Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [55]
“The Wilson boy, on the other hand—”
“I know,” Nick interrupted, sitting forward. “His hands were bound in front with duct tape, no rope. He was stabbed to death—no signs of strangulation. His throat wasn’t slashed. A hunting knife was used. Though there were plenty of puncture wounds…”
“Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two puncture wounds, but no carving.”
“The Wilson boy was also sodomized, repeatedly.”
“And his body was found in a park Dumpster, instead of by the river. Jesus, this stuff makes me sick to my stomach.” He shoved the pizza aside, grabbed his Pepsi and emptied the can, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Okay, there’s a lot of differences, but couldn’t Jeffreys have changed things? Even the sodomy, couldn’t that be seen as…I don’t know…an escalation?”
“Yes, it could. But remember the sequence was Harper, Wilson, Paltrow. It would be very unusual for a killer to change, to experiment, to escalate and then go back to the exact format. He uses one knife—something with a small blade—perhaps a fillet knife. Then he changes to a hunting knife, then back to the other knife. Even the styles are very different. The Harper and Paltrow murders are meticulous in detail. Both boys were murdered by someone taking his time—someone who enjoys inflicting pain. Very much like Danny Alverez’s murder. Bobby Wilson’s murder, however, looks like it was done in the heat of the moment with too much emotion and passion to pay any attention to detail.”
“You know, I always thought it seemed too easy,” Nick said wearily. “I’ve been wondering if my dad wasn’t so caught up in the media circus that he may have overlooked something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know how you hear about things getting missed in the excitement, the so-called rush to judgment? My dad’s always enjoyed being the center of attention. The year I started as quarterback for UNL, he’d meet me at the locker room, insisted on it, in fact—every single game. My mom said it was because he was so proud of me. Except there were too many times when he greeted the TV cameras before he even acknowledged me.”
Maggie listened patiently, then waited out his silence. Nick and his father obviously had a complex relationship. And though he was uncomfortable discussing it, she knew he was trying to tell her something important, something pertinent to the Jeffreys investigation. Did Nick really believe his father may have mishandled the case?
Finally, he glanced at her as though he’d read her thoughts.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying my dad would purposely jeopardize any case. He’s very well respected and has been for years. In fact, I know I would never have been elected if I wasn’t Antonio Morrelli’s son. I’m just saying that it all seemed a bit too easy—the way my dad caught Jeffreys. One day there was an anonymous tip, and the next day they had Jeffreys babbling out a confession.”
“What kind of anonymous tip?”
“It was a phone call, I think. I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t living here at the time. I was teaching down at UNL, so I got most of this stuff secondhand. Isn’t there anything in the reports?”
Maggie searched through several file folders. She had read most of them and couldn’t remember any phone calls being mentioned. But she also had seen no phone logs of any kind, even for a hotline.
“I haven’t seen anything at all about an anonymous tip,” she said, handing him the file labeled Jeffreys’ Arrest. “What do you remember?”
He seemed flustered, and she wasn’t sure if it was his memory he questioned or his father. She watched him look over the reports filed and signed by Antonio Morrelli.
“Your father’s reports are very detailed, including a blow-by-blow of the actual arrest. He even includes the evidence they found in the trunk of Jeffreys’ Chevy Impala.” She checked her own notes and read the list. “They found a roll of duct tape, a hunting knife, some rope…wait a minute.”
She stopped to check that she had copied the list correctly. “A pair of boy’s underpants, which were later identified as belonging to…” She looked up at Nick, who had found the list