Fisher said, “It might have been used prior to the garbage bag.”
“What do you mean?” Holt asked.
“She might have still been alive when she was brought here. The duct tape would come in handy so that she didn’t run away.”
“But why not have it over her mouth?” Holt said. “It would prevent her from calling out for help.”
“That’s not true,” Wakefield said. “The victim’s mouth was taped at first. If you look carefully, you can see residue from the glue around the edges of her lips.”
“Then why was it removed?” Holt asked.
“Maybe her assailant wanted information from her that she was unable to provide,” Fisher suggested.
“It would explain the condition of her face,” Wakefield said.
“Is that how she died? From her injuries?” Fisher asked Wakefield.
“No, she died from a single gunshot.” Wakefield turned the victim’s head to the side and moved her fingers over the back. She parted the victim’s hair, revealing a hole the size of a penny.
“She was shot from behind?” Fisher asked.
“That would be my guess,” Wakefield replied.
Holt narrowed his eyes. “More like executed.”
Fisher noticed a piece of rope around the victim’s ankle. The end of the rope was split. “Is that how her body was submerged?” she asked.
Wakefield nodded. “It was likely tied to a heavy object. From my understanding, there are jagged rocks at the bottom of this lake. My guess is, when the body started taking in water, it began to float to the surface. Even with the garbage bag wrapped around it, it was not watertight. It took a couple of days for the rope to get severed by the rocks as it fought to come up.”
Fisher liked throwing ideas and questions at Wakefield. She was the best in her field. There was not much that got past her.
Fisher said, “Do you believe she was shot at the back of this building?”
“Why do you ask?” Wakefield said.
“If she was, then we should scour the area for shell casings.”
“In that case, I would have to say yes.”
EIGHTY-FOUR
The art gallery was wedged between a bar and a pet food store. The space was confined, but the bare white walls and bright lighting made the gallery look spacious.
There were no paintings hanging on the walls. Instead, there were large computer tablets propped up on clear plastic stands all around the space.
Callaway was confused why a so-called “art gallery” would not have any art displayed. Elle was next to him, and he wished she could see what he was seeing. He never understood nor cared much for art, but even he knew you had to have something for people to admire.
Maybe I’m supposed to appreciate the white walls? he thought.
A man appeared from behind another wall. He was dressed in a white turtleneck, beige pants, and brown loafers. He had wavy hair, a soul patch beard, and he wore round spectacles.
“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?” he asked with a smile.
Callaway said, “Are you Carl Goodwin?”
The man paused and stared at them for a second. “You’re the private investigator Glenn told me about,” he said.
“Yes, I am.” Callaway pulled out Linda’s photo and held it out for him. “We’re looking for her. She’s been missing for three months now.”
“Glenn told me that too,” Goodwin said.
Callaway turned to Elle. “This is Linda’s sister. She’s the one who hired me to find her.”
“I had no idea Linda had a sister,” Goodwin said.
Callaway did not want to explain that Linda was really Katie. “Linda’s best friend said the last conversation she had with her was right before she was to meet a client.” Callaway looked around the space. “It is my understanding they meet…here?”
“Yes, they do. We have a seating arrangement behind that wall for the girls and the men to meet before they decide to go on their way,” Goodwin replied.
Callaway scratched his head. “I’ll be honest with you, this is a highly odd way for a John to hire an escort.” He regretted using the word “John” in front of Elle, but she showed no reaction, so he continued. “Usually you find the girls roaming the streets, or you find them in the back of a newspaper, or you find the pimp who’ll hook you up with the girl.”
“I’m afraid those methods are still going on to this day,” Goodwin said. “We wanted a new approach to what is the oldest profession in history.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “I’m not sure how much Glenn told you, but he and I worked at the same software company. When we were laid off, we began searching for employment. After months of no offers, Glenn created the website, and I cashed out my pension and started this gallery.”
Callaway rubbed his chin. “Speaking of the gallery, I don’t see any art.”
Goodwin smiled. “Let me show you.” He took him to a computer tablet. He tapped the screen and swiped through the various displays. “We’re not really an art gallery per se, we are more like an art creator.”
“Art creator?”
“Instead of buying paintings or designs created by artists with their own tastes and aesthetics, you become the artist. When you come into the gallery, you select a painter’s style. Picasso. Rembrandt. Van Gogh. We have over a hundred artists to choose from. You then use the tools in our software, and you paint your masterpiece. Once you are done, that’s when the magic happens. Follow me.”
Goodwin took Callaway behind the back wall. There was a robotic machine with arms. Callaway saw paintbrushes of all shapes and sizes, and paints of every color imaginable. A blank canvas was in front of the arms.
Goodwin said, “The software feeds the information into the robot, which then mimics the artist’s brushstrokes and creates a painting in the artist’s style. It’s quite fascinating how accurate these machines are.”
“Doesn’t that lead to people creating forgeries of priceless art?” Callaway asked.
“We’ve had people come in and recreate masterpieces, but the materials we use are contemporary,” Goodwin replied. “It would take an expert only a second to know it’s not an original piece of work. A good forgery can take months or years to create. This takes less than twenty minutes.”
“Amazing,” Callaway said, feeling astonished.
Goodwin walked him back to the open space. He found Elle waiting for him. In all the excitement, Callaway had forgotten about her.
He coughed and said, “Coming back to Linda. We believe she might have met a client here and perhaps not made it back home.”
“That’s not possible,” Goodwin said. “When Glenn approached me with the idea, I agreed to let him use the gallery as a meeting spot. Safety is our number-one priority. If the girls got a wrong vibe from the client, I’d come in and end the meeting.”
“Did the clients ever get aggressive?”
“Sure they did, but once I threatened to call the police, they’d quickly leave. A lot of them have families and good jobs. The only reason they go through the site by purchasing digital currency is because they want complete anonymity.”
“But you see them.”
“I do, but I don’t know their names or anything about them. If anyone asked, they were here to create art. Also, the girls are young and mostly students. They seem to like the way it’s set up.”
Callaway thought of something. “But once the girls leave with the clients, you don’t know where they are going or what’s happening with them.”
“Glenn and I discussed this, and to make it even safer for the girls, we book a room in a fancy hotel under the website’s name so there is no record of the client ever staying there. We get a good rate at the hotel. The girls don’t mind having a percentage taken out of their fee to pay for it. The hotel has great security, and it’s clean. Not like the back of a car or a grungy motel.”
“Can you give us the address of this hotel?” Callaway asked. “The secu
rity cameras might have caught Linda with the client on the night we believe she disappeared.”
“It won’t be necessary.”
“Why not?”
“These girls are young and tech-savvy. On their smartphones, the girls sign in to the website with a password only they know to confirm the transaction. Once they are done, they sign in again to tell us the transaction is complete. If they don’t do that, they don’t get paid. This also lets us know something is not right if we don’t hear back from them. It has never happened, but if it does, we have footage of them meeting the client, and we’ll take it straight to the authorities. We have no issues with working with the police. We will tell them the girl is a friend of ours and we saw her at the gallery with a man. As we have not heard back from her, we are concerned for her safety.”
“You and your partner have thought this through,” Callaway said.
“We have,” Goodwin said with a smile.
“Can you show us the footage of Linda from the day she disappeared?”
“I would, but I don’t keep records going back that far. Why would I? If nothing happened, I don’t see a point in storing that much data.”
Callaway turned to Elle. She had not said a word, but he was certain she had heard everything. She must be thinking the same thing he was.
We hit another dead end.
“And Linda sent you the confirmation that told you she completed the transaction?” Callaway asked.
“She must have, or else I would have gone straight to the police,” Goodwin replied. “Plus, there is no girl that has any outstanding balance with us, which means they completed the transaction, and they were all paid.”
EIGHTY-FIVE
The media had converged like vultures on a carcass. They surrounded the building, hoping to get a shot of the lake behind.
The medical examiner had already removed the body, but Holt and Fisher still extended the police tape to block off the site. It was still an active crime scene.
Members of the crime scene unit were still scouring the area for shell casings. Fisher doubted they would find them. The killer had planned this out. The building had no security cameras of any kind. The place was a perfect spot to dump a body. Had the rope not severed, releasing the victim to the surface, her body would have likely decomposed underwater. They had also caught a lucky break with how the body was found. If the young men who hung out here to skateboard had chosen to go elsewhere, there was no telling when the body would have been discovered.
Holt approached Fisher with an intense look on his face. She knew he had been thinking hard about something.
“You come up with any theories?” she asked.
“I might have, but I’m not sure.”
“It’s better than what we know already, which is nothing. So what’s on your mind?”
“The killer used garbage bags, duct tape, and a rope, right?”
“Sure.”
“Without a receipt of some sort, we don’t know where the killer could have purchased those items, but the killer had also used something to weigh the body down.”
“Okay,” Fisher said, trying to follow his thinking.
“I checked the property, but I saw nothing that could be used as an anchor.”
“What about the four-by-fours or the wooden crates?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Wood expands in water. Any of those items would float up to the surface in no time. I was thinking more like large rocks, bricks, or concrete blocks.”
Fisher’s eyes narrowed. “You think the killer may have purchased something to use as an anchor?”
“Yes.”
“But we don’t know what that could be until we get a team of divers to go into the lake and retrieve whatever might be down there.”
“That’ll take time,” Holt said. “On our drive over here, I remember passing by a large hardware store. I think we should go check it out.”
EIGHTY-SIX
Cosimo was parked in the hospital parking lot. Cosimo had followed Agent Schaefer’s Buick all the way to the hospital. He was not sure what the agent was doing there. He had considered following him inside, but he knew that would be too risky.
Agent Schaefer would recognize him the moment he saw him. All of Don Beniti’s associates had become a target for the FBI, including him. He had eluded capture due to his various aliases. He had seriously considered leaving the profession and moving to some island nation with no extradition treaty with the United States. He could spend the rest of his life sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere. But being a hit man was the only trade he knew. The moment he had turned fourteen, he quit school and joined a local gang. He started off by stealing cigarettes and moved his way up to robbing liquor stores. When he caught the eye of a mob boss, he was promoted to being an enforcer for him. If someone needed to be taught a lesson, he was the man. But he did not like the job very much. First, he was not very big or strong. Second, he did not like inflicting unnecessary pain on others. Torture was not his thing.
What he was really good at, and what he truly enjoyed, was eliminating people. Hits required a certain level of skill. He could blend in easily and disappear without a trace after a kill. Also, the jobs were clean. He rarely got his hands dirty. One bullet between the eyes, and the target was dead.
He had used other methods as well, but nothing compared to a gun in his hand. Guns gave him an advantage other methods did not. He could eliminate the target from a distance.
He checked his watch. He was in no hurry. Patience was a key to survival in his profession. That and having a ready plan. Even now he had a plan, having scoped out all the exits and where the security cameras were. If he had to make a quick getaway, he already had one mapped out.
He kept his eye on the hospital entrance. He saw Agent Schaefer walk out. The agent made his way to his Buick and drove away.
Cosimo started the car and followed after him.
He kept a few cars back as the Buick changed lanes. He was not worried about losing Schaefer. While the agent was in the hospital, Cosimo had placed a tracking device underneath the vehicle. On his smartphone, he could see a moving red dot that told him the direction the Buick was headed.
He followed for another twenty minutes.
The Buick pulled into the parking lot of an apartment building.
Agent Schaefer got out and made his way to the front entrance. Cosimo debated waiting for him, but then a thought occurred to him.
What if the target is inside?
He quickly got out and hurried to the front entrance. He paused outside and looked into the lobby. Agent Schaefer was waiting by the elevators. He had not spotted him. Cosimo pulled out his phone and made it look like he was deep in conversation. After Schaefer boarded an elevator, Cosimo rushed inside.
He watched as the elevator stopped on the fourth floor.
He dashed for the stairs and raced up two steps at a time. He stopped on the fourth floor’s landing and stuck his head into the hall. He saw Agent Schaefer standing by the door of an apartment. He looked like he was speaking to someone inside. He had his credentials out, and he waved it whenever he needed to emphasize something. The conversation lasted a good ten minutes before Agent Schaefer turned and moved to the elevator.
When he was out of sight, Cosimo pulled out his weapon and headed to the apartment. The tracker would tell him where the agent was headed next, so he was not concerned about losing him.
What mattered was who was in the apartment.
He knocked on the door and moved aside. He could see a shadow in the peep hole. He knocked again.
The door swung open.
“Hey man, I told you I don’t know nothing,” a male voice said.
Cosimo made himself visible. He saw that the speaker was a black man.
The man quickly froze at the sight of the weapon. “Who are you?” he asked.
“You and I are going to have a long talk,” Cosimo said as he pushed his way in and slammed the door behind h
im.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
The hardware store manager was surprised to see two detectives in his store. He had not yet heard the news about a dead body being found not too far away from his location.
The manager was short, stocky, and he had on a green vest. He frowned and said, “You want to know if we sell concrete slabs?”
“Concrete slabs, cement blocks, patio stones, bricks, anything that can be used as weights,” Holt replied.
The manager pondered this odd question. “Sure, we have a landscaping section.”
Fisher said, “Can you find out if someone purchased any of those items?”
The manager’s mouth nearly dropped. “We ring up thousands of sales each day. I’m not sure how we can find out who purchased what.”
Fisher and Holt were silent.
The manager asked, “What day were these items purchased?”
“We don’t know,” Holt replied.
The manager almost laughed. “Then it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. I’m sorry, but it can’t be done.”
Holt grunted and began to make his way to the exit.
Fisher said, “Can you ask your staff if someone came by in the last couple of days and asked where the landscaping section was? Or maybe asked where they could find a rope or duct tape?”
The manager stared at her, unsure if he should oblige her request.
“It’s important,” Fisher added. “If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
The manager sighed. “Okay, let me find out.”
He left them.
Holt said, “Why did you ask him that?”
“We have to assume whoever dumped the body did not know the area too well. If they did, they would have known the lake’s floor was covered in jagged rocks. This means they must have come to the hardware store for the first time and asked for help locating whatever they were looking for.”
Holt shook his head. “That’s a long shot.”
She gave him a stern look. “But it’s worth a shot. We don’t have anything to go on right now.”
The Lee Callaway Boxed Set Page 41