Flashpoint

by Lynn Hightower

  “Not anymore. I take it cause of death would be the stab wounds to the throat?”

  “We’ll make a pathologist out of you yet.” Marty made a notation on a chart. “Sign.”

  Sonora scrawled her signature.

  “I thought Molliter was coming in.”

  “His day off and he had to be in court, so they’re already paying him time and a half, plus I was in the neighborhood. On my way to do a radio thing, call-in show. I’m a celebrity expert. Cop and victim.”

  Sonora sat back in the chair, loosened the high heels on her feet, decided that when she got home she would throw them away. She looked out the window. It was dark. She had talked to the kids right before she left. They were fighting with each other and enjoying the beach.

  She took a sip of water and wondered if there was time to go to the bathroom.

  A man in blue jeans and an olive green pullover sweater sat behind a board of controls. He smiled at her. He knew she was nervous, and he’d been working hard to do the impossible and make her feel at ease.

  He stroked the thick black mustache over his lip. “Don’t forget the ten little words we can’t say on the air.”

  “You’d just lose your license, I’d lose my job.”

  He looked reassured. “Here we go, then. If you have an uncontrollable urge to cough or throw up or something, just hold up one finger and I’ll cover. Ready, two, three … and this is Ritchie Seevers on the air tonight with Specialist Sonora Blair of the Cincinnati Police Department’s Homicide unit. Specialist Blair is … I’m right, aren’t I? The lead detective on the Mark Daniels murder investigation?”

  “I was the lead detective, yes. Not anymore.”

  Seevers touched His forehead. “Of course. For those of you who’ve been living in a vacuum, Specialist Blair’s brother was the latest victim of the Flashpoint killer. Detective Blair is here to talk to us about the ongoing investigation of the truly heinous murder of Mark Daniels, who, as you likely remember, was burned alive in his car. She’s also going to give us guys some safety tips.” He laughed here, at the notion of men needing safety tips. “And if any of you out there have questions for Specialist Blair, be sure and give us a call.”

  Seevers paused, and Sonora wondered if she was supposed to make a comment. She could not think of anything particular to say.

  Seevers smiled and went on. “Detective Blair, do you … let me interrupt myself, I think we have someone on the line.”

  “Hello?”

  The voice was female. Sonora felt her heartbeat pick up.

  “Yes, hello, you’re on the air with Ritchie Seevers and Specialist Blair of the Cincinnati Police Department’s Homicide unit.”

  “Oh. Hi, Ritchie. I listen to you all the time. And I wanted to ask a question.”

  “We’re all ears here, but first would you tell us your name.”

  “Rhonda Henderson.”

  “How you doing, Rhonda, and thanks for calling in. What’s your question?”

  “My question? I just wanted to ask. Umm. So you’re a girl and you’re a police officer. Do you carry a gun like the men?”

  Sonora crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. “All police officers are required to carry a gun.”

  “Do you like, know how to use it?”

  Sonora sighed, realized the big exhale was not such a great idea on live radio. Seevers went through a round of patter. Answered another caller, this one male. Sonora shifted her weight, trying to ease a knot of tight muscles in the small of her back.

  “Ma’am, are you the police officer whose brother got killed in the saloon fire?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You must feel awful.”

  Seevers shot her a sympathetic look. “Thank you for calling, sir. We appreciate your sympathy.”

  “You going to kill her when you run her down?”

  Sonora crossed her legs. “It’s my job to uphold the law, sir, not break it.”

  “But if it was my brother and I was you, I’d break her neck.”

  “I’m mainly interested in seeing she gets off the streets.”

  “How long’s that going to take? I guess since she’s killed one of your own, so to speak, I guess now maybe you folks will do something about bringing her in.”

  “No one understands your frustration better than I do, sir, but we’ve had a team of very fine officers tracking this woman from day one. All of them have worked around the clock, and will continue working long hours till she’s caught.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  Sonora felt heat rising in her cheeks. She tried to focus, thinking this was too soon after Stuart, that she was going to lose it and screw everything up. Seevers was waving at her. Another caller.

  “I just want to know, where is your sympathy for this poor girl?” The voice was older, female with an angry edge. But not Flash.

  Sonora sat back in the chair, mouth open. Where was her sympathy?

  “I mean, get real, why don’t you? You know and I know that only men kill for no reason. I assure you this poor girl’s the victim here.”

  Sonora leaned close to the mike. “Ma’am, I sat in emergency with a twenty-two-year-old college student right after he was pulled out of a burning car. I guarantee you he was the victim.”

  “You just say that because he’s your brother.”

  “He was not—”

  The woman’s voice jumped an octave. “You don’t know what these guys did to this poor girl. Maybe they forced themselves on her.”

  Sonora made an effort to sound calm and steady. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to stop you, and make it clear that the Flashpoint killer stalked her victims, that she—”

  “You know, you’re not exactly an objective party, though, are you, Detective?” The voice was low now, tight.

  Sonora bit the inside of her cheek. Selma had twitted some dark pool of feminine rage. There’d be no dealing with this one. Sonora wondered how many more like this there were out there.

  “And I mean, no matter what you say, which we really can’t trust ’cause of your brother and all, but no matter, you know very well, miss, that this girl probably got the shaft all her life. She could’ve been raped, you just don’t know what kind of horrors might—”

  Who are we talking about here, Sonora thought. You or her? She set her jaw.

  “I do know, ma’am, that whatever her background, she’s got no right to tie innocent men up and set them on fire. And that objectivity has nothing to do with tracking this woman down like the dog she is, which the Cincinnati Police Department will do.”

  Seevers’s voice came through with just the right touch of mellow, belied by the sweat on his brow. “And we thank you, ma’am, for sharing your viewpoint.”

  Sonora leaned back in the chair. She had made it through Stuart’s funeral without shedding a tear, enduring the looks and whispers of everyone who watched and waited for her to crack. Seevers handed her a wad of tissues.

  “We have time for just one more—” Seevers was looking a question, and Sonora swallowed and nodded her head. “Ritchie Seevers, with—”

  “Hey, girlfriend, it’s me.”

  Sonora’s throat went dry. She looked at Seevers. His eyes were large, and a sheen of sweat popped across his forehead. He had exactly what he wanted, Sonora thought, and wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.

  “I just called to tell you bye,” Selma said.

  Sonora frowned. “Why good-bye? You going somewhere?”

  Selma laughed. “You’uns don’t ever miss a chance, do you?”

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “You know why. It’s gone bad. I got to go looking.”

  A victim, Sonora thought. She’d be stalking again.

  “What is it you want, Selma? What you looking for?”

  Long silence, and when the words came, they came slowly. “A place that makes me happy.”

  “Happiness comes from within,” Seevers blurted, pop radio psychology bubbling forth.


  There was a pause. “Not in me,” Selma said. Like she was sleepy.

  56

  Crick rubbed the back of his neck. Gave Sonora a look. “Track her down like a dog?”

  Gruber cleared his throat. “I believe the actual words were ‘like the dog she is.’ I got to say, sounded good to me.”

  Crick turned sideways. “Lieutenant Abalone did not agree.”

  “Hey, she’s human,” Molliter said.

  “I am not.”

  Sam looked at her. “You’re not human?”

  Sonora frowned. Realized she was tired and not making sense. She had that awful feeling—tight chest, panicky flutters, hot and cold chills. “She sounded so weird, don’t you guys think?”

  “You’re the expert,” Sam said, “she talks to you.”

  “She was weird. Like … sad. Toned down. Almost pathetic.” Sonora looked at Crick. “You talked to Dr. Fischer about this?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have to. You’re not feeling sorry for her, are you?”

  “No. Course not.”

  “Good. That poor-little-me voice is just a nice piece of work that’ll come in handy if we ever jerk her butt in front of a jury.”

  “That sounds like Crick talk, not shrink stuff.”

  “Yeah, well, Fischer talked a lot about degrees of stimulation, depressed states of—”

  “What’s that got to—”

  “Let me finish. In a nutshell. Flash is fading. She needs a jolt to pick her up.”

  “Maybe she’ll go home,” Molliter said.

  Sam shook his head. “She’s depressed, not stupid.”

  Crick shrugged. “Been watching the place from the get-go. She knows we’re there, she won’t come back.”

  “Let’s go in then,” Sonora said. “Take Fischer’s opinion to the judge.”

  Crick shook his head, opened his mouth. “They won’t—”

  There was a knock on the door, and Sanders poked her head in. “Sir?”

  Crick ran a hand under his shirt collar. “Why the hell are we all crammed in here? No, don’t back away, come in, Sanders.”

  “She can sit in my lap,” Gruber said.

  Sanders put a hand on her hip. “If you didn’t eat so many doughnuts, you might have a lap.”

  Sonora saw Gruber’s look of shock, closed her eyes, smiled a little.

  “Ashley Daniels just called,” Sanders said. “A woman who identified herself as Police Specialist Sonora Blair stopped by her office, her Allstate booth, just a little while ago.”

  Sonora scooted her chair sideways. “What’s this?”

  “I got her to describe the woman. She was small and blond, and Mrs. Daniels thought she looked familiar, but she knew it wasn’t Sonora.”

  Crick cracked his knuckles. “You ever meet Ashley Daniels face-to-face, Sonora?”

  “Briefly.”

  “It’s Flash,” Sam said.

  Sanders nodded. “The woman wanted Ashley Daniels to go with her. For questioning. But when Mrs. Daniels asked to see ID—”

  “Good girl,” Gruber muttered.

  “The woman said she’d left it in her jacket in the car. She tried to get Mrs. Daniels to go with her down to the parking lot, but she wouldn’t go. So the woman said she was going to go get it, and she’d be right back. But she didn’t come back.”

  “Okay,” Crick said. “She went for the wife. She’s going to blow.”

  “We got to put somebody on Keaton, sir.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to. We stirred her up. I don’t want his death on my head.”

  Everyone was moving, on their feet.

  “But why’s this woman seem familiar?” Molliter said. “Ashley Daniels thought she looked familiar, right?”

  Gruber waved a hand. “Probably because they worked within thirty feet of each other for several months. We confirmed. Selma Yorke worked at H and R Block in the Sears at Tri-County Mall. All her coworkers say she had black hair.”

  “Wig. Probably same one she wore to Mark Daniels’s funeral,” Sam said.

  Gruber looked at Sonora. “We also got her connected up to an H and R Block in Atlanta. Lennox Square, mile away from the bank where James Selby was a teller. It’s a definite he got his taxes done there.”

  “She used the same name?” Sonora asked.

  “Workers get bonuses if they continue one year to the next.”

  “All right, surveillance on Daniels.” Crick looked at his watch. “Judge Markham leaves for Hilton Head and a week of golf in one hour, after which Judge Hillary Oldham will be on call. Oldham used to practice law with Lieutenant Abalone’s brother Samuel, and she likes cops. I’m going to get a court order out of this. I want a look inside that house.”

  “Can I ride along?” Sonora asked.

  “Sonora—”

  “Please. In appreciation of doing the radio thing.”

  “I’m supposed to thank you for that?”

  57

  They took exit 1846—passed a chili place, Isadore’s Pizzeria, warehouses, old stockyards. The Camp Washington Community Center had bars on the windows. A sign on the door designated it as a child safe place. A worn poster on a telephone pole touted THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE—THE MEANEST MAN CONTEST.

  Overhead came the roar of cars on the interstate. It was gray out, a fine mist of rain in the air. Sonora rolled down her window, heard the squeal of brakes on railroad tracks.

  She glanced at Sanders, who sat on the edge of her seat in the back of the Taurus. “Sam, we need to make a stop on the way back. Sanders wants to get Gruber a dozen doughnuts.”

  Sanders giggled and Sonora grinned. Good old girls. Sonora glanced out the window at a billboard that said EVER TOAST A FRIEND? and showed a car in flames. The warning on the bottom said: FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK.

  Her smile faded.

  The house looked worn and bleary, here at the end of the day, tucked behind a cluster of trees that were leafless and forlorn. Sam eased the Taurus into a tight spot behind a rusting, mustard yellow Camaro. A large woman in maroon polyester pants and a black sweatshirt watched them from her front porch. There was a plastic Santa Claus hanging under the woman’s porch light. Sonora wondered if it was left over from last year, or if the woman was early with her decorating.

  Sam got out of the car, stiff legged. “Crick made sure to let the guys watching the house know we were coming, Sonora. Didn’t want ’em getting excited and taking you into custody.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  This time she knocked at the front door. No answer. Sam used the key he’d gotten from the landlord. The door swung open with a creak and sagged sideways—warped, ancient, and unloved. Sam motioned Sanders around to the back of the house, then stepped forward, gun ready. Sonora followed at his back.

  The living room was tiny and coated in filth, and it looked like the world’s biggest flea market, garage sale, basement from hell. Sonora took a breath of stale, sour air, thinking that Selma Yorke could be three feet away and they’d never know it. Cardboard boxes, sagging and old, were stacked in every available space, most of them filled with old magazines and dusty, yellowing newspapers. Plastic laundry baskets brimmed with old clothes, jewelry, worn shoes, hats, purses, books—everything that was ever in the bottom of a closet or stuffed back in a drawer.

  Sonora poked through a laundry basket with torn webbing, finding old baby clothes, a high-button shoe, a strand of bright orange beads—the kind children would stash in a dress-up box. Everything was coated with a fine layer of grime.

  Things were acquired and abandoned. Owning was enough.

  The kitchen was neat and clean. The appliances were old, the white enamel chipped in places, rusting around the chips. The linoleum was cracked and had holes and creaked loudly beneath their feet. The countertops were crowded. Sonora counted five bread boxes—most of them old, battered, and ugly. A chipped plate, mug, and fork sat in the white, rust-stained sink. The dishes looked clean. Sonora touched them. Dry. She ran a
finger along the bottom of the sink. Dry again. She went to the refrigerator—a short, old-fashioned box shape with a wide metal handle.

  Not much inside. A large can of Hawaiian Fruit Punch, the triangular openings on the metal top orange with rust. Juice had dried and formed a pink crust in the edges.

  The shelves were stocked with white Styrofoam take-home boxes, wrinkled McDonald’s bags, a red-and-white box from KFC. A white bag was full of stiff, cold hamburgers in blue-and-white cardboard boxes—White Castle.

  The crisper was empty. No fruit. No vegetables. Sonora checked the freezer. Popsicles and freezer pops. Fudgsicles. Dixie cups with ice cream—vanilla with swirls of fudge, vanilla with swirls of strawberry. Jell-O pops. Pudding pops. Ice cream sandwiches from Sealtest. The kind of treats a child would pick. No Breyers, no Häagen-Dazs, no Chunky Monkey from Ben & Jerry’s.

  The laundry room was a revelation—empty Coke cans lined neatly on the shelves, three fresh new bundles of clothesline, looped and held together by a sticky paper wrapper.

  “It really is her,” Sam said. He went to the back door and waved at Sanders.

  Sonora headed up the bare wood stairs. They were warped, impossible to climb quietly. She paused in the narrow, dark hallway, smelled dust, heard the tick of a clock. Heard Sam, coming up the stairs behind her.

  “Bathroom,” Sam said, pointing.

  The room was tiny and smelled of mildew. The woodwork had been stripped from the wall, showing a dark grungy gap between the warped end of the brown-stained linoleum and the water-spotted plaster wall. The medicine cabinet hung open, empty shelves orange with rust and dirt.

  Selma Yorke had left a handful of cosmetics. A fat pink tube of Maybelline mascara, black-smudged, lay sideways by the sink. Sonora spotted the stubby end of an eyeliner pencil, no cap, and a tube of brownish red lipstick. Talcum powder spotted the dry sink, caked in the lumps of aqua toothpaste that dotted the basin. Sonora looked in the trash can.

  “What you got?” Sam stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised.

  Sonora looked at him over her shoulder. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “Sneak up on you?”

  “Raise one eyebrow.”