by Stacy Green
“No. But the cruiser is sitting on the house. Malek’s car is still in the driveway. If he takes off, we’ll know.”
Erin let out a huff of air. Beckett was right, except they could be watching an empty house; Malek already had plenty of time to escape.
“We need to keep following the money,” Beckett continued. “Simon Archer’s the most likely candidate. If Malek is Bonnie’s business partner and pimp, then he’s probably getting a cut. Same goes for Aleta, although she might be higher up in the stable.”
The stable. Erin still hated the term. Most sex traffickers had one, however. And most pimps used a seasoned girl, already broken down and completely dependent, to control the newer ones. “So if Bonnie decides she’s had enough and wants to get away from Yari, he loses his cut of the blackmail money. Bonnie talks to Virginia Walton about what she should do. Yari and Aleta take them out and concoct this Jane the Ripper thing to confuse us.”
Erin had been so sure the killer had been a woman obsessed with Jane the Ripper. Her lack of homicide experience diluted her ability to be objective. She slumped in the seat. “Well, shit. I guess I had that one wrong, didn’t I?”
“Don’t be so sure,” Beckett said. “You’ve got good instincts, and I’ve learned not to discount those. What about Sarah? What are your instincts telling you?”
Erin picked at her bread and mulled over his question. “At first it bugged me that Bonnie likely started blackmailing her uncle around the same time her cousin came back into her life. But after talking to her earlier, I don’t think Sarah knew about the money.”
“Why?” Beckett said. “Sarah hates her dad for what he did to Bonnie. She might have encouraged the blackmail. Watching him twist would be wonderful revenge.”
“Yeah, but ...” Erin wished her partner had seen the frightened young woman in the lobby this morning. “Sarah’s very fragile. She’s been sheltered in the arms of money and wealth, and if she was sexually abused, she had to keep quiet about it, even if she got help. She’s the family embarrassment for someone like Simon Archer. He’s kept her completely dependent to control her and protect his reputation. Bonnie probably already felt partially responsible for Sarah’s abuse, and she may have felt like Sarah knowing about the blackmail would have caused Sarah more stress. So she kept some things to herself. You have to understand wealth and status in a city like D.C can be absolutely all-powerful.”
Beckett wadded up his sandwich wrapper, his eyes boring into her.
The scrutiny made Erin want to burst. “But you were right about my empathizing with her because I come from a similar world. That’s also why I understand her. She’s not experienced like Bonnie. Bonnie knew people like Simon play by a different set of rules, and she knew where to attack—his wallet.”
Erin’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She read the text and almost knocked her soda off the table. Another blocked number, but the message sounded anything but childlike.
I know what Yari Malek did. Meet me at Sal’s on the Waterfront in thirty minutes.
Beckett tossed his napkin into the trash. “You know where that is?”
Erin choked down the rest of her sandwich. “No, but my car will.”
Washington, D.C.’s historic Southwest Waterfront ran the gamut in demographics. Many of the renovated buildings dated back to the city’s first years, while others were trendy and new, seizing on the prime real estate offered by the Potomac. Unfortunately, Sal’s belonged under the former.
The dive bar wasn’t actually on the waterfront but a block off of it in an alley that had probably once had a great view of the river before the expensive restaurant on the corner broke ground.
The stench of old leather, decades of smoke, and greasy food nearly overwhelmed Erin. She blinked, trying to adjust to the light and figure out who she’d come to meet.
“There.” Beckett pointed to the beautiful, dark haired woman waving at them from a corner booth.
Beckett slid into the booth first, and Erin sat down across from Aleta Gilani, wincing as a crack in the leather cut into her thigh. “Why did you text from a blocked number?”
Aleta smoothed her luxurious hair, her gaze unwavering. “You can’t be too careful these days.”
“Thanks for saving us the headache of finding you. We’ve got a lot of things to discuss.”
“I thought so. You’ve discovered what Yari and I did with Bonnie?”
“Sounds like you were in control and had a grudge against Bonnie,” Erin said. “But why kill Virginia Walton?”
Aleta shook her head. “I didn’t kill anyone. Yari might have, but I’m as much of a victim as Bonnie.”
“Except you’re alive,” Beckett said.
Erin leaned forward. She could be on Aleta’s side. “Tell us what you know.”
“Bonnie was all sorts of screwed up,” Aleta said. “She was molested as a little girl and then date raped as a teenager. Drugs put her on the street, and Yari found her. He convinced her he could give her a better life if she worked with him. A bed, three meals a day. No more tricks. All under her control. She fell for it.”
Like so many other discarded girls before her.
Aleta’s ruby lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Yari is a master manipulator. He knew how to play Bonnie. He became her friend, her only ally. He kept her loaded on pills. By the time I came into the picture, she’d gotten clean, but making those videos had become her newest addiction.”
“Yari asked you to join?”
“He wanted someone else behind the camera, and he wanted another female. He offered me a lot of money.” She shrugged. “I like sex, and I like pain. As long as Bonnie consented—which she did—I had no issues.”
“How did Bonnie get into making the videos?” Beckett asked.
This time, malice darkened her grin. “I told you, Yari’s a manipulative prick. And he likes to brag. One night we both got high, and he told me Bonnie made movies long before she realized it. In those days, he tricked her out to a higher class of perv, all in the guise of helping him out for the money he spent on her. When she found out about the videos, she left him and got clean.”
“Then why did she go back to him?”
“Because he made her believe he was the only one who really knew her. By then, he had other girls, but he convinced her she was still his favorite.”
“And then she became a willing participant?” Erin asked.
“I think she hated herself so much she did it as some kind of punishment.” Aleta took a sip of the dark liquid sitting in front of her. “She never talked much to me about it. But she wanted to quit. The last time I saw her at the club, she told me she planned to tell Yari she was done with him.
“Why?”
“I figured it had to do with her rich boyfriend. She liked him.”
Erin slowly digested the information. The case began to piece together like a patchwork quilt. “How is Virginia Walton involved in all of this? And what about Tori?”
“I have no idea about the teacher. Tori, the cross-dresser? You think he had something to do with this? He barely knew Bonnie.”
“They had an issue one night,” Erin said. “He never returned to Sid’s.”
Aleta waved her hand as though swatting a fly. “He’s a pervert who invited her back to his place. She gave him a lap dance, and he asked her to come back and do a snuff film. Told her he’d wear a special black cape and a costume. She told him to fuck off and made security run him off.”
“How do you know this?” Beckett asked.
“Yari told me.” She laughed. “So I guess I should take it with a grain of salt, right?”
“What about the blackmail?” Erin asked. “Were you and Malek in on it?”
Aleta’s dark eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t. My family takes care of me. You’d have to ask Yari, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The only thing he likes more than sex is money.”
“Who’s Jane? And Mina and Charlie?” Erin asked.
Aleta took another long sip
of her drink, her eyes not meeting Erin’s. “I don’t know those names.”
“Where’s Malek?’ Beckett asked.
“No idea. I haven’t seen him since my last shift four days ago. I’m going back to my family and working in the family business.” Aleta’s hand trembled. “I don’t want to end up like Bonnie.”
Erin tried one last question. “Did you ever meet Simon Archer?”
“Bonnie’s uncle, the Republican?” Aleta cocked her head. “She mentioned him once. She called him a hypocritical bastard. But no, I never met him.” Her eyes seemed jet black, either devoid of emotion or expertly matching any real feelings.
“I’m going to call a uniform to take you to the office for an official statement,” Erin said. “While you’re there, consider telling the entire truth. Otherwise, you’re going to be spending the next twenty-four hours in a holding cell.”
* * *
Erin jumped onto 695, bypassing the traffic choking up the roads around the National Mall.
Beckett hissed as she cut in front of a box truck, its horn blaring. “That was a ballsy bluff. We don’t have enough to hold her. She came forward willingly.”
“I can’t tell if she’s keeping information back or not. Let Clark have a go at her. No one can spot a liar like him.”
“I wish Bonnie’s phone records showed direct calls to Virginia Walton. That’s the kind of evidence prosecutors like.” Beckett’s fingers dug into the leather.
“But the records show quite a few calls to the school, most of them at night,” Erin said. “There’s no way to track where the call ended up. And the neighbor saw someone at Virginia’s house who matched Bonnie’s description shortly before her murder. But why the hell didn’t Virginia call us after Bonnie’s murder?”
Beckett straightened out in the seat, his right leg jerking like he might have been slamming his foot on an imaginary brake. “If Malek did this, he did it to punish Bonnie. And Virginia is collateral damage. He might have scared her into silence and then decided leaving her alive was too risky. Same goes for Simon Archer pulling the strings. Fear trumps loyalty most of the time.”
Erin’s fingers ached from her tight grip on the wheel, but she couldn’t relax. “You don’t sound too convinced.”
“It makes sense except for the Ripper and Jane angles. And who are Mina and Charlie to him?”
“Aleta’s daughter and another family member who helps take care of Mina.” The answer hit Erin like a metal fist. “That’s why she didn’t want to tell us she knew the names. She said she’s going back to work with her family. Aleta’s young, but she’s old enough to have a small child. Either the rest of the girls at Sid’s weren’t aware of her or were too scared to tell us.”
Erin wrenched the wheel through traffic, her foot feeling like lead. “You were right all along.”
Beckett huffed and clung to his seatbelt. “What about Tori?”
“Hell if I know.” Erin honked her horn at a Porsche that cut her off. “Wild card, I guess.”
“Coincidence.” Beckett sounded unconvinced.
Erin gunned it and took the exit onto 16th Street. “I thought there were no coincidences?”
Beckett offered her a wry smile. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
While Columbia Heights’ gentrification centered on bringing in bars and new condos, 16th Street Heights’ residents enjoyed grand homes in a peaceful environment. Some actually had decent-sized backyards—a rare commodity in D.C.
“There’s a bit of everything in this area,” Erin explained. “It’s pretty diverse, with a lot of younger families starting to move in. You’ll see more affluent houses on one street and standard, low-middle-class on the next.” She put Malek in the upper-middle-class section since his house sat in the corner lot on Georgia Avenue. While many of the homes boasted bright, cheerful colors, Malek’s was a simple white with green shutters. Nice, but not remarkable. She made an illegal U-turn and pulled up behind the unmarked car stationed a few houses down from Malek’s.
“What are we talking in terms of housing here?” Beckett asked as he shut the door.
“Probably close to $500,000 for a single family home.” Erin said. “But I’m sure Malek brings that in from the strip club alone.”
Armed with coffee and energy bars and listening to droning talk radio, the officers in the unmarked car greeted Erin with jovial smiles. The driver could have doubled as a bodybuilder. He had no neck to speak of, and his hands could have crushed melons.
He gave her a gap-toothed grin. “Hey, it’s the Princess. You find the Ripper yet?”
His patrol partner, a man half his size with bat ears, chortled with glee.
Erin twisted up inside, wishing she could jam her Taser into the meathead’s neck. He probably wouldn’t feel it. “Yeah,” she shot back. “He’s in that house you’re supposed to be watching. So you better not have screwed up.”
Meathead—whose uniform read Simmons—curled his thick upper lip. “We’re not the ones screwing up. No one’s come out since we got here this morning. No one’s gone into it. Place is a dead end, Princess.”
She smiled sweetly. “Kind of like your job, huh?” Erin sauntered away before he could think fast enough to retort. “Sit tight,” she called over her shoulder. “We’re going to check things out.”
Swollen clouds moved in from the east, ready to eclipse the already weak sun. The air smelled like rain, the wind bitingly damp again. She and Beckett casually walked toward Malek’s house.
“Jesus, Princess. You’re not going to make any allies with that attitude.”
Erin glanced over her shoulder. Meathead watched with a scowl. “A guy like that will never be my ally no matter what I do.”
“You should have asked him where he bought his steroids,” Beckett said. “Or offered him the name of a good dermatologist.”
She started laughing. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
They jogged across the street, Beckett’s strides almost twice as long as hers. “Looks like a quiet neighborhood.”
“Most people are probably at work.” Erin pointed to the older model black Jaguar sitting in Malek’s driveway. “Except our guy. This is his only registered vehicle?”
“According to the DMV. And I doubt he’s got something unregistered. No reason to draw any unnecessary attention.” Beckett strolled around the Jaguar, shielding his eyes to peer in the windows. The big muscle in his neck flexed. “Describe Bonnie’s laptop again.”
“Black, eleven-inch.” Gooseflesh rose on Erin’s skin. “She had a sticker of Wonder Woman on the logo.”
“I think I found it.”
Erin mirrored his stance, peering into the car. The tan interior appeared impeccable. No straw wrappers or crayons stuck in the cup holders. A few items littered the back seat: an umbrella, an ice scraper, and flashy red gym shoes. And a black laptop with a Wonder Woman sticker over the logo.
“Shit.” Erin’s adrenal glands kicked into overdrive. A swarm of bees hatched in her stomach. Her mouth dried to parchment. She took the safety off her gun as they crossed the front of the house to the porch steps. No curtains moving in the window. No sudden shouts or slamming of doors. The street seemed eerily silent.
She eased up to the porch, waiting until Beckett took a defensive position to her left before ringing the doorbell. No answer came.
“He might have rented a car,” Beckett said. “We can check with the rental car companies.”
“We don’t have a warrant.”
“You couldn’t make a case to persuade them?”
She didn’t bother to hide her surprise. Maybe Beckett wasn’t so straight-laced after all. “I don’t know how your department in Philadelphia handled things, but Metro P.D. is all about procedure. You cover your ass because the next person up the food chain will leave you out to dry. And then your case is screwed.”
“Good to know,” he said. “And we’ll get a warrant for his credit card information too.”
Beckett walked around the side of the house, his open coat billowing in his wake like a 1920s gangster. Erin followed, grimacing against the gusting, cold wind and trying to watch the windows for any glimpse of their quarry. Malek was one of the lucky people in the city with a backyard larger than a postage stamp. His outdoor patio looked closed up for winter, the chairs neatly stacked and the grill covered.
A bang made both of them nearly jump out of their shoes. Erin raised her gun and whipped around so fast her ankle popped. Instead of Malek bearing down on them, a utility door swung open in the wind.
Erin breathed fast, trying to catch her breath. “It must not have been latched.”
Beckett moved forward first. Erin’s blood pressure spiked, her hands numb with excitement. She gripped her gun tighter, hoping her clammy hands didn’t make her reckless.
“Yari Malek,” Beckett called. “Investigators Prince and Beckett. We need to talk to you.”
A horn blared a few streets over. Mist fell. No sound came from the shed.
“Either it’s empty, or he’s getting ready to ambush us.” Erin stood on tiptoes to whisper to Beckett. The sight of his artery pulsing with adrenaline only made hers ratchet up a level.
Made of cheap pressed wood, the shed had no windows. They’d have to use the front door to find out the shed’s contents.
“Stay back,” Beckett whispered. “Let me go first.”
She opened her mouth to argue they should go together.
“You’ve got a child. I don’t.”
He edged forward, his hand closing around the latch of the door swinging steadily in the wind. Beckett eased the door in front of him, using it as a shield until he stepped to the other side of the door frame and could peek inside. “He’s not in here.”
Erin couldn’t relax yet, but she moved to stand with Beckett as he pushed the door back open.