by Gary Starta
***
The Ginger Man was impossibly crowded, but Clara made her way inside and found a seat at the end of the bar. It was close to last call, and the bartenders were frantically processing everyone’s credit cards. She ordered a tray of ten extremely potent pints of black stout and paid for them in cash before making her way to the fermentation room. Doug had already disconnected the surveillance camera. When the last customer was gone, he locked every door except the back entrance. Hot and impatient, he went straight to the room containing four huge boiling vats of beer.
He slugged down several beers right away. Slowly, deliberately, she slid one hand and then the other into her skin tight mini dress to adjust its strapless cups. His mouth went dry. Two more pints went down the hatch and then two more. Doug was going to be incredibly easy to handle tonight.
Clara slinked her way across the room in four-inch stilettos and pulled him against her. Beginning at the base of his throat, she delighted him with little butterfly kisses that worked their way up to his mouth. He was almost mad with excitement.
“Where’s Abby and your friend?”
“They’ll be here in a few minutes. Doug, where exactly is the video camera? I want to make sure it’s off.”
He pointed to a portrait on the wall directly in front of them. “It’s right over there.”
“Show me how you turned it off. I want to make sure I don’t get you into any trouble, Dougie.”
“Don’t worry about that, Clara. I took care of it.”
“Even so, I’d feel much better if you showed me it was done and how you did it.”
“O.K.” He shrugged, took the portrait off the wall and showed her how he turned the video camera on and off.
“Can we try some of the beer in the vat?”
“Sure, but it’s not done yet. The fermentation process has to complete before the cooling.”
“Let’s taste it hot, right now, Doug. We can just lean over the side and fill our glasses. Whaddya say?”
“I don’t know how good it’ll be, but anything you say.”
“Ah, my favorite words!”
They peered down into the fermentation vat, and Doug told her a little about the process. While he talked, Clara walked around its perimeter, asking questions. When she stood facing him with her back to the camera, she deftly reached behind her and pressed the start button.
“Come ‘ere, big boy. The party starts right now.”
He reached out to touch her hair and heard something completely unexpected. She was laughing. At first he stood there looking confused. Then his face turned red. With a will of their own, his hands shot out and ripped the dress off her. He was beyond self-control, and she knew what was coming, but that was exactly what she’d planned on. He beat her until she stopped fighting back. Her blood was all over him.
Whatever happens now is self-defense, and it’s all on tape. I can’t be touched.
***
Abby was passing out and Alison, who had to drag her for two blocks to the back of the bar, knew in her heart the plan was not going to work tonight. You couldn’t scare an unconscious assassin. That was when she heard Clara scream. She pulled Abby in front of herself as a human shield and burst through the door just in time to see Doug hit Clara in the face. Alison had no time to think. All she saw was a naked and bleeding Clara and that was all she needed to see.
“Get your hands off her!”
Doug turned around when he heard Alison yell; that was his last mistake. She rushed him like a linebacker. He fell backwards over the edge of the tank and into the boiling vat of beer.
Abby was fully revived now. She flew at Alison and the two women fought in earnest, rolling on the floor, kicking, gouging and tearing each other’s hair out. Alison was fought for her life. Abby was a witnesses and there could be no witnesses. She heaved Abby up into the air in an iron grip and tossed her over the side to boil to death.
In then absolute silence that followed, Alison gripped the lip of the vat and stared at the bones drifting in the tank. Then she began to realize the implications of what she’d just done. Oh my God. They’re dead! They’re dead, Clara, and I did it! I can’t think! Why didn’t you tell me the beer was boiling hot?! All I wanted to do was throw them in to cool off a little.”
She looked at Alison, but said nothing.
“Clara? Clara! Why are you looking at me like that?”
Alison understood. Finally. She’d driven the last nail into her own coffin for nothing.
Clara stared into the vat with an enigmatic look on her face. The mask she’d worn her whole life fell away, and she looked triumphant. This was Clara as she really was. The innocent angel in distress was as hard as nails and as cold as ice. Alison couldn’t take her eyes off that face; she’d never forget it as long as she lived.
***
Clara saw no further need to keep up the performance now that Alison had done her dirty work. Still naked and fiendishly beautiful, she turned towards Alison wondering how people could be so incredibly stupid.
She had been very careful to step to one side of the camera while Doug was talking to her in the fermenting room. Her image was never recorded, but Alison’s was.
***
Eliza had the Fentanyl in her clutch bag. She was only halfway into the limousine barely when Boyd let loose. The man seemed to have eight arms, and every one of them were either clutching a breast or clamped between her legs.
“Hey, take it easy, lover. You don’t want it to be over before it begins, do you?”
“I like the way you think, baby. How about some champagne?” Boyd pushed a glass into Eliza’s hand, clinked his glass against hers and swallowed. “Can I offer you some blow?”
“Sure!” Suddenly she realized she had forgotten to take the killing drug.
Now I’ll have to kill him without it. Goddamn sonofabitch! It won’t be any fun at all now. Well, I might as well get it over with, then.
She leaned up into Austen Boyd’s face and licked his bottom lip, then tugged on it a little with her teeth. “How about trying some of my blow first? It’s very high grade, Mr. Boyd. Almost impossible to get. Taste a little bit before you snort it. Come here, baby. Closer. Much closer. Now…open your mouth and close your eyes, and I’m gonna give you one helluva surprise.”
Boyd’s eyes sparkled like a naughty little boy. “O.K., I’m game, I’ll play.”
The instant he opened his mouth, Eliza poured the powdered Fentanyl, all of it, directly onto his tongue. The black glass partition was up, so the driver could neither see nor hear anything happening in the back of the car.
Boyd’s hands flew his mouth. “What the fuck?!”
He spat it out, but it was already too late. His eyes bulged as the light went out of them. Uncontrollable spasms racked Boyd’s body in its death throes. Eliza squeezed her eyes shut, not sure what to do next.
In what was most likely the only act of kindness Austen Boyd ever showed to anyone, he unintentionally saved Eliza from having to make a decision. His right leg shot straight out, propelling her back against her door. A clicking sound initiated, and the next thing she knew, Eliza was out on her ass in the middle of 5th Avenue, watching the limo speed away.
Chapter Twenty Five
Frustration mounted every hour, every day the cases stayed cold. Although Agent Deeprose stumbled onto a tie between Arthur Moreland and the Meese Corporation, the trail was stalled there. Michael’s refusal to talk spoke loud enough for Carter; he’d been scared into complete silence. The public outcry was creating a pressure cooker for all of them.
Carter hoped they’d have better luck with The Ginger Man double homicide. He lost track of how long he stood outside studying the foot prints leading from the sidewalk to the micro-brewery’s back door. He was certain they belonged to three different people, one having been dragged along the ground. He was glad winter hadn’t set in yet or the soil would have been too hard to show them.
Carter reflected on the foot prints for
another moment before going inside to see the crime scene. Killings were committed for the most part, by men, but these prints were too shallow and small to belong to men. These belonged to women.
By the time he entered the building, Agent Seacrest had already examined most of the area surrounding the fermentation vat.
“What do we have?”
“A couple of drunks who didn’t survive the brewing process.”
“How do you know there are two victims?”
Seacrest jerked her head toward the vat. “Take a peek.”
Carter observed two skulls floating in the nearly drained tank. The same brewery foreman who’d discovered the bodies six hours earlier had emptied the vat for the forensic team. Seacrest took samples of the liquid for analysis.
“It’ll take a while to retrieve the remains, but I’ve got good news, Carter.” She showed him a photo of dusted fingerprints. “This was found around the perimeter of the tank.”
Carter wasn’t as amazed as she expected him to be. “Another messy scene. That makes three. The Florio murder in New Jersey was tidier, but there was still that partial print left behind.
“Could that be my smoking gun? The murders appear unrelated, but they’ve all been committed by amateurs, some of them women. We haven’t found any evidence of a payoff or even any attempts to escape the city.”
“It’s starting to sound more and like an initiation rite or a cult thing, Carter. The murders were too vicious in nature to have been thrill kills, and a serial killer would most likely have been more experienced in the art of killing and disposing of a body. He also would have learned from his mistakes and gotten better at it, not worse.”
Carter was on the same wavelength. “If the Collective is a common denominator between the previous murders and these two, we have to find and question its organizers before we question anyone related to these. If the suspects in all the murders can be traced back to the Collective meetings and we find the drug you tested at the site of the next raid combined with evidence of possession or ingestion of it prior to the murders, I want these organizers already in custody for more questioning.”
Seacrest held up the photo again. “In the meantime, I think this print is our best lead right now. If this hand print matches the partial in Florio’s bathroom, we’d have proof that the same person was at both crime scenes. That could break everything wide open, Carter!”
“If we match both sets of prints to one person, find the two women that belong to the footprints outside and get one of them to talk, Jill, I’m taking you to Fiji for a month.”
Seacrest laughed. “That’s a deal. Just remember who said it.”
He looked around the room again. “It appears the deputy director is correct in assuming these murders are tied together. If the Collective meetings are the motivating factor, these actually could be initiation kills. Believe it or not, I hope he’s right. That would be a quick end to the murders, the Collective and the circulation of that damn drug. But if the truth goes deeper than that…well, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there.”
“Carter, the foreman tells me he can’t account for the whereabouts of his night watchman, Doug Meir. He should have been on guard here all night, and oddly enough, someone turned the video surveillance camera off and then on again. Maybe the footage will give us a hint at what went on here last night.”
Carter’s phone signaled an incoming text from the E.R.T. (Evidence Response Team). “They found pint-sized glasses in the garbage can in this room.” He read on, made a fist and shouted, “Yes!”
“What is it?”
“There was blood on one of them, and it has the ‘The Ginger Man’ etched on it. It’s possible that Meir was in on whatever went down, but I think it’s more likely he became collateral damage, like the security guard at the Cloisters. There’s no sign of a forced entry, so my guess is he knew the girls. At any rate, he’d have been the only person who could have voluntarily let them in.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The cameras weren’t disconnected and no wires were cut. Nothing was damaged. He’d have known where the security camera was and how to turn it off and on. He may even have shown the girls how to use it before his death. There are no scuff marks outside the door, so he wasn’t shoved or forced into this room. Someone was pushed across this room, but it wasn’t him. He came in because he wanted to.”
“Did the E.R.T.s find anything of note outside?”
“The prints are relatively small and shallow which suggests they belong to women. They lead inside and come back out the same way. Two women came in together and two went out together, but not the same two.”
“So there were three women here last night.”
Seacrest nodded. “One set of prints heading inside shows that the woman was walking sideways. Two deeper parallel lines starting just behind her show that someone -perhaps one of the victims - was dragged along the dirt path and into the building. Two women went in together. However, the exit pattern shows that the two women who left together were both walking side by side. Neither set of prints are especially deep, so no one carried out the third woman. She didn’t walk out on her own, either, so we can assume that the woman who was dragged inside is still here. I think we’re going to find that one of the skeletons is hers. The other is probably the security guard.”
Carter was flabbergasted. “Two women; that’s a major change in pattern. Interesting.”
“Yes. The foreman told us that they offer free beer tastings after their daily tours, but don’t have a license to sell it. Carter, could the two women have taken a tour and then hidden themselves in here when everyone else left?”
“It’s possible, but not probable. Their footprints went in through the back entrance. Tourists don’t do that. But employees do. They’re being questioned now. If anyone here was involved or saw anything, we’ll know it soon enough. By the way, where’s Agent Deeprose? I’d like to see what she’s found so far.”
“She’s not here, yet.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Not here yet?”
“Carter, ever hear of a thing called a personal life? She texted me just before you came in. I think love is in the air, and it sounds a lot like a saxophone to me.” She looked jubilant.
Carter looked slightly miffed. “I don’t begrudge her a personal life, Jill, but I expected her to be here by now. Besides, she’s great with the locals. It’s amazing how she uses that charm to squeeze Intel out of people. She’s our secret weapon, Jill. Men love her and women aren’t threatened by her. It’s absolutely mystifying to watch her work.”
“For you, Carter. For women, it comes with the equipment. Hers is an age-old method that never fails, honey, and it’s sooooo much easier than confrontation.”
Carter had no answer for that one. She was right.
Deeprose breezed in with three coffees. “Watcha’ll talkin’ about? Agent Carter, you look flummoxed. And Jill, you look…smug. There’s just no other word for it.” Deeprose was rosy red from the cold morning air and in very high spirits. She put down the coffee cups and took off her coat. Carter and Seacrest exchanged a guilty glance before she turned back.
Carter cleared his throat. “Just discussing the new crime scene, Agent. Any particular reason for being late this morning?”
“A lady never tells. Isn’t that right, Jill?”
Seacrest winked at her and resumed her examination.
“So, what do we have here, Agent Carter?”
Her eyes grew wider and wider as he told her what they’d come across. When he was done, she tossed her red beret into the air. “Hallelujah, amen!” Then she peered into the tank and sniffed. “Yugh! It’s goin’ to be a while before Ah drink draft again.”
“Connecting the crimes to the Collective is still circumstantial so far, but the case gets much stronger every time we can make a connection between a murder and the hallucinogen. To fit the pattern, one or both killers should have been using the dru
g last night. Jill, can forensics determine if the drug was secreted from the killer’s hands into the handprint on the edge of the vat?”
“It’s much more likely we’ll find D.N.A. secreted into the handprint, if we find anything at all. I’ll call the Washington Bureau to see if they have anything we don’t. I don’t know if anyone could pull that one off.”
Carter frowned. “Well, if we can at least match the handprint with the partial from the Florio crime scene, we’ll have enough for a warrant for search and seizure at the Collective’s next meeting. I don’t want any more sneak attacks on high school victory parties. This time we go in through the front door of the correct place.”
Agent Deeprose was intrigued. “Could we really get a D.N.A. sample from the handprint, Jill?”
“There’s a technique I could use called ‘Touch D.N.A.’. It’s popular in the U.K., but not here. I think we already have enough of a print, though, to make a positive match with the one at the Florio crime scene.”
“Ah’m sure. But what if Ah wanted to see if the print you have here matches someone of interest? Having their D.N.A. on hand would make it a no-brainer.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Who do you have in mind, Agent?”
“There’s a loose end that’s been botherin’ me. Do y’all remember Eliza, the girl who was in the car with Michael the day we caught him? She claimed to have been an innocent victim, a hostage, and Michael never contradicted her. Even so, when I paid her a visit to the hospital, Ah managed to get a D.N.A. sample from a tissue she touched. I had given it to you Jill, for safe keepin’.”
Seacrest nodded. “Excellent idea. That’ll take a little more time, but if I can get enough cells from the handprint to compare with those on the tissue, it’s possible.”
Carter smiled. “If the cells are there, she’ll find them.”
***
Eliza walked into Clara’s apartment and immediately noticed a half empty bottle of liquor on the kitchen table. Alison was downing glass after glass of 151 proof rum. She also noticed that Clara did the pouring but not the drinking.