Peppermint Soul (Liza McNairy Mysteries Book 1)

by Dan Glover

  Had he ever had a conscience?

  Probably not. He recalled practicing his surgical skills—honing them—on neighborhood pets, at least the ones that weren’t smart enough to turn tail and run the instant they saw little Oscar Olay coming their way. Hell, though... the great René Descartes had practiced the same artistry and been lauded for it. Why not him as well?

  The only thing truly stopping him from attaining the greatness that he deserved was his cowardice. The thought of spending even a day locked up in some steel cage gave him the shivers. He'd been arrested once as a teenager over some petty misunderstanding and before his father could come to his aid, or would, Oscar'd been locked up in the county jail... not only for a few hours but an entire night, which to him seemed a lifetime. From that day forth, he eschewed any actions that might lead him into a similar situation. That cold steel door clanging shut behind him engendered such a feeling of helplessness that he swore he'd die first rather than ever risk a return.

  Yet here he was, enmeshed in all the scams... anything that might bring in another dollar. The faster he earned the money, though, the quicker it went. Working sixteen hour days did nothing to enrich him. He only grew tired. Oscar saw himself in another thirty years, a burned out hulk like those listing ships rusting in the harbor, still scraping by, forever indebted to not only the government for his student loans but to every huckster who saw him coming.

  "Yes sir, Captain... you can trust me."

  "Good... call me Roy. I think it's time we got together. Here's my address. Come by Sunday afternoon... say about two. I'm having a little party for close acquaintances. Please come alone. There are some people I'd like to introduce to you... and you to them."

  3

  And so he met Jonathan Baker, the missing ingredient, at least according to the Captain. The kid had a way with the girls, had to hand it to him on that. They all knew it, even Picany commented about it. Yet the man allowed that perverted fuck to date not one of his daughters but two of them, and at the same time. Did Baker have something on the Allen? Was that how he managed to deflower both the twins by the time they were fifteen years old, and do it with the father's implicit consent?

  The little get together at the Captain's turned out to be quite the soirée. He'd hired a catering service to roast a pig, a long-haired band to play rock music, and at least a dozen hookers who walked around all afternoon and evening wearing only bikini bottoms and grins. No wives allowed. Nope. Not at the Captain's parties.

  Allen Picany never showed up—maybe he hadn’t been invited—but Baker was there... with two bimbos in tow... twins as far as Oscar could tell. Sisters at least. Pretty girls in a trashy sort of way. Another boy driving a rusty van dropped them off but wasn’t allowed into the shindig. Armed guards standing outside turned away unwanted guests. Oscar watched him go from behind the fence. The kid was pissed off but Baker only laughed. Like he'd put one over on the boy. It wasn’t long after that night that he saw the two bimbos' pictures in the paper... how they'd vanished without a trace. Oscar thought how he might have some information on their whereabouts but the less said the better. Besides, who really cared if a couple party girls went missing? He hadn’t realized until the moment he saw those pictures in the paper though that those girls were Allen Picany's daughters.

  Allen had disappeared after that. Dropped out of sight. Pincay'd been a player up until those girls vanished. Oscar thought he recognized them when they turned up on his operating table but by then he was too far in to do anything about it. Give us a kidney, Oscar. Give us a lung. What could he say but yes sir, Captain sir. And don’t you forget to salute me, son. Besides, what did he care? Those girls were heading for a bad end... everyone could see that.

  Jonathan Baker gave him the creeps. The kid was severely deranged. Oscar'd done things in his life that he wasn’t proud of but there'd always been a reason behind the cruelty... a method to his madness. Baker, not so. That boy simply enjoyed inflicted pain on others, on the world in general. Was that why the Captain had recruited him? Possibly. Baker was loyal. Oscar had to give him that. He followed the Captain around like a servile bitch. Everyone must see it. Yet the Captain fawned on the boy. Were they related somehow?

  Now here they all were, thirty years later and still hustling. He thought about getting out but what would he do? Doctoring paid for shit compared to the business. He did it mainly to keep up pretenses. Even so, he'd grown careless. Couldn’t afford to let the Captain see that. The man had ways of dealing with sloppy work. He'd witnessed it himself. Besides, they were all part of the same hypocrisy.

  Johm, the man Baker'd become, had blossomed into a full-fledged maniac. He was out of control. But the Captain didn’t seem to worry about it. Maybe his conscience was getting to him. He supposed even men like the Captain must have feelings. Johm, not so much. That man scared him. Yet at the same time, Oscar envied him his way of saying fuck it. Of living life right on the edge.

  The great Dr. Olay... the one and only, always ready to minister to the sick and rob from the healthy. Wasn’t that how it worked? Wasn’t that why Robin Hood was immortalized in song and in tale? Sure it was. Take from the rich and give to the poor. Why should those blessed with good genes yet too dumb to realize it be allowed to keep that which others needed? If they only threw away what they had, the God given flesh, why not take it and offer it up to someone who cared... someone who respected life and gave to society rather than only took from it? Someone who could pay?

  Money made the world go round. That's what his father drummed into him. When Oscar thought how he might go into acting rather than medicine the old man threw a fit. Threatened to disown him. Might as well have. Hell, if he listened to his heart rather than his pocketbook he might have been up there in that silver screen alongside those beautiful leading ladies, bedding them one after another. Instead, here he was, an erstwhile doctor waiting for the day the Feds came a knocking at his door, search warrant in one hand, and an arrest warrant in the other.

  Chapter 7—Changes

  (In Charge)

  He didn’t like it. Goddamned amateurs... they thought they had all the answers. Hell, he'd been working this case—or at least aware of it—nearly his whole career as a detective and now some little queen and his fairy godmother thought they could come waltzing along and solve it with their hanky panky and mumbo jumbo?

  Still, he had to admit their track record was impressive. Sure, he'd been keeping tabs on them, ever since McNairy left the department. Goddamned good shooting but still it brought her career to an end. She could've been one of the great ones too. Of course gunning down a kid could do that to the best of them. Women... they never could cut it on the force, at least not that he could see. They let the little things get to them. Better to leave that shit at the office. Don’t bring it home. And never, ever wear it on your sleeve for others to see.

  He still remembered the night when it all came down. The phone call. The I need you, Hank. And so like always he hurried to her side thinking somehow he might ingratiate himself right into her bed. But it wasn’t to be, not that night, not any night.

  Liza in a trance, holding a still smoking gun in her hand, some goopy gray gunk and pink slithery slime smeared all over her uniform, in her hair, on her face, and the boy dead, splayed out on the pavement. Soon a shotgun appeared next to him with a chambered shell. Like he'd gotten off one round... as if he'd hit Liza's partner Billy Conover and killed the boy outright... blew his brains all over Liza, all over the squad, all over everything, head clean gone like someone took a cleaver to it and carried that motherfucker off... the headless horseman rides again... yippee cay aye, all you assholes. To hear her tell it, the boy turned, chambered another shell, and raised the gun in her direction.

  He'd heard that unnerving metallic sound before himself... the shell snapping into place, clickity clack, ready to kill. Early in his career he'd been confronted by a drunken husband out to nuke the old lady for cheating on him and instead the bastard t
urned the gun on the police who responded. Rattled home a deer slug, raised it to his hips, taking aim. Lupo had put him down with a headshot and four more to the torso, just to be sure. The woman hubby planned on killing went berserk, kicking and clawing at the responders. Slapped the fuck out of her. Knocked the bitch unconscious. Went home that night, screwed the wife, and then slept like a baby.

  "How was work, Hank?"

  "Fine, Sally doll... just fine... going straight to bed. Gotta be up in the morning..."

  Not Liza McNairy. Like him, she shot her perp purely on instinct. Good training, he liked to think... put the little motherfucker down with one bullet right smack dab to the middle of the chest. The kid probably never even heard the shot that killed him. Good riddance to bad rubbish. But that was where the similarity ended. There was a problem with the murder weapon vanishing, and witnesses claiming the wrong man had been shot but so what. He'd set things to right. That was Hank Lupo's forte... he made sure his people were protected.

  Liza lost it. Couldn’t handle the pressure of killing, of doing her job, of seeing the results gone wrong. But things happened on the street. Bad things. Billy Conover had been just a kid, fresh out of the academy. Liza argued about having him for a partner but none of the others'd take him. Funny like that. The old timers. Always superstitious of the newbies, the premies, the wannabes. Christ, why couldn’t she just act like a normal police officer? Do her desk duty while the investigation ran its course and come back to the streets. Or maybe go back home to some hick town where'd they hire her just for the prestige. Ain't everyone who's been an officer with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, after all. The girl could write her own ticket. Instead... this shit...

  And that man Danners Forthright bothered him. He'd done a background check on the little queenly queer... found out things Liza might not know, but he imagined she did. Fucking psychic... right... Auntie Em had more spiritual ability than any ten Danners Forthrights put together. The man was a fraud. Had to be. There was no such thing as a real psychic. All of them flip flopped around until they got it right. Danners Forthright was no exception. Or was he?

  Would that man have Liza's back when the shit came down? Or would the little queer turn tail and run? He wondered. At first glance, he took Forthright for a pansy ass... the kind of kid who'd pick his nose and eat what he'd dug out of it for dessert. But the more he checked into the man's background, the greater Hank's respect grew for him.

  Grew up a ward of the court after being abandoned by his mother. If the snot-nosed little asshole was such a psychic, why hadn’t he found her? But hell... the kid was six years old. Had to cut him some slack on that one. Joined the military of all things when he was eighteen. Volunteered, for Christ's sake. Who the hell did that during those years? No one... at least not in their right mind. Went to war. Shot a bunch of gooks in Vietnam. Was part of an elite Rangers unit. Wow. That was some serious shit. Even got awarded a medal for it. One of the big ones. Hell, Tricky Dick himself pinned it on Forthright's chest. Came home, got a job, and started in on living happily ever after. Only that nonsense never lasted and everyone knew it.

  Later, Forthright came forward with details of a dream that he had concerning the kidnapping and murder of a young boy. The thing was, the elements of his dream matched the criminal profile—kept secret from the public—to such a degree that he ended up being tried and convicted of the same crime he tried to help solve. Not once but three times. And here he was, doing the same crap all over again. Hell, he'd made a career out of making marks.

  Yep. The limp-dicked cocksucker nailed a dozen cold cases over the last few years they'd been working together, him and McNairy. Oh yeah, Hank Lupo kept up on the news. Each time he tried to find the gimmick, the ace in the hole, the blind spot that no one else saw, and failed. Finally he damned near thought Forthright might actually be who he claimed. Almost, but not quite. There was just something about a queer that he didn’t like.

  "They're here, detective."

  "All right, Marcy. Have 'em take a seat. I'll be out directly."

  Make them wait. Let them squirm. Of course Liza knew the routine so it wouldn’t work on her. She'd just be pissed. But let her be mad. Christ, did he still have the hots for her? Hell yes. He'd seen a lot of women come through the precinct but none like Liza McNairy. But she'd shot him down each time he tried to put the make on her. Maybe that's what bothered him now. The fucking ball-busting bitch... well, may as well get on with it.

  "Liza! It's great to see you again!

  "Hello, Detective Lupo... you remember Danners Forthright, my partner."

  "Of course I remember Danners... you're a lucky man... and please, when did you start calling me Detective Lupo? What ever happened to just plain Hank? Come on into my office. Can I offer either of you something to drink? Coffee? Something with a little more hair on it?"

  Chapter 8—Talking

  (With the Dead)

  1

  Oh, Christ, but she needed her fix. She should have known better than to spike up in the morning like that. Hell, all her instincts told her to just bump a little. But the thought of facing the parents got to her. Goddamn it all to hell anyway... she should've waited until she got home for a real fix.

  Looking out on the bright Los Angeles afternoon, it felt like tiny pieces of her eyelids had broken off and were fluttering before a landscape of endless vistas of cars and semi-trucks prowling the highways. Where was the smog when you needed it?

  The traffic crawled like her skin. The four o'clock in the afternoon freeway on a weekday in LA... what did she expect? She should have brought a little hit with, just to chip on, but Danners frowned about that shit. Still, fuck him. He had his monkeys too... everyone did. Hers was just a little more obvious than most.

  Some days I feel like shit. Some days I wanna quit.

  Hold on, Lizzi sissy... we're almost home.

  "No we're not, Lissi sissy."

  "What was that, Liza? Did you say something?"

  "No, sweetie... not really."

  Yeah, DanDan... I'm talking to my dead sister again. You know how I get when the creepers are out. Do me a favor and step on it, huh? Take the shoulder if you have to. Jesus, can't you see I'm falling apart here?

  Where'd you go, Lissi? I miss you so much. Seems like it's been forever that you've been gone, sweetie. I know we'll never see one another again but I think of you every day... hell, every minute. Remember how we always said we had peppermint souls? Just the two of us? One of us red, one of us white, both of us all twisted together into each other. Remember, Lissi? Remember, sissy?

  Danners... oh my Danners. Those were the first words he'd said since they'd left the precinct. Hank Lupo had been his normal self, hitting on her like a schoolboy in heat. Was Danners jealous? That's the feeling she got but it didn’t make much sense, not in his case. Danners batted from the other side of the plate, or was he a switch hitter after all?

  There were times when she wondered. The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching... especially when she teased him by letting her tits hang out just to see what he'd do. He was a man, after all. And most every man she ever met stared at her chest instead of looking her in the eyes.

  Hank spent the better part of an hour going over the Picany twins' case touching upon the tips that never played out, the usual suspects, and how everything finally ended up being a waste of time.

  "You know it as well as I do, Liza... if these cases aren’t solved in the first forty eight hours, there's a good chance they'll never be. They got a late start on this one. The twins weren’t reported missing until one o'clock the next afternoon when the parents realized the girls never came home the night before."

  "Why didn’t the parents miss them before that, Hank?"

  "Seems they each thought the other had given them permission to stay over at friends, Liza. The girls had gone to the beach the day before, like they always did. Big wave surfer types. The parents worked. It simply never occu
rred to them that the girls were missing until the next day."

  "Were there any suspects, Hank?"

  "Plenty, Danners... but nothing panned out. By the time I got the case, it was thirteen years old. Most of the detectives who worked it were either retired or moved on to greener pastures. I did talk to three of the guys who were part of the lead investigator team but I got nothing."

  "Those twins must have had friends, Hank. Did you interview them too?"

  "The ones I could track down, sure. But most of those kids slip through the cracks, Liza. You know what I mean... they live fast and free and die young... they don't seem to realize nobody lives forever... or maybe they think they'll be the exception. Who knows."

  "How about boyfriends, Hank?"

  "Not much luck in that department, Danners. The parents thought the girls were nuns. Especially the father... according to him the twins were sweet sixteen and never kissed. The mother wasn’t much good for anything. Pretty much in a shell. Guess I can't really blame her."

  "What do they do as far as work, Hank? The mother and father?"

  "The father is in information technology... or used to be. Honestly, I haven’t followed up with them for a few years now. Yeah, my bad. The mother worked in the medical field... a nurse or a physician's assistant, something like that. I think the both of them stay pretty zoned out these days."

  "So you've given up on this case, Hank?"

  "Not at all, Liza. You know better than that. But it's definitely gone frigid over the years. Work these things long enough and you start to get a feel for the ones you'll solve and the ones that stay around. This one's going to be around a while."

  "There must have been something to go on, Hank... I mean in the beginning."

  "Sure, Danners... someone saw this and another person heard that. Maybe if those detectives had gotten started sooner they'd been able to shake a few more bushes. As it was, there simply wasn’t much to go on."