A mistake?
Probably not.
Now, as she snowshoed back to her Jeep and waited for the truck to come and tow Karalee Rierson’s little Honda, she flipped open her cell phone and called Alvarez. When her partner didn’t answer, Pescoli left a short message: “I think we’ve got another one.” Then watched as the frozen Honda, with snow piled over its hood and dirty icicles dangling like long, snaggy teeth along the wheel wells, was winched onto the flatbed.
Another “accident.”
Another dead woman.
Probably related to good old 727.
Whatever the hell that meant.
CHAPTER 32
Poisoned?
She’d been poisoned, and she hadn’t even realized it? With Trace at her side, Kacey was seated on a folding chair in the interview room at the sheriff’s department while listening to Alvarez, from the other side of the small, battered table, describe finding arsenic in Jocelyn Wallis’s coffee grounds. Kacey thought of her own symptoms, how she’d never considered that there was a toxin running through her veins. She was a doctor, and she would have noticed if the symptoms had become violent, the pain more intense. Still…
It all made sense.
Now.
Already the interview was well into its second hour. Detective Alvarez, after warning them to stay out of the investigation, was now doing this by the book.
Trace, though he tried to appear relaxed, was antsy, his jaw, beneath a darkening beard shadow, tight, his lips flat, his eyes serious. Twice during the conversation, he’d stepped outside of the room to call Tilly and get an update on his son. Though he didn’t really need to be here and Kacey had encouraged him to go home, he’d stayed.
Alvarez had listened to Kacey’s theory about the dead women being related to Gerald Johnson twice so far, once at Kacey’s house, and a second time now. When her partner, Pescoli, arrived, Alvarez quickly brought her up to speed.
“Gerald Johnson,” Pescoli repeated, shaking her head. “Think this is his work, too?” She offered up pictures that looked as if they had been taken digitally, then printed out. Kacey inwardly cringed as she looked at the graphic images, not so much from the woman’s injuries — she’d seen worse in medical school and her practice — but because of what she saw beyond the battered, bloody features. The victim’s hair, poking out of a blood-encrusted cap, was a deep red-brown, as close to Kacey’s own color as it could be, and the one eye that was open, pupil apparently fixed, was a green shade that wasn’t quite as blue as her own but was definitely in the color spectrum of all the victims.
Had her face not been so battered, this woman, too, would have resembled Kacey enough as to have been her sister.
Which, she thought sadly, was probably true.
“You know her?” Alvarez asked.
Kacey shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in my life.”
“I was talking to him.” Alvarez hitched her chin toward Trace, her dark eyes holding his.
His jaw was clamped shut, and irritation caused a muscle to work in his jaw. “No.” He slid the pictures back toward Pescoli, who was still standing near the table.
Kacey asked, “Who is she?”
Pescoli thought for a moment and said, “I guess we can tell you, considering the situation, but keep it to yourselves. Next of kin is being notified as we speak. Her name is Karalee Rierson. She’s local. A nurse. Divorced. A couple of times. No kids. Lived in Oregon for a while.” She paused a moment, as if thinking things over, then said, “She grew up in Helena.”
“Dear God,” Kacey whispered, sick inside. Who was behind all these accidents? Why was he killing?
“Dr. Lambert went to see Gerald Johnson today,” Alvarez said, then nodded to Kacey, who explained again about getting her mother to come up with the truth, then forcing herself on Gerald Johnson and his family.
“Did you go to see Johnson and his clan to try and flush out the killer?” Pescoli asked, her expression stern. She stood leaning against the far wall, below a camera mounted near the ceiling.
“I actually went to meet them, show them the pictures, tell them what I knew. I wanted to see their expressions, especially Gerald’s, as he seems to be the link to all of this.” She felt cold inside again, just remembering his reaction and those of her half siblings. Though she didn’t really know them, she realized she would never be close to any of them, might, in fact, never see them again. Her curiosity was satisfied, though; as far as she was concerned, they weren’t part of her family. “Gerald was concerned when I showed him the pictures of the dead women, and even though I don’t think he wanted to, he owned up to the whole sperm donor thing, which bothered most of his kids.”
“I’d say,” Pescoli muttered.
“From now on, stay away from them,” Alvarez advised.
Trace asked, “You think they’re dangerous?”
“I think it’s police business.” Pescoli was firm. “Not that we don’t appreciate the fact that you found out who our sperm donor is. We only had a number.”
They discussed the meeting with the Johnson clan, and then Kacey told the detectives about Gloria Sanders-O’Malley, the instructor at Fit Forever. “She looks like the rest of us, and she was born in Helena.”
“I’ve seen her at the gym,” Alvarez said, her expression growing tense. “She does resemble the others.”
“For the love of God, how many victims and potential victims are we talking about?” Pescoli broke in. “This is nuts!” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“Once I figured out there were more people like me, those with Gerald Johnson as a father, I went to meet him, see what he was like. I wasn’t sure I’d meet his kids, but once Clarissa barged into his office and figured out who I was, they called a family meeting.”
“You should have come here first,” Pescoli said.
“What would I have come with? Some half-baked theory about people who looked like me getting killed off? A few days ago I didn’t even know that Stanley Collins wasn’t my biological father.” The newfound anger and sense of betrayal that had been with her ever since her mother’s confession still burned bright.
“You know of any other potential victims?” Alvarez asked.
“I have a friend looking through state files. I’m not going to give up their name,” she said, instinctively covering for Riza. “And I believe, from what I’ve learned, that there may have been others already killed…. It’s as if the guy started out years ago working in a wide circle, then slowly tightened it, until he’s now concentrating here, in this corner of Montana. From as far away as Detroit to all along the West Coast, Seattle and San Francisco, women have been having accidents. I haven’t had time to look into them all, but I’ve got names and addresses and dates of death.” Reaching into her purse, she found a manila envelope that contained the information from Riza. She slid it across the table toward Alvarez, but she didn’t take her fingers off the end of the envelope closest to her.
Alvarez frowned and placed her fingers on the other side of the envelope. Inside the envelope were copies without any information about Riza or the state offices from which they came, but it would be a simple enough matter for the police, if they were so inclined, to figure out where they had come from, and a simple search into Kacey’s background and her schooling would connect her to Riza. She had to come clean. “A friend of mine risked their job for this. You have to promise me that they won’t get into any kind of trouble. None.”
“This is a sheriff’s department investigation,” Pescoli reminded everyone in the room.