“Why should a stripper’s apartment be considered so sensitive? Does Hillard already have his hooks into the Department, even before election day?”
Santou rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands, as if wishing this would all go away. I wondered if that included me. “You ever hear of scandal, chère? It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with why the girl was killed. But just maybe there’s some embarrassing material lying around. She was a hooker with a long list of interesting clientele. It seems she entertained a good number of our city’s high and mighty. I can’t see why reputations should be destroyed if these people weren’t involved in her murder. That includes Hillard Williams.”
His eyes were bloodshot as he put his hands down. Maybe he was being paid to keep off Hillard’s back, but I wasn’t.
“Since when did it become part of your job to play go-between for Hillard and the police? Did I miss something last week when we were at his house?”
A muscle twitched under Santou’s left eye as he reached for his coffee and finished it off, sour curds and all. I almost felt sorry for the man.
“Look, Jake. I don’t mean to accuse you of anything, but Hickok hasn’t given me any official word to get off the case yet. Besides, if the place was already gone over with a fine-tooth comb, what am I going to find? Someone’s toothbrush with a name tag on it?”
I felt sure that whatever incriminating evidence had already been found was long buried.
“Who’s handling this investigation now, anyway?”
Santou reached inside his desk and pulled out a roll of Tums. “All I can tell you is that nerves are on edge about this one. The captain is handling the case himself.”
Popping two of the antacids in his mouth, he followed it with a swig of Mylanta. Whatever pressure had been applied to Santou was beginning to show. Heavy lines under his eyes verified the fact that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in the past week.
“Believe me chère, I don’t like this any more than you do.”
The fact that someone was working so hard to keep the lid on this case was all the more reason to get inside Vaughn’s apartment as soon as I could.
“I’d be coming at this from a wildlife end only, Jake. I don’t care who Valerie was sleeping with or who she wasn’t. But there’s something about that gator that’s been bothering me, and that’s what I’ll be searching for. I’ll be careful. I’ll be in and out without anyone knowing I was ever there. I’m good at this, Jake. I swear I won’t get caught.” I’d never done anything like this before in my life.
Against his better judgment, a smile began to pull up the corners of Jake’s downturned mouth. “I was right about you the first time, chère. You are a wolverine.”
Rummaging in his drawer, he brought out a key and slid it along the top of the desk. As I reached for it, his other hand came down hard on top of mine, his eyes locking in on me as he turned the intensity up.
“Whatever you find, I get. I’m as curious as you are to know what’s going down. I’m putting myself on the line for you. Just remember that when you’re in there, and don’t do anything stupid. If you get caught, so do I.”
I tried to slide my hand away, the key lodged securely beneath it. But Santou held me firmly in place.
“I’m trusting you, chère. I mean it; don’t disappoint me. I want anything you find reported to me. You got that? No secrets here.”
“No secrets.”
The jagged teeth of the key cut into my skin, and my heart beat rapidly at what I was about to do. The fact that Vaughn’s place had been gone over didn’t bother me in the least. Finding things that no one else ever could was a talent I’d developed as a kid, beginning with where the Christmas presents had been hidden.
Santou’s door flew open without warning, as if a sudden gust of wind had ripped through the precinct. Sliding my hand along the top of the desk, my fingers folded into a tight fist that I brought to rest in my lap. Following Santou’s gaze, I turned around to see Captain Conrad “Connie” Kroll standing directly behind me.
“Social hour is over, Santou. Unless this is police business, I want to see you in my office right now.”
A man who didn’t waste words, he glanced at me briefly. His eyes were weighed down with heavy folds of flesh that fell over the tops of his lids. The soggy nub of a burned-out stogie bobbed up and down from where it was held clenched between his teeth, and a buzz cut had left the top of his head looking like land only recently razed. At five feet six inches tall, his body was irregularly proportioned, with short arms, a longish torso, and a neck the size of a tree stump.
“Wrap it up on the double and save the broads for your time off.”
Kroll left the room having barely bothered to acknowledge me.
Santou popped another Tums into his mouth. “He doesn’t know who you are. Let’s keep it that way. It’s safer for both of us. Just get in and out of that place as soon and as fast as you can.”
An electrifying rush sped through me as I gripped the key to Valerie Vaughn’s apartment tightly in the palm of my hand.
I hadn’t been back to Vaughn’s street since the night of the crime, and for all my bravado, I wasn’t so sure how I felt about returning. Stopping at a small cafe directly opposite her building, I grabbed a cup of coffee and watched for a while in case anyone else might be making a visit. I tried to eat a Danish, but slides of Valerie lying in a pool of blood flashed through my mind in rapid succession. A full body shot detailed the mass of red lines that ran across her breasts, her stomach, down her thighs, and up her arms, flashing on to her hair as it lay in clumps of blood about her head. Replacing this with a close-up of her face, I panned in tight to focus on eyes wide-open in fear, hoping for an image that would tell me who her killer had been. But all I saw was pain and death. Part of the cherry glaze had fallen off the Danish onto my fingers. Looking at it, I began to feel sick and stopped eating.
After about twenty minutes, I gathered my courage and walked over to her building. My footsteps echoed dully on the cobblestone street. Ducking inside, I headed up the stairs to the second-floor landing. I felt as if lead weights had been tied to my legs, my steps growing heavier the closer I drew. Already in a knot, my stomach tightened even more as I was hit with a case of nerves. Moisture coated the palms of my hands, and my heart beat as fast as my legs shook, until I could barely stand. This was the way I had always felt before stepping onstage for a role. But in comparison, that seemed easy. This was for real.
Yellow police tape stretched tautly across the door, declaring the property out of bounds. Kneeling, I stared at the lock and inserted the key, holding my breath as I pushed the door open. Shimmying under the flimsy barricade, I crawled inside as the door closed shut behind me. The apartment looked the same as it had the other night. Except this time I was alone. I’ve always held the belief that dwellings retain the energy of the person who lived there, along with whatever events have taken place. Standing still for a moment, I felt the unsettling sense of a violent death hanging over the room like a heavy pall. Breaking into a cold sweat, I could almost hear the pounding of silence. The quiet was that foreboding.
“All right, Rachel. You’re playing a role. That’s all this is. The part of a detective who’s brave and smart and strong.”
I waited, but no image came to mind.
“It’s a role. It’s a role. It’s a role.”
Taking a deep breath, I decided I would be Valerie, simply going through my things as if in search of something missing. The problem was, I didn’t have any clue as to what that might be. I headed for the first thing I saw—an old writing desk with drawers. When I sat down in her chair, the wooden back lodged sharply between my shoulder blades, and I found myself wondering if Valerie had experienced the same sensation whenever she sat here. I opened the large middle drawer and rummaged through its contents: unpaid bills for body lotion, perfume, and lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. A smaller drawer contained stamps, envelopes, and a magnifying
glass. Pushing my hand all the way to the back, I pulled out a photo of Marie Tuttle standing next to a dead gator three times her size. She smiled and rubbed its belly as if gently sending it off to sleep.
A side drawer contained Polaroids of a woman who was nude but for black spike heels and a Mardi Gras mask festooned with feathers and sequins. A whip slithered down her leg like a long, black snake. Chained to the table behind lay Hook. With her long, curly black hair and hazel eyes, the shots were of Valerie in a variety of erotic poses.
Lodged behind the snapshots was a small black address book, its pebbly texture rough in my hands. It seemed inconceivable that someone would have bypassed such evidence. It was. Page after page was torn out so that the book resembled my high-school diary. Planning for the day my mother might find it, I’d torn out all the juicy bits, hiding them someplace else. I held little hope that Valerie’s missing pages would be found.
Gathering my courage, I moved toward the bedroom. Streaks still decorated the walls, but they were no longer bright red. A dark crimson stain on the carpet took the form of Valerie’s body as a wave of nausea came over me, and the room swayed from side to side. I started to head into the bathroom but stopped dead in my tracks. Hook’s chain was still attached to the bathtub. So was part of his leg. Swallowing hard, I leaned against the doorway, closing my eyes and bending over so that I wouldn’t fall.
“It’s a role. It’s a role. It’s a role.”
As soon as the queasiness passed, I stood up and turned to face Valerie’s room.
Get busy. Start looking somewhere, anywhere. Don’t think. Just move.
Opening the closet door, I examined her clothes. Trash and flash dominated her choice of wardrobe. It’s what I would have chosen if I had been given the role of a stripper. Thrown haphazardly on the floor in a heap were dozens of spike heels in a rainbow of colors, the kind we’d referred to in college as “fuck me” shoes. A variety of low-cut blouses in leopard spots and tiger stripes hung bunched together, while a black jumpsuit with a fishnet midriff and sheer panels dangled close by. I could smell her body’s aroma, faintly pungent, with the scent of musk oil sprinkled on a few of her items. At the end of the rack hung a garment bag. Pushing everything else to one side, I unzipped it to reveal a full-length mink coat. Running my hands over it, I shivered, feeling the skins that were as dead as Valerie was. It was lined in satin, and the label near the collar read “Louis Furs, Key Biscayne, Florida.” Monogrammed on the inside pocket were the initials D. W. I wondered if Dolores had ever sobered up enough to realize that, besides her jewelry, she was missing a coat. I wondered if Valerie had minded the fact that Hillard couldn’t be bothered buying her one of her own.
Going over to her dresser, I opened the drawers, careful not to look at the spot where Valerie had died, just behind me. One drawer held a collection of crotchless panties and G-strings, along with her Mardi Gras mask, carefully wrapped in thin tissue paper. An assortment of spandex pants and satin short shorts filled a second drawer. Rooting through her things, I felt like one more voyeur peeking inside Valerie’s disjointed life. With no idea of what I hoped to find, I had little choice but to keep going just as others had before me, ready to rip through whatever secrets I could find.
It’s only research. There’s no other way to learn who she was without searching through everything. It’s homework. Nothing more. My thoughts felt hollow inside me.
The third drawer revealed a vibrator and batteries, along with a blue velvet box which contained silver Chinese balls and a cock ring. Behind her erotic toys lay a black leather whip curled on top of a Bible. Taking the book out, I opened it to where an inscription on the inside cover read, “To my darling daughter. Always follow His way.” It was signed, “Love, Mother.” Returning the Bible to its spot, my fingers touched a pile of condoms and French ticklers that had been shoved all the way to the back. The last drawer held an assortment of scarves in different lengths and colors, covering hundreds of strands of bright, gaudy Mardi Gras beads. Pushing them aside, I caught a glimpse of two boxes, each nestled in a far corner. I picked up the smaller one, made of smooth oak. Its lid slid easily off. I hoped to find love letters or a diary, but instead it was filled with a dime-store variety of tiny plastic reptiles and fish handed out as lagniappe, or favors, during festival time. Bright red crawfish with claws outstretched were mixed in with translucent squid and tiny green gators, jaws open wide to reveal rubber teeth and red tongues. Replacing the lid, I pulled out the second box. Larger in size, it was covered in a pretty blue satin. As I lifted the lid, a tiny ballerina in her tutu of pink mesh sprang to life, circling round and round in a silent pirouette. I had owned a jewelry box exactly like it as a child. On a bed of blue lay a tiny charm bracelet, from which dangled an alligator, a heart, and a miniature replica of a Mardi Gras mask. I thought of my own jewelry box, and of how much I had taken for granted as a child. I had believed every dream I had would come true. When I came to Louisiana, it was as a disillusioned adult trying to run away from unrealistic expectations and heartbreaking failures. But I hadn’t been able to lose my demons on the way. Only temporarily in hiding, they were biding their time, ready to spring out again on some dark night. Then where would I run? I wondered if Valerie had felt the same way.
As I was about to close the lid, I remembered what I had loved best about my jewelry box. Reaching beneath the ballerina’s wooden pedestal, I felt the same smooth button that had always assured me my treasures were safe. Pressing it, I lifted the figurine to reveal the hidden compartment beneath. Just as I had, Valerie used this hideaway for her own prized possessions. Neatly folded up inside were a few newspaper clippings. They weren’t the treasures I had hoped to find, but they must have been important to Valerie. Straightening one of the clips, I saw that it was an article on the neo-Nazi movement in Germany. The report could have been written during Hitler’s reign. Instead, it was of riots and fire bombings today. Just as in the U.S., Germany was struggling to deal with a liberal asylum program as its own economy continued to decline, with unemployment the only figure steadily on the rise. So far, there had been two thousand right-wing attacks in the past year, leaving twenty-five people dead. Gypsies and Turks had been the main targets, but Jews were once again leaving the country. A government report had conservatively placed the number of right-wing extremists in Germany at forty thousand, with four thousand of those considered violent skinheads. A country of passionate extremes, Germany had swung 180 degrees since the left-wing terrorism of the seventies. In the hard-pressed nineties, the Red Guard had been replaced by a different fanatical face.
The second clipping concerned a right-wing terrorist group, the Nationalistic Front. Led by Meinolf Schoenborn, the group had come under intense scrutiny by the German police. This had led to a raid, in which forty of its 130 members were arrested. The photo that accompanied the article was of a neo-Nazi rally in Bayreuth. The motley mob could have been any rowdy gang after a rock concert, except for the placards spewing hate and the sneers on their faces. On closer look, one face in the crowd stood out, catching my attention. Peering over Schoenborn’s shoulder was a face startling in its elegance. But it was the eyes, nearly translucent and coldly detached as they calmly gazed through time, space, and newsprint, that held me. The face belonged to none other than Hillard’s liaison, Gunter Schuess.
The last article Valerie had kept was about a fledgling terrorist group that replaced the now-defunct Nationalistic Front. Like a cancer out of control, National Unity had erupted in small pockets throughout Germany, ritualistically torturing immigrants, Jews, and gays. The group was best described as a tightly organized death squad. Financed by the international drug trade, they had been supplied with Uzis, AK-47s, and other high-powered weaponry. But four months ago, the German police had accidentally stumbled upon their headquarters. In the ensuing shootout, thirteen members of the group had been killed. Their leader, Heinrich Breslau, had managed to escape, along with seven others, vowing that their fight wa
sn’t over.
I gathered that Gunter had been involved with the Nationalistic Front and possibly even the splinter group that followed. The question was, what was he doing in Louisiana now, working for Hillard Williams? I had considered Hillard a small-time Nazi, goose-stepping out in a bayou. But this brought events into an entirely different league—one that had been important enough for Valerie to have hidden articles on. Folding the clippings, I placed them in my pocket. Two other items remained buried away at the bottom of the box. The first was a matchbook from a restaurant. I searched inside the cover for a hidden message, but none was there. Simply a book of matches; perhaps it had been a memento from a romantic evening or a meeting place for business. Except that the restaurant was a long distance from New Orleans. Located along Bayou Teche on the other side of Morgan City, it was close to Marie, not far from Trenton, and a long way from the Doll House. Sliding my fingers along the bottom of the box, I pulled out one last secret that Valerie had hidden away—a strand of rosary beads. Curious as to what she might have asked for in her prayers, I tucked it into my pocket along with the matchbook and news clippings.
Replacing the boxes, scarves, and Mardi Gras beads, I closed the drawers, wondering what items people would scavenge through one day in an attempt to decipher who I had been. Turning to face the room, I flashed on Valerie and the sounds of a struggle. I walked out of the bedroom, closing the door hard behind me. But the cries passed through the walls, refusing to let me escape. Reining in my vivid imagination, I didn’t have a clue where to look next.
If I were Valerie, what would I do? Where would I hide what I didn’t want found?
I had managed to discover one of her hiding places. It was more than likely that Kroll had already uncovered the others. I wandered into her kitchen, a shiver going through me as I poked around. I no longer had to do character work. The kitchen could have been my own. Opening the cupboards, I saw mismatched plates from a variety of secondhand collections. No two glasses were the same. A casserole dish was chipped and discolored with burn marks. In the drawers, her knives, forks, and spoons were pot luck, just like mine. Maybe I knew Valerie better than I had thought.
Gator Aide (Rachel Porter Mysteries) Page 13