The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

I had confidence in the team, but more confidence with me leading them. “What’s it like, Jer?”

  “These frickin’ murders are all over the news. Just in the last hour, it’s escalated three levels.”

  “And so why is the CIA suddenly interested?”

  “They won’t say.”

  “Or they’re playing stupid.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I think it’s more that, actually.”

  “I’ve got to see the video, Jer. To catch this psychopath, to keep up with the CIA.” I could feel my pulse throbbing in my neck.

  “Maybe you can ask your new partner on the joint task force.” He seemed to wince a bit.

  “What task force?”

  “The one you’re co-leading.”

  “With?”

  “Do you recall a CIA agent named Woods? Archie Woods?”

  “That son of a bitch? No way, Jerry. He’s scum. We can’t trust him.”

  “Which is why I want you right by his side, starting with the drive to Atlantic City.”

  For some crazy reason, I understood Jerry’s logic.

  15

  One step into the casino and I felt like I’d been pulled through a time warp. Everywhere I turned, I spotted leisure suits, bell-bottom pants, and even platform shoes.

  “Is this casino reserved for folks from the generation before me?”

  “Swingers. They think they still got it,” Archie Woods said, holding his mirrored sunglasses in one hand, even though the clock had just struck midnight.

  “Just like you.”

  “Me? Come on, Alex. I’m no swinger.”

  “You just think you are.” I left Archie with a shocked look on his face, found a security guard, and got directions to the crime scene.

  Weaving through the myriad of poker tables, craps tables, and roulette wheels, my sense of direction and time faded with each turn. Every space was filled with its own unique form of eye candy, either scantily clad women performing some type of high-kick routine, bare-chested men balancing objects on their heads, or cages full of men and animals. Just as I passed one such cage, elevated about twenty feet high, a crack of a whip made me lunge to the right.

  “Scare ya, Alex?”

  Archie had caught up, his eyes focused on an approaching girl wearing little more than pasties.

  I snapped my fingers up. “Here, doggie. You going to go smell her butt?”

  The not-so-tall, dark, and sleazy CIA agent simply smiled.

  “Don’t answer that,” and I kept moving, wanting more than anything to lose him amidst the swarm of humans, but knowing I couldn’t.

  He jogged up next to me. “You’re in damn good shape.” His legs motored faster.

  “Stop it. Don’t butter me up. Don’t harass me. If you’re going to talk, tell me everything you know about Margaret Turov. Otherwise, I’ve heard all I can take about your African expeditions and climbs up Pike’s Peak.”

  We’d flown into LaGuardia and then driven another couple of hours down to Atlantic City. He talked like he was being paid for each word spoken. But not a bit of it was relevant to our investigation, starting with why his agency had developed an immediate interest in Margaret Turov after they’d seen the video. I had my suspicions, but even after being extra nice to the guy, he wouldn’t open up. That would soon change. I wouldn’t leave the casino until I watched the video. But I also knew a video wouldn’t give me the background on Turov. The CIA was hiding something, which, in itself, wasn’t shocking. When a serial killer was on the loose and had ties to numerous law enforcement agencies, the hunt was motivated for reasons not necessarily related to stopping the killing. All of the agencies, led by the biggest, the CIA, were in “CYA” mode.

  We arrived at the scene, cordoned off by a web of yellow tape and casino security guards. A guard with a thin mustache spoke to someone wearing an FBI jacket.

  “Sir, we’re with—”

  “Hold on one second, lady.”

  I thought I noticed Carella at the end of a long hallway. I turned back around and found Archie eyeing a wall mirror. He had to see what I did—a short guy with curly hair, what looked like a new perm, checking himself out. If he were a girl, I’d say he was primping. He probably saw Tom Brady. Or was it Mike Brady?

  I didn’t want to interrupt the moment or lose more brain cells in annoying conversation, so I flashed my badge and slipped under the yellow tape. The guard yelled after me, but I ignored him and headed straight toward Carella and an open janitor door. About twenty other law enforcement officials were swirling about.

  “The video. Have you seen it?”

  Carella swung around with his notebook in hand. “Alex. Hello to you too.”

  “Sorry.” I glanced over my shoulder, and I could see the curly hair of Archie heading our way.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “And night,” Carella added.

  “I want to check out the crime scene in more detail, but have you seen the video of the redhead?”

  His face crumpled with frustration. “As soon as the CIA got involved, everyone around here clammed up. Security apparently did an end-around, or the CIA somehow seized the video before I got my hands on it. I’ve been too busy to deal with it.”

  Archie walked up next to me, and Carella’s face curled into a wicked smile. “Now that we have this joint task force pulled together, I’m sure you guys are sharing information like a couple of besties.”

  A person from Evidence Response called for Carella, and he stepped away.

  I turned to face Archie and made sure he saw the glare of my eyes.

  “What?” He took a step back, a smirk forming on his lips.

  “We can go about this three different ways, Archie. You can share the video and everything you know about Margaret Turov, or we can wait for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn and I’ll eventually see it. Hours will pass, maybe days, and during that time, she will kill again. Did you hear that? She will kill another person. Maybe many people. And this blood will be on your hands. On the hands of the CIA.”

  “So, what’s the third option?”

  He sounded like a sassy teenager. Given my experience with the teen species, taking away his phone and grounding him from his friends would create the most pain. For Archie, I had another idea, one with a more immediate impact.

  “We’re going to walk back out to the parking lot, and I’m going to kick your afro ass all the way to Langley, Virginia, so you can give your superiors a personal message.”

  His smirk quickly morphed into a scowl.

  “Did I push any buttons, Archie?”

  Setting his jaw, he let out two gasps, as if he was trying to get the balls to tell me something.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “Alex, dammit. You do know pushing on me is only going to hurt you in the long run, right?”

  I poked his chest. “I don’t care. Are you going to help me out?”

  “It’s complicated, Alex.”

  “I’m going to check out the crime scene. Once I’m done, I need the video and the information. If you won’t give it up, then I’ll pick your poison, Archie.”

  As I turned, I heard him say, “Let me make a call.”

  My heart was still redlining as I walked toward Carella, who was standing with a colleague near the closet door.

  “Can I take a look now?”

  “Believe me, lady, you don’t want to go in there,” The man from the ERT jumped in before Carella could respond. He had an acne issue, on top of an awareness issue. “The crazy shit in there will give you nightmares for years.”

  For the second time in ten minutes, someone had addressed me as “lady.” And I knew it wasn’t out of immense respect for my intellect. Without taking my sights off him, I raised my badge to where he could see it.

  “Twelve years with the Bureau, my man. I’m not bold enough to stand here and tell you that I’ve seen it all. I can’t. Because human behavior evolves in directions we can’t fathom. But I am experienc
ed enough to expect something I can’t comprehend. It’s my job to get into the head of this sick motherfucker, understand the motive, figure out the next step, and stop the killing. Part of that process involves capturing every bit of clean evidence we can get. Can you support us in this effort?”

  He nodded, his jaw hanging open.

  Carella elbowed the young guy, who quickly said, “Yes ma’am,” and then scurried away.

  “Hey, I—” Carella started giving me an excuse for his fellow agent’s faux pas. I waved him off.

  “He’s a kid. They think they know everything. Goes with the territory. Give me the scoop before I check out the scene myself.”

  My New York peer flipped a couple of pages in his spiral notebook. Obviously, since our last interaction in Brighton Beach a couple of days earlier, he’d yet to take the giant technology leap into the twenty-first century by using some type of electronic device. I bit my lip.

  Carella looked up and glanced over my shoulder. “Your new CIA partner.”

  “Archie Woods. What about him?”

  “Don’t you want him in this conversation? You know, collaboration, transparency, and all that bullshit.”

  I flipped around and saw the phone pressed to Archie’s ear, his free hand in constant movement. Maybe he was making some progress.

  I blew out a quick breath. “You’re right, it’s bullshit. He’ll be over here soon enough, and then I’ll be forced to breathe the same air with him.”

  “Suit yourself. Just don’t want anyone from DC bustin’ my balls.” He chuckled.

  I kept a straight face.

  “O…kay. I gave you the basics over the phone. Fortunately, the locals didn’t touch the body before we got here. Took lots of photos and gathered some evidence. Most notable was that we found several strands of red hair on the ground in there. And you’ll be interested to hear that they are fake. Came off a wig, more than likely.”

  I thought more about the video, and I tried to keep my pulse under a hundred. “I can call back to Brad and Nick later to find out if they’ve been able to verify if there’s a connection between Turov and Frank Sham.”

  “While we haven’t gone through all of his pockets just yet—I knew you’d want to see the body in its original state—we did find one of his old business cards on the floor. Has a Gloucester, Mass., address.”

  “Good to know. Can you take a picture of that and send it to Brad?”

  He flapped the pockets on his trench coat to indicate he wasn’t equipped to carry out such a task.

  “Where’s Tanner?”

  “Back in the city. I’ll find someone and make sure your team has access to everything.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My guess on all this?” Carella was asking me if I wanted to hear his theory.

  “Sure.”

  “He sold her a lemon, and she made him pay. That simple.”

  “If that’s all it took for her to commit murder, the number of people on her psycho Christmas list might rival Santa’s.” I smacked my hand. “Action and urgency. That’s what we need, dammit.”

  Without saying another word, he turned on a dime and strutted toward the door opening. “Knock yourself out.” He handed me a pair of blue rubber gloves, and I slipped them on.

  My eyes were immediately drawn to the slaughtered used car salesman. Pools of blood flanked the body, which was sitting up and leaning against a metal shelf unit, his head cocked to one side. It was just as Carella had described on the phone, and it was the freakiest shit I’d ever seen: fingers protruding from his mouth like some sort of ritual performed by a satanic mortician.

  The expression on Sham’s face was nearly as disturbing. It was frozen in shock, making him seem more like a plastic replica. With his vintage blue leisure suit covered with streaks of blood—his blood, I presumed—the pain this man suffered was probably impossible to measure.

  I then noticed small balloons of blood on his chest and stomach where his shirt had been ripped apart. An ME walked up and literally stood to the side and twiddled his thumbs.

  “Do you know cause of death yet?” I asked.

  “Really? You’re asking me that before I’ve even had a chance to truly inspect the body?”

  “Your best guess would do at this point,” I said in monotone.

  “I saw you noticed the wounds to his chest. Depends when they occurred, how deep they are, if they hit a major organ, the heart even. Lots of factors.”

  I gave him a professional nod and lowered to my knees. I began to gnaw on my lower lip.

  “The nubs at the end of his arms,” the ME said from behind me.

  “Right. So, she cut off his fingers and stuffed them in his mouth. That’s macabre, no doubt. But where are the hands, or what’s left of them?”

  “No one can find them. We’re wondering if they might be tucked away in one of his pockets. Which is why—”

  “You’re standing there impatiently waiting for me to finish. I get it. One more minute and he’s all yours.”

  Doing a quick three-sixty around the room, I tried to imagine the actual deed. Had she worn a wig to fool Sham or to hide her identity to the multitude of cameras in the casino?

  Could have been both. Unlike the damage at Ben Murphy’s house, this one murder had been better planned. She wasn’t reckless and out of control. She’d been methodical, and apparently restrained herself until they made it into this closet.

  Which meant she’d yet to deteriorate into the kind of psychopath who had a death wish. She wanted to survive. Why? Most likely to keep the ritual going.

  I gave the ME a nod, ambling out of the room as I slipped off my gloves.

  Taking in a breath, I closed my eyes for a moment, appreciating the life around me, people doing their jobs or just ogling from the other side of the yellow tape.

  “You’re out of line, Troutt.”

  Lifting my sights, I saw little Archie Woods marching right for me.

  “What did I do?”

  “Reviewing the crime scene without me. That breaks protocol for co-leads on a joint task force.”

  I put a hand on my hip and blew out a disgusted breath. “I think you’ve been smoking a joint, Archie.” I swung my hand between him and me. “This isn’t a joint task force or any type of team. I’m doing my thing; you do yours. Unless you have something to share with me after your phone call back to the land of CYA-ville.”

  I could see him squeezing his phone and gritting his teeth. How could he be frustrated with me? Over his shoulder, I noticed a man with a mustache talking to Carella. A prominent orange badge stuck out of his plaid sport coat: Casino Security. He actually looked familiar.

  “Archie, the ME and ERT are about to take the scene apart, so you might want to hurry up and get your look,” I said.

  He sped into the janitor’s closet while I introduced myself to Carella’s pal.

  “Richard Poole, director of security.” He shook my hand, then glanced at my badge. “Alex Troutt?”

  Even with a mostly bald head and thick mustache, he looked familiar, possibly the husband of an old law school friend. Nora and I had traded a couple of emails in the last few weeks, after she’d read about my story on some blog. With a few old pictures and stories, I’d been able to remember her and some of my time at Georgetown.

  Then it hit me. “Small world, Richard.” Nora and Richard had acted like love-struck teenagers since the first day I found them holding hands while strolling across campus. They were the couple I wanted Mark and me to be. That never materialized. Her only beef in marrying Richard was being married to a guy who many would call Dick. In our emails, she reminded me what I’d told her many years ago. “Just tell everyone that your nickname for him is Big, just like Carrie on Sex in the City. And yes, there’s a reason for that.”

  We LOL’d each other in our emails, which had helped me feel like I had even more of a foundation in my life.

  I thought Nora had said Richard was working in corporate security. It di
dn’t matter much. But would using my friendship with Richard’s wife help me get my hands on the redhead video? Without question.

  His hand touched my elbow. “Small world, indeed, Alex. I knew you were FBI, but I thought you worked out of the Boston office,” he said.

  “I do. But this homicide here is one of many that we think was done by the same perp.”

  I tipped my head to the side, indicating he should follow me, which he did. We were now separated from Carella and everyone else.

  “What can you share with me, Alex?”

  “Officially, nothing.”

  His mustache shifted like a squirrel lived inside it.

  “But, unofficially, since we—and Nora—go back a long way, I can tell you that the person who we think killed Frank Sham might have killed at least four others. And that’s just during this phase of her work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I paused. I didn’t want to have to explain my life story, open myself to a dagger in the gut.

  “Wait a second.” He wagged a finger as we strolled down the hallway. “Nora told me about this. I can only say that I’m really sorry, Alex.”

  “Thanks, Richard.”

  “Actually, I’m surprised you decided to stay in this business.”

  Huh? He was comparing corporate security with riding shotgun on a serial killer investigation? To each his own. He was a nice guy, so I wasn’t going to pin him against the wall. That made me think about Archie. I glanced over my shoulder and verified that Curly Boy wasn’t lurking right behind us. All was clear.

  “Eh. What else would I do?”

  “Work corporate security,” he said, chuckling.

  “One thing that would help us at the FBI a great deal would be for you to show me the video footage you guys captured on the redheaded suspect.”

  He scratched his chin. “CIA was all over that,” he said.

  “They’re newcomers to the investigation. I’ve been working this case back before…”

  I chose not to say it, but he nodded.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He swiped his badge across a security pad at the first door off the hallway. We wound through the bowels of the casino, then took a left at a T. Finally, we came to two glass doors and entered a room with about forty monitors on it. Off to the side sat a young lady who looked like she was editing video.