What Have You Done Page 6

  They’d made a bunch of paper flowers that day, and the days and months after. Their father was a union carpenter, and it wasn’t unusual to have a job or two and then nothing for a few months. That was the cycle. So they made their flowers and sold them around town. His friends did tease him, but the people in South Philly always stuck together, so their neighbors bought the flowers without question and helped as much as they could. Family looked out for one another. He’d learned that lesson early, and it had stayed with him throughout his life. Being there for Liam was all he’d ever known.

  Sean’s teenage years had been spent looking after his little brother and trying to be a good student and model grandson for his grandparents, who had taken them in. By the time his friends were sneaking out and going to parties, dating girls, and snorting lines in club bathrooms, Sean was taking care of his ailing grandfather and preoccupying his grandmother with games of rummy and dominos. He stood by and watched his high school days slip away while everyone else had their fun. Liam was lucky enough to have enjoyed the very dances and dates Sean had missed out on growing up. Sacrifice. His life had always been about sacrifice.

  But he had been proud when Liam was accepted to Penn State. He’d clapped at graduation and hugged his brother when he landed the forensics position with the department. Sean had attended college at Temple and worked on campus to pay for it. After graduation, he landed a job as a beat cop to help pay for his grandfather’s medical bills and what he could of Liam’s education. It was a good job that had grown into a nice career. He was the family’s foundation, upon which everything else was built. This thing with Kerri would now put him to the test.

  Sean stood and made his way to the wheelhouse. He turned the key and lowered the engine into the water. When it was properly submerged, he walked to each dock cleat and untied his boat from the slip. He started the engine and eased out of the marina until he was on the dark open water.

  There was nothing out here except the sound of the wind rushing by and the coldness on his face and hands. The boat bobbed up and down in a wake he couldn’t see as he made his way upriver toward Rancocas Creek and the Quaker City Yacht Club. At that point he’d decide whether to turn around or keep driving. His mind raced with everything that had happened that day.

  He pushed down on the throttle and felt the boat pick up speed. Being out on the water gave him freedom from the city that could sometimes feel claustrophobic. Kerri was dead. His mind filled with the images he had seen at the hotel that afternoon. She was gone. Slaughtered. Somewhere from the depths of a place he thought could no longer exist, he felt another wave of emotion come upon him as he pushed the throttle and felt the boat float on the water.

  12

  It was late. Almost two in the morning. Don hurried out of his car and crossed a street with no traffic. The moon was hidden behind clouds, making it darker than it otherwise would have been, but the rain had stopped, and the sidewalks glistened. He hopped the steps of the three-story apartment house and went through the unlocked front door.

  “Police business” was a term Don often used when his wife, Joyce, wanted to know why he was doing something out of the ordinary and he couldn’t give a reasonable explanation or was prohibited to do so because of an ongoing investigation. So when she had caught him rising from bed in the middle of the night to get dressed and slip down to the kitchen, she had asked what he was doing, and he had simply replied, “Police business.” After ten years of marriage and a family full of cops, Joyce knew any follow-up questions would be a waste of time, so she had relented with a sigh, fallen back on her pillow, and warned him to be careful. He’d blown her a kiss and left.

  Don’s relationship with his wife was a bit more complicated than most. His lieutenant was also his brother-in-law. He’d met Joyce, Phillips’s sister, at a department charity event, and after a brief courtship, they’d married with everyone’s blessing. Sean had been the best man. Most of the time having the lieutenant as a brother-in-law bought some leeway during investigations, but other times it was a hassle. Phillips was very conscious of not letting it appear favoritism was taking place within his department. Nepotism was bad enough. Every once in a while, he took it a little too far. There was no way he’d approve of what Don was about to do. But Sean and Liam were also family, and the boys needed him. He couldn’t say no.

  The stairs squeaked as he crept up toward Kerri Miller’s apartment. This wasn’t really police business. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it wasn’t proper procedure. If he was being honest with himself, he’d admit this was breaking and entering.

  The building was clean but old. At the top of the second landing, he walked the length of a narrow hallway. The overhead lighting was dim, making it hard to see what was ahead. A smell of heating oil emanating from the vents was all around him. He took a small sheet of paper from his pocket and double-checked the apartment number Sean had written under the address. This was it. He looked around once and then pulled a thin metal bar from his jacket to work the deadbolt. The lock sprang, and he slipped inside.

  The apartment was small. From what he could tell, everything seemed pretty basic. The bedroom and bathroom were off to his left, down a slender corridor. The kitchen, dining area, and living room were no more than a single space, sectioned off by new pink wall-to-wall carpeting and white linoleum tiles. There was a couch, a tiny entertainment center with a television and stacks of books, and a coffee table with a laptop on it. That was all.

  Don slipped off his shoes to make sure he left no wet footprints on the floor and put on gloves he had in his pocket. He turned on his flashlight and walked farther inside. Dirty dishes sat in the sink. Countertops were filled with snack foods and cereal. It was nothing out of the ordinary. He turned on the laptop that was sitting on the coffee table and waited for it to boot up. Framed paintings hung on yellow walls. Silver radiators kept the place warm. Plants hung in front of the windows that flanked the entertainment center. The place looked peaceful.

  After a few minutes, the computer was on and waiting. Don sat down and took a flash drive from his pocket. In the silence of the apartment, he could hear the machine’s fan spinning. It sounded so much louder than it normally should. He plugged the drive into the USB port and began copying all the files. When he was done, he wiped the files from the laptop’s hard drive, leaving the basic functionality systems and her social media accounts. He shut the computer down, knowing that when Heckle and Keenan turned the laptop in for analysis, it would perform like a regular computer but would be absent of whatever these files might contain. He was banking on Forensics concentrating on her social media feeds to try to see who she’d been in contact with versus doing a full top-to-bottom scan. It was a risk, but taking the entire computer would put up more red flags than leaving it as it was. No computer on the premises would look too suspicious. A computer with light use could just be a user’s preference.

  “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “What’s next?”

  Don snuck his way from the living room area toward the bedroom. He shined his light as he went. Photographs of Kerri with friends and family, housed in a variety of frames, were all around him. He looked at them as he passed and could see the bright-eyed young woman so full of life smiling back at him. She was dead now, and he wondered if any of the people in the pictures were aware of what had happened yet.

  There was a bed, a dresser, and a full-length mirror in the bedroom. Not much else. He went to the dresser and began pulling at clothes, moving items to study its contents. He really had no idea what he was looking for and searched quickly, going on to the next drawer and so on until the entire dresser had been turned over with nothing found. He went to the closet. It was small. Clothes hung with no space separating them, pushed together in a mass of hangers and material. He aimed his flashlight behind the clothes. Again, nothing. The shelf above held the same result. When he bent to take a look at the cubbyholes, he found only shoes. The closet was a closet.

  “
What do you have me chasing, Sean?”

  He moved to the bed. A tangle of sheets and blankets hung from the mattress. He flipped them back and peered underneath. Groups of boxes filled the dusty floor. Something gold caught his attention, and he pulled it out. The box was square and shallow, the top gold, the bottom black. He stood and opened it.

  The photo album within the box was leather bound with the initials KM embroidered in the corner and Memories in the center. He opened the album and noticed an inscription.

  To Kerri,

  Fill this album with every memory of our lives together. I love you and will always love you. Happy birthday.

  Liam

  Don flipped through the pictures to find the same couple in every shot. Smiling in each other’s arms. Smiling on the beach under an umbrella in Atlantic City. Smiling on the couch he’d just passed in the living room. They were on every page. It was Kerri and Liam. It was the victim and Liam Dwyer.

  “Got it.” He closed the album, took the now-empty gold box, and carefully placed it back under the bed so there would be no dust markings from something he’d taken. Everything would look as it had been before. That was the trick.

  Don remained on his hands and knees, checking every box, the flashlight his only source of light. He wouldn’t leave for another two hours.

  13

  Forensics was on the third floor of the Market Street precinct. Liam sat in his office looking at the set of fingerprints he’d lifted from the hotel crime scene, his thoughts a million miles away. The day had just begun, and already he was feeling the effects of not being able to sleep the night before. His heart ached as he read reports and filed notes into the computer. Each image or description from the units on scene stabbed at him, reminding him of the love he felt for Kerri and how alive he’d been whenever he was with her. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact she was gone.

  The team had found a set of prints on the dresser and a partial print on the crystal of Kerri’s watch. Curiously, there had been nothing else anywhere in the hotel room. An area with such high traffic was bound to have more than a single set of prints, so they figured the killer must have wiped everything clean and left what the forensics team had found in error.

  Liam took the fingerprints and scanned the card through his computer, watching as the images magnified and displayed on the monitor. The set they’d taken from the dresser appeared to be an index finger and pinky, both full and detailed. The partial on the watch was that of a thumb, a bit smudged but distinguishable nonetheless. He put both sets side by side on the screen and could see similar islands, dots, bifurcations, and ridges. There was no way to be certain, but it appeared the prints were from the same person.

  There was a knock on the door. Detective Keenan was standing just outside Liam’s office, his giant frame taking up most of the doorway. “You got a minute?” Keenan asked.

  Liam waved him in. “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “Just want to bounce a couple of questions off you based on what we have so far for the homicide at the Tiger. Make sure I’m heading in the right direction.”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you think the significance of shaving the victim’s head was?”

  Liam leaned back in his seat. Images of his mother hanging over the tub, trying to drown him when he was a little boy, slipped into his mind’s eye. “My guess would be trophies. Something like that. I’ve read cases where the killer would have wigs made from the victims’ hair in order to stay close to their murders. There apparently is such a rush they get when committing these kinds of crime they need to keep something to remember it by, remember the feeling of that rush. It’s not uncommon for a murderer to want to keep something from the victim as a souvenir.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. And the stomach. I’m thinking cutting her was an act of rage. I mean, she was going to die from the hanging. Why cut too?”

  “Maybe,” Liam replied. “Could also be the opposite. Maybe he cut her deep across the stomach to expedite her death, make it quicker. Some kind of a mercy kill.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Helluva way to show mercy, though.”

  “I’m going to call Gerri Cain and get some time with her. See what she thinks. I’ll give you the information when I get it.”

  “Good.” Keenan leaned against the door. He tapped his pen against the butt of his gun that was strapped to his hip. “One more thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I just gotta say that I didn’t like that your brother came to the scene yesterday without you telling us. I didn’t want to cause any trouble with the uniforms there, but just so we’re clear, that was crap. You do something like that again, and we’re going to have a problem.”

  Liam nodded and said nothing. Keenan waited a moment longer, then turned and left.

  When he heard the door to the lab close and the office was quiet again, Liam picked up the phone and noticed his hands were trembling slightly. He scrolled through his contacts list on his computer and dialed.

  “Jefferson Hospital, Psychiatric Unit,” a pleasant voice announced.

  “Dr. Cain, please.”

  “Whom shall I say is speaking?”

  “Liam Dwyer, Philadelphia Police. She’ll know who I am.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Music played, and as he waited, Liam pulled up the Automated Fingerprint Identification System from the FBI database and uploaded the prints that were still on his computer screen. The AFIS held millions of fingerprints taken and scanned from countless suspects, convicted felons, law enforcement officials, military personnel, and those in the financial industry. He rose from his chair as the computer searched its files for possible matches. The process would take several minutes.

  “Liam Dwyer. Long time since I last heard from you.”

  Liam immediately felt at ease when he heard the gentle caress of Gerri Cain’s voice. “Hello, Gerri.”

  “How have you been?”

  “I’ve been good,” he lied. “And you?”

  “I can’t complain. You know, trying to help as many people as I can in as little time as they give me. Same old story.”

  “I see Mitchell still has high aspirations.”

  “I couldn’t get my husband off the podium if I tried. Next stop is the White House, as far as that man is concerned.”

  “Well, tell him I said hi.”

  “Of course.”

  Liam gripped the phone tighter. “I was hoping you might be able to help me with a case I just inherited.”

  The doctor’s voice rose in anticipation. “Will we be working together again?”

  “I need some questions answered, but only if you can spare the time. I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “You’re never a burden. I love getting in on this stuff.”

  “I need about a half hour as soon as you can spare it.”

  Shuffling of an appointment book. A pause. “How about my office this morning around eleven? If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to wait until the end of the week.”

  “Eleven is fine. Thanks for squeezing me in.”

  “Shall I call in Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys? I hear they like this sort of thing.”

  Liam smiled. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. The Hardy Boys’ll make it too crowded, and Nancy’ll want to do it her own way and then write a tell-all afterward. I hear she’s a control freak. I’ll just take you and that wonderful noggin full of stuff I need to know.”

  The doctor laughed. “Sounds good. I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay, see you then. Bye.”

  Liam hung up and logged the appointment in his planner. Gerri had helped him on cases before, drawing up psychological profiles to assist the team in tracking suspects. Perhaps she could help again. At the very least she would be able to provide some good insight into the questions surrounding the case.

  The phone rang.

  “Forensics. Dwyer.”

  “Liam, it’s Jane. We’ve got some
preliminary information from the autopsy. Just filed it but thought you might like to hear it.”

  Liam checked the computer. The database was still searching through the fingerprints. “What’d you find?”

  “Victim was pregnant. About two months.”

  The news, laid out so matter-of-factly, stunned him. He sat, the phone to his ear, eyes staring out into nothing, his throat constricting, almost choking him.

  “We found traces of blood under her nails and had it analyzed. It appears there are two types from separate sources. The tests we got back confirmed, showing a type O positive, your typical run-of-the-mill, and a rare type AB negative. The victim had the O positive, so if the AB negative is the killer’s, which I would say there’s a strong chance, then such a rare blood type could really help with a conviction. We also sent DNA from the two blood samples and a tissue sample from the fetus to see if the killer was the father.”

  “Excellent,” Liam replied quietly, his eyes suddenly locked on the computer screen in front of him. “I’ll let you know what I find regarding the prints. Haven’t run them yet.”

  “Okay. Teddy and I will be in soon. We’re stopping by Homicide first.”

  “I’ll be here. See you later.”

  Liam hung up and leaned forward. The colors from the screen danced in front of his face, mocking him, laughing at his confusion. The FBI’s system had matched three possible suspects, all three having some of the required ten Galton points for a positive identification. The first possible match was a man named George McPherson. He had a history of violence and had been arrested numerous times for various assaults. Liam ruled him out immediately, as he was already behind bars in South Dakota, serving fifteen years for assault with a deadly weapon. The second possible match was not currently in custody, but Eric Landon was living on the other side of the country, in San Diego, and his short history of offenses were more about being a drug addict than a murderer. There was petty theft, harassment, grand larceny, and prostitution, but nothing that would make him out to be more than what he was. The third match was the strangest. This match had all ten Galton points and came through not because of a prior arrest but because he worked in law enforcement. He was living in the area. Just across the Delaware River, in fact. Liam stared at his own image, his name flashing in red font underneath his picture.