Gone, But Not Forgotten Read online

  “Right beside me.”

  Nancy took a deep breath. “Put him on.”

  Nancy heard Spears talking to someone. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  “Nancy?” Lake asked.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do you want me to explain with the officer standing here?”

  “What I want is to go back to bed. Now, what’s this about you sitting in a parked car in the middle of the night for three straight nights?”

  “It’s Waters. I was staking out his house.”

  “Oh, fuck. I don’t believe this. You were staking him out? Like some goddamn movie? Peter, I want you at Chang’s in twenty minutes.”

  “But …”

  “Twenty minutes. This is too stupid for words. And put Spears back on.”

  Nancy heard Lake calling to the officer. She closed her eyes and turned on the bedside lamp. Then she raised her lids slowly. The light burned and her eyes watered.

  “Detective Gordon?”

  “Yeah. Look, Spears, he’s okay. He is working on the task force. But that was heads-up work,” she added, since he sounded young and eager and the compliment would mean something.

  “It sounded suspicious. And, with the murders …”

  “No, you did the right thing. But I don’t want you to mention this to anyone. We don’t want what we’re doing getting around.”

  “No problem.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  Nancy hung up. She felt awful, but she had to find out what Lake was up to.

  Lake was waiting for her in a booth when Nancy arrived at Chang’s. The little cafe stayed open all night for cops, truckers and an occasional college student. It was a safe place to meet. There was a cup of coffee in front of Lake. Nancy told the waitress to make it two.

  “Why don’t you clue me in on what you thought you were doing, Peter,” Nancy said when the waitress left.

  “I’m sorry if I was out of line. But I’m certain Waters is the killer. I’ve been tailing him for three days. Believe me, I did a great job. He has no idea he was followed.”

  “Peter, this isn’t how things are done. You don’t go running off with some half-baked idea you picked up from ‘Magnum, P.I.’ The task force is a team. You have to run your ideas by everyone before you make a move.

  “More important, you don’t know the first thing about surveillance. Look how easily you were spotted by the neighbor. If Waters saw you, and it spooked him, he might go to ground and we’d lose him forever. And, if he is the killer, you could have been in danger. Whoever killed your wife and daughter has no conscience and he has no compunction about taking a human life. Remember that.”

  “I guess I was foolish.”

  “There’s no ‘guess’ about it.”

  “You’re right. I apologize. I never thought about blowing the case or the danger. All I thought about was …”

  Lake paused and looked down at the table.

  “I know you want him, Peter. We all do. But if you don’t do this right, you’ll ruin the case.”

  Lake nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve gone out of your way to help me, Nancy, and I appreciate it. I’m finally starting to cope with losing Sandy and Melody and you’re one of the reasons.”

  Lake smiled at her. Nancy did not return the smile. She watched Lake carefully.

  “I’ve decided to go back to work. This little incident tonight has convinced me I’m not very valuable to the investigation. I thought I could really help, but that was ego and desperation. I’m not a cop and I was crazy to think I could do more than you’re doing.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear you say that. It’s a healthy sign.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon the case altogether. I’d like copies of all the police reports sent to my office. I still might spot something you miss or offer a different perspective. But I’ll stop haunting the station house.”

  “I can have the reports sent, if O’Malley says it’s okay. But you’ll have to keep them strictly to yourself. Not even your associates should see them.”

  “Of course. You know, you’ve really taken good care of me,” Lake said, smiling again. “Do you think we could have dinner sometime? Just get together? Nothing to do with the case.”

  “We’ll see,” she said uneasily.

  Lake checked his watch. “Hey, we’d better get going. We’re going to be dead tired in the morning. I’m paying this time, no arguments.”

  Nancy slid out of the booth and said good-bye. It was late and she’d had little sleep, but she was wide-awake. There was no question about it now. With his wife dead less than three weeks, Peter Lake was coming on to her. And that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. Nancy wanted to know the real reason Peter Lake was tailing Henry Waters.

  Nine

  “Dr. Escalante,” Wayne Turner said to a heavy-set, dark-complected man with the sad eyes and weary air of someone who has given up hope, “I’m one of the detectives working on your wife’s disappearance.”

  “Is Gloria dead?” Escalante asked, expecting the worst.

  They were sitting in the doctor’s office at the Wayside Clinic, a modern, two-story building located at the far end of the Wayside Mall. Escalante was one of several doctors, physical therapists and health care specialists who made up the staff of the clinic. His specialty was cardiology and he had privileges at Hunter’s Point Hospital. Everyone spoke highly of Dr. Escalante’s skills. They also thought he was one hell of a nice guy who was unfailingly cheerful. Or, at least, he had been until a month and a half ago, when he came home to his Tudor-style house in West Hunter’s Point and found a note and a black rose.

  “I’m afraid we have no more information about your wife. We assume she’s alive, until we learn otherwise.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I have a few questions that may help us with the case.”

  Turner read off the names of the other missing women and their spouses, including the Lakes. As he read the names, Turner placed photographs of the victims and their husbands faceup on Escalante’s desk.

  “Do you or your wife know any of these people in any capacity whatsoever, Doctor?” Turner asked.

  Escalante studied the photographs carefully. He picked up one of them.

  “This is Simon and Samantha Reardon, isn’t it?”

  Turner nodded.

  “He’s a neurosurgeon. I’ve seen the Reardons at a few Medical Association functions. A few years ago, he spoke at a seminar I attended. I don’t recall the topic.”

  “That’s good. Were you friendly with the Reardons?”

  Escalante laughed harshly. “People with my skin color don’t travel in the same social circles as the Reardons, Detective. I don’t suppose you were permitted to interview the esteemed doctor at the Delmar Country Club.”

  Wayne nodded.

  “Yeah. Well, that’s the type of guy Simon Reardon is …”

  Escalante suddenly remembered why Turner was interested in Samantha Reardon and his wife.

  “I’m sorry. I should be more charitable. Simon is probably going through the same hell I am.”

  “Probably. Any of the others ring a bell?”

  Escalante started to shake his head, then stopped.

  “This one is a lawyer, isn’t he?” he asked, pointing at Peter Lake’s photograph.

  “Yes, he is,” Turner answered, trying to hide his excitement.

  “It didn’t hit me until now. What a coincidence.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gloria was chosen for jury duty six months ago. She sat on one of Lake’s cases. I remember because she said she was glad it wasn’t a medical malpractice or she would have been excused. It didn’t matter though. The lawyers settled the case halfway through, so she didn’t vote on it.”

  “You’re certain it was Peter Lake’s case?”

  “I met her after court. We were going to dinner. I saw him.”

  �
�Okay. That’s a big help. Anyone else look familiar?” Turner asked, although, at this point, he really didn’t care.

  “It’s Lake, Chief,” Frank Grimsbo told O’Malley. “We’re certain.”

  “Are we talking hard evidence?” O’Malley asked.

  “Not yet. But there’s too much circumstantial to look the other way,” Wayne Turner answered.

  “How do you two feel about this?” O’Malley asked Glen Michaels and Nancy Gordon.

  “It makes sense,” Michaels responded. “I’m going back over the evidence in all of the cases tomorrow to see if I have anything I can tie to Lake.”

  O’Malley turned toward Nancy. She looked grim.

  “I’d reached the same conclusion for other reasons, Chief. I don’t know how we can nail him, but I’m certain he’s our man. I talked to Dr. Klien this morning and ran Lake’s profile by him. He said it’s possible. A lot of sociopaths aren’t serial killers. They’re successful businessmen or politicians or lawyers. Think of the advantage you have in those professions if you don’t have a conscience to slow you down. In the past few days, I’ve been talking to people who know Lake. They all say he’s charming, but none of them would turn their back on him. He’s supposed to have the ethics of a shark and enough savvy to stay just this side of the line. There have been several Bar complaints, but none that was successful. A few malpractice suits. I talked to the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs. He skated on every one of them.”

  “There’s a big difference between being a sleazy lawyer and killing six people, including your own daughter,” O’Malley said. “Why would he endanger himself by getting so close to the investigation?”

  “So he can see what we’ve got,” Grimsbo said.

  “I think there’s more to it, Chief,” Nancy said. “He’s up to something.”

  Nancy told O’Malley about Lake’s stakeout.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Turner said. “Waters isn’t really a suspect. He just happened to be around the Escalante house the day she disappeared. There’s no connection between Waters and any other victim.”

  “But there is a connection between Lake and every victim,” Grimsbo cut in.

  “Let’s hear it,” O’Malley said.

  “Okay. We have Gloria Escalante sitting on one of his juries. He and the Reardons belong to the Delmar Country Club. Patricia Cross and Sandra Lake were in the Junior League. Anne Hazelton’s husband is an attorney. He says they’ve been to Bar Association functions the Lakes attended.”

  “Some of those connections are pretty tenuous.”

  “What are the odds on one person being linked to all six victims?” Turner asked.

  “Hunter’s Point isn’t that big a place.”

  “Chief,” Nancy said, “he’s been coming on to me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s sexual. He’s interested. He’s let me know.”

  Nancy recounted the way Lake acted during their two meetings at Chang’s.

  O’Malley frowned. “I don’t know, Nancy.”

  “His wife died less than a month ago. It’s not normal.”

  “You’re attractive. He’s trying to get over his grief. Maybe he and Mrs. Lake didn’t get along that well. Did you find any of that when you talked to the neighbors?”

  Grimsbo shook his head. “No gossip about the Lakes. They were a normal couple according to the people I talked to.”

  “Same here,” Turner said.

  “Doesn’t that undercut your theory?”

  “Dr. Klien said a serial killer can have a wife and family, or a normal relationship with a girlfriend,” Nancy answered.

  “Look at the Lake murders,” Turner offered. “We know from one of his associates, who was working late, that Lake was at his office until shortly before seven. The neighbor sees him driving toward his house at seven-twenty, maybe a little after. There’s no 911 call until forty-five minutes later. What’s he doing inside with the dead bodies? If they’re dead, that is.”

  “We think he came in and his wife confronted him with something she’d found that connected him to the disappearances.”

  “But they weren’t news. No one knew about them,” O’Malley said.

  “Oh, shit,” Michaels swore.

  “What?”

  “The note. It was the only one with prints on it.”

  “So?” Grimsbo asked.

  “The other notes had no fingerprints on them, but the note next to Sandra Lake’s body had her prints on it. According to the autopsy report, Sandra Lake died instantly or, at least, she was unconscious as soon as she was hit on the back of the head. When did she touch the note?”

  “I still don’t …”

  “She finds the note or the rose or both. She asks Lake what they are. He knows the story will break in the paper eventually. No matter what he tells her now, she’ll know he’s the rose killer. So he panics, kills her and leaves the rose and the note next to the body to make us think the same person who’s taken the other women also killed his wife. And that explains why only Lake’s note has a print and why it’s Sandra Lake’s print,” Michaels said. “She was holding it before she was killed.”

  “That also explains why no one saw any strange vehicles going in or out of The Meadows.”

  O’Malley leaned back in his chair. He looked troubled.

  “You’ve got me believing this,” he said. “But theories aren’t proof. If it’s Lake, how do we prove it with evidence that’s admissible in court?”

  Before anyone could answer, the door to O’Malley’s office opened.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Chief, but we just got a 911 that’s connected to those women who disappeared. Do you have a suspect named Waters?”

  “What’s up?” Grimsbo asked.

  “The caller said he talked with a guy named Henry Waters at the One Way Inn and Waters said he had a woman in his basement.”

  “Did the caller give a name?”

  The officer shook his head. “Said he didn’t want to get involved, but he kept thinking about the little kid who was murdered and his conscience wouldn’t leave him alone.”

  “When did this conversation at the bar take place?” Nancy asked.

  “A few days ago.”

  “Did Waters describe the woman or give any details?”

  “Waters told him the woman had red hair.”

  “Patricia Cross,” Turner said.

  “This is Lake’s doing,” Nancy said. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “I’m with Nancy,” Turner said. “Waters just doesn’t figure.”

  “Can we take the chance?” Michaels asked. “With Lake, all we have is some deductive reasoning. We know Waters was around the Escalante residence near the time she disappeared and he has a sex offender record.”

  “I want you four out there pronto,” O’Malley ordered. “I’d rather be wrong than sit here talking when we might be able to save one of those women.”

  Henry Waters lived in an older section of Hunter’s Point. Oak trees shaded the wide streets. High hedges gave the residents privacy. Most of the homes and lawns were well kept up, but Waters’s house, a corner plot, was starting to come apart. The gutters were clogged. One of the steps leading up to the shaded front porch was broken. The lawn was overgrown and full of weeds.

  The sun was starting to set when Nancy Gordon followed Wayne Turner and Frank Grimsbo along the slate walk toward Henry Waters’s front door. Michaels waited in the car in case he was needed to process a crime scene. Three uniformed officers were stationed behind the house in an alley that divided the large block. Two officers preceded the detectives up the walk and positioned themselves, guns drawn but concealed, on either side of the front door.

  “We take it easy and we are polite,” Turner cautioned. “I want his consent or the search and seizure issues could get sticky.”

  Everyone nodded. No one cracked a joke about Turner and law school, as they might have under other circumstances. Nancy looked back at the hig
h grass in the front yard. The house was weather-beaten. The brown paint was chipping. A window screen was hanging by one screw outside the front window. Nancy peeked through a crack between a drawn shade and the windowsill. No one was in the front room. They could hear a television playing somewhere toward the back of the house.

  “He’ll be less fearful if he sees a woman,” Nancy said. Grimsbo nodded and Nancy pressed the doorbell. She wore a jacket to conceal her holster. There had been some respite from the heat during the day, but it was still warm. She could feel a trickle of sweat work its way down her side.

  Nancy rang the bell a second time and the volume of the TV lowered. She saw a vague shape moving down the hall through the semi-opaque curtain that covered the glassed upper half of the front door. When the door opened, Nancy pulled back the screen door and smiled. The gangly, loose-limbed man did not smile back. He was dressed in jeans and a stained T-shirt. His long, greasy hair was unkempt. Waters’s dull eyes fixed first on Nancy, then on the uniformed officers. His brow furrowed, as if he were working on a calculus problem. Nancy flashed her badge.

  “Mr. Waters, I’m Nancy Gordon, a detective with the Hunter’s Point P.D.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” Waters said defensively.

  “I’m certain that’s true,” Nancy answered in a firm but friendly tone, “but we received some information we’d like to check out. Would you mind if we came in?”

  “Who is it?” a frail female voice called from the rear of the house.

  “That’s my mom,” Waters explained. “She’s sick.”

  “I’m sorry. We’ll try not to disturb her.”

  “Why do you have to upset her? She’s sick,” Waters said, his anxiety growing.

  “You misunderstood me, Mr. Waters. We are not going to bother your mother. We only want to look around. May we do that? We won’t be long.”

  “I ain’t done nothin’,” Waters repeated, his eyes shifting anxiously from Grimsbo to Turner, then to the uniformed officers. “Talk to Miss Cummings. She’s my p.o. She’ll tell you.”

  “We did talk to your probation officer and she gave you a very good report. She said you cooperated with her completely. We’d like your cooperation too. You don’t want us to have to wait here while one of the officers gets a search warrant, do you?”