“D.D.,” the district detective replied stoically. “Heard you were back. Congrats.”
“Thanks.” D.D.’s gaze remained focused on the woman. The alleged killer. The alleged victim. The girl appeared young. Mid-to late twenties would be D.D.’s guess. With shoulder-length blond hair and delicate features that would probably be found attractive, if not for the assortment of bruises, smatters of blood, and smears of rot. The girl didn’t look at her, but continued to focus on the back of the driver’s seat.
Flat affect, D.D. noted. An expression most often found in homicide cops or victims of chronic abuse.
Standing outside the patrol car, D.D. leaned down until her face was even with the woman’s. “Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren,” she said by way of introduction. “And you are?”
The girl finally turned her head. She stared at D.D. Seemed to study her as if looking for something. Then, she resumed her examination of the back of the driver’s seat.
D.D. gave it some thought. “Quite the scene in the garage. Chemical fire, I’m told. Basically, you burned a man alive with some kind of preservative mixed with antifreeze. You learn that as a Girl Scout?”
Nothing.
“Let me guess. Devon seemed nice enough when you first met. Good-looking guy, hardworking. You decided to give love a chance.”
“Devon?” The woman finally spoke, gaze still locked straight ahead. Her voice sounded husky. As if she’d smoked too much. Or screamed too loud.
“Victim’s name. Devon Goulding. What, you never got around to asking?”
Cool blue eyes. Gray, D.D. thought as the girl glanced over.
“Didn’t know him,” the girl said. “We’d never met.”
“And yet here we are.”
“He’s a bartender,” the girl offered, as if that should mean something to D.D. Then, it did.
“You went out tonight. To the bar where Devon worked. That’s how you met.”
“We didn’t meet,” the girl insisted. “I was there with someone else. The bartender . . . he followed us out.” She stared at D.D. again. “He’s done this before,” she stated matter-of-factly. “August. That girl who went missing, Stacey Summers. The way he grabbed me, tucked his head to hide his face from view as he pulled me down the back streets . . . He matches the man in the abduction video. I would search his property thoroughly.”
Stacey Summers was a Boston College student who’d disappeared in August. Young, beautiful, blond, she had the kind of beaming smile and gorgeous head shots guaranteed to grab nationwide headlines. Which the case had. Unfortunately, three months later, the police possessed only a single grainy video image of her being dragged away from a local bar by a large, shadowy brute. That was it. No witnesses. No suspects. No leads. The case had grown cold, even if the media attention had not.
“Do you know Stacey Summers?” D.D. asked.
The girl shook her head.
“Friend of the family? Fellow college student? Someone who once met her at a bar?”
“No.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“FBI?”
Another shake.
“So your interest in the Stacey Summers case . . .”
“I read the news.”
“Of course.” D.D. tilted her head sideways, contemplated her subject. “You know federal agents,” she stated. “Family friend? Neighbor? But you know someone well enough to dial direct.”
“He’s not a friend.”
“Then who is he?”
A faint smile. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”
“What’s your name?” D.D. straightened up. Her left shoulder was starting to bother her now. Not to mention this conversation’s strain on her patience.
“He didn’t know my name,” the girl said. “The bartender, this Devon? He didn’t care who I was. I arrived at the bar alone. According to him, that’s all it took to make me a victim.”
“You were at the bar alone? Drank alone?”
“Only the first drink. That’s generally how it works.”
“How many drinks did you have?”
“Why? Because if I’m drunk, I deserved it?”
“No, because if you’re drunk, you’re not as reliable a witness.”
“I danced with one guy most of the night. Others saw us. Others can corroborate.”
D.D. frowned, still not liking the woman’s answers, nor her use of the word corroborate, a term generally favored by law enforcement, not laypeople. “Dancer’s name?”
“Mr. Haven’t I Seen You Around Here Before?” the girl murmured.
On the other side of the girl, the district detective rolled her eyes. Apparently D.D. wasn’t the first person to be asking these questions, or getting these answers.
“Can he corroborate?” D.D. stressed the legal term.
“Assuming he’s regained consciousness.”
“Honey—”
“You should search the garage. There’s blood in the far left corner. I could smell it when I was digging through the trash, trying to find a weapon.”
“Is that when you discovered the potassium permanganate?”
“He’s the one who threw away the bouquet, probably after using it to lure in some other victim. I’m not his first. I can tell you. He was much too confident, too well prepared. If this is his house, check his room. He’ll have trophies. Predator like him enjoys the private thrill of revisiting past conquests.”
D.D. stared at the woman. In her years in homicide, she’d interviewed victims who were hysterical. She’d dealt with victims who were in shock. When it came to crime, there was no such thing as an emotional norm. And yet she’d never met a victim like this one. The woman’s responses were well beyond the bell curve. Hell, outside the land of sanity.
“Did you know what Devon—”
“The bartender.”
“The bartender had done to these other women? Maybe a friend of yours told you something. Her own scary experience. Or rumors of something that may have happened to a friend of a friend?”
“No.”
“But you suspected something?” D.D. continued, voice hard. “At the very least, you think he was involved with the disappearance of another girl, a case plastered all over the news. So what? You decided to take matters into your own hands, turn yourself into some kind of hero and make your own headlines?”
“I’d never met the bartender before tonight. I left with a different loser. He was the one I was trying to set up.” The girl shrugged, gaze once more locked on the back of the driver’s seat. “The evening’s been filled with surprises. Even for someone like me, these things can happen.”
“Who are you?”
That smile again, the one that was not a smile but something far more troubling rippling across the girl’s face. “I didn’t know the bartender. I’ve read about the Stacey Summers case, who hasn’t? But I never thought . . . Let’s just say, I didn’t plan on some overpumped nightclub employee knocking me unconscious or carting me off as his personal plaything. Once it happened, though . . . I know survival skills. I know self-defense. I utilized the resources I found on hand—”
“You went through his trash.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
The girl stared at her. For once, D.D. was the one who looked away.
“He started the war,” the girl stated clearly. “I simply ended it.”
“Then called the FBI.”
“I didn’t have any choice in that matter.”
D.D. suddenly had an inkling. It wasn’t a good feeling. She studied her victim, a midtwenties female obviously experienced with law enforcement and personal defense. “The special agent? Is he your father?”
The girl finally took her seriously.
She said: “Worse.”
Chapter 4