Kevin Johnson took a long pull from his brown bottle of Budweiser he’d ordered before they stepped outside and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His brown eyes bulged and twitched and he froze his gaze at the liquor bottles behind the bar. He glanced up at the television and watched a car commercial for Ford before saying, “I gotta get out of here. I can’t go through this anymore. I just don’t wanna deal with anything. I made some mistakes in my life and now this. I can’t face this anymore. With the cops and I dunno. Fuck. I’m fucked. My life’s over.”
He took another gulp of foamy beer and swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut. He sighed, tipped his head toward the exits, and pressed his sneakers into the dirt-stained linoleum floors. The man followed him toward the front door.
The bartender—a round, short man with a balding head, pale skin, gray stubble on his face, and an Eagles sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his hairy forearm that was too tight for him and made his man-boobs pop through the fabric—wiped off the bar with a beer-stained rag and zoned his eyes in on them as they left, a wary stare, as if he wasn’t used to anyone stepping foot in that bar unless they were a regular.
The afternoon sun didn’t fully come out like the weatherman had predicted that morning. The sky was gray, a hint of red swirling though the center. The wind was still, but the air was cold. Each shivered once and dug their hands into their jacket. The bar’s roof was tilted on an angle and a sheet of dark shadows covered the pavement as if the cement were painted black.
Kevin Johnson darted his eyes back and forth and swiveled his head around to see if anyone was watching or following him, paranoia controlling his mind. He reached in his pocket and scooped out a gray winter hat. He flipped the round wool on his head and stared at the black-paved streets. The man next to him noticed that Kevin’s efforts to conceal his identity made him appear even more suspicious. Kevin lifted himself up and down on the balls of his feet and narrowed his eyes at a few cars swooshing by him and hooking rights and lefts at a red stop sign at the end of the block, his shoulders jerking and twisting, not knowing where to check next for the police.
“Where you staying now? While this is all going on?” the man said.
“Stayin’ at my cousin’s girlfriend’s house for the time being in Southwest Philly, until this blows over or quiets down or until I can get out of this city or country. The cops calling my mom and shit, looking for me. I gotta get outta Philly. There’s nothing here for me. They’ll find a way to pin that shit on me. I know it. I gotta get outta here.”
The man sniffled and wiped clear moisture from his nose as it dripped down from the cold. “You’re right. Maybe I could help you get out of Philly. You short on money?” He pointed toward a dank alley to the bar’s right, its wet surface as though it had been hosed down moments earlier, and motioned with his head for Kevin to step inside.
They snuck past a green dumpster with a plastic black lid flipped up and pressed against a red brick wall, held in place by white and gray trash bags and brown cardboard boxes and empty Heineken and Coors Light containers. The dumpster stunk of spoiled beer and dirt and sour cat piss and rotten eggs and meat and not one sniff of air smelled clean or natural. They jogged past, frowned and pinched their noses, hooked a sharp left down the narrow alley that was wide enough for just the two of them walking side by side. Cracks slithered through the concrete below their feet, and a few dingy shrubs of wild grass popped and wobbled through the slits in the hard gray surface, Mother Nature trying to rebel against man who’d covered it for modern living.
Kevin led the way, his tall body taking wide strides, his hands flying from his sides and up in the air, whispering about this situation and his intentions to leave the city.
The man behind him slowly reached under his jacket, grabbed a cold gun from his waist, and sized up the back of Kevin Johnson’s head. He stared at his skull outlined in the wool winter head.
Before Kevin could even turn around, the man squeezed the trigger, firing a bullet. The shot popped and cracked through the air, splattering Kevin’s brains onto the brick walls and concrete, pools of maroon liquid swerving and spreading on either side of him. His body smacked the cold ground, the impact like a car hitting a deer going sixty, as if his skull had shattered into a hundred pieces. Bone and blood and brains jiggled on the ground. The air smelled of metal and fire and burned powder. The man knew Kevin was dead, surveyed his body, as his long extremities twitched and convulsed, his eyes bloody and wide open. He stormed through the alley out toward freedom.
28
M
arisa and Steel had gotten word of Kevin Johnson’s murder that had occurred just a few hours prior. They had gone to the crime scene and checked it out, spoke with Kevin’s mother and a few neighbors who knew him, even though the murder had happened outside their district. Afterwards, they headed over to see the police department’s psychologist at his home because it was his day off from the station.
As they entered his condo in Northern Liberties, a trendy and up-and-coming area featuring many new properties being converted from old factory buildings into luxurious living spaces, Dr. Gerald Lowerstein showed them to his home office—one of the two bedrooms he had turned into a place where he could maintain a side practice.
“Sorry I can only see you for a minute, like I told you on the phone, I have a patient coming here today.” The doctor jerked a thumb behind his ear, toward the hallway. “Something to drink…coffee, water, soda, beer?”
Steel and Marisa waved their hands no but each thanked him with a head nod.
Dr. Lowerstein scratched his forehead, tugged at his glasses with his first finger and thumb. He was about forty-five but in good physical shape, no gut or extra fat, the lean frame of a five-day-a-week jogger. His black hair was combed back but wasn’t as slicked as he’d have it if he were dressed for work. He wore tight blue jeans, a short-sleeved black polo shirt, and black casual dress shoes. Steel noticed that that was the first time he’d seen the man dressed casually. He usually dressed for his job—black slacks, shiny shoes, long-sleeved dress shirt and tie.
The doctor rocked back in his computer chair and typed on his laptop on a small wooden desk, telling Steel and Marisa he’d just be a minute finishing up something he had been working on before they arrived.
“No problem,” Steel said.
He glanced some more at diplomas on the white walls—all levels of education—bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD—from Temple University. He ran his eyes over a black bookcase that held roughly fifty books and noticed two paperbacks with creased spines and ruffled edges: Feeling Good by David D. Burns and As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. Steel had read them both as part of his own self-help therapy and thought the doctor had good taste in reading material. He learned from each of those titles. But he felt weird to be sitting on the patient’s couch in this office, maybe because he was a patient in his own shrink’s office. He rarely spoke of his depression or therapy sessions with coworkers, not that he cared what they thought, but because he didn’t like to mix his business with his personal life.
The doctor took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together, the friction like sandpaper scratching a wall, and turned around and faced them. His small hazel eyes focused. “All right. Sorry about that, new book I’m working on. Didn’t want to lose my train of thought.”
“No worries,” Steel said, holding up his palms, shaking his head.
Lowerstein widened his stare, scratched his thin nose, and pressed his barely-visible glasses without frames upward. “What do we have, you want a psychological profile?”
Steel leaned over and the leather sofa creased and rumbled, resembled someone humming.
“Ger, in the past week, we have the murder of a woman, her mother, and her boyfriend.”
The doctor whistled, arched a brow. “My God. God forbid.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
Dr. Lowerstein ran his fingers along his sharp jawline, crossed his legs, and blinked rapi
dly in thought. The doctor’s actions so similar to Steel’s shrink he almost forgot he was there for the case and not to talk about his own problems. Maybe that’s the way all psychologists and psychiatrists are trained, he thought.
“How old was the woman?” Lowerstein said, pointed and rolled a finger in a small circular motion. “Not the mother, her daughter.”
“She was thirty-five. An attorney. Apparently a very nice and intelligent woman, from those I had spoken to about her. She didn’t have any enemies, except for, maybe, her boyfriend. They had recently broken up prior to her murder. But now he’s dead, too. I’m still not convinced he didn’t have something to do with it. I had a warrant out for his arrest and everything.”
Lowerstein nodded, plucked at the flesh of his pointy chin.
Marisa said, “And the mother was killed after the daughter. The boyfriend this morning. You think we have a serial killer?”
“How were they killed?”
“Desiree, the woman, was shot in the head. The mother was strangled. The boyfriend shot in the head as well.”
He clenched his lips tightly as if sickened by the situation and his eyes shifted in thought. “I think we have someone very close to the victims,” he held up a finger, “or the case, but could be a serial, anything’s possible. But a serial killer wouldn’t necessarily care for the victims. They mainly kill for their own psychological gratification, and this case looks personal.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, an elbow on each kneecap. “And I mean anyone close to the case.”
“Anyone?” Steel said. “What’s that mean? Break that down for me real quick.”
“Anyone. That goes for friends of the victims, family members, neighbors, officers, reporters, forensics people, anyone. The killer is one of two things. Someone looking for revenge from the woman…” He pointed at Steel to make sure he was saying the right name. “…Desiree…” Steel nodded and the doctor continued. “…and is so enraged that they’re not satisfied until they destroy everyone close to her. Or they’re someone who enjoys playing with you guys, enjoys beating the police and making you guess, gets their thrills from it. And that somebody would have to know an awful lot about the case and victims, wouldn’t they?”
Steel hated answering rhetorical questions but nodded and agreed anyway. “I still think the boyfriend was involved, though.” He clenched his fist, contorted his face. “But wouldn’t he have killed her more violently, hatefully, instead of a gunshot?”
The doctor nodded. “Maybe, maybe not. And it could have been the boyfriend, sure it could have. And if that were the case, then that would fit into the first scenario I just laid out for you…revenge.”
“And if not?”
“The person fits the second scenario…loves the thrill, wants the attention, wants to beat you, Steel.” He held his stare. “Someone close to the case either way, but the second would have to be really close because they knew to kill the boyfriend, your top suspect.”
“Right, right,” Steel said.
Lowerstein glanced down at his watch. “All right, that’s my allotted time.” He forced a smile.
Steel shook his hand. “Doctor, as always, you’ve been a huge help.”
Dr. Lowerstein stood while shaking, then shook Marisa’s hand and smiled. “My pleasure, sorry that the time was limited.”
Steel and Marisa walked to the front door and left, and the first thought that crossed Steel’s mind was, What the fuck is going on here? Who and Why?
29
S
teel and Marisa settled into seats in Lieutenant Detective Williams’ office. The heater clanged, pushing clouds of thick warmth from the vents, but the room was still chilly as a cold draft near the lieutenant’s desk seeped through a crack in the windowsill behind it.
Lieutenant Williams cracked his knuckles and gripped the desktop with his fingers and pulled his gut closer to it. He blinked faster than usual. Steel had never seen him this nervous. Usually his eyes behind the burgundy tints of his glasses never revealed anxiety or fear, but today they twitched and squinted every three or four seconds.
“Everything all right, Lieutenant?”
Williams scratched the light buzz cut covering his scalp and glided the fingers to the tip of his receding hairline. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just found out my youngest daughter has a cyst that has to be surgically removed. Nothing serious, but it’s always something…and scary. Just have to trust in Jesus.”
Steel slumped in his seat, his feet sprawled out on the floor, and thought, That’s up for debate. I trust that there’s a Creator, but I don’t know about the Jesus thing. His face reddened, and his mind called him a terrible person for being internally critical of a man who trusted his personal God to take care of his daughter. Why can’t you just accept others’ beliefs? Why do you have to question and challenge everything?
Marisa crinkled her nose and frowned. “Aw, poor girl. She’ll be okay though, right?”
Williams placed his forearms over the seat handles, gripped the edges, and oscillated back and forth. “Yep.”
Marisa slapped both hands on her thighs and leaned forward toward Williams’ desk. She squinted at the 8x10 picture frame that held a photo of a smiling Williams, his wife, and their young daughters. “Awww, your girls are adorable. You have a beautiful family.”
Williams scratched his chubby cheek and its ebony skin jiggled. “Truly blessed.”
Steel smiled but only because of how lucky he felt to have a woman as kind-hearted as Marisa. He rubbed his nose and tried to hide the fact that Williams’ musky cologne was stinging his nostrils. Every day with this cologne. We need to have a cologne intervention.
The Lieutenant reached out and tapped a stack of papers against his desktop. He pushed his glasses closer to his face. “All right, all right. Let’s get to what I called you two in here for.”
Steel glanced at Marisa and she stared back.
Both were prepared for a case review that Williams held weekly.
“This case is really starting to worry me,” Steel said. He ran a finger over his nose. “If not the boyfriend, then who? We have Desiree, her mother, and her boyfriend dead. I’m looking into if Desiree had a lover? Stalker? Ex-client?” Steel leaned forward, spoke quickly, “We just talked with Dr. Lowerstein, and he told us it could be anybody close to the case. Could possibly be a serial killer because we have three people dead, he said. But he thinks it’s either someone…” He rolled his arms in front of himself. “…like I just said, that’s close to the case, anyone, friends, police, ambulance, family, news reporters, forensics, anybody, or it’s someone out to piss us off. Somebody trying to see how far they could push us.”
Williams sat motionless, his pose like a statue, his face stoic. “Hmm…what do you personally think, Steel?”
Steel ran a hand through his hair. “I honestly don’t know. Desiree was shot, then the mother’s strangled, then the boyfriend, who I was sure did it, turns up dead. Maybe he still did do it. I don’t know. There’s hardly any evidence to go on, only the prints off Desiree’s mother. We still have one of Desiree’s clients we’re looking into, a guy with mental health issues. And someone I want to look into is the owner of the firm she worked for, John Fratt, but that’s mainly because I don’t trust him. Something about him. The neighbors didn’t hear anything. We have nothing at all from social media, nothing suspicious. Text messages and phone records from Desiree and her mother didn’t give us any information. Called a few of Desiree’s friends and they all said they have no clue who could have done it. But we’re working on it, trying to connect a few things.”
Steel never told Williams more than the basic summary during one of these case reviews. He figured if he went too far and set expectations too high, he’d look like he wasn’t doing his job if things didn’t work out by the outline he had provided.
The computer beeped in the office, indicating that Williams had gotten a new email.
He twirled his chair toward the monitor, grabb
ed the mouse, and poked his chubby fingers into the keyboard, typing about a sentence worth of words.
Steel thought about the case and replayed what he had just told Williams. He often did that, for confirmation that he’d said everything the right way. Perfectionism—his master, his worst enemy, his root cause of depression, but at times his best friend.
Marisa crossed her legs, pressed her elbows into the arms of the chair, leaned her chin in her hand, and dangled her shoe, waiting for the conversation to pick back up.
Divine (A Benny Steel Novel) Page 17