Sins Of The Mother (Chapter-5)

After he’d dropped Brooke off, Lukas immediately went back to the scene. The news crews were gone, as were most of the onlookers now that the body had been removed. Nothing thinned out a crowd like a departing hearse or ambulance. Some of his squad detectives were still milling around. Lukas spotted his longtime friend and colleague, Rafe Carrizales, standing under the awning of the command post.

“Hey. Anything new?”

“Nothing yet. Some of the guys are just filtering in now, though, so who knows? Who was your witness?”

“She was a working girl that happened to be out when we did the canvass. Kimberly Raznovich. Do you remember her?”

“Hooker, right? Pretty, could have gone in a different direction?”

“That’s her.”

Razzy was poor, but she was pretty and smart and she could have led a different life if not for the car wreck halfway through her senior year in high school that put her in the hospital with a fractured spine. The doctors prescribed opiates, and she became addicted. Neither she nor her mother knew how to manage her addiction, and once she got out of the hospital, she was on her own. The doctors would no longer prescribe the pain medication, but they wouldn’t help her get into a program to kick the addiction, either. She wound up stealing to support her habit, then she wound up stripping, and finally she wound up hooking. When she became pregnant with her son, her mother turned her back on Razzy, and now she was alone in the world, doing her best to get by one day at a time.

“What’d she have to say?”

“Nothing much. She said that some of the girls had mentioned seeing a red car snooping around lately, but they didn’t have any information about the driver’s race and no description. Nothing. Hell, it may have been a woman driving for all we know.”

“How did it go with the detective from Kingsport? What was her name?”

“Brooke Stevens. It went fine, I guess. We’re still feeling each other out. She seems as frustrated as I am. Is Captain Hunter still here?”

“I think he’s gone. He’s hotter than a three-puckered billy goat about these murders.”

“I know. He’s made that abundantly clear.”

“Anything you need, you let me know,” Carrizales said. “I know what it’s like on your end. Well, not quite to this degree, but I feel your pain.”

“Appreciate it, man.”

Lukas ambled away from the command post and got lost in the night. He thought about the crimes in both cities. There had to be something he was missing. Nobody was this good. Somewhere, he or she had made a mistake. He was almost positive it wasn’t a woman doing the killing. Women very rarely did serial killings, especially when the victims were women. But women were certainly doing the dying.

The fact that the victims were prostitutes had kept the general public from going nuts, at least for now. But the press coverage was growing, and with each murder, the pressure was becoming more palpable. If this continued without an arrest, it wouldn’t be long before the cases were taken out of Lukas’s hands, despite his reputation as an excellent detective and Brooke’s reputation as a supercop. Someone up the chain would eventually force the issue. Politicians would become involved, and as always, the shit would flow downhill, right onto Lukas’s and Brooke’s heads. It probably wouldn’t end their careers, but it would derail them. And it could take years to undo the damage.

Lukas couldn’t let that happen. He’d just have to work harder than everyone else, dig deeper, and stay longer. He liked going back to the scene once everything had quieted down and the news hounds had gone back to the safety of their offices and homes. He could think better, often connecting dots that were overlooked because of the excitement of the moment.

He surveyed the scene. Why hookers? And in two different cities. A black woman and three white women had been killed, so the race didn’t jump out as a motivating factor. What about the times? It was clear that the killer was accelerating or escalating. There didn’t seem to be any significance in the locations where the bodies were found. The manner of death was inconsistent. The condition of the bodies, the mutilations, and the sexual assaults also tended to confirm his suspicion that the killer was escalating. He was enjoying it now.

Lukas’s thoughts turned to Gabriele. Another problem. Just what he needed. She was clearly upset with him for not calling to inform her that he wouldn’t be able to make their date. He’d just flat-out forgotten with all that had gone on. He’d learned that Gabriele was quick to anger. He’d have to make his oversight up to her once this nightmare was over.

Lukas returned to the station and switched off his computer. He tidied up his desk before leaving. Tomorrow he would start completing the case notes on the new victim’s murder and comparing them to those from the others now that he had Brooke’s notes.

When he finally made it home it was just after three in the morning. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be sleeping well.