Cereal Killer

other ones’ families figure it out and come after me, too?”
    “I... I don’t...”
    “No, you don’t, because you don’t think ahead.” There was a long, heavy silence. So long that the voice-activated tape stopped, then started again when Beekman said, “I’ll do something. I’ll take care of it.”
    “Bodies can’t keep dropping, Jerrod,” said the deep voice. “People can’t keep disappearing.”
    “I know. I know. I’ll think of something. Really.” Another long silence. Then, “Make sure that you do. I don’t have to tell you that if I go down... so will you.” A door slammed, followed by the sound of glass clinking and a fluid pouring. Then the recorder switched off.
    “Sounds like Wentworth needed a shot of courage,” Ryan said as they sat and digested what they had just heard.
    “How do you know for sure that was Wentworth?” Dirk asked.
    “We took turns hanging out at the end of the hallway,” Savannah told him, “watching everybody who went in and out of that office. And we kept track, writing down their names if we knew who they were and their physical descriptions if we didn’t.”
    “We listened to the rest of the conversations on the way over here after the party,” Ryan said. “Most of them were Wentworth trying to squeeze people who owe him money.”
    “And some of those debts are ten years old,” Savannah said. “Apparently, he’s desperate for cash.”
    John reached over and patted Tammy’s shoulder. “This young lady and I were watching when Jerrod Beekman went into the library and when he came out. What we just heard was the gist of their conversation.” Dirk sighed and sank a few inches lower in his chair. “It’s interesting, that business about the dead girls threatening to sue Wentworth before they died. But there’s not really a hook in there that I can hang either Wentworth or Beekman on.”
    “No,” Savannah said, “but I think they both need a closer look.”
    “A closer look?” Dirk shook his head. “I’m already looking at everybody as close as I can. And so far, I haven’t seen nothin’ that counts for closing this case.” From past experience, Savannah knew that Dirk almost always hit a wall with his cases. Fortunately, although he was grumpy and difficult when he had his nose pressed against that wall, he always rallied. And after a period of wallowing in depression, ranting and raving, he would solve it.
    “That’s why we’re trying to help, Dirko,” Tammy said, as though explaining rocket combustion ratios to a kindergartner. “Why else do you think we’d all be here at two in the morning?”
    As usual, Tammy’s approach didn’t work with Dirk. He brisded and opened his mouth to reply, but Savannah stood, walked behind him, and put her hands on his shoulders.
    “Tell us what you want us to do, buddy,” she said, massaging the knotted muscles at the base of his neck.
    “I want to find this girl, Tesla,” he said, closing his eyes and running his hand through his hair. “Until we find her body, we’ve still got a chance of getting her back alive. And from what I can see, that’s the only good thing that could possibly come out of this mess.”
    Savannah smoothed his mussed hair, much as she would have petted her grandmother’s old bloodhound back in Georgia. Then she sat down in her chair and took a notebook and pen in hand. “Okay, we’ve got suspects galore,” she said. “And we have to keep an eye on them all. Let’s divide ’em up. Who’s gonna babysit whom?”
     
    Having drawn Kevin Connor from the figurative hatful of suspects, Savannah pulled up to the house on the beach at 7:30 in the morning, only five hours after she had said good-bye to the team at her house. She had been hoping for Beekman or Wentworth, but Dirk was hogging them both for himself. And since he was in his “Deep-Dark-Depression-Excessive-Misery” mode, she had decided not to fight him about it.
    She had a couple of things to ask Kevin Connor anyway, so she didn’t really mind... except for the getting there at 7:30 business. Having called the hospital, she had found out that he came on duty at 8:30, so she figured he would be up and about at this hour and might give her a few minutes of his time.
    When she rang the doorbell, it took him so long to answer that she reconsidered her theory. Maybe Connor was one of those guys who rolled out of bed at the last possible moment, gulped a cup of coffee, and arrived at work with bed