Face Off (13 page)

Later, when he was older and starting to get interested in girls, he discovered his body wouldn't respond in the way it should. His first attempt had been with a bright-eyed girl from the church who laughed at him, then ended up taunting him for his inaction. “Look at you, Randal. You're all shriveled up. What's the matter with you anyhow? Don't keep pushing yourself on me like that. Jesus, you're a weirdo!”

He had gone home and killed his mother. The bitch. He had waited for her to return home from Mass, then held her hair tight as he forced her to put on layer upon layer of makeup. He had slammed her face into the mirror. “There, you whore. Now you look the part. Don't go trying to make everyone believe what a good saint of a person you are.” She had begged for her life then, telling him how much she loved him and his brother. He had laughed the entire time it took him to hack her body into pieces.

It had taken him almost a week to dispose of her body. When he completed his task, his mother was scattered over the state of Idaho. Her head was buried at Horseshoe Bend, her legs near Mountain Home and Twin Falls. The arms, which had caused him so much grief, he buried together on Snake River Plain, figuring the name said it all.

He washed the kitchen down with a solution of water and bleach. Then, not satisfied that he had removed all traces of his mother's blood, he tore up the tile covering the floor and replaced it himself, using his mother's credit card to pay for the flooring.

He told the neighbors his mother had remarried and moved to Alaska, leaving him to care for the sickly Leonard who would not fare well in the cold, harsh, Alaskan climate. No one questioned her disappearance. By the time the credit card payment was due, he had found work at Wally's Electric and had a weekly check coming in. He opened a bank account, found out how much he would need to save for real estate taxes on the house, and figured he was going to become a solid citizen. He thought so right up until the time he killed Mary Beth Williams.

Chapter Thirteen

And this just in from Doppler weather. Sit back. Fasten your seat belts, K.C. This unseasonable hot spell we have been experiencing is going to be broken with another humdinger of a spring storm. Look for torrential rains, severe lightning, and possible flooding. Should be moving into the area by tomorrow night, so stay tuned, folks. It looks like we have a rough one coming!

*   *   *

Jim Stahl leaned over and flipped the air conditioner button in Harry's Crown Victoria to high, wiping sweat from his bald head with a McDonald's paper napkin. “Sure couldn't tell by this heat that we have a cold front moving in,” he grumbled. “If it's this hot in May, what the hell are we going to do in August?”

“What do you mean
we,
asshole?” Harry said. “In August you'll be lying around in your underwear in air conditioned comfort watching reruns of John Wayne movies.”

Jim stretched out his arms, then locked his fingers behind his head lazily. “I know. Ain't it wonderful! Ain't it just purely wonderful?”

“Well,” Harry answered the question with one of his own. “What did you think?”

“About what?”

“About our little defrocked nun? Was that a great parlor trick or what?”

Jim heaved a long sigh. “Yeah, Harry. She and I worked that up just before she let you in. Pretty good, huh?”

“You're turning into a sarcastic SOB in your old age, aren't you?” Harry asked. “It's going to be nice to break in a new partner who has a little respect.”

“I have as little as most.” Jim chuckled, thinking that both he and Harry were going to miss each other more than either one could possibly know. “As to Miss Richards, she has to be the real McCoy. I've worked with a few psychics over the years, even a couple who actually were on the level, but I've never run across any that could do what she did.”

“I've requested a background check on her, which I sort of regret doing. I would hate for Clark to be released on the same line of reasoning that set Underwood free.”

“Well, it's too late. If we called off an investigation now, sure as hell if we ever
do
get Clark in court, her name would surface and his lawyers would scream ‘cover-up.'”

“Which is exactly what we would be doing.”

“Right.”

“Speaking of Clark, what time were we supposed to meet Caswell for the press release?”

Jim glanced down at his twenty-dollar Timex—a Christmas gift from his six-year-old grandson. “About five minutes ago, I'm afraid.”

“Shit.”

“Right.”

*   *   *

Tears once again welled in Jessie's eyes. “But what if the police lose track of him? What if he gets away and goes wherever he has Amy?”

Suzanne didn't have a good answer to the young girl's question. The light bantering that had been taking place all day between the twenty-seven-year-old and the fourteen-year-old, had vanished. The sense of urgency had magnified with the release of Clark, and the visions of his thoughts, which had been picked up by Jessie and transferred to Suzanne. Both were painfully aware that time was running out.

“We just can't afford to worry about what
might
happen,” Suzanne said. “Right now all we can do is trust that the police will keep him under surveillance, and give us time to do
our
job.”

“Which is?”

“To find Amy. And maybe to find Amy, I need to try and touch Clark again. I don't know what happened at the police station. Something interfered. Some block was thrown up in my mind. I couldn't get beyond it. But maybe if I try again, I can force myself past the fear.”

Jessie shook her head, bewildered. “But how are you going to be able to do that? We don't have any idea where Clark is, and besides, he knows your face now.”

“Maybe not. When I'm out of the nun disguise, maybe he wouldn't pay any attention to me. Also, I have another plan. That detective said Harry worked at a carnival. If we could find out which one, maybe we would get lucky and pick up some sort of reading. We know you saw the monkeys in your vision. Amy either was looking at the monkeys, or possibly looking at pictures of them. In either case, we might learn something by visiting the carnival.”

“That's a great idea.” Jessie jumped to her feet. “How do we find out which carnival it was and where it is now?”

“Newspapers maybe?” Suzanne asked it as a question. “Perhaps at the library? It also probably wouldn't hurt to read everything the
Star
has to say about Clark. We might pick up an idea there.”

“I was at our library reading about Clark when I got the idea to contact you,” Jessie said. “Somehow I just knew you would be the one to help me.”

“You never did say how you managed to find me.”

“I called the newspaper in Omaha. I told them I worked for Marilyn Mars—the lady who wrote that book,
Amazing Psychics.
I said she was looking for you and wanted to know if they had a phone number or address. Some reporter came on and questioned me a little, but luckily, I remembered her book pretty well and just spouted enough about it to make me believable.” Jessie gave a little giggle. “Actually, I told him Ms. Mars would mention his name in her new book—thank him for his cooperation, that sort of thing.”

“And he had this address? In Kansas City?”

“Oh, yeah. He said he wrote to you every once in a while, but kept getting his letters back. He wanted me to put in a good word for him, if I ever got to meet you.”

“That's weird. The
Omaha Herald
practically hung me out to dry. I figured the only reason they would be contacting me was to rub my face in all of it again.”

Jessie shrugged. “I dunno. This guy sounded nice and like he really was interested in you. But maybe it was all an act. Anyway, he gave me your address and said for me to tell you he was sorry for everything you went through. He said he had some clippings he wanted to show you, but you always refused the letters.”

“Yeah. Probably some group wasn't satisfied with merely running me out of town—they wanted me tarred and feathered to boot!”

“Maybe you just needed someone on your side. In
our
family we call it
circling the wagons
when someone gets in trouble. My mom has five sisters, and they have families, and my dad has six brothers and three sisters. When we all get together it is a madhouse. If anyone picked on
me
in the newspaper, my whole family would probably stage a sit-in or something!”

“It sounds absolutely wonderful, Jessie. Now that Miss Emily has died, except for Sister Mary Elizabeth, I don't have any family at all.” Long-forgotten memories flitted across Suzanne's mind. She had a family, once. Had it been her fault they were now all dead? Had she in some way caused their deaths?

*   *   *

Caswell sat at a long table littered with microphones and looked over the sea of reporters in front of him. He knew all hell was going to break loose when he told them Clark had been released. He recognized most of the faces, but there were a few new ones—most likely national news agencies had sent in their own people. McDermott and Stahl were late as usual, but he was not going to do this release without them. They were his lead detectives on the case, and he'd be damned if he was going to have to field all the questions himself. He glanced at his watch. Shit. He'd
have
to start in a few minutes. Sonofabitch!

As if on cue, Harry McDermott suddenly entered the room, followed by Jim Stahl. Both men picked their way through the swarm of reporters, brushing off questions as they made their way to the front.

Chief Caswell closed his hand over the nearest microphone, whispering harshly, “Damn nice of you to make it, boys!”

Harry leaned over and spoke quietly. “Chief, don't go too far out on a limb saying Clark can't be the killer. We just got information that points pretty strongly to him.”

Caswell's face reddened. “What the shit are you talking about?” he whispered furiously. “I've already written my press release saying that since he was in jail at the time of this new killing, that pretty much clears him.”

The older detective leaned down close to Caswell's face. “Harry's right, Chief. If there is some way to explain his release without actually saying he is innocent, it will save your face on down the line.”

Caswell looked at the front row of reporters, who were all straining to hear the exchange among the three men. He smiled lazily, reassuring them he was just exchanging pleasantries with his two lead detectives. His smile stayed in place as he looked at Harry. “What new information are we talking about here?”

Before Harry could answer, a small woman with enormous black-framed glasses and a harried, no-nonsense look on her face, approached the table. “Chief Caswell, our station left a slot for this on the seven o'clock news. We're late already. How much longer before we can go live?”

Caswell took his large hand from the microphone he was holding, pulling it toward him. He nodded for Jim and Harry to each grab a mike, then mouthed okay to the woman, giving her enough time to start the cameras. “I have a short announcement to make concerning Randal Clark. At four o'clock this afternoon, Mr. Clark was released from custody. We no longer believe…” He glanced over at his two detectives. “Uh … we no longer were able to hold Mr. Clark on murder charges.”

As Caswell expected, the room erupted. Shocked, angry voices yelled questions. “
Released
him? How could you have released him? Are you nuts? Do you have another suspect?” Finally the room quieted down. Caswell looked at Arnie from the
Star,
who was holding a yellow pencil in the air, waiting to be heard.

“Yeah, Arnie?”

“Does this have anything to do with the death of Sandra Murphy? Was she another butcher killing? We heard rumors both ways.”

Caswell looked over at Harry, who took over, smoothly. “Now, Arnie, you know we can't give you that kind of information. In the first place, we are still checking all the evidence, and in the—”

“Come on, Harry,” Arnie interrupted. “Was Sandra Murphy chopped up like the other girls, or not?
My
informants tell me Sandra's body was found exactly as all the other girls. And now you're telling us Clark has been released? It looks to me like you jumped in too fast accusing Clark of being the butcher.”

“Yeah,” another voice from the back of the room yelled. “And what about the body parts that were supposedly found at Clark's apartment? His lawyer has always said they were planted. Could it be he was right? You sure as hell wouldn't release someone who had body parts strung all over, would you?”

Caswell grabbed his microphone angrily. “We, the police, have never claimed we found body parts at Clark's apartment. That was leaked to the press two weeks ago, before any analysis of the evidence had been done.”

“What analysis do you need, Chief?” a voice yelled. “A finger is a finger; a toe, a toe. Heck, I bet I could tell you what they were without any
analysis.
”

“You didn't deny it, Chief!” another voice yelled. “In two full weeks you didn't deny it!”

Harry spoke up. “And we aren't denying it now. Chief Caswell said we had to release Clark. He did not say we felt he was innocent. There's a big difference, my friends. We have Clark under surveillance at this very minute. If he so much as spits on the sidewalk, he'll be back in here.”

“That tears it!” Caswell swore under his breath. “Are you nuts, McDermott? Are you fucking nuts?”

Harry leaned over and spoke in Caswell's ear. “We have to leave it like this. We have to keep the city alerted to Clark. If enough reporters and policemen are watching him, then maybe we can get the evidence we need before he kills again. We
have
to play it like this, sir. We
have
to!”