MONDAY MORNING FOUND PJ at her office an hour after dawn. She had the place mostly to herself for awhile, then the hallway gradually filled up. She got up to close her door and nearly ran into Anita.
“It looks like June Merrett really was in Kansas City at the time of her husband’s death,” Anita said. “She was at a dinner meeting with other attendees of the workshop on Saturday night. What we didn’t know was that the restaurant made some menu changes that weekend. Brand new menus were used starting Sunday. The old menus were collected and set aside after their last use. June’s fingerprint is on one of the old menus.”
“Couldn’t it have been left there on some other occasion?”
“The print was found on one of those plastic-coated inserts with the Chef’s Special. That particular insert was new, and was only in place in the menus last Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Good work, Anita. You stuck with it and it paid off.”
“Well, I owe a lot to a K.C. cop named Ziegler. He did the legwork. I just kept after him.”
“Schultz isn’t going to be happy about this,” PJ said. “I think he was hoping to pin all this on June.”
“Yeah, he already shit a brick. Of course that alibi only holds for Arlan’s murder. June’s still up for grabs on the other murders.”
Dave joined them and was brought up to speed. “Where does that leave us with the look-alike’s murder?” he asked. “June didn’t have to hire anybody to impersonate her.”
“You’ve been looking at it from the angle of faking alibis,” PJ said. “Suppose June had a lover or even a secret admirer. The admirer might kill Arlan in order to take his place in June’s heart and home. If June then rejected him, the admirer might lash out at a surrogate—poor Marilee, whose death was a way to vent anger without actually destroying the object of his love.”
Anita and Dave both stared at her for a moment, then spoke together: “Naaah.”
“Hey, why not? I spent a whole thirty seconds coming up with that idea. It could even be a lesbian admirer.”
“You’re heading off the deep end, Boss,” Anita said. “I’ve been wondering if we’re going around in circles on these suspects because we should be focusing on strangers instead, like that I-70 Killer case.”
“I haven’t ignored stranger killings,” PJ said. “I just can’t get anywhere with the idea.”
“So what have you got?”
PJ retrieved a rolled-up map of the city that was leaning against the wall and spread it across the desk.
“Arlan’s body was found here,” PJ pointed to a blue dot downtown on the riverfront. “But he was killed north of the city, here in St. Ann.” There was a blood red dot about fourteen miles northwest of downtown.
“Marilee Baines was killed in the Bevo area, five miles southwest of downtown. Frank was killed in the central west city on Lindell,” she said, pointing to a red dot about five miles west of downtown. “Loretta Blanchette and her neighbor Bernard Dewey were killed in Florissant, thirteen miles north of downtown.”
“I guess you’ve tried drawing all kinds of patterns,” Dave said.
“Yes. Too bad they don’t form a big arrow or something,” PJ said, referring to the area in which a killer operates—his home territory. PJ drew circles around the three city dots representing the homes of Marilee and Frank, and the riverfront where Arlan’s body was found. Then she drew a line between the two county sites. “So it’s two zones, one in the county, and one in the city. Residence and work, or the other way around.”
PJ was warming to the stranger idea. “The biggest problem is how the killer selected these victims. Three of them seem closely related. Arlan, Frank, and Marilee. But Loretta and her neighbor have nothing to do with the first three.”
“Nothing that we know of so far,” Anita said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t connected in the mind of a single person.”
PJ nodded. “Agreed. Then consider the specifics of the deaths. Three heart killings, two mechanical shootings. Three men, two women. All of the victims are white. There’s been no evidence of rape.”
“No evidence to speak of at all,” Anita said. “How about the killer being a member of law enforcement who knows what to avoid?”
“I noticed that idea was being tossed around in the media this past weekend, along with various reports of severed body parts turning up.”
“We had to follow up on that body parts thing,” Dave said. “Turns out it was chicken bones wrapped in clay and dipped in taco sauce. Some kids started it as a joke and now it’s all over the city. An elderly woman had some in her mailbox and fainted. Somebody’s going to have a heart attack if it keeps up.”
“Did you find out who started it?”
“For once, we actually did. A kid ratted out his buddies on the original occurrence. But it’s spread like waistlines at Thanksgiving dinner. Calls are coming in by the dozens. We’re telling ’em that if the fingers smell like food, it’s probably nothing to worry about, but take them to the nearest station anyway.”
“The Case of the Missing Chicken Fingers,” PJ said. “Maybe we should hire Colonel Sanders.”
Anita guffawed, shattering the Tinkerbell-like illusion of her appearance. “Good one, Boss. But that idea of the killer being one of us is seriously creepy.”
“Does it have to be a stranger for this comfort zone idea to work?” Dave said, tapping on the circle drawn on the map. “Fredericka lives in that city zone.” He drew his finger along the line between St. Ann and Florissant. “And she also has an apartment she rented in the county zone for a future real estate project. That’s residence and work.”
“Can we bring her in for questioning?” PJ said. “I’d like to get her out of her home environment and turn up the heat.”
“Sure,” Dave said with a grin. “I’m sure she’ll come if I ask nicely.”