The Christmas Killer (30 page)

Caffeine and adrenaline were keeping them going. Jake and Mills had already spent three hours poring over old files and reports. Missing people from three decades ago were being cross-checked with the seventeen skeletons that had been recovered from the graveyard the day before. And there were constant intrusions from the press, local and regional – and some of the regional guys were having their stories picked up by Associated Press. Pretty soon more eyes than ever were going to be squinting at Littleton, Indiana.

Most of the remains were relatively old, but one skeleton still had much of the flesh attached and was in a summer dress similar to one Jake had seen Leigh wear only two years previously. It gave him hope that there would be a missing persons file in the database that could give him a break in this thing. But the database was stubbornly throwing up nothing at all, and Jake was getting frustrated. That’s why he had volunteered for the coffee run.

As he walked up the steps to the station carrying two
coffees and a box of Danish, he felt a little lighter, a little less tense. His eyes had stopped aching, and he was thinking he might have a shot at looking at things again. He might see something he had missed before. Or, failing that, his time out of the station might have coincided with a miracle. Maybe Mills had found among the bones a hastily written note from a victim, identifying his or her murderer.

Had any cop
ever
been that lucky?

But when Jake used his toe to open the station door, he almost turned and left. Gail Greene was waiting for him in the lobby.

Not today. It’s bad enough without you.

He took a deep breath and walked up to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began, but she was saying the same thing.

They looked at each other and shared a smile.

‘I was a bit harsh on you the other day,’ she said.

‘I deserved it. I stepped way over a line, and Johnny paid for it.’

‘You can’t be held responsible for another man’s actions,’ she said.

Jake didn’t know what to say next. His tongue had gone dry.

‘Coffee?’ he said.

‘That’s sweet of you. Want to go for a walk?’

Five minutes later they were sitting on a public bench overlooking City Hall, the box of Danish between
them. The weather was sharp but dry. Jake was just in his jacket and could feel the cold. Gail was dressed for the weather in a big coat and gloves.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t take you somewhere nicer, but a cop’s salary doesn’t go far,’ he joked.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Gail turned to Jake and asked, ‘Do you have any contacts among the team investigating the Chase Asylum thing?’

He looked surprised. Was this her excuse to come to the station? She could have asked him this over the phone.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been following up a couple of leads on Johnny’s medical history. Turns out, among other places, that he was actually a resident of the Chase Asylum for several months. He was sent there because he had been disruptive in his foster home.’

‘Whoa.’ Jake took a sip of his coffee, which had quickly got cold. It was weird the way cases and circumstances sometimes converged. But he knew that he would drive himself insane looking for hidden meanings, so he did his best to keep his mind clear.

‘I don’t know if it’s relevant or not,’ she said, ‘but I think the people working that case might want to talk to Johnny. He was an in-patient around the time Fred Lumley went missing.’

‘I do know one guy working Springfield,’ said Jake. ‘Colin Reader. I can put you in touch.’

‘Thanks. And it might help Johnny to unburden. He
might have seen things, or suffered things, while he was there. In talking with him I get the strong feeling that the key to his behaviour is in his past. Something is eating away at him, and it might be what happened at the Chase Asylum.’

Jake thought it more than likely. Enough people had already come forward to say that Lumley had abused them. Why not one more?

‘I’m going to see him right now,’ said Gail. ‘Do you want to come along?’

Jake’s instinct was to say no. He didn’t want to upset Johnny by reminding him of what he had done. Or maybe it was his own guilt stopping him.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Gail, clearly registering the look on his face. ‘If there was any chance of setting Johnny back, I wouldn’t have suggested it.’

Jake shrugged. He had nothing on except a quadruple homicide and seventeen bodies from previous decades. And yet at that moment the guilt he felt about Johnny was exerting just as strong a pull. A strange fascination to see the damage he’d caused.

‘OK.’

Also, he wanted to spend more time with Gail.

Johnny Cooper was being held in the secure wing of the psychiatric unit adjacent to Littleton General Hospital. The corridor was bright and airy; Johnny’s room was more spacious and comfortable than the dingy apartment he had occupied up until two days ago. When Jake and Gail looked through his door Johnny was sitting in an armchair, staring up at a television playing reruns of an old sitcom. He had a smile on his face, a smile Jake knew was nothing to do with what was on the screen.

‘They’ve medicated him up to cloud nine,’ he whispered to Gail.

‘What did you expect? He’s been through a lot.’

Jake and Gail went in. Gail sat on the bed. Jake sat on a hard chair on the other side of the room. Johnny kept his eyes on the screen.

‘Hey, Johnny,’ Gail said. ‘How’re you doing?’

He continued to stare.

‘Anything you need?’

Nothing. Jake stood and switched off the television. That might help.

Finally Johnny looked at Gail. ‘Hi, Doc,’ he said. Then he looked at Jake.

‘This is Detective Austin,’ Gail said. ‘Do you remember him?’

Jake shrank back into his seat. Suddenly it felt wrong to be in this room. But Johnny turned back to Gail and didn’t say anything, it was as if he didn’t recognize Jake.

Gail leaned forward and touched his arm. ‘Johnny, I wanted to ask you a few things. Is that OK?’

Johnny said nothing. He just looked down at her hand and nodded.

‘Did you grow up in Indiana?’ Gail asked.

Johnny looked up for a moment, then nodded again,

‘You were fostered?’

‘Fostered in a lot of places. “Like the last dog in the shelter, couldn’t find a permanent home.” What does that mean? Someone once said that to me, but I could never figure out what she meant.’ He smiled.

Gail didn’t smile back. ‘You got in trouble quite a bit.’

‘I did?’ He frowned. ‘I don’t remember. That might be why they put me in the old asylum.’

Jake exchanged a quick glance with Gail.

Johnny’s little smile came back. ‘They’d changed the name to Springfield Hospital,’ he said, his voice a low drone now. ‘But it never stuck. We all knew what it really was.’

‘How old were you then?’

‘Seven? Twelve?’

Jake felt frustrated. This could take for ever. Years of psychiatric problems and strong doses of whatever chemical cocktail he’d been given had left Johnny’s brain screwed.

But Gail persisted. ‘Was anyone ever mean to you in the asylum?’

‘The chef.’

Jake saw Gail grip Johnny’s arm a little tighter as she asked, ‘Did he hurt you? The other kids?’

Johnny nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, he hurt us. Hurt us with his food. It was the worst, Doc. We got fish on Fridays. No one liked fish, but he just kept on giving it to us.’

Jake felt a prickle of futile fury in his throat. Fury that a guy like Johnny, not evil by nature, had to live – or rather exist – stranded between madness and lucidity. Jake wanted to fix him, but there was no fixing this.

Johnny wasn’t finished. ‘But there was one nice nurse. I liked her. A big woman. She had the same name as you.’ He pointed at Jake. ‘Nurse Austin. Nice black woman. She was always smiling, singing to herself. She gave me hugs.’

Jake nodded as the poor crazy bastard rambled on. Then Johnny fell silent for a moment, during which Gail aimed a curious look at Jake. He offered a shrug in response.

‘How’s Benny?’ Johnny asked suddenly. ‘I hope he’ll be all right.’

Gail looked confused.

‘The man he …’ said Jake. ‘Johnny’s
neighbour
,’ he told Gail, hoping she’d get what he was implying.

Gail was as gentle. ‘Johnny, Benny is dead.’

‘Dead?’ said Johnny. ‘He won’t be too happy about that. But maybe it’ll stop him touching me for a buck. The man’s always touching me for money. Do I look rich?’ He stared back at the blank television screen. ‘Dead, you say? Really? Wow …’

Johnny looked quite pleased for a moment.

Because now he has something to be genuinely sorry about.

Gail stood. ‘Bye, Johnny. It was good to see you.’

Jake turned the TV back on then followed Gail from the room.

‘Goodbye, Doc,’ said Johnny, his eyes never leaving the television. ‘Keep safe, Bruce.’

Gail was driving Jake back to the station when it started to snow. Littleton may have been drained of all Christmas spirit, but the sky didn’t give a shit.

Gail was explaining Aquinas syndrome.

‘Like Johnny, the sufferers usually have some sort of paranoid schizophrenia or a delusional disorder,’ she said. ‘They also have deviant sexual desires. Paedophilia and necrophilia are common. That’s why Johnny ejaculated after killing Benny.’

Jake didn’t tell her that he had pretty much figured that out already. He and Gail had only just got back on good terms, and he was going to need her help to anticipate the killer’s next move.

‘There’s one thing you should understand,’ Gail continued. ‘What you did triggered Johnny to act his delusions out. But at that point, given the multitude of problems he has,
anything
could have triggered it. The pressures were building. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. So don’t beat yourself up over it. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Thanks,’ was all Jake could say to that. He appreciated
her attempt to make him feel better, but the truth was, it
had
been his fault. And he would carry that with him, like his ulcer, for a long time to come.

Gail pulled into the police station parking lot and they sat in silence for a few minutes. ‘You don’t want to go back inside,’ she said.

‘Is it that obvious?’

Gail smiled.

‘This one is beating me,’ he told her.

‘Ha! The Jake Austins of this world don’t get beaten.’

‘I used to believe that,’ he said. ‘But if the bodies in the graveyard are linked to the murderer of Marcia, Belinda, Candy and Chuck, then this guy’s a professional who’s been doing this a very long time. If these skeletons are connected to our … fresher vics, then we’re hunting the worst kind of serial killer – someone cold, someone smart enough to change his MO when he knew the churchyard was going to be dug up. A man not motivated by any kind of frenzy, but maybe a twisted intellectual conviction that what he is doing is somehow right and just.’

Gail said nothing but just listened.

‘Of course, the potential length of time these killings are spread over suggests a man of a certain age,’ Jake went on. ‘And men of a certain age become less physically capable. That’s nature. The body breaks down. Could an older guy
really
have overpowered two streetwise women like Candy and Marcia? Marcia had a daughter that she wanted to get home to, a daughter
she
loved
. She would have fought tooth and nail to stay alive. And Chuck Ford would not have been easy either.’

‘A blow to the back of the head with a heavy object can cut anyone down to size,’ Gail offered.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘But what if … what if our guy is a copycat. That would mean he knew about the original murders, murders the police apparently never suspected. But
how
? Is he the son of the original killer, maybe? An “apprentice” of some kind?’

His brain searing with questions that made it hurt, Jake leaned back against the headrest. Each new question left him more confused.

‘He can’t get away with it for ever,’ said Gail, clearly trying to be encouraging.

‘He can,’ Jake replied. ‘If it is just one man, he
has
been getting away with it for ever. Seventeen missing people, and nobody’s alarm bells went
ding
. Not one … The case is so cold now I haven’t a hope.’

‘But if it’s just one man, you could—’

‘It’s a road map of dead ends. I can’t link the victims. I can’t see a motive. I’m pretty much screwed unless I get very, very lucky.’

Gail fell silent. Something about her expression. She was making a decision.

‘What?’ Jake asked, turning to look at her.

Gail nodded once, coming to a decision. ‘I have to tell you something. Maybe I should have said it before,
but it’s hard to break professional trust. Belinda Harper was one of my private patients.’

That got Jake’s attention.

‘She was coming to me because she was depressed. She said she was having an affair with a man in retaliation for the affairs Mitch was having. I tried to tell her that it was a negative, destructive way to deal with the situation, but she wouldn’t stop seeing him.’

‘Wow,’ said Jake.

But where does Chuck Ford fit in?

‘Do you know who she was having the affair with?’ he asked.

‘She would never tell me,’ said Gail.

‘I have to find this guy. He might be unconnected, but I have to track him down. Something he knows, something he’s not even
aware
he knows, might …’

He tailed off when he noticed that Gail was looking at him with concern.

‘You’re burning the candle at both ends,’ she said in answer to his look. ‘You need to step back and let others help you out.’

That would never happen. ‘It’s all on me and Mills. Me, really. Mills seems to be able to brush it off at the end of the day.’

‘The stress is damaging you. I can see it,’ said Gail.

‘I’m fine,’ he insisted, the words appearing to wake up his ulcer, which trickled a bit more acid, as if to say,
Fuck you, Jake. That’s not your call.

‘Really?’ Gail turned to stare straight at him. ‘Who’s looking out for you?’ Her hand had moved, taking hold of his. She was looking into his eyes. Her scent was coiling around his head and neck like a noose.

Who
is
looking out for me?

Jake turned his hand until he was holding hers. He started to lean forward to kiss her. She leaned in too. But Jake felt a pang of guilt stronger than any acid burn. With his free hand he fumbled for the passenger-side door.

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I’m really sorry.’

He got the door open and dragged himself out of the car. He marched across the parking lot, then up the steps and into the station.

He didn’t look back.