Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(112)

But as D.D. went over the photos again and again and again, she came up with the same results: nothing, nothing, and nothing.

It was as if Randi Menke and Jackie Knowles had stood there and simply let themselves be strangled. One, a woman who’d had the fortitude to leave an abusive marriage. Another, a woman who’d climbed up the corporate ladder before she was thirty.

D.D. didn’t believe it. These women knew how to fight. So why hadn’t they?

Female killer…

Drugs, she realized. Weapon of choice of most female murderers. Abigail had drugged her victims, then killed them.

Only thing that made sense.

Except…D.D.’s head ached. She pulled first Randi’s tox report, then Jackie’s tox report. Jackie had died with a blood alcohol level of. 05, consistent with a woman who’d had a glass of wine or two at the bar. Randi Menke nothing.

D.D. pulled out a chair, flopped down in it, and scowled at the report again.

Phil came in. He had a brown bag in his hand, which he held up. Apparently, she’d said yes to lunch. She could eat.

“She drugged them, definitely,” D.D. muttered, accepting the bag.

“She?”

“Abigail.”

“Abigail?”

“Woman who killed Randi Menke and Jackie Knowles.”

“Okay.”

“Only thing that makes sense. Neither victim resisted manual strangulation. Had to be because they were already incapacitated.”

“Okay.”

“Except the tox screens came back clear for drugs.”

“Then Abigail didn’t poison them.”

“But she did! I know it.”

“All right, think of it this way: Abigail rendered them incapacitated using a substance not covered by most tox screens.”

“Rules out barbiturates, opium, narcotics.” D.D. opened the brown bag, unwrapped a roast beef sandwich, took the first bite. “Meaning no weed, no meth, no cocaine, no ecstasy, no oxycodone, no vicodin…what’s left?”

Phil shrugged, took a bite of his own tuna fish sandwich. “What would make you passive, but not leave behind a pharmaceutical fingerprint?”

D.D. frowned again. “Hypnosis?”

Phil shook his head. “Doubt it. Whole drawback to hypnosis is that you can’t force someone to act against their will. Voluntarily submitting to manual strangulation definitely violates most people’s free will.”

“I’d like to think the victims would snap out of it and fight back,” D.D. agreed. She chewed another bite of sandwich. “I don’t get it. Abigail killed two women, for no apparent good reason. Wasn’t angry, wasn’t driven by compulsion, wasn’t for any clear personal gain. Just killed them because it had to be done. What’s worse do you think? Being murdered, or having your own murderer not that personally invested in your death? Just, you know, getting the job done.”

“Murder for hire?” Phil asked.

“Would still have to be someone somewhere who gained. I can’t figure out how the deaths of these two women lead back to any one person’s gain. The only real connection between the two is Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.”

“Maybe the killer gained Charlene,” Phil said. “Access to Charlie, attention or affection from her, something of that nature.”

“Actually, we think Abigail is Charlene.”

“Really? When’d that happen?”

“Late this morning. Ballistics matched Charlene’s gun to the sex offender murders. Meaning, Charlene shot the pedophiles, and given that the killer identified herself as Abigail during the third shooting, Charlene is Abigail.”

“That gives me a headache,” Phil said.

“Me, too!”

D.D.’s cell phone rang. She glanced down, half-afraid it might be her mother, half-hopeful it would be Detective O with word of Charlene’s arrest. Instead, it was a number she recognized from having called the day before.

“Speak of the devil,” she murmured, answering her phone. “Good afternoon, Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Or, seeing as it’s January twenty-first, would you prefer to be called Abigail?”


“NOT MY GUN,” Charlene said without preamble.

“Excuse me?”

“Your ballistics report. It wasn’t run on my weapon, and I can prove it.”

“How?”

“You. You saw my gun at HQ. Remember? Taurus twenty-two, nickel-plated with a rosewood grip. Gun that was tested last night had a rubber grip. Not my gun.”

D.D. pursed her lips, glanced at Phil, then motioned for a pen and paper. She quick scrawled, ballistics report? Because truth was, she hadn’t seen the final report yet. She’d only heard of it.

“Maybe you have two guns,” D.D. said.

“I don’t. Just my legally registered Taurus with the rosewood grip.”

“Prove it.”

“Contact J. T. Dillon, my firearms instructor. He helped me purchase the weapon a year ago and has seen me practice with it for the past twelve months.”

“Only establishes that you definitely own at least one weapon with a rosewood grip. Doesn’t say you don’t own a second twenty-two with a rubber grip.”

There was a moment of silence. “Isn’t that burden of proof on you?” Charlene spoke up. “Look at the report again. Are my fingerprints on the second gun? Because it’s not mine, meaning they aren’t, meaning you can’t prove that it’s my gun. I didn’t shoot three pedophiles, and you can’t prove that I did.”