Face Off (14 page)

Caswell angrily pushed away from the table and stood up. “That's it, folks. We'll keep you informed of any new developments, but right now we have to get back to work.” He turned abruptly and walked rapidly from the room. The group of reporters exchanged looks of astonishment.

“Aw, hell!” Jim said to Harry. “I knew it was too good to be true. Only two months till retirement and you've probably just gotten my ass fired!”

Harry raised his eyebrows at his partner. “If you think he's mad now, wait until he discovers our new information came from a psychic!”

Jim groaned. “I'll flip you to see who tells him.”

*   *   *

“I found it!” Jessie yelled over to Suzanne, then remembering where she was, she clamped her hand over her mouth. No one in the library paid any attention to her. Suzanne left her screen and crossed over to Jessie's.

“There it is!” Jessie whispered excitedly. “The Fife and Drum Carnival.” They had scanned twelve back issues of the
Star
before finding an article which mentioned the name of the carnival where Clark had worked. Then it was a matter of scanning through the ads, hoping to find the carnival playing in the area.

“It's in Bonner Springs this week.” Suzanne couldn't believe their luck. “We can be there in less than an hour.”

*   *   *

Jessie was silent for a few miles as they drove west.

“Something on your mind, sweetie?” Suzanne asked.

“Yes. I was just thinking about you. How come you have to touch people before you can pick up anything? Was it always that way for you?”

“Yes. Pretty much.”

“Do you know what caused you to be psychic? My mom told me sometimes it runs in families and that she had a niece once who might have been ‘that way.' Mom said she never really believed it, though, until
I
came along.”

“I don't know if others in my family had the sight as well, which sometimes happens. My only way of knowing anything about when I was a child is from my own memory, or what my father told me. But he died when I was eight years old, and actually, he didn't talk to me much. So I really know very little about my early background.”

“You don't remember your mother?”

Suzanne tried to bring forward in her mind a picture of her mother, but she could not do it. Only a feeling emerged, a feeling of warmth and safety. “No,” she said to Jessie. “I was five or six when my mother was killed in an automobile accident. I should be able to remember her, but I don't. I just know that she was beautiful, but that's all I really know.”

“Don't you have any pictures of her?”

“No. When my dad loaded up the truck and left the farm, he left everything behind—pictures, my toys, most of my clothing, even most of his. I probably wouldn't even remember that, except over the months after we left, he kept griping about how much it cost to buy new clothes and furniture.”
Do you have any idea how much you are costing me, young lady? I oughta just drop you off along-side the road, that's what I oughta do.

“That wasn't very nice of him to threaten to leave you by the road. That would be pretty scary for a little kid!”

Suzanne glanced over at her young companion. “Have you noticed how you seem to be able to read my mind just about any time you choose?”

Jessie nodded. “Yeah. It's weird. I've never been able to do it this much with other people. But I can hear you loud and clear, especially if it is a powerful thought.”

“I guess that's because I'm psychic, too. The lines are open both ways. It isn't so easy when only one of the people involved has the gift. It comes, but just not as rapidly or clearly.”

A look of despair played across the young girl's features. “Do you think we will reach Amy in time? I haven't picked up anything for hours now. You don't suppose—you don't think—”

Suzanne closed her eyes, feeling queasy for just a moment. She opened them as she felt the car pulling toward the side of the road. Her right hand reached out in the darkness of the car to find Jessie's. “Sweetie, don't you go getting negative on me at this late date. You've convinced me we have at least a shot of finding Amy alive. Let's hold on to that. Okay?”

Jessie took Suzanne's hand and held on to it tightly. Something bad was coming. She had felt it now for the last several moments. Something evil and horrible. And they were driving right into the middle of it.

As the circuit made the connection, Suzanne looked over, her eyes locking fast to Jessie's.
Do we continue?
She didn't say the words aloud, yet wasn't surprised as she watched Jessie slowly nod her head in answer.

Chapter Fourteen

A vein in Chief Caswell's neck was pulsing as though it had a life of its own. It reminded Harry of some movie about aliens he had once seen. He opted not to tell Caswell this observation, deciding instead to keep his mouth shut until he found out if he were still on the force, let alone heading up the butcher investigation.

When Caswell spoke, his voice cracked under the strain of trying to keep from yelling. “Are you telling me that I just went on live television and made an absolute jackass of myself on the information furnished you by a
psychic?
Have you two lost your minds?”

“Chief,” Jim began, “remember the psychic in Omaha who broke the Underwood case? The one who was actually on the police payroll? That's who this young woman is.”

Caswell sat down on the edge of his desk and pulled a rumpled package of Camel cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He carefully straightened out the last bent cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. His hands shook slightly as he brought his lighter to his mouth. “So,” he said as he lit the Camel and inhaled deeply, “what you are saying is that the same person who got Underwood's case thrown out of court, waltzed in here and took a crack at Clark, which means if he
is
our killer, then there is a better than even chance he'll walk. Do I have the facts about right?” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Harry for confirmation.

“Chief, we would have never let her near Clark if we'd known who she was,” Harry answered. “We didn't find that out until a couple of hours ago.”

Detective Stahl, who had more police work under his belt than the other two men, spoke swiftly. There was one advantage to being the “Old Pro” of the precinct. Most times you were listened to. “Chief, the point is, this woman sees things the rest of us don't. I can absolutely swear to you she is for real, because she told me things she could not have possibly known from any source. She spent about two minutes with Clark and saw the faces of many of the young girls Clark had murdered. She told us he is definitely the butcher. Now that, along with all the other evidence we have against him, is enough for me. We have to bring him in again. We simply can't run the risk of our men losing him.”

Caswell shook his head. “And what about this latest murder? Are you forgetting that almost all of the small details which weren't released to the public were found at this crime scene? This was a butcher killing. If Clark had still been on the streets when this killing transpired, you wouldn't question that it was the same killer. Right? Even Stanley Davis said his findings were consistent with the other murders. When the medical examiner makes a statement like that, are we supposed to ignore it? We still have laws in this country, you know.”

“What about the DNA evidence?” Jim asked. “Is it back yet on this latest girl? Do we know whether or not she was smeared with semen from several different men like the others?”

Caswell shook his head. “No. It isn't back yet. I asked for a rush on the sample taken from inside the girl. That's the only part of this latest killing that doesn't follow the pattern. Davis insists the other girls were not really raped, only made to look like it. But this latest victim was raped—and sodomized. So we should be able to get an accurate DNA profile.”

“Unless, of course, other semen samples were smeared around like on all the other victims, and compromise the integrity of the sample,” Harry said. This was the area that had been puzzling them for months. Where was the killer coming up with all the different semen samples? Each body they found had semen from four or five different sources smeared on the torso. At last count, they had thirty-two different DNA profiles as evidence. But the public had not gotten wind of this particular quirk of the man the newspapers had dubbed the Kansas City Butcher. And Harry was almost positive the body of this latest victim was covered with several different samples. He had investigated enough of the deaths to recognize the similarities. On all the victims, the torso area was wiped clean, then right above the pubic area were evenly spaced dried splotches of a clear liquid. This latest young girl had looked to him just like all the other victims in that respect.

“You realize what we are saying, don't you?” Jim asked. “We are saying that contrary to all of our evidence, there are
two
men operating as the butcher. And if that's the case, don't you think it would be prudent to at least bring one of them back in while we try to find the other one?”

Caswell rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. He had a lot of respect for Jim Stahl, who, like him, was one of the old-timers on the force. There was only one problem. Most of the old-timers had not yet learned that there was a new age in police work. The public was scrutinizing the actions of their police departments as never before in history. And he supposed rightly so. Maybe in the old days, all that was needed to hold a suspect was a gut feeling by a detective, but that time had long gone. If he tried to hold Clark after another identical killing had taken place during his incarceration, Clark's attorney, the
Star,
and every reporter in town would howl for his head on a platter! No. He had to follow the book on this one. He had already heard the rumblings of a move to oust him as chief and bring in a younger man. He had no intention of handing them the ammunition they needed to fire him. “I can't bring Clark back in, Jim. But I will assign two more units to help keep track of him. That's the best I can do.”

*   *   *

Across town, Randal Clark looked out his living room window at the unmarked police car waiting in front of his apartment. He went into the bathroom and looked down at the alley. There was another car with two men sitting, smoking. That was all right. He needed a little time to put his apartment back in order, anyway. Kansas City's finest had left it a mess when they tossed his place. The furniture and walls were covered with a light film of white powder, and every item in his home was out of place. It looked like a tremor had hit, spilling everything askew. Damned cops. He hated the thought of them going through all of his personal items. Touching everything. Leaving a mess. He would clean things up first, then leave by the window in the boiler room. The Fife and Drum was set up in Bonner Springs for a few days, and he needed to retrieve his box from the cook's freezer. He knew Sam hadn't given it to the police. If he had, Clark knew he would certainly still be behind bars. He had been acquainted with Sam for about twenty years. He was actually the only person Clark had ever considered a friend. He hated the fact that he would have to kill him, but who knew for sure whether or not he had ever looked in Clark's box? No. He couldn't take the chance.

When he had first been called on to do the locks at the Addison-Jones Sperm Bank, he had known he had hit pay dirt. There, he had virtually an endless supply of semen to use at his carefully staged murder scenes. He had even swiped the containers from the bank. They still had the firm's logo imprinted on them, as well as the contents. Sam might have gotten suspicious to find a box containing twenty-five or so samples of semen in his freezer!

*   *   *

Suzanne could feel Jessie's apprehension as the child clutched her hand. Was she doing the right thing? Was she exposing Jessie to danger, bringing her to the carnival where Clark had worked? No. What could that hurt? Clark was under surveillance by the police. He wouldn't be in Bonner Springs at the carnival. There was no reason to be fearful. Yet she was. There was no denying it.

Suzanne took the Bonner Springs exit, and as she came off the ramp, almost immediately saw the sign. She dropped Jessie's hand and pointed out the passenger window as she pulled quickly off the road, hitting the brakes hard. “Jessie! Look! Look at that sign!”

There they were; pictures advertising the carnival. One picture was of monkeys, one of a bearded lady, and one of people riding a roller coaster. “I can't believe it!” Jessie said in awe. “It's just like in my vision. Only they were moving too fast for me to really see what they were. Look!” She pointed to the picture of the roller coaster. “The people have their arms in the air. And it wasn't a hill I saw, but the curving of the ride.”

“These are all just advertisements for the carnival! That's what you saw. And we know Clark worked for them. We must be getting closer.”

“Come on, let's go.” Jessie's voice had lost any sign of the fear Suzanne had detected earlier. “He must have hidden Amy somewhere at the carnival. That has to be it!”

*   *   *

Floyd made himself a pot of coffee, pacing around his small kitchen as he waited for it to finish dripping. Something was eating at Clark. That much he knew. He hadn't spent thirty years of his life hustling people not to know when someone was jiving him.

Outside his tiny apartment on the Kansas side of the Missouri River, he heard a siren blaring and jumped. Damn. His nerves were getting the better of him. He wasn't afraid of many things in this life, but he was afraid of Randal Clark and the hold he now had over him.

Why had he raped that girl?
He hadn't planned on doing it, but then she had looked so pretty, so frightened, it had turned him on, and he figured what the hell. He was supposed to make it look like a rape, so why not actually do it? Stupid. Clark was right. It was a stupid thing to have done. He wasn't worried so much about the police unless Clark decided to hand him over to them. And what about the psychic? That worried him as much as Clark. Could she possibly be the same one? If so, then he was in a world of shit! He would have to get to her, before she got to him. There was no phone listed, that much he had found out. At least not under the name he knew her by. And the newspapers knew nothing about her living here. Maybe the nun's habit? Perhaps she had rented it locally. How many costume stores could there be in Kansas City? And what story could he use to get the information?