. Which meant there was possible access through one of the windows. But they all appeared to be locked from the inside from what she could see. “Or maybe she just opened the door.”
Where he came from, people were a lot more cautious. “To a stranger?”
Charley smiled. “Why not? Had an aunt once. She opened the door to anyone who knocked or rang. Thought it rude not to.”
“She get mugged?” he guessed.
“Not so far.” She didn’t add that she’d finally persuaded the woman to put a chain on her door so she could open her door and still have a semblance of protection in place.
According to the police report, Stacy Pembroke’s body had been found in the living room. Nick walked into the bedroom. “You want to come here and look at this?”
“Can’t wait,” Charley murmured under her breath. She stepped away from the small desk and walked into the bedroom.
Nick was squatting over a pile of men’s clothing that had been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the room. He lifted the jacket that was on top of the heap and examined it.
“Forty-two tall.” He closed the jacket and replaced it on the pile, then rose to his feet again. “You know, maybe we’re dealing with a jilted lover.” He threw a theory out for her to mull over. “Maybe to draw suspicion away from himself, Mr. Forty-two Tall killed her and staged it to look like the Sunday Killer.”
But Charley shook her head. “According to the preliminary findings, the victim had a tiny cross carved on her forehead. That’s a detail we never released to the press.”
He looked at her. Maybe the woman wasn’t quite as sharp as she seemed to believe she was.
“And you think that kept it a secret?” Nick laughed shortly, shaking his head. People talked. Even those with good intentions. It was the nature of the beast. “How many people have been involved in the Sunday Killer case since the beginning? Twenty?” he asked, then doubled the figure. “Forty?” It was still a conservative estimate. If they counted all the peripheral people involved, including forensics, that brought the count up to over a hundred. “Think about it. There have been M.E.s and civilians who’ve stumbled across the bodies. Not to mention the family members who had to bury the killer’s victims. You honestly think no one said anything about that little branding fetish the killer’s got? You think that nobody had a few too many while sharing some quality time with his buddies or his best girl and let that little spine-chilling detail slip without realizing it?”
He had a point. But she had another one. “Okay, maybe that happened. Maybe more than once. But what are the odds that they’d let that slip within the earshot of the possibly ticked-off lover who belongs to that pile of clothes on the floor?”
Nick believed in picking his fights and this one didn’t seem to be important enough to do battle over. So he shrugged and continued working his way through the otherwise neat blue-and-white bedroom. “Guess you’ve got a point.”
She hadn’t finished with the living room. Turning on her heel, she went back. “I always have a point, Special Agent Brannigan.”
Opening up a bureau, Nick discovered the dead woman’s underwear drawer. The garments seemed rather pricey for a woman living on a waitress’s salary. He assumed they were gifts from Mr. Forty-two Tall.
“You know,” he called out to her, “with all these special agents floating around, the label tends to lose some of its specialness, don’t you agree? How about you just call me Brannigan. Or Nick if that’s too much of a mouthful.”
“I’ll take that under advisement, Special Agent,” Charley promised.
Nick leaned over to get a better view of the other room and her. He couldn’t make out if she was smiling, but he thought he detected as much in her voice.
One step at a time, Nicky, one step at a time, he counseled silently.
The bottom drawer had negligees and the scent of expensive perfume. He paused a moment to inhale and appreciate, then another moment to mourn the waste of a human being before he gingerly rifled through the soft, filmy garments. And found a prize. A small four-by-six beige leather-bound book.
He took it out and thumbed through it. Delicate handwriting marked every page.
“Found a diary,” he announced, holding it aloft.
“I’ll see your diary and raise you an address book.” Crossing back to him, she displayed the volume she’d unearthed in the desk. “Maybe by reading that and calling some of the people in here, we can reconstruct her week.”
“Week? Don’t you mean day?”
Charley shook her head. “I always say what I mean,” she informed him crisply.
He was feeling her out, she thought. Circling her and looking for a weakness like a new buck entering an established herd. She was accustomed to doing things her own way. Ben had been a mentor and a guide, but he’d always given her her own lead. Early on, he had told her to trust her instincts and then he’d proved it by showing her that he trusted them. She had a strong hunch that Brannigan just wanted to be leader of the pack.
Not gonna work that way, Special Agent.
“This bastard stalks them. One of the victims’ brothers came forward and told us that his sister had confided to him that she thought she was losing her mind because she felt someone was watching her all the time. I don’t doubt that she was right. The Sunday Killer follows them around, gets their routines down, then waits for just the right moment to take them out.”
