Lab techs crawled all over the crime scene; placing minute particles of everything they could scrape loose in tiny plastic bags and labeling them carefully. It was astonishing what they could find, and at times very nearly frightening what could not be hidden from their prying eyes and magnifying machines.
Tommy knew they were a necessary part of the investigation, but he couldn't help the sudden image of large insects scrabbling over a dead carcass that surfaced in his mind. He hoped the psychos were out of Raid.
"Christ," he muttered, reaching for the ever-present pack of ROLAIDS in his pocket. His stomach was the one part of his anatomy that had not hardened over all the years he'd been on the force. It rolled like a storm-tossed sea, and he knew he had to get moving.
He left the drudgework to those who knew it best, ignoring them and mentally scanning what facts he already had for possible motive or clue that might snap into focus. He motioned to Mac, calling him over with a shrug and a quick glance, and then began talking in the clipped, professional tones that told anyone who knew him, "no questions."
Waving vaguely in the direction of the body, he said, "I want you to stick with this one. Let me know what develops, and get me the reports as soon as you can. I'll be back at the office trying to figure out what to tell the Chief."
"Right," Mac nodded, turning back to the room quietly. Then he hesitated, turning back. "It's him again, isn't it? I mean, it's different, but it's him."
Tommy only nodded, and Mac turned away again, plodding into the swarming masses of blue shirts and lab coats with determination. Tommy watched him go, and then turned and left the room, shouldering his way through those at the door and fighting to gain his car before the press arrived.
They seemed to have God damned radar when he was involved in something, and he wasn't in the mood for their bullshit.
It's going to be a long God damned night, he thought, slipping behind the wheel of his cruiser and pulling back into traffic.
The city was coming to life all around him, the night people slipping back through the cracks and shadows that kept them safe during the hours of daylight, and the "citizens" opening doors, shutting off outside lights and flipping up blinds to let in the new day. He drove slowly, thinking and watching as those he protected took to the streets.
Somewhere out there, maybe that paper boy, or the guy down the street who sold the magazines, or even the old woman who sat in front of Multinerry's Thrift Store day in and day out, rocking and singing softly to herself, somewhere among them was another killer on the loose. A psycho with a camera and one hell of a grisly photo album accumulating, and Tommy was no closer to catching the guy then he had been after the first killing.
As he drove, he thought. It was an old habit, one gained by long years cruising the streets on patrol. His gaze was unfocused, yet watchful, scanning for the images on the periphery of his sight and searching for the insights on the periphery of his thoughts. Somewhere there was a connection his mind had not yet made. Somewhere in the seemingly insignificant pile of horseshit they'd found was a part of the answer.
Tommy relied heavily on hunches. It was a practice that had kept him alive where others had gone down hard. This time, he had another one. Something wasn't right. When he got that feeling, nothing could shake it. He could be staring down the most pat, open-and-shut case in the book, but if his mind screamed, or even whispered, that something was wrong, it would stay with him until he'd figured it out.
The case had all the ear-mark signs of your standard, door to door, foaming at the mouth psycho, right down to the note left for the fumbling, inept police on the mirror. The poetry was almost as bad as that of a Jack the Ripper, or a Zodiac. It was the work of a mind on the edge, a dangerous, overgrown child with a homicidal bend in his psyche. That was the problem. Something between the careful makeup, the dead girls, the suitcase full of dead boy and the freezer full of girl didn’t add up.
He went over every detail again, starting with the first girl, Belinda–Lindy–then moving to Cherie. The two had nothing at all in common. One was a young girl spending too much time on the street, the other a model, trying to make a name with one of the shadier talent agencies in the city and blowing any chance of success up her nose. No common link except beauty.
One had come from the local gentry, gone sour at an early age. The other had come from further away. He'd noticed that much right off. Cherie, whoever and whatever she might have been on top of it, was from out of town. Her veneer of "street" was way too thin. It didn’t help; there was still no connection.
What, then? What was he missing? What was it that was nagging at the back of his mind and wouldn't let him concentrate on the road in front of him? He ground his teeth together in frustration, dreading what he knew would be hours of nagging, irritating little barbs, dragging at his eyes, barring sleep.
It was nearly knock-off, and he headed in to the station house, dropped the cruiser at the motor pool and headed for his office. He needed to get away, to get a chance to think. There was something important dangling just out of his reach, and he needed very much to figure out what it was.
One look around the empty room and the ticking clock on the wall told him that he would find no answers behind his desk. He left a note for Mac and headed back out the door. It would take hours, maybe the rest of the evening, to straighten out the mess at that hotel and get the reports together. What Tommy wanted was peace, quiet, and a drink, or two drinks; a cold beer and a glass of scotch. He knew just the place to get them, too.
Big Sid's was the scene of more underground, behind the scenes action than any club in the city. From the street it wasn't much to look at, but that was the idea. If it hadn't been for the little things, the quality of the music, for example, or the size and dress code of the bouncers, it might have been mistaken for your average gin joint.
Tommy knew better, and any cop who'd been in the city more than a week did, too. It was part of the training, one of the first things you were indoctrinated into when you came to San Valencez. Without it, you knew nothing of the city.
He'd followed more than a couple of leads through those doors, questioned nearly every bartender and dancer who'd worked there in the past ten years at one point or another. There was never anything to tie the place in with the problems he'd investigated, nothing like that at all. It just seemed to attract the worst in the city, the darkest elements San Valencez had to offer.
The surface scene was calm. The music was the blues, and the band was the best Tommy had ever heard. They had a drummer named Leon who could have played solo and still drawn a crowd. The guitar man, Joey, though obviously a man who'd had his bouts with drugs and liquor, could bring words and emotions from the very pit of his mind, or from those of his audience, and send them vibrating softly from the strings of his guitar.
The patrons were no less unique: street punks, middle-aged businessmen, coming in for the music and the women, young couples looking for a dance and a drink and older couples looking to rekindle the flames of their younger years, pimps, prostitutes – everyone. It was a potpourri of emotion and sound, dreams and nightmares. Then there was Terri.
Terri was the one constant of Big Sid's. She was the woman who ruled the shady, smoky world beyond the bar, the one who’d listened to so many troubles that she knew the maker of the cities underwear, knew its blood type and DNA pattern.
With her eyes wide and open and her long black hair draped over her shoulders, she would lean forward, showing just enough cleavage to interest the most jaded patrons and just enough intelligence to win their trust, she would flash her smile, pour the booze, and sift her way down the bar. As she moved, she watched the others who worked there carefully, mentally charting the ebb and flow of the crowd and the take.
Nothing got past her. Nothing. She knew her customers down to the names of their children and their favorite drinks, and she knew her employees, their faults and their strengths. She was the embodiment of the club's personality.
Tommy slipped in the door and went straight to the corner of the bar. He slid onto one of the stools and scanned the interior quickly. He wasn't looking for anything in particular; it was instinct.
The club was almost empty. The last late-afternoon dregs of the lunchtime jukebox crowd were thinning to a trickle. Only the true regulars dropped in for the late afternoon happy-hour. It was very quiet. There was a soft, moody jazz piece playing on the sound system, Charlie Parker, Tommy thought.
Terri spotted him, somehow, from the back of the bar, where an endless room seemed to stretch off into shadows. It was, he knew, the entrance to the kitchen, but it still gave the impression of an endless chasm. Probably, it was just the lighting. Probably it had been designed that way. It was a very effective illusion.
"Hey, stranger," she said, moving close and laying her hand softly on his. "What can I get you?”
"You know as well as I do," he smiled back thinly, "unless you've added yourself to the menu since I was here last."
"I told you, hotshot," she replied as she reached for the bottle of Scotch on the shelf behind her, "I'm saving myself. Maybe you'll get lucky."
Tommy was surprised to find that he had missed her. Maybe, when a break in things came along, that was a bit of luck he'd like to pursue. He reached for the tumbler of scotch and watched her as she brought a cold draught to a perfect head and slid it in front of him.
"So, Tommy boy," she said, leaning forward and drenching him in the scent of her perfume, "who died?"
He almost spit his drink, and was shocked to find himself grinning at her. "Nothing gets past you," he said, taking another sip and managing to keep it down.
"You never come here just for pleasure," she pouted, patting him on the hand, "only when you're thinking. Tell me, do I help you think?"
"Not about work," he grinned. "You're right, though. Another psycho. Of course, I can't talk about it, but it helps to just get away, you know?"
"I know, honey," she said softly, "I know. You do your thinking, then, and if you get lonely, you give me a wave. I've got a lot to do before the crowd gets in."
He watched her move away, appreciating the way her tight skirt played across the muscles of her legs. She was one fine looking woman, the kind that was hard to get out of your head, and it was damn sure time he started to pay attention to that sort of thing. Christ, he'd be fifty before he even went on a date if things continued as they were.
He had a date, of course. He had a date with a picture-snapping weirdo, a pervert of the first caliber. Only problem was, it was a blind date, at least on his side. He didn't even know where they would meet.
He sipped the scotch and fell back to his thoughts of the woman's death. It was the poem, he finally decided, that was bothering him, but not the poem exactly, not by itself.
Then it hit him. The poem had been written in lipstick, the same lipstick that the corpse had worn, only with one major difference. The hands that had held the victim steady and applied her makeup must have been the same as those that had done the same for the younger girl, Lindy. Both of their faces had been eerily perfect, unmarred by the kinds of smears and traces that would have been left by a struggle. The work was masterful, erotic and sensual beyond any use of facial decoration Tommy had experienced.
The problem, the thing that wouldn’t come together in his mind, was the image of a bozo serial killer with a poetry fetish who was also a trained expert in women's makeup. Not just an expert, in fact, but also an artistic, extremely talented and obviously obsessed genius with the shit.
Drag queen? He thought, mulling over the possibility. A young woman had once told him on the street that she'd learned everything she knew about makeup from a drag queen. He'd even seen a few on the street that had fooled him. Somehow it didn't fit, though, and he kept at it. The itch in the back of his mind was as strong as ever, but the angle escaped him.
It was obvious that there was a photo angle in here somewhere, but what type? A crazy shutterbug? A snuff film collector? Someone who just got off on snapping pictures of his depravity, or a real photographer, a trained artist? Most picture freaks he'd dealt with in the past had been completely repressed sexually. None of them had actually had contact with the models, not even the kiddy porn freaks, and the photographs had been Polaroids or grainy, half-focused crap. It was the intimacy of seeing without the responsibility of touching.
None of it made any sense in the jumbled state his thoughts had assumed, so he drove the whole mess from his mind and finished the scotch with a splash, reaching for the beer and letting a long pull of it slide down his throat. He had to blank the slate, then get back and see what Mac had come up with. Something would break, something they'd missed, or that the killer had missed, or both. It was always that way.
He felt a small gust of wind, breathed a breath of lightly perfumed air, and looked up. He saw that Terri had returned. “You want another, tiger?" she asked.
"Got to get to work, Terri. You know me." He rose, but before he left, he reached out and grabbed her hand lightly. "Tell me this, though, what would Sid say to his favorite bartender dating a cop?"
"You offering?" she grinned.
"I might be . . . I'll let you know – soon."
"You do that," she said, swishing off again. As he turned and headed for the door, he heard her voice trailing after him, "But don't wait too long, cowboy. No telling what I'm saving it for."
* * *
The ride back to the station house cleared the last of his cobwebs, and by the time Tommy reached the office and grabbed his coffee cup, he was ready to get to work. Mac was there, and so were the reports, piled high in the middle of his desk. He breathed a sigh of relief. If he'd faced that pile the way he'd felt earlier, suicide would have been the most pleasant option.
"What have we got this time, Mac?" he asked, slipping behind the desk and reaching for the first folder.
"A couple of new things, Tommy, but nothing that hot. She died of an overdose, no poison this time. Thing is, the Coke they found in her purse wouldn't have done it. Even if she'd taken every bit that was missing from that vial, she wouldn't have come near the levels they found in her blood. He got her somehow, no doubt of that."
"Was there ever any?" Tommy asked dryly, skimming through the paper rapidly. Their killer was becoming more subtle, and that was another oddity. Usually they fell apart as they went.
"Not any more, anyway," Mac continued. "They found the same prints all over the room as on the suitcase and freezer. It's our boy, all right, but he seems to have stayed lucky.
"The hotel staff doesn't remember who rented that room, and nobody saw him leave. The girl could have been lying dead for up to thirteen hours, according to the lab report.
"There are plenty of signs of sexual intercourse, but no signs of a struggle. It looks as though she may have been willing. We got his semen for DNA. If we ever get our hands on this guy, he's going down hard. No way could we fuck up an ID like this."
"Except by not catching him," Tommy mumbled. "Okay, let’s go after this agent of hers, Gates? I've heard that name. You get anything on him?"
"Yeah, he's a real sleaze," Mac frowned, "though until now he's never been involved in anything like this. He runs an escort service, hires out dancers, acts as agent to private performers of all sorts. He's worked with photographers, but mostly nude shots and porno flicks. Nothing illegal, quite, except a possible link with that downtown brothel, the one the businessmen like so much?"
"Swell," Tommy grunted, guzzling the coffee and wishing it were another scotch. "
A classy pimp. Well, let's go and see what he has to say."
* * *
The girl at the desk flashed them a brilliant smile, and Tommy found himself liking her instantly, against his better judgment.
"Mr. Gates is with a client," she said solicitously, "but he'll be able to see you gentlemen in just a moment. If you'll have a seat?"
She gestured to a small lounge where two plush leather chairs and a small divan lined the wall, bordered by end tables stacked with magazines and flyers for the various enterprises Gates was involved in.
"Is there anything I can get you? Coffee? A drink?"
"No thanks," Tommy said, smiling despite himself. She was a real looker. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and noted the grin on her face as she turned back to her work. She knew he was looking, and she didn't mind. He wondered briefly what a woman with that much personality saw in a man like Gates.
The door to the inner office opened, and a small, hook-nosed man scuttled out. That was how it looked to Tommy. The guy moved like a huge, bespectacled spider, his actions nervous and his eyes flitting about as if searching for hidden dangers. The man turned, stared pointedly at the woman behind the desk, almost glaring at her, and then turned back. He saw Tommy and Mac, lowered his head quickly, and resumed his flight, slipping out the door without a word.
Tommy and Mac exchanged a glance, but they had no time to speculate on what had just occurred. At that second, a large, boisterous man with a twinkle in his eye and the gaudiest suit Tommy had ever seen filled the office doorway, beaming across the room at them.
He smiled, but there was something greasy and false in the expression. It was painted on, an image he was presenting to them like a fat, over-dressed projector. Tommy ignored it, trying to get a fix on where the man was coming from.
"Gentlemen, please, come on in. Sorry to keep you waiting, but business is business, you know."
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