by Nancy Bush
There was nothing warm and fuzzy about his tone. And while she searched for an answer, Auggie said, “I’ll take her home before I interview Navarone.”
Interior double doors that could only be accessed by a card key or code suddenly opened, allowing a glimpse into further hallways and rooms, and a doctor stepped into the waiting room. Spying Auggie, he came forward and directed his report to him. “Surgery’s going well. We removed the bullet which was lodged in Mr. Pelligree’s hipbone, and cut out a piece of disrupted lower intestine. We’re now stitching him back together. Everything looks good.”
“Thank you,” D’Annibal answered.
“Lieutenant D’Annibal is Detective Pelligree’s commanding officer,” Auggie said as he introduced the lieutenant.
“We should be done soon,” the doctor said with a nod to D’Annibal. “I’ll let you know when he’s out of surgery.”
As soon as the doctor was out of earshot, Auggie said, “I’m outta here.”
“I know you want to crack the bastard’s head into the wall. Be careful. It’s Portland’s jurisdiction,” D’Annibal said.
Auggie made a succinct remark, expressing his feelings, then looked to Liv. “I’m taking you home.”
“To your house,” she corrected him, hurrying after him through the sliding doors and to where he’d parked the Jeep sideways, taking two spots in his hurry.
“My place.”
“I want to go with—”
“Hell, no. Please. Lock the doors. Navarone’s in custody, so you’ll be all right. I can’t take you.”
There wasn’t a lot she could say to that besides, “Can you get him to confess?”
“I’m gonna give it the old college try,” he stated stonily.
September sat at her desk, tapping her forehead with one finger, tamping down her roiling feelings. Gretchen was talking into the phone, her answers growing shorter and shorter and finally she pressed a finger to the connection, severing the conversation in mid-word, as if they’d been accidentally cut off. George was staring off into space.
“I hate this,” Gretchen said.
D’Annibal had called around eight. Wes was through surgery and in recovery and everything looked good. Auggie was interviewing Navarone with the Portland PD and there was really nothing for any of them to do on their end, but nobody wanted to work on other projects or go home yet.
Gretchen looked at the phone, and then over at September. “So, how did that interview go with Kirby?”
“Oh . . .” She’d pushed it to the back of her mind. “Not great. It’ll be on the ten o’clock news. The hikers that discovered the body were there, so she knew about Do Unto Others As She Did To Me.”
Gretchen made a face. “Bound to happen. How’d you handle it?”
“Basically ‘No comment.’ Where she really got me was when she brought up Navarone.”
“Navarone?” Gretchen’s brows drew together in a frown. “You were doing that interview before Auggie and Weasel got to the bastard’s house. How’d she know?”
September shrugged. “It took me by surprise. I said he was a person of interest and left it at that.”
George said, “Pauline Kirby’s got a pipeline into Portland PD. Didn’t D’Annibal say Olivia Dugan threatened the director of that mental outpatient facility, Hargrave House?”
“Hathaway House,” September corrected him. “I didn’t hear that.”
“Me, neither,” Gretchen said.
George nodded. “Oh, yeah. You two were staking out Jaffe. Dugan told the director she had a gun and that she wanted information on Navarone. Scared the shit out of him.”
“Dugan?” September said, surprised. “I can’t picture her with a gun.”
“She didn’t show the weapon,” George said, “so, everybody’s kind of past it now with everything else going on.”
“You think someone at Portland knowingly leaked that information to Pauline Kirby?” Gretchen looked skeptical.
George shrugged. “I’m just sayin’. . . .”
“Kirby’ll be calling you again,” Gretchen said to September. “As soon as she’s sucked ’em dry at the hospital. Just wait.”
“Like today?” September asked tiredly.
“They don’t call her the barracuda for nothing.”
Auggie’s arms were crossed over his chest and he was leaning against a painted cinder-block wall inside the interrogation room. No frills for Dr. Navarone, who was cuffed and seated in a chair at a table.
The Portland detective on the case was named Curtis. Detective Trey Curtis. Cool, and gruff-voiced and willing to let Auggie run point, which was gratifying that he didn’t have to fight him for it. Curtis was fully aware this was a Laurelton case that had spilled over into Portland.
Auggie had proceeded to fire questions at Navarone who, after explaining and explaining and explaining that he’d thought Auggie and Weasel were going to kill him and that’s why he grabbed the gun and shot wildly, was answering them willingly enough, though he adamantly decreed that he’d had nothing to do with the Zuma shooting, Trask Burcher Martin’s homicide, or anything to do with Olivia Dugan, though he did allow that he remembered her from Hathaway House. When the questions switched to Rock Springs and the strangulations, he grew visibly upset, but he swore that all those old, malicious rumors had been started by Patricia LeBlanc Owens and had nothing to do with him!
Had he been in love with Deborah Dugan?, Auggie asked, which shocked him to his socks, but he finally admitted, yes, he had. But she was married to Albert Dugan and nothing ever happened between them, despite what others may have thought. She wouldn’t betray her wedding vows. Not with him, anyway.
Periodically throughout the interview, the doctor’s eyes rolled around, as if he couldn’t control them. When asked about his behavior, he admitted that he had to take medication himself. That he suffered from an unspecified neurological condition. Auggie recalled Angela Navarone mentioning he had dark moods and had alluded to him having mental problems.
Auggie kinda thought the doctor might just also be a drug abuser, so he brought up Halo Valley and the loss of his license and Navarone started shouting about all those pernicious imbeciles! They never understood his brilliance and technique. If anyone should have their licenses revoked, it was the quacks that worked there, not him!
At this point Detective Curtis said, with more empathy than Auggie would have credited him with, that he had a colleague who’d once felt very much the same way about Halo Valley, an ex-detective with the force. The officer in question had since had a reversal of opinion, but Curtis could understand why Navarone felt the way he did. That calmed the doctor down again and Auggie was able to run Navarone back to the Zuma shootings, but he just kept shaking his head and saying they had the wrong guy. He then asked for a lawyer.
Taking a break, Auggie met Curtis in the outer hallway. “What do you think?” Curtis asked him.
“He’s a lying piece of garbage. But I don’t have anything to tie him to the crimes,” Auggie said, frustrated. “It took him a while to lawyer up, but we weren’t getting anything anyway.”
“You’ve got him for practicing without a license. Whatever drugs he was using gotta be illegal, too.”
“It’s not enough,” Auggie expelled angrily. “But it’ll hold him a while.”
“I’ll talk to Lieutenant Cawthorne. See if he can delay things as long as possible,” Curtis said.
The lawyer, an officious-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses and an annoying habit of looking at each detective a full ten seconds in the face before moving on to the next one, hustled in. Apart from letting them know that calls had been placed to Angela Navarone, his client’s sister, and Glenda Navarone Tripp, his niece, who lived locally, the attorney shut down the interview.
Auggie left the station around midnight and sucked in a long draught of cooler air. He left the windows down as he drove out on the Sunset and to his duplex. When he pulled into the drive his heart clutched a bit: both side
s were completely dark. Though it made sense—he’d told Liv to turn off the lights and lock the doors—he had a moment of fear, nevertheless.
He’d given her his extra house key, so he debated whether to just let himself in, wondering if that would scare her. But when he got to the door the porch light went on and she flung the door open, wide awake herself.
“I saw you pull in,” she said.
“Hey . . .”
“Did he say anything? Did he confess?”
“Not yet. But he’s safely locked up.”
“But he didn’t say anything?”
“He will,” Auggie stated positively.
She nodded, gulped, and choked out, “Thank you.”
And then he was through the door and pulling her into his arms and she was responding. It was all they could do to get the door shut and locked, the porch light off and up the stairs to his bedroom.
He thought, inconsequentially, I love you.
September had one of the worst night’s sleep of her life. She tossed and turned then woke at four A.M. from a dream about carving her initials in a tree, words that morphed to being embedded in the skin of a corpse. No need to look for why she’d had that dream. Then she’d fallen asleep again, only to wake up at five on a loud scream issuing from her own lips, a dream that disintegrated into wispy fragments as soon as she was fully awake.
She rolled out of bed and jumped in the shower, letting the water run over her hair and face. She did a quick check of her own emotional state. She was upset about Weasel. She was concerned about the case—not Zuma any longer, but Do Unto Others. Her case. She’d accepted the assignment, and now that Zuma appeared to be wrapping up, it felt like she could completely switch over. But Pauline Kirby had upped September’s anxiety, and now she was itching to dig deeper.
She’d made the mistake of viewing her own interview on the ten o’clock news the night before, and had wanted to shriek and pull a pillow over her head at how young and wide-eyed she’d appeared. Her hair was dark brown, no auburn streaks at all showing, and her eyes were a brilliant crystalline blue, the camera focusing on her closely. Pissed her off. She looked like someone play-acting the role of detective, rather than really being one.
But that was just her, being extra critical. She hoped.
She drove to work early and saw that she’d beaten Guy Urlacher to the station. Didn’t matter really. When he wasn’t there, the detectives, uniforms and other employees were free to enter through the back door, which she preferred. Now, as she walked down the near empty, brightly lit hallways, she felt her jaw tighten. No matter what, she was going to investigate the hell out of the Do Unto Others case, and with that in mind, she got herself a cup of coffee, then walked over to Pelligree’s desk and rooted around for all his notes.
Auggie was up around six, and though he tried to ease away from Liv, her eyes shot open and she was wide awake. “Are you going back to see Navarone?” she asked, leaning on one elbow.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, naked and looking sleepy. Before he could answer, his cell phone gave a muffled ring. He held up a finger to her, got to his feet, went to the chair where he’d thrown his clothes, searching for the phone. “Early,” he said to Liv, then answered the cell, “Rafferty,” stifling a yawn. Liv could hear a woman’s voice start in excitedly. Auggie said, “Whoa, Nine. Slow down. Give it to me at normal speed. What’s wrong?” He listened carefully for a few moments longer, then his whole body froze. “I’ll be at the station in ten . . . fifteen.”
He clicked off and ran for the shower. Liv was up after him, tripping on the bed sheets, aware of her nakedness but unabashed by it. “What?” she demanded, following him into the bathroom.
“Navarone’s niece. Glenda Tripp. They found her body this morning.”
“Her body? What? She’s dead?”
“That’s what Nine said.”
“His own niece? Why? Who found her?”
“One of the officers went out on a call about a possible dead body. The door to Tripp’s apartment was open and she was lying on the floor. September took the officer’s call. She’s on her way there, but decided to include me because of Navarone.”
Liv was trying to catch up. “. . . because Navarone’s your case. Of course, she’d call you.”
“You’d think,” he said, stepping into the shower, turning on the taps, and pulling the curtain. Over the water, she heard, “But Tripp’s case follows the pattern of one of September’s cases more than mine. There were scratches cut into Tripp’s torso like two other of the killer’s victims.”
“What are you saying? That it’s not Navarone? That Glenda Navarone Tripp’s murder is a coincidence?” Liv was practically shouting and had to pull herself forcefully back from the ledge. “That’s bullshit!”
“An eyewitness in her apartment building saw Tripp dressed up to go out around eleven last night. Long after we had her uncle in custody. So, he didn’t kill her.”
Liv couldn’t think. It didn’t make sense. And she was downright scared that the fabric of their whole case against Navarone was coming unraveled. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either,” Auggie said. “I’ll go meet September and try to figure it out.”
Glenda Tripp’s body lay on its back about three feet inside the front door. She had been wearing a short black skirt and a red silk, sleeveless top. The skirt was pulled down around her thighs, the top bunched up above a black lace bra. Only the chandelier earrings and chunky silver bracelet on her right wrist were still in place.
Across her torso were scratches that looked like they’d been carved in a hurry. The first one could have been the back of a “D” but the others were haphazard slashes with no finesse.
J.J. was already examining the body when Auggie and September arrived together. Neither of them had said much to each other when Auggie arrived at the station to pick her up. Neither was saying much now.
“What do you think?” Auggie asked the medical examiner.
“She died of strangulation. He wrapped a thin cord or wire around her neck. Same as the others, and he must’ve taken it with him. We didn’t find it around anywhere. These marks cut into her skin. . . .”
“It looks like there’s a certain urgency to them,” September spoke up. “He started to write and then just started slashing.”
“Maybe he was interrupted,” Auggie said.
J.J. said, “I’ll know more after a more thorough exam.” He got to his feet and grimaced down at the corpse. Then he turned to September, “Saw you on the news last night, Nine.”
“What?” Auggie asked, so September was forced to relate the gist of her interview with Pauline.
She finished with, “I stopped by my apartment and set my DVR before I came back to work.”
“You watched it yet?” he questioned.
“I saw it when it ran at ten. I hate seeing myself on video.”
“Wonder how Pauline gets her information,” he muttered, frowning down at the body.
“The way she gets all of it: bullying,” September said.
There were two crime-scene techs with J.J. and September reminded them to pack up the laptop, which they didn’t appreciate, as she and Auggie walked carefully through the other rooms.
“Looks like all the action took place in the living room,” Auggie observed.
September said, “Maybe he left in a hurry after being interrupted, and that’s why the door remained open.”
“Maybe that explains why she wasn’t left in a field,” he answered.
“The other bodies were just dumped there. Arranged for our benefit, but the murders took place elsewhere.” She gave her brother a long look. “Why is it Navarone’s niece? There has to be a connection.”
Auggie shook his head and placed a call on his cell to Detective Curtis. He didn’t get him, but he left a message about Glenda Tripp’s death. “Curtis can break the news to Navarone,” he said, clicking off.
“Why now?” September
said again.
“More importantly, who?” Auggie reminded her. “It wasn’t Navarone.”
“Could he have an accomplice? I know that sounds nuts. But really, Glenda Tripp gets killed like Dempsey and Decatur, and she’s Navarone’s niece? There’s always been a connection between these two cases. Something. I’ve felt it before, but I can’t see it.”
They walked back outside, past the body and onto the private, wooden deck/entry of Tripp’s apartment. Each of the apartment’s entries came off a sidewalk that wound through the units and led to the parking structures.
They were getting back in Auggie’s car when his cell rang again. “Rafferty,” he said. “Curtis. Did you alert Navarone?” He listened for a few moments, then said, “Huh. All right. Let me know if there’s anything else.”
“What?” September asked.
“Curtis told Navarone someone had murdered his niece and he broke down and cried like a baby. Hasn’t really come out of it since. And Tripp’s mother, Angela Navarone, is driving down from Seattle. She’s devastated, of course.”
“How . . . how did he do this?” she asked.
“He didn’t. At least not personally.”
“But you’ve got him for Zuma, and Martin, and those homicides in Rock Springs?”
“Nine, I don’t have him for anything, yet,” Auggie said, heaving a deep sigh. “I’m going home for a while to think. If anything breaks I’ll call you. Do the same?”
“Yep.”
When Auggie returned to the duplex, Liv was showered, dressed in jeans and a taupe sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of sneakers. She still looked pale, but a little less haunted than she had in all the time he’d known her. The rush of desire and affection that flooded him upon seeing her was becoming a familiar sensation.
“I don’t know anything yet,” he said, dashing her hopes as he plugged his cell into the charger in the bedroom.
“Can you tell me about Glenda Tripp?”
“It’s gonna be breaking news soon enough. . . .” Auggie related what he knew about the Do Unto Others killer, finishing with, “It’s not Navarone, and I just don’t see him working in tandem with someone else. He’s too much of a loner.”