Beautiful, a flawless one-and-a-half-carat emerald cut in a Tiffany platinum setting. A lump formed in her throat. It was so unfair her Mom had died so young. She still remembered when she was told Mom had a serious illness; she’d been in her snotty teen years, when a broken nail was a week’s worth of drama. Reality hadn’t registered until the physical degradation had progressed.
Then her dad had been hit by the car. A drunk driver, wasted by 10:00 am, had blown through a red light and put him in a wheelchair for life. That had been the driver’s third drunk-driving offense in five years. He was a security guard who decided he wasn’t hurting anyone by driving after a few eye openers. Live and let live.
Guess again.
It was absolutely no consolation to her that he’d committed suicide while serving a prison sentence. If he’d made that wise choice the day before knocking back half a bottle of JD and going for a morning joy ride, her father would still be walking.
It was fair to say she had anger issues.
Tess closed the ring case and returned the safety deposit box into its slot, locking it. She exited the secure area and met up with Nick, and together they braved the steamy streets again. Tess was more used to the heat on her bike—the breeze that came from riding cooled her. Walking sucked, plain and simple.
They ducked into the coffee shop and got some iced coffee, Nick almost forgetting her dad’s order. Sometimes she wondered about him.
They’d been gone for an hour, and she was really hoping to take her dad to lunch, so she hurried Nick along. He was never in a rush; it was one of the things that annoyed her about him. Then again, the sex was good and he wasn’t hard to look at. She figured no one’s perfect.
* * *
Detective Stanford got a call from Amy about the nightclub corpse. He was about done at Red Cap, and was packing up to leave.
He’d just finished with Frank and Stu, both of whom seemed out of their minds, but in very different ways. Frank was old and a little slow, and seemed inured to the dis-functionality of the employees he interacted with. He was probably in denial just to make it through the day—which Ron couldn’t blame him for; hell, he’d be the same way if he had to work there.
Stu was intelligent but quirky in a nerdy way, and seemed like he probably had a drinking or drug problem. He seemed a tad absent during the interview, like he was thinking about something else. Which he probably was.
So far the most suspicious of the group were Luis, Turbo, Snake, Dirter, Rock and Tiny. All of them seemed like hardcore substance abusers, all were very nervous throughout the interviews, and all were the right age for a serial. Turbo bugged him—seemed very skittish, couldn’t seem to control his gaze, and had the stink of nervousness about him. Ron also liked Tiny for it; he didn’t know why, just something wrong there.
His pocket vibrated. He fished out his phone, looked at the screen and answered.
“Hey, Amy.”
“Hi, Ron. We got something on the nightclub girl. Name’s Tabitha Kittridge, age 27, single, secretary, lived in Soho, alone. Blood alcohol was .17 and there was ecstasy in her system, as well as Klonopin. Unfortunately none of that would kill her. Tox screen again came back with no chemical cause of death,” Amy notified him.
“Well, that’s great. What did she die of?”
“As far as we can tell, her heart just stopped. It’s hard to tell due to the condition of the corpse, but her BP might have spiked before she went down for good. I’m checking on agents that could cause that. Problem is nothing’s showing up, so it’s all theoretical at this point.” Amy was very good at what she did, and Ron could tell it bugged her that she wasn’t getting a handle on this.
“Any evidence of an injection, a puncture in the arm or neck?”
“Negative, Ron. We looked over what was left of her with a fine-toothed comb. Nothing jumped out.”
“Okay then. I’m done with the freak show at Red Cap. What a collection. Any of them could be good for it.” Ron couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Ron, if he’s on a cycle, tonight’s the third night.” Amy was thinking the same thing he was.
“I know, Amy. But maybe he’s staggering them, or has some different pattern we don’t know about yet. I guess we’ll find out in the next few days.”
He hated that they didn’t know more. What was the connection? Why was he doing this, why cutting them in this specific way; what were the trophies all about, how did he go about selecting them? Was it random? What was he trying to accomplish? This didn’t seem like a thrill serial to him. There was method here, ritual, planning—but also risk-taking, foolhardiness. He needed more time to digest it.
But for some young lady tonight, it was likely too late.
Chapter 12
Tess and Nick approached the shop, still discussing the events surrounding the murder at the nightclub, and the possibility of a murderer at Red Cap. She told him she’d taken the rest of the day off, and Nick didn’t have a problem with that. Nick had very few problems with anything, which was one of the things she liked about him. Easy come, easy go.
They pushed the door open and Tess immediately sensed something was wrong. Nick almost ran her down when she stopped dead in her tracks a few feet into the store, listening to the stark and complete silence.
“Dad?” she called out. In the periphery of her vision she registered Jerome silent in his seat, in the usual spot behind the entryway. She spun around and screamed. Nick dropped the coffee, spilling scalding liquid across the floor.
Jerome sat atop his perch, eyes unblinking, cyanosis coloring his lips and lending a bluish cast to his skin. Tess screamed again.
“Dad!!! Dad?” She was yelling at the back of the store.
Nick grabbed the baton out of Jerome’s belt and put his finger to his lips, warning Tess to silence and motioning for her to stay by the front door. He approached the doorway to the back room, walking as though treading on live snakes. Tensing, he threw the door open. Nick dropped the baton, catching his weight against his knees with his hands, and vomited. He staggered back a few steps and bumped one of the cases, then leaned against it, catching his breath.
“Call 911,” he managed.
“Why, Nick? What’s back there? What happened? Where’s Dad?” Tess was in shock, not registering.
“Just call the police, Tess. Now. Quick,” he snarled. Nick had never snarled at her in his life.
She handed him her cell with a trembling hand.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I need to report two murders on West 47th street. Gideon Watch Gallery.” He gave the address.
“Who’s on the line?”
“My name is Nick Bigley. I work at the store. Get someone here quick.” Nick’s voice was shaky. Tess was making her way to the back of the shop. “Tess, stay here. Please. Don’t go back there,” he screamed.
“Sir? Sir? Stay on the line. I’m dispatching some units to your location right now.”
Nick locked the deadbolt on the front door; he knew from looking in the back that they were alone.
Tess hadn’t listened to him, and he heard her scream again, and then start alternating screaming and crying. He grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her, struggling, into the front of the shop.
“I…I told you not to go back there. God, I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry…” He was rocking her, both of them sitting on the ground; he was hugging her from behind. She was crying, and shrieking whenever she could get enough breath. The police operator was still on the phone.
“Sir? Uh, Nick? Keep this line active, and don’t touch anything, understand? Don’t touch anything.”
* * *
The police arrived within six minutes, and Nick unlocked the door for two uniformed officers. One examined Jerome while the other walked into the back room. He came out, shaking his head and talking into his radio, requesting backup and a forensics team. The first officer asked Nick a series of questions establishing who he was, who Tess was, when
they’d discovered the bodies.
Tess sat on the floor leaning against one of the cases, crying and shaking, saying “no, no, no,” over and over. It wasn’t fair—why did somebody do this, why did it have to be her father—he’d never hurt anyone—what kind of animal would kill a poor old crippled man?
First Loca, now Jerome and her father dead. She’d seen him with his face ruined, lying in a pool of blood and vomit; it was just too much. She couldn’t handle it, couldn’t deal with it.
She loved him so powerfully, and someone had torn the life out of him, destroying any chance they would see each other again, have a meal together, talk with each other. He’d never see a grandchild, never watch her get married, never be there to celebrate her triumphs or share her sorrow. It wasn’t fair. First her mother, and now her father.
Nick was stunned, and his gaze kept drifting over to where Jerome still sat, motionless, eyes staring. He answered more of the cop’s questions as he gazed blankly around the shop. Eventually his gaze landed on the watch still on the counter. He walked away from the officer in mid-sentence, staring at the watch while the cop followed him.
“What? What is it? Don’t touch anything—it’s all evidence. This is a crime scene,” the officer, a sergeant, advised.
Nick shook his head. “This could be important. Do you have any gloves?”
The officer didn’t. “Forensics will when they get here. Why? What’s up?”
Nick had his nose about three inches from the watch, peering at it from all sides. “I can’t be sure, but I think this might be a watch Robert sold last week to a collector in San Francisco.” He thought for a few moments. “I wonder what it’s doing here out on the counter? It’s worth a quarter mil if it’s the same watch, worth as much as all the watches in the safe combined…” He drifted off. What was going on?
“Step away from it; let’s wait for the detectives and crime scene people to get here, okay?” The cop had no idea what Nick was going on about, but he did understand a quarter million dollars, and didn’t want anything disappearing.
At the mention of detectives Tess came out of her trance. She fumbled with her pocket, pulled out a card, picked her phone up from where Nick had left it and dialed a number.
“Detective Stanford.”
“He…Hello, Detective? It’s Tess, from Red Cap? Hello?”
Ron’s mental gears shifted as he heard her voice. She sounded hurt, or panicked, or scared. Had the killer tried to get her?
“Yes, Tess. I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“They—I think you need to come here…Somebody killed my father…” Her voice cracked on the last word and she started crying again.
What the hell? Killed her father? What was she talking about?
“Tess? Hello? Where are you? Right now? What’s the address? Are the police there?” If there’d been a murder, he needed to make sure someone besides him had been called.
“I’m…I’m sorry, detective. I loved him so much…” She fell apart again.
“I understand, Tess. Where are you? Is there someone else I can talk to? A policeman?” he asked.
She stared at the phone, dazed. Held it out to the closest cop.
“Hello?”
“Hi. This is Detective Ron Stanford, Homicide. Who am I speaking with?” Ron asked.
“Sergeant Wallace, Midtown North,” the officer responded.
“Sergeant Wallace, what’s your situation?”
“I’m not sure. Two 187’s. One is pretty messed up, one looks like he was stuffed. We’re at a watch shop on 47th. Looks like a robbery at first, but I don’t know…the kid who works here says one of the watches lying out is worth 250 G’s.”
“What’s the address? The girl is a potential witness in two of my cases,” Ron explained. But technically that wasn’t true, now was it, Ron? Why are you getting involved there, Ron, old boy? Anything to do with green eyes?
The officer gave him the address and he signed off. The cop handed Tess her phone. “No more calls for now, okay?”
She was back to crying, nodded okay.
* * *
Ron flagged down a cab and gave him the address. He couldn’t really do anything, he hadn’t been put on the case…but it wouldn’t kill him to swing by and check it out, would it? He had to head back up that way anyway. His main office was Midtown South, and this was only a few short blocks away.
Well, actually about twelve blocks away.
It couldn’t hurt to poke his nose in. The sergeant had sounded troubled by the robbery scenario, so maybe there was more to this than met the eye. Who knew, maybe he would ultimately be called in anyway…
They arrived at the shop; he handed the cabbie some bills and jumped out. Crime scene tape draped the door, three police cars and a crime scene van sat in front, and two unmarked cars were pulled onto the curb. This close to the diamond district you had a lot of cops in a small area, hence the quick response.
He flashed his badge, went inside. Huh, that was a lucky break—the lead homicide detective was Barry Childen, a guy he’d worked with back in the day. Barry’s partner Darren was nosing around in the small workroom.
“Hey, Barry. Hey, Darren.”
“Ron, what brings you to see us? This is a little off psycho patrol,” Barry said.
“The girl’s part of an ongoing investigation. What happened here?”
“First glance, it’s a robbery, but I dunno. The security tape’s missing, there’s a watch on the counter worth a fortune, and the guard is deader than a wooden Indian, but no sign of what killed him. This stinks, is what I think,” Barry said.
“Who’s working from Forensics?” Ron asked.
“Tom O’Connelly.” That wasn’t such a lucky break. Tom was an asshole, really anal-retentive, and held a grudge. Ron and he had butted heads before.
“Great.” Ron walked over to Tess, who was holding a tissue, still crying. He felt something move in his chest. Get a grip, tough guy—forget the damsel in distress stuff for now.
“How are you holding up?” he asked her.
“I—Thanks for coming. I’m okay…no, I’m really not okay…not okay at all…” He could see she was in shock. He smiled at her, or rather grimaced, and walked towards the back room; he stuck his head in and took in the corpse, the wheelchair. He walked back and talked to Barry.
“Are you going to get them out of here after you take their statements?” Protocol was to get everyone out of a crime scene as soon as possible, so as not to contaminate it more than necessary.
“Yeah, but it’s so frigging hot out I thought I’d give them a break for now. They were already in here, so there’s not much danger of contamination. Hey—check out the guard, tell me what you think,” Barry said.
They walked over to where a man in a lab coat was studying Jerome quizzically.
“Hello, Tom,” Ron said.
Tom greeted him with thinly veiled animosity. “Well hello, Detective Stanford. To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“I was in the neighborhood. What’s the story on our friend here?”
“Weird one. I can’t wait to see the tox report. He appears to have been instantaneously paralyzed. Cause of death is unknown, but my guess based on the cyanosis is suffocation—his lungs stopped working.” Tom scratched his head. “Never seen anything like it.”
Ron got close to Jerome’s face, scrutinizing it, then studied his neck. “Here’s your method of administration, I’ll bet,” he said.
Tom moved closer. “What? What did you find?”
“Puncture, right next to the Adam’s apple. Hard to make out, but that’s definitely a needle stick.” Barry and the two officers walked over to see what Ron had found.
Tom took out a magnifying glass to examine the area. “Hmmm…well what do you know. You may be right.” He looked at Ron. “How did you spot that?”
“I learned it in the Girl Scouts.” The officers all laughed. Ron could be such an asshole sometimes, he knew. Oh well. Tom was an incom
petent prick, and Ron hadn’t witnessed anything to change that opinion.
He’d seen enough. This wasn’t his kind of deal, although it did appear someone had tortured Tess’s dad. That appeared extreme for a robbery, as did the paralyzing agent used on the guard. He was glad it wasn’t his case. This almost seemed like Russian mob or government shit.
Ron’s attention was drawn to Nick, who was arguing with one of the uniforms. He interrupted.
“What’s the problem?” Ron asked. The sergeant would automatically defer to a detective.
“I need a pair of gloves so I can look at that watch. It may be important,” Nick said.
Ron pulled out the pair of latex gloves he carried in his pocket. “Be my guest.”
Nick slipped them on and picked up the piece to study it. He stopped, angled it towards the light. “Yup. Thought so. It’s the same one; you can see a hairline scratch it had when we bought it.” He set it back down. “Mr. Gideon sold this to a collector in San Francisco last week, along with three other rare pieces. Maybe you can figure out what it’s doing here.”
Nick pulled the gloves off and handed them back.
Ron approached Tess—who was no longer crying, just looking dazed—and spoke to her, softly.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Tess. This is horrible, you should have never had to see it. No one should. But these guys are the best. They’ll figure out what happened and get whoever did this. Hold on to my number, and call me if you need anything.” He couldn’t do much for her, and he had his own case to work. Psychos were a busy breed.
“Thanks for coming, Detective.” She looked like she was going to start crying again any second.
“Sorry I can’t do more,” he said, and then walked outside with Barry.
“You’ve got a problem, Barry. The perp tortured the old man, and the paralysis is pro, not robbery stuff. This is like a black ops hit. I’d run the dad’s background, see if there’s any government in his past. This feels covert or military, you know?”
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