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„Mrs. Hillman could have done him in for having an affair,“ Mia said.
„But you don’t think so.“
„No more than you do.“ Mia scrubbed her cheeks with her palms. „Damn, I’m tired of this. I guess it’s back to Kristen’s list.“
Thursday, February 26,
8:00 A.M.
Their faces were grim, Kristen thought, looking around the table. They had a right to be. They were missing a judge. The press was in an uproar, the legal community even louder.
Spi
„Nothing.“ Even Jack was discouraged. „Not one thing.“
„And nobody saw anything,“ Abe added.
Kristen cleared her throat. „I know you all are tired of my lists, but here’s another one. All the sexual assault cases I prosecuted in front of Hillman. I’ve already talked to a number of the former complainants. Most are still bitter. None reported trauma in the last three months.“
„Any names we’ve seen before?“ Mia asked.
„One. Katie Abrams.“
„The five-year-old who ‘came on’ to her mother’s boyfriend,“ Spi
Familiar anger simmered at the memory of Katie Abrams and the gross miscarriage of justice. „Yes, that’s the case.“ Kristen looked over at Todd Murphy who’d joined them again. „But Murphy checked out Katie’s family after Arthur Monroe was killed. The mother’s in prison for possession and Katie’s been in foster care. I talked with her social worker who said she saw Katie two weeks ago. It’s a good foster family and Katie’s relatively happy.“
„The foster parents?“ Spi
„Solid alibis, Marc,“ Murphy said quietly.
„Dammit,“ Spi
„It depends.“ Westphalen held up his hand when Spi
„If Hillman’s the next random target, we got nothing more than we had yesterday,“ Abe said. „If Hillman’s his revenge, is he done?“
„I have to believe there is a pattern,“ Kristen insisted. „He’s so regimented. Everything’s always done the same way. And the focus is always on the victim.“
„And you,“ Mia commented.
„And me. Somehow I factor into this. But it’s more about the victims. Think about the headstones and the letters. I’m only the P.S. The victims are the focus. Maybe I’m just sensitive because I’ve been talking to these people for the last few days, but I hear the same things over and over again. The victims who’ve been denied justice blame the system. They blame the criminal, the defense attorney, me, the judge. It’s a package.“
„Just like the box he leaves for you,“ Miles said. „Interesting parallel.“
„So where are you going with this, Kristen?“ Jack asked. „What’s the co
Kristen shook her head. „I don’t think so. For one, there’s been no recent trigger with Katie Abrams. Second, there was no one who cared enough about Katie to avenge her. That was one of the things that made that case so hard. I think it’s someone else.“
„Maybe we’re all wrong, and we just have a wild card,“ Mia said quietly. „Maybe he reads about you in the paper, Kristen, and decided to give you these gifts because he’s crazy. Like John Hinckley, Jr. and Jodie Foster. Maybe there isn’t a co
„Then we have nothing,“ Kristen said flatly. „Because he’s been too smart to leave us anything mere than a bullet and a partial print and a cup of coffee.“
Spi
„A few partials from the picture frames, but they were under layers of dust. We took a few from the newspaper. The prints on the newspaper could have been from anywhere, but we’re ru
Abe noted it. „So Paul was the other son, which makes sense because the records clerk told us the Worth property had passed to Paul Worth when Henry the father died. And we know from the marriage certificate that Ge
„We have Paul Worth,“ Mia inserted. „He would have had his father’s old bullet molds. We should check him out, too.“
Abe acknowledged the point with a rueful smile. „That would be more obvious than a child that may or may not have been born sixty years ago, wouldn’t it?“
„I’ll follow up on Paul Worth,“ Kristen said. „If he owns that property you found yesterday, there should be records in the tax assessor’s office.“
„Good.“ Spi
„One more.“ From the end of the table Murphy spoke up. „Marc asked me to get the details of the Aaron Jenkins’s sealed record. Jenkins plead down to sexual imposition. He tried to rape a girl under the stairwell in middle school seven years ago. But she’s not on any of your victim lists, Kristen. I checked. Her name is June Erickson.“
Kristen searched her mind. „I’ve never heard the name. Can we talk to her?“
Murphy grimaced. „If we can find her. Her family moved soon after the complaint was filed. I found some neighbors who said the girl had a hard time in school after that. Kids pushed her around because she reported Jenkins. Apparently he was a pretty popular kid back then. I’ve got listings for people with the same names as her parents and I’ll work through them today until I find them. I’ll let you know when I have something.“
„Then we have our direction,“ Spi
„And you?“ Abe asked.
„I’ll hold off the politicians and reporters that want to tell us how to do our jobs.“
Kristen gave him her latest list. „The Hillman cases with defense attorneys and accused. Assuming there is a co
Thursday, February 26,
9:30 A.M.
Father Ted Delaney of the Sacred Heart Church fancied himself a bit of a detective, having watched Columbo religiously, as it were. So when Abe told him what they were looking for, the old priest plunged into the task with an enthusiasm that made them smile.
„I wasn’t parish priest then, you understand,“ he said, adjusting his glasses on the edge of his nose. „I didn’t arrive until 1965. Father Reed was two generations before me. He was old in 1943. I think he died before the war was over.“
„We figured we wouldn’t find the priest that married them alive,“ Abe said. „Do you remember any Barnetts in this parish? His name was Colin and hers was Ge
„I can’t say that I do, but the parish was much bigger then.“ He looked over his half-glasses with mild reproach. „People don’t go to church like they used to.“
Abe fought the urge to stare at his shoes. „Yes, sir,“ he said. „So how about the birth records? The baby would have been born around March 1944.“
Delaney chose a bound volume and slowly flipped the pages, his fingers thick and twisted with age. Finally, he looked up. „A son. Christened Robert Henry Barnett on March 2, 1944.“
One step closer. „Did they have any other children, Father?“ Abe asked.