The next morning, I stopped by Mason’s office because I needed his help with the vigilante case I’d been working on. I’d taken him the file the week before, before the last murder even happened, so he would have time to look it over. I greeted Mrs. Anderson, his secretary, and then I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe of his office, and he looked up at me. Then he looked back down at the file he had open on his desk.
“Good morning to you too,” I muttered as I stepped into his office and took a seat across from him. I glanced down at my watch. I was on time.
Finally, Mason closed the file. That’s when I noticed it was mine. The words “Vigilante Justice” were written on the tab.
Mason narrowed his eyes like he was thinking about how to break bad news. Finally, he blurted out, “I think this is more than one person.”
“What makes you think that?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure why you think that or you’re not sure why it’s more than one person?”
He opened the file and fanned the profile pages out like a deck of cards. “This one,” he said, pointing toward the case where the abusive husband had been shot between the eyes. “This one is a clear case of vengeance. His wife didn’t do it. She was in another state, with witnesses.” He pointed toward another. I recognized the name. “This one is similar, yet different.” He shook his head. “The man sexually abused his two daughters for years.” And someone had entered the home in the middle of the night and chopped his dick off. “His wife died two years ago. And his daughters didn’t do it. They couldn’t have.”
“Why not?” People who had been abused often went back for vengeance.
“They’re both right-handed. The slice was made by someone who’s a lefty.”
“Huh.” I scratched my head. “What about the case of the dead wife?”
He pulled out one of the profiles. “This one is what makes me think these are random crimes.” He stared at the paper. “She beat her son black and blue in a fit of rage.”
“And?”
“And her son is six years old.” He closed the file and pushed it toward me across the desk. “He didn’t kill her. There’s no physical way that he could have restrained her like that, and then killed her.” He shook his head. “I know you were hoping this was a vigilante killer, so you would only have to go after one person, but none of these are related.” He stopped and stared at me.
“I just have this feeling.”
“And I have a feeling you’re wrong.”
“My gut has never led me astray.”
“Until now.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
Mason’s grit was one thing I liked about him. He never failed to stand up to me. I tended to intimidate people. I’d been told it was my size; I topped out at six-two, two-forty. And then there was the scar that slashed across my face. People tended to recoil when they saw it. I’d gotten used to it. Mason wasn’t intimidated by me at all.
“Okay.” I didn’t agree with him. I still felt like someone was using open police cases to get vengeance against people who hurt people weaker than them. There had been over two dozen in as many months, just in this state, in this general area.
“You should talk to Shelly about six-year-olds who tie up their fathers. Get her perspective.”
I knew about Shelly’s situation. I knew about how she’d tied her father up with a lamp cord when she was six. Then she scared the fuck out him with threats after he’d beaten Lynn nearly to death. Shelly had scared her father so badly that he had his wife dump her with his mother. He kept the other sister, Lynn.
“Speaking of Shelly,” I began.
He chuckled. “A match made
in heaven.”
“She can’t work for me.”
He held up his hands like he was surrendering to the cops. “Talk to her, man. Not me. She has a mind of her own.”
“You set me up.”
“She needs a job.”
“She needs no such thing.”