A Man to Die for (35 page)

Jack rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “You’re catchin’ on. I’ve been trailing this mope for about six weeks now, and I can’t even get him to admit he shits in the morning.”

Bert offered a policeman’s smile. He’d been filled in on the whole story while the evidence techs were playing with the box. “Well, you can count on my help. I just love this kinda shit.”

“I’m glad you do,” Jack retorted dryly. “’Cause I’m gettin’ real tired of it. It’s like tryin’ to put a jigsaw puzzle together with your eyes closed.”

Puzzle. Casey thought about that a minute, letting her brain chug back into gear. She knew there was something she needed to tell Jack, but she couldn’t pull it past her mental image of gold earrings spattered with blood, and the idea that her mother might have opened that box. Of course, as out to lunch as Helen was some days, she might have figured it was from a mail-order holy relic house.

“Casey,” Jack offered. “Why don’t you try and catch some sleep? We’ll be here if the call comes in, and you have work tomorrow.”

That fast, all her little messages tumbled clear of the fog. She got up and refilled all three mugs.

“I’m not missing that call for the world,” she vowed, sitting back down. “I’m not letting him think he can scare me off. Besides, I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or, for that matter, the week after that.”

Jack stopped with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Why?” he asked.

She smiled brightly. “Because I’ve been suspended for slander against doctor. It
is
slander, isn’t it? I can’t keep slander and libel straight. I don’t
think
I wrote anything down, unless it was in nurse’s notes. But I don’t think I would have written ‘asshole doctor to see victim.’ Even if I’d wanted to.”

Surprisingly enough, Jack nodded. “Good.”

Casey raised an injured eyebrow. “Good? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Scanlon. Seems to me you’re about a week away from singing the same tune yourself, buddy.”

Jack actually allowed a grudging grin. “I mean I feel a lot better knowing you won’t have to face Hunsacker for a while.”

“Oh, yeah,” she retorted dryly, motioning to all the activity. “It’s certainly made a difference so far.”

“We’ll get him this time, honey,” Bert promised.

Casey just laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep, Bert. This guy has more lives than Rob Lowe.” She took a sip of coffee, strong and black and bitter, before continuing. “I did come up with some things this afternoon that might be helpful. It’s too bad you weren’t around, Jack. It’s been quite a day.”

Jack offered a tight scowl and pulled his notebook over. “I’d love to hear about it.”

She began picking at Bert’s pepperoni slice. “Did I tell you that Hunsacker is a gun buff?”

Jack stiffened. Casey guessed she hadn’t.

“I’m sorry. There were so many other things, that must have slipped through. He’s especially fascinated by gang weapons and the like. I hadn’t thought about it all until you told me about those guys who were killed the same night as Evelyn. You said they couldn’t connect them all because they were shot with different guns. The cousins had been shot by an AK47. The gang gun.”

She got a brace of nods and answered. “At first I thought Evelyn had been killed by an AK47 because I’d heard it from her coworkers. The thing is, they had heard it from Hunsacker. And Hunsacker can sure tell a twenty-two from an AK47, wouldn’t you think?”

She could see Jack’s gears already working hard. “Let me,” she begged, proud of her deduction, knowing he’d hit it just as fast as she. “There weren’t any witnesses to Evelyn’s murder, because those two men
were
the witnesses. Maybe Hunsacker hid in the back seat of Evelyn’s car, or forced her in at gunpoint. He made her drive to East St. Louis, where he knew nobody’d be surprised, and shot her over there. These guys drive up, and he pulls out a second gun, shoots them, and drives them back to the river to dump them. And then he takes their car over the bridge and dumps it at the bus station where he could get a cab home. Voilà, how a white man makes himself invisible in a black community.”

Jack’s smile was damn near beatific. “That’s it,” he agreed. “That’s it.”

Bert shook his head. “The hell with nursing, girl. Come be a cop.”

Casey grinned with her little triumph. “Don’t tempt me, big boy.”

Jack bent to scribble the information down, grinning and shaking his head. “God, this just makes my day. Wait till the East Side guys hear it. We might even get an ID from a cabby.”

“Want to hear what else I have?”

That brought Jack’s head right back up. “You have more?”

Casey nodded. “Actually, this one’s from Poppi.”

“The space cadet with the Tammy and the Bachelor hairdo?”

Casey scowled right back. “Don’t count Poppi out,” she warned. “She has some interesting insights.”

Jack snorted. “I’ll bet.”

“What if,” she asked, “there are other murders I missed?”

Jack looked as if he wanted to groan.

“No, I mean it,” Casey insisted, leaning over toward him. “Maybe there’s something stronger. Maybe we can catch him up with something else.”

“And who gets to do this paperwork?” he demanded. “You want a list of unsolved female murders for the last six months from about a ten-county area.”

She nodded. “Let me go through it,” she said. “After all, I got no place to go. I also know his type of girl. At least we should look.”

“She’s right,” Bert suggested. “The Johnson woman might not be the only woman he’s popped in your jurisdiction. Maybe you can make a stronger case.”

Jack snorted again. “
Night Court
has stronger cases. I’m just trying to stay ahead of the paperwork.”

“Hey,” Casey objected. “It’s forward momentum, isn’t it? It’s something. Hunsacker’s gotten the last two rounds. Let’s get the next one, okay?”

Jack leveled that half-awake stare on her, just a hint of a grin curling his lips. “Whatever you say, Knute.” She grinned back. “Screw you, Copper.”

“Casey?”

Casey turned to find Mr. Rawlings at the kitchen door. He’d stopped shaking, but he looked older suddenly, wan and tired. She hopped to her feet.

“Oh, Mr. Rawlings, why don’t you go on home? Do you need to talk to him again, Bert?”

“The officer interviewed you, Mr. Rawlings?” Bert asked in his best community-relations voice.

Mr. Rawlings nodded his head. “I…I’d stay with your mother, Casey,” he apologized. “But this has quite taken something out of me.”

“Of course,” she said, a hand on his thin arm, He had asthma and a heart condition. Casey could hear him wheezing and felt guilty for forgetting him. “Thanks so much for sitting with Mom. I know she appreciates it.”

Mr. Rawlings patted Casey’s other arm in commiseration. “If you need anything…”

Casey nodded. “Thank you. Oh, by the way, did you meet Sergeant Scanlon? He’s the one who owns the Mustang. Mr. Rawlings has been coveting your car, Jack.”

Mr. Rawlings bobbed his head in anxious agreement. “It’s a real beauty, Sergeant.”

“Thank you,” Jack acknowledged with a smile. “It’s a good car—289 cubic inch with a dual line Holley four barrel.”

Mr. Rawlings looked like Helen when she heard about heaven. Casey couldn’t suppress a grin. She just couldn’t imagine him squealing into corners, the wind in his three hairs and Skid Row blasting from the stereo.

“Why don’t you give it a run, next time I’m over,” Jack offered, and Mr. Rawlings looked like he’d met God.

“Oh, thank you. That would be…lovely.” The old man smiled and bobbed a couple more times. “Good night, then.”

“Good night,” Bert murmured a second later as the front door could be heard clicking home. “What a lovely idea. Tell you what, I’m gonna leave the phone tag to you guys, and concentrate on getting that list for Casey. Hopefully by tomorrow we’ll have a face to go with those ears, and some more information on the sender.”

Casey looked down at the table, guilty that she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “Look for missing nurses,” she suggested. “It’s his favorite target to date.”

At least it wasn’t Marva. The victim had been white. Had been. As awful as the implications of that statement were, Casey didn’t even want to think of the alternatives.

Bless Bert’s heart. Shoving his cap back on his head, he reached over and gave Casey a fatherly pat. “Hang in there, little girl,” he said. “We’ll get him.”

“Yeah,” she said, lifting her eyes in search of support. “We will.”

Both men smiled for her. The only problem was, Casey was far too familiar with that look: They wanted Hunsacker as badly as she, but they were too realistic to think that was enough to get them a conviction. It was kind of like telling the parents Of a brain-dead child that at least his heart was beating.

Jack stood and held out a hand. “Good to have some help,” he said.

Accepting the handshake, Bert laughed and shook his head. “Man, I believe it. Whatever happens, the collar’s yours.”

Jack smiled. “Nuns taught me to share, DeClue. We can arm wrestle for him later. Call me first thing in the morning.”

They headed into the living room to see Bert out. Casey had forgotten that Helen was still out there. She was dusting the piano.

“Oh,” she sang when she caught sight of them, “I thought you boys had all gone. I’m sorry.”

“Sergeant DeClue’s just leaving, Mom,” Casey said, pushing Bert none too gently for the door before Helen intercepted them.

Bert nodded and smiled. “Good night, Mrs. McDonough.”

Casey closed the door on Bert just as Helen came to life.

“Excuse me, Father.” She smiled brightly at Jack, holding her duster to her chest like a crucifix. “Did I introduce you to my family?”

Casey saw the sun rise. She hadn’t meant to. She’d meant to stay up just long enough to throw Hunsacker’s latest game back at him by not saying a word when he called. Let him think he hadn’t affected her with his present. Let him think her suspension didn’t mean anything. She’d fully intended on evening out the score by making
him
sweat out her reaction a little. Maybe think the box hadn’t shown up at all, or that she was too tough to let it bother her, to let him bother her.

But Hunsacker had figured out just how to torture her even more. He didn’t call.

Casey paced downstairs until almost four, making Jack coffee and sandwiches and offering to make up a bed in the guest room if he didn’t make it home. She came within a hairbreadth of dusting Helen’s family on the wall. That was when Jack walked up and took her two hands in his and gently demanded she go on to bed. He’d wait up for the call. He had work to do. After the day she’d had, she needed some sleep.

Realizing that she was making him crazier than she was making herself, she acquiesced. And spent the rest of the night watching the sky change outside her window.

By seven she gave up and went downstairs. Helen wasn’t up yet. Too much company the night before, Casey guessed. The kitchen was empty, Jack’s paperwork scattered over the table like notes from an all-night cram session. He’d made a chart, with all the names and information listed on each murder. He’d left four more slots open. It depressed Casey unspeakably.

She found Jack curled up on the couch in the sun room. He’d obviously finally given up himself. His jacket was still out in the kitchen, his tie strewn over the back of the couch, and his shoes in a pile.

The romance books Casey read always seemed to describe a sleeping man as looking like a little boy. Jack didn’t look like a boy. He looked like a man. His hair was ruffled and his chin shadowy and his clothes disheveled. He’d tried to get comfortable on a couch that was about four inches too short, and ended up with his feet hanging over the end. There was a hole in his left sock.

Casey looked at his face, which should have been passive and unlined in sleep, and saw just what toll his work had taken on him. He looked gaunt and tired, the creases between his brows permanent, the hollows in his cheeks too deep. A controlled man who saw everything and admitted nothing. Casey watched him sleep for a moment and wished there were something she could do to lift some of that weight. She thought of that funny little kiss he’d given her the night before, and was surprised again how much she wished there were something he’d let her offer in return. And then, not knowing what else to do, she went to make coffee.

“This isn’t good,” Yablonsky said later that day when Jack got him on the phone. “This guy’s starting to take real trophies. And he’s giving them to the nurse. He obviously considers her an important part of his image. What do you have on evidence?”

Refreshed only by a shower down in the locker room, Jack rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus on the chart he’d laid out the night before. He’d woken to the smell of fresh coffee only two hours earlier and been surprised to find Casey buttering English muffins when he’d stumbled out into the kitchen, shoes and tie in hand. It was the first time he’d eaten breakfast in two years.

“Oh, Hunsacker was real good,” Jack told the agent, the surprising comfort of a meal in that bright kitchen firing new determination. “Got a street person down-town to walk the package into the Fed Ex office. We probably won’t even get a start on finding that guy until the shelters open tonight, and if Hunsacker’s true to form, he picked a soup sandwich right out of State San. No evidence from the box except that forensics is happy to say that it was a very professional job. Still no ID on the victim.”

“Mmmm. His cycle is shortening. His practice is in trouble, which tells me he’s devoting more and more energy to his hunting. And he’s graduated to knives. That’s real personal stuff with these guys. I’d say he’s escalating big time.”

“What about the nurse?” Jack asked, taking a slug of coffee to drown the fire of anxiety in his belly. “She seems to think she’s safe because he’s performing for her.” He couldn’t get past the picture of her in her robe and bare feet, her hair tousled and her cooking atrocious.

“You mean like the guys who send notes to radio stations. It’s possible.”