I nodded. “Let’s go over what we know,” I said. And then I told him all about the interview with Dan Foster.
“It’s obvious to me that Foster had a mean streak in him before he started renting that house on Stoughton,” I said once I’d filled him in. “And I’m convinced that he was present in his own mind at least in part when Bethany was murdered. He didn’t look even slightly remorseful about it either.”
Heath walked over to my laptop and typed in something. He then swiveled it around to show me the screen. “A lot of the evidence used at Foster’s trial is available online. I found this after you guys left this morning.”
I moved over to the couch and pulled the laptop close. “Bethany had a restraining order out on him,” I said. “That confirms my suspicion.”
“Yep. And she’d reported him to the police six months earlier during their breakup because he’d gotten physical with her. He cracked one of her ribs and gave her a black eye.”
“Bastard.”
Heath nodded. “Before that, she told several friends that she was scared to break it off with him because he had a temper and he’d gotten physical with her while they were together.”
“So, Sy just helped him do what he was probably going to do all along,” I said.
“That’s what I think.”
I rubbed my temples and tried to put some order to my own thoughts. “What I don’t understand is how Luke fits into all this. The men who rented that house that we’ve managed to track down all had an edge to them, Heath. They’re not good men, and likely weren’t good men before they rented that house. And I don’t know where that leaves us.”
“Where that leaves us? Regarding what, Em?”
“Luke. I know we only met him twice, but he just doesn’t seem the type, you know? But I have to admit that Kendra showed me a new piece of evidence this morning that’s starting to shake my faith in him.” I then told him about the photo Kendra had shown me of Brook.
“So Luke knew her?”
“Apparently. She worked at the hospital as some fund-raising coordinator or something and they met there.”
“What was the fund-raiser?”
“I don’t know. Some old people’s home or something. The point is that Luke and Brook knew each other and were even spotted hanging out together. There were rumors that their relationship was romantic, but as far as I can tell, that’s only a rumor.”
“So we’re still back at square one,” Heath said with a sigh. “Killer Ken is on the loose, and we also think he got away with at least one murder. Sy the Slayer could have other accomplices roaming the city, and he has it out for you, too.”
I didn’t tell Heath about Sy telling me that I was going to die by one of his accomplices’ hands; I thought it best to keep that mum for the moment. But then something else jumped into my mind and I dug through my messenger bag for my phone. Pulling it up, I dialed Kendra’s number, but either she wouldn’t pick up or she wasn’t near it, because I got her voice mail. “Kendra, it’s me. Please call me. I owe you a big explanation, I know, and I’m sorry for slamming the door in your face. I swear there’s a good reason, though, so call me back, okay?”
“Think she’s mad?” Heath asked as I set the phone down in the middle of the ottoman.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s mad. It’s just a question of how soon she’ll cool off enough to let me explain. I also want to tell her to take some extra safety precautions. Sy was pretty interested in her when he took over Foster’s body at the jailhouse.”
Heath’s expression became concerned. “Do you think she’ll listen to you about being cautious?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. She seemed pretty freaked-out when Foster morphed into Sy. I think it’ll be enough to convince her to be careful.”
We both stared at my phone for a moment and I knew Heath was willing it to ring just like I was. Finally I picked the phone back up and texted her, requesting she call me back right away. We spent another few minutes staring at the phone again, but Kendra didn’t call back and I growled with irritation. I had a feeling she was purposely ignoring me. “How long do you think she’ll stay mad at you?” Heath asked.
I shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe an hour. Kendra’s pretty headstrong and I got my way a whole lot today. She may take the rest of the morning to get back to me.” I then picked up the phone a third time and texted Kendra a longer message, telling her that after our interview with Foster, I thought it a really good idea if she was careful and took some precautions for her own safety. I hoped that even if she was too irritated to talk to me, my cautionary message would at least sink in.
“What do we do now?” Heath asked after I showed him the message I’d sent her.
I frowned at the phone one more time, irritated that Kendra seemed to be playing games and wouldn’t call me back. I felt anxious and overwhelmed and frustrated. This was such a difficult and complicated case that I desperately wanted to take a break from it. Permanently. But I couldn’t because Sy had found a way into Gilley’s mind, and that would have me sticking with it until I locked that evil son of a bitch into his portal if I had to chase him through hell to do it. “How about we get some index cards and spend a little time figuring out what we know, and what we don’t know?”
“How are we gonna know what we don’t know?” Heath said with a playful grin as he wrapped an arm around me.
“Oh, trust me, that pile of index cards is gonna be the biggest pile.”
Heath and I spent the next two hours laying out the case on three-by-five index cards while Doc serenaded us with bits of songs Gilley had taught him. All the songs had altered lyrics and were inappropriate for audiences under eighteen.
Still, there was something kind of hilarious about a little gray bird singing, “I’m too sexy for my feathers, I’m too sexy for my feathers, I’m too sexy.”
“So, on the list of things we know,” I said once we’d laid out all the cards, “is that Guy Walker killed Amy Montgomery in nineteen seventy-five. He’s currently in prison and unable to do Sy’s dirty work. Then,” I added, picking up the next card, which had required a bit of Internet searching to fill out completely, “we have Killer Ken, aka Ken Chamblis. Based on the fact that Sy obviously gets inside Ken’s head, and the fact that, like the other girls, Gracie’s throat was slashed, we’re fairly convinced Ken was responsible for killing Gracie Stewart in the alley behind Sheedy’s Place on April tenth, twenty ten. What he’s been up to since then is a mystery, but he’s no longer living at the Stoughton house. He’s also right-handed, so he could be a suspect in Brook Astor’s murder.”
“He’s definitely still under Sy’s influence,” Heath said. “And Sheedy’s is a hike from Comm Avenue, but who knows what Ken’s got for transportation?”
“Right,” I said, tapping my finger against my lips while I thought of another question we hadn’t asked. “We need to know where Ken lives. See if maybe his residence is closer to Comm Ave these days.”
Heath moved over to the computer and began to click the keys. “According to Switchboard.com, Ken has several different addresses. Not sure which one is his current address, but he definitely once lived on Stoughton Street.”
“Any of those addresses bring him close to Comm Ave?”
“Two,” Heath said, writing them down. “One is about three miles south, and the other is two and a half miles northwest.”
“Within walking distance of Brook’s murder scene.”
“Looks like it.”
I sighed and fished around for the next card on the floor. “After Ken, we’ve got Dan Foster, who killed Bethany Sullivan in the park across from her apartment—”
“That’s about ten miles from the Stoughton Street house,” Heath interrupted. We’d come up with that little tidbit, thanks to Google Maps.
“Yes, but his car was found not far from the murder scene and, according to the evid
ence posted online you found an hour ago, Dan’s steering wheel had traces of blood on it, and the tank was empty. He obviously murdered Bethany and tried to drive away, but he ran out of gas—which is why the cops found him wandering the streets not long after discovering Bethany’s body.
“Anyway, the only thing that’s really relevant to us right now is that Dan was in prison and he couldn’t have murdered Brook. Which leaves two names on our list that we have yet to identify. Butcher Bill and Murdering Mike. Oh, and Sy the Slayer.”
Heath squatted next to me to peer over my shoulder. “We’re missing some years,” he said.
“Hmm?”
“Well, if Sy was already dead when Guy Walker was available to be possessed, and he was running loose in nineteen seventy-five, then Sy must’ve been killing people before ’seventy-five.”
“Yeah, but the question is, how many years before? This psycho could be from the eighteen hundreds for all we know.”
“I don’t think so,” Heath said. “I think evil spooks like him don’t lie low for long before they start looking for ways to entertain themselves.”
“You’re thinking Sy could’ve been alive in the sixties or even early seventies?”
“It’s possible.”
I scribbled a note on the index card and went back to the other two. “We need to find out who Butcher Bill and Murdering Mike are.” I then reached for my phone and called Gilley. “How ya doin’?” I asked, still worried about him.
Gilley yawned. “I’m fine now that I’ve had a little nap. What’s up?”
I felt my temper flare. “What’s up? What’s up? Are you for real, Gil?”
“What?” he asked innocently.
“We’re trying to solve this case and you’re napping?”
“I’m up now,” Gil said, a note of irritation in his voice.
“Did you do any research on Lester?”
Gil yawned again. “I found two men in the U. S. with that name. Neither of them lives or has lived in Massachusetts.”
“Crap,” I said.
“Is that all?”
“No. You owe me other stuff.”
“Like what?”
I felt my temper flare again. I just knew Gil was trying to be difficult, but because I was mad, I couldn’t immediately think of what I’d assigned to him, so my brain went right to the names on the two cards I held in my hand. “Heath and I think that Butcher Bill and Murdering Mike might’ve been active between the years nineteen seventy-six and roughly two thousand nine or ten.”
“Oh, that’ll be a snap to look up,” Gil said drily.
“Just see if there were any women murdered between those dates who might’ve had similar MOs to all the other victims. See if there were any girls stabbed on the streets late at night by unidentified suspects. Or even known suspects. Or even convicted criminals.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?”
I sighed, trying to find a common theme between all the murders, and then I had one. “Gil, in all the murders that we know Sy the Slayer had a hand, the murder weapon was never found. Not even in Bethany’s case, which is weird because Dan Foster was arrested only an hour after her murder and he still had blood on his clothes and hands.”
“Luke didn’t come home with a knife either,” Gil pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m still not convinced he did it. Anyway, plug that into the search.”
I’d been staring at the list of killers from the closet and, getting an idea, switched my gaze over to the index cards of all the murdered women. “You know, the victims might also be a link. All the women were white, but I think they might’ve ranged in hair color.” I’d seen a photo of Bethany, who was blond, and Brook, who had brown hair. “Still the ages aren’t too far apart. Brook was the oldest at thirty, but all the others were in their late teens or somewhere in their twenties. And maybe there’s something about their build—see if the known victims were all around the same height and weight.”
I could hear Gilley scribbling down some notes and I was happy he seemed to finally be taking this seriously.
“Okay,” he said. “That it?”
“For now.”
“Good. Can you get me something to eat?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Remember? You owe me.”
I sighed heavily to let him know he was pushing it with me, but I also had to admit that he sort of had a point. “Fine. What is it you’d like, your royal highmaintenance?”
Gil gave me his order and I took Heath’s lunch order too and he said he was going out for quick run while I was picking up lunch. I was glad because I didn’t want him to be alone in the condo, where I couldn’t get to him quickly if I needed to. About the time I was pulling up to the deli, I realized I’d left my phone behind in my messenger bag. I’d only grabbed my wallet on my way out.
I had to suffer through what felt like a long wait while my order was prepared—there’s nothing worse than realizing you’ve left behind your electronic tether.
At last I had the order and raced home. I breathed a sigh of relief when I passed Heath on his way back to the condo and I had to marvel at the beauty of the man as he ran. Heath has an amazing stride. He moves so lithely, so effortlessly, he’s like a gazelle. It’s amazing to watch. I waited for him in the parking lot and he glided in and smiled when he spotted me. “You were really flying,” I said as he slowed to a stop. The turkey wasn’t even breathing hard.
Heath checked his watch. “It’s a perfect day,” he said. “I always run better when it’s cool.”
I took a peek at his time. “A six-twenty pace?” I said. “Whoa!”
He wound an arm around my shoulders. “I was having fun.”
“I’m totally slowing you down,” I said. “No more running together.”
Heath made a derisive noise. “The only thing better than really opening up on a day like today is running with you, babe.”
That made me feel all warm and googley inside.
We checked in with Gilley on our way upstairs, and after handing him his lunch, he said, “Who do you love?”
“You apparently,” I replied, reading his expression well.
“Yes. Yes, you do!”
“What’d you find?”
“Not what. Who. I found Butcher Bill.”
“Get out!”
“Before or after I tell you about Billy Boy?” Gil said, rocking back on his heels.
“After. Spill it, Gillespie.”
“Well,” Gil said, dragging it out even longer. “I believe Bill the Butcher is actually Bill Radcliff, who was convicted of murdering two women, Heidi and Paula Kennedy, sisters who shared a house on Stoughton Street just a half block down from the rental house.”
“When was this?” I asked, interrupting Gil.
“The girls were murdered in late June nineteen eighty-two. Bill had a fixation with one of the girls and they went out a couple of times. By all accounts he turned into a stalker and one night he caught Heidi out at night walking home from the train station. He followed her nearly to her door before stabbing her, and while he was in the middle of the attack, her little sister, Paula, came running out of the house to stop him and he stabbed her too.
“She lingered in a coma for a few days afterward, and they thought she’d pull through, but she developed an infection and died in the hospital after telling the police who the attacker was.”
“Where’s Radcliff now?” Heath asked.
“Don’t know,” Gil said.
I eyed Gil sharply. “Wait. I thought you said he’d been convicted of the girls’ murders?”
“He was,” Gil said. “He spent twenty-five years in the state pen and was released two years ago. I was able to confirm through the newspaper article that he lived in the house on Stoughton at the time of the murder, but there??
?s nothing other than his prison address since then. I also can’t find a record of him online, but that doesn’t mean much. He would’ve been behind bars during the tech revolution, so I doubt he has a smartphone.”
“So how do we find him?”
“We could try to find out through his parole officer, but those guys don’t usually give out that kind of info without a damn good reason.”
“I’d say Brook Astor’s murder is a damn good reason,” Heath said.
Gil made a face. “Try convincing his parole officer that Bill had a hand in a murder where another guy’s currently awaiting trial. A guy who was found covered in the victim’s blood, hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a house just down the street from the murder scene moments after the killing.”
I sighed. “See what you can find out, Gil, okay?”
“Oh, you know it,” he said. “Right after I eat.”
“Of course,” I said, and couldn’t hide a slight grin. I was willing to cut him a little slack because he had helped us come up with another viable suspect for Brook’s murder. Then I thought of something else. “Did you maybe get any other details about him or the murder, Gil? Like, was the murder weapon found? Or if he was maybe right-handed?”
“Don’t know about the right-handed or left-handed characteristic, but I was able to learn that the murder weapon was never found. At least from what I read in the article, it was never recovered.”
“Well, that takes care of number five. What about number six on our list of mystery killers: Murdering Mike?”
“So far, he’s a complete mystery. Of course, if you look at the photo of the closet, his name is low and close to Sy’s, so maybe that means something.”
“Like what?” Heath asked while Gil moved to the kitchen to get some plates for our meal.
“Well, it could mean that the closet is somewhat chronological. If you look closely, you’ll see that Sy’s name is the lowest, then Mike’s, then Guy’s, then Bill’s, Dan’s, and Ken’s, then Luke’s.”
“Ken killed Gracie before Dan killed Bethany,” Heath said.