J.A. Jance - Cruel Intent

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by J.A. Jance

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jance, Judith A.
Cruel intent / by J.A. Jance.
p. cm.
A Touchstone Book.
1. Reynolds, Ali (Fictitious character)Fiction. 2. InternetFiction.
3. BlogsFiction. 4. HousewivesFiction 5. Serial murderersFiction 6.
ArizonaFiction. I. Title.

PS3560.A44C78 2008
813'.54dc22 2008013649

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6387-7
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6387-3

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For Bill, in memory of B. Jo.

S ipping a cup of freshly brewed Colombian blend, Peter Winter sat on the couch in his spacious family room, inserted the DVD into his computer, and then waited for the slide show to appear on his fifty-two-inch flat-screen TV. He kept the before photos in a group by themselves, and he flicked through those first. The befores showed five slender blondes, each smiling sweetly into the camerainto his camera. Rita Winter, Candace Miller, Melanie Tyler, Debra Longworth, and Morgan Forester. The five of them looked enough alike that they could have been sisters. Their faces were remarkably similar, with wide-set blue eyes, delicate features, and flawless complexions. They all had straight white teeth and carbon-copy smilessuperior smiles, knowing smiles, cheating smiles.

In addition to their beauty-pageant good looks, that was another thing the five women had in commonthey were all cheaters. Second, all of them were greedy, always wanting morealways requiring morethan they had been given. Finally, of course, there was the dead part. That showed up in the aftersin those, the women werent alike at all, except that they were dead and looked it; well, four of them did anyway. The first photo was a grainy copy of a news photo with the body already covered by a tarp. Peter had missed the opportunity to take his own portrait, but since then he had corrected that oversight.

The photos showed Peters handiwork in brutal detail. The women, all of them naked and bloodied, lay either where they had fallen or where he had placed them. Posed them, as the profilers liked to say. Most people would have been repulsed by the photos. He found them exciting. Invigorating. Especially when he had reached this pointthe time when he was about to add one more to his collection.

He hadnt expected it would come to this with Morgan. He had figured hed use her and lose her. That was the way he liked to operate, and it was a philosophy that had worked fairly well over the years, with a few notable exceptions. But some dumb blondes were smarter than they looked. It had come as a rude awakening when that pretty little piece of tail had turned on him and tried tracking him down at work. That had been the end of it. Or at least it had signaled the end of it. It had taken him some timeweeks, in factto get all the pieces in place, but today was the day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Whistling that familiar Sunday-school tune, he switched off the DVD player and the TV set, removed the DVD, and stashed it in the safe in the back of his closet. At the same time, he removed his precious good-luck charmthe heart-shaped Tiffany key chain Carol had given him. It was loaded now with something far more powerful than keys, and on days like thisdays when he was primed for actionhe wanted the key ring with him. As long as he had that talisman in his pocket, he felt safe.

After pouring a second cup of coffee, Peter set about gathering and packing his equipment. He didnt need to carry much. He brought along a fully loaded syringe, a set of scrubs, a pair of surgical gloves, and a pair of paper surgical booties. Blood spatter on scrubs was easily explained and easily gotten rid of. Surgical booties left no traceable footprints at the crime scene, and when they went into the hospital incinerator, they left behind no traceable forensic evidence, either.

Gloves were another matter. More than one dumb killer had been taken down when damning fingerprints were found inside gloves worn while committing a crime. But working in a hospital made disposing of surgical gloves pretty much foolproof. As long as they and his used hypodermics went into the proper containers in the proper examination rooms, he could be relatively sure theyd never be seen againand never examined for incriminating forensic evidence.

He added a pair of leather driving gloves. Those were a necessity. They were the only way to ensure that he didnt leave behind a damning fingerprint or two in the rental car. They also kept him from running the risk of being seen driving while wearing surgical gloves; that certainly would have raised eyebrows. With driving gloves, you had to be careful not to drop one at a crime scene. Watching O.J.s long-ago murder trial had taught Peter all about that. When he needed to unload a pair that had reached the end of the road, he dropped them off in a Goodwill donation box.

The next thing he loaded into the briefcase was that days weapon of choice. In this case, he planned to use an ordinary household hammer, and not one hed picked up from his neighborhood Ace hardware. Those might very well have some distinguishing markings on them. No, he chose to use one hed bought at a garage sale in North Phoenix. The woman, a relatively new widow, had been selling her husbands tools in preparation for moving into an assisted-living facility. Initially, Peter hadnt wanted the whole lot, but shed offered the entire kit at such a bargain-basement price that he had taken all of it, rolling tool box included.

So far hed used only one of the tools hed purchased that Sunday afternoonthe hacksawon the nosy little bitch in Greeley, Colorado, who had asked way too many questions. Getting rid of her had been an especially gratifying experience, but it had also been very messy. Exceedingly messy, as the after photo clearly showed. Hed had a lot of trouble getting himself cleaned up afterward and had worried about leaving something behind that might be traced back to him.

He expected that using the hammer would be simpler. If he did it right, thered be far less blood to deal with, and what there was would be easier to control. Having blood evidence lying around was actually quite helpful. It gave the cops something to focus on, and that was the whole secret to getting away with murder. You had to give the cops plenty of blood evidence and make sure they found it where they expected to find it. And if you could muddy the water enough by having two prime suspects rather than one, that was even better.