Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [655]
Gwen leaned against her desk, suddenly very tired again. “Dena wasn’t like the others,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“No,” Racine agreed with a knowing calm. “With Dena he knew he could leave her in her home because he knew someone would come looking for her. With the other three victims we had to wait until he told us where to find them. I kept thinking that was the big difference, and yet, it wasn’t really all that different.”
Another pause, as if Racine was testing her. Gwen crossed her arms and held the young detective’s stare without flinching as Racine continued. “The owner of a construction company told us where we could find the first victim. Funny, I called him this morning and asked how he had found her, but he said he hadn’t. He told me that a woman had called and tipped him off. Ironically a woman and her dog found the second victim in the park while out walking.”
Racine glanced down at Harvey. “But she declined to come in and file a report. Then last week when we found Libby Hopper on the banks of the Potomac it was because a woman had called in the exact location, but she used a stolen cell phone and we couldn’t trace it. Dena Wayne was left in her own home. I thought that seemed totally out of character for this killer until I realized that it was actually a woman…a woman and her dog who had, again, found the victim.”
Racine sat quietly now, holding Gwen’s eyes as if she could see the truth within them and didn’t need anything more to corroborate her wild theory.
“Sounds like you think you have it all figured out,” Gwen finally said without any sort of admission. “Too bad things aren’t ever as simple as they seem.”
“No, they usually aren’t.”
“His instructions also came with subtle threats.” Gwen said it in such a whispered tone she hardly recognized her own voice.
“I wondered if it might be something like that. You were afraid he’d hurt you.” Racine nodded but her eyes never left Gwen’s.
“No. Not me. Always someone else. Someone close to me. It would have been easier if it were me.” Gwen had been threatened before. She considered taking those risks just part of the job. “I thought I might be able to outwit him,” she added.
“But in the meantime he was making you an accessory to his murders.”
“Yes, I suppose he was,” Gwen said. “But not anymore.”
CHAPTER 55
Omaha, Nebraska
Maggie excused herself from Father Gallagher’s office, explaining that she had some phone calls she needed to make. Cunningham was at the top of her list. She desperately wanted to hear how Gwen was and besides, she needed a break from the testosterone battle between Pakula and Nick. She had heard enough of Father Gallagher’s clever evasiveness to know their interview would provide little new information. But she wondered why the priest didn’t realize that every time he answered one of Pakula’s questions with a question it only stretched out the process?
It seemed obvious that Father Gallagher was hiding something, but she doubted that he could be the killer. He had a solid alibi for Saturday evening. The entire parish of Our Lady of Sorrow could vouch for him. He couldn’t have officiated at the seven o’clock mass in Omaha, Nebraska, and still made it to Columbia, Missouri, to drive a knife into Father Gerald Kincaid’s chest at nine-thirty.
However, in her own mind Maggie didn’t rule him out completely. Father Tony Gallagher, in spite of his holy vows, could very well fit her profile. This killer could have convinced himself that he was doing something that needed to be done for the greater good. If it was confirmed that each of the three victims had, in fact, been accused of abusing young boys—or as in Keller’s case, their murder—then this killer would