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Authors: Eileen Dreyer

BOOK: Head Games
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“You mean this guy came to town just to lob eyeballs into Ms. Burke's backyard?” the lawyer demanded with some distaste. Directed at Molly rather than her correspondent.
“From what I've learned about … these kind of guys,” Molly said, “they don't tend to go out of their way to drop off trophies. If they travel, they do it to hunt or escape notice. He could have just moved here recently, though.”
Now even Winnie was looking unhappy. “So he brought his gifts with him from another city.”
“That's one Ryder truck I wouldn't want to peek into,” Billy offered.
Molly shrugged. “If we really aren't missing anybody locally, it's possible. Although I should remind you that nobody noticed who was missing in Milwaukee until they opened Dahmer's icebox. Same with Gacy's basement. These guys hide their tracks awfully well.”
And he was sending his gifts to her.
To
her
.
“We can get an identification off what we have, can't we?” the lawyer asked. “Find out who that bone belongs to?”
“Not with just a femur,” the anthropologist informed them. “We need a suspected victim and the good luck to have preexisting femoral X rays to compare.”
“What about DNA?” the lawyer asked.
Even Winnie looked pitying. “You're going to run DNA matches on every missing seventeen-year-old in the country? With whose budget? And how long do you want to take to do it? One DNA test takes at least a couple of weeks.”
“Which leaves us where?” the lawyer demanded.
“A task force,” Colonel Beck offered.
Every other person at the table groaned. “Hand it over to Major McConnell for now,” Winnie said. “You throw in special people, you'll just screw it up.”
Nobody bothered to mention the fact that the last task force the mayor
and colonel had put together had run up an astronomical bill with no results until two veteran homicide coppers had gone back on their own time to recheck the results.
“What about the FBI?” Kevin asked.
Rhett shook his head. “I already talked to the local special agent in charge. A—the government shutdown affects them, too. Behavioral Science Unit can't pull in any more cases, since their support staff is locked out. B—the Behavioral Science Unit can't give us any kind of profile without either a crime scene or a victim identification. I did get some ideas of where to go in the meantime, though.”
“Where?” Winnie asked.
Half a dozen pens were poised to take notes. Molly's wasn't one of them. Molly knew perfectly well where they'd have to start. Even so, when Kevin and Rhett both looked her way, she smiled. She knew they weren't any happier about the next stage than she was.
“Molly,” Rhett said simply.
The lawyer looked from Rhett to Molly and back again. “Molly what?” Rhett shrugged. “It's a variation on victimology. If you're trying to find a perpetrator, you can learn as much about him from the victims he chooses as the crimes he commits. We don't know who the actual victims are, but we do know that for some reason he's singled Molly out to receive his trophies. Which puts her in a kind of victimology category. If we can figure out why he's targeting Molly, we might get a better handle on who he is.”
“What we think are his trophies,” Molly objected.
Rhett grinned like a chagrined kid and nodded. “We need to investigate Molly's background to find out why somebody might want to contact her like this.”
Now everybody was staring at her. Molly wanted to hide. She wanted somebody to tell her this was all a big mistake, but these weren't the people who were going to do it.
“Don't look at her as if she's the damn Rosetta stone,” Winnie snapped. “He probably just saw her on television. God knows, everyone else in the bi-state area has.”
“Whoever it is,” Billy ventured, “you really pissed 'em off.”
Molly scowled. “You're making me feel better by the minute, Bill.”
“You've been looking into this for a few days now, Detective Butler,” Winnie said. “What have you learned so far?”
Rhett didn't even glance at Molly this time. He bent to the cop notebook he flipped open. “Nobody in the immediate vicinity noticed anything unusual. But then, since the neighborhood is gated and adjoins Euclid, it's tough to tell about noise. Lots of foot and car traffic on the other side of her fence. No strangers noted in the side streets, except for Ms. Burke's nephew, who's recently arrived. As for Ms. Burke, her next-door neighbor wants to adopt her, the lady across the street would like her for a gardener, and the family down the street wishes she'd get a better car.”
“So does she,” Molly said under her breath.
“That's it?” Rhett's superior demanded.
Rhett shot Molly a glance and stiffened like a chastised schoolboy. “Melinda Anne Burke, DOB eight/fifteen/fifty, born in St. Louis, traveled extensively as a child with her parents. Earned a bachelor of nursing from St. Louis University in 1971, enlisted in the Army, where she served for twelve months in Vietnam from 1971–1972, earning campaign ribbons, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart …”
Almost embarrassed, he looked up at the group, who were looking at Molly with some surprise.
“You were in Vietnam?” the lawyer demanded.
Winnie slapped a hand on the table. “Unless this guy is an NVA regular she failed to treat, I doubt it's relevant. What else?”
Rhett blushed. “Uh, that's it so far on background. I haven't had a chance to interview Miss … uh, Molly. I also just tracked down the FBI guy yesterday. My next step is to sit with Molly and do a more thorough personal and professional history.”
“Couldn't it just be somebody mad at her from work?” the lawyer asked. “Like Dr. Harrison said, she has been kind of visible lately.”
Rhett cleared his throat. “If she were getting them at work, I'd be more inclined to agree. But she's getting them at home. Besides, a trophy is awfully personal. Most of these guys give them to wives and girlfriends.”
Molly felt every eye in the room on her, and saw more than one eyebrow raised. “Sorry to disappoint you again.”
Rhett gave her an especially interested glance, but then Rhett had met
Frank. But even Rhett didn't understand the relationship Frank and Molly had. Probably because Molly didn't either. But then, Frank would probably get a huge kick out of being a suspect in a high-profile investigation like this.
“What about surveillance on her house?” Colonel Beck asked.
“You tell us,” Winnie answered. “Do we have the manpower and funding?”
The colonel shrugged. “Do we have a choice? Do some more tests on that bone, and that … you know. Make sure we're not making a mountain out of a molehill here. In the meantime, I'll apprise the chief of police, and Major McConnell can …”
“We'll start canvassing the neighborhood. Look more closely into missing persons. Recheck some files that might be applicable.”
Molly saw Rhett's shoulders sag microscopically. For almost seventytwo hours, he'd been handling a potential redball on his own. Now the system was taking it back out of his hands. Even so, he maintained his revered professional demeanor. “I'll talk to missing persons,” he said.
Major McConnell shook his head. “You talk to Ms. Burke. Find out what the hell's so appealing about her.”
Molly laughed out loud. “Well,” she offered drily, “she's quite a conversationalist, and on occasion has been heard to play a mean jazz piano.”
The major had the good grace to flush. “You know what I mean,” he muttered.
Molly was afraid she did.
“And what about that newswoman?” the lawyer demanded.
“I think we should stonewall her,” the colonel said.
“You think you should stonewall everybody,” Winnie retorted. “I say we make her inclusive. Ask her silence until we can double-check Puffin's findings, then give her an early exclusive.”
“I think that's gonna get us bit in the ass,” the lawyer protested. “Full disclosure now.”
“And wade through the packs of
Inside Edition
reporters in the morning?” Winnie argued. “Can you spell Jon Benet Ramsey?”
“There's also the question of just who leaked the information in the first place,” the lawyer said.
“Another reason to keep this business close to the vest,” the colonel said.
“You might also want to consider the fact that this guy might be waiting for a news story,” Molly offered, her stomach off on a roil again. “If he is, indeed, what we think he is—” Okay, so she wasn't as brave as she wanted to be “—one of his goals is to relive the moment. Lots of news coverage helps him do just that.”
“Fine,” the colonel said with a sharp nod. “
You
talk to her.”
“She is
not
talking to her,” Winnie snapped.
Considering the fact that she'd said about all she wanted to on the subject, Molly sat back and doodled on her notepad, trying to think what she could do. More truthfully, what she could do that would inconvenience her the least.
Inconvenience. Nice euphemism for preventing the shrieks. Molly had to get that new therapist, and fast. She had the feeling her stress level was just about to go critical.
It took Molly a minute to notice that the meeting was breaking up. The chief of detectives shook hands with the lawyer, and the anthropologist nodded curtly to Billy, who seemed tickled. Nobody seemed to feel the need to bother with Rhett or Molly, which meant that they were the first ones through the door.
“When do you want to sit down and talk?” he asked as they walked the short hall back to where Molly shared an office with the other four investigators.
“How 'bout when hell freezes over?” Molly asked. “When the Cubs win the World Series. When St. Louis goes Republican. When the mayor—”
“Molly.”
Stepping into the investigator's room, Molly sighed. “What are you doing now?” she asked.
Rhett kind of gaped. “Now?”
Molly glared at him. “Ever had a tooth pulled? Better to slam that door really fast.”
Rhett's smile was at once sorry and chagrined. “This isn't going to be anywhere near really fast, Mol.”
“Which is why we should do it right away,” she said. “If we don't, by the time you catch me I'll have moved to Oregon.”
Since Kevin was taking call today, none of the other investigators were on. The room, stuffed with untidy desks, a sprung black Naugahyde couch
for night shifts, and a portable black-and-white TV perennially turned to ESPN, seemed unnaturally still. Molly had some paperwork she had to catch up on. She had follow-up calls to make, and notes to transcribe from her last shift. And she had Rhett standing patiently at her side waiting to pick her brain apart.
She wanted to ask Rhett if he could wait until she found herself a new shrink before he started, but as picky as she was, by the time she had any luck, she'd be in Oregon and Rhett would have to get a flight warrant on her.
So she attempted one of those calming breaths, and she picked up the papers she'd left on her desk.
“Come along, Mr. Butler,” she said, turning on her heel. “I believe it's our turn to dance.”
Rhett didn't get it, but he followed, palming his homicide hat onto his head. “We're not going to sit out in your backyard again, are we?” he asked a bit faintly.
Molly always made it a point to sit in the backyard when talking about cases. She hated to talk about culpability and guilt in that stony house. But the wind was blowing and the temperatures were dropping again. She guessed it wouldn't help to refrigerate her homicide officer.
“You're not going to drag me over to interrogation?”
Rhett's smile was way too old for that face. “Only if I thought it would intimidate you into revealing surprises. I don't think I'd have any luck.”
Molly laughed this time. “Once you've had sex in an interrogation room, they just aren't that intimidating anymore, Rhett.”
Rhett goggled. “What?”
“We'll go to my house,” she said, walking on by. “It's a much scarier place.”
“Sex?” he demanded. “At the
station
?”
But Molly decided he didn't need an answer.
On her way by Winnie's office, Molly dropped a set of papers on the desk and kept an identical set in her hand. The party was still breaking up in the conference room. Winnie caught sight of Molly and stopped whatever conversation she was having.
“You refer any questions at all to this office. You understand?”

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