by Linda Ladd
Bud shrugged. “Could be a jealousy thing, I guess. If she took Jonesy’s name already.”
“She did.” Claire turned to Shaggy. “Is Buck still back there?”
“Yeah.”
They left Shaggy with his grotesque specimens and found Buckeye right next door, standing at a stainless steel autopsy table. Their victim was laid out on her back, her head on a molded plastic block. She was completely nude, and Buck was examining the sutures of the Y cut. Buck sewed up corpses with the precise stitches of a Calvin Klein seamstress. A regular Betsy Ross, he was—but only on cold, dead flesh.
He glanced up from his work. “Hey, Claire, come over here. I want you to see this wound. Did Shaggy tell you about the dog tag?”
“Yes, and it’s pretty damn gruesome, I’ve got to admit.”
“Cruel, is what it is. Sorry I went ahead with the cut, but I’m out of here after we get all the reports done—if our flight doesn’t get snowed in.”
Bud was staring down at the body. “I wasn’t expecting this one to get this kinky. I thought it was gonna be a run-of-the-mill murder by a blunt instrument. Theatrical, true, but this sounds to me like we’ve got us a real nutcase. One who likes to play games.
“Let me show you where he forced that thing all the way down into her stomach.”
Bud and Claire stood silently, grimacing in tandem as Buck pointed a gloved finger at a small, round cavity in the girl’s upper abdomen. Looked like something a drill would make, and what an awful thought that was. He pulled the edges open with his fingers. Such a gaping hole in her stomach was not a sight they’d easily forget, no matter how hard they tried. Claire’s gaze didn’t linger long on that ugly wound. She got the idea. If the girl was alive when he jammed that dog tag through her body, it must have been excruciating. She got a clear visual of the act, and then shoved it out of her mind. But why would anyone do something that unnecessary? It had to be a daddy thing, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. She’d hoped Shaggy was wrong, that the girl had been bludgeoned first and died instantly, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t happened that way. If Shaggy was right, this young woman had suffered—the killer had made sure she had.
Instead, Claire studied the dead woman’s face. She was definitely the young girl in Jonesy’s photograph, there was no doubt in her mind. But they didn’t have to tell Jonesy about the dog tag. No way would Claire do that to him. Heather Jax looked halfway peaceful now, since Buckeye had closed the eyelids of that empty, staring gaze. She had barely been old enough to vote, and she’d died for a killer’s warped pleasure. Life was not fair. Life was a crapshoot, and always had been. Or just plain crap, in this instance.
Her baby’s life had been short, too. Zachie never made it to preschool, never swung a bat, never drove a car. He had only lived to celebrate two birthdays. Claire turned away from the table, shoved down hard on rising emotions. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Don’t picture him in your mind. But she did. Standing up in his crib and sucking on his pacifier and pulling his red wagon around the house. Don’t remember him hugging you so tightly around the neck. Oh, God help her, she had to get a grip. She was working a murder. She tried to remember the coping mechanisms that Black had taught her. Most of the time they worked okay, but not today. She forced herself to listen to what Bud was saying.
“Find anything else that’ll help us?”
Buckeye said, “She’s got that reaper tattoo, but I found another one that’s a bit unusual. Maybe you could get an ID off it.”
“I know what the reaper stands for,” Claire told them. “Jonesy’s got one, too. It’s his band’s logo.”
“I think I remember that now, come to think of it,” Bud said.
“Well, I found another one.” Buckeye lifted the girl’s right hand. He pulled apart the thumb and forefinger and revealed the web of skin. A tattoo was etched there. Two tiny letters: JJ. Meaning Jonesy Jax, no doubt. It was an interesting place to have them inked. Nobody would see it unless she spread her fingers apart.
“A tribute to her dad?” Bud said. “Before he owned up to it?”
Claire pulled over Buckeye’s magnifying glass and examined the tat closely. “Got to be. Maybe she did it when she found out he was her real father but before she decided to contact him. Maybe she didn’t want some possessive or jealous stepfather to see it. Or boyfriend.”
Buckeye stretched tired muscles and snapped off his gloves. “I’m ready to get out of here. This was a bad one.”
Claire could relate. A nice warm beach a thousand miles away from this morgue and its foul odors sounded damn good to her. “Maybe you could catch a late flight, Buck. Charlie would okay that, I bet.”
“He’s way too ill right now to care about my time off, one way or another. First time I remember him getting down with the flu this bad. I hope to heck we can get out of here, though. I’ve had enough of this snow and ice to last me a lifetime.” He shook his head. “So she really was that rock star’s kid? And he’s now gonna live here, on our lake, and make trouble for everybody? You met him?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I even got the dubious pleasure of meeting his girlfriend—a sassy little vixen by the name of Candi Kisses.” The two men laughed together. Claire frowned. “I guess we shouldn’t make fun of him. He was planning his first Christmas with his newfound daughter out in that mansion in Cliff Point, but this murder ended that storybook happily-ever-after. I’m telling you, he loved this girl, I don’t care how long he knew her. He pretty much fell apart right in front of us.”
Buck clicked off the bright light over the table. “We can have the autopsy reports on your desk by late this afternoon.”
“Okay, good luck getting down to the islands.”
Buckeye nodded and turned to wash his hands. Bud and Claire walked out of that cold and dreary place, glad they could get away from that mutilated body and breathe in some cold, fresh air. Morgues—and everything about them—sucked.
Play Time
The first redheaded girl in a short skirt that Junior and Lucky found as they cruised up and down the dark roads in and around the UCLA campus turned out to be a young prostitute plying her trades right outside the south campus gate. She didn’t appear to be a coed, not unless she was moonlighting for tuition, which could have very well been the case. It had happened before. The important thing was that she was pretty good-looking, a hooker on the prowl who met their designated description. She wore black fishnets, firetruck-red six-inch heels, and a short white skirt that showed off some shapely legs. Her top was low enough to reveal two other impressive attributes that they both deemed highly important. As they drove slowly past her in Junior’s red Mercedes, she smiled and waved at them by lifting the hem of her skirt—which pretty much did the trick. Yes, they liked that about her.
“What’d you think, Junior?”
“I think she just looks good enough to eat. She’s a little-bitty thing, too, so she shouldn’t cause us much trouble if she starts fighting. She’ll probably be too scared, though.”
“Okay, she fits the criteria, so let’s do her. We can get us a college kid next time if she’s not enrolled. This is only a trial run, anyway. Who knows, maybe she goes to classes in the daytime.”
Junior drove the length of the block and turned the car around in a private driveway. Then he came back and stopped right in front of the willing young woman. She looked older than they’d first thought. Still in her twenties, or most likely thirties. Like a graduate student, maybe. Junior hoped she was in college. He wanted to keep to their plans and make their board choices sacrosanct. He was anal that way. But whatever, she did meet most of their standards. So Lucky slid down his passenger window and called to her. Junior decided that she was really good-looking under all the makeup she was wearing. More important, it would be easy to crack her skull with the heavy silver candlestick they’d chosen as a weapon, the one his mom always used in the m
iddle of the table at Christmas dinner. They needed to get her inside the car and back home quickly and efficiently, before anybody saw them talking to her, much less saw her getting into the car. He decided that they needed to buy an old car in which to pick up their victims, one that wouldn’t be so easy to identify.
“Hey, handsome,” she said to Lucky, leaning down close so he could look down her blouse. Junior could smell her perfume all the way over on the driver’s side. She smelled damn good. Nice and sweet. He thought he recognized the scent as Juicy Couture, because his mom used to wear that sometimes. Now the little redhead was smiling across the seat at him. “Oh wow, this is my lucky day. Two hot guys in a hot car.”
“You do two at a time?” Junior asked.
“I do two and three and sometimes four, baby. But it’ll cost you double for the both of you. Triple if you want a threesome.”
“Yeah? How much?”
“A hundred bucks each for an hour, higher if you want some kink thrown into the mix.”
“Seems a tad pricey to me. Think you’re worth that much?”
She only laughed and shook those long russet-red curls. That’s when Junior thought she might have on a wig. Her hair just looked too perfect. “I’m worth a lot more than that. I hone my talents. You’ll see.”
Lucky was still looking down her gaping blouse. “I think you’re exactly what we’ve been looking for, baby.”
“Yeah, me too,” agreed Junior. “Climb in. We want to go somewhere nice and private. Campus cops patrol around here.”
The redhead climbed into the back seat, raring to go, it seemed. Probably envisioning lots of dollar signs. Junior glanced at Lucky and smiled, and then he took off. He made sure he did not exceed the speed limit. It was late now, well after midnight. He took as many side streets as he could while Lucky flirted with the girl. He glanced back at her. “You okay with going to my house? Nobody’s home this weekend but us. We’ll have it all to ourselves.”
“How far is it?”
“Beverly Hills.”
“Really? You live there?”
“Yeah. I got lots of money.”
She looked skeptical, as if she didn’t believe him. “So tell me what you’ve got in mind. There are some things I won’t do. No exceptions.”
“Don’t worry. We aren’t weirdos. We like to play strip poker with girls like you, you know, the pretty ones.” Lucky rested his arm on the seat and looked back at her. “You up for some fun and games first?”
“Sure, I like to play games.” She giggled a little. She might even be in her mid-thirties, Junior thought. But she was still really cute. They had lucked out this first time around.
“What’s your name?” Lucky asked her.
“Rosie.”
“That your real name?”
“You don’t get to know my real name.”
“That’s okay. You don’t get to know ours, either. You work the streets every night around campus?”
“Unless I’ve got a final or something the next morning.”
Junior and Lucky looked at each other again. So she was a college student after all. After that, Junior picked up speed, getting eager. He hit an on-ramp and headed for home. When they entered the quiet streets of his exclusive neighborhood, Rosie appeared impressed. “You guys must be as rich as Mark Wahlberg, living in houses like these.”
“Yeah, we pretty much are. Maybe you’ll get a big tip if you do things our way.”
“No problem. I can stay as long as you want. But it’ll cost you. I’m short on tuition.”
“No problem,” said Junior. “We’re both loaded.”
By the time they got Rosie the Hooker down into the game room, Junior was beside himself and antsy with anticipation. They had planned it all out in specific detail while they’d driven around eating pepperoni pizza. They had made up some game cards to play, cards that listed which piece of clothing the player who drew it had to take off. Once he’d seen how enticing her body was, he wanted the game to last longer before they revealed their true intent. But killing her was their objective, so that’s what had to take priority over other prurient pleasures. They could find a call girl any day, but murder was the goal tonight—and that was pretty damn erotic. At least, it was to Junior.
The three of them sat down together at the round game table in the center of the basement. Rosie kept looking at Junior, even more than she looked at Lucky. That was unusual. Girls always looked at Lucky the most, and told him what pretty eyes he had and how handsome he was. She had great eyes, too, big and black and so heavily drenched with black eyeliner and black shadow and false eyelashes that it was hard to tell what they really looked like. Junior was pretty sure her hair wasn’t naturally red. It really did look like a wig, now that he saw her close-up. At first, he found that disconcerting. If she wasn’t a natural redhead, that would disqualify her from one of the major requirements they’d deemed necessary for their victim. Then again, he guessed it didn’t really matter. She was gonna have red hair at the moment of death, and that was the important thing.
“What kind of poker do you guys play? Five card draw? Texas Hold’em?” she asked. “I like them all.”
Lucky laughed. “We usually just skip the poker and get down to the stripping part.”
“Sounds okay to me.” She reached under the table and squeezed Junior’s thigh, up high, where it counted. He was already incredibly turned on by the idea of murdering her in cold blood, and her familiarity and obvious come-on just made it that much more intense. He’d never picked up a hooker off the street before. Not like Lucky had. Lucky liked to boast about the hookers he’d had, and he bragged about never having to pay them a penny. Junior was pretty sure he was lying about his prowess, though.
Now Lucky was explaining the game to Rosie. “Okay, we’re just gonna draw one of these cards right here, the black ones, and do what it says. Okay?”
“Sure. Sounds like fun. It’s your money.”
“All right then, you go first. You know, we’re gentlemen. Ladies always go first.”
“Oh, wow, I do like manners in my johns. Don’t see all that many nice guys like you, not around campus. You sure you don’t want to just get it on? The three of us? I don’t think I’d have to pretend with you two.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet. But we can do that in a little while. I wanna play a game first.” Junior spoke the last part in a creepy voice. Rosie gave him a startled look, but didn’t seem to get the connection to the torture porn movies. Poor little thing, she had no idea what kind of horror was headed her way. But he couldn’t let himself feel any empathy for her. She was a means to the end. Besides, the die was cast. She was in the lion’s den with two very deadly and bloodthirsty big cats. That analogy made him smile.
“Okay, I’ll draw first,” she offered. “You boys got anything to drink?”
“How about a glass of champagne? We bought it to celebrate with you.”
“Really? What are we celebrating?”
“Oh, just the first step in a big project of ours.”
“I love champagne. I’ve only had it once, on New Year’s Eve.”
Junior went to the bar and poured them all champagne in his mom’s best crystal flutes. Rosie held hers up, examined the etching, and exclaimed over all the bubbles. She was coming across as a very innocent girl. After she took a drink, she put her glass down and reached for the top card of the stack. She had long nails painted dark blue. Junior was going to have to watch those nails when he grabbed her, or she would most certainly use them like talons and gouge his face. Girls always went for a guy’s eyes when he got too carried away.
“Why, look here, guys. This card says for me to take off my skirt.” Rosie jumped right up, eager as hell, it seemed, unzipped her tiny white leather skirt, and let it drop down to the floor around her feet. All she had on underneath it was a black garter belt and th
e fishnets. She looked as sexy as hell standing there in front of them. She was as pretty as the high-price girls they called in from time to time.
“Nice,” Lucky said. His tongue swiped over his lips. He found her desirable, too. “You look real good, Rosie.”
Junior could tell that he meant it. She was fine, and she was sexy, and she was ready to roll. A captive audience, in fact. For a second, he thought about taking advantage of her chosen profession and having a bit of fun before they did her, but then he realized that that wasn’t in the plan. They had to treat their new game in a businesslike manner if they wanted to succeed. This first selection was an important step. They had to do it well, do it together, and get away with it, without any hitches.
Junior elected to draw next. His card told him to remove his shoes. So he kicked off his black tasseled loafers.
Lucky’s card said to take off his shirt. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head, and Rosie reached over and rubbed her palms on his bulging pecs, then trailed her fingers down over his six-pack and below. Now Junior thought what a pity it was that she had to die tonight. She really was a nice girl, and smelled so great and sure as hell was hot to trot. Then again, she was nothing but a cheap streetwalker, so far beneath them that what did it really matter?
They joked and flirted with each other, and drank their bubbly and played the game for a while until each person had drawn twice and removed two articles of clothing. Then the girl drew the card for which Junior and Lucky had been waiting on pins and needles. “You just won a special surprise,” she read off the card. She looked at each of them in turn, smiling. “What’s this one mean? Do I get a bonus?”
“It means this,” Lucky said. “Watch closely now.”
Junior felt his muscles draw up and get all tense, and he veritably held his breath. Lucky leaned down under the table and got a firm grip on the heavy candlestick. It weighed at least five pounds and was almost a foot tall. Pure sterling silver. A pair of them had cost his mom a bundle at Tiffany’s. Junior sat tense and rigid as Lucky stood up and held it out for Rosie to see.