Swan Song (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series) (22 page)

“Sure, what kind?”

“I need the name of an expert on stalkers and rapists.”

“Are you and Joe still investigating Dianna Wieland’s death?”

“Not officially and not the two of us.
Joe has already made his report to the Wielands. However, I’m not personally ready to let Dianna’s case go. I’m convinced that she had a stalker, John. I need a better understanding of this sort of person. Do you know an expert?”

“Yes. I’d recommend Lyle Jordan. He’s a Forensic Psychologist that I’ve used a couple times in the past. He’s brilliant.”

* * * * * 

Chapter 52

J
ulie arrived early for her four-thirty appointment with Dr. Lyle Jordan, sensitive to the fact that he was squeezing her in at the end of his day. She’d had no difficulty locating Dr. Jordan’s tucked-away house with her phone’s GPS directions. The home was a two-story Victorian in Windermere, a unique little enclave sandwiched by the pristine lakes of the Butler chain. The man’s office was an after thought, an attached one-floor wing.

Julie rang the bell and Jordan himself came to the door to let her in. He was a senior,
graying and somewhat stooped. He wore a white shirt; open at the collar, its short sleeves exposing forearms covered with age spots. There was a faint odor escaping on his breath that caused Julie to wonder if he might be ill.

She gave him her card and followed him through a small anteroom into his private office. Dr. Jordan pulled out the comfortable leather chair that bore his outline, and sat behind his desk. All four walls were lined with books and various degrees and certification. Two of them had windows with woodland views. It was a warm room for a studious occupant. He motioned for her to take a chair.

“So you have an interest in stalkers, I understand, Ms. O’Hara.”

Julie presumed that John had given Lyle Jordan that information.

“Yes. In connection with a death, Dr. Jordan. Do you recall the case of Dianna Wieland, whose body was found several months ago at Lake Eola Park?”

“Yes, indeed. The swan boat,” he said.
“So intriguing! Like the madrigal by Orlando Gibbons. Do you know it?”

Julie shook her head. She had no idea what he was talking about.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Hold on,” he said, standing. He turned and removed a book from the case behind him and began flipping through it. “Yes. Here it is.
The Silver Swan
…”

‘The silver swan,
who living had no Note,
When Death approached
unlocked her silent throat.’

“I don’t know what made me think of it. But it seems apropos, doesn’t it?” he said.

“Very.”

“Yes. Well, then,” said Dr. Jordan, replacing the book. “John Tate told me that you’ve been working on an investigative team for the victim’s parents. How can I assist you?”

Julie decided that it would be unproductive to mention that the investigation was closed and she was no longer part of a team.

“It seems unlikely, Doctor, that Dianna Wieland committed suicide. It is also unlikely, in my opinion, that her death was a random crime. That leads me to believe that she may have had a stalker. I hoped you could help me develop a profile of such a person, Dr. Jordan.”

“Well, first, I would have to say that you are going to need more information, Ms. O’Hara. That is much easier to come by when you have a
live
victim, of course. There are five broad categories of stalkers, you see.”

Julie pulled out a notebook and a pen.

“Can you describe them, briefly?”

“All right,” he said, thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. “Of course, stalkers are male and female, both young and old. It’s all about obsession. Usually, their behavior gets worse over time. Stalking can be triggered by anger, sex, power or merely a desire for intimacy with the victim. It can range from repeated phone calls to extreme violence.

“When you don’t have input from the victim, you have to examine very carefully all the rest of the available information. So, let’s proceed by elimination, Ms. O’Hara,” he said, leaning forward, “keeping in mind, of course, that this is
conjecture
.”

“Of course,” said Julie

“I think we’re probably safe to assume that the stalker here would be a male, since the victim was female. A question: Have all the men in her life been examined…including prior relationships?”

“Yes,” said Julie. “They’ve all been cleared.”

“All right. That type, as you may have guessed, is known as the Rejected Suitor, a man who can’t take it when a relationship ends. Another type I think we can rule out is the Intimacy Seeker. They are generally delusional and looking for love.

“The Incompetent Suitor is also not as prone to violence. He’s a man who has asked a woman out on a date and been rejected. His main goal is to change a woman’s mind through persistent stalking behavior which he thinks of as ‘courting’.

“I would say that the most likely candidate would be one of these two:

“The very dangerous one that you see in the movies, the Predatory Stalker, is actually not as common as people think. This is a man who picks a random woman, gathers information and carefully plans a sexual attack on her. He’s likely to be a repeat offender and will kill his victim to cover his crime.

“The other one would be the Resentful Stalker. This one is angry. He’s been humiliated by his victim, although
she
may not have perceived it that way. In the beginning - unaware of his obsession problem – his victim may have been nice to him. But when he inevitably becomes intrusive, she puts her foot down
.
Suddenly, in
his
eyes,
he
becomes a victim. He’s looking for power and control over the woman who caused him to feel that way, usually by rape.”

He stole a quick look at his watch, but continued politely.

“Something I can’t stress enough, Ms. O’Hara: These are very
general
classifications and not everyone agrees with my opinions on them. You must also take into consideration that we are talking about mentally ill people. Stalking behavior escalates and
any
of them are capable of murder under certain circumstances.”

“I understand, Dr. Jordan,” said Julie, sensing the man’s exhaustion. She put away her notes and stood. “It was so nice of you to take the time to explain this complicated subject to me. I can’t thank you enough. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Not at all. It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, as he escorted her to the door. “I wish you success in your investigation. If you need anything more, please call me.”

Julie had a much clearer picture of Dianna’s killer in mind and a plan to find him.

She tossed her zippered purse into her Volkswagen and then sat, back first, in the driver’s seat. She eased her healing left leg in last.

Look out, you sick son-of-a-bitch.

I’m coming…

* * * * * 

Chapter
53

J
ulie carried a small digital recorder in her purse and – as usual – she had been speaking into it as she drove back to the office, recording the highlights of her meeting with the forensic psychologist. She was nearly done with her recap, as she reached the Downtown area.

“Whoever killed Dianna was unpracticed and clumsy. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have ended up with the knife. That doesn’t fit the profile of the ‘Predatory Stalker’ as described by Dr. Jordan.
The most likely fit for this suspect is the ‘Resentful Stalker’, the one who felt ‘humiliated’.”

She hit the “pause” button and thought for a moment.

Humiliated…who had Dianna humiliated?

She hit “record”.

“Dr. Jordan said that, in the beginning, she ‘may have been nice to him,
unaware
of his obsession.’ So, at some point, Dianna realized what she was dealing with, and she ‘put her foot down’. She pissed him off…maybe embarrassed him. She didn’t think it was a big deal…but
he
did.
That’s
the man I’m looking for.”

Julie shut off the recorder and dropped it back in her purse as she pulled into the bricked parking area in front of her office.

Luz was at her desk typing something on the computer when Julie walked in. She turned and smiled.

“Hi! You had a few calls, Julie. I put them on your desk.”

“Okay, Luz. Thank you,” said Julie, hurrying into her office. She was eager to go over the notes of her interviews in Dianna’s file - an elusive memory of something there - but first, she addressed the three pink call slips.

Sue Chenoweth,
her editor.

I’ll call her later. She’ll be happy to know that I’ve almost finished the rewrite.

Attorney John Tate.

I’ve got to call him, too. Glad there’s a couple weeks before that jury gets impaneled.

Joe:
“Gone to catch bugs with Will for a couple days. Call you when I get back.”

Julie sat down at her desk, amused. She felt a bit envious, too. Joe had gone to Miami to visit his friend, Will Sawyer, who had a twenty-six foot Newton boat. Will and his buddies were going to the Keys for their annual lobster dive. Last year, Julie had enjoyed hanging out with Carolyn Sawyer and the other women, and their elaborate lobster cook-out on the beach.

It’s my own fault he didn’t invite me…

In order to cover her continued investigation of Dianna’s death, Julie had told Joe that she was “swamped” with work, that she “wouldn’t have any free time until August”.

Joe would have been insulted and upset that she was continuing the investigation on her own. He would have rightly called her
obsessed
.

Julie reached for Dianna’s file in the straw basket on her desk.

Maybe it takes one to catch one…

She lifted it out and began to read the notes, regretting that she didn’t have Luz type them. The digital recorder plugged directly into her computer and a software program printed them out. The only problem was that her notes came out in a stream, frequently without punctuation, which made them hard to read.

No matter, it’s in here somewhere. What the hell was it?

Julie skipped the parents’ initial interview. As an adult, Dianna had kept the
Wielands in the dark about her life. Her background with Lincoln Tyler only eliminated him as a suspect. There was nothing there that pointed to her killer.

Evelyn Hoag was a different matter, and Julie went over every bit of that material from the first meeting in Porter’s office to the second one at her own condo. Although she was unable to find anything specific in her notes, Julie was convinced that Evelyn might know more.

I’ll meet with her again.

Sabrina Nolen and Barry Costello.
Julie scanned their interviews quickly.

There’s nothing with Sabrina. I think she and Dianna were on the “outs” - probably over Mike
Menello - they weren’t seeing much of each other. But Barry? If I can specifically jog his memory, he may remember somebody at the YMCA paying extra attention to Dianna. That makes sense…a stalker could have joined in the activities over there.

Kate Winslow. This was a very rich interview. Julie reread it, word-for-word, correcting the missing punctuation in her head:

“Kate was ‘burned’ by two experienced agents.”

Irrelevant.
Doesn’t relate to Dianna.

“Dianna went to UCF, was a Business Admin major. She was a partner for five years…”

Too long out of college to have met a stalker there.

“Kate called Mike
Menello a natural-born liar.”

True, but he didn’t stalk and kill Dianna.

“She said that Dianna was in love, ‘over the moon’.”

Right…with Lee Porter…who didn’t kill her, either.

“Kate kidded Dianna about her pal, Hal, but she was teasing.”

Wait a minute…back up.

Hal?

Julie’s heart beat quickened. There it was… the elusive note she had made that had stuck in the back of her mind. She had asked if Dianna’s clients, apart from
Menello, were happy. Kate had replied that they were, that “one fellow was too happy. He took up Dianna’s time for two weekends before she realized that he couldn’t afford a garage”.

“Too” happy.
A man looking at houses by himself. A man who can’t afford a house.

A man named Hal.

Julie grabbed Bay Street Realty’s brochure and began dialing.

* * * * * 

Chapter
54

“W
ho was that, again?” asked Kate Winslow.

They were sitting at a teak mini-conference table in Kate’s spacious inner office at Bay Street Realty. Out of habit, she had directed Julie to a seat facing the windows which looked out on a small pond filled with reeds and backed with pines. A blue heron stood motionless in the shallows unseen by Kate, who sat with her back to the lovely, unspoiled
view.