“Just tell me we don’t have to hold hands or light candles,” Mallory begged, pulling another folder toward her and looking through it with a frown.
Hollis shook her head. “What I’m telling you is that if Jamie is hovering anywhere around a doorway, it isn’t mine. Or I can’t open the door. Either way, it’s not going to happen today.”
Rafe leaned back in his chair, saying, “Look, there has to be another way to do this. Plain, old-fashioned police work. If Jamie had a secret place, there has to be a way for us to find it.”
Hollis said, “And we need to do it before the six o’clock news. But no pressure.”
Mallory said, “Reports coming in from all area banks have been negative. Nobody has recognized Jamie’s photo or her name, and there’s no way for us to guess what alias she might have used. If she’s been socking away money for years with her little S amp;M sideline, she’s had plenty of time to construct a really solid one we may never find. And I can’t find anything about stray or missing jewelry, so I think Alan’s off track with that one.”
“It’s that note I don’t like,” Rafe said.
“It doesn’t change anything,” Isabel said. “We knew I was on his list.”
She pulled the note toward her and frowned down at it. “Our trust. They weren’t worthy of our trust.”
“Maybe he really is schizophrenic,” Mallory said.
“Yeah, but even so, the first note made a clear distinction. He wasn’t killing them because they were blondes. This note links the one who wrote the note and the killer. They weren’t worthy of our trust. If he’s schizophrenic, then I’d say he’s on the edge of a major identity crisis.”
“He didn’t have one before?” Hollis murmured.
“I don’t think he knew he had one. I mean, I think there was a part of him listening to whatever it was urging him to kill, and another part of him that had no idea that was happening.”
“A split personality?” Hollis asked.
“Maybe. They’re a lot more rare than people realize, but it is possible that’s what we have in this case. One part of his mind, the sane part, may have been in control most of the time.”
“And now?” Rafe asked.
“Now,” Isabel said, “I think the sane part of his mind is getting lost, submerged. I think he’s losing control.”
“It’s all about control.”
“No, it’s all about relationships. It’s still all about relationships. Look at this note. He believes these women have violated-or, in my case, will violate-his trust. There’s a secret he’s protecting, and he’s convinced the women he kills threaten to expose that secret.”
“So they know him.”
“He thinks they do.”
Rafe looked at Isabel steadily. “Then he thinks you know him.”
“I think I do too.”
The looming storm only fed their sense of urgency, at least in part because it seemed to surround them all day long without actually hitting Hastings. Tree limbs were blown around, power crews were kept busy repairing downed electrical lines, and thunder boomed and rolled while lightning flashed in the weird twilight.
It was as if the whole world was on the verge of something, hesitating, waiting.
By five o’clock that afternoon, they had paperwork scattered across the conference table, pinned to the bulletin boards, and stacked on two of the chairs. Forensics reports, background checks on the victims, statements from everyone involved, and postmortems complete with photographs.
And still they didn’t have the answers they needed.
When Travis came in with the last batch of reports from area banks, Mallory groaned. “Christ, not more paper.”
“And not even helpful,” he told her as he handed the notes to Rafe, then leaned his hands on the back of an unoccupied chair. “Nobody recognized the name or photograph of Jamie Brower-except to say they’d seen her picture in the newspapers and on TV.”
Isabel waited out another rumble of thunder, then said, “We need a fresh mind. Travis, if you wanted to bury a secret someplace you could be sure it wouldn’t be found, where would you put it?”
“In a grave.” He realized he was being stared at, and straightened self-consciously. “Well, I would. Once somebody’s buried, they’re not often dug back up. So why not? It’d be easy enough to strip the turf off a grave, bury whatever it was I was trying to hide between the surface and the casket-assuming it was the right size-then cover it back up and re-lay the grass. As long as I was careful, nobody’d even notice.”
“Son of a bitch,” Rafe said.
Isabel was shaking her head. “Why isn’t he a detective?”
Travis brightened. “I was right?”
“God knows,” Hollis said, “but you’re sending us in a new direction, so I say good for you.”
“Hey, cool.” Then his smile faded. “We got lots of cemeteries in Hastings. Where do we start looking? And what’re we looking for, by the way?”
“We’re looking for a box of photos,” Rafe said, feeling the younger cop had earned the knowledge.
Isabel added, “And it has to be connected with Jamie Brower. We need to know where any deceased family or friends are buried.”
“I’ll go back to my phone,” Travis said with a sigh. “Start calling all the local clergy and asking them. I do not want to have to call the Browers directly, not today. Or tomorrow, or next week.”
“Yeah, let’s avoid that if possible,” Rafe told him.
When he’d gone, Isabel said, “You really should promote him.”
“He was on my short list,” Rafe said. “The only reason I’ve hesitated is because he’s currently sleeping with a reporter who isn’t quite what she appears to be.”
Hollis asked, “What is she?”
“According to my sources, she works for the governor’s office, and is sent in quietly during tricky investigations to keep an eye on local law enforcement. So we don’t do anything to embarrass ourselves. Or the state attorney general. They’re keeping a very close eye on this investigation.”
“That shows a distressing lack of faith,” Isabel said, but without surprise.
Mallory was looking at Rafe with lifted brows. “You know that for a fact.”
“Yes,” he replied with a faint smile. “I keep a fairly close eye on my people.”
Mallory stared at him, then said, “Oh, don’t tell me.”
“You and Isabel have something in common. Neither one of you is as subtle as you think you are.”
“I resent that,” Isabel said.
“Besides,” Hollis said, “Alan Moore is the one who isn’t subtle. Even I picked up on it.”
Mallory got to her feet with great dignity. “Being outnumbered by psychics is hardly fair. I’m going to use the computer in the other room. Excuse me.”
“I think we pissed her off,” Hollis said absently as she opened the local phone book to begin making a list of churches and cemeteries.
“She’ll get over it.” Rafe shook his head. “Although I don’t know if Alan will. Never seen him fall so hard before.”
Isabel pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Mallory doesn’t strike me as the settling-down type.”
“I don’t think she is. I also don’t think Alan has realized that yet.”
“It’s always about relationships,” Hollis murmured, with a sidelong glance at Isabel.
Ignoring the glance, Isabel said, “We need to go back through every piece of paper associated in any way with Jamie’s life and death and check out the names of all family and friends.”
“Chicken,” Hollis said.
“We have more imperative things to think about,” Isabel told her. “Like finding that grave.”
Rafe said, “You think it’s there, don’t you? You think Jamie buried that box in somebody’s grave?”
“I think it makes sense. She was burying a part of her life, so why not put it in a grave? And I’m betting it won’t be a family grave, but the grave of someone else who was important to her. A teacher, a mentor, a friend. Maybe her first lover.”