Southern Lights

Chapter 4

The next day, after Alexa’s dinner with her mother, she got good news about the case. The latest, more extensive report on the DNA definitely determined that the dried blood caked into Luke Quentin’s boots was a match with two of the women, and that the hairs were from the other two victims, and were a clear match too. Alexa considered the news a real gift, so they could now link him to all four women. How the blood and hair got there was up to them to prove. But it was solid evidence for their side, just in time for them to go to the grand jury the next day. Jack called and told her, and Alexa beamed when she heard the news. There were still more tests to do, which would be more conclusive, but the information they had now was reliable. Luke Quentin was in big trouble. As was proper, Alexa called and told his public defender, who was not thrilled to hear the news.

“Do you really think you can make this stick?” the other woman asked her. Alexa knew her and liked her, although she was still very green.

“Yes, I do,” Alexa said firmly.

“You don’t have a lot to go on.” That much was true.

“I have four dead women, and a previously convicted felon, a repeat offender, with blood and hair of the victims on his shoes. It didn’t get there while he had lunch at McDonald’s. He claims he may have jogged through it in the park. He didn’t jog through four different crime scenes. We’re going with it. Let me know if he wants to plead.”

“I don’t think he will,” the public defender said, sounding unhappy. She was not looking forward to this case. The killing of four young women would have public opinion heavily against him, and from what she had seen so far, her client was anything but remorseful, and extremely sure of himself. A jury was going to hate him the minute he walked in. All she could do was her best, but they both knew there was a good chance she was going to lose. And Quentin had no desire whatsoever to plead guilty to the charges. He had nothing but time on his hands, and a lot to lose. If he was convicted, he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He wasn’t about to hand that to them. He was going to make them work to convict. “Thanks for keeping me up to date,” she told Alexa, and they both hung up and went back to work.

As always, Alexa was impeccably prepared for the grand jury hearing the next day. It was held at the courthouse in Manhattan where her office was. Jack picked her up at home that morning, and drove her downtown in an unmarked police car. The hearing was closed to the public, and everything about it was kept in the utmost secrecy. Only she, representing the DA’s office; Jack, as the head of the investigation; the defendant and his attorney; and the grand jurors would be there. The hearing would determine if there was enough evidence for an indictment for the matter to be bound over for trial. Alexa knew that eighteen of the twenty-three members of the grand jury would be there-two more than they needed to indict. And at least twelve would have to vote for the indictment, and obviously she hoped they would. She and Jack didn’t say much on the way downtown; it was early. Quentin would be brought to the courtroom with four guards, in case he tried to escape. The public defender would meet him there. She had had the right to file a motion to block the grand jury from convening, but she hadn’t done it. There was too much evidence against her client to make a motion plausible.

Jack and Alexa hurried up the courthouse steps and into the grand jury room, just as Quentin was escorted in through a separate entrance. They had both been there many times before, with good results. It was rare, almost unheard of, for Alexa’s indictments to be dismissed. And her paperwork and motions were all in order. She wanted no procedural mistakes on this case.

They took their places at the counsel table assigned to the DA’s office, while the public defender sat down at the table across the aisle and Luke Quentin was brought into the room. Alexa was surprised to see that he was wearing a suit. She had no idea where the public defender had gotten it for him, but he looked good. She wondered if maybe it was his own. It seemed unlikely. He glanced across the aisle at Alexa then, and this time he didn’t smile. His eyes bored into her and through her, like white-hot power drills that drove right through her head. There was pure hatred in his eyes, and then he turned away. She could all too easily imagine that same look in his eyes as he raped and killed some young girl. She had no doubts whatsoever about the case.

The grand jurors convened quickly and heard the evidence from Alexa’s side. There were no witnesses to refute it. They were the only people in the room. Jack supplied enough evidence to support the indictment, without giving any major secrets away. He said there were investigations under way in other states about fifteen more potential victims, and they were still developing the case, but they had four sure victims so far. The jurors spoke to the defendant briefly, and asked him a few questions about his whereabouts and the forensic evidence that had been found against him, and then they thanked everyone for coming, and said that they would hand down their decision later that day, after they voted on it. But Alexa knew from their faces, as did everyone else in the room, that they would vote to indict. There was no other choice, with four dead women and blood on Luke Quentin’s boots.

“So much for that,” Jack said, as they went back to their offices upstairs. “Now we get to work.” Alexa nodded, and they parted in silence, each thinking of all they had to do. The burden was on the investigators now to give her the evidence she needed to win the case. She trusted him completely.

Alexa got the call from the grand jury late that afternoon. They had come back with an indictment in the Quentin case, four counts of rape, and murder in the first degree. They were off and running. She knew the coming months would be increasingly stressful until they tried the case. She called and asked the public defender if they would agree to a speedy trial, which she did. Joe McCarthy agreed with Alexa that the public’s best interests would be served by trying and convicting him as quickly as possible and putting it to rest. The public defender admitted that she was not looking forward to trying this case. They set the date for May, which gave them four months. And by Friday night, after organizing all their files, clearing her desk, and setting the wheels of justice in motion, Alexa was wiped out.

She and Savannah ordered pizza for dinner, and after that Savannah went out with friends, and Alexa emptied her briefcase and went to work. She knew now that with the Quentin case scheduled for trial in May, she would have no social life whatsoever in the coming months, but she didn’t have one anyway.

Savannah had plans with friends all weekend, which allowed Alexa to work without feeling guilty, and finally on Sunday afternoon they looked over Savannah’s college applications together. She had finished the last ones.

“Looking good,” Alexa said, smiling at her proudly. As usual, Savannah had met the deadline right on time. “Let’s stuff them in a bunch of envelopes and get them out.” Savannah agreed, and they each filled several envelopes, put stamps on them, and addressed them to the admissions offices. Alexa said she’d take them downstairs and stick them in the mailbox, since she needed some air anyway. She hadn’t left the apartment since Friday afternoon and had worked straight through the weekend.

She was just about to leave the apartment when she saw an envelope that had been shoved under the door. The handwriting was stilted and awkward and looked like that of a child as Alexa picked it up.

“What’s this?” she said more to herself than anyone else. It was addressed to Savannah, and had been delivered by hand. She walked it into Savannah’s room and handed it to her. “Looks like you’re getting love notes from very young children,” she teased her, and was about to leave the room as Savannah opened it and looked confused. The letter inside had been written on a computer and printed out. If it had been written by a child, it was one who owned a computer, but most children these days did.

Savannah looked faintly unnerved as she handed it to her mother without comment. It said, “I love you, and I want your body.”

“Well, that certainly makes that clear. Any idea who it’s from?” The note wasn’t signed, and Savannah shook her head.

“That’s weird, Mom. It’s creepy. Kind of like a peeping Tom.”

“Or a secret admirer. I wonder if it’s someone in the building, since it didn’t come through the mail. Just be aware when you go in and out, and don’t get in the elevator alone with a guy you don’t know.” It was good advice.

“Why would someone write me something like that?”

“Because there are a lot of nuts in the world, and you’re a very pretty girl. Just be careful and smart and you’ll be fine.” Alexa tried to treat it lightly and went downstairs to mail the college applications. She didn’t want to admit to her daughter that she was somewhat unnerved herself. She was thinking about her mother’s admonition to be particularly careful during the Quentin case, and her reminder that men like him had friends outside, even when they were safely put away in jail. So far Quentin didn’t seem like a man who had a lot of friends, or any in New York. Some of his pals in prison had told investigators he was a lone wolf.

Alexa asked the doorman if anyone had hand-delivered a letter to them, and he said no one had, which led her to wonder how the sender of the note to Savannah had dropped it off. And more importantly, who would write the letter to her and why. She tried to look less upset about it than she was when she went back upstairs, but she admitted to being concerned. She had quietly put the letter in a plastic bag. Savannah brought it up again as they shared Chinese takeout that was delivered.

“I was thinking about that letter again, Mom. I think it’s really scary, and I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that would be written by a kid,” even though the envelope had looked that way. “Kids just don’t write that kind of thing.”

“Maybe a very repressed kid would. Some boy who admired you in secret from the distance, and disguised his handwriting on the envelope, so you couldn’t guess who it was. I don’t think it’s a big deal. You should be careful anyway, but it isn’t a threat.” Alexa was trying to be cool.

“I guess so,” Savannah said in response, finishing a spring roll. “It still creeps me out.”

“Yeah. Me too. And actually, it’s kind of insulting. I live here too, and nobody’s in love with me or telling me they want my body.” Savannah laughed, but in truth Alexa particularly didn’t like that an anonymous stranger had written a note like that to Savannah. She was far more disturbed than she let on.

Without saying anything to Savannah, Alexa stuffed the letter in its plastic bag into her purse, and took it to the forensic lab the next day. Her favorite technician was on, a young Asian man who always got her fast results and gave her the most minute details.

“Who wrote that?” she asked bluntly, and he laughed when she handed him the plastic bag with the envelope in it.

“You mean hair color and shoe size? Or just what brand his jeans were?”

“I mean man, woman, or child?” She was afraid that it had not been written by a lovesick young boy, and maybe not even by a dirty old man. She had a feeling it had been written to unnerve her, and it had.

He narrowed his eyes as he carefully took the envelope out of the plastic bag, wearing rubber gloves, and looked at it, and then smiled at her. “Give me a few minutes. I have to finish something up, or the guys in narcotics are going to kill me. I’ll call you in an hour. I assume you want me to check it for fingerprints too.” She nodded.

“Thanks.” She smiled back at him and went upstairs to her office. As promised, he called her within the hour.

“Okay, got it.” Jason Yu got right to the point, he always did. “Adult male, steady hand so probably somewhere in his twenties or thirties. American. Possibly Catholic school education, so maybe it’s a priest,” he chuckled.

“Very funny.”

“The handwriting was disguised, clumsily, to look like it was written by a child, but it wasn’t. And there are no prints on the paper. He must have worn rubber gloves. Death threat?” he asked with interest. It wasn’t unusual for cops and assistant DAs or even public defenders to get them. People who went to jail got pissed at lawyers and judges, and the cops who arrested them in the first place. It came with the job.

“No, nothing like that. Kind of a love letter of sorts, not to me, to my daughter.”

“And you want to know who the boyfriend is?”

“She doesn’t have one. It was an anonymous letter written by some guy who says he wants her body. Working on the Quentin case, I’m a little skittish about guys who go after young women. I’m probably just paranoid, and it’s some kid in our building.”

“It never hurts to check it out,” he reassured her. “I’m working on your DNA studies right now. I’ll let you know when I have something new for you.”

“Thanks, Jason,” she thanked him again, and they hung up.

He hadn’t solved the mystery of Savannah’s anonymous admirer, but at least they knew now that it was a man and not a child. As Savannah said, it creeped her out. There was no certainty in Alexa’s mind that Luke Quentin was behind it, and there was no reason for him to know she had a child. But someone had written the letter. And if Quentin had somehow managed to look her up, or Google her online from the computer in the jail, and discover she had a daughter, then he had the information he needed, and could have had someone he knew write Savannah a letter to scare her, or follow her to discover she had a daughter. She didn’t know how he could arrange it, but she did know that he had thought the grand jury wouldn’t indict him, and they had. Inevitably, he would blame her for that, and the looks he had given her the few times she saw him had been to throw her off balance as well, to show her who was boss, and that to him she was just a hunk of female flesh like anyone else. There was a smoldering sexual quality to him along with the arrogance that hadn’t gone unnoticed. And Alexa didn’t like it. Not at all. And particularly not directed at her daughter. If he had sent the note, it was to frighten Alexa, and nothing else, to show her how far his reach was, and that he could get to her, even from jail.

“What’s up?” Jack had walked into her office and looked startled at her expression. “Why?”

“You’ve got murder in your eyes.”

“No, I don’t. That would be our defendant. I’m just worried.”

“What about?” He sat down in the chair across from her desk.

“Savannah. We got a stupid anonymous letter this weekend, from some guy who says he wants her body. I’m probably being paranoid, but I wondered if Luke Quentin got someone to drop it off. Do you want to look up his visiting record and see if anyone has come to see him, and let’s check them out.”

“Sure,” Jack reassured her. “But it’s probably not him. He’s not that stupid. I just spent another two hours with him, and he’s a smart guy. What’s the point of lusting after your daughter? Or sending anonymous letters to bug you? He’s in jail, and the last thing he wants to do right now is beat a path to your front door and piss you off. You’re a pretty formidable opponent, and you’ve got the upper hand. I don’t think he’s your guy. It’s more likely just a random thing. She’s a pretty girl. Anyone could have written that letter.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m just edgy. And I don’t like people stalking my daughter.” Alexa looked fierce as she said it, a mother lioness protecting her cub, and Jack smiled.

“Is she scared?”

“Not really. But we were both unnerved.”

“It’s probably just some kid who likes her. Boys do dumb stuff at that age. Come to think of it, at every age.”

“Jason Yu says it’s a guy in his twenties or thirties.”

“You asked him?” Jack looked surprised. Having the handwriting analyzed by forensics seemed like an extreme measure to him. “You are worried,” he said when she nodded.

“I just wanted to be sure, so I know what we’re dealing with. So it’s a man and not a kid. But it’s still probably nothing.”

“I’ll check Quentin’s visiting record. And if it happens again, let me know.” She nodded, and he filled her in on the interrogation that morning. Nothing new had turned up. But they were sending Quentin’s early DNA results to the other states to see if there was any kind of match. And by late that afternoon, he was able to tell Alexa that Quentin had had no visitors at all, so it was unlikely that the letter to Savannah had been instigated by him. Alexa wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not. If it wasn’t Quentin, who was it?

It was two days later when Jack walked into her office again. Alexa was having a bad day. Everything had gone wrong, and she had just spilled her coffee over her desk, drowning her papers, and had ruined a new skirt.

“Shit,” she was muttering to herself when he walked in, beaming.

“Bad time?”

“No, I just spilled my coffee.” She was trying to salvage the papers on her desk. The skirt was a mess. “What’s up?” He tossed a file onto the dry part of her desk.

“Bingo!”

“Bingo? What about?” It had been a busy morning, and her mind was going in a million directions at once.

“We have matches in Iowa and Illinois. Some of Quentin’s hair under three victims’ nails. So now we have seven. I think this is just the beginning.” They had made the matches from the evidence in the rape kits put together by the coroner in each case and meticulously preserved.

“Holy shit!” She was both elated and sorry at the same time. Sorry for the families of the victims, but thrilled that they had the perpetrator behind bars. “Will they let us incorporate their cases and add them to trial here, or do we have to extradite him for trial there after ours?” Their worst fear was that the FBI would take the case away from them since he had crossed state lines. Alexa wanted to keep the case and so did Jack and the DA.

“I haven’t gotten that far.” So far they had him on a killing spree in three states. It was going to get complicated now. There were mechanics and legal technicalities involved. And then Jack’s face clouded over. “One of the victims is Charlie’s sister, which was what got him involved in the case in the first place. But it’s going to be hard on him knowing that for sure.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Not yet, but I will. I’m thinking of taking him off the case. This is a little too close to home. He got the collar, that’s good enough.” The “collar” in copspeak was the arrest.

“I think you should take him off. I don’t want him losing it in court, and blowing our case. Or going nuts and shooting the guy. We’ll have enough headaches without that.”

“He’s a good cop. He won’t go crazy. I just don’t want to upset him more than he already is.” Alexa agreed, and she and Jack celebrated for a minute that they were about to avenge three more victims at the trial. It was all they could do for those girls and their families now.

But when Jack talked to Charlie about it later that afternoon, Charlie was adamant about not leaving the case, and he begged Jack not to take him off it. He had been involved in the investigation since the beginning and had been instrumental in bringing information to the task force. His feelings were hurt that Jack and the assistant district attorney thought he could lose it in court. He had been cleared to join the task force at the outset, and had made full disclosure about his sister. He had been closely observed, and made no slipups so far.

“What kind of cop do you think I am? A nutball? I’m not going to shoot the sonofabitch, although I’d like to. I’ve worked my ass off for the last year to bring this guy to justice and bring him in. I was one of the early ones who suspected it was him. And by sheer luck we nailed him on the crimes here first, which puts him in our jurisdiction. Jack, you can’t take me off this case.” There were tears of disappointment in his eyes. He wanted to do this for his sister. Jack hadn’t realized they were twins until he read her birth date on the paperwork the Iowa police had sent him. Iowa was Charlie’s home state, although he had moved to New York years before.

“All right, all right. But if it gets to be too much for you, I’ll let you out. Or take you off it, if you get too stressed.”

“I’m not too stressed,” Charlie said calmly. “I’ve never hated someone so much in my life. That’s different.” Jack nodded, hoping he was doing the right thing, and remembering Charlie smashing Quentin’s face into the pavement and breaking his nose the night they arrested him.

“I’m leaving you on the case, but I don’t want you alone with him for interrogation, and I don’t want you in his face, or him in yours. Is that clear?” Charlie nodded. “That’s a little too much for your nerves and mine. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Charlie left his office then, having to digest the information he had suspected for months but never known for sure. Luke Quentin had raped and strangled his twin sister. He waited until he got home, to lie on his bed and burst into tears. It was early days yet, and they had a long way to go, but the case was taking a toll on all of them, in one way or another, and it was going to get a lot worse.