CHAPTER NINETEEN
Alison sat in the police station, waiting for any news on Raymond Keller. Seven houses had been visited close to midnight, and six had yielded results.
Detective Moore arrived at Alison’s desk with a fresh cup of coffee. They were nearing dawn, and it was another sleepless night for them both.
"We’re slowly eliminating people," Moore told her. "Three of the men we picked up last night…this night? The days are starting to blend together. Anyway, three of the men have airtight alibis, and we’ve sent them home. The other three are cooperating fully so far."
"It has to be Dr. Keller," Alison said. "I know it’s him from the most recent report. He let his thoughts slip into his report, thoughts that others might have had, but thoughts that only he has vocalized to me, and it’s why he’s targeting me.
We go to his home, and he’s gone? That doesn’t prove anything conclusively, but it’s suspicious timing.
We need to find him before he’s backed into a corner and does something bad. "
"There’s an APB out for him and his car," Moore told her. "We’ll get him. He has nowhere to go." Moore looked hopeful at Alison. "He won’t kill anyone else now that he’s on the run, right?"
"I don't know," Alison admitted. "Maybe you were right about me being the finale for him, but he won't be able to draw me out now, and he must know that. Either he tries to flee the city, knowing he’s been caught and his mission has failed, or he tries to go out with a bang. We must remain vigilant."
"We will," Moore said. "We’ve a lot of police presence in the city. We can't watch everyone, but they’re making constant rounds around the suspects you pinpointed. It’s only a matter of time now."
"Yeah," Alison sighed. She hated when it was a matter of time. She needed to be out there, facing the danger, bringing the criminal in.
Who have I become? When I started this work, I consulted and helped lead Derek to killers, and now, I want to face them down. I’m not the strongest, I have no real self-defense training, and I don't have a weapon. But I do have pluck!
Alison almost laughed as she thought the word. The tiredness was getting to her. Having pluck, courage, gumption, gusto, or whatever else she wanted to call it was great, but that was not the first line of defense against a man who had killed three people and almost certainly wanted to kill more.
Allegedly.
Alison knew that if they brought him in, they wouldn't have anything to pin on him other than the profile they had created and the wording used in the reports. She was sure it was him, but without a confession, it would be hard to fight in court.
They could do with some physical evidence, and they didn't have any that tied him to any of the crime scenes. They were waiting for a warrant for his home address, but the lack of evidence made it hard to obtain.
Not if I use myself as bait. He’s out there, knowing he’s out of options, and if I offer myself to him, it might draw him out. He let his emotions get the better of him. If those emotions are still running high, I can goad him into a mistake.
Alison thought about her own emotions. She was thinking about using herself as bait and using his emotions against him, but was she getting ahead of herself?
They had no physical evidence to tie him to any crime scene.
What if she was wrong about him being the killer because she’d let her emotions dictate her thoughts?
Alison’s phone dinged, and when she checked it, she found a message from Derek. He would be getting up for work.
No more from the DNA evidence, but I have another lead I’m following. I don't need to bother you with it while you are deep in this case, but I can share what I have when you get this guy.
Alison smiled. It wasn’t just the news that Derek might have something, but the message from him was welcome at a time when she was feeling hopeless.
"All right," Detective Moore said as she sat down at her desk. "We don't know what’s going on with Dr. Keller just yet, but I want to be ready when he’s brought in. I’ve read over what we have on file for him, but you know him better than that, and he obviously knows you. What can you tell me?"
Alison took a moment to think about it. Two years ago, she had consulted with the FBI on a case, and since then, she hadn’t consulted for the prison and rehabilitation system.
Even before that, it had been a while since she had worked directly with Dr. Keller.
Still, he was always around somewhere in the background, a permanent fixture of the system.
"He’s the Chief Psychologist for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation," Alison said.
"That wasn’t the role I first knew him in.
He supervised some of my early cases, and I believe he considered himself my mentor, even though we didn't really click.
He has the experience and skills for his current role, and he has always known how to play the game.
He knew who to speak to, what to say, and how to word things to please everyone.
It was always his goal to move up in the world. "
"It’s safe to say that he doesn’t want to move up any longer," Moore said.
"Not with his current actions. He has written some internal policy papers arguing for more conservative approaches to rehabilitation assessment, but he’s not come out and said that the early release process should be done away with completely. "
"Which is part of how he plays the game," Alison said.
"If he wanted to effect change, he would have done so more subtly, especially with such a controversial topic. He certainly has the expertise to write the reports found at the crime scenes. It could be that he just snapped. He played the game long enough without the results that he wanted, and he knew he couldn’t get what he wanted internally. "
"So, he resorts to killing people?" Moore asked.
"Perhaps," Alison agreed. "It gives him a good cover. He’s not outwardly outspoken about early release, so no one suspects him. He’s in a position of power, and he wouldn’t be the first person we suspected, especially if he’s been doing his job, which it looks like he has been doing until now.
With such an illustrious career, he would go about his day and probably talk about the murders with everyone else. "
"What about the photo?" Moore asked. "The one of you and your sister we found at the abandoned facility. How would he have gotten that?"
"That’s no mystery," Alison said. "I posted that to my social media feeds a few times over the years. All he had to do was print it off."
Moore sighed and leaned back in her chair. She nodded as if that helped them when it really didn't. "All right, small pieces, one at a time, and it all fits together in the end, right?"
"Yeah, something like that," Alison admitted.
She was helpless. That was the only way to describe it. She and Detective Moore had done all they could to find the killer, and there was nothing left to do now but wait.
***
Alison had sat through multiple of the longest nights of her life, and that one was another to add to the list. She went through every interaction she could remember with Dr. Keller, trying to recall some small detail that might point them in his direction.
They knew where he lived and worked, but he wasn’t at either place.
He’d fled, but there was no third place that Alison knew where he would flee to.
The light in the window on the other side of the office seemed to goad her as the sun rose on a new day. It was a chance for a new start, but it was also the passing of too much time without any sighting of Keller.
Moore sat at her desk, drumming her fingers on the surface, drinking coffee, and watching the phone.
"Detective Moore!" an officer called excitedly from his desk. "Line 1. It’s Dr. Keller."
Moore frowned as her eyes shot to Alison, and she quickly picked up the phone.
"Detective Moore speaking…Yes…That is correct…Yes, we can do that…Thank you, Dr. Keller. We will see you soon." Moore hung up and looked in a bit of a daze.
"What’s going on?" Alison asked quietly as if it were some big secrets. "You spoke to him?"
"I did," Moore admitted, still confused.
"He arrived at work this morning to discover that the police were looking for him, and he called us straight away.
He invited us down to his office to clear the whole thing up.
He told me that he wants to help with the investigation in any way he can. I don't know what to make of that."
"I don't either," Alison admitted. "Could I have been wrong about him?"
"We still have three men in custody here while we look for an alibi from each of them," Moore told her. "If we talk to Keller and he’s innocent, then we might have the killer in custody already."
"Then where was he last night?" Alison asked.
"There’s only one way to find out," Moore said as she grabbed her keys.