Luke handed her his cell phone and Andi answered cautiously. He listened with half an ear to her side of the conversation, his mind running ahead, as Rafferty told Andi much the same information, and then Andi explained the next day would be better as she was at the hospital with her sister-in-law, who’d had a fall. They set a time and exchanged cell numbers before Andi clicked off and handed Luke back his phone.
“Oh my God,” Andi said, looking stunned. “He’s really out there. Killing women with last names that are birds.”
“I know.”
“Bobby killed Trini.”
Luke nodded slowly. “Bobby, Rob, Robert . . . all the names he uses are derivatives of Robert. And his chosen last name of Fisher.” Luke shook his head. “It’s gotta be a fake name. An alternate identity. He wouldn’t use his own.”
“But why? What’s he after?” Andi asked, her eyes huge as they looked up at him.
He gathered her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out.”
*
Gretchen slammed down the receiver on her desk phone. “Yep. It was Christine Tern’s body they fished out of the Columbia.”
George said, “Where the hell’s Wes?”
“He’s with his mother,” September said.
“I know that. But he should be here.” George grabbed up his own cell and put through a call.
Gretchen said, “We’re here to help, George. Mr. Bones isn’t going anywhere.”
She was at her computer. “There are a lot of Robert Fishers around the area.”
“It’s probably an alias.” September was on her computer as well. She’d wanted to meet with Denton and Andrea Wren tonight, but there really was no need. They were all up to speed, and as George kept saying over and over again, it was his case. She was already stepping on his toes.
“I’m sure it’s an alias,” Gretchen rejoined. “But I might as well make a list.”
September checked Google for local camps and scrolled through the lists that popped up. “The North Shore Junior Camp, now defunct, was located on Schultz Lake. It still has a web site with the administrator’s name: Ronald Dumonte.”
George had gotten through to Wes and when he hung up his expression was grim. “Sorry, man,” he said. “No, we’re good here.” He hung up and said, “Looks like Wes’s mom’s not gonna make it.”
“Oh no,” September said.
“He’ll call us later. He wanted to come, but he can’t,” George admitted.
Gretchen looked up soberly. “That’s too bad. I always want to work when things are hell.”
It was the most emotion September had ever seen from Gretchen. She thought about Wes and her heart ached. She’d lost her own mother years earlier.
Gretchen shook her head, as if physically shaking off the moment. “There was a chess champion in the seventies named Bobby Fisher. Think that means anything?”
September looked at the clock as she put in a call to Ronald Dumonte. Five-twenty. She had his home phone, but he could possibly be at work. When the call was answered, it was a woman on the line. September introduced herself and the woman asked her to wait a moment, then Ronald Dumonte was on the other end of the line.
“I’m calling about North Shore Junior Camp,” September told him after she’d introduced herself.
Dumonte sighed heavily. “Make room for development. Bulldoze the past. Leave no trace of the good that came before.”
“Um, yes,” September said. “I take it you’re against Wren Development’s resort plan.”
“I fought with everything I had to stop that monstrosity, but the county planners didn’t listen. It’s all about money, Detective Rafferty. It always is. Sometimes we just hope farsighted thinkers prevail, but it so rarely happens.”
“You ran the camp in its last years,” September said, easing the conversation back to what she wanted to talk about.
“That I did. Retired afterward.”
“I understand that many of the wealthy and part-time residents around Schultz Lake sent their children to the camp.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “We wanted it to be available to everyone, but it was expensive compared to other camps, so we had a predominance of elitist’s children.”
Elitists . . . September had tapped into Dumonte’s prejudice. She decided to use that knowledge. “Can you name some of the elitists?”
“The same ones who are still there.” He rattled off a number of names and ended with, “And, of course, the Wrens. Henry Wren attended our camp when he was young, and he sent all three of his children there. I was administrator when the three of them were there.” His tone was carefully controlled, but he clearly wasn’t impressed with Gregory, Carter, and Emma Wren.
“Do you recall a boy named Lance Patten? I doubt he was a camper, but he may have hung out with some of them.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know the name.”
“Or Wendy Kirkendall?” September tried.
He swept in a breath. “The girl who was strangled and then dumped in the lake? Certainly not. It was a terrible tragedy, but it didn’t affect our camp!”
September asked him a few more questions, but he became less and less interested in talking. Finally, he said reluctantly, “I suggest you call the Wrens. There was an incident with a young man over animal cruelty.”