The Third to Die Read online

  “I have an errand—do you need anything in Spokane?”

  “No, honey, I’m fine. Go—the soup will be on the stove when you return.”

  She kissed her grandmother on the cheek and left.

  11

  Spokane

  4:25 p.m.

  Andy Knolls had told her the feds were briefing SPD this afternoon, and Kara needed to get to Agent Costa before he started stirring the shit down in LA. Lex was right about one thing: if Costa and his people started making inquiries about her with the local FBI office, it would disturb the hornets’ nest. Kara was damn good at being whoever she needed to be and most everyone either completely forgot about her or respected her. But she’d pissed off one person in the FBI, and he’d unfortunately moved up through the ranks.

  It had been her one big interpersonal screwup early on in her career. She’d learned her lesson, but she was still paying for her mistake.

  She arrived before shift change and asked the desk sergeant where Andy Knolls was, fibbing just a bit that he’d asked her to be here for the federal briefing.

  “If he’s here, he’s in the main briefing room down the hall, to the right. But it hasn’t started yet.” He checked her ID and badge, then handed her a visitor’s pass.

  She started down the hall when she saw Brian Maddox talking to two officers. He spotted her at the same time and grinned.

  “Well I’ll be damned, Quinn. Took you long enough to come see me.”

  She walked over to Maddox and he pulled her into a brief hug, which surprised the young cops.

  “Maddox. I planned on calling.”

  “Bullshit.” But he didn’t sound angry. He introduced her to his officers. “Kara Quinn here is from Liberty Lake, left us for Los Angeles. Made detective young.”

  They exchanged pleasantries, then Maddox said, “I’ll see you two in the briefing in—” he looked at his watch “—damn, it’s about to start. Five minutes.”

  Maddox steered Kara down the hall to his small office. He left his door open—par for the course. He liked to hear the sounds and see the sights from his office. He’d always been a hands-on cop, and it didn’t surprise Kara that he was a hands-on chief.

  “You didn’t come here to see me, did you?” Maddox said.

  “Partly,” she fibbed. She wasn’t good with personal relationships—which made working undercover much better for her. But she liked Maddox. If it weren’t for him, she might have landed on the opposite side of the law. He was the father she wished she had. “I’m here mostly for the briefing—I found the body.”

  “I read Andy’s report. You’ve been here nearly a week and didn’t call—Julie’s going to blame me, you know. Dinner? Sunday night. You can’t say no.”

  “Going to issue a warrant for my arrest if I don’t show?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Blackmail works. I’ll be there.” It would be fun to catch up with Maddox and see how the other half lived—meaning, cops with family and friends.

  Maddox typed on his phone. “There, now you can’t back out because I texted Julie that you’re coming.”

  “Sneaky.”

  He handed her a slip of paper. “We lived in Spokane for a few years when I first took the job, but Julie missed being close to her friends and family, so a few years ago we moved back to Liberty Lake. Never thought I wanted to commute again, but it hasn’t been too bad—except during a blizzard.”

  She looked at the address. It was up in the hills, a nice area.

  “I know what you’re thinking—we did really well on the Spokane house, bought low and sold high. We were able to afford the zip code.”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  He laughed. “Anyway, Andy called and isn’t going to make the briefing—one of his patrols found the victim’s car near Newman Lake. He’s heading out there now.”

  “Good—they need a break. Have you met the fed yet?”

  “Costa? Seems less dicky than most feds.”

  “Dicky? Really?”

  “Julie wants me to stop swearing. JP said fucking asshole the other day when a driver cut Julie off and they nearly got in an accident.”

  Kara burst out laughing. “I’m sure the driver was a fucking asshole.”

  “Yeah, but JP is six. Trevor and Teddy learned early on to keep their mouths clean around their mother.” Maddox grinned. “Trevor got into University of Washington. Full scholarship. Can’t believe he’s moving out in the fall.”

  “You know they say this is the boomerang generation—he’ll be coming back, just wait.”

  “Worse things could happen. He’s a good kid, though, and smart. Smarter than Julie and me put together. Wants to go into genetic research.”

  “That’s way over my head, Chief.”

  “Mine, too.” He stood. “We should head into the briefing—don’t want to throw Costa to the wolves just yet.”

  She walked into the room with Maddox, but made a detour to stand in the back. It was already crowded and she didn’t want to draw too much attention.

  Maddox went up to Costa, who looked from Maddox to Kara. She winked at him, then situated herself against the wall.

  Maddox gave a brief introduction of Costa, and gave his blessing to his troops, though not in as many words. It was clear he expected his men and women not only to listen to the fed, but to fully cooperate.

  The fed kept looking at her as he spoke, either trying to figure out why she was here at the briefing, or how she knew the assistant chief of police. Good. Keep him on his toes. Even if he was less dicky than most feds.

  Costa gave a quick rundown on the current homicide, then explained the connection to the other victims.

  “Internally, we’ve been calling him the Triple Killer because he kills in threes. Not very original, but we are mere federal agents.”

  He was expecting a laugh, and a few people obliged. Costa obviously expected to be able to work a room. A diplomat? Maybe. Kara’s assessment from yesterday was that he was far more hands-on than he wanted people to think, that he was a sharp tack, and he would do anything it took to cut through any roadblocks. Based on his tone here, he was willing to work with anyone he had to, but if the relationship impeded his investigation, he would mow them down.

  She liked that and hoped her assessment was right.

  She almost laughed at herself. Of course it was right. She read people better than most, which had saved her life—and her cases—more than once.

  But she hadn’t been able to save Sunny.

  Block it, Kara. Block it out and focus. Triple Killer. Serial killer. Seven dead.

  “Three victims in Portland, Oregon,” Costa was saying. “A stay-at-home mom of three, a high school principal, an off-duty cop. Three years later in Missoula, he killed a nurse, a college professor, and another off-duty cop.”

  One of the officers said, “Did he target them because they were cops?”

  Costa went through the case and Kara was immediately caught up in the mystery. Because the way he spoke, it was a mystery; they knew very little. The victims appeared random, but their profiler thought the killer stalked them and had a personal reason to single them out. They weren’t certain whether the cops were specific victims because they were both out of uniform. There was no known connection between any of the seven victims, and they were now running far deeper backgrounds into their lives, starting with the first victim. He went through their names, races, and ages; how widespread the victimology was; and why that made this killer elusive.

  All they knew was that on March 6 the killer would hit again if they couldn’t identify him.

  Yeah, she could see why the feds were all over this. Based on what Costa was saying, they had shit—but they had more now than they had two days ago.

  “Our top profiler is working on this case, and I hope to have more
information to help narrow our suspect pool later today,” Costa said. “Profiling is not a hard science, but we’ve been extremely successful in the past, and we have a rough profile that we’re honing as I speak. You can probably guess based on your experience that we’re looking for a male. He’s average in most every way, but he’s likely a loner. Smart, has a job, but won’t be working day to day with people. Highly intelligent, methodical. Just before this meeting, I got word that the Sheriff’s dive team will be assisting us in searching the lake tomorrow morning to look for the murder weapon.”

  “Does that mean he uses a different weapon for each murder?” one of the plainclothes detectives asked.

  “Local Portland law enforcement found two separate murder weapons, both generic double-edged knives, disposed of near those crime scenes. The knives were identical, but common. We believe that he uses the same type of knife with each victim—and possibly a different knife each time, suggesting that he gets rid of it immediately after the murder. The FBI only became involved after the fifth murder, and by the time we were caught up to speed, the killer took his sixth victim and then disappeared. Until now.”

  As Matt Costa looked around the room, Kara caught his eye. Why did he seem so suspicious that she was here? She had a vested interest, and she was a cop. She smiled at him, mostly to mess with his head because it was fun. He looked away.

  He outlined how the killer grabbed Manners somewhere between work and home, and they believed she was taken directly from the parking lot of the hospital where she worked. He drove her to Newman Lake—where her car was recently found—and then had another vehicle to transport her to Liberty Lake, where he killed her. The timeline was precise—she went missing just after 8:00 p.m. on March 2 and she was dead between midnight and 3:00 a.m. on March 3, according to the preliminary autopsy report.

  “Sexual assault?” one of the detectives asked.

  “None of the victims were sexually assaulted.”

  “Tortured?”

  “There is no evidence of pre or postmortem torture.”

  “Were the victims drugged? How?”

  It was a good question—and it was also clear that Matt didn’t have an answer.

  “Because the initial investigations were all separate in different jurisdictions, and some of the bodies were found weeks after death, toxicology has been inconsistent. We believe based on lack of defensive wounds on the victims, that some were drugged or otherwise incapacitated, which facilitated their murder.

  “We’re extremely lucky that Ms. Manners’s body was found so soon after her death. We have more time than we have had in the past—but it’s still not a lot of time. He will kill again on March 6 and on March 9 unless we stop him. He has a set pattern. We all need to be extra diligent. Manners was taken from Spokane, but that doesn’t mean the next victim will—or won’t—be. The only thing I’m confident about is that the individual will be killed in Liberty Lake.”

  “And you’re certain this is the same killer,” Maddox asked.

  “Yes,” Matt said without hesitation. “I wish I had more information to share, but please, anything you see or suspect or just your gut telling you something is off, let your supervisor know. There will be a briefing sheet available shortly with these details, and I will make sure your department is kept up-to-date on our investigation. We need you all, and we’re happy to work with you to catch this guy.”

  Maddox stood up. “I’m taking point with the feds from our office, and I’ll make sure we have what we need—and they have what they need. You’re the finest cops in the state of Washington, and we will stop this killer here.”

  The door opened next to Kara and she moved over and stepped back against the wall. Blending in.

  A man in full uniform—the chief of police based on his stripes—stepped in along with another cop in plainclothes. Everyone turned and acknowledged him.

  Maddox looked both irritated and uncomfortable. Interesting. Kara loved interdepartment drama—unless she was in the middle of it.

  “Chief,” Maddox said with a nod, “did you have something to add?”

  “Quite a bit, as you’re not chief of police yet, Brian.”

  What a jerk. Kara already hated him.

  Kara leaned back to observe the exchange, plastering a blank, disinterested expression on her face.

  The chief walked to the front of the room, extended his hand to Matt—who looked briefly blindsided and annoyed, but hid it well—and said, “I’ve read the report Agent Costa provided, and spoke to the Assistant Director of the FBI, Tony Greer. Of course our office will provide whatever assistance the federal government needs. This killer is in part targeting cops, and I don’t want anyone to take that lightly. We will be diligent. Until this bastard is caught, no one patrols alone. I’m implementing a check-in system and already spoke to Chief Dunn in Liberty Lake, who concurs. Everyone will call in when you’re home. When you leave for duty, you’ll call in and then we’ll check you off when you arrive. When you’re off-duty and leave your house, we need to know where you are and who you are with. We need to have each other’s backs. Understood?”

  There were nods and agreements. Not a bad idea on the surface, but practically it would be a nightmare. Managing the work and private lives of hundreds of cops for days? A week? Kara didn’t see how that was going to work smoothly at all. The riding with a partner—that was smart. But off-duty? Talk about creating a bureaucracy.

  Costa looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. He answered a few more questions and kept looking over toward Kara, so she left the room. She didn’t want anyone to talk to her, and she was good at being a chameleon. She’d even dressed like a real detective, as Lex would sometimes say. “Quinn, would you try and at least look like a real detective?” Dark jeans, button-down shirt, blazer over her shoulder holster. She preferred wearing a belt holster, but she’d noted years ago that most of the detectives here wore shoulder holsters. It was all about blending in.

  Kara waited for Agent Costa by his rental car. It was overcast and she thought it might snow tonight—probably not for long, and probably wouldn’t stick unless the temperature plummeted. She should have stayed inside—the years in Los Angeles had made her soft.

  But she’d wait right here.

  * * *

  The first thing Matt did when the briefing broke up was to find Maddox. “You said—” he began.

  Maddox stopped him. “I thought I took care of it. It’s my problem. I’ll fix it.”

  Matt didn’t want to know what was going on, but he asked anyway. “What’s with your chief?”

  “He’s a lame-duck chief but doesn’t want to leave. He’s out at the end of the year. I’m in. So yeah, it a prickly situation, but I’ll take care of it.”

  Matt was about to ask about Kara, when Maddox excused himself and approached the chief down the hall. He turned the other way and started to look for her himself. He didn’t know if he was more irritated or curious that she’d shown up at his briefing as if she were just another cop. Finally, when he realized she’d bailed, he got angry.

  The briefing was productive, but unnecessary, though making the connection with the men and women in uniform had been a plus. But he wished he’d known the LA cop would be there. He called Andy Knolls.

  “Kara Quinn showed up at my briefing,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Did you tell her about the briefing?”

  Andy didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “I told her I’d be there.”

  “She’s a witness.”

  “I know. She’s also friends with Maddox. He’s the one who convinced her to be a cop, from what I heard.”

  What? She was buddies with Maddox? Matt was thinking about bringing her into the investigation anyway, so what was his problem?

&n
bsp; Because she’s putting herself in the investigation before you asked. That’s the problem.

  He shook his head. “Never mind. What’d you find up there?”

  “Manners’ car has been cleaned and bleached. We’re securing it and taking it to the lab—they can go over it thoroughly. We haven’t found the ATV. There are a lot of vacation homes up here and I’ve put together a team to inspect each one—but it’s going to take time. Covering the area between Newman Lake and Liberty Lake is going to take days, even if I call in everyone.”

  Matt considered their resources. Finding the ATV would be terrific, but was that the best use of their time and energy?

  “Start at the crime scene and move out from there. Go out two, three miles. You figure out the logical perimeter. But you’re right—it’s a matter of time right now, which is against us, and we’re going to need your people. We can’t focus on maybes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, but the guy jumped in the fucking lake—he had to be freezing. Do you think he’d go back twenty miles to where he dumped the car to dump the ATV?”

  “Probably not.”

  How the hell was the killer getting around? From the very beginning, Catherine had said he worked alone, but this murder seemed to need two people if the car was miles from the body. Matt needed more people he could trust. He asked Andy, “You vouch for Quinn, correct?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “He’s going to kill again, sooner rather than later. She sat through my briefing, she must be interested, and I can use another set of eyes, especially an experienced detective.”

  “I don’t think she understands what it means to be on a vacation. Emily, her grandmother, plays Bunco with my aunt Dee, so I called Dee to check up on Kara. She says Kara hasn’t had a vacation in years, that Emily calls her a workaholic with no social life.”

  “So if we need her, would you object to using her?”