Part 20 (1/2)
”I've never seen him before.”
”That's the real Hugh Pacheo.”
Sadie stared at the picture and shook her head. ”Definitely not the guy who met me.”
The detective took the photo back. ”Good. I'd hate to think the guy came back from the dead to hang his own son but, when dealing with you, I know not to leave any stone unturned.” He sounded less than happy about it. ”I'm going to need you to come down to the station and give me a full report on the record.”
”I gotta do this job first,” Sadie said. ”I'm not getting enough work these days. I can't afford to throw one away. It's two blocks away.”
”Fine. I can live with that.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the house. ”I got work cut out for me here anyway. This job you've got, is there any chance it could be connected to this one or the others?”
Sadie gave him the details of the suicide job and he nodded his head.
”I didn't get the call on that one, so I'll check with the officers involved. You think it's a straight-up suicide though?”
”Yes.” Sadie nodded. ”Although, I thought the same about this one.”
”Right. You'll call me when you finish up and we'll get everything you know on paper, okay? I'm going to want access to all your files too. This thing is connected to you and we gotta figure out what that link is.”
Sadie kept meticulous records and told Petrovich he was welcome to come to her house and go through them.
Before he hoisted himself out of Sadie's car he asked her, ”By the way, I don't suppose you had any visitors when you were cleaning here?” He put the word visitors in air quotes.
Sadie shook her head. ”No, but I don't get suicides talking to me, so-” She stopped short. ”But it wasn't a suicide after all.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. ”I remember catching the glimpse of something in my peripheral vision when I worked in the garage. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. Do you want me to try and contact someone here?”
He looked pained as he shook his head. ”How about we just go about figuring this out the old-fas.h.i.+oned way?”
”Fine. No trying to talk to the dead. Was there any evidence found on my van?” Sadie asked.
”Tons of prints. Yours and some of the workers at the hotel on the back door. Nothing on or near the winds.h.i.+eld.” He sputtered loudly. ”I don't get it. Somehow you're connected to this. It's like the guy wants you to be the one to catch him.”
”I'm more than a little freaked out,” Sadie said seriously.
”I'll arrange to have a uniform car drive by your place every hour or so, okay? But it would be better for you to stay with someone. A friend? Your mom?”
”I'll think about it.” She nodded and thanked him. Sadie knew a lot of killing could get done in the fifty-nine minutes between the times an officer would drive by her place, but there was no way she'd bunk with her family while some serial killer had her in his crosshairs.
”Dean, there's one more thing. . . .”
Sadie had left it to the end. She felt oddly reluctant to remove the necklace from around her neck, but now she handed it over to the detective.
”Hugh Pacheo . . . or the guy claiming to be him, gave me this necklace. He also gave me a song and dance about not being able to pay me until his pension check came and would I please wear the necklace all the time to bring me good luck until we met again with the payment for my services.”
”And you believed that load of c.r.a.p?” Petrovich held the pendant up and stared at it hard.
”Well, like I said . . . he seemed like an okay guy and-”
She was interrupted by Petrovich reading the back of the gold disc.
”Carnalem concupiscentiam est insatiabilis.” He shook his head slowly as he looked at Sadie. ”Do you know what that translates to?”
”I never studied Latin, but Hugh, um, the guy pretending to be Hugh, said it was some sort of good-luck message.”
”No,” Petrovich snapped. ”It loosely translates to 'Carnal desire is insatiable.' Doesn't sound like a good luck charm to me.”
Sadie's throat grew tight and she chewed her lower lip.
”I didn't know you studied Latin.”
”I dabbled in college.” Petrovich was still staring at the necklace.
”You're right. It doesn't sound like good luck,” Sadie sniffed.
”No, but it does sound like the motto of our killer. Wait here.”
He climbed out of the car and Sadie watched as he took the necklace over to his vehicle and securely tucked it away in an evidence bag he retrieved from his trunk. Then he approached the investigators in the garage and turned it over. When he came back to Sadie's car he was silent awhile and she knew he was weighing whether or not to tell her something.
”The three girls killed at the hotels . . . ,” he began slowly. ”They didn't die from knife wounds.”
”Was it the drug c.o.c.ktail that killed them? The same thing used to drug Lester Pacheo before he died?”
”No. The drug mixture was solely to incapacitate the victims so that he could kill them without a struggle.”
”Then if it wasn't the drugs, and it wasn't multiple knife wounds . . .”
”They were strangled. Before they were stabbed, they were choked to death and the killer didn't use his hands.” He reached and placed a hand on Sadie's arm in a rare showing of emotion. ”From the markings on the girls' necks, the ME believes the killer used a thick gold chain.”
Sadie shook her head violently, trying to erase the idea from her head.
”This was clearly a warning. He got off on the idea of you wearing it until he could kill you with it.”
Sadie's hand went to her throat.
”What do I do?”
Petrovich offered to stay with Sadie until a friend came to get her, but she declined. She was still a professional and she still had a job to do, she told him. However, he wouldn't be put off and insisted that she call a friend to find a place to stay. She thought about her sister, Dawn, or Maeva but they had babies, and that changed everything. Petrovich wasn't leaving until she called someone, so, reluctantly, she dialed Rosemary. Sadie was careful not to tell her about the new evidence, particularly not in front of the detective who'd have a cow if he knew of Rosemary's habit of video and blogging about events.
”She says it's no problem if I stay with her,” Sadie told him.
”Good. Go do your job, but you keep in contact. I will bring you down and get your statement probably tomorrow.” He pointed to a patrol car. ”He'll be following you too.”
Sadie nodded and once she'd pulled away from the curb and left Petrovich to tend to evidence collection, her hand went to her heart pounding inside her chest as if she could stop her fear.
On her way to the self-inflicted gunshot job, Sadie called back Rosemary and thanked her for allowing her to stay. She also said that once she'd finished the cleanup job, she wanted to get together with her and Maeva.
”I'll see if she's available to come over,” Rosemary said. ”You sound strange. Is everything okay?”