“Yes, we do.”
“Then if Kellerton agrees, I’ll be up tomorrow. Is there a problem with that?”
“No, sir. If he agrees, there’s no problem.”
I thanked him and hung up the phone. I was taking action. It felt damn good.
The day planner sat on the desk next to me. I was avoiding it again, because as painful as a photograph or recording might be, handwriting was somehow worse, somehow more personal. Elizabeth’s soaring capital letters, the firmly crossed ts, the too many loops between letters, the way it all tilted to the right …
I spent an hour going through it. Elizabeth was detailed. She didn’t shorthand much. What surprised me was how well I’d known my wife. Everything was clear, and there were no surprises. In fact, there was only one appointment I couldn’t account for.
Three weeks before her death, there was an entry that read simply: PF.
And a phone number without an area code.
In light of how specific she’d been elsewhere, I found this entry a little unsettling. I didn’t have a clue what the area code would be. The call was made eight years ago. Area codes had split and changed several different ways since then.
I tried 201 and got a disconnect. I tried 973. An old lady answered. I told her she’d won a free subscription to the New York Post. She gave me her name. Neither initial matched. I tried 212, which was the city. And that was where I hit bingo.
“Peter Flannery, attorney at law,” a woman said mid-yawn.
“May I speak to Mr. Flannery, please.”
“He’s in court.”
She could have sounded more bored but not without a quality prescription. I heard a lot of noise in the background.
“I’d like to make an appointment to see Mr. Flannery.”
“You answering the billboard ad?”
“Billboard ad?”
“You injured?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I didn’t see an ad. A friend recommended him. It’s a medical malpractice case. I came in with a broken arm and now I can’t move it. I lost my job. The pain is nonstop.”
She set me up for an appointment tomorrow afternoon.
I put the phone back into the cradle and frowned. What would Elizabeth be doing with a probable ambulance-chaser like Flannery?
The sound of the phone made me jump. I snatched it up mid-ring.
“Hello,” I said.
It was Shauna. “Where are you?” she asked.
“Home.”
“You need to get over here right away,” she said.
15
Agent Carlson looked Hoyt Parker straight in the eye. “As you know, we recently found two bodies in the vicinity of Lake Charmaine.”
Hoyt nodded.
A cell phone chirped. Stone managed to hoist himself up and said “Excuse me” before lumbering into the kitchen. Hoyt turned back to Carlson and waited.
“We know the official account of your daughter’s death,” Carlson said. “She and her husband, David Beck, visited the lake for an annual ritual. They went swimming in the dark. KillRoy lay in wait. He assaulted Dr. Beck and kidnapped your daughter. End of story.”
“And you don’t think that’s what happened?”
“No, Hoyt—can I call you Hoyt?”
Hoyt nodded.
“No, Hoyt, we don’t.”
“So how do you see it?”
“I think David Beck murdered your daughter and pinned it on a serial killer.”
Hoyt, a twenty-eight-year veteran of the NYPD, knew how to keep a straight face, but he still leaned back as though the words were jabs at his chin. “Let’s hear it.”
“Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Beck takes your daughter up to a secluded lake, right?”
“Right.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Many times.”
“Oh?”
“We were all friends. Kim and I were close to David’s parents. We used to visit all the time.”
“Then you know how secluded it is.”
“Yes.”
“Dirt road, a sign that you’d only see if you knew to look for it. It’s as hidden as hidden can be. No signs of life.”
“What’s your point?”
“What are the odds of KillRoy pulling up that road?”
Hoyt raised his palms to the sky. “What are the odds of anyone meeting up with a serial killer?”
“True, okay, but in other cases, there was a logic to it. Kellerton abducted somebody off a city street, he carjacked a victim, even broke into a house. But think about it. He sees this dirt road and somehow decides to search for a victim up there? I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.”
Hoyt said, “Go on.”
“You’ll admit that there are plenty of logic holes in the accepted scenario.”
“All cases have logic holes.”
“Right, okay, but let me try an alternate theory on you. Let’s just say that Dr. Beck wanted to kill your daughter.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, a two-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.”
“He doesn’t need money.”
“Everyone needs money, Hoyt. You know that.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“Look, we’re still digging here. We don’t know all the motivations yet. But let me just go through our scenario, okay?”
Hoyt gave him a suit-yourself shrug.
“We have evidence here that Dr. Beck beat her.”
“What evidence? You have some photographs. She told my wife she’d been in a car accident.”
“Come on, Hoyt.” Carlson swept his hand at the photographs. “Look at the expression on your daughter’s face. That look like the face of a woman in a car accident?”
No, Hoyt thought, it didn’t. “Where did you find these pictures?”
“I’ll get to that in a second, but let’s go back to my scenario, okay? Let’s assume for the moment that Dr. Beck beat your daughter and that he had a hell of an inheritance coming his way.”
“Lot of assuming.”
“True, but stay with me. Think of the accepted scenario and all those holes. Now compare it with this one: Dr. Beck brings your daughter up to a secluded spot where he knows there will be no witnesses. He hires two thugs to grab her. He knows about KillRoy. It’s in all the papers. Plus your brother worked on the case. Did he ever discuss it with you or Beck?”
Hoyt sat still for a moment. “Go on.”
“The two hired thugs abduct and kill your daughter. Naturally, the first suspect will be the husband—always is in a case like this, right? But the two thugs brand her cheek with the letter K. Next thing we know, it’s all blamed on KillRoy.”