by M. Z. Kelly
He held his hands out. “Is happy a crime?”
“No, stealing a Brown Cow is a crime. What gives?”
The smile was still there. “It just so happens I had a date last night with a certain records clerk.”
“Wilma?” I asked. Now I had to smile. The thought of Charlie and the diminutive clerk, who was a makeover nightmare, was laughable.
I was about to ask where he took her for dinner when I heard Skully’s voice. It reminded me of the last time I’d had a root canal. He came down the hallway with Pearl.
“Let’s meet in the conference room now, people,” Skully said to us.
We all gathered in the conference room around a table with the murder books on Harriett Nordquist and Trevon Jackson, as Bernie settled in a corner.
“I don’t have to tell you that the press is all over these murders,” Skully began. “They’ve even decided on a name. They’re calling our killer, the Occult Killer, because of the tarot card found at both murder scenes.” He looked over at me. “And there’s been another leak.”
I had no idea what leak he was talking about, but felt compelled to defend myself. “I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with it.”
“What’s your relationship with Haley Tristan?”
“I don’t have a relationship with her, other than being forced to do your press conference while she shouted out questions.”
“Did you call her last night?”
“Of course not. Why am I being accused?”
“Someone close to this investigation told Tristan about the second tarot card and the writing that was found at both crime scenes. The chief wants to know who’s talking.”
“I’ll say it again and you can record it for the chief of police, the Dalai Lama, and the President of the United States, if you want,” I said, mocking his words from the day before. “I don’t know Tristan, I didn’t call her, and I’m not the leak.”
“We’ll see about that.” The captain leaned back in his chair and patted his round head. His gaze move away from me with a head shake. “Let’s move on. I want a summary of where we stand.”
I huffed out a breath as Charlie gathered his notes. It was obvious that Skully wanted me off the case or, at the very least, was setting me up to take a minor role in the investigation. It wouldn’t surprise me if he brought in other detectives and pushed both me and Charlie into the background. I planned to do whatever I could to resist that and his attempts to undermine my credibility.
“I talked to Samuels with the coroner’s office this morning,” Charlie began. He looked over the top of his reading glasses after glancing at his notes. “Based on the victim’s liver temp, he’s estimating Trevon Jackson’s TOD as sometime between midnight and four in the morning. His body had eleven separate entry wounds. There were also several, non-lethal wounds on his arms and legs made prior to death.”
Charlie cleared his throat before continuing. “The castration, however, was done postmortem. The preliminary tox-screen showed he had OxyContin, Xanax, and alcohol in his blood. The B.A. level was a .19, so he was pretty drunk, but the drugs and alcohol weren’t a contributing factor to his death.” He removed his glasses. “Bob Woodley also told me there were three different sets of footprints left in the blood.”
“Didn’t the maid say there were four women who tied her?” Skully asked.
Charlie nodded. “It’s possible one of them stayed out of the blood.” He referenced his notes again. “The writing on the wall was done with a brush, probably some kind of artist’s brush, that wasn’t recovered. Woodley also said they found some hair and fibers at the scene. They’re running the hair samples through the DNA databases and analyzing the fibers.”
I filled them in on the music video. “Jackson’s manager, Harley Porter, sent over the production files from the video shoot last night. There were a couple dozen background dancers in the video. None of the shots have a close-up of Myra, but I’m having SID look at it. Maybe they can blow up the frames, give us something better to go on.”
“Let’s talk about the song…the lyrics,” Skully said, frowning at me.
I passed out copies of the lyrics from, “Love Me or Kill Me,” by, Fleshded. “As you can see, the silence is broken, is the first line of the song. Those lyrics were on the card found in the street outside the first murder scene. The second line, my soul is burning, was written on Trevon Jackson’s bedroom wall. There are two other lines, my heart is yearning and then, speak to me, come to me, as the song goes into a plea for Satan to come into the singer’s life.” I motioned to my laptop in front of me. “The song’s just been released on YouTube, if you want to hear it.”
Skully nodded.
I clicked the mouse on my laptop as he and the others came over and stood behind me, watching the screen. The singing group was on stage in an outdoor arena. They wore standard black heavy metal attire, with lots of hair and theatrical makeup.
The lead singer, a woman named, Billie Bathgate, screamed out the lyrics. They were mostly unintelligible, except for the last couple of lines: Love me or kill me, never leave me, always believe in me, and then a repeat of the line, Love me or kill me.
“What a load of shit,” Skully said as the song ended and he and the others took their seats. I closed my laptop as he asked, “Did you talk to the group?”
I shook my head. “Fleshded’s on tour. They’re playing in Atlanta tonight. I have a call in to them.”
“What about the tarot cards, themselves?”
I passed out paper copies of the card I’d downloaded from the Internet. “As we know, both crime scenes had the tarot card of death. The skeleton depicted on the card is supposed to personify death, by the trampling of a king. The skeleton also carries a black flag with a white flower that symbolizes rebirth. There are other figures on the card: a bishop who represents faith in a divine plan, a maiden who signifies sorrow, and a child symbolizing curiosity.”
“I’m not sure what, if anything, that means,” Skully said, scribbling notes on his copy of the card.
“It could be that the killer is trying to show a sense of superiority over the authorities,” I suggested. “The king or the authorities are being trampled on by the killer who has power over life and death.”
I thought I saw Skully do an eye roll before he said, “Let’s have SID look at it, as well. Maybe they can talk to an expert in these cards and give us something more to go on.”
“They already have the evidence from both crime scenes, but I’ll follow up.”
The Scientific Investigation Division was LAPD’s evidence collection and comparison division that included both a criminalistics lab that Bob Woodley and Chandra Martin worked for and a technical laboratory.
“What about composites?” Skully asked, looking at no one in particular.
“Just got these sent over,” Pearl said, handing out some sketches. “This is a likeness of the hoods the maid said were worn by the women at the Jackson murder.”
I studied the drawing for a moment. The hood looked like something that an executioner would wear. It was a dark, leather-looking affair with cat-like slits for eyes and another slit that was turned down at the mouth. It would give the killer an expression that he or she was frowning.
Pearl said, “We’re checking with several companies that make similar hoods, trying to see if anyone placed an order recently that matches the sketch, but these kinds of masks could have been ordered almost anywhere, maybe even from outside the country.”
“You mean there’s a market for this crap?” Skully asked.
“A big market, I’m afraid. They’re used for bondage, sex games, videos, that sort of thing. An executioner’s mask was also used by the Zodiac killer in the San Francisco area in the late sixties, early seventies, and there’s a cult following around those killings. But we don’t have anything linking our crime to those. We’re also trying to match up the leather straps used to tie the victim, but it’s the same problem. They could have been bought almost anywhere
.”
“What about this Myra woman?” Skully asked.
Pearl shook his head. “We’ve had an artist working with both Karma and her friend, Vee, as well as the women in the video shoot. So far, no one has been very helpful in putting a decent composite together. Karma and Vee say they only saw Myra for a few moments and weren’t able to provide much detail. Our best bet is to get something from Jackson’s manager. We have an artist working with Harley Porter this morning.”
We went on to talk about a few names and other details that had come up during the investigation, but nothing looked promising. There were some friends and business associates that Trevon Jackson and Karma had in common, but that was expected.
“I did turn up something else that’s interesting,” Pearl said, moving the discussion in a new direction. “I checked on the employment records for the video shoot that Myra was in. She used a name, birthdate, and social that belongs to a runaway named, Chloe Bryant. The girl’s parents reported her missing just after her seventeenth birthday, a little more than a year ago.”
“Have you talked to them?” Skully asked.
“I have an appointment with the mother this morning.”
Skully’s voice pitched higher. “Do you think Chloe Bryant could be this Myra person we’re looking for?”
Pearl shook his head. “The physical description doesn’t fit with what we’ve been told about Myra.”
“Maybe the girl knew Myra and talked to her parents about her before she went missing,” I suggested.
“Let’s make sure we cover all the possibilities when you talk to her,” Skully said.
After gathering up my belongings the captain stood, came over to me, and asked me to stay for a moment. Charlie and Pearl left. He then leveled his steely eyes on me. “I don’t appreciate the insubordination.”
“And I don’t appreciate being accused of leaking information.”
“I’m going to check the phone records.”
“What phone records?”
“Your department-issued phone…I’m going to see if you called the press.”
“Go right ahead.” I took a step closer to him, locking onto his gray eyes. “Is it just because I’m a woman? Is that why you want to make my life miserable with press conferences and false accusations?”
“Don’t pull the female card. This has nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with competence, experience, and integrity.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This stays just between us?”
I nodded. “A complete blackout, off the record.”
“I think you were promoted because you got lucky on a big case,” Skully said. “You don’t have the experience or the chops to work homicide. You should be working traffic or a desk, not on a high-profile murder case.”
“Since this conversation never happened,” I said, tugging on Bernie’s leash before heading for the door, “I want you to know you’re way past your prime. You were too incompetent to let me investigate the first murder in a way that made sense. You should retire before you bust a vein and have a stroke.”
I walked out at that point, leaving behind a red faced imbecile screaming obscenities at me.
Chapter Fifteen
The DJ, just a kid, is playing, “Double Dare,” by Bauhaus. He has purple hair spiked up on his head and smiles as Myra walks into the Internet café. He turns up the music, meeting her eyes and nodding. The heavy metal song rocks through the café with its dark, pulsing beat.
Myra likes the song. She returns the smile, turns, and gives the punk rocker a view of the black leather pants that have slits in the rear. It’s all for show. She has no interest in the idiot spinning records. Myra has more important things on her mind. She has to destroy a world.
She orders a cup of coffee and finds a computer that’s away from the main activity in the café. After she makes several keystrokes, Myra glances out the window and sees that Rose and Henna are waiting for her on the street corner.
The young women, her sisters, are dressed in jeans and wearing plain cotton shirts. There’s nothing to make them stand out. Something catches in Myra’s throat as she thinks about their loyalty and devotion. A tear slips down her cheek. She brushes it away before going back to the computer.
After a moment, Myra sees that the website she’s entered is on the screen. It shows the skyline of Los Angeles lit up at night and seen from a distance.
There’s no doubt about what she must do next. Myra has memorized the keystrokes, the words and symbols Azazel had given her if the game was determined to be at risk. With Chloe on the run, there’s a chance she will either be picked up by the police or go to them on her own. If that happens, everything will begin to unravel. The game will be in jeopardy.
Myra types in the destruct sequence using a series of letters and numbers. She watches as the explosion begins.
Like one of those implosions they use when a building is destroyed, the city begins to crumble, fall away, and disappear. The screen turns black and, GAMEOVER, appears in black lettering. She imagines Azazel and the others, seeing the destruction of the city and wondering what’s happened.
Myra then accesses her e-mail account. She sees that Azazel hasn’t sent any messages. She makes a few keystrokes, typing in her message to him:
Sister still missing. Destruct sequence entered. Awaiting further instructions.
She then goes to the Google search engine and types in Chloe Bryant’s name, searching for matches to the name in Hollywood. Finding nothing, she remembers the young woman’s mother’s name: Marilyn. She finds there are several Marilyn Bryant’s living in the area. She scans the list until she finds one with a Hollywood address and jots it down.
Back on the sidewalk, Myra meets up with her sisters and gives them instructions. They drive the stolen car with altered license plates through the city before turning off in a residential area.
Henna calls out house numbers from the backseat. Before they get to Marilyn Bryant’s house, ahead of them Myra sees a couple of cars pulling to the curb. She slows down, recognizing the woman who gets out of the older model car and walks with the dog to the front door. It’s the same woman who was in the street after she killed Karma’s agent.
“What is it?” Rose asks.
“The female cop,” Myra says, turning the car around. “She’s found Chloe’s mother.”
“What happens now?”
Myra looks over at Rose. “We kill a cop.”
Chapter Sixteen
“The Missing Persons Report says the girl’s parents hired a private investigator named Hudson Mackenzie,” Pearl said to Charlie and me as we walked to the front door of Chloe Bryant’s parents’ house. “But there’s no indication he ever made contact with their daughter.”
A tired looking woman with stringy brown hair came to the door. She had on one of those flower print outfits that staff working at Denny’s or a similar restaurant might wear.
Pearl made the introductions. “As I mentioned when I called, Mrs. Bryant, we’re here about your daughter, Chloe.”
“Did you find her?” Marilyn Bryant’s voice was tight.
“I’m sorry, no, but we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I have to be at work in half an hour. I can’t be late.”
“We’ll make it quick,” Pearl promised.
We took seats in the living room, Charlie and me on a worn sofa, while Bernie settled at our feet. Pearl found a leather chair across from us as Marilyn Bryant dragged in a chair from the kitchen. I noticed that Charlie still had his happy face on. I wanted to laugh out loud when I thought about him and Wilma Bibby dating.
Pearl began the questioning. “Have you had any contact with Chloe since she ran away?”
Bryant looked at Pearl then looked away, folding her arms. “No. She’s been gone for over a year now. My husband and me searched everywhere she hung out, talked to her friends, people she knew from school. No one has seen her.” She gla
nced back at Pearl. “Why are you here after all this time? Did you find out something?”
“Chloe’s identity was used by a woman in a music video,” Pearl said. “It was for a song performed by the rap artist, Love Dawg.”
“The man who was murdered?”
“Yes. The woman in the video went by the name Myra. Did Chloe ever mention anyone by that name?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“What about friends? Is there anyone she might have run away with, maybe a boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “Chloe didn’t date much and didn’t have a lot of friends.”
“Mrs. Bryant, was your daughter into any kind of an alternative lifestyle,” I asked, “maybe wore dark gothic style or heavy metal type clothing?”
“Chloe sometimes wore dark clothes, but…” She stood up. “Let me get a photo for you.”
She returned in a moment and handed over a framed picture of her daughter. “This was from Chloe’s junior year, just before she went missing.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She had the usual problems most teenagers have, but she was a good kid.”
Chloe Bryant had brown hair and blue eyes. She was thin and still had a little girl look. There was nothing remarkable about her, and she definitely didn’t match the description we had of Myra.
“Your husband,” Charlie said. “Is it possible that we could also talk to him about Chloe?”
Bryant shook her head at the same time she checked her watch. “We separated a few weeks after Chloe ran away. I’m not sure where he’s living. I’ve got to leave for work now.”
“Just one thing more,” Pearl said as we all stood up. “The Missing Persons Report said that you hired a man named Hudson Mackenzie to find your daughter.”
“My husband met him on a business trip,” Bryant said, moving to the dining room table for her purse and keys. She turned back to us after a moment. “He’s a nice man, but as far as I know he never found out anything useful.”
We said our goodbyes and were headed for our cars when Charlie’s phone rang. He stopped on the sidewalk to answer the call. I could tell he had Skully on the line. Just the thought of my last encounter with the police captain gave me homicidal thoughts again.