FOLLOW THE LEADER - Chapter 17

Chapter 17


Colin was wrong. My nemesis, Lt. Spears (aka “Shorty”)was still at his desk in The Homicide Division. That meant Terry and I would have to wait outside in the dark hallway.

My pulse quickened as I remembered one hellish night in the interview room, many years ago. Just a few doors down from where Terry and I stood. 

Sergeant Spears produced a short length of rubber hose from somewhere. He smiled as he stood in front of me, slapping the hose against his palm. “Smitty and me were close, see? You erased my friend tonight.”

“I told you, I was just protecting myself.”

“Protect yourself from this!”  Whap! The first blow struck my shoulder. Whap. My left cheek. Whap! My left ear…

I shook off the memory in time to see Spears leaving through the back door.

“Are you okay?” Terry asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“You were trippin,’ man!”

We saw Colin approaching. There was one other cop eating his lunch at his desk. It was not Olsen, aka “Slim.”

“Follow me, gentlemen.”

         We followed Colin out of the office and down the hall.

         He’s taking us to the interview room!

         “Déjà vu?” Colin asked as he opened the door.

           “Anywhere but here!”

“Ancient history,” I deadpanned.

He led us into the bleak room, closing the door behind us.

“No one’s going to bother us in here.”

 I could see black scuff marks on one wall. The kind a boot would make. A dent or hole had been plastered over. In the middle of the room was a small table that could accommodate four people. Most of the time, there were two cops on one side, a lawyer and his client on the other. I glanced around the room. Nothing much had changed. The table had cigarette burns, even though it was against policy to smoke. A picture of the President hung next to Old Glory.  The ubiquitous one-way dark window gave me chills. Someone could be watching us now, for all we knew.  The room stank of flop sweat but there was something else.

“I smell shit,” I said.

“Better check your pants,” said Colin.

“I smell it, too!” said Terry.

“Plumbing problem up on the seventh floor,” said Colin. (I learned later that it had been going on for years.)

         “Do I call you Inspector Kelly?” asked Terry.

         “We’re not in England. Detective will do. While we’re at it, how do I refer to you? You want to be he or she? Or does it matter?”

         I had been wondering the same thing.

         “And what about your name?” I asked.

         “I’ll stick with Terry for now. But if you’re writing it, spell it with one r and an I at the end.

         “Got it,” I said.  Remember, it’s she or her!

         “Okay, now that we’ve got that straight, let’s move on,” said Colin.  He pulled out a three-ringed binder, and pushed it toward me.

         “The Murder Book,” I whispered to Terry, even though it was not a book. Someone had printed K. ROLLINS on the cover with a black marker.

         Colin glanced at his watch and said “We’ve got forty-five minutes. That’s when the guys start returning from lunch.”

         Colin nodded and opened the Murder Book. He turned the pages to a glossy black and white photograph of Katherine Rollins’ body.

         It was a standard, blown-up crime photo with sickening details. The slightly twisted body lay face down. Below her was bare cement. Terry and I studied it for a bit, then I turned the page. The next photo featured her head and neck. It was obvious her throat had been slashed, but there was a striking lack of blood around the wound. I turned the page. The next grizzly shot showed her right buttocks and hip. The charred initials L.K. were on her right hip.

         “What do the initials stand for?” Terry asked.

         Colin chuckled. “As if we knew!”

         “Killer’s initials?” I asked.

         “Maybe.”

         “Do all of the other bodies have these two letters?” I asked.

         “No. All of the initials are different.”

         A puzzled look from Terry.

         I shrugged. Then I leaned down for a closer look.

         “It looks like a brand,” I said. “Like somebody branded her with a hot iron.”

         I glanced at Terry, who was turning green.

         “You okay?” I asked.

         “I’m fine,” he lied.

         “The M.E.s all agree with you,” said Colin.  “Slim came up with a nickname for the killer. He called him ‘The Cowboy.’”

         “Brilliant,” I said.

         “Olsen probably figured the press would pick it up. They didn’t. After three weeks of digging around they dropped it.”

         How much digging? I wondered.

         “Have you found DNA?” I asked. “Other than the victim’s?”

         Colin nodded.

         “Different each time.”

         “What the fuck?”

         “Go figure,” said Colin. “We think there were five different killers. And this is where it gets crazy. It’s almost like each killer didn’t care what he or she left behind. The first body, she leaves an empty beer bottle…”

“How do you know the killer was female?” I asked.

“I’m no expert, but apparently there’s a Y in male DNA. Absent that, female.”

 “What else was left?” I asked.

“ Different stuff each time.  They found a small lead toy with the old man. Indian on a pony. We found a cigarette butt with lipstick on the filter near the second body. A woman’s broken hair comb with the third.”

He hesitated.

“And the fourth?”

“Let’s see. A leather coin purse. And before you ask, there was a charm bracelet near the body of Katherine Rollins. Female DNA again. No match to the previous four perps. Michael Rollins said the bracelet didn’t look familiar.”

I turned to Terry. “Any ideas?”

“So…” Terry began. “ Whoever she is waits a year. She kills Katherine Rollins one year later. Here’s my question: Why the big gap?”

“And how do we know the killer is part of the bunch who did the others?” I threw in.

“We don’t know. You’re the genius, maybe you can find out for us.”

I knew he was kidding, but he had called me that before and I didn’t like it. Schoolwork had always came easy to me, whereas Colin had to bust his ass, especially in Latin. He resented the fact that I used to get better scores on my tests.

“I’ll take a guess,” I said.

“Go for it,” Colin said.

“Maybe Death Valley got too hot for this killer. He or she moved north.”