Naked Addiction

by Caitlin Rother

  Before Goode could absorb all that information, Artie went on. “But, wait, listen to this. In Sharona Glass’ body, we found coke but no meth, and this time, she was strangled before she died. What do you make of that?”

  Goode paused for a minute, then ventured a guess. “Well, given the sexual nature of this case, I suppose she could’ve allowed someone to tie off her air passage, possibly as foreplay, cutting off oxygen to the brain to try to get even higher.”

  “Could be.”

  “Or maybe the killer pretended to be playing around, but had planned to kill her all along.”

  “That also could be.”

  “Or the third option is that she was doing some coke and someone she knew came up and choked her from behind. Her body’s position on the floor looked like she was pulled backwards.”

  “Right. By the way, there were no signs of struggle on Tania’s body other than her broken nails. And, oh yeah. I meant to tell you—I took a closer look at them and they weren’t broken off. They were torn off. Like the killer wanted souvenirs.”

  Goode sat silently for a minute, as he tried to process it all.

  “Goode, you there?” Artie asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. That was a lot to take in all at once. Thanks.”

  Goode tried calling Stone back, but the line was busy. He didn’t want to waste any time, so he called the crime lab and asked to speak to George. They called him G-man because his lifelong—yet unfulfilled—dream was to join the FBI.

  “Hey, G-man, I don’t know if you’ve already sent these results on to Sergeant Stone, but I’m following a train of thought here. Did we ever hear what caliber gun shot Keith Warner?”

  “Yeah, the ballistics tests came back last night. It was a nine millimeter,” George said.

  Goode pulled Clover’s gun out of his pocket. It looked like a nine millimeter, but they’d have to run a test on the bullet to see if it matched the one that shot Keith.

  “How about the crusty splooge on her stomach? Was there a match with Paul Walters?”

  “The DNA tests aren’t back yet.”

  “How ‘bout those cigarette butts?”

  “The two in Tania’s trash were Camels, but they were the only ones that were the Turkish Gold brand. The other two you guys gave me, from Alison Winslow and Jack O’Mallory, were Camel Lights and regular Camels.”

  “Please tell me you have a match with the ones in the trash.”

  “You bet.”

  Goode’s heart was practically beating out of his chest. “The suspense is killing me,” he said.

  “The butt you got from that Jake kid, the one who found the body, was Turkish Gold brand, too. You pulled it out of his planter, right?”

  “Righto.”

  “And guess what?”

  “What?” Goode was feeling the kind of euphoria he’d heard about from drug users, but this was the real thing.

  “Well, the guy had taken only a few puffs, so there was plenty of paper left to pick up traces of the high-purity methamphetamine he must have had on his fingers. And just in case you’re still wondering, his DNA tests match too. We not only have his cigarette butts from the first victim’s trash, but his DNA matches a hair we found embedded in the second victim’s neck wound.”

  “You are kidding me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “So the meth on the Camel butt must have been on his fingers, right?”

  “Yeah, like he’d been swimming in it. More than likely, he’s been cooking it.”

  Goode’s brain was spinning. A biochemistry master’s program indeed. Free access to a lab was more like it—a particular bonus if it was full of graduate student geeks who didn’t recognize that weird chemical smell.

  He still didn’t have a motive for Jake, but he couldn’t argue with the forensic evidence. If Jake was cooking meth, he had to be selling it, too, and that would explain why Goode found no meth stash at Seth’s house. So why hadn’t One-Eye mentioned Jake during the interview? Maybe because the two of them had a side deal, and if Seth took all the heat, One-Eye and Jake could lie low until the cops stopped coming by. Theoretically, anyway.

  So if Paul gave Tania the date-rape drug late Saturday afternoon, Goode figured that Jake must have come over while she was still groggy, they did the meth, and it gave her a heart attack. But then why the strangulation wounds? Maybe Jake freaked out, and wanted it to look like someone else did it. Seth was an easy target because he and Tania had been seen dancing in public on Friday night and had a date planned for Saturday. But then, where did Sharona and Keith fit in?

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah, sorry. My mind was going in a million different directions,” Goode said. “You done good, G-man. You’re all right.”

  The detective still had a lot of dots to connect, but he felt like he was very, very close. At least now he could tie Jake to the crime scene and to Tania’s and Sharona’s bodies.

  “Hey, one other thing,” G-Man said. “Seth Kennedy’s fingerprints were all over the plastic wrap on the heroin. Stone was telling me all of his stories—‘I was framed,’ ‘Someone planted this stuff,’ and ‘My dead best friend did it’—and I’m here to tell you that they are all unadulterated bullshit.”

  “I figured, but I am still so glad to hear you say that. I can’t wait to watch his face when I tell him. You’ve made my day twice in five minutes.”

  When Goode called Stone back this time, he answered right away. And when Goode filled him in on all the details he’d just learned, along with his theories of how they fit together, Stone was just as excited as he was.

  “Damn, Goode, you are good,” he said.

  “I know you’ve just been chomping at the bit to say that,” Goode said, although he had to admit that he couldn’t blame him. “Thanks, dude. I mean it.”

  Once Stone told him the telephonic warrant for the items in Clover’s room had come through, they agreed that the sergeant should get back on the horn to obtain additional warrants to search Jake’s house and his lab at UCSD. The sergeant would meet Goode at Jake’s house so Slausson and Fletcher could run up and hold the lab until the warrant came through, just in case Stone and Goode missed Jake in PB. If they all moved fast enough, they could stop the kid from dumping his most recent batch of meth, even if the warrants were still being processed. They both were convinced that Jake wouldn’t have set up a lab off campus. Why bother when the state was paying the rent?

  “Don’t forget I’ve still got some unfinished business to take care of at Clover’s house first,” Goode said. “I’ll drive over the hill to PB and meet you as soon as I can.”

  As predicted, Goode did, in fact, feel like a sap. He felt stupid for not connecting Jake’s UCSD biochemistry program and the high-quality meth angle sooner. But then again, it hadn’t occurred to Stone either. And it had been there the whole time, right in front of their faces.

  He was grinning as he pulled into Clover’s driveway, but his good humor faded as soon as he started thinking about the task at hand—notifying Rosemary Stratton of her only daughter’s death. After briefing Slausson and Fletcher on all the new developments, he sent them off to UCSD. Then, he stuffed a pair of latex gloves and a couple evidence bags into his jacket pocket, tried to calm down for a minute, and walked up to the front door to do the deed.

  Rosemary Stratton cried fitfully in Clover’s room, where she clutched her daughter’s nubby blanket as Goode packed the gilded box and its contents carefully into the evidence bags. She stopped for a moment to tell him something that she’d just remembered.

  “I asked Lucia for the name of the young man who came over earlier to put that gift in Clover’s room,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “She didn’t remember his name, but she did say that he looked silly with his baseball cap on backward.”

  Chapter 50

  Goode

  As Goode was driving up to Jake’s house, he saw the kid get into his Saab. Goode quickly called Stone, who luckily was parked down th
e street a ways.

  “Don’t worry, “I’m already on it,” Stone said, adding that he would follow Jake to his destination, which, as they both suspected, was his lab at UCSD. “I just got the warrant for the house and was about to go in, so you can head ahead inside and get started.”

  Fletcher and Slausson were waiting for Jake in the UCSD parking lot near his building, where they surprised him as he was getting out of his car. Stone was right behind them. Jake tried to play innocent, but it didn’t take them long to find his latest meth cocktail in the lab. He’d stored the raw stuff in the refrigerator in an opaque plastic orange juice jug. It was all ready to be cooked up, just as soon as the nerds left for the night to play video games.

  Meanwhile, Goode started his own search. In a trash bag in the garage, he found a hoard of empty boxes of generic Sudafed, which contained pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient used by meth cookers. Because the law limited consumers to buying cold medicine containing no more than nine grams of the stuff, Goode figured Jake must have driven all over town to collect enough to make just one batch. Jake obviously knew what he was doing.

  But the coup de grace, the king of all dot connections, came after Goode picked the front door lock. He went into the bathroom, opened the lid on the toilet tank, and was delighted to find a nine millimeter pistol in a plastic Ziploc bag.

  Bingo.

  Jake’s fingerprints would surely be on the gilded box, on Tania’s coffee table, and, in case there was any doubt, on the gun that shot the bullet into Keith’s head. Plus his hair in the neck wound and the cigarette butts.

  His ass is mine.

  While Slausson and Fletcher were taking Jake down to the station to book him, Stone drove back to join Goode at Jake’s place, where they decided to hold the long-awaited news conference. It was always good to show the public that the law was cracking down on serial murderers, especially when they were also meth manufacturers. The local patrol officers helped out by keeping the media from entering the house.

  A throng of reporters, including Ready Rhona, huddled together with their cameramen on the sidewalk and front lawn at Jake’s, while Goode and Stone waited inside for the mayor, Chief Thompson and Lieutenant Wilson to arrive. There were so many reporters and cameras, they spilled out into the street, where they were joined by curious neighbors. When the natives started getting restless, Stone told them it would be just a little while longer.

  “What’s taking so long?” one of them called out. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

  “Not tonight,” Goode retorted. “Be patient. We promise it will be worth the wait.”

  Once everyone arrived, the chief told the press about Jake’s lab bust and said he would also be charged with the recent series of murders, which would make him eligible for the death penalty. The crowd cheered.

  Some arrogant reporter named Jerry from the Sun-Dispatch was there, looking very put out.

  I wonder where Norman is. Probably still giving TV interviews at the Glider Port, Goode thought, chuckling to himself. Jerry must be jealous of Norman, the cub reporter, for getting so much attention, but hell, he deserves it after all he’s been through.

  As the press conference was breaking up, Goode saw Maureen standing behind all the cameras. Her house was right around the corner, after all.

  “Hey bro, what’s up?” she said as she approached. She smiled with a trace of the trademark Goode family sarcasm, to which he responded in kind.

  “Nice of you to call me back. Where have you been the past three days?” he asked, and not all that nicely. “Obviously you heard what’s been going on?”

  Maureen rolled her eyes. “Hey, hey, calm down and I’ll tell you. I saw the helicopter at Black’s, but I didn’t know you were involved until I was driving home and saw you standing up there in front of all these cameras. My famous big brother. What a scene,” she said, moving in to hug him.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” he said, still waiting for an explanation on her whereabouts.

  She pulled back but kept her hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t approve, but Mitch and I hooked up last weekend. We decided to fly to Tahoe for a little love excursion, so I’ve been out of town. I was listening to what you guys said at the press conference and I could not believe this all happened in my neighborhood while I was gone. Did you know I dated that Keith guy a few times? I knew all those girls from the Pumphouse, too. Talk about freaky.”

  Goode nodded and sighed. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did know. So, now you can understand why I was so worried. You really scared me,” he said quietly. It was just like her to do that—run away from him when she knew he wouldn’t like something she was doing.

  “Well, I hate to admit it, but I guess you had a right to worry this time,” she said, pausing. “Look, why don’t we have dinner in the next couple of days and you can tell me all about it. I’ll call you.” Turning to leave, she gave him a little wave.

  Still reeling from all the adrenaline flowing through his body, Goode drove back to the station to take care of some loose ends. Jake was in custody and they were going to get all their ducks in a row before interviewing him in jail the next morning. They had him cold, so it was really just to fill in some holes.

  After running around for five days on very little sleep, he needed to try to come down slowly. Once he got home and had a beer or two, he knew he’d crash with exhaustion. Then he remembered Alison was at his place. He wasn’t looking forward to dealing with that situation.

  Goode went home after filling out about ten million reports to find Alison sitting on the couch, reading one of his crime novels.

  “Hey, I saw you on the news,” she said, grinning

  “Yeah,” he said, heading into the kitchen to grab a beer. He didn’t feel much like talking.

  Alison must’ve picked up on his mood. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

  Relieved, Goode settled back into the couch and tried to settle down. There he’d been, following the escort service, the gang-bang, the drug-ring and the frame-up theories, thinking it was a male murderer because of the sperm, then a female, then a male again, but not for the reasons he’d originally assumed. He had to give himself a little credit, though. He’d figured it out in just five days.

  Nonetheless, he’d been chasing the wrong suspects, ignoring the basic rule that the guy who finds the body always remains a suspect, and for some reason, he hadn’t seen all he should have in the evidence. The chief and the lieutenant made a big deal out of his work at the press conference. Still, he couldn’t help feel that the praise rang empty somehow. Of course he’d played it to the media like he’d known the truth all along. But inside, he knew he’d been on the wrong track for days. And it bothered him.

  It was also disappointing he hadn’t been able to save Clover Ziegler from herself. Three people—actually four now—were dead and Goode had been as successful in preventing her from taking a dive off that cliff as he had been in stopping his own mother from jumping. History kept repeating itself and there was nothing he could do to stop it. But at least Clover hadn’t taken Norman with her and Maureen had come out of all this unscathed.

  Goode had worked for years to get to Homicide, and now that he’d proven himself, the transfer was just a matter of paperwork. Still, he felt confused. You know what they say: Be careful of what you ask for, you might get it. He’d expected to be more excited.

  Maybe I’m just tired. I’ll probably feel better after I take a few days off.

  When Alison emerged from the bathroom, her curly hair was wet, her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were bright. She was wearing one of his flannel shirts and a pair of his running shorts. At any other time, she would’ve been a welcome sight.

  She put a hand on his shoulder, and he was touched by her concern. “I can see it on your face,” she said. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  She’s sweet for trying to make me feel better, but she doesn’t understand.
I want to wallow in my mistakes for a while.

  He got up and went to the kitchen to get another beer, then sat in the chair so she couldn’t sit next to him. He was too tired to deal with their limbo-land situation.

  Norman’s words echoed in his head: Some people just don’t want to be saved.

  Goode wavered over whether he should try to talk to Alison about what was really bugging him, even though he wasn’t exactly sure himself.

  “You know, even if Seth didn’t kill anyone, I still think this was largely his fault—him and his bad behavior,” she said. “He got everyone killed with his selfishness, arrogance and his kinky libido. I sure hope he gets what he deserves.”

  “Yeah,” Goode said. “Me too. Unfortunately, his rich dad has hired him a big fancy lawyer who probably plays golf with most of the judges. I’ll do my best to make sure he doesn’t get off easy, though, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s good.”

  Goode had made up his mind. He would tell her at least part of what was going through his head. “You know, when I was standing on that cliff at Black’s, watching Clover drag that poor reporter around with a gun to his head, all the training in the world couldn’t have helped me. Situations like that, I mean, they’re all different, and when you’re dealing with someone who has mental problems you have no idea what they’re going to do.”

  Alison gave him a sympathetic smile. But pity was not what he wanted. “I’m sure you did the best you could,” she said. “I’ve seen you think fast on your feet. Look how you saved me from Tony.”

  “Well, that was different. He didn’t have a gun.”