by TA Moore
Except… he still had a hunch. Nothing he could put a finger on, nothing he could pin down and point out. It was like trying to pass someone a handful of frogspawn. The data was there in squishy little pods, but the slime of connective instinct made it hard for someone else to get to.
It was just easier to get on with whatever he needed to do and let people fill in the gaps for themselves. That way everyone was happy—more or less.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said.
Tancredi cocked her head to the side and squinted at him suspiciously. “Yeah,” she said as she rolled the word over her tongue. “You really need to learn to lie better. Let me know if you need any help.”
She left, twisting her hair back in a braid as she walked away, and Cloister went back to staring at the computer.
The transcripts of the 9-1-1 calls weren’t much use. It sounded as though someone had given each caller the same script to read from. The names were different, the locations, but they hit all the same points. Someone had gone missing, it wasn’t like them, they wouldn’t do this to whomever was calling and/or their mother, and they knew something had happened.
It didn’t mean anything—their fear just had a lot of things in common—but it made it hard to pick out any that might be relevant to his case. The distinct details, what they had of them, got lost in the noise.
By the time he finished, his back ached, his skull felt like someone had it in a nutcracker, and he had a list of five names that might be connected to the Hartley case. Three boys and a girl, all between thirteen and fifteen, all disappeared at the same time of year, all of them with a new boyfriend or girlfriend who couldn’t be tracked down. All their parents, with the exception of one boy whose father was a firefighter, worked in either banking or construction.
Now all he had to do was pick one of them and hope they were the one who could confirm his theory before he had to hand Javi a handful of frogspawn and no evidence.
SIX YEARS ago the Szerdos’ housekeeper had called the police to report that the family’s fourteen-year-old son hadn’t come home. His mother was too distraught to make the call. According to the police report, Leo Szerdo was the sort of golden boy that Cloister imagined Javi had been. He was moderately athletic and had excellent grades and a college recruiter’s wet-dream list of extracurricular activities. His mother thought he was an angel, his father thought he was a chip off the old block, and the housekeeper thought he was a spoiled brat.
Sometime between being found and the present, the luster wore off for his family. He had a criminal record for drug possession and the occasional bout of disorderly conduct. At the address on file for him, his mother claimed they were no longer in contact. Eventually—reluctantly—she handed over the address where he was staying.
The twenty-year-old was slouched on the bed in the hotel room his parents had to be paying for. One tattooed arm was slung over the cushions. His hair was ratty with grease, and a cold sore scarred the corner of his mouth. It cracked and bled as he spoke.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “I was a stupid kid. I ran away from home, and I was so grateful when my parents found me. That what you wanna hear?”
The words singsonged out of him. He was long past bothering to make them sound believable.
“Is it the truth?” Cloister asked. He sat on an office chair dragged away from the computer desk. Apparently Leo didn’t have many friends over. Bourneville lay on the ground next to him on a short leash as she fidgeted and grumbled into her paws. Her tail tip tapped the floor in irritated thuds.
Leo rolled his eyes. “Who cares?” he said. “It’s what I’m supposed to say, isn’t it? Good boy gone bad? Stupid, ungrateful boy who doesn’t appreciate his parents’ sacrifices? What do you care, anyhow? It was years ago.”
“It’s in connection with another case—”
“The Hartley kid,” Leo said. “Right?”
He made a scoffing noise at Cloister’s blink and leaned forward to grab a pack of cigarettes off the table. His fingers were roughly tattooed with black lettering, and they trembled as he tapped out a cigarette.
“I’d rather you didn’t smoke, Mr. Szerdo,” Cloister said.
“Yeah? Well it’s my home, and I can do what I fucking want,” Leo said harshly. He hitched his hips up and worked his hand into his jeans to pull out a lighter. He spun the wheel with his thumb, which made the flint spark. He was doing it too hard and fast for it to catch. Giving up for a second, he plucked the cigarette from between his lips and pointed it at Cloister. “It’s a fucking shame about the Hartley kid, okay? It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t know what my goddamn parents told you, but the only person I hurt is me. Okay? I’m not some pervert.”
He tried to light his cigarette again. He managed it, and the paper flared as it caught. The smell of burning hung in the air, undercut with the bitter smell of nicotine. It put Cloister’s teeth on edge. He’d never liked the smell.
“You’re not under suspicion, Mr. Szerdo.”
“Fuck I’m not,” Leo spat. He leaned forward abruptly, and smoke drooled from his mouth. “Why else would you be here?”
“Did you know Birdie Utkin?”
There wasn’t a lot of color in Leo’s face. He had the greasy pallor of someone who’d been treating themselves badly for a while. But what there was leeched away and left the spots and scars stark against his coarse skin. He licked his scabbed lips.
“How…? Who told you…?” He stopped and clenched his jaw, and the muscles bunched like ropes in his cheeks as he stood up abruptly and pointed at the door, the cigarette pinched between his fore and index fingers. “Get out. Unless you’re going to arrest me. Get the hell out of my house, or I’m calling a lawyer.”
Cloister could taste the nicotine in the back of his throat—a musty, clinging smell that would be with him the rest of the day. He could have tried to calm Leo down, explain what he needed, and that he wanted to help. Instead he let Bourneville’s leash slip through his fingers. She lunged up from the ground and glanced at him for her cue.
“Get it,” Cloister whispered and snapped his fingers.
Bourneville barked her acknowledgment and stalked around the apartment nose-first. She skirted the bed, and sniffed the crumpled, sweaty sheets with interest and under the window. The stiff-legged, deliberate stalk covered more ground than you’d expect, and she looked as though she were heading off to murder something.
“Hey, wait. What the hell is she doing?” Leo protested. He took a step toward Bourneville. She ignored him. Cloister got up and blocked him with one arm. Despite the concern twitching at the corners of his eyes, Leo backed off. He sniffed and tried to front up some confidence as he looked at Cloister and squared his shoulders. “You can’t do that. You don’t have a search warrant.”
“I don’t need one,” Cloister said. “A sniff test from a trained K-9 dog is probable cause for a search, Mr. Szerdo. Why? Is there something you don’t want found?”
Leo chewed nervously at his lips and watched as Bourneville barked sharply at the curtains but abandoned them to go into the bathroom. She barked again, more insistently this time, and Cloister guessed it was probably at the toilet. Drug dealers knew better, but it was amazing how many users thought the tank was a good place to hide their stash.
“Mr. Szerdo?” Cloister said. He tilted his head and caught Leo’s nervous, bloodshot eyes. “Should I go look in the bathroom?”
Leo twisted his mouth into a bitter smile and crossed his arms. “Do what you want. My mom will get me a lawyer, and I’ll be out by tomorrow.”
“If that’s how you want it,” Cloister said. He grabbed Leo’s shoulder and pushed him back down into the couch. “Stay here. If you run, the dog will catch you.”
He went into the bathroom. Bourneville was standing with her front paws on the toilet, staring at the tank with intense interest and barking every two seconds. Cloister caught her collar and pulled her down off the toilet. He pulled a toy fro
m his pocket for her and praised her enthusiastically. She looked pleased with herself and took the toy off him delicately with her front teeth.
Leaving her to chew on it, Cloister snapped his gloves on and lifted the cistern. It smelled of standing water and old bleach, and a double-bagged package of white powder was taped to the back of it. Cloister pulled it free, went back into the main room, and let it dangle between his fingers.
“Mr. Szerdo,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”
Chapter Twenty
THE LAWYER was waiting for them when they got back to the station. Cloister supposed that, at this point, Leo’s mother knew what her son was like. On the plus side, at least it wasn’t Diggs. While he talked to his client, Cloister got to talk to his boss. And the guy who seemed to think he was Cloister’s boss.
The only one missing was Bourneville, who was getting her dinner in the K-9 kennels.
“Tell me, Deputy Witte,” Javi said through clenched teeth. He closed Frome’s office door behind him. “What exactly made you think it was a good idea to take a break from our investigation to arrest a councilman’s son?”
Sitting behind his desk, anger turning his temples red, Frome tapped a pen irritably against the table. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, Agent Merlo,” he said. “Witte. Thoughts?”
Javi snorted. “That would be a new experience for him.”
He stalked over to the window and jerked the blinds closed. The wooden slats rattled against each other.
“I wasn’t taking a break,” he said. “I was… following a lead.”
Javi turned on his heel to glare at him. “You don’t do detection, Witte,” he said. “You do dogs, remember? Stick to what you know.”
Fine. Cloister dredged his best shit-eating grin out of the back of his brain. “Sure thing, Agent,” he said. “Fuck you.”
Frome slammed his hand down on the desk. “Witte. That’s enough.” He swiveled his chair to look at Javi and included him in the rebuke. “You too, Agent. We appreciate your assistance in this matter, but my deputies do not come under your authority.”
The muscles around Javi’s mouth pulled his lips into a bitter line. “As far as I can tell, Lieutenant Frome, they don’t come under yours either.”
Red spread down from Frome’s temples, and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. The room felt muggy with testosterone and tension—too small and getting smaller. It reminded Cloister of home. That was never good.
“My mom set fire to her car once,” Cloister said.
Both Javi and Frome gave him frustrated, incredulous looks, like he was talking gibberish. “What the fuck, Witte?” Frome asked as he shook his head.
Fucking frogspawn. Cloister shifted in his chair and forced his back out of the sullen slouch it wanted to be in. He squared his shoulders and forced the rest of the words out, past his mother’s old advice to “better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove doubt.”
“Wasn’t her fault. She’d meant to throw the cigarette out the back window, not into the backseat,” he explained. “Dad didn’t care. He just got her a new car.”
Javi snorted softly down his nose and crossed his arms. His shirt pulled tightly over his shoulders. “Heartwarming tale of redneck love,” he said.
Frome gave him a hard look. “Pushing your luck, Agent,” he said. Then, just to spite him, he nodded to Cloister. “Go on. And have a point.”
“She was the only one who brought it up all the time. Five years later someone mentioned a burn in the backseat, and she would bristle that we were blaming her because of the Chevy. I figure that’s what this ‘Bri’ is doing with Birdie. Killing her was an accident, and that’s why he’s always the first to bring her name up. Name, photo, all of it. That’s why we’ve had no other bodies. He doesn’t wanna kill them.”
Frome sat back in his chair and looked dubious. “Serial killers don’t—”
“They don’t,” Javi agreed. “However, Witte might have stumbled onto his one idea of the year. I don’t know if this killer, or ‘Bri,’ cares much if his victims live or die, but you don’t dose someone up with psychedelics if death is all you’re after. Easier ways to kill people.”
“And if we’re right about Hector, he was in the ER that night too,” Cloister said. “You said that Birdie would have taken a couple of hours to die in that car. He’d have missed it all. That’s not what someone like that wants.”
Frome coughed—a crackle of nervous sound in the back of his throat—and reached for a glass of water. “That’s supposition. You don’t know what goes on in the head of someone like—”
The sound of knuckles on glass interrupted. He fired the door an irritated look, but in the middle of a missing-child investigation, he couldn’t ignore it to finish dressing Cloister down. Frome tossed his pen onto the table with a huff of impatience.
“What?” he barked.
The door opened, and Tancredi stuck her head in.
“Sir?” she said. “I was talking to Deputy Witte about his theory earlier, and… I thought it was wrong.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” Javi said dryly.
Tancredi glanced at him and flushed awkwardly. “I mean, I thought that earlier, sir. I was wrong.”
She held out the sheet of paper she was holding and aimed it diplomatically between Javi and Frome. Javi was the one who stepped forward and took it, and he flicked his eyes down the page. “While Witte was going to pick up Leo, I went to check the evidence room for the bags you found at the body-dump site. According to his missing-person report, Leo went missing wearing jeans, a high school sweater, and a dog tag necklace with his birthdate on it.” Tancredi craned her neck and reached over to point at something and tapped her nail against the paper. “Package three. Witte was right.”
“Well done,” Javi said.
Tancredi gave him a quick, relieved smile and exhaled quickly. “Thank you, sir.” When she glanced at Cloister, the expression faltered and her smile pleated apologetically in the middle. She cleared her throat and looked around the room. “I don’t understand, though. Why was Szerdo down as just a missing person? Even after he got away?”
Cloister shrugged. “We’ll need to ask him that.”
He waited. In the end Frome sighed and gave up. He took another drink of water and wiped his hand over his mouth when he swallowed. “Fine, we talk to Leo. However, Agent Merlo will lead the interview. Witte, stay out of the way. You’ve already alienated him enough.”
That was fine with Cloister. He shrugged, got up, and drawled out a sir as he let himself out. The door slammed shut behind him on its own, which didn’t give the same satisfaction as banging it yourself. He was halfway down the hall when he heard it creak open again.
“Witte, wait,” Tancredi said. She half jogged the short distance he’d covered and hesitated and grimaced unhappily. “Look, Agent Merlo asked me to sit in on the interview. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Well, it was your instincts, your hunch,” Tancredi said. She shrugged uncomfortably and hooked her fingers in her pockets. “I didn’t mean to… steal the credit.”
That was a lie. It was in the nervous movement of her fingers and the faint pink that stained the skin under her freckles. It didn’t matter. It left a bad taste in Cloister’s mouth, but it didn’t matter. Tancredi was ambitious, and he wasn’t. She needed this, and he didn’t.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Good work.”
She nodded and bounced absently on the balls of her feet. “Thanks. A recommendation from Agent Merlo couldn’t hurt, right?”
Cloister shrugged. “Hell if I know,” he said. “He’s a bit of a prick. Maybe people at the FBI don’t like him more than people here do.”
That made her snigger and check over her shoulder guiltily to be sure Javi hadn’t heard. Cloister wished her luck and went back to his desk. He quickly typed up his report and filed it, shoved some papers into the locked drawer, and killed time to see if anyone ca
me out of the interview room. When they didn’t after half an hour—just low voices mumbling through the heavy door—he gave up and headed to the locker room.
There was dust in the creases of his elbows and knees, and sweat rubbed his ass raw. Cloister stripped down to bare skin, cracked his neck, blinked away the tears that brought to his eyes, and weighed the benefits of having a shower against just dragging on his jeans and going home.
In the end the promise of cold water won. He grabbed one of the hard, bleached towels from the rack and padded into the wet room. One benefit of taking over from a corrupt local police force—they had good amenities. He slung the towel over a hook, turned the water on without turning the heat up, and let it beat down on his shoulders.
Chilly needles hammered his tense shoulders and made him jerk despite the fact that he expected it. He felt his body temperature drop. It felt cold, and the pressure jolted the sullen resentment out of his brain, or at least battered it down away from the surface of his skull.
Cloister dropped his head and soaked his hair and the back of his neck. He braced both arms against the wet tile, and his muscles tensed from his wrists to his shoulders. He sighed and blew drops of water off his lips. It felt good.
He closed his eyes and waited for the clatter in his head to go numb.
It worked well enough that the warm hand pressed against his back jolted him out of a shallow, unsatisfying daze. He spat out a curse. The welcome chill suddenly was freezing, and he slapped the shower off. The water managed to get a few degrees colder before it finally drizzled off. He wiped his arm over his face and turned around.
He hadn’t expected to see Javi standing there, but on some level, he wasn’t surprised either. Cloister combed his fingers through his wet hair and plastered it flat to his head.