Every Wickedness (11 page)

“I know,” she cut in. This girl had heard it all before. “The police have been very kind.” Her voice had the life squeezed from it. Her posture though, suggested desperation, a need to speak while she could still find words. She perched on the edge of the chair, head and shoulders forward, fingers laced tightly in her lap.

Kearns returned to his seat, grateful to hide part of his own bulk behind the huge metal desk. The girl’s fragility made him feel like a lumbering Kodiak. “How can I help you, Ms. Gorman?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully modulated.

“My sister — there’s something missing. I’ve been cleaning her room, going through her things …”

Her voice broke, and Kearns let her sob, listening to the soft gasps for air. The Gorman family would be in the worst of it now, leafing through photo albums, packing clothes, calling charities to see who needed what. The funeral had come and gone, the donated casseroles were eaten, and friends and relatives would continue with their lives while Natalie’s parents and this young girl were left to deal with their grief.

Kearns, remembering last spring’s allergy attacks, opened his bottom desk drawer, and set a box of facial tissue near the girl. She could be eighteen, twenty at the most. Older sister Natalie must have been her idol.

“Something’s missing?” he coaxed, when he decided she could begin again.

She nodded, then dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “A brooch. An initial N, with pearls. A gift from our grandma Nettie.”

“How do you know it wasn’t lost?” Fuentes asked.

The girl shook her head furiously, as though anyone who had ever owned anything of sentimental value ought to realize this wasn’t possible. “Natalie would have been devastated,” she replied. “If she lost the brooch, the whole family would have known. She’d have torn the house apart, called friends, put an ad in the paper.” Stefanie Gorman struggled to maintain composure. She seemed frustrated that the police didn’t know Natalie as well as she.

Kearns was frustrated for the same reason. “So this was a special piece to your sister.”

“Yes,” she nodded again. “When Natalie wasn’t wearing the brooch, she kept it on a little satin pin cushion on her dresser. It’s not there, so she must have been wearing it, but it didn’t turn up when the funeral parlour….”

Closed the lid on the casket, Kearns thought.

Their meeting ended awkwardly. Stefanie Gorman had said what she’d come to say, refused Kearns’s offer of coffee, yet she continued to sit across from him. He filled the silence with mumbled phrases of reassurance, his voice sounding to his own ears more like a tape-recorded message. When the clichés exhausted themselves, Kearns stood and noisily pushed his chair away from his desk. Stefanie
rose too, though her perplexed expression revealed she wasn’t sure where to go next. Kearns felt like he was abandoning a puppy in the country. He knew the minute Stefanie Gorman hit the sidewalk, she would dissolve into tears, yet he was careful to keep his physical distance as he escorted her to the door. He’d had plenty of women collapse in his arms over the years, had done more than his share of comforting, but this time, with this girl, he didn’t think he could take it. Fuentes followed her out.

Long after Stefanie Gorman had gone, Kearns was still haunted by her face. The girl’s sense of desolation was contagious, and it brought back his own misery with full force. The emptiness he still felt over losing Mary left a gaping wound where his soul used to be, but at least he’d been able to say goodbye. The killer hadn’t given the Gorman family that chance. Stefanie would walk around in that pathetic daze until the guy was caught. Only then could she replace her disbelief with hatred.

A piece of jewellery was missing. Kearns would get Bauer to call the slimeball who had screwed Natalie the night she was abducted, but he was sure the bastard wouldn’t have the damn brooch.

It looked as if the Spiderman was taking trophies.

Kearns knew this wasn’t uncommon, yet none of the other victims’ families had reported anything missing. Of course, they might not know what they were looking for. Now the task force would have to double back and coax the families to check again. He
couldn’t expect each of the victims to have someone like Stefanie Gorman in their corner, bursting in with news of some article missing from a kitchen cupboard or purse. It wasn’t realistic.

Kearns was sick to death of reality.

Later that night, reality kicked him squarely in the crotch. He was already battling a four-Advil headache when the phone rang. Ellen Sims, a student at the Art Institute, had called to report that her roommate, Patricia Mowatt, an aerobics instructor at a downtown fitness club, hadn’t returned from her jog.

I
n the years since his wife had gone, Kearns had exhausted all the remedies for loneliness. Weekends were the worst, when missing Mary went from a quiet, dull ache to a pain deeper, sharper, and more difficult to banish than his frequent headaches. In the beginning, there had been caring friends who’d taken the time to listen. Eventually, he caught their heavy sighs and pursed lips, signalling that enough was enough. Life had to go on, those friends had told him. Drinking at the Plough and Stars had anaesthetized him for a few years, until of course, that cure became part of the problem. The convivial atmosphere of the pub and the welcome bitter taste of imported beer Kearns eventually replaced with communion wafers and the hushed quiet of daily Mass at Saint Dominics. A convert to Catholicism after his marriage, Kearns tried to keep the spiritual side of himself intact while the rest of him disintegrated. Though he attended church less often these days, he still committed himself to the ritual every Sunday. Somehow, he hoped Mary would be pleased.

Now, work was his drug, both amphetamine and sedative, and he knew he’d need it tonight. Patricia Mowatt was still missing, and though the task force
had spent the entire day interviewing family members and fitness club employees, they were no closer to learning where Mowatt might be. When darkness fell and Kearns was still at his desk, he caught Fuentes’s disapproving stare. Manny had his coat on and was heading off for a night of pizza and cards with Rosalie’s parents. He tossed Kearns his jacket, and Kearns obliged him by putting it on and heading home. He could work in his apartment just as easily.

Kearns did some rough arithmetic, concluding that this would be his 250th dateless weekend in a row. Favourite chair, big-screen TV, and a bowl of beer nuts — it wasn’t so bad. Kearns poured himself a soda water, and in his mind’s eye, he flipped a coin. When it came up heads, he opted for purgatory over hell and swallowed his Paxil. He imagined his therapist nodding her approval. He had no use for an erection anyway.

Friday. The thirteenth. A perfect night for some horror flicks. Kearns reached for a short stack of videotapes, each one carefully labelled, and popped the one with Lydia Price’s name on it into his VCR. Neither Monica Turner’s nor Carole Van Horne’s funerals were on tape — the police weren’t yet fully aware what sort of killer they were dealing with. After Lydia Price died, the Spiderman legend had been born.

Lydia’s funeral, a large gathering, had been held at the First Congregational Church of San Francisco
on Mason Street. The native San Franciscan had drawn a crowd of relatives, high school acquaintances, and even a score of strangers, coming to gawk at the killer’s third victim. The closed casket, Kearns thought cynically, must have been a disappointment. Friend, relative, or stranger — all visitors were requested to sign the elaborately bound guest book, supervised by two plainclothes officers masquerading as funeral officials.

The list, when compared to the guest books provided by the Turner and Van Horne families, produced nothing. No two names were alike.

He could have used an alias, Kearns thought. He may not have signed the other books. He may not have attended all the funerals.

He may be smarter than you, you dumb shit
.

Repeatedly Kearns asked himself what the point was in viewing and reviewing the tapes. He was only becoming more depressed, the sight of so many mourners and their sorrow gnawing at his soul.

He forced himself to think about Patricia Mowatt, still missing, and imagined the anguish of her parents, her friends, and the roommate who had called the station in a panic.

Mowatt had no steady boyfriend, though there were several interested admirers at the fitness club where she taught aerobics. The young cops, itchy for any kind of physical activity, were out shaking down Mowatt’s potential suitors. The task force seemed to prefer dead ends to sitting down and thinking, the
youngest of the bunch still yearning for the kind of excitement seen only on a movie screen. Kearns knew the killer would be caught by sheer brainpower. Still, if the greenhorns wanted to wear out their shoe leather on a quest for a Hollywood rush, well, it was one less thing Kearns had to do.

Ellen Sims, Patricia’s roommate, had already assured members of Kearns’s task force that Patricia wasn’t shacked up with some guy in Mendocino or Napa. The roommates faithfully reported their whereabouts to each other, even before the Spiderman had rendered the city captive.

The bastard had her. In less than a week, Patricia Mowatt’s body would turn up somewhere. While the tape of the Price funeral rewound, Kearns opened a city map and flattened it on the coffee table. Where would the son of a bitch dump her? It could be anywhere. San Francisco had more green space than any other American city, so he could choose another park. Griffith Park? The Palace of Fine Arts?

How the hell could Kearns follow his own dogma of being preventive rather than reactive when he couldn’t begin to predict the movements of the lunatic? In one angry gesture, he swept the map off the table. He’d already written off Patricia Mowatt as another statistic, searching for her resting place, when what he needed to do was get inside the killer’s head.

He ejected the Price cassette and popped in the funeral of Natalie Gorman.

Natalie had been baptized Roman Catholic, though the bulk of the congregation who had come to say their goodbyes had likely never seen the inside of a church. The tape revealed an attractive crowd, models, actors, and a few local celebrities. Several attempted to imitate the more faithful parishioners by awkwardly genuflecting in the aisle and making haphazard signs of the cross. Most though, didn’t bother, slouching in the pews instead, looking bored.

The Spalding tape was saddest of all. The pretty flight attendant had no living relatives, and, being new to the area, had made few friends. Her ex-husband, the picture of grief, was among the handful of mourners, mostly flight attendants and pilots who scarcely filled three rows of the Calvary Presbyterian Church in Pacific Heights. Beth Wells hadn’t even been able to attend. She had gone to England to scout for antiques with a client.

Beth had felt guilty about that too, Kearns knew. Anne Spalding’s life these past years had been the shits, having to uproot herself to find a measure of peace in a new city, but things, according to Beth, had taken a turn for the better. Anne loved her job with the airline, and there was even a new boyfriend. Kearns studied the video. Maybe it was one of these guys. Could be that airline types were like cops, sticking to their own kind.

His cop’s nose began to twitch, and Kearns knew himself well enough to pay attention. He rewound
the Spalding tape and played it again. Something about the killer’s profile nagged at him.

Outwardly functioning as normally as most. Often able to play-act at some sort of relationship. Mobile. Warped time clock
.

Whose circadian rhythms could be more askew than a pilot’s?

Kearns catapulted from his easy chair and paced the length of the tiny living room. He debated calling Fuentes, then nixed the idea, aware of Rosalie’s reaction the last time Kearns had picked Manny’s brains on a weekend. Kearns shoved the videos into a grocery bag and drove to the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street.

In his office, Kearns unlocked his filing cabinet and yanked the folder labelled “Spalding.” A photocopied page of the guest book listed less than thirty names. A computer check surrendered ages, occupations, addresses.

Five pilots had paid their respects to Anne Spalding on Friday, August 19 — Brent Turnbull, Peter Samuelson, Linc Gaudette, Martin DiMascio, and Jordan Bailey.

B
eth felt her jaw tense. She took a deep breath and tried to quell the anxiety bubbling inside her. For nearly twenty minutes, she rooted in her closet for an appropriate outfit. She shoved hangers aside, dismissing a black cocktail dress as too formal, a yellow sundress as too summery. Her green wool suit was too serious.

If only she knew more about what kind of party Jordan was taking her to. Though Beth dealt with dozens of people every day, and had been raised with strangers coming and going at her parents’ inn, she was uncomfortable in socially contrived situations, and this trio party spelled mix and mingle with two capital Ms. After a long week at work, she would have preferred to spend a quiet evening at home, or better yet, in Jordan’s bed.

Jordan had seen her dressed up, dressed down, and undressed every night since their first time together, and had told her she’d look sensational wearing a garment bag; still, she wanted to look perfect. Tomorrow, he was flying overseas, so she wouldn’t see him for days.

Finally, she settled on an ivory shantung double-breasted blazer and matching slacks, and just as her doorbell rang, she clasped a four-strand faux pearl
choker around her neck. If everyone else went in jeans, she’d be in trouble.

When Beth opened the door, she was relieved to see Jordan wearing a black linen sports jacket and tan slacks, and when he took her in his arms, she wondered why they were going to the party at all.

“Come here, you,” he said, opening his arms. “It’s been a helluva day.” He pulled her close.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing now,” he murmured, burying his face in her hair.

“Are you sure? You sound exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “Really.”