Southern Lights - A Novel Part 2

"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, finis.h.i.+ng a spring roll. "It still creeps me out."

"Yeah. Me too. And actually, it's kind of insulting. I live here too, and n.o.body'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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sistant DAs or even public defenders to get them. People who went to jail got p.i.s.sed 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 rea.s.sured 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 s.e.xual 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 rea.s.sured 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 l.u.s.ting 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 p.i.s.s 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 a.n.a.lyzed by forensics seemed like an extreme measure to him. "You are are worried," he said when she nodded. 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.

"s.h.i.+t," 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 s.h.i.+t!" 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 a.s.sistant 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 sonofab.i.t.c.h, although I'd like to. I've worked my a.s.s 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 smas.h.i.+ng 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.

Chapter 5.

The rest of January flew by, and Alexa was swamped at the office. They got a match on Quentin on five victims in Pennsylvania, and one they hadn't even known about in Kentucky. With the women in Iowa and Illinois, they had thirteen rape and murder victims now. The charges were incorporated into their case, by agreement with the other states, and it was in the press all over the country.

Alexa had made a brief statement to the media, but otherwise declined to comment. She didn't want to do or say anything wrong. The case was just too important. And there were at least a dozen more victims in question, in a variety of states where he had traveled. It had turned into a national story, and Alexa was constantly meeting with detectives from other states. Jack was gathering information, and Alexa was already busy preparing for the trial. Finally, in early February, Alexa had time for a quiet dinner with her mother after work.

"You look tired," her mother said, looking worried.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better. I only have three months till the trial." She was up till three in the morning every night, reading case law and making notes.

"Well, just don't wear yourself out totally. How's Savannah? Has she heard anything from the schools yet?"

"Not till March or April," Alexa answered with a sigh. "She's going skiing with her father next week. If he shows up. Most of the time, he flakes on her. He'll probably do it again," Alexa said with a look of irritation. She hated his disappointing Savannah, who always forgave him. It was enough that he had hurt her.

"Maybe he won't flake this time," Muriel said quietly. "I hope not."

"Why?" Alexa asked, looking exasperated. She hated her ex-husband, everything he stood for, and everything he'd done to them. He had banished them from his life, out of weakness. It had been easier for him to give in to his mother and ex-wife than to stand by them. She loathed the worm he had turned out to be. "Why do you hope he won't flake?" Alexa asked, suddenly angry at her mother.

"Because it's good for her to see her father, at least once in a while. She loves him. You may hate him, and I understand that, I don't like him either, for what he did to you. But he's still her father, Allie. Better the reality, with all its flaws and frailties, than a fantasy she makes of him." Alexa smiled at what her mother said. She hadn't called her "Allie" in years. But Alexa was still a child to her, just as Savannah always would be to Alexa and still was now.

"Maybe you're right," Alexa said, backing down. "But I grew up without a father. It didn't kill me. And Tom is such a jerk."

"She'll figure that out for herself. Give her time."

"I think she already knows it but loves him anyway."

"Give her that. She needs it. For now at least."

"It always upsets her that I won't see him. I haven't seen him in ten years and hope I never do again."

"Is he coming to her graduation in June?"

"I asked her not to invite him," Alexa said guiltily. "She said she's giving me four years' notice, and she wants him at her college graduation." Alexa smiled ruefully at her mother. "I guess I have no choice. She's a good sport about it, and I try not to say too much, but she knows how I feel about him. It's no secret between us."

"You need to get over it," her mother said quietly, and Alexa looked at her in surprise.

"Why? What difference does it make if I hate him?"

"Because it poisons you. And you'll never have a decent relations.h.i.+p with another man if you don't put it behind you and stop hating him."

Alexa's jaw looked set in stone. "Check back with me in thirty or forty years. Maybe I'll have Alzheimer's by then." Her mother made no further comment, and Alexa went home to Savannah, who was lying on her bed and watching TV.

"How was Grandma?" she asked, looking sleepy. She had finished all her homework and had spent a quiet evening alone.

"Fine. She sends you her love."

Alexa went to hang her coat up in the hall closet, and saw the envelope sticking under the door. She hadn't seen it when she walked in. She picked it up cautiously by a corner. It was the same childlike handwriting as before. She didn't say anything to Savannah, and opened it after she put on a pair of rubber gloves she kept in a drawer. It said "I know where you are every minute of the day. Look around. You can't see me. You're a beautiful girl." There was no overt threat in it, but whoever had written it wanted her to know that she was being watched, and by a man who was l.u.s.ting after her. Alexa was scared, terrified in fact, as she put the letter in a plastic bag, just as she had done before.

She didn't say a word about it, but walked into her bedroom and closed the door. She called Jack on his cell phone, he answered immediately, and she told him about the letter. Alexa was holding it carefully in the plastic bag.

"I don't even know if it's real. It may just be someone trying to be cute, or scaring her. But if some guy is following her, I don't like this at all." There was a long silence at Jack's end, and he finally admitted he didn't either.

"Why don't I give you a cop for her? He can go to school with her." Alexa hated to frighten Savannah, but she knew she had no choice. She had known when she took the Quentin case that there could be threats to her. She hadn't bargained on them being aimed at Savannah instead. These weren't direct threats, but there was a menace to them anyway. And if this was being orchestrated by Luke Quentin, it was even more frightening if he was having some previously convicted felon follow Savannah. She couldn't prove that, but even the remote possibility of it made her feel sick.

"I haven't told her about this letter yet, but I guess I have to. Thanks, Jack. I do want a cop for her," she confirmed. She was afraid for Savannah, not herself.

"No problem. Try not to worry about it. It probably has nothing to do with Quentin, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Who knows what kind of creeps he knows." Everyone he knew or hung out with had been in prison.

Alexa decided not to worry Savannah at bedtime and told her what the letter said over breakfast. Savannah made a face. "That's so creepy, Mom. The guy is sick."

"Yes, he is. I called Jack Jones about it last night. He's going to give you a plainclothes cop to go to school with, just to be on the safe side, in case someone really is watching you. I'd rather be smart about this. It may just be a prank, but I don't want to take the chance." The case she was working on was a reminder of just how dangerous some men were.

Savannah looked instantly upset. "That's so embarra.s.sing, Mom. How long do I have to have that?"

"Let's see if he writes to you again. It could be till after the trial." Until she knew if the notes were due to Quentin or not, she wanted Savannah protected and out of harm's way.

"That's three months away!" Savannah shrieked at her. "Maybe even four!" She knew enough about her mother's work to know that the trial could last a month, and this was going to be a big trial, with thirteen victims, and maybe more by then. "I'd rather stay home from school than look stupid with a cop with me every day."

"Well, you can't stay home from school. So suck it up," Alexa told her, relieved that Savannah was more upset about the cop than the potential danger. She was still ranting and raving when their doorbell rang five minutes later, and a handsome young boy with dark hair and big brown eyes wearing a baseball cap and jacket stood smiling at them both. He said he was Officer Lewicki, but to just call him Thad. He smiled at Savannah, and she stared at him as Alexa tried not to smile. It was easy to see that Savannah thought he was cute. Who wouldn't? He looked about sixteen years old, and was probably only a few years older than that, close to Savannah's age. She had imagined some old geezer in a uniform. Thad Lewicki was anything but that.

"All set for school?" Alexa asked sweetly, as Savannah put on her coat.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said, as Thad picked up her book bag.

"I thought maybe we could say that I'm your cousin from California, and I'm here for a few months. They're going to see me every day," he suggested with a boyish smile.

"Yeah...okay..." Savannah said as they opened the door to the apartment.