Old Wounds, a Gino Cataldi Mystery

by Giacomo Giammatteo

  “Nothing.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “Set your GPS for Greenspoint Mall. You have a pair of legs waiting for you.”

  Tip hung up and looked at Joe. “Got a body.”

  “You want me to take you home?”

  “Drive me to the mall.”

  “To a murder scene? Hell yeah.”

  “I’m not deputizing you, asshole. You’re just driving me.”

  Joe mumbled a response as he turned the car around. Half an hour later he pulled up to the back of the mall, close to three patrol cars circling a dumpster.

  Tip opened the door. “If you hurry you can still make it, but I’m not fixing any tickets.”

  “See you next time,” Joe said.

  Tip Denton wasn’t born a cowboy; in fact, he didn’t know much about his birth. Not where he was born or even when, not to the day. His mama told him it was sometime in late March and said she was too tired and sick to take note of the exact day. Growing up it got embarrassing not to know, so he kept asking her. About the third or fourth time he asked, she said she thought it was a Friday, and he better stop asking because that’s all he was gonna get. That suited Tip fine; he liked Fridays.

  From then on, Tip celebrated his birthday on the last Friday in March, no matter the date. He figured if they could reserve a special day for Thanksgiving, he could do it for his birthday.

  Tip approached the officers on the scene and waved.

  “Hey, Barney, what have ya’ll got for me?”

  “She might have been pretty once, but somebody took care of that. Nothing but legs and ass.” Barney couldn’t hold it together with his last line. He and the other cops cracked up.

  Tip laughed too, a little at first, then when they continued, he joined in. “All right, I like that. Good humor, boys.”

  Tip pried open the bag with a gloved-hand and took a quick peek. “Who found it?”

  “Some kids, probably junkies looking for something in the trash.”

  “She smells fresh,” Tip said. “M.E. on the way?”

  “Should be here in a few minutes.”

  Ben Marsh, the Harris County medical examiner, got to the scene about fifteen minutes later, and his crew methodically processed the body, the bag, and the dumpster.

  Tip hovered over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll have nothing for you if you don’t let me get my work done,” Ben said.

  “And if I do?”

  “I’ll have very little. Maybe TOD, some DNA later, but unless she’s in the system it’ll do you no good.”

  “Time of death will help. Or could.” Tip turned to Barney. “I need ya’ll to canvass the neighborhood. See if anyone saw anything. It had to be last night.”

  “We’ll get right on it. Is that all you need us for?”

  “Leave one guy here to question people, see when the last trash was taken out and if they remember what was in the bags. Then we can determine where this fell in the mix, whether it was on top of it, or buried under it.”

  “You got it, Tip. I’ll call you.”

  Tip went back to Ben. “Looks like you drew the short straw. You get to give me a ride home.”

  “Home? Isn’t there a secondary scene, something about a torso?”

  “There is, but it’s close to my house and I need to get my car.”

  “Better get this killer fast,” Ben said.

  “I hear you. I hate to see shit like this, because when you get some crazy fuck cutting people up, they usually…well, they usually don’t stop.”

  CHAPTER 11

  CALL TO DUTY

  Houston, Texas

  I rolled over in bed and tried forcing myself to sleep. Since I left Narcotics I hadn’t gotten more than a few good nights of sleep. I wondered again if this was God punishing me for all the wrongs I’d done. He had a big enough list to work with. It’s not that I was against punishment or meting out justice, I just wished He’d get it over with in one shot instead of dishing it out a little at a time. I finally went to sleep dreaming of what it would be like to feel normal again—like I felt when Mary was alive.

  I got a call early in the morning, before the alarm went off. I jumped out of bed and lunged for the phone. In the old days I’d have let it ring, figuring I’d call whoever it was later, or they’d call me. But ever since Ron got involved with drugs it changed.

  With every call I worried. Was something wrong with him? Was he in a car wreck? Did he OD, and someone found him lying in the street? Did an ambulance admit him to a hospital? I never ran out of scenarios to worry over.

  I grabbed the phone, and didn’t even try to get the sleep out of my voice. “Hello?”

  “It’s Coop. Training’s over. See me when you get in.”

  Holy shit! I was excited as hell. “On my way, Captain.”

  ***

  Coop called Cindy on the intercom. “I need the open case files when you get a minute.”

  Cindy came into Coop’s office moments later with the files and a cup of tea. “I figured you’d need another one by now.”

  “You’re the best,” Coop said, shuffling through the stack of folders on her desk.

  “Who caught the dumpster lady?”

  “Tip Denton.”

  Coop slapped her hand on the desk. “Shit!”

  “What’s wrong? You have a problem with Tip?”

  “I need a place to put Gino, but Tip is not the best one for him.”

  Coop shuffled through more papers. “How about that double murder on Memorial Drive?”

  “Lambert and Graves got that, and it looks like it’ll wrap up quickly.”

  “Does Denton have anyone working this with him?”

  “You know he doesn’t, Captain. He hasn’t taken a steady partner since he transferred from County.”

  “That’s because he gets away with it, and that’s because of Chief Renkin.” Coop shook her head. “Denton gives me a pain in the ass.” She got up and stretched. “Much as I don’t want to put Gino and Tip together, I need this case solved before the national media picks it up.” She sighed. “Let me know when Gino gets here. I’ll figure something out.”

  ***

  I got to the station in record time and ran up the steps toward Coop’s office. “Good morning, Cindy. Fine damn day, isn’t it.”

  “A fine day, Gino. Go right on in.”

  I opened the door and smiled at Coop. “Captain, I could kiss you.”

  “I prefer you sit. And before you get excited, you’re not going back to Narcotics. Are you good with that?”

  “You didn’t call me back to ask where I wanted to work. Just tell me what you have in mind.”

  “It’s a homicide.”

  “I’ve got no problem with homicide.”

  “I’m putting you with Tip Denton.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “Denton? The one who came over from the Sheriff’s Department?”

  “That’s him. He was Chief Renkin’s top dog.” Coop sneered. “And he walks around here as if he still pisses in the tall grass.”

  From what I’d heard about Denton, I didn’t much care for him, but I wasn’t going to argue. “I can work with anybody.”

  She had a strange look on her face. “I’m sure Denton will put that statement to the test. He doesn’t even know his own birthday, so he made one up, and—are you ready for this—he made it on the last Friday of March. Not a date, but a day. What kind of lunatic does that?”

  “And you put me on training duty?” I got up from the chair. “Either way, I’m happy to be back.”

  Coop raised her brows. “Okay. I’ll tell Tip you’ll meet him at the scene. Cindy has the specifics.”

  CHAPTER 12

  NEW PARTNERS

  Houston, Texas

  Before heading to the scene, I did some research on Tip. I knew him by reputation, but I needed more than that. I made a few quick calls and did some personnel file searching, but I got most of the information from a few
informants. Seems like Tip and I knew a lot of the same people.

  The cops thought he was great—crazy, but great—and they mentioned the old bare-knuckle jail fights with inmates as proof of what a solid citizen he was. He sounded like a fucking caveman to me, but…to each his own, as they say. The personnel files weren’t quite so flattering, questioning his mental stability and even his ethics. There were three instances where they recommended pulling him inside.

  But the street talk was the most interesting. Depending on who I talked to, Tip was either their best friend or worst enemy, and he had a reputation for being tough on druggies and gang members. It was even rumored that he’d done away with some of them. Other whispers toyed with him taking money from drug deals, and they mentioned his nickname—Tip—as the proof, claiming he had more money to pass around for information than any ten cops combined. No matter who I believed, working with Tip Denton was sure to be interesting.

  I had read a report on the case—a body dumped at different sites. Legs were at the mall, and the torso was in another dumpster, behind a Starbucks off Louetta Road, right next to the freeway. I pulled into the parking lot, already with bad memories. This is where I’d met the undercover cop. I shook that off and got out of the car, moving to the rear of the building, where the action was. It looked as if the place had been gone over pretty good already, with three patrol cars and an unmarked car, along with the M.E.’s.

  I approached an officer I didn’t know and showed him my badge. “Gino Cataldi. I’m supposed to meet Detective Denton.”

  He nodded toward a tall guy standing to the side. A scar ran across the left side of his face from ear to mouth. Nasty looking. Made him look mean. I waited for him to finish up a phone call then reached out my hand.

  “Gino Cataldi.” I offered my best smile in hopes of starting this off right.

  He looked me up and down then frowned. The way that frown twisted on his face created a dangerous look. “I’m not that fond of partners, but we’ll see how it goes. My last partner changed my mind. Maybe you will too.”

  “That’s all right, I’m not fond of Texans, but we’ll see how it goes.”

  Tip cracked a smile. “Well all right then. Seems like we have an understanding.”

  He filled me in on the previous scene and the little that they’d found out since he arrived at this one.

  “So far we don’t have much. We can hope for a fingerprint match on her clothing, but that’s probably a long shot since whoever did this cut the tips of her fingers off. That tells me the son of a bitch knew what he was doing, so he probably wiped her prints away.”

  “Maybe we’ll find her fingers somewhere,” I said. “Or something.”

  “That’s a thought,” Tip said. “In the meantime, we might be able to get an idea of when he dumped her. The coffee shop opens at 4:30 in the morning and it doesn’t close until one. Give half an hour on either side for open and close and that leaves less than a three-hour window for somebody to dump the body.”

  “That’s still a lot of time.”

  “Yeah, but we have a lot of night activity at that motel behind us, if you know what I mean. If we’re lucky, real lucky, we might get a witness.”

  “You mean a John’s going to step forward and say, hey, while I was screwing this hooker, I happened to see…”

  “Like I said, we’d have to get real lucky.”

  “We got anything else?”

  He looked at me and nodded toward his car. “Let’s sit inside for a minute.”

  “What’s up?”

  The car was only about fifty feet away. “Get in,” Tip said, then waited until we were alone. “The word on the street says you killed Rico Moreno.

  “Did you?”

  A shiver ran up my spine. “I barely knew the guy.”

  “I didn’t ask if you dated him. Did you kill him?”

  “Am I here to work a homicide? Or are you with IA?”

  “Rico worked for a guy named Carlos Cortes, a big—”

  “I know Carlos. I did work Narcotics.”

  Tip’s scar twisted and he got a mean look in his eyes. “Carlos killed my dogs. I’d like to kill him back for that.”

  “I don’t much like dogs, but if they were mine, I guess I’d feel the same way.”

  Tip looked back at me kind of funny. “You don’t like dogs? What the hell kind of statement is that?”

  “Tell you what, Tip. How about you don’t ask about Rico and I won’t ask about all the rumors surrounding you.”

  Tip laughed, a down-home country-hick laugh. “Guess I deserved that. Let’s solve us a murder.” He started the car, flipped on the air conditioner so we didn’t fry, then turned and looked at me with a hard glare.

  “I know you said you don’t like dogs, but you do like women, don’t you?”

  I laughed, and then we chatted a few more minutes, exploring options on how to proceed with this case before getting back out of the car. After the M.E. finished, Tip assigned some of the uniforms the task of interviewing the “girls” at the motel, and any employees who had been on duty.

  “Come on, Gino. I’ll take you to the other site, then we’ll see if anything interesting came in from the canvassing.

  We checked out the first dump site, mulled over why he chose that particular spot, and then headed back to the station in separate cars.

  For the next two days we followed up on interviews and witness reports, but none of it led to anything. Ben called on day three and told us the victim had been alive when most of the wounds were made, but dead before the killer cut her up. I was thinking of the pain the victim must have gone through when Tip’s phone rang.

  “Tip Denton.”

  “What? I know exactly where that is.”

  Tip listened for a moment, then said, “No shit? All right, darlin’. I’ll be there.”

  He turned to me. “We’ve got the head.”

  “Where?”

  “Cypress Creek. Rains washed up a bag that must’ve been buried there. Some kids found it.”

  “I’ll bet those kids almost lost it when they looked inside.”

  “Let’s go find out,” Tip said.

  CHAPTER 13

  PICTURES IN THE PAPER

  Houston, Texas

  We pulled onto Louetta Road and Tip punched the gas, getting up to seventy before we hit the traffic light. He looked at me with those hard eyes of his, and the scar on his face bunched up.

  “Think you can go any faster, Denton?”

  He ran the red light and dodged a slow car in the left lane. “It’s the heat that makes me drive fast,” Tip said. “In January and February I drive like an old lady.”

  “Then I wish this were Valentine’s Day,” I said, and wiped sweat from my forehead. “Crank that a/c up while you’re letting off the gas..”

  “Roll the window down.”

  “Damn, you’re an ass.”

  “Speaking of asses,” Tip said. “Have you seen the ass on the First Lady? Damn, it’s sweet.”

  I looked over at Denton. “People don’t talk like that about the First Lady.”

  “Only because we’ve never had one with a nice ass.”

  I was starting to see why Coop warned me about him. “All the cops in Houston, and I had to get paired with a degenerate.”

  Tip hit the brakes and made a hard turn into a parking lot of a closed-down restaurant. “This is it. We’re on foot from here.”

  I got out and headed toward the creek, dreading the trip through a short section of woods. After a rain, and in weather like this, the mosquitoes formed assault teams, just waiting for any sucker to enter their territory. We followed a path from the back of the restaurant through the woods, damn near jogging by the time we got a hundred feet. The mosquitoes bit me five or six times and I killed at least a dozen more of them before we got to a clearing by the creek.

  “Damn that was bad.”

  Tip smacked another one from his arm. “Sons of bitches got no respect for the law
.”

  An officer walked up to greet us, hand extended. “Don Brakker.” After we introduced ourselves, he said, “This is a nasty one.”

  I looked at Don and nodded. The head was sitting in a black garbage bag. Brakker, or someone, had rolled the sides down for easier inspection. “Looks like the third piece of the puzzle. The legs and torso were dumped separately.”

  “People are getting sicker all the time,” he said, then took a few steps to stand beside the bag.

  I leaned over and peeked inside, not wanting to get too close. The head was mutilated, especially the face. One of the woman’s ears was stuffed in her mouth, and her nose was missing. From Ben’s early report, the nose had been inserted into her vagina. Both of her eyes were gouged out, and her cheek had a long vertical slit with another one crisscrossing it in the shape of a cross. Whoever did this must have hated this woman something awful.

  I looked around. Didn’t see what I was looking for, so asked. “No clothes?”

  “None of the other sites had clothes,” Tip said, then he looked to the officer on the scene. “Who was the lucky one who found the head?”

  Don pointed to the left. About 200 feet away, two boys sat on a raft. “Couple of kids ventured out on the flooded creek. They saw this on the bank, dug up from the waters.”

  “Get anything out of them?” I asked.

  “Nothing. They just happened to find it.”

  Tip leaned in and got real close to the dead woman’s ear, the one that remained.

  “I’d bet this is a real diamond earring.”

  I processed what Tip was saying. “If it’s really a rich-girl killing, that makes motive the main issue.”

  Tip stood. “All the more reason why we need an ID. And we’ve still got no fingers.”

  “I don’t know that we’ll need the fingerprints. There’s bound to be a missing person’s report, and if we get that, we can surely get DNA.”

  Tip shot me a look and a scowl to go with it. “When you’ve been working homicide longer, you’ll know not to count on anything. Chances are you’re right, but chances are just as good, you’re not. The bottom line is, don’t count on anything going your way, because it usually doesn’t.”