Part 20 (1/2)
”Why'd he fire Channing?”
”It doesn't say.”
”Maybe we should speak with Mr. Johnson.”
”I've already made a call to the Wynnefield police.” She smiled. ”We're booked on a three o'clock flight to Cincinnati. We'll pick up a car and drive on down to Wynnefield.”
”Great.” He glanced at his watch. They had another two hours before they'd have to leave for the airport. ”Who put you on to Johnson?”
”The owner of one of the restaurants Channing worked for. I got the names of his prior employers by running the social security number he was using back then. I matched up the restaurants with the towns where we had confirmed kills that matched back to Channing. Seems he drifted from town to town for several years, restaurant to restaurant.”
”Kill to kill,” Will murmured.
”So it would seem.”
”The owner didn't have a number for Johnson?”
”No. He said Johnson left his employ about three years ago, left no forwarding information. The Wynnefield police are doing a search for me. I'm expecting to hear from them.” She glanced at her watch. ”I hope they call back soon. I'd love to know what caused Johnson to fire Channing and how Channing reacted.”
”Well, I say for now, we put Johnson's name on our list of maybe victims.”
”I already did. You find anything interesting in your stack of files?”
”Only that there's a stretch of time when Channing seems to have disappeared from the area for a while.” Will frowned. ”For almost a year, there were no kills in the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, or Pennsylvania areas that we can attribute to him.”
”You sent his DNA through CODIS; if he'd been active elsewhere, it would have shown up.”
”If he left DNA behind. If he'd smartened up by then, who knows? He could have been just about anywhere.” he left DNA behind. If he'd smartened up by then, who knows? He could have been just about anywhere.”
”Did you imput his kills for similar MOs?”
”I just started doing that when Evan called.”
”Want me to help?”
”No, thanks, that's okay. It's giving me an opportunity to take another look at his patterns.”
”Let me know if you change your mind.” She stood up and stretched. ”By the way, I spoke with Regan Landry this morning. Apparently all's quiet on the Plainsville front. She isn't happy about having to be in Philadelphia right now-she feels she should be with her dad until this is over-and her father isn't particularly happy about having Art Phillips in his hair, as she put it.”
”Her father would be even less happy to have Archer Lowell in his face.”
”Regan agrees. But she said Landry and Phillips keep rubbing each other the wrong way. Landry goes outside without telling Phillips, Phillips gets p.i.s.sed off. Landry gets p.i.s.sed off.”
”Sounds like one big p.i.s.sing contest in the fields of New Jersey.”
”That pretty much sums it up. Regan told her father he'd just have to live with it. She's trying to keep him in line, but you know, as she explained it, he thinks he's the authority on the criminal mind.”
”Thinks he can outsmart Lowell, does he?”
”Well, so did we, if you remember.”
”Ouch.”
”Anyway, Regan's riding herd on her father to just ignore Phillips and just let him do his job.”
”Let's hope he listens to her.”
”Yeah, well, in the meantime, Livvy's ordering lunch. You want anything?”
”Where's she going?”
”Luigi's. They deliver. No one really feels like going out into this storm.” She nodded toward the window. ”Or hadn't you noticed it's raining like crazy out there?”
”I noticed,” he said, nodding. ”But I heard it's supposed to stop early this afternoon.”
”Hopefully before our plane takes off. I don't relish going up in this. So. Are you ordering lunch?”
”Ham and cheese on whole wheat. Lettuce and tomato.” He reached for his wallet.
”I've got it,” she told him as she started for the door. ”It's the least I can do, since you insist on picking me up in the morning and driving me home at night.”
”Gotta keep you among the living, Cahill.”
”There's a man in a van who is watching my house twenty-four hours each day now. I doubt I need an escort back and forth to the office.”
”Tell it to the boss.” He tilted his head in the direction of John Mancini's office. ”Besides, it gives us a chance to go over what we're finding in the files.”
”Ha. All we went over on the ride in this morning was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Dark Side of the Moon.”
”A cla.s.sic, in the best sense of the word.”
”Yesterday, it was The Wall. The Wall. Tuesday, it was . . . what was that, anyway?” Tuesday, it was . . . what was that, anyway?”
”The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Very sixties, very psychedelic.” Very sixties, very psychedelic.”
”Yeah, well, it was a little too sixties for me. I've heard enough psychedelic rock to last a lifetime, thank you very much.”
”What can I say? I just got the CD player in the car fixed. I haven't been able to play Floyd in . . .” He glanced to see the look on her face. ”Oh. It's the Mad Marlow thing, isn't it?”
”There are some people who never left the sixties, Fletcher. My mother is one of them.”
”Stuck in a time warp?”
”World's oldest living hippie.”
”She looked pretty straight when I met her. So did your stepfather.”
”Roger is an insurance salesman.” She laughed and shook her head. ”My mother waited twenty-five years for my father to come back and marry her, then turned around and married an insurance salesman.”