The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [255]
He sobered. “Stand down, Lieutenant. I was testing the waters. I don’t give a skinny rat’s ass about the media. Not going to say I don’t care about the collar. Fucking right I do. My vic was beat to shit before he tied his goddamn bow around her neck. So I want him, and I got nothing. I worked the case hard, and got nothing. Yeah, officially it’s cold, but it ain’t cold to me.”
He took a long drink of beer. “It’s under my skin, and I work it whenever I get the chance. So you tell me you got a case in New York, and it brings you back here, to mine, I want a piece of it.”
Because she understood, she lowered her hackles and took the first step. “He’s imitating historic serial killers. One of the reasons he hit Boston—”
“Boston Strangler?” Haggerty pursed his lips. “I played with that awhile. Copycat thing. Had enough of the same elements. I studied up on those cases, looking for an angle to work. Nothing gelled, and since he didn’t hit again . . .”
“He did a homeless woman in New L.A. before Boston, and he’s hit New York. He’s also killed three LCs, Paris, London, New York, by emulating Jack the Ripper.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“It’s the same man. He left me notes with my two.”
“Nothing like that with mine,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Don’t have a single witness. The security system on the building, if you can call it that, was taken out the day before he killed her. Nobody got around to fixing it. Let me get out my notes.”
She took her own from his. Before she’d drained her beer they’d agreed to exchange case files.
She checked the time, calculated. A call to the West Coast netted her a meet with the primary there. Another got her Roarke.
He seemed to be in some sort of a bar himself, but from the pretty lights, the quiet hum, and the glint of what she thought was crystal, it was several steps away from Haggerty’s hangout.
“I’ve wrapped up here,” she told him. “I’m on my way to transpo. How much time do you need?”
“Another half hour on this will do me.”
“Fine. Just meet me there. I’ve got enough to occupy myself with until you show. Any problem for you if we head straight to the West Coast from here?”
“I believe I can find something to occupy myself with there as well.”
She didn’t doubt it. By the time he walked onto the shuttle, she’d reread her notes and was writing a report on her Boston leg for her team and her commander.
Roarke set his briefcase aside, cleared the shuttle to take off when ready, then ordered them both a meal.
“How do you feel about basketball?” he asked her.
“It’s okay. Lacks the poetry of baseball and the sheer meanness of arena ball, but it’s got speed and drama. What’d you do, spend your hour buying the Celtics?”
“I did, yes.”
She looked up. “Get out.”
“Actually, it took a bit more than an hour. We’ve been in negotiations for a few months now. Since I was here, I gave it the last push and we finalized it. I thought it would be fun.”
“I spend an hour drinking a lukewarm beer and talking murder, and you buy a basketball team.”
“We should all play to our strengths.”
She ate because it was there, and filled Roarke in.
“Haggerty’s thorough. Bulldog type, not just in build. In mindset. He hasn’t let go of the case, and a lot of cops would have after this amount of time. He’s kept picking at it but hasn’t gotten anywhere. I just can’t see what he missed. Might catch something when I see the full file, but he did the steps.”
“And how does that help you?”
“Knowing he was here. Being sure of it. The dates. I can backtrack there, see if anybody on my list was in Boston, or just unaccounted for on the corresponding dates. See if maybe, just maybe, there’s a connection between any of them and Haggerty’s victim.”
“Someone else is a bulldog,” Roarke commented. “Not in body type, but certainly in mindset. I could check the transportation angle for you. See if any of your names show up on public or private transpos for those