“The one you’re gonna kill, you mean?”
“That’s right. Mr. Wrong.”
“Damn straight,” Kara said, with a grin that even Jordan knew reflected her friend’s mental illness. They bumped fists.
Jordan spoke little at the support group meeting, her mind on other things. She did her best to seem attentive, but she was thinking ahead about sharing her encounter with Mark Pryor with the smaller spin-off group. Finally she decided it was best to keep that to herself, for now anyway. If she decided to talk to him, then she would share the result with the subgroup.
The coffee shop was becoming a popular place after support group meetings. In addition to their little investigative team, Jordan noticed an increasing number of other members relaxing there after every meeting. Little interaction, though — some sat as couples, others alone, none in a group as big as theirs. Postgroup, everybody went out of their way not to call attention to anyone else, as if they were members of a secret society, determined not to be discovered by the world at large.
To everyone’s surprise (including herself), Jordan called the meeting to order.
“I’ve been thinking about Levi’s geography theory,” she said to the little circle gathered at its regular table, “as it applies to the two-year time frame.”
“And the gap in that time frame,” David said.
“Yes.”
Levi said, “That could be the key. If we’re able to fill in that gap, we’ll have something to take to the authorities.”
There were murmurs of agreement, and she felt oddly guilty withholding that she had turned away one representative of the authorities already, and had another on the string — Grant and Mark respectively.
“Problem is,” Levi said glumly, “I’ve been digging into this for some time now and can’t find a damn thing for those two years.”
“Nothing?” Jordan asked.
David said, “Do I have to remind everybody that the lack of murder victims is a good thing?”
“Not in this case,” the skater boy said.
Kay said, “Now, Levi has come up with a few possibilities, don’t forget.”
“But nothing that seems concrete,” David said.
Jordan turned to Kay and asked, “What about your case?”
“My case?” Kay asked. “I don’t have a case. Not in the sense that—”
“You never know,” Jordan said. “In police terms, our killer has an MO that’s all over the map. And what happened to your family fits into our time gap.”
Taken aback, Kay glanced at David, who gave her a small supportive smile and nod.
The plump, attractive redhead sighed. “My case is... my brother-in-law shot my sister, then turned the gun on himself.”
“What if he didn’t?” Jordan asked.
“The police seemed so sure,” Kay said, frowning, yet with something like hope in her eyes.
How sad to think that this nice woman might find solace in knowing that a loved one had not been a suicide, but a murder victim.
“The police can always be wrong,” Jordan said. “Look at Levi’s family and the care the killer took to stage it. Levi was their best suspect for a while, because of that.”
No one said anything, though they were all clearly thinking that through.
Jordan pressed: “Isn’t that why we’re here, because we think the cops missed something, and that all our cases might be one great big case?”
Again, no one spoke, but eyes were moving with thought.
“David and I,” she went on, nodding to him, “and now the Sullys, all suffered home invasions of one kind or another. But Levi’s case was different, and other crimes we’re looking for might not necessarily follow that pattern, either.”
Nods.
Jordan pounded her fist on the high-top table just hard enough to make coffee cups jump. “What if we’re looking for a monster who preyed on all of us, including Kay? If we’re right, the cops haven’t tripped to this bastard in at least ten years... and there’s every possibility my family wasn’t his first.”
Jordan was getting wide-eyed looks around the table.
David, with an admiring half smile, said, “Jordan, for a woman who didn’t speak for ten years, you are doing just fine. Very well said.”
But Kay was shaking her head, obviously shocked. “I didn’t even live with Kathy and Walt. All of the rest of you shared a home with the loved ones you lost.”
“Brittany Sully’s brother didn’t live with his family,” Jordan said. “He was in fucking Afghanistan, and still is.”
Kay blinked at the harsh language, but she and the rest again lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
Finally Levi turned to David. “She could be right.”
“She makes a good case,” the writer said. “She’s just what we’ve needed — a fresh pair of eyes, and a sharp damn mind.”
Levi ran the fingers of one hand through his long hair, taking in and then letting out a deep breath. “Now I know what to do, anyway — go over every family-related homicide for the four years between David’s family and the Sullys.”
Jordan glared at him. “You haven’t done that already?”
“Stay cool, Catwoman. We’re all feeling our way in the dark here. Sure, I checked any case that fit our profile even a little bit... but not the ones marked solved by the cops. Those I threw out, like Kay’s.”
“Whether Kay’s case is our man’s work or not,” David said, “you raise a valid point, Jordan. We never considered that a crime the police had marked as ‘solved’ might have been wrongly attributed.”
Elated, Jordan asked, “How many cases are we talking about?”
Levi said, “I’d have to go over my research, but maybe... a dozen?”
“That sounds manageable enough.”
Levi smirked humorlessly, then ticked off on his fingers as he spoke. “We have a dozen homicide cases usually involving at least two murders. We’re looking for clues the police missed in what are not closed cases, which means no access, and maybe even false information in the papers and on the Net, because the police likely used the explanation most readily presenting itself.”
Elation left Jordan like air from a punctured tire.
“Take Kay’s case,” Levi was saying. “The cops presented a perfectly reasonable solution based on facts available at the crime scene. But if you’re right, Jordan, they overlooked or outright missed evidence.”
David said, “It’s a notorious flaw in too much police work — ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit your theory of the crime. A theory often formed very early on.”
Levi said, “A dozen cases could take years to look at properly, particularly considering we’re working off the grid, with no PD support.”
“I can pitch in,” Jordan said. “No problem.”
Levi gave her a wan smile. “No offense, but you’ve been off the street for, what? Ten years? How are your computer skills?”
“I’m amazing at Google,” she said, then immediately realized how lame that sounded. Maybe she should tell them about Mark, after all. Putting Levi together with the detective might add up to something.
Only that might lead the police to the intruder before she got to him...
But that was a risk she would have to take, a contingency she would finesse when the time came.
Levi was saying, “The Freedom of Information Act gives us access to certain records in these closed cases. Northwestern Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions has been using that kind of info to get innocent people out of prison.”