The Red Hot Fix

by T. E. Woods

  “She wanted to jazz up the game.” Mort rubbed his hand over his son’s arm, careful to avoid the IV. “See how I’d react if the lead investigator lost his own son to the serial killer he couldn’t find.”

  “But you found me. Riding to my rescue like you have my whole life.”

  “Actually, that credit goes to Bruiser.” Mort provided the details of the canine save.

  “Sirloin for that dog for the rest of his life,” Robbie declared. “On me.”

  “You let me handle that.” Mort leaned back in the plastic chair. “You need to take care of Claire and the girls. I figure I’ll let you make the decision on what to tell them.” Mort had protected Edie from plenty of close calls throughout his career. “You want me to get them on the phone?”

  Robbie turned his eyes to the ceiling. Mort let him have his time, thinking, It’s tough trying to come up with the right words to tell a wife you’ve narrowly escaped death at the hands of a deranged serial killer.

  “I’ve really screwed things up, haven’t I, Dad?”

  Mort hated the regret in his son’s voice. “We’ve got her, Robbie. Trixie’s done.”

  Robbie shook his head and groaned at the effort. “That’s not it … My ego’s been jacked up pretty good this last year. TV interviews. People standing in line to tell me how great I am and smiling like Christmas when I sign their book. Young girls wanting to buy me a drink and who knows what if I’ll pass their manuscript along to my agent.” He turned to his father. “It’s all a crock of shit. None of it means anything unless I can share it with Claire and our girls.” He groaned again. “I’ve been a world-class asshole.”

  “I wouldn’t say world-class.” Mort laid his hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “Look … we all get a little full of ourselves. The trick is to recognize it and reel back in before any damage is done. And there’s nothing like family to fix an inflated ego.”

  The Grant men listened to the beeps and churns of hospital equipment.

  “When do the doctors say I can leave?” Robbie finally asked.

  “Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  “If that’s the case, I’m packing my bags second thing. I want to be with my girls in France.”

  Warmth spread through Mort’s cold and weary bones. “Close your eyes now, son. I’ll sit here until you fall asleep.”

  It was nearly nine o’clock when Mort opened the door to the interview room in the basement of the King County jail. She was already there. Bright orange jumpsuit. Hair brushed back and face pale following the standard delousing shower. Mort lost all memory of the gentle loveliness she’d displayed when he’d first met her. A heavy leather belt anchored a short length of chain and locked her to the floor-bolted stainless-steel table. Another seven-inch chain separated her ankles. That too, was bolted to the floor.

  Mort took a seat across from her. He knew she hadn’t uttered a word since they brought her in.

  “Let’s start with your name.”

  Her smile was calibrated to wholesome earnestness. “So many to choose from, wouldn’t you say, Mort?” The tilt of her head may have been meant as playful, but the harsh glare of the overhead light cast ghoulish shadows across her face. “Which do you prefer? Nancy? Trixie?” She leaned forward the three inches her chains allowed and winked. “Just don’t call me dull.”

  This is the woman who planned to kill my son, he remembered. To strangle him, truss him up, and dump him in a cheap motel with a bright red kiss on his forehead.

  “No record of you anywhere in the system. How’s that happen?” he asked. “No passport. No arrest record. Not even a dog bite. You gotta be, what? Thirty-five? Thirty-seven? How’s it happen that the first fingerprints we get from you is when you’re arrested for multiple homicides?”

  She tossed her head as though trying to swing her hair, but cheap jail shampoo left it dried against her skull in a crusted helmet. “That’s a conversation best had over an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir. What d’ya say, Mort?” She ran a slow tongue over her lip. “Wanna buy me a drink? After the rusty piss water in your bubblers, I could use a sip of something costly.”

  Mort swallowed the acid rising in the back of his throat.

  “We got you, Trixie.” The trashy name the media had given her suited her. “DNA, fingerprints, and the Chief of D’s son found in the trunk of a car you were driving.”

  “Robbie tell you I put him in that trunk?”

  Mort noted her square jaw and high cheekbones. Wide-set blue eyes. Flawless skin reddened by scratches courtesy of the gravel grind back at the motel. More than attractive if you could overlook the canyon-deep ugliness of her soul.

  “That your plan, Trixie? Refute the evidence? Look at the judge all dewy-eyed and swear there’s been a terrible mistake?”

  Ice ripped down Mort’s spine as the light in her eyes morphed into a dangerous leer.

  “Don’t worry about my plan, Boss Man Detective.” Her hiss was more cobra than human. “It’s enough to know I have one.”

  “You’re gonna need a lawyer, Trixie. And he’s gonna need a name. Look up your background so he can weave a sob story about a past deprived of a mother’s love. Make the jury cry about the poor little girl who had no other choice but to act out her aggression against a daddy who did her wrong.”

  Trixie’s breathing was rapid and thin. Her jaw shifted and her lips pursed.

  Mort leaned forward. “It won’t work,” he whispered. He wasn’t trying to mask his words from the team watching the closed-circuit screen in the next room. He simply wanted her full attention.

  “You touched my boy.” He locked eyes with her. “I don’t care who you are or where you came from. You put your filthy, piece-of-shit hands on my son and I’m making it my mission to see you locked in a tiny cinder-block room eating maggoty roadkill and outdated creamed corn for the rest of your worthless life.”

  Trixie turned her head. Mort pounded his fist on the table and regained her attention.

  “There’ll be no one to show off to. No one to appreciate your games. The only flesh you’ll ever touch again is your own.”

  A flash of fear raced across her face only to be forced immediately behind a mask of indifference.

  “I got a thousand dollars says I never see a day in a prison, Mort.” Her voice feigned a world-weary air. “So you can take your Cowboy Eddie act to whatever cheap cop bar you frequent and entertain the other community college dropouts.”

  He shoved his chair back, stood, and spent two minutes watching her pose as the bored criminal mastermind. She seemed small in the coveralls. Impotent in the chains. He knew where she was headed. Supermax prison. Meals delivered through a stainless-steel slot. Orders broadcast through speakers mounted in a cell smaller than his bedroom closet. No visitors. No mail. No television or radio. Forty minutes a week of solitary outdoor exercise in a ten-foot-square chain-link cage.

  At least eight people had died at her hands.

  Day after indistinguishable day of no human contact. Insanity her only companion until she was buried in the rough field behind the prison.

  He was supremely okay with that.

  She had meant his son to die next.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Lydia parked her car behind a rusting Volkswagen bus and watched the front door of the double-wide trailer serving as the office for Gary Dunfield’s salvage yard. The hand-painted sign along the frontage road said he closed at six o’clock. Lydia wanted to make sure she was his last customer. Low clouds and steady rain darkened the day. The lights inside the trailer revealed no movement.

  Still she waited.

  She should have felt guilty as she prepared for this appointment. Old habits of choosing the right character and dressing the part should have warned her off. Planning the appropriate scenario to bring the exact balance of justice and revenge warranted by the target’s crimes should have brought guilty waves of remorse.

  But The Fixer didn’t believe in shoulds.

  Lydia felt str
onger than she had in months. Little Maizie’s broken description of her father’s demands drummed through her mind as the rain hammered the roof of her car. She was calm and steady. At five minutes till six, with no signs of customers, Lydia reached for her purse, opened the door, and stepped into the deluge.

  “We’re closed,” a deep voice boomed in answer to the buzzer tripped when Lydia entered.

  Lydia surveyed the room. She stood in front of the only visible door. If there was another exit, a partial wall of cheap paneling blocked it from view. A filthy glass case filled with refurbished auto parts acted as service counter. A stench of grease, mud, gasoline, and sweat permeated the space. Footsteps stomped her way.

  “Damn the fuck.” She heard him before she saw him. “I said we’re closed.”

  He came around the half wall. Several inches short of six feet and dozens of pounds past two hundred. Lydia thought if he’d wash his chin-length hair it might be the same color as Maizie’s. Brown eyes poked below heavy lids. Maizie must have gotten her blue from her mother. He stopped short when he saw Lydia. His scowl turned into a leer. He wiped his lips with the back of his oil-stained hand.

  “My, my.” His gaze was lazy and long. “Looks like you made a wrong turn. Not that I’m complaining.”

  Lydia stood and let him look. She’d selected her ensemble for maximum effect. Stiletto heels. Tight black leather trousers. Black silk tank with a scoop so low the lace of her bra peeked out. Lydia was grateful the rain had slicked her hair and forced her top to cling like second skin.

  “I’m looking for someone,” she said.

  He licked his lips. “Will I do?”

  He’d expect her to flinch at his forwardness. She took a deep breath, forced her breasts against strained wet silk, and held his stare.

  “I’m looking for Sweet and Ready.” Lydia watched his face fall. “Any idea where I can find her?”

  Maizie had described her life with her father. She was on her own, so long as she kept her mouth shut and didn’t bring anybody back to the house. A few times a month he got out his camera, like he used to with her mother. “He wanted to take pictures of me back then and Ma would say no. She’d hurry to put me in my room, but I heard. I’d see her in the bathroom later cleaning up her blood.”

  Her mother wasn’t around to protect her now.

  “He beat me like he used to beat Ma. Once he brought me out and chained me to an old Buick. Way in the back, down behind the fence where customers don’t go. It stinks bad back there. It rained, but I scooted beneath the car. First I was scared, then I was just hungry. He didn’t come get me till morning.”

  “Sweet and Ready,” Lydia snapped at the silent man. “If you’re not the man who knows where she is, somebody owes me a lot of money.”

  Gary’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you? I ain’t got knowledge of nothing you’re talking about.”

  Lydia reached into her bra and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “Sure you do.” She stepped to the counter and laid the money down. “This is to show my good faith.” She pulled an envelope out of her purse. “And I’ve got one hundred more just like that one for the person who can give me what I need.”

  Gary stepped forward to snatch the hundred. Lydia could see him working the calculus of the situation. He glanced past her to the parking lot. “You alone?”

  Lydia tilted her head. “I’ll ask again. Are you the guy who can give me Sweet and Ready?”

  Gary grinned. He lunged toward her and made a grab for the envelope. Lydia sidestepped and tripped him. When he rolled and looked up, a Beretta .32 Tomcat was aimed at his face.

  Lydia shook her head. “I showed you my good faith. Where’s yours?”

  “You a cop?”

  “You see? I knew you were the fellow I was looking for. You ready to talk?”

  “I said, you a cop?”

  “Don’t you watch television? If I was a cop, this place would be surrounded by blinking blue and red lights. You’d hear sirens. Relax. I follow your website and I appreciate your artistry. I’ve come to answer the ad for Sweet and Ready.” Lydia indicated he should stand but kept the gun pointed at him. “And if you try something stupid again, you’ll have to explain to the folks in the emergency room how you happened to shoot off your dick.”

  “I figured men looked at my site. What’s your angle?” Gary stood up.

  “You need to spend time off this island. It’s a whole new era. Your site said you’re taking bids. I don’t have time for games. Are we dealing or not?”

  “If you’ve seen her pictures, you know she’s special. You being a woman intrigues me. Maybe we can work a deal where you get what you want and the girl stays whole, if you catch my drift. I mean, you don’t have the equipment to, well … I can see you getting your jollies and me still left with a virgin to auction.” He nodded. “Yeah, I like the take of that. But ten thousand ain’t going to touch it.”

  “What’s your price?”

  “What is it you want? Frills are extra.”

  Lydia had him. “I want it filmed. Me and her. You take care of the set. Top production values. Lights, sound, everything. I’m assuming you’re the only cameraman.”

  Gary’s leer was back. “Just me. The soul of discretion.”

  “And I want the only copy.” Lydia held her voice firm. “This doesn’t end up on your site.”

  Gary looked like a jack-o’-lantern in heat. “For the right price I could do that.”

  “And I want a walk-through this week. See if the set’s to my liking.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck with a greasy hand. “Gonna cost you.”

  “What’s your number?”

  He looked to the side and acted like he was counting his expenses. Lydia knew he was frantically trying to calculate how high he could go and not lose her. “Thirty grand,” he said. “Cash.”

  They worked out time and place. “I’m not getting a favorable first impression of you,” Lydia told him. “So I’m sure you’ll believe me when I tell you if you fuck with me in any way you will spend a lot of painful time wishing you hadn’t.”

  Lydia read the deprived anticipation on his face. There was no way he’d miss the opportunity to watch what he thought was going to happen. She held the gun on him while she backed out into the rain.

  The Fixer had her target.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mort shook off his jacket, saw the phone flash eleven messages, and wondered if there was time to drive back to SeaTac and catch the same plane that would soon take his son to Paris. The close encounter with Robbie had him feeling every one of his fifty-eight years. Picking him up at the hospital and shuttling him to the airport had allowed him to beg off the chief’s press conference announcing the end of Trixie’s siege. Despite the police chief’s well-deserved reputation for always covering his own ass first, Seattle’s top cop, with the mayor standing next to him, let the assumption ride that Reinhart Vogel had been Trixie’s last victim. As much as Mort might enjoy a break from mayhem and motives, Vogel’s murder was still unsolved. Any fantasy of running away would have to wait.

  He grabbed paper from his desk drawer, punched his security code into his voice mail, and started in on his messages. The first four were from reporters. He hit the delete button as soon as they identified themselves. The fifth was from Jimmy, saying he and Micki would meet him in his office at noon. Mort glanced at the clock. Almost an hour before they arrived. The next message pulled his spine straighter. He hung up and immediately returned the call.

  Lydia Corriger picked up on the first ring.

  “I saw the news,” she said. “Is Robbie all right?”

  “He’s fine. Got some first-class detox and was on the morning flight to Paris.” Mort appreciated her concern. “He’ll probably sleep the whole way. Where are you?”

  “Seattle, actually. I had errands to run.”

  “You headed for Whidbey?”

  She hesitated. “That’s my plan.”

  “Can you s
wing by the station?” He wanted to see her.

  “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Have coffee.”

  Five minutes of small talk had Mort’s sensors on high alert. “What’s bothering you, Liddy?”

  She avoided his eyes.

  “You wrestling with history?” He wondered if there’d ever be a way out for her. “Talk to me.”

  Lydia looked down at his hand on hers. He knew it was a struggle for her to accept human touch. She’d spent a lifetime building a defense against hurting hands. He was pleased she didn’t pull away. He’d allow her her secrets for the time being.

  Their conversation turned to Trixie and how months of frustrating dead ends had changed when Micki noticed the scarf Charlotte made for him.

  “And you, of course, were afraid Charlotte was Trixie and the first woman you’ve been interested in since Edie died would be lost to you forever.”

  Lydia’s uncanny ability to observe and deduce hadn’t lost its power. Mort glanced at the clock. There was still time before Micki and Jimmy arrived.

  “Do me a favor.”

  He told her about Trixie concealing any personal information. He turned to his computer and called up the digitized file of his brief interview with the killer from the night before.

  “Take a look and give me your impressions.” Mort had the recording on the screen. “We’ve got enough physicals to put her at the scenes. But I need to know who she is.”

  Lydia pulled her chair next to his. Her eyes tracked every corner of the screen, absorbing each visual and auditory clue. When the interview ended, she spent a few moments in silence.

  “She’s about my age.” Lydia sounded certain. “Mid-thirties. She looks older, but that’s probably a result of harsh winters. Her eyes are younger than her face would suggest. The pacing of her speech is more consistent with someone younger, too.”

  “Harsh winters?” Mort glanced at the gray drizzle beyond his window. “Wet and soggy, perhaps. But I always heard Northwest weather was good for the skin.”