Cause to Kill

They were all pieces of the puzzle, but they felt like different puzzles, with their own pieces, and all the pieces were strewn together.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The police department stood on their feet when Avery and Finley appeared from the elevator banks. Finley basked in the attention. He bowed, hooted at his friends, and repeatedly yelled: “I’m the man, right? You see how we do it on the South Side?”

“Great job.” People clapped.

“You got him!”

In a dark place, Avery heard none of it. The office was a shell with no one inside, the sounds: white noise. Images swirled in her mind: George Fine, Winston Graves, and the old dead man in his sick, twisted basement of horrors.

O’Malley came out of his office to personally shake Avery’s hand.

“Talk to me,” he said. “How did it go?”

“Guy’s name is Larry Kapalnapick. Works at Home Depot as a loader,” Avery said. “From the looks of it, all the bodies in the basement were already dead.”

“Fuckin’ grave digger!” Finley chimed in.

“He must have been doing it for years,” Avery said. “Watertown police estimated there were body parts from at least twenty different people down there. Best guess is, he digs up a body, plays around for a while, and then cuts it up and stores it in the basement. Henley’s department is having everything shipped to the lab just to make sure.”

“Son of a bitch,” O’Malley whispered.

Finley laughed.

“Motherfucker had Pine Scents hanging all over the basement ceiling.”

“What about our victim?”

“We went back to the scene after the chase. Coroner was there and forensics. Randy says it was the same perpetrator as Cindy Jenkins, same MO, and from the smell of it, probably the same anesthetic. She’ll check into that here.”

“So, Fine isn’t our guy.”

“Can’t be,” she said. “He was locked up tight the night before. He’s guilty of something. But not this. As a precaution, I asked Thompson and Jones to check out the cabin in Quincy Bay. Then Jones will continue street surveillance for the minivan, and Thompson has been assigned to dig up everything he can on Winston Graves.”

“Graves? Jenkins’ boyfriend.”

“It’s a long shot,” Avery admitted. “In the meantime, Finley takes over on the Tabitha Mitchell case. He can start now with friends and family.”

“Finley?”

“He worked his ass off today.”

To Finley she added: “Remember to think beyond Tabitha Mitchell. We need any connections between her and Cindy Jenkins. Childhood history. College majors. Favorite foods. After-school activities. Friends and family. Anything.”

With a fire in his eyes, Finley banged on his heart.

“I’m your pit bull,” he said.

The captain nodded at her.

“What are you going to do?”

Avery imagined the blue minivan heading west from Boston. She believed the killer had to reside in one of the counties that followed: Cambridge, Watertown, or Belmont. The combined populations of those counties totaled almost two hundred thousand. An endless sea of faces.

“I need to think,” she said.

* * *

Avery sited her Glock 27 at a distant target. Orange goggles covered her eyes. Plugs had been stuffed into her ears. She imagined the face of Howard Randall as a placeholder for the new, faceless killer. She fired.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Three shots hit the target almost dead center.

Thinking had always been her strong suit: time away from a case when she could decompress and process what she knew.

A blank wall greeted her this time.

No leads. No connections. Just a wall that kept her away from the truth. Avery had never believed walls. Walls were for other people, other attorneys, other cops that simply didn’t know how to break through those walls and see what others couldn’t.

What am I missing?

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Her bullets faded to the right. At the start of her session, she’d hit nothing but bull’s eyes. Now they were off. Just like you, she thought. Off. Missing the target. Missing something.

No, she mentally rallied.

Breathe in…breathe out…

Pop! Pop! Pop!

All bull’s eyes.

Howard Randall, she thought.

Suddenly, she realized: That’s it. A fresh perspective.

Stupid, she thought. Crazy. Connelly would go nuts. The media would have a field day. Fuck the media. Would he even do it? Of course he would; she knew for certain. He went to jail for you. He has this sick fascination about you. He’s probably following the case already. No, she swore. I won’t do it. I won’t go down that road again.

She put in a fresh clip in her gun.

She fired.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Every shot went wide.