by Kim Pritekel
“Come on, Karen,” Oscar said softly, leading her out of the apartment, exchanging a glance with Catania as they passed her.
****
Catania hurried across the street that separated the parking lot from the hospital, a tan truck slowing to a stop allowing her to pass. She waved a thank you, then hurried to the sliding glass doors that would lead to Admissions.
To the left of the doors was a grassy expanse with a few large trees. She stopped when she saw Squirrel sitting cross-legged under one of the trees. The teen glanced over at her but then returned her attention to the adorable beagle that was with her. The dog was chewing on a bone and, for just a second, she swore it looked like a human bone, an ulna bone, to be specific. Her hand absently reached up to rest on her cast, almost protective of her arm. She blinked a few times and when she focused again, she realized the dog was actually chewing on a rawhide treat.
“It’s rude to stare, you know,” Squirrel called out to her with a cocky grin.
Catania watched as she got to her feet, the beagle gripping the rawhide in its jaws and glancing at her before it turned away, tail wagging happily as it followed Squirrel as she began to walk away.
“Oh, Nene?” Squirrel said, stopping just long enough to look at her over her shoulder. “Go get ’em, tiger.” She flashed her a winning smile as a soft breeze caught a bit of the shaggy brown bangs falling into her eyes. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker as she and the dog casually strolled away.
Chapter Twenty-two
At the bottom of the screen in all capital white letters were the words CAM 1: LIVE. The black-and-white image was set up high and showed a bed tucked against the wall straight ahead and to the left, the head of the bed missing from the shot as a bump-out wall was in the way. An open doorway in that wall revealed just the barest hint of a shower inside.
Sitting at the end of the bed was a woman with short, dark hair, her left arm in a cast. She seemed to be crying as her body convulsed with emotion. Her legs were spread enough for a woman with longer, light-colored hair to stand between. She cradled the sitting woman’s head to her chest, running her fingers through the short locks.
The scene vanished only for another to pop up, a timestamp on the bottom left: CAM 1: TAPE - DEC. 21 2017. It was the same scene, except the bed was unmade, and what could be seen of the sheet and blankets looked as though they’d been hastily tossed aside. Suddenly, the same two women—the darker-haired woman sans cast—hurried into the scene, both with wet hair hanging, the one with lighter hair wearing a diner uniform that had wet patches on the material. She led the one with darker hair over to the bed by the hand. She disappeared behind the bathroom wall, only parts of the other woman visible.
Suddenly the view changed. CAM 2: TAPE – DEC. 21 2017. The view was the same room but from the side of the bed, the entire thing visible, though the standing women—kissing—were cut off at the shoulder. The view was partially distorted on the right side as a rounded glass globe was slightly in the shot.
A wide band of moving static stretched across the view as the movement of the action was sped up, the two comically kissing, touching, and moving to the bed in hyper-speed where they continued, one on top then the other, clothing disappearing.
Finally, the scene was slowed and allowed to play at regular speed as the woman with lighter-colored hair lay atop the other woman, her lower body covered by the blankets as it moved sensually.
The shot zoomed in toward her face, in profile. The shot zoomed in a bit more until her features became slightly grainy. Her head raised and head turned, inadvertently facing her unseen audience of one. Her eyes were closed and her beautiful face was frozen in ecstasy as the frame was paused.
****
Catania started, slowly becoming aware of heat along the backside of her body and a gentle touch brushing her hair back from her face. Next she came to realize the voice of an angel was speaking softly in her ear.
“Baby, it’s time to get up. It’s almost six. You said you needed to get up and out early.”
Nia babbled something unintelligible. She was exhausted, and her head hurt. The night before came back to her, hours of lying on Ally’s bed talking, crying, holding each other, and crying some more. Eventually they’d fallen asleep. It had only been when she’d accidentally rolled the wrong way and her arm let her know it that she’d woken up to find them both asleep on top of the made bed. She’d roused Ally, and they’d quietly undressed and slid beneath the covers, quickly falling back to sleep.
Her jaw popped as a huge yawn took her over. She smiled at the soft kiss she felt on the side of her neck before Ally slid away from her. She rolled over to her back from her right side and stared up at ceiling as the full weight of the day before her came crashing down.
Her trip to the hospital the day before had been fruitless. Matteo had been moved to the psychiatric wing and his doctor hadn’t allowed anyone to see him, including her or their mother. As of her last call just before 10:00 p.m. the previous night, he had remained unresponsive and had been sedated to try to get his mind to calm and let go of the self-imposed cage of fear he was locked in.
Sitting up, she ran her hand through her hair. Ally stepped out of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand and hair already brushed.
“I’ll head upstairs and make some coffee as soon as I’m done,” she said, raising her toothbrush a bit before disappearing back into the small room.
“’Kay,” Catania muttered, groaning as her back yelled at her as she crawled out of bed. She went to stand, but her exhaustion pushed her back down. “Okay, I get it.”
Reaching for her phone on the bedside table, she decided to be productive even as her body refused to allow her to stand just yet. She logged into her email and scanned missed messages, stopping when she saw she had something from the lab.
Scrolling through the email, she slowed her reading, reading and rereading the results of the beer bottle found in Kevin Tanner’s truck.
“Holy shit,” she hissed.
Green glass bottle (qty: 1) –
DNA – Kevin S. Tanner (contributor)
Trace amount gamma hydroxybutyric acid
“GHB,” she murmured. “Fucker drugged them to get control of them.”
“What, baby?”
Catania tossed her phone to the bed and made herself get up and get dressed. “I have to go,” she uttered, wincing as her arm disagreed with the way she was pulling her shirt on.
“Here,” Ally said, hurrying over to her. “Let me help you. You’re going to get it tangled.” She looked deeply into Catania’s eyes as she gently pulled the loose sleeve over the cast on her arm. “What happened?” she asked.
“I believe he drugged Kevin Tanner,” she said simply.
“And, that’s the ‘suicide’?” she asked, using air quotes.
“Yes.” Catania let out a heavy sigh, buttoning her shirt once Ally got her arm situated. “Now, I’m wondering if that’s how he was able to control two adults and a child, too.”
Ally studied her, chewing on her bottom lip as though in deep thought. “God, that’s horrible. Would it be possible to do?”
“Extremely possible.” Catania hurried over to the coat hooks on the wall and grabbed her jacket, shrugging it over her shoulders. “God, I can’t wait to get rid of this goddamn thing,” she said, tapping the cast with her fingers. “There were beer bottles all over that triple homicide scene. It would have been easy for him to slip something in, even just enough to make our victims a little unsteady.”
“Jeez,” Ally whispered, hugging herself. “That’s so cold.”
Catania nodded, grabbing her phone and tucking it into her pocket as well as her wallet and her keys, which lay on the kitchen table. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to call you today,” she said, turning to Ally who stood a few steps behind her. She gave her a small smile and raised her hand to brush her fingers down the softness of Ally’s cheek. She could see the fear in her eyes and the sa
dness. Catania wasn’t entirely sure what would happen at the house today, and she hated that she couldn’t stay there with her.
She gathered Ally into a warm embrace, burying her face in her neck. Ally clung to her and, in that moment, something unsaid passed between them.
“Please be safe today,” Ally whispered into her ear.
Catania nodded and left a kiss on her neck. “I will. Call me if you need me.” She ran her fingers through her hair and smiled at her as she broke the hug. Leaving a final, lingering kiss on her lips, she left.
****
“Yeah, so go ahead and test those bottles again, that’d be great,” Catania said into her desk phone, nodding as she listened to the tech on the other end. “Exactly. Okay, great. I look forward to hearing back from you… Okay, thanks. Have a good day.”
“Good lord. You’re here early, kid,” Oscar said, stepping up to his desk and setting his travel mug down, the fragrance of fresh coffee wafting her way. “How’s Matteo?” he asked, setting his phone and keys down on the desk before shrugging out of his overcoat to place it on the back of his chair.
She sighed, sitting back in her own chair. “No change. Doctors won’t let family in, let alone any type of police type to talk to him, find out what happened.” She grabbed a pencil from her desk and twisted it between her fingers. She gave a rueful smile still studying the yellow No. 2. “I’ve only seen him like this one other time. I was five, but I swear I remember it. We’d all gone to the lake house for the weekend, I guess. I don’t remember anything about the weekend except this moment. My dad had his camera out.” She glanced over at him to see he was giving her his undivided attention. “You know, the old-school Super 8 kind.” She smiled, remembering that camera he kept for years. “Matty and I were being silly, making faces, showing off for him. Hamming it up, I guess. Suddenly, out of nowhere Jason comes running by and grabs Matty. He was only two. He took off with him, Matty screaming his little head off.” Her voice broke as fresh emotion stung the backs of her eyes.
Oscar rolled his chair closer to her and reached out, placing a hand on her knee. “It’s okay, kiddo.”
Catania smiled at him, appreciative of his enduring friendship. “Matty didn’t speak for a week. He’s hated Jason ever since.”
“He’s gonna bounce back from this, Nia,” he said softly, letting his hand drop away from her. “He’s got you, he’s got your mom, and hey, he even seems pretty fond of Ally.” He gave her an encouraging smile. “We’re going to get to the bottom of all this. You and me, ’kay?”
She met his eyes and looked deep into their kind depths for a long moment. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah. I want blood.”
“So, what did you find?”
“The beer bottle found in Kevin Tanner’s truck?” Catania said, reminding him of what was found.
“Yeah…”
“Date rape drug.”
His mouth fell open. “You are fucking kidding me.”
“I am not,” she said, tossing the pencil back to her desk. “I just got off the phone with the lab to ask them to do more testing on the beer bottles left behind at the Luhan house.”
“Good thinking. That would absolutely make sense how one person took control of that scene.”
“Exactly.”
They both looked to Oscar’s cell phone when it began to ring. He picked it up and held it to his ear.
“Riley here.” He listened to the caller on the other end, glancing at her. He raised his hand and gave her a thumbs-up. “Alright, great. What’s the address?” His eyebrows shot up. “No kidding, City Park, huh? Okay, on our way.” He ended the call and pushed up from his chair. “Somebody found a gun.”
****
Catania guided the car along the exact same path they had taken not long ago when Kevin’s body had been found. A man fishing with his grandson saw a pistol in the shallows not far from where they were set up on the small dock over the man-made pond of the public park. It was also not more than fifty yards from where Kevin had been shot.
Up ahead she saw the uniformed officer chatting with the older man, his grandson sitting off on a park bench playing on his phone, which Catania wagered a guess is what he’d rather be doing anyway. She chuckled at her own internal thoughts before cutting the engine and climbing out of the car.
“’Mornin’,” the officer greeted as they walked over to him.
“How goes it?” Oscar asked, smiling and nodding at both men. “What we got here?”
“Found this,” the old man said, handing over his treasure.
Catania stood back a bit, as Oscar was definitely the gun expert between them. She knew a lot simply from her line of work, but he’d grown up with guns and his father collected them. His knowledge was impressive, if not a bit unsettling for someone like her who respected guns but certainly wasn’t an enthusiast.
Catania’s phone rang so she stepped aside, pulling it out of her pocket. It came across as a restricted number. Not uncommon, as a lot of her informants called her from the random pay phone or hid their numbers when they called in tips.
“Detective d’Giovanni.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
Catania’s eyebrows drew. “‘Me,’ who?”
“Squirrel! Come on now, don’t disappoint me and tell me you’ve already forgotten about your favorite monkey, Nene.”
Wondering if the teen was on something, she asked, “So, what’s up?”
“I’ve heard you’ve been asking around about Liv.”
Instantly interested, she nodded. “Yeah, I’ve asked a few people about her. Have you seen her?”
“Lookin’ at her right now. Listen, I need you to meet us. We’re way out in the boonies, but she’s been in hiding. She’s got some info about this creeper you’re looking for.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked, tucking the phone between ear and shoulder as she searched through her pockets with her one good hand. Notepad and pen located, she managed to remove the cap with her teeth and flip the notebook open. “Where am I going?” She hurried over to their sedan and set the notepad on it as she scribbled the address Squirrel was firing off at her. “Wow. You really are way the hell out there. You there now?”
“Get here as fast as you can. Ain’t gonna wait around all day.”
Catania opened her mouth to speak but realized the line had gone dead. “Squirrel?”
“Aren’t they up there?” Oscar asked, walking over to her, a dopey grin on his face.
Catania pulled the phone away from her face, looking at it to see her lock screen. “Guess she hung up. She wants us to meet her. She said she has Liv with her and she has information for us on our guy.”
“Where are they?”
“Boone.”
He looked at her. “Boone? I hope they plan to be there for a bit, that’s about a thirty-minute drive from here.”
“Yeah, she said hurry. Here,” she said, handing him the keys. “You know that area out that way better than I do.” They climbed into the car, she taking shotgun. “No go?” she asked, nodding toward the policemen who was climbing back into his squad car and the old man who was heading back to fishing.
“Nah. I told Officer Stevens to go ahead and turn it in, but that thing hasn’t been fired in twenty years.”
“Well, there’s one lost gun down, only about a million more to go,” she said with a small smile. “I’m going to call in where we’re going.” She reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the handheld radio they kept there at all times in case they ended up in an area with bad reception or there was some other issue. She called it in to dispatch and tossed the radio onto the dashboard. “Guessing we won’t have great reception out there?” she asked. “Squirrel sounded like she was a few planets away.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty sporadic at best. Hell, growing up in Vineland, which isn’t as far, TV reception could be fun.” They drove in silence for a bit. Then, “How’s Karen doing? You know,” he said, sparing a glance at her, “after everything that hap
pened yesterday.”
“Uh.” She sighed, running her hand through her hair, leaving it sticking up in the back. “She was shaken, no doubt. My mom said Jason is going to send her to spend some time with her mom in Kansas. She’s cleared with us, so…”
Oscar nodded, glancing in the rearview mirror before his side mirror as he flicked his turn signal on and switched lanes. “Can’t say I blame her. I mean, I know how upset your mom was at her last night, and I do understand why, but Karen did the right thing.”
“Yeah,” Catania conceded. “She did.”
More than half an hour of light chatter and banter later, Oscar turned off the paved street—though it was filled with cracks and ruts—onto a long, gravel lane. Off in the distance to the right was an old farm, the house a small, white single story. There were several outbuildings, including a massive barn and a massive grain silo, which cast deep shadows over the property.
“What’s that address again?” he asked, looking around as they got closer. When she read it from her notes, he nodded as he glanced to his phone’s GPS. “Yeah. I mean, unless reception sent us to Nebraska, this should be it.” He pulled the car onto the property. “Why don’t you call her and see where we’re supposed to meet her.”
“Can’t. It was a restricted number.”
“Shit.”
“Wait…” Catania strained her neck as she thought she saw movement. She peered through the shadows to the barn and saw a small, human-sized door next to the massive doors that could accommodate large equipment or animals. The person-door was open a bit. She saw a flash of light blue and gray and Squirrel waving at her. “There’s Squirrel. Over at the barn.”
“Of course it is,” Oscar exclaimed. “Creepiest place on the whole damn property.”
Catania smiled, though in truth she felt nervous, her stomach buzzing with frantic butterfly wings.
“Nia,” he said, pulling to a stop about twenty feet back from the barn. “Think we should call for backup?”