“If you ask me, he’s too stupid to have killed her.” Frank held his hand out for his phone messages.
“Since when are killers smart?” Scofield slapped two pink slips into Frank’s hand.
“Doesn’t matter. We didn’t have enough evidence to hold him.” Jake took one message from Scofield and scanned it.
“Thought he stole her ATM card?” Scofield gazed over his bifocals at the detectives.
Robinson lumbered up to the desk, swiping several pink slips. “We made a deal. If he showed us where he was when the body was dumped, we’d forget about the money. We got most of it back and we’ll hound him for the rest.”
Scofield took off his bifocals and waved them in the air. “Almost forgot. Sam’s here and she’s writing all over your whiteboard.”
Sam stood back and studied the board. The dots were connecting too fast and furious for her not to share her findings. “About time you guys got back.”
“Aw shit, Sam.” Robinson got all fatherly on her and wrapped her in a bear hug. “I agree with Jake. You should have gone to the emergency room.”
“Yeah, but you should see the other guy.” Sam’s attempt at a joke fell flat. She, too, had been shocked when she looked in the mirror this morning. Her eyes were ringed in black. When she removed the gauze pad, it looked as though someone had dragged her behind a truck on a gravel road. Alex had used more berry root paste on the wound before she left for the doctor. Jake had insisted on meeting her at the obstetrician.
“I got these from Benny this morning.” Robinson stepped back and pulled photos from his pocket. They had been taken by Anya before Sam was cleaned up. “I’m glad we have some record of what was done to you.”
“Jeez, Sam.” Frank stood at Robinson’s elbow, his eyes widened. “How’s the baby?”
“Babies are fine.” Now Sam had to deal with three men going all protective on her, five if she counted Benny and Alex.
“I want the DNA results,” Jake growled. “I want the sonofabitch who did this.”
“I told Benny to give them only to me.” Robinson placed the photos on the table. “I don’t want you going all vigilante on me.”
“It really looks worse than it is. I’m feeling a little battered and bruised but I’ll be fine. Now sit. It’s show-and-tell time.”
Robinson gave the board a cursory examination. “What the fuck?” He sank into one of the chairs. Frank did the same while Jake remained standing as though waiting to catch Sam should she collapse from exhaustion.
Frank glanced at the whiteboard, then looked as puzzled as Robinson. When Sam had walked in, all that had been written on the board was one victim, Donna Oberweiss, and the names of close friends, the manager/ex-boyfriend Ron, and Davey who had stolen her ATM card.
Sam had erased all of it and at the top of the board she had drawn a rectangle-shaped box with four vertical lines coming from the box, one line dotted. Below the dotted line on the far right Sam had written Donna Oberweiss’ name.
“Wait.” Robinson’s gaze was immediately drawn to Marti Johnson’s name.
“Sam, what is this?” Jake closed the conference room door, then leaned against it.
Sam tapped the marker against Marti’s name. “I’ll try not to make this too confusing, although my head is still spinning. The captain asked me to look into Marti Johnson’s suicide. I was skeptical at first, but I had Mister Johnson walk me through, in his words, how Marti spent that last morning. I asked to see her cell phone since the police report said she had received a call but it only lasted four seconds and they assumed it was a telemarketer. When I turned the phone on, one word flashed on the monitor—destiny. Then a picture of Forrest and Samantha appeared as the wallpaper so I thought nothing of it.
“Forrest asked me to sit in on one of his suicide support group sessions where I met Carrie Farnswood.” Sam tapped the marker against Carly’s name. “Carrie’s twin sister was one week away from her wedding when she drove to the beach, calmly stripped and walked into Lake Michigan. She, too, received a phone call before leaving her house. I had Beast…”
“Who?” Frank said.
“Beast is our tech guy in the basement at Headquarters,” Robinson said. “Go on, Sam.”
“Beast checked the SIM cards. Both calls lasted four seconds and came from disposable phones. He wasn’t able to get any information on them.” Sam tapped the marker against Nina Logesta’s name. “I was curious about other recent suicides so Chief Murphy let me look through some files in the archives. Nina Logesta was a former gambler in hock to the River Queen Casino. Junior hired her as a dealer as a way to pay back the money she owed.”
“I remember that case,” Robinson said. “Her body hung in that woods for six months before someone found her. She still had gambling problems.”
“Not true. I spoke to her neighbor. Nina was clean for two years. Nina’s roommate lied to the investigating officer.”
“The roommate told you this?” Jake looked skeptical and he was doing a poor job hiding it.
“Flo Dempsey, the neighbor, was never interviewed. This surprised her because she had quite a bit to tell.”
“Let me guess.” Frank waggled a finger from one name to the next. “Nina also received a phone call.”
“Right. Fiona Vasquez, the roommate, tossed the phone and gave Nina’s clothes and other possessions to Goodwill, but Flo had Nina’s cell phone number in her address book. Beast obtained a list of calls from the phone company. The last call to Nina came from a disposable phone and the call lasted four seconds.”
“That’s something the investigative officer should have looked into.” Robinson pulled a pen from his pocket and grabbed a napkin from the credenza. “What was the name?”
“Sal Marino.”
“That ass.” Robinson scribbled the name on the napkin. “Somehow sloppy police work coming from him doesn’t surprise me.”
“I don’t understand how they tie together.” Frank said.
“And what do they have to do with Donna Oberweiss?” Jake added. “According to the phone company, she didn’t make nor receive any calls from Collin Revere so we still can’t connect her to the golf course.”
Any other time Sam would have hesitated mentioning how she received her information, but her gift had been very useful in past cases, and these three men were used to her strange methods. “I spoke to Benny about Marti Johnson. He happened to have the bag of evidence from Donna’s case. I touched her purse strap and heard the same word—destiny. That’s how I first suspected the cases were linked.” Sam took the marker and wrote in the rectangle box, Morning Glory Clinic. Then she explained her visit with Jackie and how she saw Marti’s and Carly’s pictures on the bulletin board, and how William Borden Junior confirmed that Nina had also been a client at Morning Glory.
“Wait.” Jake pushed away from the door. “Who have you been talking to about these cases, Sam?”
“I thought of that this morning as my raccoon eyes stared back at me from the mirror. I showed Collin Revere Marti’s picture hoping to connect her case with Donna’s.”
“That WAS you at the golf course that day.”
Sam ignored Jake’s comment. “I tried to speak to the owners of Morning Glory but they were allegedly not in. I left my business card but neither of them called me. So I found out one of the owner’s wives sold her designer jewelry to the art center. I conveniently ran into her there.”
“And probably hinted that her husband was a killer.”
Sam recognized that look of disgust and frustration on Jake’s face. Sam had a knack for putting herself in danger and someone she had spoken to or accused might have been her attacker.
“All I said is that three of the suicide victims used to be patients at Morning Glory. I never implied that they killed them.”
Robinson clicked his ball point pen. “So you spoke with Collin Revere…and what are the other names?”
“The owners of Morning Glory are Matthew Bordeau and Austin Revere.”