“No. Not at all. I’m glad somebody’s finally interested.”
“The sheriff’s office has never come here to question you?”
“I called them twice. In fact, just this morning before I seen your article. They hemmed and hawed like they think I’m making it up or something. So, then I called you. I don’t care what anybody says, I seen what I seen.”
“And just what did you see, Mrs. Krichek?”
“I seen that boy park his bike and get in an old blue pickup.”
“Are you sure it was the Alverez boy?”
“Seen him dozens of times. He was a good little paperboy. Brought my newspaper all the way to my door and laid it on my mat Not like the kid we have now. He steps off the elevator and tosses it down here. Sometimes it makes it. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not easy getting this walker through that doorway. I think your paper should make sure those kids do a better job.”
“I’ll let them know. Mrs. Krichek, tell me about the pickup. Could you see the driver?”
“No. It was still dark out. I stood right at that there window. Sun was barely coming up. He pulled into the parking lot so that the passenger’s side was all I could see. He must’ve said something to the boy, ”cause Danny leaned his bike against the fence, came around and got up into the pickup.“
“Danny got into the pickup? Are you sure the man didn’t grab him and pull him in?”
“No, no. It was all quite friendly-otherwise, I would have called the sheriff sooner. It wasn’t until I heard Danny was missing that I put two and two together and called.”
Christine couldn’t believe no one had checked out this woman’s story. Was she missing something? The woman was old, but her story seemed believable. She stood and went to the window the woman had pointed to. Below was a perfect view of the parking lot and the chain-link fence. Even someone with poor vision could make out the events Mrs. Krichek had described.
“What kind of pickup?”
“I know little about cars and trucks.” The woman hoisted herself back into the walker and shuffled her way over to join Christine. “It was old, royal blue with paint chipped and some rust. You know, on the bottom part. It had running boards. I remember ‘cause Danny stepped up on it to climb in. And it had wooden stockracks, homemade ones on the back. The kind farmers put on when they’re hauling something. Oh, and one of the headlights wasn’t working.”
If the woman was senile, she had a creative imagination. Christine jotted down the details. “Were you able to see any of the license plate?”
“No, my eyes aren’t that good.”
A screen door slammed below, and a little girl raced out into a backyard on the other side of the fence. She jumped onto a swing and called out to the man who followed. He had long hair and a beard and wore blue jeans with a long tunic-like shirt.
“They just moved in last month.” Mrs. Krichek nodded down at the pair as the man pushed the little girl, and she squealed with delight. “The first day I saw him, I tell you I thought I was looking down at the Lord himself. Don’t you think he looks like Jesus?”
Christine smiled and nodded.
Chapter 28
Maggie watched Nick step carefully around the piles she had scattered all over the floor of his office. He cleared a spot and set down the steaming pizza and cold Pepsis. Then he joined her on the floor, his long legs stretching out next to her. A foot almost brushed her thigh. All day she had found herself acutely aware of his presence. She thought she was too tired to feel, but then her body surprised her every time his elbow accidentally brushed her arm or his hand grazed her thigh while he shifted the Jeep into gear.
She had removed her shoes hours ago and had sat on her feet until they fell asleep. Now she massaged them one at a time while she read the coroner’s reports on Aaron Harper and Eric Paltrow, the two dead, little boys whom Jeffreys may have erroneously been convicted of killing.
The pizza smelled good despite the gruesome details she read. She glanced up to find Nick watching her rub her feet. Immediately, he looked away as though she had caught him at something. He popped open a can of Pepsi and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” This time she was actually hungry. The ham and cheese sandwich from Wanda’s had sat on a plate with only two bites removed when young Deputy Preston had finally volunteered to take it off her hands. That was hours ago. Now it was black outside the window. Phones down the hall had quieted. Staff had thinned out. Some had been sent home to rest while others were sent back out to search for a little boy who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.
Nick lifted a thick slice of pizza, pulling it expertly away so he didn’t lose the cheese. He plopped it down onto a paper plate and handed it to Maggie. She could smell green peppers, Italian sausage and Romano cheese. He had done good. She bit off more than she should have, dripping cheese and sauce down her chin.
“Jesus, O’Dell. You’ve got sauce all over your face.”
She licked the side of her mouth while he watched.
“Other side.” He pointed. “And on your chin.”
Her hands were full of pizza and coroner reports. She licked at the other side while she fumbled for a safe spot to set something down.
“No, higher,” he still instructed. “Here, let me.”
As soon as his thumb touched the corner of her mouth, her eyes met his. His fingers wiped at her chin. His thumb rolled over her lower lip where she was certain there was no sauce or cheese. In his eyes she saw that he felt the unexpected surge of electricity, too. His fingertips lingered longer than necessary on her chin, moved up, caressed her cheek. His thumb took its time to leave her lip and wipe the corner of her mouth. Completely surprised by her body’s reaction, she shifted away, just out of his reach.
“Thanks,” she managed to say, now avoiding his eyes. She practically flung the plate with pizza to the side, grabbed a napkin and finished the job, rubbing harder than necessary in an attempt to wipe away the electrical current.
“I think we might need more napkins and Pepsis.” Nick scrambled to his feet.
Maggie looked up at him, and he seemed flustered. From the small refrigerator in the corner of his office, he pulled two more cans and added napkins to the pile already on the floor. This time when he sat down, he kept more distance between them. She noticed his charm had been put on hold, his flirting almost nonexistent since he had discovered she had a husband. So the touch, the caress had caught him off guard, too.
“There are so many discrepancies,” she said, trying to get her mind back on the coroner’s reports. “I don’t know why anyone believed Jeffreys killed all three boys.”
“But don’t serial killers change the way they do things?”
“They may add things. They may experiment. Jeffrey Dahmer experimented with different ways to keep his victims alive. He’d drill holes in their skulls that would incapacitate them but keep them alive.”
“So maybe Jeffreys liked to experiment, too.”
“What’s unusual here is that the Harper and Paltrow murders were almost identical. Both were bound, hands behind their backs, with rope. They were strangled and their throats slashed. The chest wounds resembled each other almost exactly down to the number of puncture wounds. The same knife was used to carve the X’s. Neither boy appeared to have been sexually molested. Their bodies were found in different remote areas near the river.”
She referred to several documents laid out in front of her, leaning carefully so she wouldn’t soil them. In the last hour she had started to feel the full impact of her exhaustion. Her eyes blurred as she looked over the coroner’s scratchy notes. George Tillie had not been as precise as he should have been. The Paltrow report was the only one to mention the body being clean with little residue found. None of the reports indicated a smudge of oil on the forehead or anywhere else on the body.