Yes, I thought, but as I’d already reminded myself, there was often a pattern with serial killers. The women were all prostitutes or all brunettes. It made sense that Alice’s death didn’t resemble the others, though. The killer had wanted nothing more than to silence her and might have even hoped her death might appear to be an accident. As for the other three women, there had to be something linking them. I simply wasn’t seeing it.
“I appreciate your input,” I told him. Clearly I’d be beating a dead horse if I tried to pursue it with him any further. “I’d love to circle back if anything else crosses my mind.”
“Please do. Good night.”
I was desperate for a bath, but I was afraid I’d pass out from fatigue in the tub, so I opted for a shower instead. I tried to savor the sensation of the hot water on my weary limbs, hoping it would relax me, but my jangled nerves refused to calm. I felt dogged by so many questions I couldn’t find answers to, including why the hell Lisa Mannix wasn’t calling me back.
Toweling off, I heard my phone ring, and I scrambled for it, hoping first and foremost that it was Beau.
But the caller turned out to be the elusive Lisa.
“You’re safe?” I asked.
“Safe? Yes. I’m back in Rochester, thankGod. That’s why I didn’t have the chance to call you until now. I appreciate what you did. Doug told me that you came to the motel and helped defuse things.”
Ha-ha. I bet hehadn’ttold her that he’d acted like a complete weenie and had left me behind to fend for myself.
“Why did you take off after pleading with me to help you?”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t wait for you, but I was really freaking out, and when the coast looked clear, I jumped in my car and justdrove. By the time Doug heard my message and showed up at the motel, I was already gone. My car wasn’t there, of course, but he found some of my toiletries still in the room and got scared, so he started looking for me behind the building. And that woman followed him.”
“Did he tell you about her?”
“She’s apparently someone he used to see, who became obsessed with him. Like Glenn Close inFatal Attraction.”
Oh, J.J. would love hearing herself pegged as a bunny boiler. She’d have the Glock back out in no time.
“You live in Rochester? How did you and Doug meet?”
“At a conference for chiropractors about four months ago. It was nothing more than a fling, the kind of thing they make conferencesfor, but the sex was good and Doug convinced me to come to the area for a week so he could sneak over every day to see me. It was supposed to be a nice diversion, but the next thing I know women start turning up dead. And then I end up being stalked by a crazy chick. You couldn’t pay me to go near Lake George again.”
“When I stopped you on the road, you didn’t seem to know that Shannon Blaine had gone missing.”
“I didn’t. It was only when I mentioned what you said to Doug that he filled me in.”
“That sounds weird. She was hissister-in-law. And he was supposed to be helping search for her.”
“Look, I understand now that the guy’s an asshole. I wish I hadn’t used up a week of vacation days on him. Do you know he actually came by the motel a couple of times when I think he was supposed to be passing out flyers? I saw boxes of them in his back seat.”
“Did he ever explain why he didn’t tell you about Shannon right away?”
“Oh, sure, he had his excuses. He claimed that when I arrived Monday afternoon, no one knew she was gone yet. After that he supposedly didn’t want to burden me with the news because it might, quote, ‘spoil the mood.’”
I started searching my memory. J.J. had told me that Doug had bagged the Lake Placid workshops and it was obviously so he could be with Lisa rather than her; Kelly had stated for the record that Doug was out of town Sunday night. But now Lisa was saying that she and Doug hadn’t met up until Monday afternoon.
“You still there?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah. Just to clarify: The first time you saw Doug was Monday afternoon?”
“Right.”
“So where was Doug the night before you arrived?”
“Where? I have no idea and I don’t really care, either. I came here to have sex with him, not be his hall monitor.”
It might not matter to her but it mattered to me—not Sunday night, specifically, but Monday morning, the last time Shannon was seen alive. What, I wondered, had he told the cops about his whereabouts?
I signed off and further pondered the information she’dlet drop. Was it possible Doug had murdered Shannon—and that he’d done the same to the two campers ten years earlier? A few details about him certainly jibed with what I’d concluded about the killer: he was from the area, he could have easily seen me shortstopping Tom Nolan after the press conference that day, and he could have put his hands on my cell number in a cinch. Plus, he was a parishioner at St. Tim’s.
