Страница 62 из 73
He looked startled. “You don’t?”
“I adore Stacy, you know that. It’s just…she’s not the problem. You are.”
He looked so shocked, she felt a moment of pity for him. “I’m sorry, Spencer. But until you figure out what I mean by that, her moving back in isn’t such great news. And she won’t be staying long. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“Mail, Captain.”
She motioned Dora, the ISD receptionist, into her office. The woman set a stack of mail on Patti’s desk and turned to leave. “Hi, Spencer, baby. You had a call. Somebody named Rich Ruston. Said it was important.”
“He leave a number?”
“Yes, indeed, sugar. It’s on your desk.”
Patti began thumbing through the mail. She stopped at a cream-colored envelope. Crane’s stationery. Addressed to Captain Patti O’Shay.
“Rich Ruston, Shauna’s pain-in-the-ass boyfriend,” Spencer said aloud. “I wonder what he wan-”
Secured with a wax seal, bright red, in an ornate letter A. She opened the envelope, read the short message.
Now you begin to regret your interference.
The Artist
“Captain?”
She lifted her gaze to Spencer’s. “It seems I’ve made myself an enemy.”
He strode across to her; she handed him the note card. He read it, then met her eyes. “Yvette?”
“She disappears and suddenly the Artist reappears. With a hard-on toward me. Oddly coincidental, I think.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get it to the lab, ASAP. And get me the number for the Greenwood PD.”
Moments later she was on the phone with Chief Butler of the GPD. He was an old-timer, with a thick drawl and an old-fashioned, ma
“Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, Chief Butler. I’m in need of additional information about Carrie Sue Borger. Anything you can tell me might help.”
“Happy to try,” he drawled. “Sweet little thing back when. My first recollection of Carrie Sue was the night her mama died. Little darlin’ was cowerin’ in the corner, her eyes the size of half dollars.”
“How’d her mother die?”
“Fell down the back stairs, broke her neck. Little Carrie Sue witnessed the fall.” He paused. “I suppose I shouldn’t speculate this way, but what the hell, maybe it’ll help. Always had my suspicions Carrie Sue’s mama had some help goin’ down those stairs. Couldn’t prove it, though. Coroner classified it accidental and that was that.”
“You interviewed Carrie Sue?”
“Yup. If she saw anything, she wasn’t talkin’. Could’ve been too scared to talk. Her daddy was no damn good. Ornery. Soured on life. After her mama passed, everybody worried about Carrie Sue bein’ brung up by him. Nothin’ we could do about. She was his kin.”
“There were no outward signs of abuse?” Patti asked, feeling sorry for the youngster.
“Emotional, maybe. Nobody was real surprised when she started ru
“What about the assault charge against Carrie Sue?”
“As far as I’m concerned, Vic Borger deserved that knock on the head. Probably more than that. He came in, forced me to file the charge, but I didn’t put much effort into pursuing it.”
“And her father? He’s-”
“Dead,” he finished for her. “Passed away a year or so ago. Whatever case we might have had died with him.”
He had little else to tell her. She’d had no other family, few friends, and as far as he knew, hadn’t been back to Greenwood since she left.
“If she does happen into town, will you let me know?”
“Happy to. Has Carrie Sue gotten herself into trouble down there?”
“She has, Chief Butler. Though I’ll be honest, at this point I’m not quite sure what kind.”
She ended the call and flipped open her inter-department directory. She found the name she was looking for: Dr. Lucia Gonzales.
Lucia was the department’s forensic psychologist. She was a post-Katrina hire, a bright, young Latino woman who had come from Texas to help the traumatized after the storm and had fallen in love with the struggling city.
When she decided to stay, Patti figured she either had no i
“Captain Patti O’Shay,” she said when the woman answered. “ISD.”
“Yes, Captain. How are you?”
Not a polite, empty greeting. A real inquiry into Patti’s state of mind and emotions. After Sammy’s murder, she had spent many hours on the doctor’s couch.
“I’d need more than this phone call for that, Lucia. I wanted to discuss a suspect with you, maybe get some insights into her psyche and possible motivations.”
“I have time now. Your place or mine?”
“You still have that fancy coffee machine up there?”
The psychologist had been the talk of the department when she brought in her own espresso machine. She could be heard frothing milk at all times of the day.
She laughed. “I do. Come on up, I’ll have a latte waiting.”
Patti smelled the coffee the moment she alighted the elevator. If she hadn’t known how to find Dr. Lucia’s, she could have simply followed her nose.
The psychologist’s office bore no resemblance to Patti’s: larger and uncluttered, with a comfortable seating area that included a settee, all in a mellow, soothing palette.
Not only did Lucia Gonzales dissect the minds of criminals, she counseled overworked, burned-out, seen-it-all cops-of which the NOPD had an unending supply.
Patti greeted the woman, who motioned toward the sitting area. A frothy latte sat waiting on the table beside a comfortable armchair.
“Thank you,” Patti said, sitting. She picked up the cup, sipped, then sighed. “I needed this.”
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
“I hear you arrested a suspect in Sammy’s murder.”
“Yes.”
The woman picked up on the small hesitation. “You have your doubts.”
“I do. But perhaps I’m simply not ready for a suspect.”
“You want to talk about that?”
“Once his murder is solved, I have to let go.”
The psychologist nodded. “To a degree that you haven’t yet.”
“Yes. I didn’t come up with that myself, by the way. Someone I love pointed it out.”
“We all say goodbye in our own time and our own way.”
Patti cleared her throat. “I have an interesting suspect. Young woman. A stripper. Been on her own a long time. A number of arrests-solicitation, possession, petty theft.
“She may or may not have seen her father kill her mother. At the least, she witnessed her mother’s neck-breaking fall. Abuse by the father was suspected but not substantiated.”
“Go on.”
“She first came to my attention when she claimed the City Park Handyman victim was her former roommate. The roommate disappeared right before Katrina and had been stalked by someone calling himself the Artist.”
“And that claim proved false?”
“Yes. She made it up.”
“For her own aggrandizement, I’m guessing.”
Patti nodded. “Then she came to me claiming that the Artist was actually stalking her, sending her disturbing love letters. Professing his undying and eternal love. She claimed he had broken into her apartment. That he had killed a friend who’d disappeared. She also insisted this ‘missing’ friend had IDed the City Park victim and told her that this same girl had been receiving attention from the Artist.”
“Why did she come to you?”
“For my help.”
“Which you gave her.”
“I did, even though she couldn’t produce any real proof of her claims. She absolutely believed her own story. Or seemed to.”
“So she was convincing.”
“Very. And facts began to substantiate her version of the truth.” Patti explained about Tonya’s body being found, right hand missing, and the Jane Doe ID checking out.