by Kit Frazier
Cantu was still looking at the tattoo. “If this is gang affiliated, it’s new to the area. I’ll send it over to Soliz in the gang unit and see what they say.”
He turned to Dr. M. “We got an ID yet?”
Dr. M shook her head. “Running his prints through DPS as we speak. We can’t find him there, we’ll go federal.”
“We got a partial on the license plate the shooter was driving,” Cantu said. “We’re running that down, too.”
Dr. M sighed. “He’s just a kid. Can’t be more than late twenties.”
I swallowed. About my age.
And about the age my dad died.
A wave of nausea and nostalgia nearly buckled my knees.
“Tox screen?” Cantu asked.
“Preliminary says clean - we won’t get the details on synthetic drugs for a couple of hours,” she said. “They’re working on his clothes in the lab.”
“What about the clerk,” I said. “Did she know anything about our guy’s identity?”
“She’s MIA,” Cantu said. “My guess is she either here illegally from across the border, or she’s scared or both.”
I watched as Dr. M lifted the dead guy’s liver from just below where his right lung had been. “Healthy, pink liver,” she said, placing it in on the small scale. “Nice and normal.”
She put the bloody organ into a stainless steel bowl.
She picked up his left hand, examined his nails. “We already scraped under the nails, no skin or trace evidence.”
She picked up his left forearm, turning it so we could see the circumference. “No defensive wounds, but there’s a slight contusion here at his knuckles.”
“Thoughts?” Cantu said, as I took out my phone and took a discreet shot of his tattoo.
Dr. M laid John Doe’s arm back at his side and shook her head. “According to Detective Clark’s report, the clerk said this kid walked in on a convenience store robbery on Marble Drive in Convict Hill, took the bad guy down and hog-tied him with his belt. Clerk said the kid made it look easy. Like he’d done it before.”
“And he didn’t see the second bad guy hiding in the beer cooler,” Cantu said, finishing her thought.
My head felt like I’d got a good whiff of helium as a similar scene replayed in my mind, and my stomach twisted as I saw myself, watching from the car window while my dad busted a kid robbing a clerk and screamed when a second guy appeared. Daddy hadn’t heard me.
After that, the wheels fell off the MacKinnon family wagon. If it hadn’t been for Cantu, the Ladies of the Charity League and later, the Colonel, there was no telling what would have happened.
“Was he police?” I said, but my voice sounded small.
“I checked the rosters,” Cantu said. “None of our guys unaccounted for.”
I nodded. “And where’s the guy who got tied up?” I said.
“Already opened him up and put him back together,” Dr. M said. “Billy Wayne Turner - a three strike felon. His prints popped up on the DPS database almost immediately.”
“You did an autopsy on him? But, I thought you said John Doe tied him up - you didn’t say he killed him…”
“Our John Doe didn’t kill him,” Cantu said. “His buddy did.”
“Sheesh,” I said, my stomach turning. “My daddy used to say friends are like roses, you have to watch out for the pricks.”
Dr. M shook her head, reaching for a second, smaller stainless steel bowl. “Same kind of bullets.”
With a pair of forceps, she pulled a metal slug from the tray and I looked at it. The end had opened like a daisy bloom on impact.
My eyes went wide. “Are those cop killers?”
“Hydro Shok - .38 caliber,” she said. “Make a nice tidy hole on entry.”
She rolled the victim slightly to his left side, pointing to two perfect round bullet holes in the back of his skull. “Makes a big bloody mess on exit.”
As she tilted the body, the surgical towel tented over the man’s head slid away.
And so did what was left of John Doe’s face.
Chapter Four
“You okay?” Logan asked as we headed down the steep, winding Ranch Road 2222 through the rugged edge of the Hill Country, taking the long way back to the office.
Some secret Santa had decorated the stubby cedar trees with tinsel and bright Christmas balls, a stark contrast to the gray sky and the dry brown December grass.
I shrugged. “Kind of overwhelmed,” I said.
He was quiet as he drove and I leaned my head against Marlowe as the dog perched on the console. The dog snuffled the top of my head and I smiled a little.
There was so much to say to Logan, so much I wanted to tell him, and I had so much to do between now and the time he turned into holiday pumpkin and headed back to Laredo that I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“So what are you going to do about your John Doe?” Logan said.
“I emailed the shot of the tattoo and the surveillance video to Ethan Singer,” I said. “If anyone can unravel them he can - he can do things with Sentinel software that God never intended.”
“He going to be there tonight?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “He and Faith are inseparable. He moved out of his so-called Command Center in his mom’s basement and got an apartment so Faith has a place to stay. He even took those little Velcro-ed Star Wars action figures out of the back windshield of his car.”
“Wow,” Logan said. “Must be serious.”
I shrugged. “He left the Star Fleet Academy bumper sticker on, so we’ll see.”
Logan chuckled.
“So hey,” I said. “How come Cantu knew your car blew up - which by the way, I’m going to yell at him about later - and he didn’t know you were still alive?”
“He shouldn’t have even known it was my car,” Logan said. “Undercover means under cover.”
I frowned. “You mean nobody knows when you go undercover?”
“Most of the time, the other agents working the case will know. Usually I have a ‘handler’, another agent who is responsible for my part. But this one is special. Only my SAC knows,” Logan said.
“Your Special Agent in Charge is the only one who knows you’re alive? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Can be,” he said.
“But what if you accidentally get shot by one of your own guys?” I said.
“We try not to shoot anyone accidentally.”
“You know what I mean,” I said.
“I know. Just trying to make you feel better.”
I crossed my arms. “Well it’s not working.”
“The bigger issue is getting shot by another agency. I was undercover at a Klan rally once and ran into an ATF agent who was also undercover. Once we figured out we were on the same team, he told me an Assistant District Attorney was onscene, too. Could have gotten dicey if anyone had started shooting. It’s called a ‘blue on blue’ situation.”
“They actually have a term for it?” I shook my head. “Boy. That makes me feel better. I hate it that your job is so dangerous.”
“Your job isn’t exactly a skip down Candy Cane Lane - at least I’ve never been stabbed in the ass.”
He had a point. Which pissed me off.
Marlowe shifted from paw to paw and I knew we were getting close to the office - the dog can smell Skittles in the graphics department from twenty miles away.
Logan pulled into the Sentinel lot and parked in front of the building.
I opened the door and the dog bolted out of the truck as Logan lifted me down from the seat.
“What are you going to do now?” he said.
“I’m going to see what progress E has on the tatt and the video, then I’m going to call Dan Soliz in the gang unit and see if he can help me track down that clerk.”
“What about your list?”
“Shit!” I said, fishing the paper out of my purse. “I almost forgot.”
I sighed. “My mother’s going
to kill me.”
“We’ll see about that,” Logan said, and he took the paper from me and tore it in half, handing me the top half of the list, and keeping the bottom.
“Take care of the dead guy and the costumes,” he said. “I’ll get the rest.”
And then he kissed me and my breath went away.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “Come on Marlowe.”
The dog warbled at the opportunity for another ride in the truck.
The two got back in the truck, and were gone.
Chapter Five
“Look at this,” Ethan said. He was sitting at my computer, dressed in retro Levis and a black tee shirt that read “PEBKAC” Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. His brown hair had been recently cut, his left leg jittered from E’s brand of exuberance and Jolt Cola.
Mia and I leaned in on either side of him to look at the monitor, the glitter on Mia’s neon-red, light-up Christmas sweater getting all over my desk.
Ethan uploaded the doctored security video from the convenience store off the server and smacked his hands together. “Ta da!” he said.
Ta da was right. Ethan played a bit of the “before” blurry, static filled section so we could better appreciate the “after.” The difference was remarkable, and we made sure we were appropriately impressed so he’d move on with the damn video without explaining how he’d restored it.
Men are men, even when they’re geeks.
“Here’s where the first rat bastard comes in,” Ethan said.
“You mean suspect,” I said and he shook his head.
“Suspects don’t shoot people, rat bastards do. Watch this.”
The time stamp in the upper right corner read 12:45 a.m. The video had no audio, and was positioned high behind the counter so that the door, the cashier and the cash register were in clear view.
Ethan toggled fast forward, and we watched the young, very pregnant dark-haired, woman as she manned the counter, checking out periodic customers who bought beer, condoms, beer, candy canes, beer, cigarettes, beer and beer. She shifted from foot to foot, rubbing her lower back and looking miserable. At a little after 1:30 in the morning, a tall, loose-limbed guy in with long dirty blond hair down over his eyes ambled in, head down, glancing at the clerk, then around the store, then back at the clerk. He wore a hooded sweatshirt and his hands were jammed into the front pockets.
“The shooter,” I whispered, leaning closer to the monitor.
The first thug disappeared from the frame.
About ten minutes later, a second man, short and stocky with shaggy brown hair came in. He was wearing an identical hooded sweatshirt, and his hands were in the pockets. He looked nervously around, went back and rattled the beer cooler, then swung around, brandishing a pistol and shouted something at the clerk.
“Billy Wayne,” I said, and Mia said, “Who?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said.
On the screen, the girl’s mouth stretched into a scream, then she appeared to beg the man as she held her belly, crying, clearly in hysterics.
My breath caught.
The front door burst open and a man, rakishly handsome, with longish, light brown hair, dressed in butt-fitting, well-worn Wranglers and an un-tucked, faded red chino shirt charged in like the cavalry.
Mia whispered, “Aye, aye, aye…” and I gasped, my hand went involuntarily to my heart.
On the video, John Doe had Billy Wayne on the floor so fast I didn’t get a good look at how he’d done it.
“Can you replay that part?” I asked, still a little breathless, and Ethan said, “I’ll back it up in a minute - you need to see this.”
Mia and I leaned in for a closer look, and watched, mouths slack-jawed as John whipped off his belt, hog-tied the thug like he was calf-roping at a rodeo, all the while talking to the cashier.
Then he jumped the counter, saying something to the pregnant woman, smoothing her hair, checking her pulse, then her eyes and her belly.
A lump lodged in my throat.
I didn’t even know this guy, and all ready my heart was breaking for him.
We watched the last minutes of his life as he whipped out a cell phone, still holding the young woman in his arms, rocking her and petting her hair as he made the 911 call.
He had his back to the beer cooler as he consoled the woman. Sobbing, she turned into him, nearly toppling him with her wobbling weight.
And that’s when The Shooter burst out of the beer cooler, pointing a snub-nosed pistol.
John Doe must have seen him in his peripheral vision, because he tucked the clerk further behind him. He swung around, reaching into the back of his waistband beneath his loose shirt.
The thug shot John Doe.
Twice in the head.
Two small holes appeared at the back of John’s head.
His face exploded.
Blood and brains spattered all over the clerk, and his limp body crumbled on the floor.
The girl didn’t even have time to scream.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, her knees buckled and she collapsed, toppling on top of her fallen hero.
If I didn’t know she was still alive, I’d have thought The Shooter had killed her too.
There was a moment when no one moved.
Then The Shooter rushed around the counter, punched a key on the register, scooped up the money and shoved it into his sweatshirt. He moved to John Doe and the clerk and crouched over them. He didn’t even check to see if they were alive.
The Shooter’s gaze ricocheted around the store, then he rifled through John’s clothing, nabbing his gun and wallet.
“Watch,” Ethan said, and hit the up key. The shot zoomed in and went into slow motion, and I said, “What is that?”
“Dios mio,” Mia breathed. “It’s an 8-ball - meth or coke…”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
We watched as E toggled the screen back to real time.
On the other side of the counter, Billy Wayne struggled against his restraints, his mouth moving frantically, apparently urging his friend to cut him loose.
The Shooter came back around and stood over him for a moment, listening.
Then he leveled John Doe’s confiscated gun and shot his friend.
The Shooter leaned over his friend’s body, apparently listening as the life left his friend.
Then he took the man’s wallet, getting blood on his hand.
He briefly looked at the blood, then down at his friend, then wiped his hand on the dead man’s shirt.
Then he turned and walked out of the store.
He didn’t look back.
The video went to freeze frame, John Doe’s lifeless body face down, the two bullet holes in the back of his head, largely hidden in his slightly curled hair, blood pooling heavily on the floor. The clerk still hadn’t moved.
Mia and I sat, staring at the monitor, speechless.
The moment lasted a long time.
Then Ethan said, “You learn anything?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Our guy’s not a drug dealer.”
Chapter Six
“Bad news, chica,” Mia said in her lyrical Latina accent, brushing back her long black curls as she climbed into my Jeep CJ-7. “I did your horoscope this morning and you’re in for a big disappointment.”
Mia’s voice rang like Bing Crosby’s tinkling silver bells, and while I love her like a sister, I was so not in the mood for tinkling bells - silver or otherwise. She was doing eyeball burning red from her scoop-necked Christmas sweater to her small, flouncy skirt and strappy sandals, all neatly offset with a big honking Nikon.
“Hm. Well, let’s see,” I told her, left-turning onto Ranch Road 620, resisting the urge to dump out whatever magical mystery tea Mia had made me. It smelled like an eighth grade boys’ locker room. “Logan is leaving, Mama had Beckett make us costumes and she asked me to pick up two dozen pomegranates for gawd only knows what. And we’re going to go see a detecti
ve about a dead guy. How much more disappointment can one woman have?”
“Ts ts,” Mia tutted. “Your aura es desastre. You need to come with me to see Mrs. Applewhite - she’s doing laughter therapy now.”
“I think this is a way bigger fix than a clown nose and a whoopee cushion,” I said, dodging traffic as we headed downtown to the main cop shop on Seventh Street.
“So why can’t Cantu help us?” Mia wanted to know.
“He didn’t catch the call,” I said. “Some Detective Clark guy is investigating.”
Mia frowned. “You know him?”
I shook my head. “Cantu said he was on the job in California,” I said. “But I have a bad feeling…Cantu said there’s something off about him, and the guy thinks John Doe was a drug dealer.”
“What?” Mia’s voice went up an octave in indignation, and she jammed her fist to her hip and did a head-bob, shoulder-roll thing in indignation. “Did he even see the video?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” I said, eyes on the road while I tried to fish the folder I’d made on John Doe out of my big purse without crashing the Jeep into oncoming holiday traffic. “I called Dan Soliz at the gang unit and left him a message to see if he could help with the tattoo and to find the clerk when we got back to the office, but he works nights - he’s probably not even up yet, but we’ll stop by for a short chat with Clark, then go see Soliz.”
“You think that pregnant girl was in a gang?” Mia said and I shook my head.
“No, but Soliz has good street cred and connections. If she’s still in Austin, he can find her.”
I handed Mia the file that included Clark’s original arrest report and still shots Ethan managed to extract from the video, including a close up of John Doe’s face - prior to having it shot off of him - the clerk, Billy Wayne, and The Shooter.
The file also contained a close up of the 8-ball The Shooter had pulled out of John Doe’s pocket.
“And Logan can’t help us?”
“No,” I said. “He’s supposed to be dead and he’s already put himself in danger by coming back here. And besides, he’s taking care of Marlowe, and he’s picking up the pomegranates.”
“He’s picking up pomegranates while he’s dead?”
“I’m pretty sure the folks that shop at Whole Foods won’t recognize him.”