The Avenger (29 page)

Slater logged off the computer and turned around. "But he may not know why he wrote them. Or what they mean."

Jack ran with the idea. "On the other hand, if he did know what the notes were being used for, he could be charged with accessory to murder. Hell, even murder one. Would your district attorney go for that?"

Slater winced. "Charlie Barrington isn't a risk-taker. He wants to be sure he can win the case before he files charges. Wouldn't want to ruin his conviction rate." He smirked. "He'd rather pass the case off to the feds – to you."

Jack blew out a disgusted breath, pissed as hell that Burrows might stand between them and a madman. "I won't settle for a pawn in the killer's game. I want the DLK himself."

Slater squinted off into the distance and spoke slowly. "Burrows knows he's going to go down on multiple assault charges. Why would he hold back on the notes?"

"Unless he doesn't know anything about the murders," Jack mused slowly.

"It's been all over the news," Slater argued. "How could he not know anything?"

"Oh, he knows about the murders," Jack explained, sitting straighter in his chair, "but we didn't release the information about the notes to the press. If Ted wrote them for someone else, he probably has no idea what he's done or what deep shit he's in."

Slater relaxed and smiled. "You thinking we could make little Teddy piss his pants?"

Jack swiped his hand over his jaw and walked to the window where he could see his reflection staring back at him. He badly needed a shave. And a nice hot shower. He thought of Olivia, hidden away and sleeping safely, and put the image aside before turning back to Slater. "Let's get Burrows back in here. See what we can sweat out of him."

"Without his lawyer?"

Jack kept his expression inscrutable, hoping that Slater wouldn't argue civil rights crap. "A lawyer always complicates the situation."

After a moment, holding Jack's eyes in a neutral stare, Slater nodded. "True. And we don't really care about tainting the evidence against Burrows because we've got him solid for assault." He paused and lifted an eyebrow. "Unless you think he's good for the murders too?"

"Nah, he's not that clever, no matter what his opinion of himself is."

Jack thought of the pretty blonde still in the hospital since they'd rescued her from Burrows' house. And the redhead from his vision whom they'd likely never find. "What about the girl?"

"She's awake now and singing like a sweet little bird about Ted's kinky sex practices."

"Let's go for it," Jack said. Hell, whatever information they squeezed out of Burrows wouldn't alter the assault convictions. But he might lead them to the person he wrote the notes for. "A little pressure would go a long way with Burrows, don't you think?"

Slater rose from his chair and reached for his shoulder holster. "Hell yes."

Jack smiled and the twisting of his lips felt feral. "If we threaten him, he'll cave like a piece of wet cardboard."

#

Less than thirty minutes after Jack and Slater decided to re-interview Ted Burrows, he entered the interrogation room dressed in an orange jumpsuit and flanked by two deputies. He shuffled into the room like a broken puppet, uncertainty supplanting his former cockiness. Jack almost felt sorry for him. Until he recalled the calloused way he'd used half a dozen women, filming them in their most vulnerable positions and likely getting off on watching those tapes over and over.

He pulled out a chair and eyed Burrows with disgust. "Have a seat, Ted." Jack turned on the recorder and took the chair opposite him while Slater stood behind him. They agreed that Jack would spearhead the interrogation.

"For the record, Ted, we reiterate that you have waived your right to have an attorney present during this interview." Jack paused. "Is that correct?"

"Asshole wasn't doing me any good," Ted mumbled.

Jack decided to play good cop, at least initially. "Would you please speak up?" He turned the recorder in Ted's direction. "Is that an affirmative response?"

"Yeah."

"Please state your name for the record," Jack went on, "and make a statement to the fact that you've waived the right to counsel for the duration of this questioning unless you stipulate otherwise."

After Burrows made the requisite acknowledgments into the recorder, Jack began. "We're here to help you, Ted."

"Sure you are." Burrows slouched lower in the chair, likely trying to summon sarcasm but instead sounding pathetic.

"There's a problem, though," Jack continued as if Ted hadn't spoken. "We're pretty sure you know something about the person who killed Keisha Johnson."

He checked for a reaction, but Ted slumped forward against the table, all fight gone out of him. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah."

Jack tossed a look at Slater, now leaning against the south wall and shaking his head in disgust. Jack tried again. "Keisha was your girlfriend, isn't that correct?"

Surprise flitted across Ted's face. "How'd you know that?" Under Jack's steely stare, he lowered his eyes and mumbled. "Yeah, all right. So what?"

"Did you ever film her while you were having sex?"

Ted shook his head.

"Answer verbally please."

"No," he muttered. Then, understanding that more was required of him, he added, "Keisha wasn't into that kind of stuff. She was a straight-up prude."

"All right then, let's talk about the Latin notes."

Burrows squirmed in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and jiggled it back and forth. The fingers of one hand tapped a staccato beat on the table. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Jack contradicted him. "Sure you do. We know you wrote the notes, Ted." He reached across the table and clamped down hard on the hand Burrows rested on the table.

The movement stopped.

"We have concrete evidence to that fact," Jack continued. "We just don't know who you wrote them for."

Burrows looked up, a flash of fear crossing his face. Was he afraid of whoever he wrote the notes for?

"We can give you police protection, if that's what you're worried about," Slater said.

"Are you worried about Diego Vargas?" Jack asked, taking a stab in the dark.

"I don't know who the hell you're talking about." Ted began shaking his head, back and forth, until Jack thought it'd jerk right off his neck.

With an impatient slap, Slater stepped away from the wall, squatted down beside Burrows, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Snap out of it. We know you wrote the notes." His voice had taken on the bad-cop tone. "If you're afraid of Vargas, you can get protective custody."

"If you don't give up the name of your accomplice, we'll charge you with the murders," Jack warned, "and you'll take the rap for the whole thing."

Ted jumped up from the chair and backed into the corner, his eyes wild with shock, his face twitching like a cornered rat. "Murder?" he shouted, spittle forming at the edges of his mouth. "Murder? What the fuck are you talking about?" His eyes darted about the room like a trapped animal as he sank to the floor.

Slater took one arm and Jack the other and manhandled Ted. Tired of the subtle approach, Jack shoved him down hard into the chair. As far as he was concerned, Ted was as guilty as the actual killer. "Three people have been murdered in my jurisdiction." He spat out the words. "Either you give us the name of the person who asked you to write the Latin notes or ... "

Jack pounded his fist on the table and watched Ted flinch. "Or we'll charge you for all three murders. You'll do federal time, Teddy, and it'll be straight time." He circled the prisoner, leaning over him so his voice was close to Burrows' ear. "We feds don't do early parole or time off for good behavior. You'll do every single year of twenty to life on three separate counts. That's sixty years minimum."

Burrows' eyes blinked rapidly and he worked his mouth like an old man gumming his food.

Jack continued circling the chair, letting his size threaten as much as his words. "I'll see to it that you serve your time in the hardest federal penitentiary we have." He paused and brought his face nose to nose with Ted. "Do you think I'm talking out my ass?"

"N- no, man, no." Ted sputtered.

Jack hissed through his teeth. "Then who the hell is the fucker you wrote the goddamn notes for?"

Burrows crossed his arms in front of his face as if afraid Jack would punch him. "It was Randy!"

"Randy?" Jack and Slater spoke simultaneously, and Jack heard the surprise in Slater's voice echo his own.

"Who's Randy?" Jack asked.

"Randolph, Dr. Howard Randolph." Now that Ted had begun, the words tumbled out of his mouth unchecked. "I'm his T.A. I grade his papers and teach a few classes for him. He asked me to write some sentences in Latin for him. I didn't think anything about it, it was no big deal, I swear, he's not so good with Latin grammar, he's more the culture and history expert, so I figured why not?"

He stopped suddenly in a great whoosh as if he'd run out of breath.

From the guilty look on Ted's face, Jack figured there had to be something else between him and the professor. "What else did you and Dr. Randolph do together?"

Burrows' eyes darted around the room, lighting everywhere but on his interrogators. "We – he – sometimes he'd watch when ... " Ted's voice trailed off.

Icy fingers ran down Jack's spine as he realized what the relationship between the two men was. Understood the purpose of the room adjacent to Ted's bedroom, the room with the peephole in the wall.

"Son of a bitch," Slater said.

"You sick excuse for a man," Jack snarled. "You drugged women, lured them to your apartment, and Randolph watched while you had sex with them."

While blood roared in Jack's ears, hot and heavy, Slater's deep baritone sounded calm. "Just who is this Dr. Randolph? Where can we find him?"

"I don't know where he lives, somewhere south of here. He's a hella rich dude, lives in a big mansion or something." Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, Burrows dropped the other shoe.

"Maybe Dr. Gant knows. Randy shares an office at the university with her."

Chapter Twenty-six

For a moment Howard Randolph forgot where he was. Forgot about the blowsy blonde who lay beside him on the stained sheets of a two-bit motel in a run-down section of West Sacramento.

He stared at the thick, dark fluid on his hands. Splattered on his naked torso. He raised his eyes to the mirror across the room and the face that looked back was speckled with drops of gore and something else. Bits of flesh? He dropped his eyes to his fists, scraped and bloody.

The woman from the bar had bedeviled him, spun a spell around his civilized brain that unleashed the basest part of him. He could think of no other explanation.

His eyes skipped down to his shriveled penis.

If she hadn't giggled ...

Hurriedly, he showered and wiped down everything he'd touched – the headboard, the dresser, the stained sink in the bathroom where the toilet had run throughout the entire episode. He gathered his clothes and tossed one last look around the room. The whore's pulpy face mocked him from her position on the bed.

She shouldn't have laughed.

He performed a few deep breathing exercises, calmed himself, and eased out of the room. Nothing but a speed bump in the road. A short foray into the randy enticements of a low-born slut wasn't his fault and he wouldn't allow it to sidetrack him.

The drive south of Sacramento to his isolated, three-story home offered plenty of time for him to finalize his plan. When he arrived, he destroyed every trace of his sacrifices, all evidence of his punishments. The furnace in the basement of the stone mansion roared for a long time with the flames of his deeds.

His decision to eliminate everything calmed him further, made him feel untouchable again. As peace washed over him, he poured a glass of Pinot Noir and relaxed in the den. He hadn't felt such serenity since the first time, over four years ago. A girl, he remembered. She was one of the many who broke their vows of chastity and fidelity.

After he'd dug the shallow grave and placed her body in it, the vein at her neck still pulsating with life, he'd experienced a satisfaction he'd never known before, the greatest tranquility. He knew he'd taken the first step on his Path, the first rung on the ladder of his holy mission.

He'd ignored the thundering arousal the experience brought.

The answer to his current dilemma was so simple he wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. Only one obstacle thwarted his chosen Path, only one person stood in the way between mortality and transfiguration.
Olivia Gant.

She'd plagued him from the beginning, he now realized. With her sensuous body and her come-hither looks, she'd wanted nothing more than to seduce him. Desired nothing less than complete capitulation from him. He'd thought her cute, innocent, harmless. Virginal, even.

And he'd held her at bay for several months. But no more. In a flash of revelation, he understood that Olivia was meant to be his final sacrifice. His greatest offering.

#

The deputies escorted Burrows to his jail cell while Slater dug in to find out everything they could about Dr. Howard Randolph. Torres, whose computer skills were much better than anyone else's, pitched in to help. The only thing she muttered while hunched over the keyboard was "Damn, I really liked Vargas for this."

Apparently Diego Vargas and his henchman Santos had crossed the southern border on an unexpected trip to Mexico. "I'll get the bastard sooner or later," Torres said.

Jack left the precinct while she cross-referenced the university's school calendar over the past five years against the dates for the deaths of the first five victims. Jack knew his own time was better used another way.
Tracking.

Finding a timeline for the deaths and referencing that against the professor's leaves of absence or sabbaticals, or hell, just plain sick days made no difference to Jack.

He knew what he knew
.

Although he had no hard evidence to persuade a skeptical district attorney, his infallible instinct told him they'd found the Dead Language Killer. Not Bill Gant, not Diego Vargas, but Howard Randolph. Let Slater and Torres check for alibis and addresses. Let them find the probable cause necessary for a judge to sign an arrest warrant. Let them get a search warrant and tear Randolph's house apart to find enough evidence for Barrington to bring charges.