Page 82 of What They Saw


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“But she’s dead, and aren’t her parents dead now, too?” Goran said.

“She has a sister who lives in Minneapolis or somewhere, right?” Arnett said.

“Right, but there are two other victims here that aren’t dead.” Jo reached over and rifled through a stack of files, and pulled two out. “When Ossokov became a suspect for Zara Richards’ murder, he was already under investigation for the rapes of Tasha Quintana and Jennifer Woods. ADA Bandara had already gotten indictments from the grand jury to prosecute, but Sandra Ashville convinced the DA that allowing her to try Ossokov for the rape-homicide alone was the safer way to go. That’s why there was so much pressure to get that conviction. And someone had to break it to Tasha and Jennifer that their cases wouldn’t be prosecuted.”

“But so what, as long as the bastard got put away?” Goran said.

“But he didn’t, did he? He got back out. He was back on the street,” Jo said.

Coyne’s face screwed up. “Sure, but it wasn’t like he got off scot-free. He served nearly fifteen years.”

Jo tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “And would you be satisfied with that if it had been your daughter he raped?”

Coyne’s neck and face turned so intensely red Jo worried he might be having a stroke. “Okay, I see your point,” he grunted.

“And,” Jo continued, “think about that number for a minute. How long is the statute of limitations on the rape of an adult woman?”

“Fifteen years,” Arnett answered, voice tight. “Which means time had just run out on their ability to bring him up on charges again.”

“Everything makes sense from that perspective,” Jo said. “They’d blame Sandra for pushing their case to the side, and of course they’d be angry with Deena Scott for getting him out of prison, and Winnie Sakurai is the judge who said Ossokov deserved a new trial—”

“And the overkill,” Goran said. “You said it yourself, when someone smashes someone’s skull beyond recognition, there’s serious rage behind it.”

Jo nodded. “We’ve felt from the beginning that whoever the killer was, they wanted to look their victims in the face. But Ossokov was a big man. She couldn’t risk him overpowering her or getting away, so she shot him.”

“Holy shit,” Goran said.

Jo nodded grimly. “We need to find out where Tasha, Jennifer, and Zara Richards’ sister are.Now.”

CHAPTERFIFTY-FOUR

Goran and Coyne immediately turned their attention to tracking down Zara Richards’ sister Zoe, while Arnett hunted down Tasha, and Jo focused on Jennifer Woods.

Zoe Richards turned out to be easy to eliminate. She’d moved to Minneapolis for graduate school long before Zara was attacked, and remained there after. She was now a long-time HR manager for Target’s corporate headquarters, and Goran verified that she’d overseen a team-building retreat exercise over the weekend. She was currently in a week-long training seminar.

“No way she’s been able to get to Massachusetts for a day, let alone several,” Coyne reported.

“One down, two to go,” Arnett said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve found Tasha Quintana. She lives over in Quincy and works in an insurance office, both well within driving distance of all our crime scenes.”

“If she had to get back for a nine-to-five, that would explain why the weekday murders have been in the middle of the night rather than at dawn.”

“I’ll keep following up,” Arnett said.

Jo turned her attention back to her slow progress on Jennifer Woods, cursing the commonality of the name. Hoping more information could help her narrow down her results, she reached for the file on Woods’ rape case again. The information didn’t pull her out of her dead end until she found a final notation Bandara entered before packing up the case—after the trial, Woods decided to make a fresh start out in California, where a cousin of hers lived in a small central valley town. With that, Jo tracked down her most recent contact information, including a phone number.

“Hello?” a man’s voice answered.

Jo identified herself. “I’m trying to reach Jennifer Woods. May I speak with her?”

“Wrong number, brah.”

Brah? Had her voice deepened overnight? “Can I check the number with you?” She read off what she’d tried to call.

“That’s the right number, but there’s no Jennifer Woods here. She sounds hot, though. If you find her, tell her to hit me up. You have the number.” Someone in the background laughed as he hung up.

Jo rolled her eyes and searched for a more recent number. When she couldn’t find one, she called the service carrier. Once she made her way up the supervisor chain and explained why she was calling, the manager verified that Jennifer Woodshadowned the account, but cancelled it five months previously.

Jo pushed her luck. “These days it’s more common for people to keep their cell numbers even if they change providers, isn’t it? I don’t suppose it says why she closed it?”

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