Chapter XI
Something We're Missing
They stared at the case board. Now a third set of information was there. Sara sighed, "This is insane." Warrick nodded his agreement. Horace Kent had also died of neon gas poisoning and since they had not released that little tidbit, they were dealing with the real deal, not a copycat. They were dealing with a killer who didn't discriminate between race, age, sex...or anything. There was no pattern, no victim profile to look for. Warrick frowned, "I knew Horace...I mean he's the kid that every parent pointed to and said, 'Why can't you be more like him?'. Sara nodded, "The home town hero." Warrick shrugged, "I guess so...wait...wait, go back what did you say?" Sara blinked, "Hometown hero, why." Warrick stood. "Home town...he's a Vegas native too." Sara shrugged, "So?" Warrick looked at the board, "So were our other two victims. Maybe that's it. That could be the connection." Sara nodded and stood up, "He's targeting natives...people born and bred right here in Las Vegas, Clark County. The only problem is... there are roughly 1.7 million people in the city and surrounding area, seventy percent of Nevada's population." They both groaned. This did not narrow things down at all. 1.7 million potential victims. Sara frowned, "There has to be another connection. Something we're missing." Warrick looked at the three pictures. "I guess we're going to haul the family's in...before this psycho gets someone else.
Warrick and Catherine sat across the table from Bruce and Matilda Wendell. Both of them looked haggard, tired, completely lost. Bruce's tie was lose around his neck and his jaw was covered with stubble. Matilda's green eyes were red rimmed and listless and Bruce's jaw was so tight that they could see the muscles working under the skin.
"No. She didn't hang around any bad crowds, no drugs, no booze, no wild parties. My Meli was a good girl." The man's voice was tight and laden with sorrow. Catherine nodded her head, "I understand that you're upset, Mr. Wendell, we're just trying to find out everything we can. We've got an entire lab looking for the man that murdered your daughter...now is there anything that she's done in the last few weeks, anything different. We need to know, even if it was just switching to a new grocery store."
Both mother and father shook their heads.
Noah Robb was a walking advertisement for the National Guard. He was tall, dark, a chiseled chin and abs that would make Olympians jealous. He was also completely broken. A worn picture of Melody was between his hands, he stroked it, unable to let go of his now gone finance. "We were getting married this fall...she's already picked out all the colors and stuff..." He shook his head. "I just can't believe any one could want to hurt Meli..." Catherine patted the man on the shoulder, offering what little comfort she could. "We're very sorry for your loss." Both she and Warrick knew exactly how hollow those words sounded. "What we need you to tell us is had Melody done anything different, met anyone, gone anywhere unusual in the last few months... Did you go on any unique dates or outings...anything you can think of?" Noah stared at the wall. "The last thing we did, before I went off on maneuvers...we took my nephews Scottie and Rick out and around Vegas, my sister lives in Seattle so we showed them the town. The Pirates show at Treasure Island, The Bellagio Fountain, the uuh old sign museum...Tourist stuff you know." He shook his head, "When I got back from Maneuvers...we were planning a night out...catch a show, spend too much on a room...real nice." His voice broke and he looked at them... "You think...you think if I had been here...I could have saved her, I could have kept her safe...I always promised to keep her safe." A tear slid down his scruffy face and he stared down at the picture of the laughing, smiling, alive Meli. "I failed her."
Catherine looked over at Warrick, her blue eyes full of unshed tears. They watched the broken young man leave the room. Catherine flopped back against the back of her chair. "God what I wouldn't give for a love like that. Eddie and I were never like that. Not that kind of 'I would die to protect you' love. She sighed, "I don't think I'll ever have that kind of 'can't eat, can't sleep, devoted to the last breathe' kind of love...It's reserved for the young and un jaded."
She sighed and stretched her arms over her head, the movement pushed the lapels of her jacket back and pulled the fabric of her shirt tight against her chest. Warrick made himself look away from Catherine's unconscious sexual movement. Her words struck home with him. Had he and Tina had that kind of love? If he...died...would she mourn like that? He just didn't know... He did know that his traitorous hand wanted to reach up and wipe away the tears that spilled out of Catherine's sapphire blue eyes.
Nick and Greg sat across from Sylvia Taylor. She was a solidly built woman with a firmly placed scowl on her face. "Now none of you did anything when my Gene died but a high class nig-" Greg cut of the woman half way through her filthy utterance. "That's all we need from you, ma'am." She stood up, "You morons need to pull your heads out of your asses and find the piece of shit who killed my husband."
Anna Taylor was, in Greg's estimation, a good person in bad circumstances. One of her hands was protectively splayed over her distended stomach and the other was flat on the table. Her brown eyes were far older then her fifteen years, and with the child growing inside her, those eyes would only grow more weary. "It was always something with Dad, you know. One week he'd be at a factory, the next he'd bounce at some sleazy strip joint, the next he would plant himself on the couch and drink like a fish." She shrugged, "Mom has her job at the Sphere, house keeping, and I pound the ground as a server at the IHOP." She shook her head, "The last job he was fired from? He was only at it three days, he went in drunk...busted up some classic neon sign at a museum. It cost me three thousand dollars to pay for the repairs..." She ran her fingers through her short mouse brown hair. "I love my dad, but he was no nice guy...but would anyone really want to kill him?" She shook her head, "He was an ass, but he was barely even a blip on the radar around here. Vegas is full of losers...my dad was just another one of the blue collar schmucks."
Greg and Nick looked at each other, their notes were on the light side...in fact, they had hit another dead end.
Sara and Sofia were wearing kid's gloves. Anita Kent was devastated. Her husband had been with the DA's office, so she was practically one of their own and she was hurting. "You two knew Horace...he was a great man. He worked hard to get where he was...but he had time...time for the little things, you know. I mean he worked all day, putting criminals away...his job was important to him...but he still had time for his family. He chaperoned Joel's last field trip...he was thinking about coaching pee-wee football this fall...we were talking about baby names..." The woman burst into tears. Sofia looked to Sara and they both felt inadequate. They wanted to find Kent's killer, badly. For the crying Anita, for Joel, the boy who had acted like Kent was Superman, Batman and all of the Power Rangers rolled up into one man...for the unborn child that would never meet it's father.
Joel was in the lounge, destroying the high scores on whatever game it was that Warrick and Nick had in their "secret" Playstation that week. Sara sat on one side of the boy, and Sofia on the other. His young fingers adeptly manipulated the controls with all the skill and concentration of a NASA astronaut bringing a shuttle home. Sara smiled at him, "So you and Mr. Kent got along pretty well." The boy didn't take his eyes off the screen. It might have been a sign of indifference, had his deft fingers not stumbled over the buttons, causing him to lose a life. "Yeah...Mr. H was really cool...I'm gonna miss him a lot."
Sara recognized the strong front. Foster kids learned not to get attached to their care-givers, because when they invariably switched homes...it hurt. Joel had fallen in love with the Kents...and he was putting up a good fight to hide it. Sara knew all too well how the young boy felt.
"A lot of people are going to miss him. Joel, I want you to think really hard for us...did Mr. H do anything different in the last few weeks, anything at all? Can you remember the last time you went out somewhere with him? Even if it was to the grocery store, it's very important."
Sofia watched Sara comfort the boy and gently question him. The lab rumor mill had pegged Sara as "bad with kids"...Sofia had no idea how that rumor had gotten started, she was as good as gold with the little boy between them. There was real concern in her brown eyes and a note of understanding in her voice.
The young boy paused the game and turned to face Sara. "The last really cool thing we did together? He chaperoned my field trip... 'Nita was supposed to...but she said that she wouldn't be able to fit through the bus doors, cause she's as big as a house..." The boy stared at the floor that his toes could barely touch. "We went to this great place...The big sign museum. It had Aladdin's lamp and everything...Mr. H said they were relics...older then he was!"
Sara and Sofia sat in the lounge, quiet. Anita had come to collect to Joel, she held him close to her, as if he were the last rock in a thrashing sea. Sara closed her eyes and leaned forward, resting her head on her hands and her elbows on her knees. She was weary. She wanted to catch this killer badly. Annoying enough, a line from a bad Sandra Bullock movie popped in her head, "The profile doesn't fit the profile." That hit the nail right on the head, didn't it?
She let out a little gasp when two strong hands came down on her shoulders. Sofia began to knead the ever present tension out of Sara's muscles. Sara let out a groan...which sounded more like a moan. Sofia's hands moved under the collar of Sara's shirt. The skin on skin contact did make Sara moan, it was an unmistakable sound. Sofia's fingertips danced at the base of Sara's neck, firm and warm. Sara almost jumped out of her skin when hot breathe whispered across her ear. "You're tense." Sara cracked open her eyes and leaned back, tilting her head up. "Yeah..." Sara and Sofia's faces were inches apart... Blue eyes met brown and something...electric passed between them. Then Sara's pager went off. The sound was as effective as a bucket of ice water. Sara found her voice, though it was much lower and huskier then she would have liked. "I guess the others are finished." Sofia nodded, "Guess so."
Author's Note: Aaww, no flirty fun for Greggo and Nicky... Wow these are some long chapters... The movie that Sara's mentally quoting is Murder by Numbers...which I obviously do not own...not even on DVD...I'm more of a Miss Congeniality girl myself.
