19 Souls Read online

  Dan’s face was white as the Formica tabletop. “Are you suggesting Sophie did all this?”

  “This time we caught a break and a witness saw the woman in that picture”—she tossed out the BOLO—“with one of the dealers the night before making a buy.”

  Dan shook his head. “That’s her, but, Sophie buying drugs?”

  “I don’t think she was using the drugs, Mr. Hodge. The most successful and hard-to-catch dealers never do. We think Sophie was treating the pimps and dealers as a means to make a living. Kill off the scum and take their cash and valuables.”

  She pulled out a mug shot of Sophie. “She was arrested in Arlington, Texas, with a couple ecstasy tablets. She gave a fake name. Had a fake ID. It was a misdemeanor because she only had the pills and a syringe on her and it was her first offense. She walked after giving up the name of her supplier.”

  Agent Webb pulled the pictures back into the folder and tucked them away. “My guess was she took the cash off these guys, sold the drugs and guns. My math says she was making a dang good living. Next I could find, she was spotted in the swanky North Dallas area. High-end dance bars selling shit to the rich and spoiled.”

  Webb ran her right hand over her hair to make sure it was in place. “Looked like she was reinvesting, moving up to bigger targets with bigger wallets and bigger stashes. We think Sophie has been saving all her money. I have witnesses who put this woman in those bars. Most didn’t recall what name she was using. All this time we didn’t know her name.” She looked at Miller. “Your BOLO told us who she was.”

  She started to pull out two more photos, but shoved them back in the folder after glancing at Dan’s white face. “There were two more bodies. Women. Young, pretty girls out behind the bars. No signs of a struggle at all. Not dealers, just girls out for a night at the clubs. Lack of a struggle indicates both were willing to let her get close. The killings were very personal.”

  She straightened the folder and glanced coolly around the room, making eye contact with each person … except her silently looming partner. “Nine murders we think she’s responsible for. Probably more.”

  “A serial killer.” Miller whistled.

  “Not really a classic serial because her MO has changed. She has the timing of a serial, lots of time in between, but she’s all over the place. No standard method other than the slashed throats. All these men and women were killed like it was Sophie’s nine-to-five job. Nothing special. She started with street scum, but then the vics got more respectable, the take larger, and the kills cleaner.”

  Dan’s hands were shaking like he was a druggie in rehab.

  Jim pushed back the bile threatening to make him puke. Sophie had used him. Not only to find Dan either. If she’d drugged him, why hadn’t she killed him like the others? What was she playing at?

  Jim eased into the seat on the far side of Dan. He tried to block the memories of her and that night from his head, pretend nothing had happened. If he ignored it long enough, he would no longer feel so violated.

  Dan shook his head. “Twelve,” he whispered. “Cuz I’m sure she killed two girls I was with, Beth and Amanda. And Cynthia.” He looked up at the woman. A single tear rolled from his eye. “I tried to say so back then. No one would listen.”

  Agent Webb put her hand over his where he was picking at his thumbnail. “I’m listening.”

  22

  Jim sat silent in the living room in the thick aftermath of the FBI bombshell. Miller, another detective, and poor Daniel Hodge had sat at the table for an hour, going over everything he could remember from Sophie in her youth. It’d not been a particularly pretty story. Dan was a decent guy and recapped it all, even admitted he’d come close to taking advantage of her once when the pair had gotten a hold of some cheap wine. He’d stopped himself despite her Herculean efforts to encourage him. Said that’s when she first started acting strange.

  Jim picked up a random book off the shelf. Took a hit from his flask and leaned back on the stiff leather couch to read for a minute. To think on something else.

  “Ought to share with a lady.” Lynette was edging down the hall. Her twig-thin legs stuck out from under her gown. Her hair was wrapped in a flowered cloth on her head like a small turban.

  Jim jumped up. Her scooting around in the rolling chair was frightening enough without adding alcohol. “You should be sleeping.”

  “I should be dancing the night way. It’s Saturday night. I’m sure there’s a good band around here somewhere. It’s still Vegas, isn’t it?”

  He eased her into the big leather recliner across from where he’d been on the couch. “Sadly, it is.”

  The chair seemed to swallow her whole.

  “I love Vegas. Always did. Did pretty good at the poker tables. I was a psychiatric nurse. Could read people.”

  Jim tried to picture her young and running a table. When she blasted him with that big smile, he could see her charm.

  “So, you sharing the hooch, boy?”

  “Don’t you think Steven will have a coronary, not to mention my ass, if I let you mix scotch with your meds?”

  She huffed, leaned back, and waved him off before she crossed her hands in her lap. “Probably send me on if I had any anyway.” She winked at him. “I’m not quite ready for that yet.”

  “Me either.”

  She sat with her eyes closed and face relaxed for a few minutes. Jim opened the book back up. It was a romance novel. With vampires. Not his choice, but he didn’t want to move. He read the first chapter and decided it wasn’t too bad.

  “They think I’m too far gone to see what’s what here.” She leaned closer. “I’m not completely out of it, you know? I got my moments.”

  She twisted her head to the side, toward the stairs. “I haven’t seen Danny this wound up since his daddy died. So I know something horrible has happened. And I know this isn’t a motel either.” She gestured to the back yard. “No hotel has a fenced yard.”

  “What do you think is going on, Lynette?”

  “You’re no reporter. My guess, you’re a cop of some kind. Maybe a Fed.”

  She had been in the bedroom with Stephen when the Feds were there. Never got to see Agent Webb or her sidekicks. Maybe she’d heard. Either way wasn’t good. Jim did not want to be the one who broke the bad news about her daughter.

  “I’m not a federal agent.”

  “You’re not Santa either, are you?” Her movements were much surer than they had been earlier. Could be her meds kicked in or she was having a good moment. Bad luck for him either way.

  “No.”

  She scrunched up her nose at him. “Then let’s not play the guessing game any longer and you tell me what in tarnation is going on around here.”

  Jim shook his head at her liveliness. He liked her. She kept darting her gaze to the articles on the wall.

  “Is there one you want?” He stood.

  “Yes. There is. It’s close to the door, bottom row.”

  Jim made his way over. “This one?” He pointed to one that looked particularly tattered. He was careful pulling it free from its location, worried the tape would tear it.

  “Read it.”

  He turned so the porch light shone at the paper.

  “Aloud. Read it aloud, boy.”

  Jim sighed, not liking where this was going. Lynette Hodge was very lucid right this minute and Jim was far too tired to manage what he was sure was a sharp wit.

  A 22-year-old woman who was found shot in the head in the trunk of her burning Thunderbird was remembered in an obituary Sunday as a caring, fun-loving woman who loved country western music, movies and “wearing her trademark high heels.”

  Nichole J. “Nicki” Thomas enjoyed spending time with her boyfriend, Kito Lisser, and their 1-year-old son, Jack.

  Her greatest joy was caring for her boy, the obituary said. Thomas “l
ived life to the fullest,” and enjoyed, “above all else, spending time with her family and friends.”

  “Nicki left this earth too early for us to understand, but God always has a purpose and therefore we all must believe that Nicki is still among us fulfilling hers,” the obituary reads.

  Thomas’s memorial is next Saturday at Christ Church.

  “Thank you for being part of our lives, Nicki—you will continue to live in our hearts and never be forgotten. We love you,” the family wrote.

  The accused is twenty-year-old Patrick Wolf, who allegedly has ties to the Hell’s Angels and has been arrested for petty theft and assault in the past. He is being held in Clark County lock up.

  Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll said today that he expects to file charges in Superior Court this week and they will determine if death penalty charges will apply.

  “We’ll formally file charges in the next day or so,” he said. “You’ll know after that.”

  Court documents say Thomas was assaulted for hours and stabbed several times before she was fatally shot in the head. Her body was found in the burning Thunderbird near Forker and Bigelow Gulch roads on April 13.

  A motive is so far unclear.

  She nodded slowly. “Two hundred and seventy-five words.”

  Jim headed back to the couch, watching her face.

  She gave him a weak smile as he set the article on the table.

  “The number isn’t the point here, is it?” Jim eased back into the stiff cushions.

  At this point Jim was sure she knew about her daughter. At least she’d figured out Cynthia was the only one not at the house so she must be in trouble or dead.

  “Numbers are always the point, but often not the only point.”

  “What is the point, Mrs. Hodge?”

  Her eyes were slack and blank but still open enough to see what was going on. Lynette sat so still and so quiet that Jim decided she’d fallen asleep. He’d had a golden retriever in his youth who slept with her eyes half open like that. It was unnerving then and unnerving now. As Jim used to do with the freakish habit of the family dog, he considered waking the old woman just to get her to either open or close her eyes.

  He refrained. Waiting.

  She finally blinked and answered his question. “What it means is, who died?”

  Well, shit. Usually Bean didn’t mind being the guy who dealt the bad news card. But right now he didn’t want the job. He kind of liked the loony lady and her articles. Providing the proof of a spouse’s affair, no biggie. It was intimate, heart-breaking crap, but Jim was honest enough with himself to know their misery made his misery seem a little less … miserable.

  “I might be confused more often than not, buddy, but I’m not stupid. At least I don’t figure I am.” She leaned forward. “Who died?”

  Maybe he could placate her for a while, just till she wasn’t as lucid. Again asshole-ish, but it was that or run like a scared cat. Cause he didn’t want to hurt this woman. His eyes fell on the bookcase again. Subject changer.

  “Have you read The Great Gatsby, Lynette?”

  “I have. Fitzgerald is a long-winded piece of crap if you ask me. Most popular novelists from that time were.”

  “He did go on a bit.” Jim chuckled and leaned back.

  “And that Gatsby was a schmuck. Worked his whole life, thieving to make a fortune and then carried on, putting on all those airs and all the parties for a woman who dumped him years ago. Man wasted a fortune on the sham. And for what? A gold-digging girl.” She shook her head as if she was worried over his lack of money-management skills. “If a girl won’t have you then there’s no sense going off all half-cocked chasing her around.” She scratched her nose with her frail hand. “I mean, I was no great looker or anything, but when my husband came around, I knew he was the one and I didn’t play any games. If I’d have wanted something else, I’d have told him that as well.”

  She shook a twisted, wrinkled finger at his nose. “Young folks these days make it harder on themselves than it needs to be. Computer dates, text messaging, whatever other crap they have going on.”

  “I think it was his need to be more, to be rich, that mattered to Gatsby. He felt unworthy of her.”

  “Schmuck.” She flipped her wrist in dismissal. “Men and their pride. Buy a girl flowers, tell her you love her, and be faithful. Why is that so hard?”

  “I don’t know, Lynette. You make it sound easy. Never been that easy for me.”

  Her frown was suspicious. “Nah. You look like trouble. Freaky gray eyes on the outside and deep waters on the inside. Be hard to trust those eyes. But that’s just going off appearances.”

  “Heard that before.”

  “Reckon you have.” She waggled that finger in his direction again and her face turned as serious as a schoolteacher. “Now, before I forget it again, answer my question.”

  Jim looked at the floor. He needed to go wake Dan.

  “Who died?” It came out as a fear-laden shriek. Lynette had thrown her body into it, causing her slight figure to lose balance and skew forward.

  Jim leaned in quick and caught her shoulder in time to keep her from breaking her nose on the table.

  Dan rushed down the stairs. His feet tangled but he remained upright. “Momma.” He eased beside her and took her weight.

  “Why is Sissy not here, young man?”

  Dan hung his head and rubbed her shoulder. “You pick now to join us? Huh?”

  “I didn’t pick any of this, Danny.”

  Jim’s gut felt like he’d eaten a bag of quickset concrete. He was the only one who’d made any of the choices that brought about the current circumstances.

  Dan looked at him. The guy’s eyes were tired, and as red as a Vegas sunset. Jim had no answers to the questions that wounded stare conveyed.

  Jim would not leave Dan on the hook. He needed to be the one to tell her. To say the words out loud so Dan didn’t have to. “Lynette,” he said, “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  “So something happened to Cindy?”

  Dan hugged her fragile body. “She’s had an accident. I’m afraid we’re going to have to write her story, Momma.”

  Tears poured from Lynette’s eyes, so fat it looked like someone had poked a hole in a bucket. They trickled off her cheeks and soaked into the fabric of her faded pink gown. Each one seemed to drain a bit of her life away. A deep burning rage Jim hadn’t felt in years ignited in the back of his throat. He tried to suck in a few deep breaths to tamp it. But nothing doing. He could count to a thousand and he’d still be angry. This was why it was better to stay uninvolved. Connections were dangerous. Made you care. Dulled you. Made you weak.

  “It’s gonna be alright, Momma.”

  “How are we going to manage without our Cindy?” Her voice was almost gone.

  Jim had to get up, to walk, or he was going to implode. It would be bad enough just knowing he brought this to these people and caused the unacceptable sorrow. But seeing it …

  He went out the back glass doors and circled around the front of the house. Knowing the female officer was on the porch, he came around heavy and loud. It didn’t work. The jumpy cop drew on him before he had a chance to identify himself.

  Jim stood still with his hands out to his sides until she recognized him and relaxed with a soft curse. “Sorry. Got an extra one of those?”

  “Gun or cigarette?”

  At the moment he wished he could handle a gun. But he needed to find his target before he could worry over eliminating it. “Cig.”

  She flipped the rumpled pack to him. A lighter was inside the half-empty box. He lit one up, coughed as he sucked in, and kept moving down the street. Instinctively, he scanned dark corners and noted lights on. Analyzing the area for possible threats. There were none apparent. The house and its location was well chosen. Probably didn’t need to
worry tonight. Sophie would be off licking her wounds. Regrouping. He had this night, maybe one more, before she returned for her prey.

  23

  It was a short walk to the end of the block. After that, Jim had nowhere to go. Any farther and he wouldn’t be able to put eyes on the house. He sat on the curb under the glare of a streetlight. He got out his flask. Took a long drink. Enough to drown the guilt for a moment, anyway. The anger would hang around for a good long while. Before he could take another swig, a dark Charger pulled up. The window eased down with little noise.

  Jim set the flask by his side. “Miller.”

  “Bean.” The detective looked toward the house. Lights burned in almost every room. “Everything okay up there?”

  “Lynette decided to rejoin the world of the mentally competent after you all left. Cornered me about what’s going on. I think she realized Cynthia was not at the party. Maybe put it together from pieces of things she’d heard today.”

  “Ouch.” He motioned with his head for Jim to get in. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Jim put the cig out and followed orders. The passenger seat was tight, with the computer mounted on the console taking up a good part of the seat space allotted. His size didn’t help, but he was used to the equipment in his own car and dealt by pressing his body against the door. They weren’t taking a road trip.

  Miller turned the radio down. “We’re not having any luck tracing Sophie Evers. She’s got no past or present. Feds are having the same trouble. Last we have of her was in Dallas, and the cops down there are as overworked as we are. They said they’ll see if they can get someone to look into it.” He shrugged. “But, when we say that on this end, the other department’s shit is last priority.” He stopped at a light.