Memory of Murder

Chapter 8

The night was especially fine. The air was soft and warm-I recall thinking it was a night for lovers. The moon hadn’t yet risen-I had planned for that-and the stars were brilliant. I had lived in the city for so long I had forgotten about stars. Then, just before dawn, the fog came. It seemed like an omen. I knew the time had come.

Excerpt from the confession of Alexi K.

FBI Files, Restricted Access,

Declassified 2010

“Sure sounds right,” Carl said. “Even to the head injury. Just wish the picture was better.”

“I’ll contact Richmond PD, see if they can send us a better one.” Alan shoved back from the computer and swiveled to face his partner. “Then I’ll have to see if Lindsey can ID the woman-her memories of her mother go back a lot further than mine do. But even if this is Susan Merrill, all it tells us is how she survived. Doesn’t tell us how she got into the Chesapeake, or whether the man calling himself Richard Merrill had anything to do with putting her there.”

Carl didn’t reply. He was staring at his computer screen, eyes squinted in concentration. Alan knew that look. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

After another two beats of silence, Carl flicked him a glance along one shoulder. “What am I thinking? Looking at the map…seems to me the Chesapeake is right handy to a whole lot of the northeast, including some major population centers. Like Baltimore…D.C.-” he tapped the screen “-your old stomping grounds-Philadelphia, right? Some of these might even be snowsuit territory, you know?”

Alan heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I guess it does narrow the search area. Should make it a little easier. Maybe.”

“It’d make it even easier if we had help.” Carl’s eyes glittered, giving him a crafty look.

“What are you suggesting?” Alan asked, warily this time.

Carl spun around and held up a hand. “Look, I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out, okay? I know you and your old man-”

“Stop right there.”

“No-wait a minute. Like I said-hear me out. I know you and your dad don’t see eye to eye-”

“Don’t see eye to eye? How’s about, we haven’t spoken in twenty years.”

“-and that you blame him for your mom’s suicide-”

Alan grunted, but didn’t voice the thought that popped into his mind: Better than blaming myself. That was the trouble with long, boring stakeouts with his partner, he thought. Entirely too much opportunity for soul-baring conversation.

“-and I get that you don’t want to call on the man now when you need help. But he was on the job back then when this happened, and he’s got buddies-fellow cops-who were, too. They’d all be retired now, obviously, but the ones that’re still alive, I’ll bet you anything they stay in touch. Housewives and back fences got nothing on retired cops when it comes to spreading gossip and inside information. This was an unsolved case, and I’ll bet you anything there’s at least one retired cop out there who still remembers it. Probably wakes him up at night every now and then, gnawing at him, because maybe it’s the one case he couldn’t close.” Carl paused, and Alan gazed back at him and didn’t comment, because half-forgotten names and faces were scrolling through his mind. After a moment, Carl gave him a little smile and said, “And I’ll bet you’ve got somebody in mind, right now. Am I right?”

Walter “Buck” Busczkowski. His dad’s old partner and Alan’s unofficial godfather, the closest thing he’d had, back then, to a functioning parent. A tough ex-marine and Vietnam vet, who’d showed him the escape route from the dead-end road his own life had seemed to be taking…

Alan snorted and reached for his phone. Then put it back and picked up the computer mouse instead. Twenty years was too long to trust his memory of the return address from an old Christmas card.

The call blindsided him. It came on Tuesday morning, through the department switchboard. He’d given Buck Busczkowski his private cell number, so when he picked up and answered with his standard, “Cameron, Homicide,” the last thing he expected to hear coming back at him was the ruined bullfrog croak even twenty years worth of booze and cigarettes hadn’t changed all that much. “Hello, son.”

Cold shot through him. His scalp prickled. Something-an unrecognizable sound-came out of his mouth, so he cleared his throat and tried again. This time managed to produce a flat, “Dad.”

His father’s chuckle sounded more nervous than amused. “I know, I’m the last person you probably expected to hear from.”

“That’s about right,” Alan drawled, and heard an exhalation on the other end of the line.

“Yeah, well…Bucky called me, you know. Did you think he wouldn’t?” Alan didn’t reply, and after a moment came another exhalation. “I’m just sorry you didn’t feel like you could come to me, is all. Anyhow, I’ve got a name for you. If you want it. Considering where it came from.”

“Not a problem,” Alan said. His heart was racing a mile a minute and his jaws felt like they were wired together. “If it’ll help close this case, I’m sure as hell not going to turn it down.”

This time the chuckle sounded genuinely amused. “Spoken like a cop, son. Guess the apple didn’t fall all that far from the tree. So-” he cleared his throat loudly “-anyway, the guy’s name is Faulkner-Bob Faulkner. He was a homicide detective down in Baltimore-retired, a’course-getting on in years, though. Met him a while back-I forget now what the occasion was-and we got to talking about old times, old cases. You know how it goes. Anyways, he was telling us, Bucky and me, about this case he had, way way back, but it stuck with him because, he said, the kids were just so doggone nice, squeaky-clean, and the case never did make any sense. Anyways, when Bucky told me you’d called, it was the first thing we thought of, both of us. Went ahead and looked him up-turns out he still lives in Bal’more. He’s expecting your call, if you want to talk to him.”

It was a moment or two before Alan could reply, and he had to clear his throat first. “Okay, I’ll do that,” he said. He listened to the number, jotted it down, then added, “Thanks.”

“No problem. Glad I could help.” There was a long silence, and then a gruff and raspy, “Think you could maybe give your old man a call sometime, when you’re not so busy?”

The knot in Alan’s chest became a fist, squeezing the breath out of him. “Sure. Yeah. I’ll do that.”

After he’d hung up, he sat for a few minutes, clammy and sweaty, waiting for his heart rate to slow down. When he looked up, he found Carl watching him.

His partner’s somber expression brightened into a smile. “Hoo boy, for a minute there you looked like you were talking to a ghost.”

Alan laughed without humor. “You could say that. That…was my dad.”

“Seriously?” Alan nodded. Carl tilted his head thoughtfully. “Interesting…”

“Yeah,” Alan said sourly. Glowering, he picked up the phone again, consulted the number he’d written down on a notepad and dialed it.

It was answered after four rings, by a voice that sounded out of breath. Alan was picturing a frail old geezer on oxygen, until, after he’d identified himself, he heard a robust cackle.

“Caught me a little ahead of myself,” Bob Faulkner said. “I was just lugging the file box up out of the damn basement. Gimme a minute…lemme catch my breath.”

“Sure,” Alan said, “take your time.”

“Whoo-been a few years since I looked at those files. Used to haul ’em out every now and then, go through everything all over again…kept thinking I’d see something I’d missed. You know how it is. Or if you don’t, you will. Every homicide cop, if he’s on the job long enough, has one-the case that won’t let him alone, you know? So…Lieutenant Cameron-that’d be your dad, I guess?”

“Right.”

“Good man-good cop. He tells me you’ve got a case you think might be connected with this one?” The suppressed excitement in the old detective’s voice came over the line, loud and clear.

“Maybe,” Alan said cautiously. “Uh…you have any objections to my recording this call? Make it easier to go back over things.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Alan poked buttons, put the call on speaker, then said, “Okay, we’re on. I’m looking for-” What could he say? A double homicide? But it hadn’t been that, had it? “Might have been missing persons, probable homicide-young couple, maybe mid-twenties, early thirties at the most. Would have happened around the first of September, 1969.”

“Time’s right.” Faulkner was silent for a moment. “So’s the age. And it’s interesting, you know, you calling it a ’probable’ homicide. We had it as a missing persons case for a while, but I always did figure they was dead, leaving their kid behind like that.”

Alan’s scalp prickled. “They had a child?”

“Little boy. About five years old when they disappeared. They’d left the kid with a neighbor and went out to dinner and a movie. It was the neighbor called the police when they didn’t show up to collect the boy. Wasn’t until the next day they found the couple’s car in a downtown parking lot. Not a trace of the two of them, then or since.” Faulkner made a tsking sound. “Shame. Nice kids. Really nice. That’s what made it so hard, I think.”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“James and Karen McKinney. Lord, sometimes I think I know those names better’n I know my own kids’. Squeaky-clean-I mean really. Not a thing in their past history, no debts, no vices, no enemies-hell, they hadn’t been in town long enough to make enemies. They’d just moved here-came from someplace up in northern Pennsylvania, one of those dying coal-mining towns, you know? High school sweethearts-she was as pretty as a picture, and he was good-looking, too. They got married right outa high school and she got pregnant right off the bat, but they didn’t let it hold ’em back. Nah, they were going places, those two. She went to work so he could go to college while her mother watched after the baby. Then her mom passed away about the time he graduated, and he got a job down here. Teaching-yeah, he was a damn schoolteacher, you believe that? Or woulda been. He was set to start the new job when school started, woulda been right after Labor Day, that’s the way they did, back then. Way I always figured it, those two kids were out celebrating their last free weekend before the new job, the new school year started. And…poof. They just…disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“People don’t just disappear,” Alan said. “You must have an idea, some kind of theory what might have happened.”

There was another long pause. “Most everybody thought it was probably a random thing-some psycho, you know?-and those kids just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Most everybody. But you don’t think so.”

“Didn’t feel right to me-I don’t know why. Well, for one thing, usually with those kinds of things, the bodies turn up sooner or later. Or else there’s more killings. This was just too clean. Struck me as being…professional.”

“Professional. As in…a hit?”

“I know, I know. The question is, why?” Another pause. “You wanna know what I think? If it was a hit, then somebody got it wrong, that’s all.”

“You mean-” Alan felt a sudden chill.

“Yeah. I think the reason those two kids got whacked, somebody made a mistake, got the wrong people. It was just a case of mistaken identity.”

Alan didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He felt queasy-physically sick.

“Yeah…I always did think it was kind of funny, because according to the landlord, the couple that had the apartment before the McKinneys moved in, seems they’d done a midnight flit-skedaddled in the middle of the night, left owing a month’s rent. Woulda made sense, if they knew there was a contract out on them. Thing is, I looked into them, too. Nothing.” After a moment Faulkner cleared his throat. “So, am I getting this right? Your dad says you think Karen McKinney might be alive? After all these years…”

There was a break in the old man’s voice, and it struck Alan that Faulkner had spoken of the couple-the McKinneys-as if they were people he’d known personally and well. As maybe he had, he thought, maybe better than those who’d called themselves neighbors and friends of the couple, even family. He’d studied every detail of their personalities, their lives, had lived with them inside his head for years, even decades. They probably were as close to him as members of his own family.

“Too soon to tell,” he said gently, not wanting to get the guy’s hopes up in case the Jane Doe pulled out of the Chesapeake turned out to be unrelated to the Baltimore case. “Can you fax me whatever photos you have of Karen McKinney?”

“Sure can. I’ll send you the whole damn file, soon as I get somebody to drive me to the post office. I don’t drive in the city these days-too damn dangerous.”

“Thanks,” Alan said. “I do appreciate it.”

“One more thing you should know.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Remember I said it had been quite a few years since I’d looked at those files? Well, last time was…oh, maybe ten, fifteen years ago. Somebody else was looking into the case-came to see me in person, in fact.”

“Really.” Alan’s spine had straightened involuntarily.

Faulkner chuckled. “That got your attention, didn’t it? Yeah, fella was a private dick out of Atlanta. I’ve got his name right here, but I don’t think he’s in Atlanta anymore. I think he moved out west somewhere. But if he’s still licensed, you ought to be able to locate him easily enough. P.I.’s name was Holt Kincaid. Said he was James and Karen McKinney’s son.”

Alan didn’t have to look to know his partner had swiveled back to his computer and was already typing in the name. By the time he’d given Faulkner his fax number and the address where he could send the McKinney files, finished his goodbyes and signed off, Carl was sitting back, staring intently at his monitor screen.

“What’ve you got?”

Carl flicked him a glance. “Would you believe your P.I. lives in L.A. now? On Laurel Canyon. But that’s not all.”

Alan was on his feet, looking over the other man’s shoulder. Carl tapped the screen. “Take a look. Could be a coincidence, I guess.”

“You know what I think about coincidences,” Alan muttered, then read aloud from the information on the screen. “Date of birth…November…1964.” He shot Carl a look, but didn’t point out the obvious. A moment later, he straightened up, one hand clamped to the top of his head. “Sonofa-” he whispered.

The full name given on the application form was James Holt Kincaid.

Jimmy?

Lindsey had been for a long run in Mission Bay Park that morning. She’d been doing a lot of running the whole past week, but today being Saturday, she’d decided to push herself. She was in the shower cooling off when she heard her doorbell ring, and because she wasn’t expecting anyone, for a while she tried to ignore it. But obviously, whoever it was didn’t seem inclined to give up. The ringing went on and on, sounding more and more insistent.

Finally, she swore, shut off the water, wrapped a towel around her head and shrugged into a short terry cloth robe. “Coming! I’m coming, already,” she hollered, tying the robe’s belt as she stomped angrily and barefooted down the stairs. In the entryway she took a quick look through the peephole. Then, as her insides performed what she knew to be physically impossible feats-her stomach dropped, her heart turned over, etc.-she looked again. And with shaking hands, unlocked and opened the door.

“Alan-uh, Detective Cameron,” she managed to say, then stood clutching the collar of her robe and mopping self-consciously at her wet face with it, while her visitor pulled off his sunglasses and moved past her. He was dressed casually, in cargo pants and short-sleeved knit shirt with a collar, but in spite of that she could see he was in full cop mode, judging from the way he came into her house as if he had every right to be there.

“Right the first time,” Alan said, with a brusque cheeriness she immediately recognized as false. His curious gaze swept over his surroundings, taking in the stairway, landing and high-vaulted ceiling. When she didn’t respond immediately, he glanced at her and added dryly, “What I mean is, it’s pretty silly for you to call me Detective Cameron, isn’t it? After all, we’ve kissed.”

“More than once…actually.” Pleased with her own response-the offhanded coolness of it-she closed the front door, then unwound the towel from around her head and draped it over the banister. When she turned back to him, combing her damp hair back with her fingers, she saw that he was watching her, and that his smile was apologetic.

“Sorry,” he said, as his eyes, no longer cop-bright, came to rest on her hair. “I did try to call first. You weren’t answering your cell.”

“I was running. I never take it with me when I run.”

He nodded. “I remember that.” There was an awkward pause.

She saw it then-the folder, standard manila-file type, clutched in his left hand, held down at his side. She gave a little gasp. “You’ve-did you find something?”

He lifted the folder and let it fall back to his side. “That’s why I came. I have some things I want you to look at.

Seemed easier just to drive over. Sorry if I caught you at a bad time.”

“No, no, that’s all right. I…like I said, I’d been out for a run. I just got back, and was…well, as you can see.” She laughed and gave him a sideways look. “I’ve been doing quite a bit of running this week, actually. Helps keep my mind off things…you know, like waiting for the phone to ring.” She didn’t tell him he was one of the things she’d been trying to keep off her mind. “Um, can I get you something to drink? I have diet soda, water…Or, I can make some coffee, if you’d rather.”

“That sounds good. Sure. Coffee-if it’s not too much trouble.”

He seems edgy, she thought. Almost…nervous. How unlike him… Oddly, as if in response, her own heart began to beat faster.

“No trouble,” she said as she led him past her tiny living room and into the roomy combination kitchen-dining area where she spent most of her time, since it doubled-or tripled-as her home-office space, as well. It was amazing how much smaller the space seemed with Alan Cameron in it. How crowded.

She measured beans and water into the coffeemaker and turned it on. She turned to find Alan gazing out the French doors that opened onto her patio, separated from the rest of the town house complex by a low stuccoed wall and tropical landscaping.

“The ocean is out there-you can’t see it from down here, though. The real view is upstairs-” she pointed at the ceiling “-in my bedroom.” She coughed nervously. “Um…we could sit outside, if you want to. That wind does seem to be getting colder, though. I think a storm might be coming in.”

He nodded absently as he turned back to her. “It’s moving down the coast. I think it’s supposed to get here sometime tomorrow. That’s okay-in here’s fine.” He placed the folder on the glass-topped table and pulled out a chair, then leaned on the back of it instead of sitting down. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to this sooner. I’ve had a busy week. Spent a couple days testifying in court. That really takes a bite out of my time.”

“No, no-that’s perfectly…I understand. You have more important things to do, I’m sure.”

“Actually…I don’t. More urgently demanding of my time, maybe. Definitely not more important.”

For some reason, she believed him-maybe because of the intent way he was looking at her. “What was it you wanted to show me?” She was beginning to feel quivery inside-nervous energy, she thought. Or maybe just plain old fear.

“You might want to sit down,” he said gently.

She shook her head, once-sharp and quick. “No. I’m fine. Just…show me.”

He nodded. Giving her one last, measuring look, he opened the folder and took out a photograph. Or rather, a copy of a photo, an 8x10 black-and-white portrait of a young woman, on plain white paper. He turned it and placed it on the tabletop.

She felt herself go icy cold…heard a roaring in her ears. The world seemed to shrink down to the size of that single photograph. She was vaguely aware of hearing a chair scrape across tile, then felt Alan’s hands on her arms. Briefly-there and then gone.

“I told you you should sit down.” His voice was harsh, but strangely, the more comforting because of that.

“I’d rather stand up.” Somehow, she felt stronger on her feet. Less vulnerable. She shook her head, frowning down at the photograph. “I’m okay now. It’s just…kind of a shock. I mean-she’s so young. It’s my mother, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Alan. He had his arms folded across his chest, now, and was regarding her narrowly. “Is it?”

She nodded, picked up the photo and held it…couldn’t take her eyes off it. She touched the black-and-white image with her fingertips, as if she could actually feel the warmth of flesh-and-blood cheeks, the smoothness of the sleek pageboy hairdo. “The earliest picture I have of her is her wedding photo-when she married my dad.” Her voice caught on the last word. She raised her eyes to Alan’s. “When was this taken? Do you know? She looks so much younger…her face is fuller. She looks so happy.”

“It’s her senior picture. The one that would have been in her high school yearbook the year she graduated.”

“But…” She stared at him. “I don’t-does this mean you’ve found where she lived? Before the fire? Where she went to school?”

Alan took a deep breath. “Maybe. I think so.” He held up a hand. “Look, I know you have a million questions. I don’t have all the answers, not yet. I’ll tell you everything I’ve found out so far, but first…I want you to look at one more photo for me, okay?”

She gripped the back of the chair he’d suggested she sit down in, wondering whether her knees would continue to hold her. And whether he would touch her again. She caught a quick sip of air and nodded.

Alan took a second sheet of paper out of the file and placed it on the table in front of her. This was another plain paper copy of an 8x10 black-and-white photo, although this one didn’t have the too-polished look of the professional portrait. A young couple-they seemed impossibly young, still just kids, really-stood before a table, in the process of cutting a wedding cake. The table was covered with a plain white cloth. The cake looked homemade. Both the tablecloth and the cake were adorned with flowers of some kind-possibly peonies, Lindsey thought. The bride wore a simple white dress, sleeveless with a sweetheart neckline and the tight-fitting bodice and full skirt that were the style in the 1960s. Her dark hair was upswept, probably in an effort to look more grown-up, and held in place with a crown of flowers. The groom’s hair was dark, too, cut flat on top and slicked back on the sides, and his dark suit looked a little too big for him. His hand covered his bride’s as she held the knife poised to make the first cut, and the two gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled.

“It’s my mother, isn’t it?” She asked the question before she lifted her eyes to Alan’s. She realized she was crying when she saw him through a blur of tears.

“I don’t know,” he said again, cautiously. “Is it?”

“I think so.” She touched her streaming nose with the back of her hand, then whispered, shaking her head, “But I don’t know who he is. That’s not my dad.”

“Lindsey…”

“Who is that-that boy? That man?” She held up both hands, backing away from him as he reached toward her. “That’s not my father! That’s not my dad!”

Her hands were flat against his chest, her eyes squeezed shut. Then his arms came around her, holding her tightly, and now, instead of her hand it was her cheek that lay against his chest. She drew a convulsive breath, and his hand came to cradle her head, turning it so the sob that burst from her was muffled in the warm crispness of his shirt. He held her like that and let her cry, not saying anything, only rearranging his arms to enfold her more closely and pressing his face against her damp hair.

And presently, when she’d grown quieter, he began to stroke her back, softly…gently…and she thought it was the most incredibly good thing she’d felt in a very long time. She couldn’t remember any man ever touching her quite like that before, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lift her head from his shoulder and tilt her face up to his. And the most natural thing in the world for him to close the very small distance that remained, and kiss her.