All That Remains - Cornwell Patricia (серия книг TXT) 📗

He paused, rubbing his face in his hands. "I've got a feeling Spurrier picked an MO early on and has pretty much stuck to it in all of the cases.

He cruises; spots his victims, tails them, and knows he's hit pay dirt if they pull off at some place, a bar, a rest stop, where they're going to be long enough for him to get set up. Then he makes his approach, pulls something to make them trust him. Maybe he strikes only once for every fifty times he goes out cruising. But he's still getting off on it."

"The scenario seems plausible for the five recent cases," I said. "But I don't think it works quite as well for Jill and Elizabeth. If the Palm Leaf Motel was where he'd left his car, that was some five miles from the Anchor Bar and Grill."

"We don't know that Spurrier hooked up with them at the Anchor."

"I have a feeling he did."

Marino looked surprised. "Why?"

"Because the women had been in his bookstore before," I explained. "They were familiar with Spurrier, though I doubt they knew him very well. I'm guessing that he watched them when they came in to buy newspapers, books, whatever. I suspect he sensed immediately that the two women were more than friends, and this pushed his button. He's obsessed with couples. Maybe he'd been contemplating his first killings, and he thought that two women would be easier than a man and a woman. He planned the crime long in advance, his fantasies fed every time Jill and Elizabeth came into his bookstore. He might have followed them, stalked them after hours, gone through a lot of dry runs, practicing. He had already selected the wooded area out near where Mr. Joyce lives and probably was the person who shot the dog. Then one night he follows Jill and Elizabeth to the Anchor, and this is when he decides to do it. He leaves his car somewhere, heads to the bar on foot, his gym bag in hand."

"Are you thinking he went inside the bar and watched them while they drank beer?"

"No," I said. "I think he was too careful for that. I think he hung back, waited until they came out to get into the Volkswagen. Then I think Spurrier approached them and put on the same act. His car had broken down. He was the owner of the bookstore they frequented. They had no reason to fear him. He gets inside, and very soon after his plan begins to unravel. They don't end up in the wooded area, but at the cemetery. The women, Jill, in particular, aren't very cooperative."

"And he bleeds inside the Volkswagen," Marino said.

"A nosebleed, maybe. Ain't no vacuum cleaner gonna get blood out of a seat or floor mat."

"I doubt he bothered to vacuum. Spurrier probably was panicking. He probably ditched the car as quickly as he could in the most convenient spot, which turned out to be the motel. As for where his car was parked, who knows? But I'm betting he was in for a little hike."

"Maybe the episode with the two women spooked him so bad he didn't try again for five years."

"I don't think that's it," I said. "Something's missing."

The telephone rang several weeks later when I was home alone working in my study. My recorded message had barely begun when the person hung up. The phone rang again half an hour later, and this time I answered before my machine. I said hello, and the line was disconnected again.

Perhaps someone was trying to reach Abby and did not want to talk to me? Perhaps Clifford Ring had discovered where she was? Distracted, I went to the refrigerator for a snack and settled on several slices of cheese.

I was back in my study paying bills when I heard a car pull in, gravel crunching beneath tires. I assumed it was Abby until the doorbell rang.

I looked through the peephole at Pat Harvey zipped up in a red windbreaker. The hang-ups, I thought. She had made certain I was home because she wanted to speak to me face-to-face.

She greeted me with "I'm sorry to impose," but I could tell she wasn't.

"Please come in," I said reluctantly.

She followed me to the kitchen, where I poured her a cup of coffee. She sat stiffly at the table, coffee mug cradled in her hands.

"I'm going to be very direct with you," she began. "It has come to my attention that this man they arrested in Williamsburg, Steven Spurrier, is believed to have murdered two women eight years ago."

"Where did you hear this?"

"That's not important. The cases were never solved and have now been linked to the murders of the five couples. The two women were Steven Spurrier's first victims."

I noticed that the lower lid of her left eye was twitching. Pat Harvey's physical deterioration since I had seen her last was shocking. Her auburn hair was lifeless; her eyes were dull; her skin was pale and drawn.

She looked even thinner than she had been during her televised press conference.

"I'm not sure I'm following you," I said tensely.

"He inspired their trust and they made themselves vulnerable. Which is exactly what he did with the others, with my daughter, with Fred."

She said all this as if she knew it for a fact. Pat Harvey had convicted Spurrier in her mind.

"But he will never be punished for Debbie's murder," she said. "I know that now."

"It is too early to know anything," I replied calmly.

"They have no proof. What was found inside his house is not enough. It will not hold up in any court, if the cases ever go to court. You can't convict someone of capital murder just because you found newspaper clippings and surgical gloves inside his house, especially if the defense claims the evidence was planted to frame his client."

She had been talking to Abby, I thought with a sick feeling.

"The only evidence," she went on coldly, "is the blood found inside the women's car. It will all depend on DNA, and there will be questions because the cases occurred so long ago. The chain of custody, for example. Even if the prints match and the courts accept the evidence, there is no certainty that a jury will, especially since the police have yet to find the murder weapons."

"They're still looking."

"He's had plenty of time to dispose of those by now," she replied, and she was right.

Marino had discovered that Spurrier worked out at a gym not far from where he lived. The police had searched his rented locker, which not only locked with a key but had had a padlock on it. The locker was empty.

The blue athletic bag Spurrier had been seen carrying around the gym had never been found, and never would be, I felt sure.

"What do you need from me, Mrs. Harvey?"

"I want you to answer my questions."

"Which questions?"

"If there is evidence I don't know about, I think you'd be wise to tell me."

"The investigation is not over. The police, the FBI are working very hard on your daughter's case."

She stared across the kitchen. "Are they talking to you?"

Instantly, I understood. No one directly involved in the investigation was giving Pat Harvey the time of day.

She had become a pariah, perhaps even a joke. She was not going to admit this to me, but that's why she had appeared at my door.

"Do you believe Steven Spurrier murdered my daughter?"

"Why does my opinion matter?" I asked.

"It matters a great deal."

"Why?"

I asked again.

"You don't form opinions lightly. I don't think you jump to conclusions or believe something just because you wish to. You're familiar with the evidence" - her voice trembled - "and you took care of Debbie."

I could not think of what to say.

"So I'll ask you again. Do you believe Steven Spurrier murdered them, murdered her?"

I hesitated, just for an instant, but it was enough. When I told her that I could not possibly answer such a question, and indeed, did not know the answer, she did not listen.

She got up from the table.

I watched her dissolve in the night, her profile briefly illuminated by the interior light of her Jaguar as she got in and drove away.