Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 02 by Twisted Page A

psychopath’s favorite dump spot.
    Pretty, today, under a true-blue sky barely blemished by wispy clouds.
    Nice scene to paint. She should get her portable easel out here, find a cozy plein air spot, and go to town.
    It had been a long time since she’d painted anything with color.
    As the drive stretched on, she told Isaac about being impressed by the wound patterns and everything else she’d learned about the six murders.
    He said, “Similar dimensions.
That
I didn’t notice.”
    And none of the detectives had noticed June 28. “You’d have to be looking for it.”
    â€œI’ll be more careful in the future,” said Isaac.
    The future?
    He said, “That call from the phone booth is interesting. The possibility that it might be someone Mrs. Doebbler knew. What if Mr. Solis knew him as well? Someone familiar to all the victims.”
    â€œI thought of that,” she said. “But it’s a leap.”
    â€œStill, it’s possible.”
    â€œIf our killer was acquainted with all six victims, he had a pretty wide social network. We’re talking runaways, male hustlers, executive secretaries, retirees, and that Navy ensign, Hochenbrenner. I haven’t even looked at his file yet.”
    Isaac was staring out at the desert. If he’d heard her little speech, it wasn’t apparent. Finally, he said, “Mr. Solis had breakfast food on his plate but the murder occurred around midnight.”
    â€œPeople eat at odd hours, Isaac.”
    â€œDid Mr. Solis?”
    â€œDon’t know,” she said. “What, you think the bad guy dished up sausage and eggs after bashing in Solis’s head and served it to a corpse?”
    Isaac squirmed. She’d grossed him out and it gave her perverse satisfaction.
    He said, “I really don’t have much of a database from which to make a judgment—”
    â€œA culinary killer,” she cut him off. “As if it’s not complicated enough.”
    He kept quiet. The car got hot. Ten degrees warmer out here in the desert. A warm June to begin with.
    June.
Today was the fourth. If there was anything to this craziness, someone else would die in twenty-four days.
    She said, “So have you come up with any other notable June 28 occurrences in the historical archives?”
    â€œNothing profound.” He spoke quietly, kept his eyes aimed at the window. Intimidated?
    Bad Petra, mean Petra. He’s just a kid.
    â€œTell me anything you’ve found,” she said. “It could be important.”
    Isaac half turned toward her. “Basically, I’ve been logging into various almanacs, printed some lists. Long lists. But nothing jumps out. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.”
    Snapping open his briefcase, he groped around, removed a batch of papers.
    â€œI looked at birthdays and the farthest back I got was June 28, 1367, which is when Sigismund, the emperor of Hungary and Bohemia, was born.”
    â€œWas he a bad guy?”
    â€œYour basic autocratic king.” Isaac’s finger trailed down a long row of small-print items. “Then there’s Pope Paul IV, the artist Peter Paul Rubens, another artist, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a few actors—Mel Brooks, Kathy Bates . . . like I said, it stretches on. That’s how I came up with John Dillinger.”
    â€œAny bad guys other than Dillinger?”
    â€œNot on the birthday list. When I looked at June 28 as a date of death, I found a few more. But none of them appear connected to this type of thing.”
    â€œThis type of thing?” said Petra.
    â€œA serial killer.”
    The term set her teeth on edge. Too TV. Too damn hard to solve. She kept her voice light and pleasant. “Which bad guys died that day?”
    â€œPieter van Dort, a Dutch smuggler. They hanged him on June 28, 1748. Thomas Hickey, a Colonial soldier convicted of treason, was hung in 1776. There’s not much more until 1971, when