The Midtown Murderer

by David Carlisle

  Chapter 26

  Trent spilled most of it, composing a careful and minimal tale that excluded his exhuming the body and stashing Anima at the Motel 6.

  “. . . and after Radcliff dropped you at the grocery store,” Clay said, “you walked home, right?”

  “Yes,” Trent said, looking instinctively to Priest for support and finding none. “I was waiting on Priest when I got the call; I assumed it was the police because a man left a message that there had been a break in the Chloe Lee abduction case. He said I needed to hustle to the site of the park shooting.

  “So I’m jogging through the park toward Oak Hill, and all the sudden I’m hiding in the lake from some fucker who’s shooting at me with a high-powered rifle.”

  They gave no sign of having heard him so Trent changed the subject. “Was Garcia’s information reliable? Did you find a body?”

  “Yes,” Priest said. “McClure rounded up a team and drove out last night.” Then he looked at McClure. “How’d it go?”

  “With all the new snow yesterday, the stream water was over the bank; it took us half the night to get the corpse out of the mud,” McClure said, scratching the faint stubble on his square chin. “The body was several months decomposed so you can imagine it was not a pretty sight.”

  “Any idea who it was?” Trent asked, feeling confident that his tracks had been covered.

  “The murder victim had no ID,” Clay said. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  Trent looked perplexed. “I don’t know.”

  “Could you at least guess?” Priest asked irritably.

  “For chrissake, I have no idea.”

  Butler couldn’t let it go. He pointed a bony index finger at Trent and said, “You want us to believe that you waltzed into the Apostles bar unannounced, got the crap stomped out of you, and then Garcia tells you were to find a corpse?”

  “Strange but true.”

  Clay stared skeptically. “Why would Garcia tell you this? What’s his gain?”

  Trent shrugged. “He offered to help because I killed Triple’s brother; he said the victim’s identity might shed some light on who kidnapped Chloe.”

  “Did Garcia know who the victim was?”

  “If he did, he didn’t tell me.”

  Clay stayed silent a moment. “Rikki’s working overtime to put a name to that person, and we’re combing our missing person files. We’ll know soon enough.”

  The door opened and the ME, dressed in wrinkled surgical green medical scrubs, slid into the room. He gave Trent a wry behave-yourself look, dropped an autopsy in front of Clay, and exited as silently as he had entered.

  Clay pulled on his bifocals and picked up the report. “Winston had been dead in the region of fifteen minutes when the ME got a thermometer up his ass; no rigor had set in.”

  “Hey, Butler, how’d you get to my apartment so fast?” Trent asked, then watched his reaction.

  Faint blotches of color appeared on Butler’s cheeks, and the skin tightened on his jaw. He glanced at his hands. “A neighbor heard the shots and called in a nine-one-one. Monroe is a cut through on my way to the station. I picked it off the scanner and ran the address.”

  Clay was looking alternately at Trent and Butler when Priest cut in quietly. “The doctor pulled these splinters from Palmer’s neck,” he said, passing a plastic bag to Clay. “I’m no medical expert, but when Palmer showed up at the apartment, I’d say he was on the verge of hypothermia.”

  Clay nodded but didn’t lift his eyes from the report. “With the length of time Palmer was in the water,” he said, “and the ME’s postmortem interval, there’s no way he could have shot Winston.”

  “Palmer, are you withholding evidence?”

  Trent lied straight to his face. “No.”

  “What did you sell Garcia?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What was the killer looking for in your apartment?”

  “I have no fucking idea,” Trent said, clinging doggedly to his story.

  “You’ve got to do better than that,” Clay said, bridging his fingertips.

  “Maybe the Midtown Murderer found out I knew about the body and now he’s trying to cover it up by killing me,” Trent said. “Maybe that’s what Garcia wanted.”

  Clay cast a look around the room. “No one, outside of the people at this table knows the details of the Midtown Murderer. So if there’s a leak, I’ll track it ruthlessly and that person will spend time behind bars. Am I clear?”

  The men nodded. Clay waved for Priest, Butler, and McClure to wait in the hallway. When they were alone, he stood and regarded Trent. He seemed to have reached a conclusion. “I congratulate you on discovering the body; perhaps it will shed light on this other sensitive business we are dealing with.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Clay walked briskly across the room and rapped on the door. “Take it easy and we’ll get all this straightened out,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Color me reassured.”

  The deputy opened the door and Clay walked out. “You’re dismissed,” he said more loudly, the sound of his loafers fading on the linoleum.

  Chapter 27

  Trent took the elevator down to the third floor and found the art department. Peering through a circular glass window in the swinging door, he spotted Rikki sitting on a stool with her back to him. He thought again how he wanted to build a relationship with a woman. A chance to heal from the crushing blow caused by Sylvia’s death and to fill the lonely void in his heart.

  He quietly opened the door and walked up beside her.

  A clay bust sat on a pedestal covered with a stained oilcloth. She was listening to soft classical music and referring to various photographs and X-rays of a skull. Those portraits, which were taken at different angles, sat on easels positioned behind the carved head and shoulders.

  Trent looked over the tools of her trade. Picks and probes and scalpels and spatulas rested neatly in a wooden box on a table.

  Using a hooked dentist’s pick, she carefully scraped clay from under the eye. Then she used her unvarnished fingernail to smooth the surface. Trent admired her steady hands and concentration. He said, “Ahem.”

  She turned. “Oh, Trent. How long have you been standing there?”

  “Only a minute.”

  She lifted a can of Seven-up and sipped from a straw. “I’m glad your here. Gosh, I need a break.” Her hair was pushed behind her ears, and she wore a white lab coat over her blue jeans and sweater top. “Trent, what on earth happened to your face?”

  “I went searching for Chloe in a less than desirable part of town.”

  She stood and delicately smoothed his eyebrow next to the nasty welt. “I’ve got some Vaseline Intensive Care in my purse; let me put a dab on those stitches.”

  “Sure.”

  She retrieved the tube then said, “Hold still.”

  Trent did as he was told.

  When she dabbed the ointment, he briefly considered pulling her toward him and kissing her lips. With much effort he meditated on a heart-shaped diamond dangling from a gold necklace around her neck.

  “That should make it all better.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She waved a hand at the bust. “What do you think of my puzzle?”

  “Male or Female?”

  “It’s an adult female,” she said, tracing her index finger around the jaw line on the X-ray. “Facial reconstructions can be tricky; but I’d say she was twenty-five to thirty-five years of age.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Can’t say.”

  Trent looked at the tapered cheekbones and narrow forehead. “Any idea who she is?”

  “Not yet,” she said, twirling a length of hair. “Daddy comes down every hour to check my progress; I’ve told him it’s a painstakingly slow process that could take days, not hours.”

  “What happens when you’re finished?”

  “I’ll take pictures of the bust and then scan them into o
ur facial recognition software to re-create an image of her face; then I can create different profiles with various facial characteristics. We’ll use those photographic images to run adds, print flyers, and broadcast her information on the Internet. Hopefully we’ll get a definite dental identification before then.”

  “How long has she been dead?”

  “No more than three months; that’s why I think someone will come forward based on the initial profile I work up.”

  Trent changed the topic. “Rikki, are you and Mike Butler dating?”

  She moved toward Trent and looked at him close. “At times we have, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Well, he’d like it to be fulltime, but I’m not ready for a long-term commitment. I had Robin when I was quite young, and the marriage didn’t work out. It’s taken me a while to get back on track with the university; that’s where I need to focus my energy.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling breathless and afraid. “Rikki, would you like to take in a movie with me sometime?”

  She smiled and said, “Sure.”

  Trent’s face came up with a grin. “If you’re not busy tonight . . .”

  “Trent,” she said in a kind voice, “I have a party to attend with Robin at seven; later in the evening, I have an obligation.”

  “That’s OK.”

  She smiled. “Call me anytime.”

  A warm glow blossomed in him. “I will do that. Well, I’ll let you get back to work. Enjoy your evening.”

  “Sorry I can’t go out with you tonight.”

  “Me too.”

  Trent was walking with his head down, thinking about Rikki, when he pushed open the door to Priest’s office. Only it wasn’t Priest’s office, but the room adjacent to his office.

  The hall light spilled in allowing Trent to see a director’s chair and TV recording equipment aimed at a curtain. Several folding chairs were positioned in the same direction.

  Trent closed the door and turned on the lights. He sat at an elementary control panel and examined an array of switches. Then he put on a set of headphones and rotated the volume control.

  Voices! Trent dimmed the lights and slid the curtain back. Even though the finger-print smudged mirror was one-way, he still felt exposed.

  The lights were out in the interrogation room, making it impossible for him to see the occupants, but he heard part of a conversation that made his stomach churn.

  “I wish that cat would go back to Timbuktu.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen.”

  “It’s time to fuck him over like he’s never been fucked before,” a voice said boldly.

  “Yeah. He’s on the run now.”

  “Hard to believe he found the body; who’s he think he is, Mannix?”

  “It was watertight; only four people knew about it. So who tipped him?”

  “You’re forgetting that Duke rigged the meth lab.”

  “Yeah. He must have gotten to Garcia before we iced him.”

  “That’s the only answer.”

  “We’re still safe if we fuck him over.”

  “Clay sprinkled his ass with stardust and got him excited. We gotta whack him before he gets the ball rolling.”

  “We’ll do it quick.”

  “You got it.”

  A minute later the door opened an inch and someone peered out, but the narrow strip of hall light wasn’t enough for Trent to see him clearly. Satisfied the hall was empty; the two men ducked out and closed the door.

  Trent racked his brain trying to place their voices but decided he’d never heard either of them. He waited until he was sure they were gone. Then he stealthily made his way out of the building.

  Chapter 28

  A frigid wind whistled through the city. The clouds had parted in hard horizontal lines, as if sliced by a knife, revealing gashes of pink light.

  Trent stood outside of his office and admired the carpenter’s handiwork. Should work, he thought, running his fingertips across the gray metal door and steel frame. Bright yellow crime tape crisscrossed the door, and a message blazoned in thick black capitals had been spray-painted above the tape.

  PIG BASTARD!

  LEAVE TOWN OR ELSE!

  DEAD MEAT STINKS!

  No signature, he thought, stomping his feet against the cold. He read it again. Nice even letters. Trent reined in his temper and pulled off the tape. He was thinking that Wednesday had not been a very good day when he noticed a red-colored leaflet with a sinister-looking Santa Claus on it tucked into the doorframe.

  He unlocked the door and stepped inside with the wad of sticky police tape and the handout. “Hey there,” he called, scanning the office and bedroom for signs of life. “Is that rifle toting son-of-a-bitch here?”

  Hearing nothing and seeing no one, he wedged a dresser in front of the door and closed the blinds in case the killer had overtime fever and planed to stop by tonight.

  Trent did a double take when he saw the angry mess. He leaned against the wall, knowing he had to act quickly, because the killers wouldn’t rest until they were stopped. Or he was dead.

  He found a bottle of beer that had rolled beneath the stove. With trembling hands, he unscrewed the top and slurped it down. Then he studied the square of paper he’d brought inside; it was an invitation to a Christmas party.

  “If you missed our Halloween party, join us tonight for a very scary Christmas party at the Wire Tap Lounge . . .” he read aloud. “No one allowed inside without a costume . . . Prizes for the most original outfits . . . The party starts at eight and ends late! Hope to scare you there!”

  Trent decided the lounge could be a safe place to hideout. He turned the paper over. A handwritten note had been scrawled in red crayon across the back: IF YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW CORRUPT THE MIDTOWN POLICE ARE, GO TO THE PARTY.

  He decided the perfect prescription to calm his jangled nerves would be housework. It would also give him time to think about everything that had happened.

  He started in the office. The killer had made a terrible mess of Winston as if he had exploded. He scoured the floor with steel wool and Comet that whitened the floorboards. Then he scraped and scrubbed Winston’s blood and meat off the walls. The bullets had gone out through the walls so he plugged the holes with wads of aluminum foil.

  In his bedroom he righted the furniture and put the books and CDs back on the bookshelf. His thoughts churned and he decided that the informant at the Midtown Police Plaza could be several officers working in collusion-probably the ones in the interrogation room-and that they knew quite a bit about Chloe’s abduction and the Midtown Murderer.

  Trent was sure that Garcia had spoken profound truth. If he didn’t find the mole, Utah and his boys would pay him an unpleasant visit. The key to his survival, and finding Chloe, lay in uncovering the traitor. He felt he could trust Priest, but would have to present him with hard facts before he’d help.

  He turned the situation over in his mind. Maybe the Midtown Murderer killed Jack and abducted Chloe. Is it possible that he’s the same person who shot at me in the park? Damn right it’s possible.

  But Anima said that motorcycles roared off around the time Jack was shot. And if Garcia could be trusted, and the Apostles did not have Chloe, then Triple’s gang had been circling the park waiting to give the shooter a ride and they kidnapped her.

  And how do McClure and Jake and Elwood and the Kings figure into all this? Is the ‘object’ they are all searching for tied into this mess?

  Trent came to no solid conclusions as he returned to the chilling conversation he’d overheard in the interrogation room. Then his mind jolted forward with a rush of terror and a new thought that the Midtown Murderer himself could be one or more police officers working out of the Midtown Police Plaza.

  He was unable to conjure up a scenario that would explain the body he had found. The answers would have to wait until the corpse was identified, and then he’d see if those circumstances had any bearing on Chloe’s disappearance.
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br />   Trent glanced at his watch. Eight o’clock sharp. Party time. He looked for something to take as a weapon and found a simple wooden box tucked into the corner of his closet. From it he took his old Japanese sword and held it up to admire the engraving on the shiny scabbard. The sword will work perfectly, he thought.

  Dressing himself as a sword-brandishing pirate, he slashed the air with the razor-sharp blade. Then he slid the edged weapon into its scabbard and left the apartment. The speckles of pink sky had faded into the gray of the approaching night.

  He pulled his bike even with the Wire Tap Lounge. The windows that faced Tenth Street were decorated with red and green lights, snowflakes, and elfish looking figures. Christmas carols played from speakers and strobes pulsed from the roof, freeze-framing the costumed patrons standing in line.

  A man dressed as Santa was directing traffic around the back for parking, but when he spotted Trent, he waved him onto the sidewalk.

  Trent secured his bike and took a spot behind a phalanx of grinning youngsters. Cinderella was collecting admissions, and a nautically attired man with a yachtsman’s cap and arms like Popeye made sure no one stepped inside without a costume.

  “How much?” asked Trent.

  “Five dollars,” Cinderella said, holding out a plastic Santa Claus head.

  Trent dropped the money and walked through the door. A stenciled number hung from the ceiling above each table. He was wondering what they were for as he scissored through the crowd toward the mirrored bar.

  Chapter 29

  Trent waved to a bartender dressed as a high-ranking military officer from a third-world country. He had on a blue tailcoat replete with gold shoulder boards, gold frogging, and gold braided cuffs.

  “Everything shipshape, Pirate?” the bartender yelled over the frenzied noise of the crowd.

  “So far. Could I have a Heineken?”

  “Four dollars,” the bartender said, touching his braid-crusted gold cap.

  Trent gave him the money. “What’s with the numbers?” he asked, pointing at the numbered signs hanging above each table.

  “Telephones,” the bartender said.