Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

Lopes stood pondering, but only for a moment, his eyes scanning the room though likely not seeing anything outside of his head. He was probably visualizing a headless, handless woman in a car. “No shit, huh? Maybe we do have real mobsters out here whacking folks, fucking Guido and company. You don’t see that shit very often, not on the west coast.”

  I nodded. “It’s an unusual case, that’s for sure.”

  He pulled his jacket off of a coat tree and slung it over his shoulder, stopping before stepping out of the office. He looked back at me and said, “Let’s leave here tomorrow morning about ten.”

  “You got it, buddy.”

  4

  I FOUND RAYMOND Cortez sitting at his desk with photos spread out in front of him. His partner, Jerry White, sat perched on his chair, crowding Ray. The two of them were studying the photos and conversing as I walked up.

  “Hey guys.”

  They both looked up.

  “Hey, partner, how’re ya feeling?” asked Ray.

  Jerry said, “Welcome back, Dickie.”

  “I’m okay,” I said. My gaze drifted past them to the desk with the photos. “That’s her, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Ray said, “ever see anything like it?”

  “Not on a murder case,” I said. “I’ve seen a couple of decaps from train fatalities, guys laying across the tracks to end it all.”

  “It’s a first for me,” Jerry said. “It takes some kind of sick bastard to do this shit. Hopefully it’s not the beginning—”

  “Of a serial killer,” Ray said, finishing his partner’s sentence. “That’s all we need.”

  “You mind?” I asked, reaching toward the stack of photos that sat to the side of the six or eight that were spread across his blotter.

  “Be our guest,” Ray said, pushing the pile closer to me.

  I sat down in an empty chair near them and put on my reading glasses. Slowly I went through the stack, studying each photo as if searching for hidden clues.

  The first dozen or so were the overall scene photographs, pictures taken from the outskirts of the crime scene looking in, capturing not only the vehicle that held the deceased, but the surrounding area. There were rows of uniform slate-gray buildings with subtle green trim on their windows, doors, and eaves. Walkways led from one building to the next, meandering through impeccably manicured grass with elegant landscaping of bushes and trees and red bark ground covering. There were vehicles scattered throughout the background, but none near the lone black BMW. It was the victim’s vehicle, and it sat alone in the shade of a tree, parked on the side of a corner building.

  I looked back at the photos that showed buildings, checking for cameras. There were none that were obvious from the pictures.

  The next twenty photos were victim perspective shots, pictures taken by the photographer as he stood close to the victim’s vehicle, shooting outward in a 360-degree series. I looked for surveillance cameras on the buildings and noted the various vehicles parked in lots and on the street. I studied the terrain beyond the buildings that showed undeveloped mountains of sagebrush and wild grass. I was familiar with the area, and knew this vacant land sprawled to the north but ended quickly to the west where it butted against the freeway. I wondered if the killer had escaped on foot, and whether he had gone through the mountains to avoid detection or simply walked down the road. He may have had a vehicle waiting. Likely an unoccupied vehicle. Unless the killer had not worked alone. Apparently, there was no sexual component to the killing. So maybe it had been a team of killers. Professionals? What was the motive?

  The thought resonated and marinated in my head for a moment though I didn’t mention it aloud. Professionals . . . Might she have been a specific target? If so, why? A sexual predator often chooses a random victim only for physical attributes or perhaps vulnerability. I wondered which was the case in this killing. Predator, or pro? The answer to that question would dictate the direction of the investigation and measure the difficulty of it as well. A predator would strike again and again, leaving more clues with each case until captured. If it were professionals, they were one and done. No trails to follow and no evidence left behind. In that case, the investigation would be approached from an entirely different angle. We would work to discover who would have paid to have her killed, and why.

  I needed to call Val.

  “Was there a purse?” I blurted out without looking up from the photos.

  Ray said, “No, and that’s something that bothers me about the ID. I wish her purse had been there.”

  “Jewelry?”

  Ray chuckled, “Where would we find it? I mean, there were certainly no rings, bracelets, necklaces, or earrings left behind . . . those items probably went in the shopping bag with the body parts.”

  “You sick bastard,” his partner remarked.

  “Bowling ball bag.”

  “What’s that, Dickie? What do you mean?”

  I looked up. “The gentle giant. I can’t remember his real name, but that’s what they called him, that asshole up on the coast killing college girls back in the seventies. He took the head of a victim home with him, carrying it in a bowling ball bag. Years later, he spoke about it in an interview. He said it had been a real trip because as he was walking up the stairs to his apartment, a young couple passed by him, presumably on their way out for a date. Two college kids giggling and enjoying life without a worry in the world, having no idea they were within inches of another college girl’s head in his bag. As they passed one another, the couple greeted him, and he smiled in return. I’ll never forget, he described the encounter as ‘really making the gears squeak in his head.’ Can you imagine that?

  “Then he took the head in its bag and went into his apartment where he lived with his mother. He got off on that too, having a dead girl’s head in a bowling bag inside the apartment with his mother who constantly bitched at him about cleaning up after himself. Now he walks in and gives mom a kiss while holding this bag with a girl’s head in it. He ended up killing the mother too, by the way.”

  “The mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you involved in that one?” Ray asked.

  I frowned at him. “How old do you think I am?”

  He shrugged.

  “No, but I’ve watched the interview. If I’m not mistaken, it was an FBI profiler’s interview of him. You know, that’s what those assholes do, the profilers. They fly around the country talking to the killers we lock up and then they get famous by writing books about it. They tell everyone how hard it was seeing all those victims, all the crime scenes, never mentioning all they ever saw were the photographs.”

  “Fucking feds,” Jerry White said.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “What about DNA, you guys?”

  “That’s on our list,” Ray said. “We plan to get something from the missing person’s home, a toothbrush or something we can pull DNA from to compare to the dead woman.”

  Jerry said, “Wouldn’t that be a trip, if they don’t match up?”

  Ray shook his head with his eyes open wide, as if to say, Don’t even think that!

  I didn’t reply. My focus was on the scene, my mind spreading the pieces of the puzzle before me and then moving them around, trying to see the whole picture.

  I finished going through the photographs and went through them once more, studying each one before moving on to the next. Jerry White had walked away. Ray Cortez was on the phone. People were speaking in the background, but I didn’t hear any of their words or pay any mind to the activity around me.

  “The seat . . .”

  Ray tucked the phone beneath his chin. He furrowed his brow and said, “What?”

  I pushed a photo toward him. It depicted the interior of the victim’s vehicle from outside of the opened driver’s door. The victim sat in the seat, slumped over toward the passenger’s side. Her legs were stretched toward the pedals.

  “It’s back, probably all the way. Her legs wouldn’t reach those pedals.”

  He st
udied the photograph and then looked up. “I think you’re right.”

  “She didn’t drive that car there, Ray.”

  Captain Stover rounded the corner. “Jones, I need you and White in my office.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I think Jerry’s back in Unsolveds . . . I’ll grab him.”

  The captain walked away and I stood from my chair. “Wonder what that’s about.”

  “I guess you’ll find out,” Ray said. “I’m sure it will be terrific, whatever it is.”

  I chuckled. “No doubt. Two meetings with the captain on my first day back; what could be better?”

  I gathered Jerry White from Unsolveds and we walked to the captain’s office together, Jerry asking if I knew what the hell the captain wanted.

  I said, “Probably a promotion, or maybe a new car. I’m sure it’s going to be great.”

  Jerry grunted.

  The captain didn’t look up from his desk when we entered. “Have a seat.”

  We sat across the desk and waited.

  He sat a file down. “Jones, you’re going to pair up with White in Unsolveds. Which means you’ll get involved in this headless woman case. They can use the help.”

  White sat with his chin tucked into his hand, indifferent, bored.

  I said, “Okay, sounds good boss . . . is that it?”

  “No,” he said, and shifted his eyes from me to Jerry White, and back. “The sheriff is all over this thing. Santa Clarita has lost its mind, the mayor and councilmen are having the shits over this murder. Shit like this doesn’t happen up there, so this case better get solved, and fast. I don’t care what you three have to do to get it solved, but you find that bitch’s head and find her killer. Got it?”

  I nodded and looked over to see White nod too, but just slightly. He wasn’t the overachiever type, the hard-charging, stay late, kill-yourself-to-find-out-who-killed-someone-else type. He was in his last few years, and that’s why he was in Unsolveds. Straight hours, no callouts, very little court. He barely earned his pay. He wasn’t shitting any of us though, it wasn’t just that he was close to retirement; he hadn’t been that great a decade earlier either.

  Stover leaned back in his chair. “Okay, that’s it. Let me know if you guys need anything. I’m serious, this is a big priority case now.”

  “One question, boss.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why isn’t Cortez part of this meeting?” I asked. “Isn’t he the lead?”

  “He already knows. I talked to him first, asked him if he would work with you.”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t he?” I snapped back, pissed at the comment.

  He shrugged. “How the hell should I know? You don’t seem to get along with just anyone. You and your old partner out there have a habit of pissing people off.”

  I huffed and got up from my chair. “You’re one to talk.”

  “Just as I thought,” he said to my back as I walked out of his office, “nothing’s changed with your shitty attitude.”

  5

  LEONARD PICKED UP the phone and recognized the scratchy voice on the other end. It was the voice of a man he’d met shortly after being released from Raiford. The nameless, right-hand man of the Irish mob boss, a thin, pockmarked man whose shellacked black hair was fashioned to withstand a category five hurricane, and whose eyes bugged out of his head like Marty Feldman’s in Young Frankenstein.

  The boss, Mr. Patrick McFarland, would never be the one to call; he had made that clear during the initial meeting. His assistant would make all necessary contact. Whatever the assistant told him, Leonard was to take it as if it came from the burning bush. Leonard recalled picturing the pockmarked man on fire when the boss had said it. The nameless man had glared back at him with his malicious eyes, as if the stare was meant to intimidate him. The wannabe goombah motherfucker was lucky they were in the boss’s office, not walking the yard at Raiford. Leonard didn’t like the man from the first time they met.

  “Is it done, the job?” he asked.

  “Of course it’s done. You said have it done by—”

  “I know what I fucking said. Do I need you to tell me what I fucking said? No, I don’t. I don’t need you to tell me anything. Now, do you want to shut the fuck up and listen?”

  Leonard didn’t respond. He didn’t like being talked to this way, no matter who was speaking. He tossed a burning cigarette butt out the window and forced a plume of smoke from his lungs.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. It was done over the weekend, what, three, four days ago.”

  “Okay, boss just wanted to make sure it was completed. Can you take another?”

  “It’s what I do, right?”

  There was a long pause. Leonard pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. The call still showed on the screen. He thought that meant they were still connected, but he wasn’t sure, not yet very familiar with cell phones.

  His contempt for this assistant could not be concealed. The whole arrangement should be a simple one. Someone tells him who to kill, where to find said target, and it’s a done deal. How difficult could it be? The last had been a woman. The client wanted a souvenir. Okay, fine. Leonard didn’t ask questions. Whatever you want, you kinky bastard. Done. Next?

  After a moment, the assistant said, “You’ll get the details, same way as before. Check your box in two days. Oh—hey, you still with me?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “You got the souvenir he asked for, right?”

  Leonard’s eyes drifted away from a boy who walked with his mother into a market. He now looked up through the window into a clear blue sky. “Yes, I have the souvenir.”

  “Okay, send it to our box right away, and don’t forget.”

  Leonard rolled his eyes behind dark sunglasses. “Yeah, I know, you told me.”

  After disconnecting, Leonard took a swig from a bottle of Cuervo Especial he had concealed in brown paper. It was pretty good, after a couple swigs. He hadn’t consumed alcohol before going to prison, but there he was introduced to pruno, prison liquor made from fruits, sugar, and water, usually in a Ziplock bag. It almost always tasted terrible, but he enjoyed the high he experienced. Now he was experimenting, trying to find a drink that tasted good to him. He didn’t like beer—he had tried different ones—so he decided on liquor. So far, he had tried rum, tequila, brandy, and a couple of different whiskeys. He thought tequila would be his go-to.

  He waited until the woman reappeared with the young boy. Now she was pushing a cart full of grocery bags. He watched her load them into a car, and when she took the cart away, the boy stood waiting. Alone. Vulnerable. Easy prey.

  Leonard started his car. He put the cap on his bottle and set it aside. He looked both directions and then turned in the opposite direction from where the boy stood. As he drove away, it hit him: the bitch had reminded him of his mother.

  6

  THE NEXT MORNING, I walked into Unsolveds to find Davey Lopes sitting at his desk with papers and files scattered about. He looked over the top of his glasses.

  “Ready to go?”

  “Oh shit, I totally forgot. Let me check with Cortez, see what he has going. I’m supposed to be working with him and White on that Santa Clarita case now, per your captain.”

  He sneered. “You mean working with Cortez.”

  “Cortez and White. They caught it together.”

  “You mean working with Cortez,” he repeated, now with a smirk on his face.

  “Sorry, I’m a little slow this morning. Yeah, I guess that would be the case.”

  “That’s why Captain put you on it. Otherwise—if it was just him and White—Ray would be working it alone.”

  “I hear there’s a lot of heat coming down from Santa Clarita. The sheriff has his eye on this one.”

  Lopes stood and started gathering his files, tucking them one at a time into a soft-sided leather briefcase. “You better stay then. Stover will shit a brick if you go for a road trip with me when
you’re supposed to be helping Ray.”

  He was right. I had looked forward to the trip and was disappointed that I wasn’t going. I enjoyed Lopes’s company, and I always enjoyed a road trip, but working a good case trumped all.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  Lopes grabbed his jacket and started for the door. “No worries, man. Have fun, I’ll see you tomorrow. I have a private plane to catch.”

  When Raymond Cortez came in he asked if I was ready to get started. He said he had interviews lined up with family members of the missing woman. I thought it interesting he didn’t refer to the family members as the family of his murder victim. He seemed to be cautious, if only subconsciously, to not assume they were one and the same, the missing person and the murder victim. To his credit, there was yet to be a positive identification to link the two together. The physical evidence would strongly suggest the dead lady was the missing person, but we would tiptoe around the topic with the family when it came up. Which it would.

  We loaded up in his sedan, a Crown Vic like most of the cars in the lot. This one was blue. As I settled into the passenger’s seat, I asked, “White’s not going?”

  “I haven’t seen him yet. We wait for him, we won’t get anything done.”

  I sensed the underlying meaning and thought of Lopes’s comments. “What’s up with that?”

  He turned out of the parking lot, headed north on Eastern Avenue and moved over for a turn onto Bandini, which he would take over to the Long Beach Freeway north. He glanced over through mirrored shades. “He’s a lazy fuck is what’s up with that.”

  There was no reason to argue, or even reply.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Dickie, to be honest. I figured I was going to be working this one alone. When I heard you were going to be in Unsolveds for a while, I asked Stover if I could steal you.”

  I looked over at him and smiled. “That asshole.”

  “What?”

  “He made it out to be his idea. Said the sheriff is on his balls, Santa Clarita’s lost its mind. He had the audacity to say he needed to talk to you about it first, make sure you’d be okay working with me, like I’m a problem child or something.”