[MD2, 2:15PM, Richmond house]
>'We'd better just take the Richmond's off the list for now, until
>something happens to prove his daughter really is dead.'
>'Well, where to next?' Craig asked, he hated decisions like that,
>so he decided that he would meake sure Kate would decide.
>'I was about to ask you the same thing.'
After the agents got back into the car, Kate pulled her copy of the case file out of the back seat and started to look it over. "We’ll start with the families, and move on to the sorority houses from there," she said, flipping through the pages. "This is really strange."
"What," Craig asked.
"There’s a copy of the Karellon Student Handbook on the back seat." As she spoke, Kate looked through the files one more time. Craig nodded, retrieved the book and offered it to her. Kate didn’t look up from the papers. "Inside the front cover, there’s a page of school statistics. What percentage of the student body comes from out of state?"
Craig shrugged and looked up the information. "Thirty-seven percent," he said at last.
"How’s your math? Not counting Amy Richmond, there are twelve girls either dead or missing. If they were random victims, how many would you expect to come from out of state?"
"Four, maybe five," Craig said.
"All twelve girls came from local families."
Craig frowned. "The killer is only going after local girls? That might suggest that the killer is from around here, too."
Kate nodded. "Or that he has a grudge against the town. We’ll start with Janet Drazinski’s family." She handed the file to Craig and started the car.
Craig read what there was about Janet. She was last seen three weeks earlier, leaving a pep rally at the Karellon stadium. Her disappearance was first noted by her boyfriend when she failed to show up for their date that night. Her parents called the police to report her missing the next morning. The parents and the boyfriend lived a few houses apart on the same street.
*****
[2:27PM, Orchard Road]
Kate pulled the car to a stop in front of the Drazinski house.
"This would go a lot fast if we split up," Craig said.
Kate nodded. "You take the boyfriend, then. We’ll meet back here when we’re done."
Craig headed up the street and Kate walked up to the front door of the Drazinski house and rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened just a crack and a pair of eyes peered out from about waist level.
"Who are you," a tiny voice asked.
"My name is Kate. Is your mom or dad home?"
The door slammed rather loudly. A minute later, Kate started to wonder if she should ring the bell again. Maybe the child hadn’t bothered to tell anyone that someone was at the door. But just then, the door opened again, no wider than previously, but this time the eyes that appeared were at adult level.
"What do you want," a woman’s voice asked.
"Carol Drazinski? My name is Kate Calloway. I’m with the FBI. Could I speak with you for a few minutes?"
"You got some ID?"
Kate pulled her ID case out of her pocket and held it in front of the crack in the door. She watched as the eyes moved, carefully examining the information and comparing the picture to her. Finally, the door shut again, and Kate heard a chain being taken off.
When the door opened again, Kate caught just a glimpse of Carol Drazinski before the woman stepped back into the darkened foyer of the little house. She was of medium height and sickly thin, with hair that was neither brown nor gray, but some odd color between the two.
"Come in. And shut the door," she commanded. Kate did so. "You’re here about Janet?"
"Yes. If you could answer some questions for me, it might help us find your daughter."
"Step-daughter," the woman corrected. In the dark interior of the house, she was no more than a shadowy silhouette. "I married her father ten years ago. But Janet and I, we got along pretty good. What do you want to know?"
"Did Janet ever tell you about any problems she was having, either at the university or with a specific person?"
"She told me just about everything. She was having trouble in most of her classes, but not the kind you’re asking about. I told her, that damned sorority of hers was taking up too much of her time, and that’s why her grades were suffering, but she would hear it."
"What do you mean by taking up too much of her time? What kind of activities are they involved in?"
"This, that. Parties, charity work, a meeting for something or another practically every night of the week. For the last month or so before she disappeared, we really didn’t see her much. She always had some event she had to be at."
"Did she mention any names?"
"Names? She mentioned a lot of names. Who do you mean?"
"Any of the other missing girls? Any of the murder victims?"
"She knew all of them. Grew up with most of them. She and Annie used to be real close back in grade school."
"Ann Shepards?"
"There another Ann missing I don’t know about?"
"How about the name Burrell?"
Carol was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. For a while, she couldn’t stop talking about him. At first, she was calling after every class she had with him, nearly in tears. She said he gave her the creeps and she wanted to drop the class."
"Why didn’t she?"
Carol shrugged. "Later, I guess she got over it. She said she’d been wrong about him all along, and he really wasn’t so bad. She hadn’t talked about him lately, though."
Somewhere in the house, a door creaked and then the same pair of child’s eyes peered out from a doorway down the hall. Kate looked around as best she could in the dark. "Mrs. Drazinski, is everything all right here," she asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Just wondering." Kate took a card out of her pocket and handed it to Carol, who shrank back a bit before reaching out to accept it. "If you think of anything that might be helpful, or if you need something, call me."
"Yeah, thanks. Um… You might want to look into Burrell’s history."
"Why do you say that?"
"Just a feeling."
There were several more questions Kate wanted to ask, but just then her phone rang, and Carol seemed to take that as a sign that the interview was over. In a moment, Kate found herself on the front porch again and the door closed firmly behind her. She shrugged and answered her phone. "Hello?"
>["Kate. It's Flynn. We're almost finished at the Morgue here. We've, well
>that is to say Patricia, found some strange marks on the body's of Ann and
>Brian. Also, Patricia and the pathologist believe that Brian has been shot,
>but no bullet can be found. We're waiting for the toxicology-report now.
>After that I think I'm gonna take a look at Brian's room. See if there are
>any clues there. Last known location of Brian before he went out and killed
>himself was in his room."]
"All right. Keep me informed. Do me a favor, will you, and see if you can find anything that connects him to Burrell?"
[I was already planning on it. Anything else?]
"Yes," Kate said. "Brian said that he’d known Ann since high school, didn’t he?"
[Yes.]
"See if you can locate a year book, or class photo or something."
[Have you come up with something?]
She told him briefly what they’d learned. "I’m starting to wonder if there’s some connection among the girls that goes back farther than we’d thought."
[We’ll look into it.]
"Good. Keep in touch." Kate cut the connection and returned to the car to wait for Craig.
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