Girl Undone (TJ Peacock & Lisa Rayburn Mysteries Book 3) Page 8

  TJ had breakfast with her son, lingering over chocolate chip pancakes—much of which ended up on the floor under the boy’s highchair—until the doorbell to the office rang. She picked up JR and walked downstairs to her office in the front half of the lower floor of the duplex.

  Geo Turner stood on the stoop. TJ didn’t want that low-life anywhere near her son, but it was too late. She opened the door.

  “Cute kid,” he said, chucking JR under the chin. To TJ’s chagrin, the boy laughed and waved his arms.

  “Kids like me.” He stepped around them and surveyed her office. “Nice place.”

  “What are you doin’ here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that report on the Chamberlain chick.”

  “I ain’t payin’ you ’til you produce, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. This one’s gratis if we can cut a deal.”

  She lowered JR into a playpen next to her desk. “What kinda deal would I want to make with you?”

  “My business isn’t doing so good. I could use a regular income and I figure your agency here needs a computer guy.”

  She did need one, but TJ couldn’t take on an employee she couldn’t trust. But Turner was one of the best around. She opened the door for his exit. “I’ll think about it,” she said, dreading what Richard would have to say about her even considering putting Turner on her payroll.

  “Don’t take too long,” he said as he walked out. “I’m a popular guy.”

  “Yeah? If you’re so great, why’s your business tankin’?”

  He stopped on the second step of the porch. He held out his hands. “What can I say? I’m a technology guy—I suck at management. And if I’m being real honest, I hate the hours. I have to be around every fuckin’ minute or the employees and the customers rob me blind.”

  TJ stifled any feelings of sympathy. “Don’t take too long gettin’ me what I want or I’ll have every cop in town breathin’ down your scrawny neck.” TJ slammed the door behind him. Something didn’t smell right. Turner had an agenda. She picked up the phone and called one of her contacts in the department.

  When Donna returned, TJ headed for Madison to talk to Kelsey’s study group before they left for the semester break. She met the two young men in their dorm room where they pled dumb to knowing anything about Kelsey’s personal life. Nothing in their demeanor told TJ otherwise.

  One of the women, Megan, lived in an apartment with three other girls on the opposite side of the campus from where Kelsey and Whitney had shared an apartment. Megan had been waiting for TJ and offered her a cup of tea the minute she walked in the door.

  “I’m not really sure what you want,” Megan said after pouring TJ tea that smelled like week-old salad greens. “Kelsey and I didn’t socialize a whole lot, only when we all got together to study.”

  “I heard you crashed there sometimes.”

  “Maybe once. Becca and me stayed there one time when it was snowing.”

  “Did you meet Whitney, Kelsey’s roommate?”

  “She was there when we left the next morning, but we didn’t even talk to her. What’s this all about?”

  “You know that Kelsey was missing for three days last week?”

  “Missing? She didn’t show up for a study session on Tuesday night, but I didn’t know she was missing.”

  “Did any of you try to call her?”

  “Becca did. Kelsey didn’t pick up.”

  “Wasn’t that unusual?”

  “It was, yeah. We called her apartment, too. Her roommate kept a landline number. There wasn’t an answer there, either.”

  “Kelsey disappeared on Tuesday and showed up in Milwaukee on Friday. She has no memory of where she was or why. I’m tryin’ to find out what happened to her.”

  “Wow! That’s weird. Do you think she was drugged or something?”

  “Did Kelsey use drugs?”

  “No way. None of us do. Most of the kids who do drugs aren’t serious students. But some of them take stuff to stay awake or to help them focus, you know?”

  TJ didn’t. In her day, which wasn’t all that long ago, students drank coffee. “Does Kelsey have a boyfriend?’

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “How ’bout last spring?”

  Megan’s gaze went up as she thought about it. “I left right after finals, but Becca kept in touch with Kelsey over the summer—at least for a while. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “One more thing. How did Kelsey hook up with Whitney, anyway?”

  “I don’t think she ever told us. Kelsey lived in the dorm until this semester.”

  The roommate as part of this conspiracy to use Kelsey’s body made perfect sense to TJ. Who better to be sure the girl received the necessary preparation for the procedure to take her eggs? Whitney had to have enticed Kelsey to share the apartment.

  TJ thanked her and then drove to the outskirts of Madison where Becca lived with her parents. The house was one of a series of seventies-style bi-levels on a quiet street near a large shopping mall. Becca answered the door wearing jeans with holes in the legs and a cutoff sweatshirt that exposed her slim midriff.

  She offered TJ her hand and then settled her in one of two loungers in front of a large picture window. “Megan just called and said you wanted to know about Kelsey’s boyfriend.”

  “So you knew she was seein’ someone?”

  “Sort of. Kelse wouldn’t tell me much about him. I worked in Oconomowoc last summer, and sometimes we’d meet when she was in Waukesha. We went shopping one time and I noticed her slip into Victoria’s Secret when I was in another store. She came out with a package and I kidded her about who was the special guy.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Do you think he has something to do with her disappearing?”

  “Hard tellin’. We’re lookin’ into everything possible right now.”

  “I bet Kelse wouldn’t tell you much about him, right?”

  “Just wanted to get another opinion, that’s all,” TJ said.

  “She didn’t want to talk about him, that’s for sure. She told me she was seeing an older man and they had to keep their relationship a secret because he was in the process of getting a divorce. I could tell she was wild about him. She had that look, you know?”

  “That’s all she said about him?”

  “She said he was good to her.” She paused. “Oh, right. I saw them together once. She didn’t see me because I was in the car and they were walking across the street going the other way.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Downtown Waukesha.”

  “What did this guy look like?” Finally, she was getting somewhere.

  “He was pretty hot for an old guy. In his forties, I think. He was taller than Kelse, maybe six foot? He had dark hair with some gray in it and was wearing a suit.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Anything else you remember that she might have said about the guy?”

  “She said he was really smart. She wouldn’t tell me what he did for a living but said he had a lot of money.”

  TJ needed to get Lisa to lean on Kelsey to tell them more about this poser.

  23

  The morning after finding the woman’s body in his yard, Bart dashed off a quick blog. He usually worked ahead a couple of entries, a practice that came in handy when the unexpected happened, so today he only had to edit one he had ready. Describing the events of the last night as “unexpected,” though, was a giant understatement.

  After sending off the blog, he thought about visiting the gym, but found he had no ambition. Ignoring Conlin’s warning about doing any of his own research, Bart went back to his notes on the past years’ sensational crimes, zeroing in on the discovery of the bodies of the missing women, all of whom had been abused by their husbands or boyfriends. If Headliner was obsessed with those murders,
the answer to who he was could be somewhere in that case. Bart hadn’t gotten very far reviewing the old notes when his cell phone rang. Jen greeted him when he answered.

  “Hi. Nice to hear your voice.” He immediately regretted the admission; their evening together hadn’t been a date, had been nothing more than two friends seeing a movie. Bart didn’t want to reveal that he was hoping for more.

  “I was shocked to see you in the news this morning. Are you all right?”

  He felt good that she was concerned, but wished that her interest wasn’t only because of the crime. “I’m good. A lot better than that poor woman.”

  “Do they know who she is yet?”

  “Not that they’ve told me. I suppose I’ll be informed the same way everyone else is—by the media.”

  “Well, if nothing else, it gives you a real interesting blog this week, right?”

  “Afraid not. One of the detectives issued me a gag order.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “They’re the police. They can do anything,” he said bitterly. “No, seriously, they really can’t, but I understand why it’s necessary. At least for a day or two. After that, I’m going to consider it fair game unless they let me in on what they’re doing.”

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you.”

  “Aren’t you working today?” he asked. Jen, an independent wedding planner, worked out of her house and had told him that her hours tended to be sporadic.

  “That’s what I called about,” she said. “I have to drive out to Mequon to look at a hall in a new hotel that just opened. If you’d like to ride along, I’ll take you to lunch, get your mind off things. Their restaurant is supposed to be pretty nice.”

  Bart wondered once more what her motives were and decided that it didn’t matter—any reason she wanted to get together again worked for him. “That would be great. I need to get out of here.”

  After jotting down her address, he showered and dressed quickly, taking more time than normal taming his unruly hair. Now that he had someone he wanted to impress, he should break down and invest in a stylist who could help him get it in shape. About to walk out the door, he checked his emails.

  There was another message from Headliner.

  Hey, Ass-hat,

  I read yur blog. I thought you’d be all over this like a sloppy mop. What the hell happened? Forget about me already? You don’t want to do that, buddy, or I’ll have to plant something else in your yard. The next one might be even closser to home.

  Headliner

  Bart wasn’t ready to deal with the creep—not when the cops wouldn’t give him any protection or let him blog about the case even though it had happened right under his nose. He forwarded the email to Conlin and left home in his BMW headed for Jen’s apartment in Shorewood.

  Feeling better the further he got from home, Bart turned on the radio to a favorite station that played soft jazz and was humming along with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga when something he saw in his rearview mirror brought a halt to his exuberance. A dark SUV came out of an alley in the block next to his house and pulled into line a few cars behind him in traffic. When he was sure the vehicle was maintaining its place behind him, he fumbled to flick off the music and turn on his Blue Tooth. Fortunately, he’d just programmed Conlin’s number into his phone. He asked the system to connect him to the detective.

  “Conlin here. I got the email you sent me from your friend.”

  “I’m not calling about that. My ‘friend’ as you call him is following me as we speak. I’m on Oakland, just past Capitol Drive, headed north. He’s about three cars behind me driving a dark-blue SUV. Someone’s following me, anyway. I’ve made a few turns and the car’s staying behind me.”

  “All right, stay on Oakland. I’ll have the nearest squad pull him over. Leave the line open.” A minute passed, and Conlin’s voice came over the speaker again. “Better idea. Pull into the first parking place you come to and try to get a license number in case we miss him.”

  Bart could have told Conlin that trying to catch a license number on Oakland Avenue would be chancy. At that time of day, traffic was brisk. Sure enough, the moment he pulled into a spot across from Sendik’s grocery, a UPS truck double-parked on the street next to him. The SUV that had been following him flew around the truck, and passed out of sight too quickly for Bart to get even a glance at the plate.

  Disgusted, Bart pulled back out onto Oakland when the UPS guy left. No one followed him and he couldn’t see the SUV anywhere ahead of him. When he reached Jen’s place, she was parked in front of the building, waiting for him in her car. He ducked into the passenger seat and let out a deep breath of relief.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Sorry I’m late, but things have gotten even more interesting since I talked to you.” He told her about the SUV. His phone rang, and he saw it was Conlin.

  “Aren’t you going to take that?”

  “No. It’s just that Detective Conlin. I’m done being Mr. Cooperative.”

  “Maybe you should ask him for protection.”

  “I tried that and was told, ‘No can do.’ I’m on my own. I just had my security beefed up on the house, though.”

  “Bart, they found a body in your yard and a murderer is emailing you. How will you sleep at night?”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “Maybe you should stay with a relative or a friend for a few days.”

  He chuckled. “My folks are snowbirds, and I’m not going all the way to Arizona to stay with them.”

  “You could stay with me. I have an extra room.”

  Her offer raised his heart rate a few notches. “I appreciate that, Jen, but I don’t want to get you involved in this. I probably shouldn’t even be seeing you until this gets cleared up.” He recalled what Headliner had said about “closer to home” and suddenly realized what that meant. Someone he cared about could be the next victim if he didn’t follow Headliner’s orders.

  “You could hire a bodyguard,” she suggested.

  “That option is a little out of my price range.”

  “Well, maybe just have someone stay with you at night. At least check it out and see what they would charge.”

  He hated to let her think he was cheap, but a nighttime bodyguard might still be pretty expensive. He made a decent income with the blog, but he was saving every extra cent possible to get a place in a better neighborhood.

  “I’ll look into that,” he promised.

  24

  Donna and JR welcomed her warmly when TJ came home from Madison. The house smelled of cooking, and the Christmas tree lights sparkled in the living room.

  “How was your day?” Donna asked.

  “It sucked.” She had struck out everywhere she went. After returning to the restaurant where Whitney had worked and questioning employees she had missed the day before, she’d gone to the restaurant where Kelsey had met Mr. X. No one remembered Kelsey when she showed her picture around, and the vague description of the mystery man got her nothing. She’d considered finding a sketch artist after Becca told her she would remember the guy but decided that was just crazy. She and Lisa had to convince Kelsey to roll over on him, and convince her that he might have had something to do with her abduction.

  “That’s too bad,” Donna said. “If it helps any, I have your favorite stew in the slow cooker and I’m going to put some biscuits in the oven when Richard gets here.”

  “Oh, man, that’s gonna save my life. Thanks for that. You stayin’ for dinner?”

  “I am, but I have to leave right away after we finish. I have my new bridge group tonight.”

  “Sure. We aren’t goin’ anywhere.” Donna stayed with them from Monday morning until Friday when she went back to her own home in West Bend. JR followed TJ to her bedroom where she changed into a pair of sweats and chased him back into the living room. They were laughing and wrestling on the floor when she heard the front buzzer from her office. Donna rushed in from the kitchen.

&n
bsp; “Did you hear that?”

  She handed JR to Donna. “I’ll be right back.”

  She dashed down the back stairs to the first floor and through the hallway to her office. She flicked on the light on the front porch and peered out to see who was there. A small guy in a beige trench coat stood on the steps. She opened the door a few inches.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I’m Bart Kosik. I need your help.”

  “Business hours are over. Come back tomorrow—or better yet, don’t come back.” She closed the door. TJ had no desire to talk to Kosik.

  “Wait,” he yelled through the door. “Just hear me out.”

  TJ knew about the body they found on his property, and as much as she disliked the guy, she didn’t think he was responsible. According to Richard, Kosik wouldn’t have the balls for something like that. Guys like Kosik preferred attacking with words. She opened the door again. “Make it fast. My supper’s ready.”

  “Can I at least come in for a minute?”

  She opened the door wider and he stepped into the waiting room. She looked at her watch. “Forty seconds left.”

  “Hey, I know you don’t like me, but this is about business.”

  “Whose? Yours or mine?”

  “Yours. I need help.”

  The last person she wanted to help was Kosik, the wily wordsmith. He’d been none too generous to her and Lisa when he’d written about them. But maybe giving him a break now would ward off future jabs against her and her friends. “What kinda help you want from me?”

  “I’m getting threatening messages from a guy who says he’s murdering abused women. He wants me to blog about him. The cops won’t let me and they won’t give me protection.”