The City PI and the Country Cop Read Free Page B

and
hustlers, you tell me.”
    “Obviously he hates gays, but why go to such
extremes? Who did what to him to make him take his hatred out this
way, by torturing them so horribly?”
    “When we catch him, we’ll ask,” Slater
replied sardonically.
    Teague looked at the pictures of the second
boy, and then, reluctantly, at those of Chris. If you had
listened to me…Damn it, Chris. You didn’t deserve this. None of you
did. “All right. How does the murder of the kid in Faircrest
differ from these?”
    “For starters, there were no cigarette
burns.”
    “Info that wasn’t given to the press, you
said. So the fact there weren’t burns fits with the Faircrest
killer being a copycat, not the original killer—or he’s his
student.” Teague frowned at that last thought. “I presume the
detective in Faircrest…What’s his name?”
    “Hoyt Newman.”
    “I presume Detective Newman agrees there
might be a copycat at work.”
    Slater snorted. “Newman doesn’t agree that
the murder has anything at all to do with our serial killer.
As far as he’s concerned it’s coincidence and nothing more despite
the fact that the victim was found in a dense forested area along
the river just outside of town, hogtied, sodomized, and
hanged.”
    “Literally hanged?”
    “Yes. He wasn’t on the ground the way these
victims—” Slater tapped the file, ‘‘—were when they were
discovered.”
    “Another variation. Still, that doesn’t mean
it isn’t the original murderer. If he is in his fifties or older he
might not have the strength to semi-hang the victim several times
before going for the coup de grâce .”
    Slater smiled. “ Coup de grâce . I like
that. And you have a valid point. That takes a fair amount of
muscle.” Slater drummed a tattoo on the table. “I don’t like the
idea of an apprentice.”
    Teague snapped his fingers. “Apprentice.
That’s the word I was trying to think of. Be that as it may, if he
does have one, why wait twenty-seven years to start up again?”
    “Perhaps he was in prison. Or he moved on to
somewhere else and started over. Although if that’s the case he
also changed his MO. I’ve run everything through the NIBRS data
system and came up with no true matches. The closest, although
Newman would disagree, is Lee Grimes. That’s the name of the kid
whose case he’s handling.”
    Changing the subject somewhat, Teague asked,
“What are the chances I can talk to the detectives who handled
these three cases?” He pointed to the file.
    “Slim to none, unless you like to travel or
have an in with God,” Slater replied. “Two of them are dead and the
third one retired and moved to Florida.”
    Teague chuckled. “Isn’t that what all
retirees do? Do you have a phone number for him?”
    “I’ll check when I go back to the station in
the morning.”
    “Thanks.”
    “What are your plans now?” Slater asked.
    “Spend the rest of the night going through
all the information you brought me. If you come up with a number
for the detective in Florida I’ll call him. Then I’m going to head
to Faircrest.”
    * * * *
    By the time Teague had finished reading
through the file on the serial killer murders he was even more
disgusted and dismayed than he had been originally.
    He put you through hell, Chris. You and the
others. How can someone be so full of hate that they’ll torture and
kill an innocent kid? Okay, perhaps innocent isn’t the right word,
all things considered. But none of you were really criminals and
you weren’t harming anyone. You were just doing what it took to
keep body and soul together the best that you knew how.
    Setting the file aside, Teague started off
into space, remembering the last time he’d seen Chris. They were in
Teague’s car, in the lot outside the bus station. Chris was hyper,
talking about his future.
    “I’m going to go to, maybe Los Angeles. See
if I can break into the movies.”
    “Porn movies,” Teague replied, laughing when
Chris flipped