Читать книгу Dead Ringer - Sharon Dunn - Страница 9

Eli had caught only a few hours’ sleep in his motel room when someone banged on the door. Still bleary-eyed, he pulled himself off the bed and swung the door open.

“Wake up, Susie Sunshine.” Detective William Springer flashed a smile. “We got work to do.”

While he leaned against the door frame of the motel, Eli shook his head, trying to clear the fog of sleep. He hadn’t showered. His stomach was growling, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy. He hadn’t met someone like her before, an intriguing mixture of strength and vulnerability. Plus, her resemblance to the other victims made him concerned for her safety. “Are you kidding me?”

“One of our suspects is in town.” William rocked back and forth on his feet. He was a short man with blond hair so curly it almost looked like ringlets. “We’re on surveillance in about twenty minutes.”

With the exception of three undercover female officers, William Springer was the only Spokane detective Eli had been authorized to bring with him for the investigation. Right now he wished he had left him at home. “I need shut-eye.” Of course, William was exuberant; he was functioning on a full night’s sleep.

William tilted the paper bag he was holding in Eli’s direction. “I brought breakfast.”

The sticky-sweet scent of doughnuts woke Eli up a bit. “Which suspect?”

“Greg Jackson is going through town. He has a breakfast date at a place called Lydia’s Café. Just got word of it. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”

They’d narrowed the suspects down to four men who fit a profile, used the same online dating service and lived in this area where the murders had taken place. A woman who was a friend of one victim and a relative of another had brought the online dating service to police attention. Local police had submitted the specifics of the two murders to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and found three similar murders within a day’s drive of one another. Eli had picked Mountain Springs as a base of operation because it was central to all the other small towns where the murders had taken place.

William shoved the doughnut bag toward him again.

Eli held up a hand of protest. This time the smell made his stomach churn. “I need protein.”

“Suit yourself.” William strode across the motel parking lot and yelled over his shoulder. “We’re taking my bug.”

After brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face, Eli left the motel room and ambled toward the car.

William leaned against the driver’s side door, feet crossed at the ankles. He handed Eli a manila folder. “For your review, nothing new, other than the photos of the victims, pre-postmortem. We got them from family members.”

Only William would use a term like pre-postmortem. The interviews of family and friends had been done by various police departments. The surveillance Eli would oversee would happen on two levels. Several female officers with undercover experience had spent a month establishing a cover in the small towns that fell within the area the murders had taken place. The officers had signed up for the service so they could get access to the suspects. Also, watching the four men for suspicious activity and to see if they favored dark-haired women might give them the break they needed.

The groundwork had been laid. They were closing in. Though much of the investigation had been handled by other departments, the ball was now in Eli’s court to gather enough evidence for an arrest and to prevent another death.

Eli slipped into the passenger side of the bug, hunching slightly in the tiny car. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. The investigation could last months. The thought of living in a motel that whole time did not appeal to him, and it didn’t make him look much like a small-town cop, either.

William shifted into first and pulled out of the lot. “Restaurant is about eight blocks away.” He grabbed a doughnut out of the bag and munched. “We lucked out. One of the local officers recognized Greg Jackson when he was in the convenience store, struck up a conversation and got the details about this date.”

As much as Eli hated going without sleep, William’s call to do impromptu surveillance had been a good one. “We’ll get a read on the guy, see how he operates. Then we can set the protocol for how we keep eyes on the other three guys, given the amount of manpower we have to work with.” Eli’s stomach growled again. “Maybe I can get a decent breakfast at this Lydia’s Café.”

Ten minutes later when they entered the café, Greg Jackson and his date were already seated. With the manila folder still in hand, Eli took a table so he was within earshot of Greg. He had a clear view of Greg, but could only see the back of his date, a woman with her hair all bunched up in a baseball hat. William sat opposite Eli and pulled out a notebook. Eli pretended to read a free local newspaper he’d picked up at the door and tuned in the conversation.

Lucy stared at the plate of pancakes and sausages in front of her. She lifted her head and smiled at Greg Jackson, sitting opposite her. It was a weekday morning, so the restaurant wasn’t very busy. Two old-timers sat at the counter, sipping coffee. A mom with two small children, and a man occupied with his newspaper, sitting with a short man with curly blond hair, were the only other patrons.

Greg said something about one of the accounts he handled. She didn’t quite understand his job. He lived in a town some distance from Mountain Springs and traveled here often for his job. He was a sales rep for a feed company or something. His work involved driving across the state and talking to farmers and agriculture supply stores. A breakfast date was a little strange, but he was in town for some sort of work thing, so they had decided to get together.

Getting out of the house had been a good idea. If nothing else, the date took her mind off the robbery.

Greg struck her as a sweet man, a stable man, but nothing went zing inside when she was with him.

“I was thinking, Lucy. I’m sometimes traveling through Mountain Springs on Sunday for my Monday meetings. Would you like to go to church together?” He leaned a little closer to her. “Maybe?”

She had promised Heather she wouldn’t dismiss Greg so quickly. “When is the next time you’re in town?” Maybe zing happened later.

“I have some clients to visit here in a couple of days, but that won’t be a Sunday.”

Going to church together felt too serious. “I don’t know…maybe.”

Behind her, the waitress asked the man with the newspaper what he wanted to eat. His newspaper rustled as he set it down. Lucy perked up when the man ordered pancakes and bacon. She knew that voice, the warmth of it. She removed her hat and turned toward him.

Detective Hawkins’s face blanched, but then he recovered and nodded in her direction. He held up a glass container of maple syrup. “I heard this was a good place to eat breakfast.”

“Best in town.”

The other man, the one with the curly blond hair, cleared his throat. He shifted in his seat and lifted his chin toward Eli in some unspoken signal. As she turned back around, Lucy felt a tightening in her rib cage.

Greg shoved a large piece of French toast in his mouth. “Your pancakes okay?”

“They’re great, thanks.” Lucy took a bite. The sweetness of the huckleberry syrup did nothing to deter her suspicion. The knowing glance that had passed between Eli and the other man bothered her. She couldn’t pinpoint it, but something about it felt strange, conspiratorial.

Greg chatted more about his work and the family ranch he had grown up on in Colorado. Lucy talked about helping a seventy-year-old widow learn how to fly fish. She angled in her chair so she saw Eli in her peripheral vision. Was he watching her?

Greg excused himself to pay the bill.

Lucy took a sip of her coffee. Any sense of trust she’d felt with Eli last night was gone. She set her coffee cup firmly on the table. Why had she thought Eli was different? A cop was a cop. People’s concerns and their fears were just a big, funny joke to all of them.

Lucy rose to her feet and gave Eli a backward glance.

He looked up from the manila folder he’d been flipping through. His eyes searched hers. She couldn’t quite read what she saw in his expression. Was it fear?

Greg slipped his arm through Lucy’s and guided her toward the door.

When they were outside the restaurant, Greg spoke up. “Maybe I’ll call you when I’m back in town in a couple of days. We can get together then.”

“Sure,” Lucy said absently. The look of fear on Eli’s face was etched in her mind.

Eli watched Lucy pass by the restaurant window. He had nearly choked on his water when she had glanced at him. He scanned the pre-postmortem photos from the file again. His heart squeezed tight.

William doodled on his notepad. “That guy Jackson, Mr. Ordinary, huh? You know what they say. Beneath that smooth surface lurks the heart of a killer.”

Eli continued to examine the photographs, taking in a deep breath to quell the rising panic. “Who exactly says that, William?”

“You know, it’s always the guy who is quiet and keeps to himself who is the killer.” William rested his elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes at Eli. “What is it, man? You look like you just took a left hook to the jaw.”

One by one, Eli passed the photos to William. Though the women had all died in different ways—poisoning, strangulation, stabbing—their appearance and membership in the online service linked them together. “Do you see it?”

“Yeah, they all are beautiful, dark-haired women.” William’s tone had become more insistent. “We established that.”

Eli took in a breath in an effort to slow his thudding heart. “I think I know who the next victim could be.”

“You mean, the woman Jackson was with…’cause of the dark hair.”

“I answered a robbery call at her house last night. I noticed the resemblance, but didn’t realize how closely she matched her victims until looking at the photos.” His mouth went dry. “If she is dating Jackson, she probably met him through the service.” Eli hadn’t failed to notice the daggers she shot toward him as she left the restaurant. Her distrust of police ran deep, and it took only the smallest irregularity to trigger it. She probably thought he was stalking her.

More than anything, when he’d seen the veil of protection fall across her eyes, he had wanted to explain why he was in the café, but he couldn’t. They had put too much manpower on the case to blow it. Going public with the investigation could cause the killer to go underground, then years from now after three or four more women died, they’d have to connect the dots all over again.

Eli spread the photos across the table. He could not shake the anxiety coiling through him. He tapped his finger on one of the pictures. “Look. Same hair, same eyes. Lucy Kimbol is a dead ringer for these other victims.”

The sense of justice that had led him to want to be a police officer rose up in him. They were going to get this guy. No one else was going to die on his watch. “I think we need to keep our eye on potential victims, too.”

“Manpower is limited, remember.” William rested his elbows on the table. “We’ll be watching potential victims when they are with suspects.”

Eli gathered up the photographs. “Not always. We have to rotate surveillance as it is.”

William shook his head. “You have to let go of the belief that you can protect everyone all of the time. You are not supercop. None of us are.”

“I just think when someone fits criteria for being a potential victim, we ought to do something about it.” Who was he kidding? Lucy wouldn’t accept police protection if it came tied up in a silver bow.

He’d have to find some other way to keep her safe.