Lieutenant Anderson blinked and cleared his throat. “What we didn’t know…? Well, I’d say we’ve eliminated a lot of possibilities.” When it became apparent from the stares fixed on him that this was not an adequate response, he cleared his throat again. “There were a lot of things that might have happened that we know now didn’t happen. We’ve eliminated a lot of possibilities, and we’ve developed a sharper picture of the suspect. A real nutcase.”
“What possibilities have you eliminated?” asked Kline.
“Well, we know that no one observed Flores leaving the Tambury area. There’s no record of his calling any cab company, no car-rental record, and none of the bus drivers who make local pickups recall anyone like him. In fact, we couldn’t find anyone who saw him at any time after the murder.”
Kline blinked in confusion. “Okay, but I don’t quite understand…”
Anderson continued blandly. “Sometimes what we don’t find is as important as what we do. Lab analyses showed that Flores had scoured the cottage to the point where there was zero trace evidence of himself or anyone other than the victim. He took incredible care in erasing everything that might carry analyzable DNA. Even the traps under the bathroom and kitchen sinks had been scrubbed. We’ve also interviewed every available Latino laborer within a fifty-mile radius of Tambury, and not a single one was able or willing to tell us anything about Flores. Without prints or DNA or a date of entry into the country, Immigration can’t help us. Ditto the authorities in Mexico. The identikit composite is too generic to be of much use. Everyone we interviewed thought it looked like somebody they knew, but no two people identified the same person. As for Kiki Muller, the next-door neighbor who disappeared with Flores, no one has seen her since the murder.”
Kline look exasperated. “Sounds like you’re telling me the investigation has gotten nowhere.”
Anderson glanced at Rodriguez. Rodriguez studied his fist.
Blatt made his first comment of the meeting. “It’s a matter of time.”
Everyone looked at him.
“We have people in that community keeping their eyes and ears open. Eventually Flores will surface, shoot his mouth off to the wrong person. Then we scoop him up.”
Hardwick was peering at his fingernails as though they were suspicious growths. “What ‘community’ would that be, Arlo?”
“Illegal aliens, who else?”
“Suppose he’s not Mexican.”
“So he’s Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, whatever. We’ve got people poking around in all those communities. Eventually…” He shrugged.
Kline’s antenna tuned in to the conflict. “What are you getting at, Jack?”
Rodriguez stepped in stiffly. “Hardwick has been out of the loop for some time. Bill and Arlo are your best sources for current information.”
Kline acted like he didn’t hear him. “Jack?”
Hardwick smiled. “Tell you what. Why don’t you listen to what Ace Detective Gurney here has uncovered in less than four days, which is a shitload more than we’ve come up with in four months.”
Kline’s voltage was rising. “Dave? What have you got?”
“What I’ve uncovered,” began Gurney slowly, “are mostly questions-questions that suggest new directions for the investigation.” He placed his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “One key element that deserves more attention is the victim’s background. Jillian was sexually abused as a child and became an abuser of other children. She was aggressive, manipulative, and reportedly had sociopathic traits. The possibility of a revenge motive arising out of that kind of behavior is significant.”
Blatt’s expression was screwed up in a knot. “You’re trying to tell us that Jillian Perry sexually abused Hector Flores when he was a little kid and that’s why he killed her? That sounds nuts.”
“I agree. Especially since Flores was probably at least ten years older than Jillian. But suppose he was taking revenge for something done to someone else. Or suppose he himself had been so severely abused, so traumatically, that it affected the balance of his mind, and he decided to take out his rage on all abusers. Suppose Flores found out about Mapleshade, about the nature of its clientele, about Dr. Ashton’s work. Is it possible that he might show up at Ashton’s house, try to get odd jobs, ingratiate himself, wait for an opportunity to make a dramatic gesture?”
Kline spoke up excitedly. “What do you think, Becca? Is that possible?”
Her eyes widened. “It’s possible, yes. Jillian could have been chosen as a specific revenge target based on her actions against some individual Flores knew, or as a proxy target representing abusers in general. Do you have any evidence pointing in one direction or the other?”
Kline looked to Gurney.
“The dramatic details of the murder-the beheading, the placement of the head, the choice of the wedding day-have a ritual feeling. That would be consistent with a revenge motive. But we sure as hell don’t know enough yet to say whether she was an individual target or a proxy target.”
Kline finished his coffee and headed for a refill, speaking to the room in general as he went. “If we take this revenge angle seriously, what investigatory actions would that require? Dave?”
What Gurney believed it would require-to start with-was a much more detailed disclosure of Jillian’s past problems and childhood contacts than her mother or Simon Kale had so far been willing to provide, and he needed to figure out how to make that happen. “I can give you a written recommendation on that within the next couple of days.”
Kline seemed satisfied with that and moved on. “So what else? Senior Investigator Hardwick gave you credit for what he called a ‘shitload’ of discoveries.”
“We may be a couple short of a shitload, but there’s one thing I’d put at the top of the list. A number of girls from Mapleshade seem to be missing.”
The three BCI detectives came to attention, more or less in unison, like men awakened by a loud noise.
Gurney continued. “Both Scott Ashton and another person connected with the school have tried to contact certain recent graduates and haven’t been able to.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean-” began Lieutenant Anderson.
But Gurney cut him off. “By itself it wouldn’t mean much, but there’s an odd similarity among the individual instances. All the girls in question started the same argument with their parents-demanding an expensive new car, then using their parents’ refusal as a pretext for leaving home.”
“How many girls are we talking about?” asked Blatt.
“A former student who was trying to reach some of her fellow graduates told me about two instances in which the parents had no idea where their daughter was. Then Scott Ashton told me about three more girls he was trying to reach, who he discovered had left home after an argument with their parents-the same kind of car argument in all three instances.”
Kline shook his head. “I don’t get it. What’s it all about? And what’s it got to do with finding Jillian Perry’s killer?”
“The missing girls had at least one thing in common, besides the argument they started with their parents. They all knew Flores.”
Anderson was looking more dyspeptic by the minute. “How?”
“Flores volunteered to do some work for Ashton at Mapleshade. Good-looking man, apparently. Attracted the attention of some Mapleshade girls. Turns out that the ones who showed interest, the ones who were seen speaking to him, are the ones who’ve gone missing.”
“Have they been put on the NCIC missing-persons list?” asked Anderson, in the hopeful tone of a man trying to shift a problem onto another lap.
“None of them,” said Gurney. “Problem is, they’re all over eighteen, free to come and go as they wish. Each one announced her plan to leave home, her intention to keep her whereabouts a secret, her desire to be left alone. All of which is contrary to the entry criteria for mis-pers databases.”