Savage Art (A Chilling Suspense Novel) (7 page)

Tapp raised his hand and halted Jordan mid-sentence. "I told you I'd think about it. In the meantime, put together a task force."

Jordan started to speak again when Tapp picked up his phone and turned his back.

"Bye, Gray," he said before punching a few numbers and speaking to someone. "I need the records on the Great Western robbery/homicide, please."

Jordan clenched his fists and removed himself from the office. As he shut the captain's door behind him, he couldn't help feeling like he'd had the air punched from his lungs. What the hell was going on? Sending the file to Quantico should have been the next step.

His head lowered, Jordan moved toward the exit.

"Rough meeting?"

Jordan looked up to see his old patrol partner, Harry McClerkin, walk up beside him. Harry was built almost exactly like Jordan—six-four and slender. People used to joke about them being brothers. Apart from the fact that Jordan was black and Harry Irish, it was an easy enough mistake to make. The two men had been inseparable for six years. They'd been split up since, Jordan moving into the homicide department of the inspector division, Harry working narcotics and some white-collar stuff. But they still got together to exchange ideas or discuss station politics, and Harry was a member of the five-man card game on Thursday nights.

Unlike most partners, Harry and Jordan saw eye-to-eye on almost everything. Besides saving each other's lives on more than one occasion, their first children were born within three months of each other, their second within a year. And Harry and his wife had separated only two months before Angie went back to L.A. "Rough isn't the word," Jordan commented.

Harry slapped his back. "Let's go to Sal's. I'm buying."

Jordan shook his head. "Shit. I don't even know if I could eat."

Harry shook his head and motioned for the door. "Nothing's that bad. Remember the ice robber?"

Jordan nodded. When he and Harry had first started out as inspectors, there had been a string of six armed robberies in Pacific Heights. Before leaving each residence, the perp had removed all the ice from the freezer, placed it in bowls, and ordered his victims to stick their hands and feet in it without moving for forty minutes. The perp had claimed he could tell if they moved and would come back and shoot them.

One older woman had done as he told her and was hospitalized for frostbite. She ended up with gangrene and one foot had to be amputated. Eventually, the gangrene had killed her.

"You ate through that one," Harry added.

"We had living witnesses for that one."

Harry opened the door and headed out into the street. McClerkin and Gray had done some of their best work at Sal's, sitting at a booth in the back corner, thinking through cases without the distraction of phone calls or other officers. Sal had treated them like family, eventually putting up a "reserved" sign on the corner table on the days he expected them. Seven months ago, though, Sal had dropped dead of a heart attack. Jordan guessed he'd eaten too much of his own food.

Since then, the place had lost most of its charm. The yellow walls seemed pasty and sick colored. The new owner, Sal's son, Tony, dressed like a pimp and had a series of nasty-looking characters around the place. All of the old staff except one cook had left. And Tony didn't seem to appreciate his cop clientele like Sal had.

Jordan suspected pissing off Tony was the single reason Harry still ate there. It certainly wasn't because the food was good. And the once bad coffee now tasted like caffeinated swamp water.

At ten-thirty in the morning, the place was almost empty. Tony was nowhere to be seen, and Jordan suspected he was still sleeping off whatever nighttime activities he was partaking of these days. Harry led them to the back table and sat down, hailing the waitress for two coffees.

The woman showed up with two mugs and a pot of coffee, pouring without the slightest pause. "You want to look at the menu?"

Jordan hadn't looked at Sal's menu in years. "Two eggs over easy and a side of toast—wheat, no butter."

Harry held up two fingers. "Make it two."

The waitress nodded and walked away, mumbling something under her breath.

Jordan stared after her.

"So what's going on?"

Jordan looked over at his friend and shook his head. "This kid killing case is a nightmare. I want to send the files to Quantico."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "And Tapp said no." It was less a question than a statement.

Jordan took a long sip of coffee, eyeing his friend. Jordan knew when Harry was holding something back. "What the hell's going on?"

Harry cast a glance over his shoulder and leaned forward. The gesture was so familiar, Jordan could have smiled. Instead, he leaned forward and listened.

"Way I heard it, Chief Jackson had some kind of fight with the director after the way the Mail Killer went."

"Which director?"

"FBI."

"Purcell?"

Harry nodded. "You remember how fucked up things got when they brought the FBI in. Jackson went ape. FBI criticized the way the department handled the evidence and the investigation, but Jackson's convinced they were the ones that screwed things up. Made us look like morons."

"It's been almost two years."

"Department still gets hammered over that one."

"We got hammered over Stinson, too, and we didn't have the FBI on that one."

McClerkin shrugged.

Jordan shook his head. "I can't get help from FBI because Jackson's afraid they'll screw something up and we'll take the rap?"

Harry took another glance over his shoulder. "That's what it looks like."

"What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Harry shrugged. "You're fucked, basically."

"Thanks, asshole."

McClerkin grinned. "My pleasure."

"You have any bright ideas?" Jordan asked.

He shrugged. "Not much of one."

"I'm listening."

They paused as the waitress brought their plates. She set one down in front of each man and then said, "Hmm. I hope I got those right. Well, you can always switch them." She chortled and sauntered off.

"Smart ass," Harry called after her.

She grinned back at him.

Jordan smiled, then looked back at his friend. "You were saying?"

"I figure when the case gets bad, Tapp will get desperate enough to go to Jackson."

"And I'm supposed to sit on my ass until then."

"There's one more thing."

Jordan swallowed a bite of eggs and washed it down with coffee. "What?"

"Remember that lecture series we went to a year ago February?"

Jordan shrugged. "Vaguely."

"You'll remember this one. The hot woman who gave the lecture on FBI profiling—McKinley?"

"Yeah, I remember her."

"Well, she was attacked."

"Attacked? Like mugged?"

McClerkin took another bite and shook his head. "No, like the killer she was profiling found her."

"Holy shit. She dead?"

"No. He cut her up pretty good, but her partner happened into the hall of the apartment building and heard something strange from her place. He broke in and saved her—lost the perp, though."

"Jesus. So, how's that going to help me?"

"She's here."

"Where?"

"Living in the Oakland Hills. On permanent disability."

Jordan pushed his plate away as an image of Casey McKinley cut apart like the little black girl entered his brain and ruined his appetite. "How bad is she?"

"Mentally fine, I hear. Physically not as good. It's been a year, and she still can't use her hands for shit."

"How do you know about this?"

"Her husband worked in legal at Drehman Securities with my sister while he was out here."

"Where's he now?"

"McKinley sent him back to Virginia about six months ago."

Jordan clenched his jaw. Women didn't make anything easy, he'd learned that much. At least he had sons. Didn't know what he would have done with daughters. "What makes you think she can help?"

"You remember her. She knew what she was doing."

"Fine, what makes you think she
will
help?"

McClerkin scraped up the rest of his eggs and swallowed without chewing. "That, I don't know."

"They catch the guy?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope."

"What kind of killer?"

Harry's gaze met his. "Guy into some sick shit, from what I got through the grapevine."

Jordan watched his old partner, thankful to have the man on his side. Harry had always gathered information like a squirrel gathered nuts. Even when they had worked together, Jordan had been unable to figure out where the information came from. Every time they were stuck on a case, though, Harry seemed to draw a shell full of information from his pocket to move them forward. "Sick? Like what, children?"

Harry shook his head. "No."

"Then, what?"

"His victims were all lower-class women—a model working as a waitress, a prostitute, a stripper, and one more—I can't remember."

Jordan didn't move. "So?"

Harry grinned like a child caught eating candy before dinner. "So, before this guy, McKinley's record was perfect. Thirty-seven cases, thirty-seven arrests, all within something like three months of being called in. Some kind of FBI record."

"Wow," Jordan mumbled. Only the police realized how truly remarkable a record like that was. Murder cases rarely got solved as fast as the public believed they should. Witnesses took time to interview, subjects to interrogate, not to mention evidence to gather. And DNA processing took at least six weeks.

"Told you she was great." Harry loved to draw out his information, like a man telling a great story, savoring each tidbit.

"There's more?" Jordan was growing impatient.

"His signature."

Jordan motioned for more coffee, knowing that his lack of attention would push McClerkin toward the punch line faster than anything else.

"A guy fixated with the scalpel."

Jordan glanced back at Harry. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, this last guy cut his victims apart, just like they were on an autopsy table—only they weren't. They were alive."

The waitress arrived with more coffee and poured.

Jordan thought about the bandages wrapped around the heads of his victims. "My victims are children. It doesn't fit."

McClerkin shrugged and raised one eyebrow. "Still, your guy is right up her alley. And I've got her address for you."

Chapter 5

Billy pulled the car into the driveway and heaved a dramatic sigh. "I'm not kidding, Casey. I refuse to take you shopping when you act like that."

"Enough, Billy. You've already said it ten times since we left the store."

"But you nearly killed that woman. I swear, I thought she was going to have a heart attack."

Ignoring Billy's ranting, Casey trained her eyes on the foreign black Ford Explorer parked across the street. Dark eyes peered back. Her internal alarms sounding, Casey scanned the license plate. "2EXP479," she said out loud, committing it to memory.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Casey ignored Billy and opened the car door. Pushing herself up with her fists, she stood and moved toward the house.

"What's the rush?" Billy called after her.

Without answering him, she let herself into the house and followed the emergency directions. Phone in hand, she punched number one and listened impatiently to the programmed dial.

"Rick Swain," came the computerized voice.

"Casey McKinley at 1421 Canyon Drive. Black Ford Explorer, California, number 2EXP479." She hung up and turned around.

With a terrified glance over his shoulder, Billy shuffled inside and locked the door, dropping the bags in the kitchen. "Who's out there? I told you, you should just get a good alarm—like normal people."