by TG Wolff
Yablonski took the lead. “L’Tonya Simmons. Cleveland police. We have a warrant to search the property. Open the door.” He tried a second time, and a third.
Cruz shrugged. “You didn’t think she was going to make it easy for you.”
Yablonski rolled his eyes, made sure Cruz had hold of the screen door and then planted his foot on the door. It took a few well-placed kicks, but the door swung open.
A toilet flushed from somewhere in front of them.
The four men moved through the house, quickly, efficiently, carefully. They found Simmons on her knees, surrounded by several kilograms of cocaine, working very hard to flush a block down the toilet.
Cruz swallowed a laugh. The toilet was overflowing and the brick a uniform pulled out was three times too large for the opening.
“It ain’t mine.” L’Tonya shouted over the rights being read. “It belongs to a friend of Bear’s. He explain everythin’ when he get back. He be back real soon.”
Cruz walked with the officer escorting Simmons to the car, in case he needed a hand.
Outside, her gaze flickered to the charred remains of her neighbor’s home. The edge of her mouth curled into a cruel, sinister smile. “Tode you shut ya mouth.”
Cruz watched and knew. Pride, satisfaction, excitement shone in her eyes. She was dying to tell someone about her hard work. “Bear would be proud of you, watching his back like that. King was disrespectful.”
“Damn straight he was. He disrespected Bear. Nobody does that.”
“Not with you around.”
“Not with me around. I showed him. That bitch Sharonda can suck his cock, but she can’t do what I did.”
“Nobody but you would do that for Bear.”
“’Xactly.” She snorted. “You own gasoline burn you own house. Who’s dancin’ now ol’ man? Huh? Who the fuck is dancin’ now?” She yelled at her neighbor as she pulled uselessly against the officer’s grip.
In the silence that followed Simmons’s departure, Yablonski and crew went to work on McKinley’s house. Cruz did his own search but found nothing that said where Bear went after getting his morning caffeine buzz. Eventually, he returned to the station. He had a date in the interview room.
“My client would like to make a statement,” the lawyer said calmly.
Walkenshall’s hands shook as he read from the handwritten paper. “I, uh, apologize for m-my behavior last n-night. Somebody died. It isn’t a g-game. I know it isn’t a g-game. I’m sorry I took those pictures and posted them. I’m r-really sorry I stayed around.”
The night in lock-up and the lawyer got through to the guy. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I, um, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.”
The lawyer leaned forward. “Come on, Detective. You know my client is guilty of nothing other than questionable judgment. It’s not illegal to post photos like he did. He said he’s sorry, let us get out of your way so you can get back to finding the guy who did this.”
“I appreciate your interest in my caseload, but we’re going to do this my way.”
Detective Jesus De La Cruz knew he’d hit a wall when he poured the packet of sugar into the garbage and put the wrapper in his coffee. He left the noise and the hustle of the station for the quiet of his back seat and a few minutes of shut eye. One hour until the meeting with the chief. One hour before the hamster got back in the wheel.
“Orion McKinley was killed by a blow to the head, which was delivered after he was pepper-sprayed.” Cruz stood straight and tall, looking Chief Ramsey in the eye. “He left his house about eleven to get his morning Mountain Dew. He bought the soda from a local grocery at eleven-twelve. The store had a security camera on the front door. McKinley was shown coming out of the store, looking past the camera and then walking out. His car was found in the opposite direction, on a side street. His head was first reported later that day at eight-oh-nine.”
“McKinley managed to keep three gangs in check.” Yablonski represented the joint gang-narcotics task force. “He made sure the drugs, money, and women flowed and drew strict lines of conduct. Anyone stepping over the line found themselves dead—or worse. With him gone, there is a power vacuum. He had six lieutenants, any of which may throw in for the promotion.” He unfolded a map of the city. Thick, crude circles showed where the power centers were. “I have already contacted the district commanders. We will be working closely with them on the situation.”
Aurora’s school laid in the overlap of two of the areas. “The suspect is slowing ringing the city. Look.” Cruz made an X on Yablonski’s map where each of the heads was found. “90 West, 480 East, 71 North, 77 North.”
Special Agent Bishop used a blue marker to add circles to the remaining entry points into the city. “There are only a few interstates left coming into the city.” Bishop pinned Cruz with a look. “How could our suspect have not been seen?”
“He or she was seen,” Cruz confirmed. “The problem is no one recognized what they saw. They saw a van on the side of the road, a driver with car trouble. We haven’t found anyone who saw a killer.”
“It’s like we are chasing a ghost,” Commander Montoya said. “Even when we have witness, they’ve seen nothing. Nobody’s that good. Where aren’t we looking?”
There was no response.
“Alison, where are we with the public?” the chief asked.
“It’s quiet, sir. Even with the fuss Mr. Bell raised, we haven’t fielded many calls from the public. There is more interest among the press. I have calls from several reporters on my desk. I was planning to return them this afternoon.”
Ramsey leaned on the table, elbows locked, looming over the assembled team. “Lady and gentlemen, the first head was found five months ago. Someone explain to me how this vigilante is walking over us in our own house?”
Friday, March 30
Orion “Bear” McKinley’s side piece of ass was a dead end. She didn’t know the man, in the biblical sense, no matter what that insane bitch L’Tonya thought. Mavis McKinley, Bear’s mother, lived in a rundown apartment building with lighting humming like a bug zapper and hallways reeking of urine. If she knew anything about the details of her son’s life, she wasn’t telling. She couldn’t give up the people she needed for her next fix.
The run through the DMV database for black vans and truck with the “Ohio, Birthplace of Aviation” plate produced a mind-boggling number of potentials.
Bear McKinley had more than a few people who preferred him on a stick. The man had a long, violent past that left a trail of victims from the sixth-grade playground to his current day home.
Victims.
How many did Bear have? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? It wasn’t out of the question when you considered each individual person had significant others, families, friends. Each paying a price for Bear’s crimes.
Cruz’s gut liked this. His fingers got busy on the keyboard. In the prior twelve months, there were seventy-nine homicides, three hundred fifty rapes, thirty-two hundred robberies, seventeen hundred fifty assaults and three hundred arsons in the city of Cleveland. Officially.
Cruz lived the numbers, and yet they staggered him.
There wasn’t a net wide enough to snag all the fish in that lake in the hopes of getting the one they were looking for.
The chief wasn’t satisfied with the progress. The water was getting warm for everyone in homicide and narcotics, but Cruz’s feet were starting to blister.
Interviews, witness reports, data analyses. They all pointed to the same place.
Nowhere.
The department halls were quiet, giving Cruz space to think for the first time all day. He stroked the scars at his eye as he studied the board connecting Uncle Hall, Mathias Martinez, Bobby Mayes, and Bear McKinley. In the middle, some smart ass pinned the question mark that was the signature of the Riddler. Cruz left it because it wasn’t wrong.
Riddle me this:
I see no skin color; only dealers.
I see no men; only monst
ers.
I see no end; only death.
What am I?
“A psychopath.” He said the thought out loud. “Who’s gonna be next? How can I get ahead of you?”
His phone rang. Aurora’s number. His gaze snapped to the clock. Six-fifteen p.m. When did it get so late? “Hey, baby.”
“You’re still at work, aren’t you? You aren’t coming out tonight.” Aurora had asked him this morning if he would go out with her and her girlfriends. They knew the guitar player of a band who was playing at a bar. The three, single women had some sort of psychic connection to each other. Aurora had been right there with them, but now that she was with him, she’d fallen a half step out of sync. He knew it bothered her. She didn’t say it, but she was trading her friends for him.
Aurora had started throwing darts on Tuesday. The crowd Cruz hung with was a mishmash of singles and couples that easily absorbed her. Yablonski and his nurse Erin slid into their lives. Dinner after work. Home projects. The couples were together a few times a week. The fit easy, comfortable.
He didn’t fit so easily into her crowd. He couldn’t follow the conversation, let alone have something to say. They drank, he didn’t. Every time they went out, Aurora had an internal battle waging in her head. Cruz saw it on her face. He encouraged her to go, not to hold back because of him. But she did.
There wasn’t anger in her voice. She was matter-of-fact. She could have been asking him if it was raining. He’d encouraged her to go out with her friends; she shouldn’t have to give up her life for him. “No. I still have some things to wrap up here. Will you come to my house later?”
“Hmm. Probably.”
He knew that sound. She was putting on lipstick.
“Call me if you need a designated driver.”
“Uh huh, but,” she paused for a moment, “I’m not planning on drinking much. Just, you know, dinner, blowing off a little steam.”
“Have fun. I’ll leave the door open.” He refilled his go cup and sipped on the brew weak enough to pass for water in some countries as he puzzled through the cases.
Opportunity? These murders were not spontaneous. The suspect created the opportunity, getting physically close to a drug dealer in the city the size of Cleveland. How many entrepreneurs did the city have? Hundreds? Four were dead. Statistically, a drop in the bucket.
Means? What kind of tool was used to decapitate the heads? The medical examiner’s best guess was some type of saw.
Motive? The obvious weren’t playing out: money, position, territory. What motive had a player like Bear McKinley on the same field as Bobby Mayes?
Saturday, March 31 1:00 a.m.
“Zeus? Shhh, you’ll wake him.”
“Aurora. I’m awake.” Cruz looked up from the physiology book he’d been reading, learning more about the neck and spine. “I’m talking to you on the phone. Where are you?”
“At this club. I may have had a teensy-wee-itty-bitty too much to drink.” Giggles in the background.
He dog-eared the page and closed the book. “What’s the name of the club?” Thirty minutes later, he chauffeured four drunk women around the city. He poured the last of her friends into her apartment and headed for his home. Aurora flipped through the stations on the radio until she found a song she could sing at the top of her lungs.
Aurora was a talented painter…not so much on lead vocals.
He pulled into his driveway and put it in park.
“You.” Aurora said, her hair falling in her eyes. “You are a good boyfriend. The best boyfriend. Ever. E.V.E.R. Come here.”
He didn’t try not to laugh but did lean over the center console. She took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply. Even drunk, she possessed a sexuality that drove him crazy. She pulled the band from his braid and ran her fingers though his hair. Every nerve ending fired in triplicate.
She tasted like alcohol. Sharp, tangy. The taste he remembered. This he had liked. Craving it as much as he craved her, he took control of the kiss, holding her still while he fed his addiction.
Aurora broke away and slid off the panties she wore under the short skirt. She climbed over the center console and onto his chest, wedging her legs on either side of him.
There wasn’t going to be a lot of room. He was going to be at her mercy.
His fingers found the controls to the seat, moving it back until her ass fit between his cock and the steering wheel. She lifted her hips and slid down the hard length of him.
Her ass in his hands, the tang of liquor on her breath, her tight body clamping down on his cock nearly broke him. He ground his teeth, drawing out every movement, every moment.
She giggled. “You’re holding out on me,” she said in a sing-song taunt. She bit his ear. His breath caught, his body clenched as he pumped into her again and again. And then…blessed release.
Heart still pounding, he opened his eyes, looking into her sedate face. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth held a little Mona Lisa smile that said he’d given as good as he got. Slowly she moved, her hands to his chest, her body swaying as she sat with him buried deep inside. Her eyelids flipped opened, but it wasn’t sexual satisfaction he saw in her gaze. “Zeus? I, uh. I, uh. Uh oh.”
He threw open the truck door, catching Aurora as she leaned to the right and emptied her stomach. Most ended up on the ground. This part he remembered too, without the fondness.
She pulled herself up, leaning too far to the left. He caught her again, pulling her against his body to keep her from falling.
“I don’t feel good.” She buried her face in his chest. “I think I’m sick.”
He flinched as her sour breath assaulted his face, another mark on the side of sobriety. “Let’s get you inside.”
She snuggled into him. “I’m just gonna sleep here. Good night. I love you.” His cock still buried to the hilt, she passed out.
He looked at himself, at his situation, and laughed.
Quiet permeated Cruz’s home despite the lateness of the morning. Sitting at the desk in the bedroom he used as an office, he built his theory. If he moved away from the often brutal world of organized drug trafficking, then the next place to go was mental illness. The field fascinated him in college, and he interfaced with it often as a cop. He started with a hypothesis: an event triggered this behavior, in this city. No doubt there was a connection to drugs, but maybe not the business side.
He began with homicides, the fewest and most severe violent crimes.
There would be no norm for the length of time it would take from the inciting incident to the manifestation of the crimes. The latest compiled statistics indicated seventy-nine homicides occurred in the prior twelve months.
Uncle Hall’s head was found in the early days of November; he began in October. Two of the months’ homicides had a blatant connection to drugs. The bodies of two black males were discovered in a home the weekend before Halloween. The contents of the house had been thrown around and numerous bullets were found in the walls. A half a kilogram of heroin was found hidden in a child’s toy box. The house was in Reaper territory—a connection to McKinley. The report contained interviews with gang members but, to date, no one had been charged with the murders. Cruz made note of the names and ages of the victims.
September had three drug-related homicides. A pregnant woman was killed by her boyfriend during an argument. The boyfriend was arrested and was moving through the judicial process. He pleaded not guilty despite the overwhelming physical evidence. He admitted to being high and had no memory of using the knife on his girlfriend or their unborn son.
A dispute between two drug dealers resulted in injury to two adult bystanders and the death of a child. One suspect had run onto a limited access highway and was struck and killed. The surviving dealer pled to lesser offenses when witnesses confirmed the dead man had injured the bystanders and killed the child.
The brutal August heat had worn tempers down and cost ten people their life. After buying a small quantity of marijuana, two w
hite and one Hispanic teenaged boys pulled a knife on the dealer with the intent to rob. The dealer was faster with his gun. He was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He was claiming self-defense. The case was working its way through the system.
A Cleveland EMT died from wounds suffered on the job. He was attempting to revive a suspected overdose when the patient woke violently and severed the EMT’s jugular. The resurrected assailant pleaded to lesser charges and was serving his time.
Three separate homicides occurred in early morning hours at bars. In each case, two men were involved. In each case, a small quantity of an illegal substance was found on either the suspect or the victim.
His cell rang. “De La Cruz.”
“Are you working on the weekend?” Mariana’s voice chirped in his ear. “I know you are because you didn’t just say ‘hello.’”
He leaned back in his chair, welcoming the break. “Cops motto. Crime never stops, and neither do we. How are my favorite girls?” Rhianna squealed in the background over some injustice perpetrated by Gabby. “What is the tragedy this time?”
“Dresses. We had to buy Gabby a new dress, she grows so fast I can’t keep up. Rhia got a pretty flower dress that is new-to-her to wear.”
A pitiful cry rang out again, then he could hear his niece. “It’s ugly. I want to look pretty for Easter.”
Mari sighed heavily. “A dress doesn’t make you pretty. It’s who you are inside.”
“My insides want a new dress.”
He chuckled as his sister reasoned with her lawyer-in-training of a daughter. “I can take her shopping tomorrow.”
“Tito, Easter is tomorrow.”
His brain stumbled. It was March the…the…“That can’t be right. I was just at church—”
“Three weeks ago. Easter is tomorrow. That’s why I was calling. You are coming to church, right? To the house after?”
“Yes. Of course, I am. I’ve just been a little distracted lately.”