Page 142 of Concealed in Death

“A side skirt I haven’t turned up, and a sudden need to nail her like a bagful of hammers. And no,” she said, “I would’ve found her if he had an important woman, or if he had an important man for that matter. Plus, sex isn’t nearly as important to him as his mission, and his sister. He wouldn’t leave her to deal with me alone without some sort of solid purpose or desperation.”

“So you’re left with his involvement in some way, and a woman whose memory of her experience as a child, almost certainly in that building, is partially blocked.”

She sat for a moment, an indulgence, and added to it with more coffee. “I’ve got the core of it, you’re right about that. But I have a whole ream of unanswered questions that keep it from firming up. If it wasn’t Montclair Jones in Africa, and I’m pretty damn sure it wasn’t, who ended up in a lion’s digestive system, and why did he agree to masquerade as Jones’s brother? What did Jones do with his brother’s body, because the only way a serial killer stops cold is death or incarceration.”

“A spanner in the works.”

“That’s a wrench. I remember that one. Why don’t you say wrench, because this is America.”

“A wrench then. Is it plausible it went somewhat as you see it, but on that night when DeLonna was taken, Jones discovered them, but rather than play Cain, his brother was afraid of the discovery, of his brother’s righteous wrath, of the thought of being exposed, going to prison, he agreed to go away, to go to Africa. Where he was able to control his urges for that short time, perhaps even believed that higher power he’d been raised on had given him a sign. Then fate or justice, or whatever you chose, intervened to punish him.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like it because it’s just over the edge of plausible. And I don’t like it because I can’t believe, and neither can you, that after killing twelve—and the time line reads the count comes in at under three weeks. Twelve murders in what comes out to roughly eighteen days. Somebody does that, he doesn’t just stop, and say, ‘Hallelujah, I repent, and I’m going to Zimbabwe to spread the good word.’”

He gave her a friendly little poke. “You just like saying Zimbabwe.”

“It’s hard to give up. But regardless, my ‘I don’t like it’ stands. But it’s plausible.”

She got up. “I’m going to contact Zimbabwe now, and review my notes one more time before I head in.”

“I’ll walk with you.” He slid a hand around her waist and they started out, and the cat streaked by them. “That’s a place we’ve never been. Africa.”

“We haven’t. Have you?”

“Not to spend any quality time, so to speak. There are, however, many exceptional channels for smuggling in Africa. But that was long ago.” He danced his fingers up her ribs. “We could go, take a safari.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not sure cows aren’t going to try some payback and stage a mass revolution, why would I risk going where there are lions just walking around loose, and really big snakes who’ll wrap around you and squeeze and swallow you whole? And, oh yeah, quicksand. I’ve seen the vids. Of course, now I know how to deal with quicksand if that ever happens.”

“Do you now?”

“Yeah, long story. I’ll give you some tips sometime. The river’s probably the thing.”

“Which river? I think Africa has several.”

“Not in Africa. Here. Jones could have weighed his brother down, dumped him in the river. Or taken him out to New Jersey, up to Connecticut, somewhere where there’s a lot of ground, woods, buried him. They’ve got a van now, which Jones didn’t take on his getaway. Maybe they had one then, too. Something to check.”

“While you do, I’m in my office.”

She went to her desk first, saw the incoming light blinking, ordered the messages up.

“Damn it!”

Roarke stopped in his doorway, turned around. “Bad news?”

“No, no, Zimbabwe sent me an e-mail with attachment a few hours ago. Stupid Earth, axis, revolving crap. It’s a picture. Two pictures.”

Curious now, Roarke walked over to study them with her. One showed a man wearing a safari-style hat, amber sunshades, a khaki shirt, and pants. He smiled out, a camera strapped around his neck, a little white building at his back.

“Supposed to be Montclair Jones. It could be him. Same coloring, same basic body type. Hat and sunshades make it tough to be sure. Same with the group shot here.”

In that one, the man, similarly dressed, stood with several others in front of the same building.

“I can enhance, sharpen it up. I can do that. I can run a match with his last ID shot. But... before I do.”

She turned to her ’link, ordered Philadelphia’s personal contact.

Philadelphia answered before the first beep had completed. “Lieutenant, you found Nash.”

“No. I’m sending you a picture. I want you to tell me who this person is.”