The Love Killings (27 page)

CHAPTER 62

Matt ordered two bagels with lox spread to go, along with a large coffee and two sugars. He was standing at the counter, watching TV at one of his old haunts, Deli on a Bagel, in Pennington, New Jersey, about an hour south of Maplewood. He’d just driven by his aunt’s old house. As he cruised down Route 31, heading for I-95 just a few miles south, he spotted the sandwich shop and decided to stop in.

The news channel had just interrupted their broadcast with a special report, and Matt braced himself for news that the FBI had made progress and he wasn’t with them.

But it was something else. The body of a thirty-five-year-old woman had been found in her home in the Northeast last night. Sarah Penchant had been shot and killed, her body not discovered for several days. The police were looking for her boyfriend, Reggie Cook, an ex-con with a history of sexual abuse. Matt looked at Cook’s mug shot on the screen and lost interest. The ex-con looked like a slob. If he’d been on the run for a couple of days, Matt guessed that he was long gone.

The woman behind the counter set down his coffee and a paper bag with his order. Matt walked over, then heard something on the TV and stopped.

“She had a twenty-one-year-old son,” a man was saying. “And they were unusually close. He’s missing, too.”

Matt looked up at the TV, sensing something. A reporter was interviewing the dead woman’s neighbor on the sidewalk—an old man standing before the death house. And he was repeating himself.

“She had a twenty-one-year-old son, and they were unusually close. He’s missing, too.”

The mug shot of Reggie Cook had been replaced with a new one. Matt heard himself let out a groan. His entire body lit up and shivered as he swallowed the image on the screen without chewing it over. The dead eyes that he’d missed at the hotel bar and those blond cornrows.

The face of a mass killer. A mass killer who now had a name.

Andrew Penchant.

Matt bolted out of the deli to his car. When he tried to get his keys out of his pocket, he realized that he had the bagels and coffee in his hands. He pulled himself together. Once he got everything in the car and climbed behind the wheel, he fired up the engine and entered Wes Rogers’s number into his cell phone. Rogers picked up after the first ring.

“Where are you, Jones?”

“About a half hour north of the city. I need the address.”

“What address?”

Matt pulled out of the lot, felt the front wheels grip the road, and brought the car up to speed. I-95 was only a minute or two away.

“His name’s Andrew Penchant, Rogers. The woman who was murdered in the Northeast is his mother. He’s our guy. Turn on your TV.”

The special agent cleared his throat, his voice pressing. “I need to know where you’ve been today, Jones. It’s important.”

Matt paused a moment to think it over. He couldn’t get a read on what was going on in Rogers’s mind. It didn’t make any sense.

“I drove up to Maplewood, New Jersey,” he said slowly. “Now I’m in Pennington. I’m on my way back.”

“Maplewood, New Jersey? Stop messing around, Jones. I told you it’s important.”

“I’m not fooling around. You need to tell me what’s going on, Rogers. I want the address, and I want it now.”

“Baylor escaped,” Rogers said in a low voice. “About an hour ago. It hasn’t been released to the press yet.”

Matt settled into his seat as he tossed it over. “How?”

“Two US marshals were escorting him back to LA. They were driving to the airport when Baylor complained of chest pain.”

Matt didn’t really need to hear the details. He could guess the rest. Baylor would have been examined by a cardiologist. The cardiologist would have ordered an MRI. Because Baylor was a doctor, a surgeon, he would’ve known that all metal objects, including handcuffs, would have to be removed in order to perform the scan. And it would have occurred in a room where he would have found himself alone.

Magnetic resonance imaging. MRI.

Matt saw the entrance to I-95 South. Once he cleared the ramp, he kicked the car up to ninety miles per hour.

“Did he hurt anyone?” he said.

“No,” Rogers said. “Once the technician prepared him for the procedure, everyone walked out to watch a video feed in the control room. Apparently, the MRI facility at South Crest Hospital has a rear exit. For thirty seconds, no one was home. Security cameras picked him up running out of the lobby and taking off in a cab.”

For a split second, Matt wasn’t sure how to feel or even what to think. But only for a split second. After that, his mind was flooded with images of Dr. Baylor’s victims. The three innocent coeds in LA and the twenty-year-old in New Orleans—Kim Bachman, a girl who weighed less than a hundred pounds. Matt had always wished that he hadn’t been told the girl’s weight. Somehow Bachman’s small size made her more vulnerable in his mind. It made her murder seem darker in some fundamental way, and Matt always had a hard time dealing with it.

“I’m sorry he got away, Rogers.”

The special agent didn’t say anything, but Matt could guess what he was thinking. Rogers wasn’t going to survive the blowback. Baylor’s escape was just the last nail in a long series of nails buried in his coffin. Once the world caught up to this new, ever-changing reality, once Andrew Penchant was identified as the real killer, anyone who had stood on stage with Assistant US Attorney Ken Doyle would be circling the drain. Everybody who didn’t get this one right would go down as roadkill.

Matt heard Rogers sigh. When the special agent spoke finally, his voice had weakened.

“I’ll call Philly PD, Jones. I’ll get you that address.”

CHAPTER 63

Matt entered Sarah Penchant’s address on Walnut Avenue into the car’s navigation system and realized that it was close. No more than twenty-five minutes and only a couple of blocks off I-95.

Rogers had called with the information from Philly PD, but still wanted Matt to stand down and not act in an official capacity. His reasoning sounded suspicious, particularly after Matt switched on KYW radio and realized that the story of Baylor’s escape had broken wide-open. By the time he reached Walnut Avenue and got a first look at the rundown house, he decided to meet Rogers halfway.

He didn’t see any patrol units parked at the curb or anywhere on the street. When he gazed up the driveway, he found it empty. Matt imagined that the crime scene had been fairly straightforward and would have been processed sometime last night.

A lockbox was attached to the front door, but it wasn’t an FBI investigation, and Matt doubted that the combination would match the universal one-eight-seven like the others.

He checked the clock on the dash. He had decided to meet Rogers halfway, meaning that he wouldn’t break into the house until darkness fell around four thirty. He cruised down to the end of the block, saw the river, and pulled over before a small park. Adjusting the mirrors so that he had a clean view of Penchant’s house, he settled in behind the wheel, switched the radio back on, and waited.

After listening to the news station for twenty minutes—the length of an entire news cycle—it became clear that Dr. Baylor’s escape was a PR disaster for both the FBI and the Department of Justice. And while Matt understood that Rogers had his hands full, it didn’t excuse the fact that there was still no mention of the break in the Stratton/Holloway murder cases. No mention of Andrew Penchant or warnings to the public. But far worse, there was no mention of any progress that could be considered a matter of public record.

Matt remembered his conversation with Rogers last night. The special agent had asked him how many people had seen the DVD of the Strattons’ murder, then asked Matt to lie low and keep a lid on everything. As he tossed it over now, Rogers’s request sounded like a con in a bad Hollywood movie.

It was starting to get dark. He squinted as a pair of headlights struck the rearview mirror and hit him in the eyes. He noted the lights on the roof and realized that it was a patrol unit. The car slowed down before the death house, then continued to the end of the street, passing Matt’s Honda and making a turn at the corner. After a minute or two, Matt saw the patrol unit round the block on the other side of the death house and vanish up Walnut Avenue, heading toward I-95.

Matt took a sip of the coffee that had turned ice-cold, then got out of the car and walked up the street. Most of the windows in the houses he passed were still dark. He kept his eyes on the house with the picket fence that shared a property line with Sarah and Andrew Penchant’s home. The old man he’d seen being interviewed on TV was in the kitchen with his wife. They were seated at a table and appeared to be eating an early supper.

Matt walked up the steps to the front porch and tried the lockbox. One-eight-seven didn’t work, nor did any combination of these three numbers. When he tried his jiggler keys, he couldn’t seem to get them to work either. He began to feel uncomfortable. He was spending way too much time at the front door. After checking on the neighbors, he hurried down the drive and up the steps to the back door.

He stared through the glass into the dark house as he gave his jiggler keys another try. When he couldn’t get any of them to work, he knew what he had to do. He grit his teeth, took a step back, and drove his heel into the door just above the deadbolt. It was a hard kick. A drive so solid and loud that the wood frame tore loose and the door crashed open. He checked on that old couple again. They hadn’t heard anything and were still seated at their breakfast table. But a dog on the next street over started barking, and it sounded old and mean.

Matt entered the kitchen, closed the door, and listened in the gloom. It was a quiet house, just the sound of the refrigerator and a slow drip from the sink. When the wind blew, he could hear the windows rattling. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and switched on the flashlight. There were no signs that a murder had occurred here, just the strong smell of Clorox and an air freshener.

Matt moved through the first floor and up the stairs, unable to find anything that would have indicated that Sarah Penchant was shot here. He entered the master bedroom. That foul odor from an air freshener was stronger here, almost overwhelming. But still no smell of death. The bed had been stripped. Matt checked the floors and the bathroom, and didn’t see any blood.

He walked out of the room and stepped into the second bedroom. From the way it was furnished, this had to be Andrew’s room. He spotted an expensive briefcase that seemed out of place on the floor by the window. When he opened it, he found three files and realized that they belonged to Ryan Day.

He set the briefcase aside and moved over to the table by the bed. While he didn’t find a copy of the photo Penchant took of the Strattons at the funeral home, he noticed a book and opened it. The words were handwritten, the first page dated seven years ago. Penchant had purchased a blank book and written a story that went on for about ten pages or so. Pictures had been sketched in, pictures that appeared crudely drawn and devoid of any technique even for a child.

Matt skimmed through the words. Penchant had written a story about a family who lived down the block. He called them
the happy family
. One night after the happy family had a barbecue in the backyard and went to bed, the Grim Reaper’s son, Andy, paid them a friendly visit with a sword in his hand.

“You’re too happy,” Andy proclaimed. “And your neighbors don’t like it. Your neighbors hate you. They hate every one of you. Your happiness must end, and it must end tonight!”

Matt shook his head. Andrew Penchant had written a story about killing a family seven years ago. He would have been around fourteen at the time. Dr. Westbrook’s profile was spot on.

Matt noticed a knapsack on the bed and set the book down. Moving to the desk chair, he propped his cell phone with the flashlight against the lamp and zipped open the bag. There was a laptop computer here, a small bag of reefer with papers and a lighter. When he opened the main pocket, his heart fluttered in his chest.

He was staring at a Glock .40 caliber semiautomatic with a bright-blue STP oil filter fitted to the muzzle. Matt felt the sudden rush of adrenaline washing through him like a tidal wave. It was a fascinating homemade sound suppressor, but that’s not why he was having difficulty catching his breath.

Andrew Penchant was here.

He was in the house.

He had to be.

If this knapsack had been on the bed last night when detectives processed the crime scene, they would have logged it in as evidence and taken it away.

Matt switched off the flashlight and picked up the pistol with the oil filter. The balance was off, the gun front heavy. He checked the mag, held it to the dim light feeding in through window, and counted fifteen bullets. Chambering a round as quietly as he could, he stood up, moved to the door, and listened.

A minute went by, and then another.

Matt eased through the doorway and into the master bedroom. All he could hear was his own breathing. Short, shallow breaths. The bathroom seemed particularly dark.

Still, he knew that Penchant was here. He could smell him. Somewhere lost in the horrific odor of the air fresheners was something new. It was the smell of reefer. Penchant had been here, probably watching Matt from the doorway as he went through his things.

But he was gone now. The room was clear.

Matt moved down the hallway, checked the second bathroom, and returned to the first floor. As he stepped into the kitchen, his cell phone started vibrating in his pocket. The ringer was switched off, yet it seemed so loud. He read the caller’s name on the face, then quickly looked for a corner beside the doorway and backed in with the Glock .40 up and ready.

He was standing in the last place anyone would check if they entered the room. Matt was about to give up his position, but he had Penchant’s gun and thought he still had the upper hand.

As he mulled it over, he realized that he didn’t have a choice. He had to take the call because it was Wes Rogers. He needed to do it in as few words as possible.

Matt switched on the phone and remained silent.

“Are you there, Jones? Are you there?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong with your voice?”

Matt ignored the question. “What do you want?”

“We exhumed the bodies, Jones. A preliminary exam seems to back up the undertaker’s story. We brought him in, and he’s talking. I realize that things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like, but we have to do this my way.”

Matt remained quiet, listening to the silence in the house.

“We’re working with Philly PD,” Rogers went on. “They have DNA samples from the son of the murder victim in the Northeast, this kid with the cornrows, Andrew Penchant. If we get a match with the semen found on Tammy Stratton and her daughter’s underwear, we go public. What you need to know is that Sarah Penchant’s boyfriend, Reggie Cook, washed up on shore this afternoon near the airport. He’d been shot in the head and neck. The investigator from the coroner’s office said it’s possible both were killed around the same time. Philly PD thinks that Andrew Penchant shot Cook and murdered his mother.”

Matt switched off the cell phone. He heard a board on the stairs creak, and stepped out of the kitchen. As he passed the dining room, his eyes moved to the window just as a figure dropped from the second floor onto the driveway.

Matt raced through the kitchen and ripped open the door. He could see Andrew Penchant running through the backyard. He had his knapsack and was heading for the next street over. Matt chased him across the lawn and through the trees. But as he started around a fence toward a neighbor’s driveway, he took a hard blow to the chest and collapsed onto the ground. Penchant had a baseball bat and took another full swing at his lower back. He was all juiced up and screaming at him from above.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You were supposed to be my friend.”

It sounded like Penchant had freaked out. Matt saw him raising the bat and reached out to block the hit. It was a blind move with Matt protecting his head and face and rising to his knees.

But Andrew Penchant had faked him out by pulling back. By the time Matt got to his feet, the man with blond cornrows was running off with his gun and the oil filter and to a car waiting for him in the shadows at the end of the driveway.

Matt gazed at the blond-haired girl behind the wheel as Penchant jumped in. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She was staring back at him like a black widow with a baby face. Her gray eyes were smoldering, her expression sullen and pouty and evil, just like her man’s. Her soul mate.

Matt drew his .45, jacked back the slide, and emptied all eight rounds into the car as it sped off. When the last shot had fired, when the flashing stopped and all the noise, the baby-faced blonde gave the car horn a double tap like she was laughing at him.

Like she thought it was a game, and she wanted him to know that everything was okay.