The Tangerine Killer

by Claire Svendsen

  “Well you thought you were in trouble so you went to Sam instead of coming here to the police. Now why would you do that?”

  “I was scared.”

  “Too scared to come to us?”

  Jill nodded.

  “What if, hypothetically speaking, you were being followed?”

  “What do you mean hypothetically? I was being followed,” Jill shouted.

  “Okay. You were being followed, you were afraid for your life and yet you went to see Sam. Why?”

  “She’s smart and she knows things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  I felt sick as I listened. Olin’s questioning sounded like an easy way for Jill to frame me. I collapsed onto a chair and prayed he knew what he was doing.

  “Well, she does things for people.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “She finds people,” Jill paused. “I think sometimes she makes them disappear too.”

  My heart practically leapt right out of my chest. I eyed the door. How long would it take me to make it out of the building? I’d left my damn car back at the motel. I would have to make a run for it, call a cab when I got out of sight. But as I listened it seemed Olin wasn’t interested in pursuing a line of questioning about my work or my dubious past.

  “Do you think she knew about you and Frank?”

  Jill’s face flushed red. “What about me and Frank?”

  “You know,” Olin leant forward on the table. “The sex part.”

  “Adultery isn’t illegal.”

  “No but it is a pretty good motive for murder.”

  “Murder? What murder?”

  “Lisa’s murder.”

  “Lisa committed suicide.”

  Why was she lying? She already told me she thought Lisa had been murdered. Or was that a lie too? I watched Olin as he considered Jill for a moment. Then he leant in and whispered softly.

  “That’s what I thought, until I had the body exhumed.”

  TWENTY TWO

  “You had the body exhumed?” I asked Olin.

  “I did.”

  “But you said you didn’t have enough evidence.”

  “I said I didn’t have enough evidence right then and there. I didn’t say I wouldn’t get that body out of the ground as soon as I could.”

  We were back in Olin’s Escalade and I had no idea where we were going. I wasn’t used to tagging along. I was always the one in charge. I picked at a loose thread on my shirt and tried not to act sullen. Olin had refused to take me back to the motel. I got the feeling he was afraid to let me out of his sight.

  “Am I in serious danger?” I blurted out. “Because I can take care of myself you know.”

  “That’s debatable. Every time we meet something has happened to you.”

  “But I’ve come out on top every time,” I joked.

  “Only just.”

  He was right. The town was bad for me. It pulled me off focus. I knew I wasn’t playing my best game. It was just sheer luck I hadn’t landed in the hospital or the morgue.

  “So where are you taking me?”

  “Back to the scene of the crime.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “The one that started it all.”

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “You really had Lisa’s body exhumed?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  I was impressed. Sure he could have avoided the whole exhumation thing by stopping the burial but even I knew a threatening note wasn’t enough to get a warrant. Now that note had weight to it.

  “So how did she die?”

  “My theory is that she was held underwater until she drowned. Her body was then left in the river where it floated downstream and eventually washed ashore in the place where you found it. But that wasn’t where she was murdered and it’s not the place we are looking for.”

  “What about the evidence on the body?”

  “There wasn’t any, that’s why I had the body exhumed. I want my forensic pathologist to take a look. The coroner down at the county morgue has been on the job for fifty years and is coming up for retirement. He just shuffles the bodies through there as fast as he can. Trouble is you really can’t distinguish between an accidental drowning, suicidal drowning or murder anyway but I want my guy to take a closer look. He knows his stuff.”

  “So what makes you think it was murder?”

  “A hunch,” he said.

  It took ten minutes to get to the river. Ten minutes which we both spent in silence. At one point I felt myself drift off into the first waves of sleep. The late nights were starting to take their toll. I jolted back to reality. There was no way I was going to let Olin think I couldn’t take the pressure. I wound down my window to wake myself up and the air whipped tears from my eyes. The sound of the river greeted us before the water came into sight. Crashing and moaning with a dull roar.

  “It’s angry,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Are we here?”

  “Yes.”

  I saw the clearing where I first spotted Lisa’s abandoned car and the little bridge she was supposed to have jumped from.

  “Why did the detectives think she jumped?” I asked.

  “They found a small strip of cloth from Lisa’s dress, caught on one of the railings. We thought that happened when she stepped over to jump but I think it was planted.”

  “Smart.”

  “Too smart,” Olin agreed.

  He pulled in behind a dozen other cars. Crime scene investigators scuttled about with jars and bags, collecting evidence. Detectives stood around examining maps of the area. The river ran through the national forest, the woods were thick and scrubby with sparse clearings where campers pitched their tents and high school kids made out. I had camped there once. It hadn’t been a very pleasant experience.

  “So why do you need me here?” I kept my voice low as we made our way toward the gathering.

  “You found the body.”

  “So?”

  “You were first on the scene. You saw everything there was to see.”

  “So did you. I didn’t move her if that’s what you think.”

  “No, listen,” he pulled me to one side, his hand on my arm. “When you’re the first to see a scene, you really see it. You look on it with a unique perspective because you didn’t expect it to be there and from that point on everyone else who comes knows what they are going to see. It forms certain prejudices in their mind. They can’t help it, that’s just what happens. I need you.”

  “Well, if you need me,” I said.

  “Don’t make me regret it,” he pulled my arm playfully. “Now come on.”

  TWENTY THREE

  He knows the slippery detective finally figured out the first suicide was no such thing but he’s smug in the knowledge that the revelation came too late. The embalmer and the mortician will have removed any trace evidence from the body that the river had not washed away, evidence that has now been lost forever. Of that he can be sure.

  However he did not expect the slick dick to monopolize his girl. If he sticks to her like glue then it will make the extraction far more complicated than he’s anticipated. Now he has taken her to the river. They haven’t hit the spot but they aren’t far off. It won’t take much for them to find it but that’s all right. He has planned for this scenario just in case. It always pays to be prepared. He’s left just enough to tease them with. He’ll have them running round in circles. They’ll never figure out his clues.

  He’s moving up the rehearsal. It will give the dick something else to focus his attentions on. In fact if he plays his cards right then perhaps he will abandon his protective role altogether, leaving Sam vulnerable when he needs her to be.

  He watches the whore Jill as she leaves the police station. He knows she is drained from the way she shuffles along to her car. She’s sweaty and shaking. Her hand trembles as she reaches for the door handle. A couple of her drug dealer friend’s drop it off for her
an hour earlier. She sits behind the wheel, rifling the car for a hit. She can’t find anything. She hits the steering wheel in desperation and starts to cry, then finally drives away. He knows where she’ll go. She’s weak. Distracted. He knows they kept questioning her for hours, hoping to get a confession for something she didn’t actually do. They never had enough evidence to charge her. He knew they would let her go and so he watches and follows as she drives away.

  When she is finally out on a quiet country road he pulls up behind her, flashing his lights and honking his horn. At first she does nothing and then she speeds up a little. He begins to wonder if the plan will really work but then she finally pulls over onto the sandy shoulder. He will coax her out of the car with the lure of showing her a flat tire. He holds the roll of orange tape concealed in his hand, tape he will use to bind her hands and stifle her cries. Tape he will later use to piece together the skin he lifts from her body.

  He can’t seem to wipe the smile from his face as he embarks on his trial run.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Olin may have wanted me there but everyone else was pissed about it. I stood off to the side under the canopy of an old oak and watched as Olin tried to smooth things over.

  I thought of Lisa on her last day. Why would she drive out to the woods alone? It didn’t sound like the Lisa I knew, the one who’d been afraid of her own shadow. I shivered despite the warm air and looked away.

  I closed my eyes and placed myself in Lisa’s shoes. If I had been the one in danger and I couldn’t get back to my car, I would have run off into the woods in the hope of losing my attacker in the trees. All the officers were concentrating on the area surrounding the car and the land south of the river but I would have run upstream. The ground was harder, it didn’t sink underfoot like the soft sand downstream and there were rocks and boulders as the land swooped up an incline. I would have tried to lose my assailment over the rough terrain and perhaps hidden in one of the craters where the rain washed away the soil by the larger rocks. There were pockets in the scrub large enough for a person to lie in and with enough foliage pulled over, someone could walk by and never even know you were there.

  Olin still had his back to me. I couldn’t wait for him forever. I walked off in the direction I imagined Lisa would have taken.

  The river roared as I made my way through the path of least resistance. There were no visible footprints but it had rained since Lisa disappeared and the direction I was headed in still felt right. The scrub was sparse and I slipped through easily. Moss and mold filled my lungs. I almost heard her panicked footsteps as she ran, her breath fast and furious as she fought to get away.

  Then I saw it. The crow. It was perched on the limb of a tree and cocked its head curiously. Then it called out. That sound. The one I’d heard before. In nightmares and bad times. The soundtrack of every doomed thing that had ever happened to me. I glared at it. Willed the stupid bird to go away. It didn’t oblige. Instead it called to me again, then took off with a ruffle of feathers. Of course, like an idiot, I followed.

  I stumbled through the brush, heart pounding in my chest. Trying to keep up with the bird. Palm fronds blocked the way but I pushed them aside and then suddenly fell into a small clearing. The crow had settled on three rocks, set in the middle of the clearing and framed by orange tape. This was where Lisa came to die.

  I don’t know how long I stood there before I heard a voice in the distance.

  “Sam? Sam? Are you up here?”

  It was Olin, crashing through the brush like an angry bear.

  “Yes. Over here.”

  “You can’t just wander off like that.” He was breathless and flustered as he stumbled into view.

  “Careful. This is it.”

  “Well this is just going to piss them off all over again.”

  But he grinned and I could tell he was pleased. Despite the others reservations, I had found what we were looking for but it wasn’t going to win me any prizes.

  “Don’t think I knew this was here because I can assure you I didn’t.”

  “It’s okay, I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Of course you do, you’d be stupid not to but I assure you that my job was to find Lisa and I did, downstream. After that my contract was complete. I had no reason to look any further. I guess now I wish I had.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said.

  But it was hard not to. What else had I missed? I let my personal feelings about Tangerine and Lisa get in the way of my investigation. This time I really screwed up.

  I looked dismally at the scene before me, trying to piece together the clues laid out in the dirt by the river. Three rocks made up a triangle enclosing a small pile of bones, two twigs from a tree and a pile of oranges set in a pyramid. They had begun to decompose but the faint markings carved into the skins were still visible.

  “Well, it’s not much of a crime scene. It’s more like some sort of shrine,” Olin said.

  He crouched down for a closer look and pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket.

  “That might be a spot of blood over there,” I pointed to a dark patch in the sand.

  “But the victim didn’t have any cuts or abrasions.”

  “Lisa, her name was Lisa.”

  “I know,” he looked at me sadly.

  “Oh, I know,” I kicked a nearby tree in frustration. “This is why I never take on cases involving people I know.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because the last thing I ever said to Lisa was that I hoped she got what she deserved. It was fifteen years ago and I never thought about her again until I got that phone call from Frank.”

  “You can’t blame yourself, this isn’t your fault.”

  “I know.”

  But deep down I did feel responsible and I had to make it right. If helping to find Lisa’s killer settled the score in some way then perhaps I would feel better. I didn’t tell Olin I’d also taken the job to get away from Joe. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “I need to get the guys up here to photograph the scene.” Olin turned as he passed by me. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “I know. I won’t.”

  “Actually, perhaps you’d better come with me.”

  Olin had been right, on both counts. The investigators were not pleased I had inadvertently stumbled across the crime scene and several of them eyed me suspiciously. I felt like a suspect all over again. Olin defended me vehemently and I wondered when he had become my great defender. I didn’t need one. I was just as tough as he was but I knew cops had to hear it from other cops. So I kept my mouth shut and stayed out of the way as they swarmed onto the crime scene like greedy ants at a picnic.

  No stone was left unturned, no possible piece of evidence ignored. If there was anything that would indicate who Lisa’s killer was then they had it, stuffed into evidence bags and swabbed on the end of cotton sticks. Only time would tell if it was anything of worth. But it really didn’t matter. Whatever they found would be what the killer wanted. He wasn’t careless or stupid and this wasn’t a crime of passion or opportunity. This was something that had been carefully planned and plotted.

  “Jesus Christ!” A tech jumped back from the oranges, his face frozen in a horrified grimace.

  “I thought they were just oranges. I’ve never seen any shit like that before.”

  He had picked up the orange on top of the pyramid to put it in a bag but it disintegrated into a writhing mass of maggots and blood.

  “How the hell did they get inside there?” Olin poked the squirming mass with the tip of his pencil.

  “No clue man,” the tech answered. “But that’s some sick shit. Fucking Tangerine killer. ”

  “Well someone tell me how we can get the rest of the oranges back to the lab without them exploding like maggot piñatas?”

  Olin scanned the group waiting for a reply but everyone seemed mesmerized by the pile of maggots, which was now spreading out across the sand like a m
iniature tidal wave.

  “Come on people, quickly. And someone start collecting those before they get away, we need them too.”

  No one rushed forward to corral the maggots.

  TWENTY FIVE

  With the maggots contained in plastic evidence jars, Olin was all smiles. He joked with the techs and produced a box of glazed doughnuts for everyone to munch on. He handed me the last one and smiled but there was something behind his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Suddenly I didn’t feel like eating the doughnut.

  I found a tree stump off to the side and held my doughnut between a finger and thumb like it was contaminated. Eventually I tossed it aside. I couldn’t eat now. I knew what had happened. I guess it was just a matter of time before someone at the crime scene told Olin who I really was.

  I smoked nervously and watched as the guys wrapped up their work. It was getting late in the day, the air starting to feel cool and damp. I wrapped my arms around myself and wished I’d brought a sweater. Perhaps if Olin hadn’t been told the truth then he would have offered me his jacket. I dug my toe into the soft earth, sulking. Did I think he wouldn’t ever find out? People liked to gossip. It was bound to happen eventually. Somewhere deep down inside I harbored the thought that maybe I would break my embargo on cops and sleep with him. Use him to take my mind off the rather pressing matter that some sicko wanted me dead. Now that rather pleasant daydream had just been smashed to smithereens.

  With the techs wrapping up the crime scene, we made our way back to Olin’s Escalade. I waited for him to say something but he didn’t. He just started the engine and pulled away. I sat quietly next to him feeling like the kid who just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer.

  “That was a lucky break huh?”

  He shrugged.

  “And what was up with those maggots?”

  Nothing. My voice sounded too high. I was forcing the words out, afraid of the moment that was bound to eventually come. It was no good. We were going to clear the air right then and there.