by Mary Burton
She offered a cautious smile as if she’d already sensed they were cops. Likely, spotting cops was part of the job.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?”
Garrison pulled out his badge from his pocket. “I’m Detective Deacon Garrison and this is my partner, Detective Malcolm Kier. We’re with the Alexandria police.”
“You’re a little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”
“We’d like to ask you a couple of questions,” Garrison said.
She glanced up, her gaze full of challenge. “About?”
“One of your regulars. ”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman.” Garrison pulled out Lisa Black’s Division of Motor Vehicles picture. “You seen her lately?”
The bartender arched a neatly plucked eyebrow. She glanced at the customers at the end of the bar and noted their nervous glances. “You’re bad for business.”
“Answer my questions and we’ll leave.”
“I’m not paid to answer questions.” She picked up a glass and started to polish it.
Garrison leaned forward and smiled. “I can start questioning each of your customers.”
Blue eyes turned to ice. “That won’t be necessary. Let me see the picture again.”
Garrison pushed it across the bar toward her. “Take your time.”
“Her name is Lisa, I think. She comes here a couple of nights a week.”
“Did she meet anyone here in particular?” Malcolm said.
“She met a lot of men. She liked variety.”
“Any one of these guys appeared questionable? Anyone that seemed like trouble?”
The bartender arched a brow. “A two-thousand-dollar suit hides a lot of sins. And I don’t ask for character references when people order drinks and tip well.”
“So no trouble,” Garrison said.
“No trouble.”
“When did you see Lisa last?”
“It’s been a couple of weeks but I took last week off. This is my first night back. Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“She’s dead.”
If this woman did know something, she carefully masked her thoughts. “When?”
“That’s something we’re trying to figure out.” He pulled out his notebook. “Now when was the last time you saw her? ”
“One week ago to the day. She ordered her Chardon-nay like she always did.”
“Business as usual.”
“Yes, and no. She looked great like she always did, but she was just a little off.”
“How so?”
She picked up a clean towel and started to polish an already-clean glass as if she needed something to do with her hands. “Something was bothering her.”
“Such as? ”
“I asked, and she mentioned past mistakes. I asked a second time for more details and she said something about the past coming back to haunt her. I pressed but she clammed up. She’s a big girl and if she wanted to tell me something she would. I serve drinks. I’m not a priest.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
The bartender shrugged. “She was popular. Never had trouble finding a date. That blond hair and blue eyes are like money in the bank. Plus she was clever. ”
“How so?”
“She came from the world of the rich. You could tell by the way she talked. She knew books and sometimes she spoke French. She knew etiquette.”
“What else can you tell me about her?”
“Hey, it’s not like she and I really bonded. We just chatted.”
“About?”
“She talked a lot about traveling. She wanted to get out of town. She’d had a rich older boyfriend for a while but he had left her and she was talking about a change of scenery.”
“Did she ever mention the boyfriend’s name?”
“No. But he was rich. Always had his bodyguard/driver with him. ”
“When did they break up?”
“About eight months ago.”
“She go out with anyone more than once?”
“Not that I saw. I think long-term connections didn’t suit her so well.”
“You remember any of the guys she hooked up with?”
“No. And if I remembered a name it was a first name only. I’m not a den mother.”
Garrison handed the bartender his card. “The person that killed Lisa did some very nasty things to her. She did not die easy. I want to catch this guy.”
She set down the glass. “Have you gone by the security offices? They tape all the entrances. They keep the tapes for at least ten days.”
“Do they tape the bar area?”
“They do.”
“Where can I find your security office?”
“Basement.”
Garrison and Kier left the bartender and the gawking patrons to ride the elevator down to the basement. It took just minutes before their badges earned them passage into the director of security’s office. The brass plate on the door read: HANK MCMINN.
The director wore a navy bluejacket and khakis, which covered a lean frame. A crew cut accentuated the lines etched around his eyes. The guy had to be pushing fifty but Garrison sensed his reflexes remained quick and strong.
Garrison showed his badge and Lisa’s picture, and explained the purpose of their visit.
McMinn studied her picture. “Sure, we tape every public corner in this hotel. We’ve got a lot of higherups that frequent the place and we like to keep tabs. The cameras are well hidden, though. People here don’t like to be recorded. But we’ve got to protect ourselves.”
“Understood. We’re simply after Lisa and whoever she may have left with during the last couple of weeks.”
He swiveled his chair toward a computer screen on a credenza behind his desk. “What dates?”
“She was last seen a week ago.”
McMinn pulled the digital tapes from Friday night. The three watched as McMinn scanned quickly through the hours. No sign of Lisa on Friday night. Saturday night she appeared at eight-seventeen and sat at the bar. She ordered and waited alone for several minutes before a man took a seat at the bar. He wore a nice suit but he’d chosen his seat so that his back was to the camera. At eight thirty-four a woman arrived at the club and screamed that she had a flat tire. Everyone, including Lisa, turned in her direction. The mystery man leaned forward and put something in her drink. Two minutes later, she stumbled out of the bar.
“He was in the bar,” Garrison said. “I’m going to need all your tapes for the last few months.”
McMinn shifted, his stance now rigid and defensive. “If the general manager gives the okay and the lawyers bless the exchange, I can give you tapes by tomorrow.”
Garrison handed him his card. “If not, I’ll get a warrant.”
Outside the hotel a light drizzle had come and gone and left the street wet and glistening. “How much do you want to bet Mr. Security has the hotel’s GM and their attorney on speed dial?”
“That’s why we’re requesting a search warrant first thing in the morning. I trust them as far as I can throw them.”
The last thing Lenny remembered was sitting in the house on Route Fifteen watching a sitcom on TV. He’d had a couple of beers but his nerves still jumped with each creak of a branch outside.
And then his world had gone black. Just like someone had flicked a television off. Now the TV was back on—he was awake. But he wasn’t in his secret place. He was in an apartment. Tied to a chair with a wad of cotton jammed in his mouth and held in place by duct tape. He jerked his hands, his panic growing with each yank, and he rocked the chair from side to side.
“Did your mother ever teach you that you shouldn’t steal?” The voice came from behind Lenny. “If she didn’t, she should have.”
Lenny shook his head, recognizing the voice from the other night. He screamed but the cotton muffled the sound.
“If you’d lived a good life, Lenny, you wouldn’t be here now.” A gloved hand stroked the top of his head a
s his captor stood behind him. The gloved fingers had an oddly gentle touch. “But you were a bad boy and well, bad boys have to be punished.”
Before he could scream again, a knife rose up from behind Lenny and plunged directly into his heart. For several beats, he felt the blood pulse through his body, spilling onto his shirt and pooling on the floor.
And then he felt nothing.
Chapter 10
Wednesday, April 5, 6:00 A.M.
The morning sun peeked over the horizon, bathing the graveyard in a soft pink. Dew glistened on the grass and the gray headstones didn’t seem so harsh to Eva.
She’d avoided cemeteries since her mother’s funeral and she’d been avoiding this cemetery since her return to Alexandria. She eased on the accelerator and drove past the neatly manicured stone pillars that marked the entrance. She wound down the smartly edged street and found the section she needed. Parking, she got out of the truck and walked the fifteen feet to the plot of graves portioned off from the others by its own stone fence. The etched sign on the gate read: CROSS.
This was the Cross family plot where Josiah Cross and his parents had been buried. Her car keys in hand, she got out and shivered as the morning cold passed through her jean jacket as if it weren’t there.
Butterflies gnawed at her stomach as she pushed open the gate and walked up to the grave that belonged to Darius. The old man had lived sixty-one years. His health, from what she’d read, had been bad for years, but meanness kept him alive.
She didn’t kneel by the grave, nor did she brush off the sticks that drifted onto the site.
“I’m going to fight the confession,” Eva shouted to the bulky, powerful man standing before her. “It wasn’t right. The cops pushed me.”
Darius Cross rose from the metal seat in the prison’s visiting room and leaned toward her. He smelled of expensive aftershave and hate. “Do that and I will bury your sister. I will have someone take her to a faraway place and do to her what you claim Josiah did to you. And I promise you, no one will find her body.”
Color drained from Eva’s face as she stared into eyes as dark as Satan’s. She knew he would do as he’d said. Darius Cross did not make idle threats. If she didn’t go to prison, Angie would suffer.
“You hateful son of a bitch,” Eva whispered. “I hope you rot. ”
She drew in deep even breaths and did her best to expel the anger. But it wouldn’t let go of her and it festered and burned in her chest. Unable to stand here a moment longer, she moved to Cross’s wife’s grave: Louise Cross. Dead nineteen years. BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER. What kind of woman married Darius Cross? Or birthed a monster like Josiah?
Eva moved to Josiah’s headstone. IN GOD’S LOVING ARMS. The words made her sick. “Let’s hope it’s the Devil’s embrace.”
She noted the dates on his stone and realized that this Friday would have marked his thirty-second birthday. “Happy Birthday, you son of a bitch.”
The report from Leesburg police came in just after the morning shift change: Lenny Danvers, aged thirty-five, had been found dead at 211 Riverstone Drive. The address belonged to a first-floor unit in an apartment complex.
Garrison and Kier headed out as soon as they got the call. The forty-mile drive out to Leesburg took over an hour and a half, thanks to early-morning traffic snarls along Route Seven and a fender-bender.
By the time they reached the Route 15 Bypass on the outskirts of Leesburg, it was nearly ten-thirty. Minutes later they pulled into the Rock Creek apartment complex.
The apartments had been built in the late eighties, a time when the area’s development had boomed. The complex would have looked modern and been considered luxurious twenty years ago but now, time combined with cheap construction had taken a toll. Despite spring flowers by the entrance, the place looked worn.
Garrison spotted the two sheriff’s cars flashing blue lights, bypassed the complex office and parked directly behind the patrols. Two deputies waited by their cars to ensure no one crossed the yellow crime scene tape that blocked off the first-floor unit.
The deputies were both short. The one on the left was younger and carried more muscle while the other guy looked as if he could drop twenty.
The slender cop held out his hand to Garrison. “I’m Deputy Rollins and this is Deputy Finnegan. You get caught in that traffic?”
“Sure did. I hear you found the guy I’m looking for.”
Deputy Rollins nodded stiffly. “We went by the other residence you mentioned yesterday and there were signs that someone had been there and a back door lock broken. This morning we got a call from a resident in this building about blood dripping from the ceiling. That’s when we found your guy.”
Deputy Finnegan nodded. “Management took one look inside the unit and called us. It is a damn mess. Never seen that before.”
“Would you show us? ”
Rollins hesitated. “Sure.”
The two deputies hesitated as if waiting for the other to go first. Finally, Rollins took the lead and led the detectives through the building’s front entrance and up a flight of stairs to the unit marked 2-A, now roped off with red crime scene tape. Even from outside the apartment, the distinct sick-sweet smell associated with death soured the air.
Garrison pulled on gloves. “Danvers made bail late Monday. ”
“Then he died soon after,” Deputy Finnegan said. “The killer cranked the heat in the apartment to over ninety. He also placed a space heater in the room with Danvers. The place feels like a sauna and smells … well, one breath and you’ll get the point.”
Garrison studied the front door and the worn WELCOME mat in front of it. “No signs of forced entry. ”
“Not at the front door,” Rollins said. “But have a look at the sliding glass door by the patio. Someone wrenched open the lock with a crowbar. Killer must have broken the lock because it won’t stay closed. It’s barely cracked open now.”
“Has your forensics team had a look?”
“Not yet. We’re stretched thin right now. But the apartment is secure.”
“Okay. Let’s have a look around back.”
When Garrison opened the door, a putrid smell hit him square in the face. Malcolm raised his hand to his nose while Garrison inhaled through his mouth. Both deputies turned away, looking as if they’d be sick.
Garrison moved across the beige carpeted floor, careful not to step on anything that might be of use later. Clothes littered the floor and a quick glance in the kitchen revealed dishes piled high in the sink and pizza boxes on the counter.
“This is the kind of stink that doesn’t come off,” Malcolm said.
“Yeah.” He always kept a spare change of clothes in his locker at the station.
The smell grew worse as they moved to the back bedroom. Garrison peered through the open door to find the bloated, decomposing body of Lenny Danvers. His hands were tied to a chair and his feet bound together. Four stab wounds sliced into his chest.
Garrison leaned closer. “Killed quickly and doesn’t look like he was branded. Just stabbed.”
“The killer was taking care of a necessity, not getting revenge,” Malcolm offered.
“Reminds me again of that stabbing victim, Eliza Martinez. But I’ll be damned if I see a connection between the two victims.”
Garrison studied the blood spatter patterns. It appeared Danvers had been stabbed from behind. “Like Danvers, she saw the killer?”
“That’s what it’s looking like to me.” In the front of the apartment there was some commotion suggesting forensics had arrived. Garrison straightened. “We need to zero in on Danvers’s favorite hunting grounds. Maybe we can figure where Lisa was murdered and find something that connects all this to the killer.”
“Police have identified the name of the woman found dead behind the Hanna’s House shelter late Monday. ” Eva was half listening to the television above the bar until she heard “Hanna’s House.”
“The victim’s name was Lisa Black, age thirty-one, of
Alexandria, Virginia.” Eva froze, the tap still spewing beer into the glass and overflowing on her hand. She shut the tap off and shook the liquid from her hand as she glanced at the screen, hoping to see a picture of the victim. But the news station was simply showing shots of the burned-out structure.
She wiped her hands before setting the beer in front of her customer. She grabbed the remote and backed up the picture on the screen. The face of a young blond woman flashed on the screen. Garrison had showed her a picture of the same woman but in his photo her eyes had been shut and her mouth slack-jawed. This DMV picture wasn’t very flattering but she smiled and brightness illuminated her eyes.
Eva studied the face. Lisa Black had been one of the three that had testified against her. But this Lisa Black didn’t resemble the woman she’d known at Price. Her Lisa had dark hair, was thirty pounds heavier and had a wide thick nose. Could it be the same person? This Lisa was bone thin and her high slash of cheekbones and a pointed chin suggested an air of sophistication the other Lisa had never known.
“God, Eva, you are so smart.” Lisa tucked a dark curl behind her ear. She grinned, her smile making her wide face look even broader.
“You are smarter than you think,” Eva said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I just wish I could be more like you. And Kristen. You have brains, and well, she has the looks.”
Eva wasn’t sure what to say to that. A part of her was flattered and a part sad for Lisa. “Let’s get back to the books.”
“Great. Kristen wants our house to win the Battle of the Brains next week. And I don’t want to disappoint her. ”
Could this be the Lisa that had sat on the witness stand and told the world that Eva killed Josiah?
Lisa, Eva, Kristen and Sara had been close friends in college. Lisa and Eva had met in a math study lab. Later, Lisa had brought Eva to the sorority house and encouraged her to pledge. Eva had been so thrilled to finally start making friends at Price. She’d been the seventeen-year-old genius who’d graduated high school early and won a full academic scholarship. A foster kid, she didn’t have the extra money to do the fun things the other kids did. Plus, she’d looked so young, no fake ID got her into any bar or party.