“Chief Cutter… Chief Styles… Boss…” Wade said as handshakes and nods were exchanged and appropriate titles acknowledged all around. He then assumed parade-rest stance, since all available chairs in the office had been taken, and arranged his features in an expression he hoped would appear both alert and somber.
“I’ve just been telling Chief Cutter and Chief Styles about our task force,” Nola said, leaning forward to place both forearms on her desk, the center part of which had, in their honor, been swept clean of papers clear down to the blotter. “Detective, can you fill us in on the latest developments?”
Wade managed to get his throat cleared, but Chief Cutter beat him to the actual forming of words. “Understand we had another torture murder last night. What’s this make now, five?”
“Five with roughly the same M.O., yes, sir. Assuming they’re all connected. We haven’t established that they are, not for certain.”
Styles, who’d never been Wade’s biggest fan, said with a superior smirk, “Come on, Callahan, all five victims have been—”
But Cutter’s blunt “Why not?” overrode it.
Wade chose to respond to the chief of police. “There’s no connection between the victims, for one thing. Except gender—all were female. Age-wise, we have a college student, a retiree, a city bus driver and a middle-aged housewife. Now this new one—she’s a widow, three grown kids. All were tortured in approximately the same way. None was sexually assaulted, although they were left naked and hanging by their wrists, and no clothes or IDs have been found.”
“But you have positive IDs on the victims?”
“Yes, sir—missing persons matchups and next-of-kin verification on the first four. The most recent—our widowed mom—had fingerprints on file. Seems she was a docent at the art museum.”
“No suspects, I take it.”
“No, sir. So far, there’s been no physical evidence left at the crime scenes by the killer or killers. None of the victims had any enemies, owed anybody money, took drugs or fooled around with anyone’s husband, girl or boyfriend. Model citizens, all.”
“Hell, sounds like we got ourselves a serial killer to me.” Chief Cutter snorted, fixing his jowly features in a Churchillian scowl. “Looks like I get the honor of breaking the news to the mayor. Just what this city needs—another serial killer. We got the Rose Festival coming up in a couple weeks, the eyes of the country on us—in a good way, for a change. How long’s it been since the last time we had a serial killer? Fifteen years? Back in the nineties, wasn’t it?”
“It’s spring,” Styles said. “Warm weather always brings out the weirdos.”
“Weirdos we got plenty of—always have. Wouldn’t be Portland without ’em. At least they’re not generally homicidal, thank the Lord.” Cutter pushed himself to his feet. Once at eye level with Wade—and with an unmistakable gleam in his eye—the police chief said, “Speaking of weirdos, how’s the newest member of your team working out, Detective?”
Nobody made the mistake of taking that question at face value. Everyone in the room was familiar with Chief Cutter’s habit of setting conversational traps for unwary subordinates, and well aware of from whence the order to involve the psychic had originated.
So it was that Wade addressed an audience perhaps more respectfully attentive than it might otherwise have been. “Ah…well, sir, so far she seems…” He coughed, hoping to gain time for his brain to find a word that wouldn’t get him in trouble with his boss and make him the butt of department humor for the foreseeable future. When the word failed to appear, he started again. “From the crime scene this morning, she did pick up that the, uh, latest victim didn’t know her killer.” He paused while everyone nodded gravely, then continued with an absolutely straight face. “Oh, yeah—and the killer doesn’t like uniforms.”
There was a snuffle of poorly stifled laughter from someone—probably Styles. Nola put one long-boned hand over the lower part of her face and became suddenly interested in a large spill of something on her desk blotter.
Chief Cutter pushed abruptly to his feet and favored each person in the room individually with two seconds of jaw-jutting scowl. If it hadn’t been for the city-wide smoking ban, Wade knew, there would have been a cigar clamped between his teeth. “I expect everyone in this department to give the gal some time. She’s done a good job for other departments, and Lord knows this one, and this city needs all the help it can get.” He took a step toward the door, then jerked around to stab two fingers—holding the invisible cigar between them, of course—at the room in general. “I don’t need to tell you, we need this sicko caught. I want this thing wrapped up before the Rose Festival begins. That clear?”
Amid three mumbled Yes, sirs, the chief of police made his exit.
Tee placed the bowl of thick chicken-and-barley soup in front of her grandmother and the spoon alongside it, then unfolded a dish towel and draped it over her grandmother’s lap. “There you are, Jennie, just the way you like it.”
Jeannette, thankfully in one of her sweet moods, smiled up at her. “That’s very kind of you, dear. Such a lovely lass…my, but you remind me of my daughter. Her name is…” A look of stark distress wiped away her smile.
“Isabella,” Tee said quickly, before the distress could blossom into panic.
The old lady’s face brightened, although her eyes remained vague…unfocused. “Oh—you know my daughter? Are you one of her little friends? I used to know all her friends. Boyfriends, too. She always has boyfriends, my Isabella. Well, she’s such a pretty thing,’ tis no wonder…”
Tee picked up the spoon and gently curled her grandmother’s fingers around it. “Here, Jennie, dear, try the soup. It’s barley—you like barley.”
Jeannette obediently dug into the soup bowl and slurped a noisy spoonful, making humming sounds of approval as she worked it around in her mouth. She swallowed, then gave a trill of musical laughter. It sounded poignantly young. “Izzy always brings her young men home to meet me, you know. She hasn’t The Gift herself—doesn’t like mine much, either, except when it suits her. Like when she wants to know what’s in a boy’s heart. Then she doesn’t mind it, not a bit…” She scooped up another bite of soup, still chuckling to herself.
Tee leaned her chin on her hand as she watched her grandmother attack the bowl of soup with gusto, crooning and mumbling to it as she ate. “I wish you could help me know what’s in this one’s heart, because I sure can’t,” she said, knowing Jeannette wouldn’t really hear her, that she was years away, now. A lifetime away.
“Wade Callahan…that’s his name—the detective I’m working with now. You said he’s lost, Jennie, and I think he is, but only parts of him. He’s like…a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.” She sighed. “I can’t read him.”
Jeannette paused with the spoon on its downward arc. “I could never read my Tommy, either.”
“Tommy?” Tee felt excitement vibrate through her breastbone. Her grandmother’s voice had taken on a different timbre…a younger, lighter pitch, with a definite Irish brogue. Softly she asked, “Was he your boyfriend, Jennie?”
“Boyfriend? Oh, well, I s’pose he was to begin with, before I married him.” She chuckled. “Tommy was my husband, of course.”
Tee felt her grandmother’s emotions fill her head, warm and sweet, at first, like spring breezes wafting through orchards of apple trees. Then just as quickly they changed to hot, sultry winds, blowing gusts that smelled of passion and storms.
“I never knew you were married,” she said in a wondering voice. She’d