What Have You Done(37)

“I know, I—”

“Get away from me.”

Don pushed off the cabinet and walked back to his desk without saying anything further.

Liam watched him go. There was nothing more to say. Everyone he loved was trying to help him, but he wasn’t sure whom he could truly trust.





26

The computer screen was the only light on in Liam’s office. He’d drawn the shade over his window and turned off the overhead fluorescents. His door was shut. He needed to be alone and give the illusion that the office was empty. The screen showed Kerri’s phone records. His cell must’ve been on there more than twenty times, and her outgoing calls and texts also included his information, with the most recent being the night of her murder. He went through each line, deleting his number and any trace that he knew the victim of his own murder investigation. When he was done, he’d pass the records to Heckle and Keenan and have them investigate whatever else was on there. It would appear as if everything was moving status quo with the case. In a matter of weeks, if not days, they would find nothing and close the case unsolved, putting this all behind them. Sean was right. Better to be done with it and move on quietly so they could investigate on their own and find whoever was doing this.

Liam clicked though the phone records, line by line, deleting evidence as he went. The next number he saw stopped him in his tracks as he sat up and stared at it. He recognized it instantly, his cursor flashing on and off in front of it, waiting for its next command.

Sean’s number.

Liam traced the dates. Sean had called Kerri two days before she was murdered. Why? They hadn’t talked in a long time. At least, that’s what Kerri had told him. He scanned through the earlier portion of the month and saw Sean’s number three more times. Kerri’s outbound calls had Sean’s home number once. They’d been talking throughout the month. Neither of them had ever mentioned anything.

Only you, me, and Don know about everything.

Liam hit the button to activate the printer and then deleted his brother’s numbers along with his own. Tampering with evidence was a crime. This was beyond that. This was tampering to clear his name as a primary suspect in a homicide. If anyone found out what he was doing, he’d be sent to jail for a long time. But now there was something new to investigate. He had to find out why Sean had been calling Kerri.

The cell phone rang. Liam fished it from his pocket. “Liam Dwyer.”

“It’s Jane. Where are you?”

“Uh, almost at the office. Where are you?”

Jane’s voice was excited. “I’m at the bureau. You’re not going to believe this, but NCIC got a hit already on our off-line search.”

“Talk to me.”

“Like you said, we started with Philadelphia as a drop point and circled our way out. The system picked up a match in Delaware. Two hours away. Prostitute was found six weeks ago, hanged in a motel in a downtown section of Wilmington.”

“Yeah, hanged is common enough. We don’t know—”

“No,” Jane continued. “Let me finish. She was hanged and her hair all cut off.”

Liam fell back into his seat. “You’re kidding me.”

“It’s him. It’s gotta be. Nothing about a stomach slashing, but this is too much of a coincidence for it not to be our guy. Wilmington Homicide filed it away unsolved. As far as they were probably concerned, it was one less hooker on the street they needed to deal with. It was filed and forgotten.”

“Almost an exact match,” Liam whispered more to himself than Jane. “So I assume no autopsy was done?”

“No.”

“Wondering if she was drugged like our vic.”

“You want me to call down there? Have her exhumed and autopsied?”

“Yeah. And tell them we’re heading down there ourselves. I think you’re right. This could be the same guy. Let me write it up, and then we’ll take a ride tomorrow. Gonna start making calls now.”

Liam hung up the phone and sent the edited phone records back to Heckle and Keenan through an email. He told them that he’d inadvertently gotten the records instead of them and he was forwarding. They wouldn’t ask any follow-up questions. Things like that happened all the time. When he was done, he let the silence of his office envelop him. Another victim. Sean’s number in Kerri’s phone records. Why? The questions continued to mount.





27

Liam walked along the dock slowly and carefully, searching for something that could help him remember where he was the night Kerri was murdered. After he’d sent the phone records back to Heckle and Keenan, he’d driven to the marina to see if something could help him put the pieces of that night back together. It was raining again, and small whitecaps crested, one after the other, as the wind howled and the river turned rough. The air was cool, and he was shivering, but he continued on, moving methodically, still feeling the wooden platform shifting underneath, still knowing that such movement was impossible.

Sean had mentioned the sweatshirt he had supposedly come back to the boat for the night Kerri was killed. He hadn’t seen anything that Sunday night when he was with his brother, but it had been dark then, and he hoped something inside the cabin might point him in the right direction now that there was daylight. He was well aware he was grasping at straws, but he was desperate to gain some piece of his memory back.