54

I rifle through the pages printed from Kira’s journal until I find the one I’m looking for. Scanning down the page, I locate her cousin’s name.

The entry doesn’t name the dead person, but there’s enough information there to get me started, or rather sufficient for me to ask the right questions of Alfonse and the chief.

It’s the chief I call first. He listens in silence. When I’m done talking, he lets out a string of inventive curses about the killer, before telling me he doesn’t have a spare body with enough live cells to follow the lead I’m suggesting.

I put Alfonse’s name forward and he agrees. He also suggests Alfonse goes to the station and gets Darla to show him how to use the police computers so he can go through their records.

After telling the chief what I learned from Dr Edwards, I hang up and call Alfonse.

With twenty minutes to spare, I embrace the chance to do a spot of uninterrupted thinking.

There’s a lot to consider. Such as what motivates the killer; who his possible hero might be, and whether there would be any point in me also staking out Kelly Oberton’s father.

It’s not so much that I don’t trust any of the Casperton police, it’s just they are all way out of their depth. I can’t think of one who has the subtlety and intelligence to stay unseen by someone as cunning as the killer.

The peace is shattered by my cell ringing. I look at the display and see ‘Mother’. Since first seeing the newspaper headline, I’ve been waiting for her to call.

It’s a wonder it’s taken her this long to find out.

My finger hovers over the cell. If I answer it, there will be another narcissistic tirade dressed up as motherly concern. If I don’t she’ll keep calling until I do. Worse, she might even come looking for me. I may be the wrong side of thirty, but that won’t stop her voicing her concerns in a public place.

I decide it’ll be easier to take the call here in the privacy of my own home; I press the green area of the screen.

She talks for ten minutes straight without giving me chance to try and answer even one of her rhetorical questions. Realising there’s nothing I can say to calm her, I let her say her piece and promise to go and see her later.

It’s a promise I daren’t break, much as I’d love to.

55

I find Alfonse has been afforded a side office in the station. He is sitting with a heavy woman dressed in a blouse loud enough to require ear defenders.

Even while she’s teaching him about the computer system, it’s obvious she has the kind of personality you can’t ignore.

Her voice has a booming quality and her round face has more than its share of laughter lines. The earrings she wears could be used as lures for barracuda and her fingers have more garish rings than Saturn.

‘Thanks Darla. I think I’ve got it now.’

Darla is old enough to be his mother’s elder sister but the difference in their ages doesn’t stop her flirting with him as she leaves the room.

In other circumstances I’d be ripping him to shreds over his new admirer. This is neither the time nor place, though I do flash him a grin to warn him of what is to come.

‘I hope to God you’re wrong, Jake.’ There’s fear in both his face and voice.

‘So do I.’

As he gets to work, I lean back in my seat and think about the information Farrage’s men have given me.

I’d given them a series of questions to ask the families of Donny Prosser and Wendy Agnew. Most of the questions were the same for both families but I’d added some questions to only be asked of Prosser’s family.

Neither family had the slightest cause to suspect the victims were having the affair suggested by the way they were found. A check of their credit card statements further disproved the theory as every item listed could be accounted for.

Both parties were more accustomed to family activities than solo pursuits.

The final clinchers for me are the answers to the questions I’d had asked of Prosser’s family.

He was left handed.

He didn’t own a gun.

He had no interest in guns.

This contradicted the suicide tableau which had him using his right hand to hold the gun to his temple.

Before I’d driven away from the scene, I’d sat in my car and mimed out the sequence of events for the deaths to be the murder suicide the crime scene suggested.

Even pretending the gun was kept in a door pocket, there was enough time for Wendy Agnew to turn away from him.

When I’d recreated where the gun must have been fired from, I’d had to twist and contort my body into an uncomfortable position to get my right hand into the right area.

There were easier ways to position myself so I could fire with my right hand, but none of these put the gun in the correct place.

When I’d checked their bodies for marks or signs of a fight, I hadn’t seen any fresh scratches or bruising where Prosser had perhaps held Wendy against her will. His body was also free of injuries, which told me any fight between them must have remained verbal. That it hadn’t escalated to any kind of physical violence before a gun was introduced made the two shootings even less believable.

When I add all these facts together, it becomes obvious the killer is trying to deflect the police investigation by staging the bodies in a way that indicates something other than murder.

The chief has done a good job rounding up all of the Oberton family. For the sake of their comfort, he’s even managed to get them into a hotel on the east side of town.

I don’t know what security arrangements he’s made, but it’s a fair guess a number of detectives and patrolmen will catch a shift or two on sentry duty.

Hearing the gruff tone of his voice accompanied by rapid footsteps, I stick my head out of the office door. ‘We’re in here, Chief.’

‘I’ll be there in five.’

Leaving him to do whatever he needs to, I throw a questioning glance towards Alfonse.

He doesn’t see it despite looking right at me. Or to be more accurate, right through me.

‘What you got?’

‘Uh?’

I repeat the question without ire, aware his attention is focused on the computer and the information he’s extracting from it.

‘I’m sorry to say you’re right. I’ve found three before Kira and there are a number of deaths that have been ruled as suicide or accidents which may also prove to have been his doing.’

I keep quiet as he reaches for the mouse again. Being right has never seemed so wrong.

I feel the determination compelling me to catch this killer being replaced by a cold anger. I no longer want the killer to pay for his crimes. I want him to suffer for them.

My fury isn’t the religious eye-for-an-eye type. It’s the rage of the aggrieved, the empathetic person who’s seen too much suffering and needs to nullify the cause.

I’ve no doubt the chief feels a similar way. Yet if I’m confronted by the killer I would not want to end his life myself. I’d rather he receives his retribution at the hands of the state than stoop to his level myself.

Barring an insanity plea, he’ll be an odds-on favourite to spend a few years on Death Row before being strapped down and given a lethal injection.

The idea of him having years of false dawns as appeals fail is one which pleases me.

I’ve read how studies have proven Death Row inmates suffer in a way no other prisoners can begin to comprehend. After preparing themselves for death, they are given a stay of execution for one reason or another. Full reprieves are rare, but there are many reasons why the carrying out of their sentence may be delayed.