Dead Even Read online

  “Do I think he’s dumb enough to shoot someone we expected him to shoot, and then go right back home where we can find him? Two words, Fletcher. Archer Lowell.”

  “So you think he’s home.”

  “It’s a starting place. Where else would he go?”

  “On to victim number two?” Will asked.

  “I suppose that is a possibility,” she conceded. “It would sure help if we knew who that was going to be.”

  “It would help, too, to know how Archer’s getting around. We know he doesn’t have a car, he can’t rent without a license, and I don’t think he’s smart enough to steal a car. So he’s either gotten a friend to drive him—unlikely, that would require some explanation—or he took public transportation.” Will paused, mentally picking through the possibilities. “My guess would be a bus. A train would be faster, but it’s also more expensive, and as far as we know, Archer has no source of income.”

  “You might be on to something.” She set her coffee down on the counter and rummaged in her bag for her phone. “I’m going to call Veronica Carson back and ask her to check the nearest train and bus terminals in and around Fleming. But that’s a little crazy, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t that like taking a bus to your prom?”

  She punched in the numbers, and, while she waited, Will opened the back door and stepped outside onto the small porch he’d rebuilt over the summer. It had rained overnight, and the birdbath the previous owner had left in the yard overflowed water onto the slate patio, the construction of which had followed the porch. There were two chairs and a small table. The patio was too narrow to accommodate anything else.

  The air was thick with autumn, the sky dark with leftover storm clouds. Crows screamed at one another in the trees at the back of Will’s property. Will stood on the bottom step and felt a little like screaming himself.

  Having Miranda in his house, sitting at the kitchen table in the morning once again, had unsettled him. He thought he’d done a damn fine job of hiding it, but now, out of her presence, he was having a tough time holding the memories at bay. He’d meant it when he’d told her she was the total package. Her physical beauty was only part of it. When he was with her, it was easy to forget he’d ever been with another woman. And God knew it had been a while since he had. Miranda just had that effect on him. She’d taken his breath away the first time he’d seen her standing in the door of John Mancini’s office on the day she’d reported for work. She still took his breath away. He thought he’d become accustomed to it—to that punch he felt in his gut when he looked at her, when he remembered their time together.

  Apparently he was wrong.

  The scent of wet earth took him back to a day almost two years ago, when they’d worked a case together in a small western Pennsylvania town where they’d gone to help track a serial killer who left his victims propped up against headstones in the local cemeteries. It had been the first time they’d worked together in months, the first time they’d seen each other in weeks, and Will recalled with total clarity the way he’d felt when he’d seen her get out of her car and walk among the graves that lay between the road and the place where he stood.

  He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Her hair blew around her head in dark ribbons, and the wind plastered her jacket to her body. By then, he’d become intimately familiar with every curve and hollow, and that familiarity burned deep inside him as he watched her approach. She’d acknowledged him with a slight gesture, a small wave of the fingers of her right hand, and he’d had to force himself to concentrate on the business he’d been sent to do.

  The first body they’d found that day had been left sitting against a headstone. The victim’s hands had been folded demurely in her lap, and her chin rested on her chest. She’d been a pretty girl before she’d been snatched from her pretty life and stabbed to death. They’d found three more bodies that day, and later, much later, when they returned to the motel where they’d been booked, he’d caught up with Miranda in the bar. They’d gone back to his room, and sought to forget the ugliness they’d seen that day by losing themselves in each other. Later, in the wee hours of the morning, Will had found Miranda out on the balcony, wrapped in a blanket, staring up at the sky.

  “When I was younger, my sister and I used to do rubbings in cemeteries,” she’d said without turning around. “You know, wax rubbings of headstones. We used to look for old cemeteries, the ones with the really neat stones. Where people have been resting for years. For centuries, sometimes. Some of the stones were so pretty, some of the inscriptions so poignant. We’d walk along and read the names and the dates. We’d find graves of men who fought in the Civil War, and babies who’d only lived a day.”

  “Like the cemetery we were in today,” Will had said, and she’d nodded.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again. Not after seeing what he did to those women . . .”

  He’d coaxed her back inside, and they’d made love until the sun came up. Later that day, he took her to another cemetery, this one outside of town, and they walked along the quiet graves, reading the inscriptions to each other. Two hours later, he was on his way to Maine, she to Phoenix. . . .

  “Carson is sending someone to the bus terminal with Archer’s mug shot, and they’re also going to get in touch with his probation officer, see if we can get a warrant issued for Lowell,” Miranda announced from the doorway, oblivious to his disquiet. “She’s already had someone out to talk to Archer’s mother. Mrs. Lowell said—surprise, surprise—she hasn’t seen Archer since she left for work on Friday morning. He wasn’t there when she got home yesterday, and he didn’t come home last night. She’s very worried about him.”

  “I’d be worried, too, if he were my son. But I thought someone was supposed to be keeping an eye on him.”

  “I think the Fleming police might have attended the same surveillance workshop as their brothers in Telford. In any event, the police are going down to the Well to talk to the bartender and some of Archer’s drinking buddies, see if he mentioned to any one of them that he’d be leaving town.” She opened the screen door and stepped outside. “You’ve done a lot of work on the house since the last time I was here. It’s really nice, Will.”

  “Thanks.”

  She descended the steps and stepped onto the patio. “This is really pretty. I bet it’s nice to sit back here and drink your coffee in the morning, read the paper. Or have a drink at the end of the day.”

  “It is. I’d invite you to have a seat, but as you can see, everything’s wet from the rain.”

  “Too bad. It’s so cozy.” She looked around the yard. “You put the fence in yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Planted all those trees?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do all that over the summer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were busy.”

  “I had some time on my hands.”

  “You take any time off at all?”

  “Only to dig another hole,” he told her.

  “I noticed the inside of the house was all newly painted, too. And there’s real furniture in the living room.”

  “I did that back in June.”

  “You fixing the house up to sell it?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I like it here. I want to stay here.”

  “It’s a great house, Will. You’ve done wonders with it. Hard to believe it’s that same ramshackle old heap of shingles you bought back when.”

  “Thanks.”

  The phone in Miranda’s pocket began to ring.

  “Cahill . . . yes. Thanks. Give me a minute to find something to write that down.” She disappeared into the house, then returned a few minutes later. “I appreciate the information. Thanks so much . . .”

  “Telford PD,” she explained as she tucked the phone back into her jacket pocket. “I’d asked them to check Unger’s room for a business card from anyone who might be a writer. They found one with the name Joshua Landry on it. Sou
nd familiar?”

  “Of course. True-crime writer. Picks up on cold cases and tries to solve them. Does all the talk shows, the morning shows. Made a big splash a year or so ago when he solved an old murder in Wisconsin, then another in Michigan. I have a bunch of his books.”

  “Me, too. He’s really good.”

  “Agreed. So, he was the writer who came to see Al Unger a few weeks back. Not too tough to figure out what he was interested in. Wonder what his angle was going to be.”

  “I think we should ask him.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Should we call, or pay a visit?”

  “I think we should speak with him in person.”

  “I agree,” Miranda told him. “I’ll call him first just to make sure he’s home today.”

  “Where does he live?”

  From her pocket Miranda pulled the slip of paper on which she’d written the information given to her by the Telford police.

  “New Jersey. Near Princeton.”

  “Maybe we can catch an afternoon flight.”

  “Last minute on a Saturday? Doubtful. It will take less time to drive.” She dialed Landry’s number and smiled up at Will. “Especially if I drive . . .”

  The ride to Joshua Landry’s home wound through several miles of flat farmland outside the Princeton borough limits. Following the directions Landry had given them over the phone, they found his two-hundred-year-old farmhouse at the end of a long lane, guarded by trees splendid in autumn golds and reds and overlooking a small, peaceful pond. Mature woods along the back of the property added yet more color, and a large well-kept barn completed the picture of pastoral serenity. All was as perfectly composed as a painting, and impeccably maintained.

  “Who says crime doesn’t pay?” Miranda said dryly as she parked next to a Jeep near the barn.

  “He’s sure found a way.” Will got out of the car and stretched the kinks from his long legs. He wished Miranda had fallen in love with a car that had a little more legroom.

  “Wow. He’s got, what, twenty, thirty acres here. Pool and pool house out back. Tennis courts over near the barn. Looks like a little guesthouse out there as well. Nice.” Miranda nodded as they walked to the front porch. “Very, very nice.”

  Will leaned past her and rang the doorbell.

  A moment later, the door opened, and a woman in her mid-thirties greeted them. She wore faded jeans and a cornflower-blue sweater that matched her eyes. A haze of blonde hair framed her pretty face.

  “Agent Cahill?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. This is Agent William Fletcher,” Miranda replied.

  “I’m Regan Landry. Please come in. My father is waiting for you in his study.” She smiled and stepped aside to permit her guests to enter, then closed the door behind them. “This way . . .”

  They followed her down the hall, over highly polished oak floors upon which lay a well-worn carpet of reds and creams and golds. American primitive artwork flanked the walls on either side, and a huge bouquet of fresh flowers sat on an antique table. The overall impression was one of comfort and quiet wealth.

  “Dad, your visitors are here,” Regan announced as she showed the two agents into a large square room, three walls of which were lined with bookshelves. The fourth wall was mostly glass and looked out over the pond.

  “Well, come in, come in.” Joshua Landry rose from his leather chair near the window and greeted them with enthusiasm. He was a tall, well-built man in his late sixties, with broad shoulders and a shock of white hair and piercing eyes that were the same intense shade of blue as his daughter’s. “Please, sit. Here, Agent . . .”

  “Cahill. Miranda Cahill.” Miranda shook the hand he offered.

  “Will Fletcher,” Will introduced himself.

  “Welcome, both of you. Here, let’s sit over here.” He ushered them toward the sofa. “You’ve met my daughter. . . .”

  “Yes.” Miranda smiled as she took a seat.

  “What can we offer you? Tea? Coffee?” Landry seemed to hover.

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Of course, we do. It isn’t every day that we get a visit from the FBI.”

  “Tea would be fine,” Miranda said, “if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “I was just making a pot.” Regan smiled hospitably. “My mother was English, and she and Dad lived outside of London for years. They always had tea together around this time every day, so we still do. Old habits die hard.” She turned to Will. “Agent Fletcher?”

  “Actually, water would be fine.”

  “I’ll just be a minute, then.” She glanced over at her father before leaving the room. “Need anything, Dad?”

  “Just tea. Thanks, sweetheart.” After she left, Landry turned to Miranda and Will and said, “I had a bit of a go-round with my cardiologist this week, and everyone’s acting like they expect me to keel over at any minute. Which I can guarantee you is not going to happen.”

  “Oh. Are you sure you want to—” Miranda began.

  He waved away her concern.

  “It’s nothing. Doctors always make a big deal out of the least little thing, don’t you think? I wish I hadn’t even mentioned it to Regan. Since her mother died, she thinks she has to watch over me, you know? Only child and all that.”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s concerned . . .” Miranda said, and once again he waved her off.

  “I keep telling her, Get on with your life. But she keeps taking these guest lectures within a stone’s throw of my front door. This semester she’s at Penn, so she’s just an hour away in Philly.”

  “Does she live here, then?” Miranda asked.

  “No. She’s staying with a friend from college in the city until she finishes up there, then she’ll go back to her own place. She bought herself a nifty little place on the Eastern Shore, spends most of her time there. These days she just drops in often enough to get on my nerves.” He laughed. “I know she means well. And I appreciate her, I do. I just don’t want her to worry so much about me. Now,” he moved past the subject of his health, “you mentioned on the phone that you were looking into the death of Albert Unger. Why would the FBI be interested in the death of an old man whose claim to fame was the murder of a junkie prostitute some thirty years ago?”

  “We wanted to ask you the same question about your interest, Mr. Landry,” Will said. “Unger told us you paid a visit to him, not so long ago.”

  Landry sat back in his leather chair and crossed his legs. “It certainly shouldn’t surprise you that I’d be interested in speaking with him. After all, he is the man who killed the mother of Curtis Alan Channing, a man whose . . . career . . . is most interesting to me. And to the public. He’s become quite notorious in a very brief time. With his death earlier this year, and the coming to light of his crimes, well, naturally, I’m going to gather all the information I can.”

  “Unger mentioned that you and Channing had corresponded at one time,” Miranda said.

  “I was about to get to that, yes. Actually, it was a bit one-sided at first.” He paused as Regan came into the room with a tray. “Do you need help with that?”

  “No, thanks.” She set the tray on the table that stood between the chair in which he sat and the sofa. She proceeded to pour tea and pass out cups.

  “Yes, I received my first letter from Channing about six or seven years ago. Right after the publication of The Killer Next Door.”

  “I remember that book,” Will told him as Regan handed him an ice-filled glass and a bottle of spring water. He thanked her and continued. “It followed the careers of several serial killers who had committed most of their murders right under the noses of their unsuspecting neighbors.”

  “Yes.” Landry nodded. “People always seem to have this idea that serial murderers are evil-looking men whose very appearance gives them away. The truth is, there is no type; there is no look. It can be—and often is—the boy next door.”

  “In every case—at least, in every case you wrote ab
out in that book—when the arrests were made, the neighbors all said, ‘But he was such a nice young man. . . .’ ”

  “Exactly the point of the book,” Landry told him.

  “Why did Channing write to you?” Miranda asked.

  “Because he’d read the book. He said that at first he’d picked it up because he thought perhaps there was some connection, some psychic nonsense—my middle name happens to be Channing—that our having the same name was a sign that he should read the book. Later I realized he probably meant, his being a serial killer, and my studying, writing about them.”

  “He told you he was a killer?” Miranda’s eyebrows rose.

  “No, no. It wasn’t difficult to figure out over time, though. Of course, by the time I figured it out, he’d disappeared.” Landry stirred his tea absently. “The first letter, he took me to task, telling me where I’d gotten it all wrong.”

  “Where you’d gotten what all wrong?”

  “I delved quite deeply into the backgrounds of the four men I’d written about, which, of course, one would have to do if one was looking to explain such violent, aberrant behavior. All of these men were from terribly abusive homes, and had all either run away from home or had been shoved out of the nests by the time they were in their early teens. I stressed environment as the determining factor in making them what they had become.”

  “And Channing disagreed?” Will asked.

  “Channing believed you were born bad and stayed bad. That environment played no part,” Landry explained.

  “He must have been in denial.” Miranda set her cup on the saucer. “You’d think that coming from his background—where his own mother had traded him, as a very young child, for drugs—he’d know damned well what part environment played.”

  “Ah, but he never mentioned any of that to me. He spoke of his parents as exemplary folks, loving, kind. Perfect parents,” Landry said.

  “Those would have been his foster parents,” Miranda told him. “They knew of his background and made every effort to help him overcome it. They were, by all accounts, wonderful people. But by the time he’d gotten to them, he’d been irreparably broken.”