Reed had tried to give him a pass, telling himself that Jamison, an army veteran who had seen action, witnessed war, and lost friends could have an iron grip on his emotions. Jamison was the chosen son, taught by a strict father who believed in stoicism and rarely showed his own feelings.
But Reed didn’t buy it.
Nor did Sol.
“The trouble is,” she was saying, “he did a piss-poor job of trying to connect Naomi’s murder to the others, to make her look like another victim. There are just too many inconsistencies.”
“He didn’t know about the nature of the blood.”
“No, he killed her before we found out what it was made of. But it was like he was rushed and tried to take advantage of the fact that we had a psycho running around the area doing these bizarre killings.” She cracked her neck and stared out the window to the dark nightbeyond. “My guess is that he killed her, maybe even by accident, and then he panicked and tried to cover it up.” Her smile was as cold as an arctic blast. She met his gaze in the watery reflection of the glass. “That’s what they say, you know.”
“That it’s not the crime. It’s the cover-up.”
“Amen.”
Reed ignored the bile rising in his throat. He had to face the truth, no matter how painful it was.
“But you already had this figured out.” It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t have all the evidence,” he said. “Not the differences in the blood on the stones, and I had no idea that Naomi had had her tubes tied, but even so, everything was pointing to Jamison.” He rubbed his face as if he could scrub away the truth, but all night long, he’d come back to the same grotesque theory that Jamison Kittle, the man who could never lose, whose political ambitions were evident, would never have accepted the public humiliation that his wife was in love with another man.
“Okay, then.” Sol reached for her sidearm and checked it. “Wha’d’ya say, Detective?” She pushed back her chair. “Let’s go get him.”
From his hiding spot across the street, he surveyed the house.
Nikki Gillette’s home was situated on a large lot across the street and catty-corner from Forsyth Park. Aside from an upper-floor window, the house was dark, everyone inside presumably asleep.
The warm night was quiet, just the occasional sound of a car engine passing over the steady chirp of crickets.
The husband, the cop, had left.
And had been gone for a while.
He’d lucked out on that count.
Having the cop out of the house would make things easier.
He’d watched Detective Reed drive out of the garage earlier and had waited to make certain the Jeep didn’t return, that he wasn’t out going to the store for some middle-of-the-night emergency whatever.
So far, he hadn’t come back.
No surprise, there, he thought. Detective Pierce Reed was busy these days. The Savannah Slasher had seen to that. He felt more thana little bit of pride, of satisfaction that he’d foiled the police, then quickly dismissed the feelings, as this was not about him nor his ego. What he did, he did for God.
And it was time to get to work.
He stared upward to his point of entrance, the one window on the third floor where a light was visible. He’d seen no one in the room for over an hour, and, he’d noticed, that particular window was always cracked a bit.
A lucky break.
He’d already scoped out the house on his previous nocturnal visits and noticed the cameras that covered the front and back entrances, and he assumed the house would be locked. But a large magnolia tree was close enough to the home that, with some effort, he could climb to the upper story and transfer to the window. It would be difficult, but he was up to the challenge.
He had to be.
The next problem would be the dogs, including that cur that had belonged to Billy Huber. He’d observed the mutt in the car with her a few times when he’d followed her, sometimes in his vehicle, other times in the church’s SUV. He’d also seen that the dog’s rear end was healing. Unfortunately. That was his fault. He’d been careless when the stupid mutt had put up a ruckus at Billy’s house on the night he’d sent Billy to his maker.
He hadn’t taken the time for a kill shot, and the creature had survived.
To be taken in by the reporter.