Keri Locke 02-A Trace of Muder Read online

  “No alibi…for …this,” she muttered hoarsely.

  “That’s true. It’s a little frustrating, I have to admit. I put so much energy into my alibi for Kendra’s disappearance and to not have anything for you, it’s quite embarrassing. Luckily, I have a contingency plan.”

  “What’s…that?” Keri asked.

  Just keep him talking. He seems to like that. He hasn’t had anyone to share his master plan with. He wants to gloat. He wants to be admired and respected. The longer he discusses his brilliance, the more time I have to figure out a way out of this hellhole.

  “I really shouldn’t tell you. But since you’ll be dead soon, I feel like you deserve to know. Let’s just say that I’ve been planning for a quick escape ever since I hatched this little plan well over a year ago.

  “There’s a pilot on call with a plane at the Santa Monica airport. He’ll happily take me to a country I’d rather not name. But it doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. Nor do any of the four other countries I have set up as backups should things get complicated. I had hoped to stay here and live out my years as the wronged, sainted husband who still held a torch for his missing wife. But spending my life sipping rum drinks on the beach is an okay backup plan.”

  “But… why?” Keri asked, half stalling, half genuinely wanting an answer. “She loved you.”

  Suddenly, the unruffled expression on his face disappeared, replaced by something she’d never seen before—pure, twisted fury.

  Without speaking, he turned and walk out of her sight. She heard the Bobcat start up again and saw the shadow of the bucket drop down to collect a new pile of dirt. In the brief unwatched moment she had, Keri felt around until she reached her back pocket. To her relief, her small flashlight was still there. She pulled it out and held it tight against her chest, just as a new round of dirt slammed down on her, covering her waist, chest, and face.

  She had been holding her breath so it took a few seconds to realize there was so much earth covering her face that she couldn’t breathe.

  Keri was suffocating.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  She tried not to panic. With her right hand clutching the flashlight, Keri had no choice but to force her left arm up, ignoring the howling anguish in her shoulder, as she reached up to rip and tear the heavy mound of dirt away from her face.

  As she gasped and coughed, Burlingame reappeared. The enraged glare was gone now. He looked like his old self.

  “Sorry, Detective. But I couldn’t let that kind of comment stand. The notion that such an adulteress loved me is offensive. And to think, if I hadn’t been going through her jewelry box to find her favorite necklace so I could buy her a matching bracelet, I never would have found that hidden compartment. And I never would have seen the love letter from Alex Crane. And I never would have known that I was living with a lying, cheating bitch.”

  His face twisted up again at that last line but he managed to regain control. Keri needed him to keep talking, even if it risked angering him.

  “It was…five years ago. It was in… past. She didn’t tell you …because she didn’t…want…hurt you.” It was hard to get full breaths. Keri worried that another mound of earth might be too much for her to handle.

  “She shamed herself,” Burlingame said. “And she shamed me. God knows how many of her friends knew that she’d been sneaking off, and with some new age, wannabe lothario from her yoga class? I have no doubt that whenever her friends saw me, they thought ‘there goes the pathetic cuckold.’ I was oblivious for years, a target of derision and laughter. And not because of anything I did. But because of her!”

  “So… solution was…to…kill her? Couldn’t just…divorce?”

  “No. She had to pay a steeper price than that. I wasn’t going to pay alimony to that harlot. She had to know I had uncovered her crime. She had to face the consequences fully. That’s why it took so long, Detective. Finding the right substitute woman to make Kendra’s ‘escape’ from town; setting up a fake passport and credit cards for her; teaching Jennifer all the details of her assignment and how to avoid detection and identification along the way; disabling the proper cameras at the bus station and on the bus; organizing my future accommodations in multiple non-extradition countries; and of course, the potassium. Detective, you can’t imagine how difficult it was to accumulate enough for the job without drawing suspicion—very tricky.”

  His eyes were blazing with a crazed fervor. He was getting off on describing his exploits, pacing with manic energy. As he moved back and forth, his attention elsewhere, Keri shook off as much of the remaining dirt as she could without him noticing. Then she pulled her arms down and rested them at her sides.

  When he turned back, she became still and asked another question she hoped would appeal to his ego.

  “How did you…convince…Jennifer?”

  “Oh, that was easy. I kept her in the dark about the true nature of things. But I knew from interacting with her on that atrocious reality show that she was a greedy, venal woman who was deep in debt and tired of the thankless grind of television production. When I told her that if she helped me, no questions asked, I’d give her half a million dollars, she jumped at the chance. Whatever suspicions she had, she very pointedly avoided asking me any questions. I think she was excited to live the expat life.”

  He laughed, apparently at the memory of her naiveté. After a moment, he went on.

  “It evidently never occurred to her that I couldn’t just wire a half million dollars to Europe without raising suspicions here. She was never even apprehensive that a man willing to engage in such mysterious, clearly nefarious behavior ought not to be trusted. No major loss, if you ask me.”

  As he spoke, Keri formulated the rough outline of a plan. It was crazy and desperate. But it was the only one she could think of under the circumstances. And for it to work, she’d need to bait him just enough, but not so much that he would return to burying her alive. She decided to give him one more ego boost before dropping the hammer.

  “So your…alibi? It was real… because…you had already…killed Kendra?” she asked, intentionally playing up her very real shortness of breath.

  Burlingame seemed delighted by her interest. It was hard to believe that this animated livewire was the same man who had been so composed and professional in their other encounters. No wonder he enjoyed plotting this elaborate crime. It was like a drug for him.

  “Impressive, wasn’t it. By making everyone think Kendra had run off or at the very least, was alive until mid-morning Monday, no one thought to check my alibi for any other time than that. But of course, if they’d checked my whereabouts on Sunday evening, they’d have learned that both Kendra and I were here. And by here, I mean literally right where you and I are now. I was dumping huge mounds of earth into this hole. And she was where you’re lying, slowly choking to death, being buried alive. Maybe when I pound the dirt down on top of you, you’ll see her with your own dead eyes.”

  Keri took in his words like a punch to the gut. Until now, some small part of her still held out hope that Kendra was still alive, being held in some hidden basement on the property. But hearing Burlingame describe her gruesome death so coldly, with such malevolent pleasure, that last little flicker of hope was extinguished.

  She allowed herself to accept the truth: she had failed to save this woman, a person who, from all accounts, was kind and decent and deserved far better. But to Keri’s surprise, the thought of Kendra’s loss didn’t evoke despair in her. Instead, she felt another, more powerful emotion rising in her chest: determination.

  “Maybe,” Keri finally said, deciding now was the moment to go for it, before he followed through on his threat. “Or maybe…you’ll screw that…up…just like…you…did with…Jennifer. I… outsmarted you…on…that…one.”

  By the end of her sentence, Keri made sure that her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. She could see him leaning in to hear her better.

  “Yes, that reall
y is the last mystery,” he acknowledged. “You know, if you tell me how you identified Jennifer, I might be inclined to shoot you in the head before I bury you. Wouldn’t that be preferable? What do you say, Detective? That’s a fair exchange—your secret for my mercy.”

  “Yes. But…can’t…breathe,” Keri said, barely audible now.

  This is it. Either he goes for it and I have a chance. Or he doesn’t and I die.

  “Oh, fine then. You’ve piqued my interest. After all, a good physician always learns from his mistakes,” he said as he began to gingerly ease his way down into the pit. “You know, this is your fault, Detective. After all, I chose you specifically to handle my case.”

  Now down in the pit, he knelt beside her and began to shove the largest chunks of dirt off her chest.

  “Why…me?” Keri asked as she braced herself for what was to come.

  “Because I knew that if I could convince even you, the famous finder of the lost, that Kendra had run off, that I would be free and clear. Other cops, like your colleague Detective Brody, didn’t need much inducement to buy my story. But if I insisted on keeping the case open—offering to take polygraphs, demanding to hire my own investigators—and even you agreed to close it, then I was home free. But you were like a dog with a bone, Detective. You just wouldn’t give up. I guess I underestimated you, didn’t I?”

  He continued to slide the dirt off her chest, prattling on, not even looking at her. She opened her mouth and spoke so softly that Burlingame had to lean very close to hear her.

  “Yes…you…did.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  At that moment, and before Burlingame knew what was happening, Keri swung her right arm upward, hard and fast.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Burlingame noticed the movement and started to turn his head. But he was too slow to stop the flashlight Keri gripped tightly from smashing into his right temple.

  He seemed more surprised than dazed. But before he could react, Keri smashed him again in the same place, again and again, multiple times in quick succession. She pummeled him so hard that the light started to crack. A few times she missed her target and the light smashed into his cheek, ripping it open. Shards of plastic jutted out from his skin and blood started to pour from the wound at his temple.

  Burlingame, bewildered, reached out wildly to grab the flashlight. But Keri avoided his hand and, taking the now jagged base of the light, jabbed hard and fast at the left side of his neck.

  Blood spurted from it. She jabbed again, with even more force than the first time. The chunk of black plastic stuck there as blood gushed out all around it. Burlingame reached up to grab at it, his eyes frenzied.

  As he did, Keri gathered all the force she could muster and used her right arm to shove him to the left so that he fell over her and landed on his back. She rolled over so that she was lying on top of him. He didn’t seem to notice, as he was clawing furiously at the base of the flashlight, still lodged in the left side of his neck.

  Keri grabbed his shoulders to brace herself as she yanked her bent legs up to rest on his mid-section. Her ankles were still tied together so the maneuver was clumsy and she almost toppled over.

  But she managed to right herself just as Burlingame yanked what was left of the flashlight from his neck. Wild with panic and rage in them, his eyes locked on her hers.

  They moved at the same time. He brought the flashlight husk up hard, hoping to do the same thing to her that she’d done to him. As he did, Keri thrust her forearm out to block him. Her arm smashed into his wrist and the light slipped out of his blood-soaked hand and landed harmlessly several feet away.

  Without pausing, Keri flung both hands around his neck, running thick with deep red blood. He began to punch at her, swinging wildly, sometimes making contact with her jaw or shoulder, other times missing completely.

  Keri ignored it all. All her focus was on wringing every ounce of breath out of the man until he was still. After what felt like an eternity, the pounding from his fists grew weaker and finally stopped altogether. His arms dropped limp at his sides. And still she squeezed, pressing in on him until her hands were numb and her arms had no strength left at all.

  Only then did she let go, allowing herself to collapse in the dirt beside him. She lay there for some time, her chest heaving between occasional fits of coughing. Eventually she rolled over to a sitting position and reached down to untie her bound ankles.

  She pulled herself up to her knees, then used the wall of the pit for support as she slowly stood up. She slumped against the side of the pit, resting there as she waited for her strength to return.

  The lights from the Bobcat still shined into the pit, illuminating Burlingame in its harsh gleam. She looked down at him—at his lifeless body, at his ruined face, at his eyes, now cloudy, devoid of all the mania that had consumed them only minutes earlier.

  After a couple more moments of slow, steady breathing, she gathered herself for one more task. And then Detective Keri Locke pulled herself out of the pit and walked away. She didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Her head, which had required sixteen stitches to patch up, was pounding relentlessly. It was like someone had inserted a mini-jackhammer in her skull. But this time around, Keri only had to stay in the hospital overnight. She’d been diagnosed with a bad concussion and the doctors wanted to monitor her for twenty-four hours before releasing her.

  Other than that, the damage was minimal. Her face and shoulders were sore and discolored from where Burlingame had punched her. But she hardly noticed that. Amazingly the buckets of dirt dropped on her had only bruised her ribs, not broken them. She probably had her bulletproof vest to thank for that.

  Other than giving her statement, Keri chose not to think about what had happened at the Burlingame mansion for the time being. There would be time to pore over every detail later; to come to terms with the fact that she had literally choked the life out of another human being with her bare hands; that she hadn’t been able to save Kendra. For now, she kept those memories at arm’s length and focused on the positive.

  It wasn’t so bad, being in the hospital. Officer Jamie Castillo came by to check on her.

  “I never got the chance to properly thank you for what you did at the Promenade,” Keri told her.

  “No worries. I appreciate you having enough confidence in me to take a chance.”

  “Truthfully, I mostly picked you because you were close by, very green, and I knew you looked up to me. I was counting on that outweighing your sense of departmental duty.”

  “I know that,” Castillo said, “but I appreciate it anyway. And I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Hopefully that won’t stop you from calling on me in the future.”

  “I’ll keep you in mind,” Keri said in a snarky tone that was undermined by the broad smile on her face.

  After Castillo left, Keri was able to hang out with Ray, who was scheduled to be released sometime over the weekend. They played checkers, ate Jell-O, and perused websites for furniture to add to her new apartment in Playa del Rey. Keri still hadn’t seen it but she trusted Ray and he trusted the apartment owner, Rene. That was good enough for her.

  “How did physical therapy go earlier?” she asked him.

  “Not too bad. They tell me that if I behave and don’t over-exert myself, I can return to desk duty in a week and get back in the field in a month.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know how I’m going to keep busy for a week,” he said. “I think I’ll go stir crazy just sitting in my place.”

  “Not if you focus on interior decorating,” Keri said, nodding at the catalogue they’d been perusing. “I’m getting a little windfall from the houseboat sale and, in addition to the furniture, the new place still needs some homey touches, like art and rugs and flatware and, well, pretty much everything. You can be my personal Martha Stewart.”

  “Keri, I’m a former professional boxer and a decorated LAPD detective. I
’m not a feng shui expert.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do great. And if you screw up, I’ll just replace it. You’ll never know the difference.

  “You’re probably right,” Ray said. “Are you going to wrap up the Burlingame case report soon?”

  “Yep, probably on Sunday. I can pick you up afterwards.”

  “You know, everyone would have had it a lot easier if everyone had just listened to me from the beginning. I solved the case without even knowing any details.”

  “Oh yeah, how’s that?” she asked with a smirk on her face.

  “It’s like I predicted, the husband did it.”

  “Okay, Columbo. I don’t know how we managed without you.”

  “Me either.”

  He sat quietly for a second and she could tell he was about to get serious.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You never told me if anything came of that e-mail you sent to the Collector. That makes me think it didn’t go well.”

  Keri debated how much to tell him right now. Her head still ached and she didn’t really feel like revisiting the details of that awful day at the moment.

  “Short version—he set up a meet in Santa Monica. I went, but for complicated reasons, it fell through. I think there’s a chance he may reach out again so I’m forcing myself not to contact him for fear of scaring him off. You can imagine it hasn’t been easy.”

  “I can,” he said as he tried to get up to move from the chair to his bed. Keri stood to help him.

  “Take it slow,” she whispered.

  “I will,” he said, then added delicately, “Maybe you can give me the long version when you feel up to it?”

  “Absolutely. Maybe when I take you home on Sunday.”

  “Home?” he said, disgruntled. “We’re not going straight home.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To get coffee. You told me that on the way home, we could stop for coffee and talk about stuff, remember?”