by Osborne, Jon
The Cleveland cop cleared his throat on the other end of the line. “Well, no. As a matter of fact, as far as that goes, it’s just about the furthest thing from a confession you could possibly think of, Angel. Razor Diggs swears he had nothing to do with your grandmother’s murder. Says he simply dumped you in the alleyway next to his building after he knocked you out and that’s the last he saw of you.”
Angel gripped the steering wheel so hard that the blood drained from her knuckles. “And that was good enough for you?”
Stosh grunted into the receiver. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. We’re still holding him on the murder of the teenager you witnessed. Other than that, though, we didn’t find his prints anywhere in your house. And the bullet we recovered from your grandmother didn’t match any of the guns we found in his apartment, either, including your .45.”
Angel let out an annoyed breath. With her nerves already teetering on the edge, this revelation only served to shove her over the cliff. “Who in the fuck else could’ve done it, Stosh?”
“I don’t know, Angel, but like I said before, that’s not what I’m calling you about. I need to see you right away.”
Angel clenched her teeth until her jaw began to ache. “Tell me what it’s about and I’ll be more than happy to come right over,” she said slowly. “Listen, Stosh, it’s been a real long day already and I’m exhausted, so I’m really not in the mood to play any games right now, OK? What the hell is going on?”
There was another long pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Stosh said, “It’s Sasha Diggs.”
Angel resisted the urge to scream into his ear through the mouthpiece of her cellphone. “What about her, Stosh? Just tell me already, goddamn it.”
“She’s dead, Angel. Murdered. We found her body twenty minutes ago.”
PART III
“Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.” – Albert Memmi, in his 1999 book, Racism.
CHAPTER 61
Angel mashed down her foot against the gas pedal and flew down the highway at eighty-five miles an hour, as though screaming demons were following hot on her heels and intent upon claiming her eternal soul for the Devil’s dark side of the ledger.
Finally reaching Cascade Park in Elyria fifteen long minutes later, she came to a screeching halt in the parking lot and slammed the car into park mode before throwing open the driver’s side door and jumping out in a flash, leaving the keys dangling from the ignition in an effort to save time and dashing frantically toward the commotion a hundred yards away.
Her heart pounded madly in her throat as she followed the trail of flashing blue lights all the way down to the edge of the Black River, which was meandering its way through the massive park like some kind of dark, pulsating snake that was completely unconcerned with the human drama currently playing itself out along its timeworn banks.
Angel found Stosh Meyers among fifty or so other law-enforcement personnel; all of them hovering over Sasha Diggs’s hacked and bloody body like a flock of hungry vultures. Most of the law-enforcement personnel looked sick to their stomachs as they muttered to each other – and themselves – in low voices.
Angel resisted the urge to close her eyes against the horrific sight that slapped her hard across the face and left her ears ringing. Sasha Diggs was completely naked and lying on her back at the river’s edge. Her lifeless hazel eyes stared directly up into the harsh glare of the blazing noontime sun, completely unseeing now, though they’d obviously seen far more than their fair share of horror over the past week. Twigs and little bits of mud and grass were weaved into her once-luxurious long black hair, which now sat grotesquely matted to her head with the dirty brown water of the Black River. Little white maggots wriggled madly in her split-open belly in their quest to claim the tastiest bits for themselves.
Gagging, Angel saw that Sasha’s beautiful body didn’t even come close to sticking out in all the right places any more.
She covered her mouth and nose against the revolting stench – a nauseating combination of vinegar and baking meat – and again resisted the urge to close her eyes against the horrific sight. It wouldn’t have done her any good, anyway. She had very little doubt that the shocking images would remain seared into her memory forever.
Sasha Diggs had suffered before she died. She’d suffered a lot. Her breasts had been hacked off all the way to the breastbone, and it looked as though some kind of powerful bomb had gone off inside her stomach.
Something else, also bloody, lay in the dirt right next to her destroyed body.
“What is that?” Angel asked, barely recognizing the haunted sound of her own trembling voice.
The blood drained completely from Stosh’s face, turning his cheeks a ghostly white. His own voice shook with a powerful combination of sorrow and rage.
“It’s a fetus, Angel. Sasha Diggs was four months pregnant.”
CHAPTER 62
Richard Patton filled in the Race Master on the latest news from Cleveland while the sounds of Handel’s Messiah floated softly in the air all around them.
“The mission: it’s finally been completed, sir. Sasha Diggs is dead.”
The Race Master looked up from his tattered copy of Mein Kampf while Bane calmly chewed on Josef Sullivan’s leg bone at his feet, a contented growl coming from deep within his thick throat. “And Gerald Trebblehorn, Richard?” the Race Master asked.
“He’s dead, too, sir. Dispatched by O’Reilly and Collins.”
“And the money?”
“Eight hundred thousand dollars, sir.”
The Race Master frowned. He knew that the former military men made a habit of skimming off the top, but twenty percent still seemed a bit hefty for his liking. “What’s the status of the private investigator, Richard?”
“She’s still working the case, sir.”
The Race Master sighed. Perhaps the silly woman hadn’t received the message clearly enough the first time around. Perhaps it was time to ramp up the pressure a bit.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
The Race Master paused and frowned. Perhaps, but the thought of killing Angel Monroe outright didn’t sit well with him. The death of the woman’s grandmother had been deviation enough from his master plan. Any further murdering of the minor characters in this brilliant play just wouldn’t seem artistic.
“Have O’Reilly and Collins keep a close eye on this stone in my shoe, Richard,” the Race Master said. “Tell them that they’ve already been paid quite handsomely with the money they’ve stolen from me – both in this instance and in the past.”
Patton nodded. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
The Race Master waved a hand in the air, eager to get back to his reading. “No, I think that will be all for now, Richard. The baseball player in Cleveland should keep everyone busy for a little while, which should in turn give us ample time to plan our next move. For now, just proceed with the woman basketball player down in Houston. Other than that, though, keep up the good work, my boy.”
Richard Patton beamed. Compliments were exceedingly rare in The Brotherhood, and this marked the second time in as many days that he’d managed to please the Race Master. If nothing else, he knew he must’ve been doing something right.
He snapped to attention and raised his right arm in a stiff Nazi salute before pivoting sharply on his heel and quickly exiting the room. “Yes, sir. I certainly will.”
CHAPTER 63
Dana popped the trunk on the Sentra, and she and Blankenship dressed quickly in the fresh sets of PPE they’d brought along with them from Seattle before making their way up the sidewalk.
Ducking under the yellow police tape stripped across the front doors of Marjorie Trimble’s beautiful mansion and stepping inside the foyer a moment later, they both immediately recoiled against the horrific sight that slapped them hard across their faces. Dana’s ears rang. Her palms flooded with sweat. Her hands shook. Her w
orld swayed.
The shocking bloodbath that had taken place within the ridiculously high-ceilinged foyer of Marjorie Trimble’s remarkable home exceeded even the disgusting horror show that had transpired in the back seat of Betsy Campbell’s green Subaru hatchback a few days prior. Previously, Dana would have thought such a feat utterly impossible to accomplish. But standing here now and taking in the unspeakable tableau before her shocked eyes, her reeling brain had no choice but to reconsider its earlier judgment.
Dana swallowed back an acrid measure of stomach acid that rushed up from her stomach and flooded into her mouth. Cringing against the foul taste, she blinked rapidly to refocus her vision. What seemed to be gallons of blood had been splashed against the walls. The marble-tiled floor had been covered in red, as had the faux-Tudor vanity mirror that was hanging above an expensive-looking side table directly in front of an elaborate, winding staircase that led up to the second floor.
Blankenship blew out a slow breath over his teeth and shook his head. “Fuck,” he muttered, leaning down to place his briefcase on the floor at his feet. “This looks twice as bad as the Betsy Campbell scene.”
Dana slid her stare over to him. “That’s just what I was thinking. But I guess it should look twice as bad, because it is twice as bad. Sacramento coroner said Marjorie Trimble suffered eighty-eight knife wounds to her hands, face and body, compared to Betsy Campbell’s forty-four.”
Blankenship gritted his teeth. “Eighty-eight. HH. Heil Hitler. White Power Assholes 101. Another code?”
Dana nodded. “Sure seems like it. The murders might be getting more vicious, but at least the codes are getting simpler.”
Blankenship stretched his neck. “Well, I suppose we’ve got that going for us/”
Dana pursed her lips. “Not good for the victims, though.”
“Good point.” Blankenship paused and swept his stare around the blood-drenched foyer some more. “Gotta be a video security system around here somewhere in a place this fancy.”
“Local cops said they couldn’t find one.”
“Yeah, well, the local cops ain’t the FBI, sweetheart. There’s a security system in here, Dana, I’m sure of it. Now all I’ve got do is find the damn thing. Shit, I’ll bet that thirty different cameras are staring us in the face right now.”
Dana shivered at the thought, wondering if Marjorie Trimble’s murder had been captured on video like Laura Settle’s had back in New York City. “Wouldn’t an outside company take care of something like that, though?” she asked. “There must be bills lying around here somewhere.”
Blankenship pulled back the sleeve on his blazer and checked his watch. “I don’t think so. From what I’ve heard about Trimble, she was the type to be more concerned with the help stealing the silverware than with the possibility of becoming the victim of cold-blooded murder. She probably had the security system installed by a third party, sure, but then I’ll bet she took over the monitoring duties from there. More in keeping with her character. From all reports, she was a micro-manager, a control freak.”
“So, what now then?”
Blankenship leaned down and unsnapped the metal fasteners on the briefcase at his feet, reaching inside and extracting a handheld electronic device before powering it on. “Now we sweep the place,” he said, straightening back to his full height of just over six feet and nodding down to the device in his hand. “This here is the Simpson S2100. Basically works on the same principles as sweeping for bugs, only better.”
Dana rolled her eyes. “You know, Blankenship, sometimes you remind me of ‘Q’ from a Bond movie. Not in a good way, either.”
Blankenship considered the comparison. “Funny, I’ve always thought of myself as being more like Agent Double-Oh Seven, himself: suave, debonair; a real lady-killer.”
He paused and amended the statement. “Well, romantically speaking, at least. Anyway, you did all the dirty work back in Seattle, so I’ll take care of it here. I’ll take the foyer. You head on upstairs and see what you can find there.”
Dana nodded and looked down at her feet to make sure that her paper shoe-covers hadn’t moved out of place. Then she let out a slow breath and headed for the staircase fifteen feet away. “Sounds like a plan to me, ‘Q’,” she said as she reached the foot of the staircase a moment later.
Blankenship cut his stare over to her and injected a thick Scottish accent into his voice. “Uh-uh, my dear,” he said. “The name’s Blankenship.
“Bruce Blankenship.”
CHAPTER 64
Cleveland PD hauled Randy McMichael’s handsome ass into jail less than an hour later. Despite her earlier promises about keeping his private business private, Angel had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about giving up the murdering bastard. Not after what Stosh had told her he and his people had discovered shoved deep inside Sasha Diggs’s traumatized vagina:
A decidedly foreign object positively covered with the former baseball star’s fingerprints.
The task of telling Jelani Diggs about the vicious murder of her granddaughter had somehow fallen upon Angel’s unsteady shoulders, even though it was highly irregular for a civilian to perform such a task. Still, Stosh had said that he didn’t want to send some random uniform up to the old woman’s front door to tell her the bad news, hoped Angel might soften the blow in some small way.
But how in the hell did you soften the blow of a sledgehammer?
Jelani Diggs displayed none of usual histrionics that you normally see on the evening news when Angel knocked on her door in Westlake an hour later. No gnashing of her teeth, no rending of her clothes and no beating of her breast. Just a brief look of shock, then cold, hard detachment. The old woman’s yellowing brown eyes flared up like a supernova for a fraction of a second, and then the light inside her eyes simply blinked out forever, never to return again. Angel left the house knowing that Jelani Diggs had died every bit as much on the inside as her poor granddaughter had died on the outside.
The media circus surrounding Randy McMichael’s perp-walk a few hours later had no equal in the history of Cleveland journalism. National press outlets had shown up – CNN, Fox, truTV – and international media was on its way, winging its way in from all four corners of the globe as it rushed to Ohio to cover the shocking story. The murder of Sasha Diggs marked the biggest scandal in the sports world this side of the O.J. Simpson debacle in 1994, and the similarities between the two cases couldn’t be ignored. Same disgusting, instigating event: a young woman brutally butchered by a beloved sports star – the laughable “not guilty” verdict in the O.J. Simpson case notwithstanding.
Everything seemed a haze for the rest of the afternoon as Angel’s mind struggled to process the unspeakable events of the day. She’d finally taken the first step down what she’d figured would be the long, hard road to finding Sasha Diggs, then she gets a phone call telling her that there would be no happy ending at the end of the trail. Only a dead body.
Or, more accurately, two dead bodies.
They’d be fast-tracking the DNA tests on Sasha Diggs’s unborn baby to confirm that Randy McMichael was indeed the father, but it would take at least a week for the results to come in. Still, Angel didn’t have the slightest doubt in her mind about the paternity. She knew the baby belonged to Randy McMichael, and she didn’t need the double-helix breakdown to tell her that again.
She seethed while she sat in her Cabriolet in the parking lot just outside Edgewater Park Cemetery in Lakewood, clenching and unclenching her teeth so hard inside her mouth that she thought she might shatter her jawbone.
It just wouldn’t have done for the Great White Hope to father a child out of wedlock with a black woman nearly twenty years his junior, now would it have? Not in this backward-ass country, anyway. Especially not when the woman in question had essentially been nothing more than a high-class prostitute, spreading her legs for money in the exact same way that a back-alley hooker did, regardless of how much money she charged for her services or how fancy her expensive
designer clothes happened to be.
Angel shook her head in disgust. The United States had come a hell of a long way since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s – no debating that obvious fact – but Cleveland still remained a dirty place in a lot of ways, still ranked as the third-most segregated area in the country as recently as the 2000 census. So a bombshell revelation like Randy McMichael and Sasha Diggs having a baby together just wouldn’t have done. As the former baseball star himself had told her himself, it would have sent the asshole’s bar business straight to hell.
Angel took in a deep breath through her nostrils and finally switched off the Cabriolet’s ignition before tucking the keys into her purse and slipping a pair of dark sunglasses onto her face to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight that was shining down from the blazing blue skies above. If nothing else, she knew she couldn’t handle this alone. She needed someone to talk to about the bloody nightmare she’d just witnessed at Cascade Park in Elyria.
She sighed and exited the car. As had been the case so many times before in her life, she needed to talk to her grandmother.
CHAPTER 65
Kimberly Anderson jockeyed for position down low in the paint and called for the ball. The point guard whipped in the pass and Kim lowered her shoulder, gave a head fake to shake off her tenacious defender and powered up to the rim. The basketball rattled around the iron for a second or two before falling through the net with a soft swish!
Thirty feet away, the coach blew a shrill whistle. “All right, ladies, great practice! Hit the showers! Road game in Detroit tomorrow. Bus leaves for the airport at six p.m. tonight. Don’t be late or it’ll cost you a hundred dollars a minute.”