The big man looked down. "Police had sent a couple of detectives over to our house to talk to me. Apparently, some of our classmates had reported me to them. They said I had changed into some kind of a monster…which I suppose was true."
Poe flushed with rage. "They were all assholes!"
"I suppose I had been acting scary lately. I did break more than a few bones."
"The fights were always provoked."
"The police didn't see it that way. They came over, started questioning Mom and me. Grilling us, actually. She tried to explain that hormones had been doing stuff to my system. But that only added to their suspicions. That the chemicals must have been driving me to do these…acts of terror. Because what the police saw was this grotesque, hulking kid with lots of unexplained absences—"
"Questioning a child like that is grotesque." Poe thought of the police, how they had barged in on Alison and him. She should have sued. Out loud, he said, "We should have sued."
"Funny you should mention that. They wanted us to come to the station house. At that point, Mom said she was calling her lawyer."
"What lawyer? Mom didn't have a lawyer."
"Maybe she said a lawyer instead of her lawyer. Anyway, she did threaten to sue them." Remus actually smiled. "Rom, she was marvelous. She started spouting off legal cases like Clarence Darrow—instance after instance in which people had sued the government and had received millions in damages."
"Mom? Where'd she come up with the knowledge?"
"Beats me." Again, Remus laughed. It came out as ox bellows. "I think she made it up as she went along. But it worked. She scared them off and they never bothered me again." A beat. "Of course, it helped that the murders suddenly stopped."
"I never knew."
"We didn't tell you. You had your own problems. Besides, both of us were too ashamed." Remus finished his brother's sandwich. "I've eaten your lunch."
Poe signaled for two more sandwiches.
Remus said, "Getting back to the original question…the two cases. I don't remember too much about either murder. I do recall something about the eyes."
"So I wasn't crazy. You do remember that."
"Yes, I do."
Poe sighed. "Like I said, I only found the one murder file on microfiche in that year. Janet Doward. The only other file I found which halfway matches Doward was dated a full year later."
"Files can be conveniently misplaced, dates can be changed."
"Remus, the victim was a runaway without connections. A nobody. Why would anyone bother to misplace or misdate her file?"
"Could be her killer was a somebody."
"Rom, tele—"
Poe screeched, jumped up. Myra had been standing behind him. She was holding a cordless phone. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sneak up on you."
Poe smiled weakly. "I startle when I'm concentrating."
"Mickey's on-line for you." She handed him the phone. "Just push the red button."
Poe punched the talk dot. The receiver immediately filled with static. He shouted, "Yes, Loo."
"Myra says your brother's in town," Weinberg yelled.
"Yes, sir."
"How long is he staying?"
"He's leaving this afternoon."
Weinberg said, "Then it's too bad I've got to interrupt you. Another dump right off Red Rock."
"Christ!"
"Not like the first. A clean kill. Still, you'd better come down." Weinberg gave him directions.
Poe said, "I'm on my way."
"Say hi to your brother for me." Weinberg cut the line.
Remus said, "Bad news?"
Poe said, "Bad for me, worse for the victim."
Remus sighed a gust of wind. "Rom, if Mom is too much—"
"Actually, at this point, I think Mom will be a nice diversion." Poe stood. "I've got to go."
"How are you going?" Remus asked. "I thought you didn't have a car."
"Oh shit!"
Remus gave him the keys to his rental. "I'll grab a cab. Just take it back for me."
Poe hefted the keys. "Thanks. Really. Thanks a lot."
"Take care of yourself, Rom." Remus stood, grabbed his brother, enveloping him in a bear hug that nearly broke Poe's ribs. For the sake of fraternal love, Poe put up with being squashed. In some primordial way, it felt comforting.
The area had been roped off, a yellow ribbon waving in the leftover breeze. The meat wagon was there; so were the techs. Everyone wearing sunglasses, the campsite looked like a cataract convention. Sand stirred about the desert floor, swirling like a scarf. Poe kept his brother's rental roadside, parked and walked a hundred feet, over to the center of action.
When he saw the pink hair, he felt his stomach bolt.
She had been tossed carelessly—a marionette with broken strings, whitish pipestem limbs. So frail…just as he had remembered her. It broke his heart. She wore an iridescent green miniskirt. She was nude from the waist up.
No rake marks.
She was covered with sand—in her face, eyes, nose, and ears. A vivid knife swipe ran across the girl's windpipe. He felt his breath quicken. "I just saw her a couple of nights ago at Naked City. She was a flagger for Brittany Newel's pimp."
"Christ!" Jensen said. "You're sure it's the same—"
"Positive. Same face, same dress…and that hair…."
Secretly, Jensen was relieved. Poe was connected to this one. Plus, he was sure he hadn't slept with her.
Weinberg said, "Do you remember the pimp, Rom?"
"Absolutely."
"Well enough for a composite?"
"Yes."
The lieutenant said, "This certainly sheds a different light on everything—a common link between this murder and Brittany Newel. Did Newel have any African-American evidence transfer on her, Poe?"
"None that I can recall. I'll check."
Weinberg wiped grit from his eyes, stuck his hands in his pockets. "Okay. This is what we'll do. Deluca and Jensen will finish up here. Keep an eye out for the examiner while you comb the area for evidence."
The two detectives nodded in unison.
"Rom, you get yourself some backup and go to Naked City," Weinberg went on. "See if you can find the pimp. If he's not there, find out where he went. If you have to, use some spinach to get the residents gabby."
"Fine."
"If you can't find the pimp, go downtown and talk to Mel. If you can't find Mel, Cindy can help you out using the computer's Draw-a-Face."
"I'll also look through the mug books," Poe said. "Find out if he's been bad before…well, we know he's been bad. See if he was ever arrested locally."
Patricia hadn't taken her eyes off the body. She couldn't believe how happy she had been with Nate. Now the glow of yesterday's evening had turned arid as the sand in her shoes. "She was so young."
"A child." Poe swallowed. "I almost ran her in. I…should have."
Weinberg said, "The murder happened last night, Poe, not two nights ago when you saw her. And even if you had arrested her, she would have been out within hours. Open prey. Which was obviously the case."
Poe nodded solemnly.
Weinberg had spoken the truth. The loo was also trying to make him feel better. Still, his words rang hollow.
SIXTEEN
"THAT'S HIM!" Poe jabbed his finger at a mug shot. "Or technically, that's he." "You're sure?" Patricia said. "Positive. Just give him a goatee." Poe picked up a pencil, drew fine lines around the chin. He regarded his handiwork. "That's my guy." He read: "Ali Abdul Williams. Booked for aggravated assault a year and a half ago in June."
He shut the mug book with a thump.
"Okay, let's run him through the network. See if he has a local address, a local phone number, any local relatives. Find out who his associates are. I'll talk to Weinberg about getting a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant for his apartment."
"Will do."
"For sake of closure, we should find out if he did time. And if he did, who his parole officer is. If he's stil
l on parole, we can arrest him for parole violation."
A pause.
"I was that close, Patricia." Poe measured off a small distance between his thumb and index finger. "Pisses me off." He exhaled. "Even if Williams didn't do Brittany, I should have nabbed him while I had the chance. Locked him up before he did the kid Jane Doe. Do we have a name for her yet?"
Patricia shook her head no. "Sir, you can't arrest someone proactively—"
"Due process sucks!"
Patricia said, "This pimp Williams…he knew you were a cop, right?"
"Yeah, I told him I was a cop."
"And then—after you told him you were a cop—he says to you that he'll slice Brittany Newel's throat if he ever sees her again. Correct?"
"Go on."
"Then Williams offers you the kid Jane Doe." She tried to organize her ideas. "Like he made sure that you saw her."
"More like he was trying to get some money out of me."
Patricia continued her train of thought. "Next thing, Kid Jane Doe shows up dead, murdered, with her throat cut. Leaving us to think that Williams did it. Now is the guy that stupid or are we missing something?"
Poe clasped his hands tightly so he wouldn't snap. "Most criminals are very stupid."
Patricia was silent.
Poe said, "Are the two murders related? I don't know. What do we know?" He ticked off his fingers. "Both were desert dumps, left in the same vicinity. Both were associated with Ali Abdul Williams—"
"But they died in very different ways."
"Meaning?"
"I'm thinking that maybe someone is trying to link the two murders to throw us off track. We're out looking for Williams, but meanwhile the real murderer is getting away."
Poe wrinkled his nose.
"I'm just throwing out ideas."
Poe paused. "I see your point. But you're getting ahead of yourself. First, let's find Williams. Then when we find him, we can ask him these questions ourselves. By the way, where's Jensen?"
"Alison wasn't feeling well. He knocked off early to be with her. You want me to page him?"
"No, it's not an emergency." Poe took out his notebook. "Okay. You run Williams through the network, I'll go back and look over Newel's file. See if some prints or latents were lifted from the scene. Now that we have a suspect, we can run the prints through the computer to see if they match up with Williams. Sure be nice to get a positive. It would buttress our case when we question him."
"If we find him."
"We'll find him. They never run very far."
"Unless he's dead," Patricia said. "Although I suppose even then he's likely to surface. Just not in a usable form."
Rukmani spoke from behind a surgical mask, looked down at the dissected young body lying on the cold metal slab. "From her teeth and bones, I'd say she was around fourteen. Her twelveyear molars are erupted, but the crown hasn't nearly cleared the surrounding gingiva…even on the mesial side. Here, take a look."
Poe held out his hand. "I believe you."
"You're suddenly so squeamish."
"No, I'm not squeamish. Nor am I ghoulish."
Rukmani smiled beneath her mask. "I took some radiographs of her maxillary teeth in situ. Her wisdom teeth aren't fully formed…no signs of root formation, which is consistent with a person under sixteen. I'll shoot the mandible once I've disarticulated it from the body."
Poe raked his hair with gloved hands. "How long had she been lying out there?"
"She was past rigor…lividity had set in. At least twenty-four hours, but probably not longer than forty-eight. I found some eggs but no maggots."
"But she could have been murdered as far back as two nights ago?"
"Possibly."
Two nights ago. Right after he had visited Naked City.
His heart sank. He should have run her in. Instead, he had played nursemaid to Y. What a weird night that had been. The piercing coyote howls that had awakened him. Y abuptly disappearing. Poe said, "Was she raped?"
"She had sex before she was murdered. Consensual?" She shrugged. "Is prostitution ever consensual sex? She had her appendix taken out, by the way."
"Is that significant?"
"Just that the surgery was done well. No back-door butcher job. At one point, someone cared."
Rukmani draped a tarp over the body, dropped the mask from her face. She adjusted her glasses, picked up a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and drank. The amphitheater lights gave her hair a polished sheen. "Have you had a chance to look at apartments for your mom?"
"I've got a couple of appointments tomorrow. How can you drink coffee in here?"
"Gotta keep the fluids up. What have you found?"
"I found a great place about two blocks away from you."
"How convenient."
"I'm telling you, Ruki, because if you think it might be a problem—"
"You mean I might take exception to your mother calling me up at all hours, talking about her lumbago? That's what she did the last time she was here. And we'd only known each other for a week."
"What is lumbago, anyway?"
"Rheumatoid arthritis." Rukmani wiped sweat from her forehead with her elbow. "She really does have it bad, poor thing. I like your mother, even though she calls me 'that sweet little Indian girl.'"
"My mother's American Indian. She's giving you a compliment." He paused. "I shouldn't be dragging you into my mess."
Rukmani would have tousled Poe's hair, but she was wearing gloves. "I know this isn't easy for you, Poe. Anything I can do to help."
Poe nodded. "Thanks."
She wrapped her face mask over her nose and mouth, then uncovered the body. Eyes directed downward, she said, "I had a chance to look at one of her fingernail scrapings. She fought like a tiger, Rom. I got some good skin samples. You should be looking for someone with lots of scratches."
Skin samples. Poe said, "Could you tell if the skin was black or white?"
"Caucasian."
Poe tried not to register disappointment. "Do you remember if there were scrapings under Brittany Newel's nails?"
"Yep, there were. But not like this one."
"What kind of skin?"
"Also Caucasian."
Poe snapped his fingers. Caucasian skin clouded Ali Abdul Williams as the murderer of either girl. But that didn't rule him out as an accomplice. He was a connection between the two girls and needed to be found. "Anything else?"
"If I were the betting type, I'd say the crime happened outdoors. Her nails were filled with dirt, sand, and grass."
"Grass?"
"Yeah, grass. The thin green stuff that's usually found in front of most suburban houses."
Poe said, "Not in Vegas. Out here it's sand, not sod."
Rukmani looked up. "What are you talking about? There's plenty of lawns out here. Conservation of water is a forbidden concept in these parts. Lord knows what's going to happen when the well runs dry."
"I'm not talking about little patches of lawn. More like the public places…empty lots. They're sand-filled."
"How about those posh developments—River Ridge, Pecos Canyon, Dorado Springs? They all have huge expanses of lawns with sprinkler systems to keep them going."
"I'm not saying that grass doesn't exist. Just that it's not natural vegetation in the desert."
"Well, that's certainly true." Rukmani returned her eyes to her work.
Poe blinked several times. His thoughts traveling to a certain high-powered office. "Did you find grass under Brittany Newel's fingernails?"
"No, I don't believe so. But I'll check it out for you. Why?"
"Just curious." Poe shrugged. "Is there any way to find out what type of grass was under her nails?"
"You mean like take the cuttings to a plant specialist?"
"Exactly."
"Yeah, I could order it. It'll cost."
"That's all right."
"Consider it done. Pass me the scalpel. I'm going to sever the ligaments that hold the mandible to the TMJ."
"I think it's time for my exit line."
"Make it a good one. How about reciting something from the farewell scene in Casablanca?"
"How about a late, late dinner? Cuban at Havana?"
"Great. That's even better than Bogie."
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