He went on. “Guy’s name was Frank Ballard. Whipped her with a belt, then shot her dead. His prints were all over the belt.”

“But the gun wasn’t found.”

“Until now, apparently. Wonder how it turned up there, seventeen years after the fact?”

“That’s precisely what I’m trying to find out. What can you tell me about the murder? The stuff I won’t find in the file.”

“Ballard was pretty well-thought-of. Not everybody’s best friend, but a solid cop. You know what I mean?”

She did. The kind who didn’t yuk it up with the guys a lot, just did his job. She told him to go on.

“Everybody was shocked. He claimed his innocence, but was convicted, anyway. As far as I know, he’s still serving time.

“Wife was from a local farming family. They owned a big spread, she inherited it all when her father died. Ballard had sold everything but the house and a couple of acres to Green Giant. ConAgra now, I think. But isn’t everybody?”

She made an agreeable sort of sound and let him ramble. “Still owned the house until recently. Seems a young couple bought it.”

“Anything else about the murder that was unusual?”

“His wife was deaf.”

“Say again.”

“She was deaf. Which made it all the more horrible. That and the fact the little boy found her. Or was it a girl?”

“They had children? How many?”

“I’m not as clear on that. Two, I think. A boy and a girl.”

“Can you remember their names? Their ages?”

“Like I said, it was seventeen years ago. And we lived in Sycamore, a whole different school district, so I’m really fuzzy on this. It might’ve been just one kid.”

The SAK and his Copycat. Brother and sister.

That’s how they knew each other. And she would bet one of them had been ten years old.

“Look,” she said, hearing the urgency in her own voice, “this is priority. I believe that gun-and its shooter-are also linked to a series of child murders here. I need you to get me those children’s names and what happened to them.”

“I’ll get back to you.” He hung up.

CRU rang. “A cruiser located Detective Riggio’s vehicle. Corner of North Main and Auburn. They’re waiting for further orders.”

“Tell them to stay put. I’m on my way.”

69

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

8:40 p.m.

Kitt pulled in behind the cruiser, killed the engine and climbed out. The two officers exited their vehicle and met her at the driver’s door of the Explorer.

“Flashlight,” Kitt said. The officer closest to her handed over his. She snapped it on and shined it into the SUV. Nothing looked out of order.

“We tried the doors and found them all locked.”

She nodded. “Let’s open it up.”

The second officer jogged to the cruiser, got a shim and jogged back. Within moments, he had the vehicle open.

She checked in the glove box and console, under the seats, in the cargo hold. It was clean.

M.C. had parked the vehicle. She had locked it, taken her phone, jacket and investigation notes.

Kitt snapped off the Maglite and handed it back to the patrolman. She scanned up and down the street. Her gaze settled on the Main Street Diner and its neon Open All Night sign.

M.C. had pointed the diner out to her. She had eaten cream pie there, four slices. With a guy.

Her funny man?

Kitt instructed the two patrolmen to wait at the SUV and darted across the street to the restaurant. They had a decent-size crowd for a Tuesday night. The woman at the register smiled at her.

Kitt returned the smile and crossed to her. Her name tag read Betty.

“Hi, Betty, I’m looking for an acquaintance of mine. He comes here a lot. Name’s Lance.”

“Oh, sure. Lance Castrogiovanni. He’s in all the time.”

“Was he in tonight?”

“No. Sorry.”

“He live around here?”

The woman’s demeanor became less friendly. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I need to speak with him.” Kitt took out her shield and held it up for the woman. “It’s urgent.”

Betty looked upset. “He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

Being even remotely honest would only confuse her. After all, Lance Castrogiovanni could be nose deep in shit, or sitting pretty, smelling like a rose.

“I’m actually looking for a woman he’s seeing, a fellow police officer. Mary Catherine Riggio. M.C. for short.”

Her smile returned. “That nice policewoman. They were in one night, he introduced us. Come to think of it, I thought I saw her this afternoon.”

A minute later, Kitt was on the street, armed with Lance’s address. Two doors down, upstairs. An apartment above the head shop. She collected the patrolmen, instructed one to wait downstairs, the other to accompany her up.

She rapped on the door. Then called out. When she got no answer, she tried the door-and found it locked.

M.C.’s SUV and Betty believing she had seen her earlier was enough to convince Kitt she had just cause to enter the apartment uninvited.

She hoped a judge saw it the same way.

“Kick it in,” she said.

The lock gave easily and they entered, guns drawn. The apartment appeared empty. Other than what she would call usual household clutter, it was clean.

Just cause to enter did not grant them the rights of a search warrant. They had reason to believe M.C. was there and that she needed their help. If the apartment became a crime scene that scenario changed.

They made their way through. Nothing in the living room. Uneaten turkey sandwich on the kitchen counter. Bathroom empty. Kitt pulled back the shower curtain, found the tub clean. The bed was unmade. She checked under it, then crossed to the closet.

Nothing. She started to close the door when a spot of bright orange caught her eye. Peeking out from a box in the bottom of the closet.

As she stared at the spot of orange, her cell phone vibrated.

She unclipped it. “Lundgren here.”

“It’s White. I’ve got a name for you. The clown who performed at the Walton B. Johnson retirement community was Lance-”

“Castrogiovanni,” she finished for him.

“That’s right. How’d you-”

She handed the phone to the surprised patrolman, then bent and yanked the cardboard box from the closet. She flipped back the flaps, reached in and pulled out a bright orange clown’s wig.

70

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

10:10 p.m.

M.C. came to. She hurt all over. She opened her eyes to a deep black. Moving her gaze over the darkness, she searched for a light source and found none.

Her hands were bound behind her back with duct tape. Her feet were also bound with the tape. She lay on her side on a cool, damp floor. A basement, she decided. That explained the damp and the absolute dark.

She maneuvered herself into a sitting position. She tasted blood on her tongue. The blood brought it all rushing back. She’d gotten to Lance’s. They’d embraced. He had held her tightly, almost desperately. He loved her, he had said fiercely.

Her funny man had been anything but lighthearted. She remembered thinking it was almost as if he thought it was the end.

The end.

She grimaced. The end of them. Of her.

Good night, Gracie.

She didn’t know which tasted more foul against her tongue-the blood or the bitterness of betrayal.

M.C. forced thoughts of betrayal back. That didn’t matter now, clearing her head and finding a means of escape did. He’d gone to the kitchen for her sandwich. She’d gotten a call. Wanda, the Walton B. Johnson Center’s former director. She had remembered the clown’s name. She had been almost giddy about the fact that she had been able to recall it after all these years, and at her age, too.

“Lance Castrogiovanni.” M.C. had been speechless. Phone to her ear, she had stared at Lance, walking toward her with her sandwich. Even as disbelief and betrayal had rushed over her, with her free hand she had gone for her gun.