Kiss & Tell

by Luke Murphy

  ~ * ~

  It was well after dark when she came to. Generators had been brought in and portable lights set up to better see the scene.

  After he had freed Charlene and covered her, Darren had used his radio to call for help. The densely wooded area was now populated by half of the LA and Federal law enforcement units.

  A sheet was draped over Cooney’s body, and Darren was being put through the ringer by the investigative officers on the scene.

  Charlene watched from a nearby stump where she sat while being examined by a young African-American EMT. She pulled her knees tight to her chest under her chin, shivering from the cold of the moment.

  “We’ll need to get you back to the hospital. That nose looks pretty bad. It’s so far out of place that we might have to re-break it to set it. The bump on the top of your head and dilated pupils tells us that you could have a concussion. Expect some short-term memory loss from that.”

  “I want to see inside the cabin first,” Charlene answered.

  “Look, I think that your best bet is to go to the ER for—”

  “The cabin first,” Charlene stared at the EMT, who just shrugged.

  “Whatever.” The EMT left to pack up his things.

  When she noticed Darren finally alone, he looked at her and she motioned him over.

  “I guess you deserve a thank you,” she said, although it didn’t come easy for her.

  Darren smiled and blushed. “You’re welcome.”

  “How did you find me?” Charlene asked.

  Darren shrugged his shoulders. “I was heading in behind you when the cabin had been cleared. I saw you detour and head towards the woods. I remember your instinct from the Jackson case, so I followed you.”

  Images of the scene came and went, but were relived in foggy detail. Seeing Cooney’s initials, following the path, something coming down hard on the back of her head, being dragged through the forest, the confrontation, strapped to the tree. It all seemed so surreal now.

  She checked her watch. She couldn’t be certain because everything was a blur, but she could have sworn at least three hours had passed since her ordeal.

  Darren must have seen Charlene check her watch. “I couldn’t get to you any quicker. I had lost you at one point and then when I found you again, I had to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, to get Cooney in a vulnerable position, the safest way for you too. I had to make sure you were out of harm’s way before I countered.”

  Charlene nodded, although she was groggy and none of it made perfect sense to her at this point.

  “I want to see Cooney’s body,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “You okay, Detective?”

  Charlene looked up to find her captain standing behind her. She nodded. “I’ll survive.”

  “Good. Get to the hospital and get checked out. We’ll handle things on this end. Good work, Kid.” He started to walk away and thought of something. “I called Detective Baker and told him what happened. He wants you to call him when you can.”

  “Sure, thank you, Sir.”

  Charlene checked her pockets and then remembered that Cooney had smashed her phone.

  “Can I use your phone?” She extended her hand towards Darren and the officer handed it over.

  “Can I get some privacy?” Charlene asked.

  Darren nodded and backed away, turning to join a group that was hovering over Cooney’s body.

  She dialed Larry’s number and he answered on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Larry, it’s Charlene.”

  “I tried to call your phone but you wouldn’t pick up.” Upon hearing her partner’s grumpy voice, Charlene felt a warmth and coziness sweep over her. “You avoiding my calls?”

  “I’ve been kind of busy.”

  Then his tone softened. “The captain called and filled me in. You okay?”

  “I’ll get by.”

  “Do you need anything from me?”

  “No, Larry, I think I’ll manage, until you can get back on your feet.” But it felt good to hear him ask.

  “Well, don’t let this go to your head. Just because you stopped one of the most wanted serial killers in the history of the LAPD, don’t let it inflate your ego.”

  She laughed, which hurt her whole body. “I’ll try not to.”

  “Good, I’ll be back soon. Remember, you’re still number two. Great work, Kid.”

  “Thanks, Larry.”

  She hung up feeling better. She slipped the phone into her pocket and attempted to get up, which was a feeble effort.

  Darren returned, holding two steaming cups of coffee. Charlene waved it off. “I want to see Cooney.”

  She placed a hand on Darren’s shoulder for support and got to her feet. She felt like she was standing on rubber legs.

  He took Charlene softly by the arm and helped her limp across the grounds. Every part of her ached as she slowly made her way to a blanket-covered Cooney, sprawled out on the cold forest floor.

  Darren borrowed a flashlight from an on-scene officer. He knelt down and lifted off the blanket. Charlene remained standing and looked down.

  “What happened to his lip?” Darren asked from his knees.

  “Sharp incisors,” Charlene said, with no hint of a smile in her eyes. She inspected Cooney.

  Rigor mortis had set in. The bullet had pierced Cooney’s throat. His blood-stained hands were still on his neck, and coagulated blood had gathered at the openings. Cooney had tried to stanch the bleeding by pressing his palms against the wound. That’s why he’d only been able to sputter a few words before he started choking on his own blood. That was the gurgling sound she’d heard.

  “Through the throat.” Charlene noticed the bullet hole in the side of Cooney’s neck. “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks. Lucky one. I had to go for the kill shot. Couldn’t risk wounding him and having him pull a gun on you.”

  A second hole was between Cooney’s eyes.

  Charlene looked down on Cooney and didn’t see a weapon or holster. She thought of the game of cat and mouse they’d been playing, and this was the conclusion. It was still hard to believe.

  Standing over his dead body, she felt a cold resolve. Seeing Cooney now brought back a flood of memories from only moments ago and how close she’d come to death. Feeling lightheaded, she steadied herself against a tree.

  “I want to see the camp,” Charlene said.

  “Look, Chip, the EMT said you need to get to a hospital.”

  “Darren, I don’t think a broken nose, a bump on the head, and some scratches will put me in the ICU tonight. Do you?”

  Darren didn’t respond. They found an ATV and after receiving permission, headed back down the path towards the cabin.

  ~ * ~

  The cabin had a funny dream-like quality when she entered. As she walked through the Celebrity Slayer’s lair, she just couldn’t pick up the sense of the Slayer’s presence. It didn’t feel like his style.

  Maybe it was the fact that the cabin was overcrowded with professionals attempting to conduct searches and investigations. FBI, LAPD, CSI, SWAT, and anyone else they could find bunched into each room, taking inventory, dusting, collecting evidence, and doing whatever else they could to chip in. This was a big one.

  There was barely enough room to move, and any form of contact sent a shock bolt of lightning pain through her whole system.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Chip?” Darren asked for the fourth time. “You don’t look good.”

  Charlene nodded as she entered another room. “I know the guy I talked to. Our conversations were personal, almost intense to the point of erotic. This furniture,” she pointed around the inside of the camp, “it’s so impersonal and plain.”

  “The FBI is calling Cooney a psychopath, so there probably is no rhyme to his reason.”

  The stripped wooden floors were badly scratched and the rustic cupboards were lined with old findings like kerosene lamps, tin pots, and hunti
ng survival supplies. Dirty dishes were scattered across the counter and on an old white, two-burner stove.

  They left the main floor and took a set of stairs down to the dank cellar. Charlene spoke as they moved. “And the way Cooney spoke to me out there, showed nothing of the person I spoke with on the phone. The guy I conversed with had a passion to him, a sensual fire in him like he knew how to talk and treat a woman. Cooney was like an angry, wild animal.”

  “He knew he was going to be caught, and you did rip off his bottom lip. Maybe he felt at that point he had nothing to lose,” Darren said.

  “Maybe,” Charlene answered, but she wasn’t buying it.

  They walked through the basement and found a team of technicians examining the woman’s mangled body, or the pieces that Cooney had left behind to be attended to.

  The victim had been hogtied to a chair in front of a stone fireplace. She had been so close to the fire that the hairs on her arms had been singed off. The room still smelled of her sizzled flesh.

  “Any idea who she is?” Charlene asked.

  Darren shook his head. “Not yet. Might never know. We have very little to work with. But they’ll do what they can with what is available and run a cross reference check with missing persons. Hopefully they will find out, and someone somewhere will get some closure.”

  Charlene knew that the victim had been a heavy meth or heroin addict from the multiple track marks on her arms. Her eyes were deep set and almost black. She had multiple piercings—snake bites under her bottom lip, a curved barbell in her left eyebrow, and several ear rings, big and small, in both ears.

  “TOD determined?”

  Darren shook his head. “ME will have to check on time of death when we get her back. Looks pretty fresh though.”

  Charlene nodded. She had seen enough, plus she physically ached.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 33

  After surgery to repair a broken nose, a zipper of stitches on the top of her head, tender ribs bandaged, scratches, cuts, and burns creamed and wrapped, and a prescription for enough drugs to tranquilize a small horse, Charlene was released from the hospital the following evening with only a minor concussion diagnosed. They’d kept her in for twelve hours as a precautionary measure.

  It took some persuasive talking for her mother to let Charlene stay at her own place without a chaperone. She was given time off from work, but something was eating at her.

  After stopping at the pharmacy to fill her prescription, she arrived home and immediately ignored the do not take with alcohol label on the pill bottles. She opened a bottle of beer and used it to chase a few of the anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, and painkillers.

  She dropped on the futon and rested her head, visions of Cooney dancing in her brain. She squirmed under a blanket and pulled it up to her chin, gripping it tight while shivering.

  He isn’t right.

  How could Sean Cooney, the disgusting, low-life, sleaze-ball who tried to rape her in the woods, be the same guy who she spoke to so frequently on the phone? Did she have no sense of the Celebrity Slayer at all? Could she not characterize a suspect, picture and profile the kind of man she thought he had been? Had she just fantasized about him, wanted him to be a certain way to appease her own way of thinking?

  She let out a breath and took another drink, allowing time for the booze and pills to kick in. She closed her eyes and saw Cooney’s face, a mask of terror, a beast who thought of women as garbage, only meant to be on this earth to satisfy his insatiable desires.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” she said to herself.

  Everyone seemed to think Cooney was the perfect suspect, as Darren had said, Taylor-made to fit the profile.

  Darren.

  Charlene smiled when she thought about him now. Had she been underestimating him this whole time? He seemed to have something about him now.

  Was she really starting to have feelings for Darren after his relentless pursuit? Or was she just in a vulnerable state, and this was some sort of gratitude to Darren for saving her life? Was she hero struck? Charlene fidgeted on her seat cushion, a strange desire rising from within her.

  She erased Darren from her thought process and moved back to Cooney.

  She called Larry’s cell. “It’s me.”

  “I heard you did good, Kid.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not feeling it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Charlene told Larry about her doubts, about her frequent conversations that didn’t add up, and her gut feeling that it wasn’t Cooney.

  Larry sighed. “You know what your father used to tell me, Kid? You find the truth by following your emotions.”

  ~ * ~

  She found herself back at Cooney’s hunt camp. She hadn’t remembered much about the drive, the pills and booze kicking into overdrive and slowly turning her into a walking zombie. But this wasn’t the first time she’d had to manage on a buzz.

  Her body screamed in defiance as she slowly, unsteadily pulled herself from the car. The cabin had yet to be cleared, there was still work to be done, but at least now Charlene could walk through it alone. She scoped the whole place again, without touching anything—seeing it clearly for the first time as it had been left by Cooney.

  As she moved around, she felt the phone on her hip vibrate. She checked caller ID and saw her mother’s cell number.

  She answered. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Honey, how are you feeling?” Her mother’s voice sounded sad.

  “I’m fine. Just relaxing.” Charlene continued to walk the cabin.

  “Let me guess…on the futon, legs up, watching the Dodgers game.”

  “How did you guess?” Charlene asked.

  “That’s funny,” her mother said, “Because I’m standing in your apartment right now.”

  Charlene squeezed her eyes shut. “Sorry, Mom, I just had to step out.”

  “Please call me when you get home, honey.”

  “I will, Mom, I promise.”

  Charlene hung up and looked at her new phone. Although her other one had been smashed to pieces by Cooney, a communications technician in the department had been able to save all of her data and contacts and transfer it to a new one while she was in the hospital.

  She trudged through slowly, jumping at the smallest noise or shadow. Her nerves were frayed.

  She didn’t notice anything on her first swipe, so she snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, delving a little deeper.

  She checked each room methodically, flipping each bedroom, cleaning out closets, running along crevasses, and searching waste baskets. She was looking for any kind of connection between Sean Cooney and the Celebrity Slayer, to either dispel or prove her theory that Cooney wasn’t the Slayer.

  She was going through the bookshelf when she stopped, terror seizing her. On the third row, fourth book from the left, was a hard cover copy of the entire volume of Brownstone’s Police Manuals. It wasn’t the fact that Cooney had these books in his library—most of the cops on the force owned a set. So it was no wonder they were over-looked by the crime scene team as potentially significant.

  It was the fact that the spine on all four of these paperback had been stained. The same coffee stain Charlene had mistakenly deposited on her father’s set of manuals twenty-years ago as he was studying to become a detective.

  Were these her father’s books?

  Charlene removed the first manual and flipped it open to the introduction page and written in perfect penmanship at the top of the page was an inscription.

  To Marty,

  Good luck, make us proud.

  Love Brenda, Jane, and Charlene

  There was no mistaking her mother’s penmanship. These were her father’s books, but how did Cooney come to have them? Had he borrowed them to study for the detective exam? Did he steal them from her dad’s desk at the precinct? Did he take them after he’d killed her father? There was no way for Charlene to ever find out.

  Charlene was thumbing th
rough the manual when something slipped from between the pages and fell to the ground. She bent over and picked up a black and white, four-by-six photo that looked to be at least thirty years old.

  It was a picture of a stunning, breathtakingly beautiful woman. She was well made up, with an old-fashioned, V-neck cut gown and a pearl necklace with matching earrings. Her hair was in a tight bun, accentuating her long, smooth, graceful neck, high cheekbones and clear, milky skin. She had over-plucked eyebrows and was posing like a model or actress, without actually looking at the camera.

  The writing on the back of the photo told Charlene that the woman’s name was Deloris. But that was all it said.

  Charlene turned the picture back over and stared at the woman. There was something eerily familiar about her. Charlene had seen her somewhere before.

  What was her connection to Cooney? Was she a wife, mother, lover, sister, aunt, daughter? In the files, Cooney was said to be unmarried with no children. The AIC mentioned that he allegedly had a girlfriend a long time ago.

  She tucked the photo into her coat pocket and placed the books at the entrance, to return to their rightful owner…her mother.

  After thoroughly searching the rest of the cabin, Charlene gave up, frustrated and sore. The pills were starting to wear off and she needed to get off her feet with a drink and a fresh dose of meds.

  ~ * ~

  Charlene lay on her futon watching the Dodger’s game. Her legs were outstretched, and she had a cold drink in her hand. She had eaten a big supper, taken her regular dosage of pills, and was finally physically relaxed for the first time in weeks.

  But mentally, she just couldn’t get there. She thought more about Sean Cooney and the Celebrity Slayer, and the more she thought of it, even though she had no proof, the surer she was that Cooney wasn’t the Celebrity Slayer.

  He just hadn’t done enough in those woods to show Charlene he was the same man she had spoken to. His personality didn’t fit. He wasn’t smooth or patient. He was the total opposite of what Charlene was expecting.

  And what about when he called her by her name? On the phone, he had called her Charlie. He knew that was what her father had called her and knew it upset her. In the woods, Cooney had called her Charlene.