The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  “And which way would that be?” Glick asked, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows knitting together.

  “Usually, you try to unify all of the trophies together and make sense of them.”

  “Yes,” Ruben said. “That’s how it’s done.”

  “But I am telling you, this guy breaks the mold.”

  “How so?” Glick asked, sounding not nearly as skeptical as Ruben.

  “I think the first three trophies were simply objects of opportunity. I don’t think we’ve really seen his true intent until this last one. The patch of skin I feel is important. The rest were simply easy objects to grab.”

  “A non-specific trophy would be very rare,” Ruben stated.

  “Rare, but not unheard of,” Kent countered.

  “Why would you take a one-inch square patch of skin from under the victim’s arm?” Nicole asked.

  “I have no idea,” Kent admitted. “But at least I have enough info about the victims to go out hunting.”

  “You mean surveilling,” Nicole corrected in front of the Captain. She so wanted the profiler to be more normal than he was.

  “No. I mean hunting,” Kent corrected.

  “Let me get packed up,” Nicole said as Glick moved toward the door to the bullpen.

  “Sorry,” Kent replied.

  “Stalking is a solo sport,” Nicole finished for him. He gave her a smile.

  He patted her on the back. “Your skills are best used trying to track down any connection between the victims. Where they intersected the killer would be helpful.”

  “But I’ve already done that,” Nicole stated, knowing that she sounded more than a little disappointed. “There’s no connection. None. Not even dry cleaners. They did not know one another.”

  “There must be some intersection. You’ve got to think out of the box,” Kent encouraged.

  “What about if he is choosing them at random?” Nicole asked.

  “Then he certainly wouldn’t have chosen four quiet wallflowers, now would he? Our killer has a type—we just need to figure out where he is picking them out.”

  * * *

  Kent had some ideas. Bookstores, libraries, and coffeehouses, but there were like a thousand of those in the city. It would be nice to have less ground to cover. But alas, that was his burden.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Nicole said, even though Kent hadn’t made for the door yet. He was certain it was to give him an earful of how he wasn’t respecting her, or how he should to be nicer to Ruben, or not act quite so crazy in front of Glick.

  So he was somewhat shocked when they rounded the corner and she laid a lip lock on him. Not that he was complaining. He snaked his arm around her waist, pulling them close. This was so much better than nagging. He wanted to reward her for such an interesting choice.

  It was actually he that broke off the kiss. There was an interlude, and then there was a distraction. He didn’t think the killer was sexually aroused when he was hunting his victims, so therefore, Kent couldn’t be either. And with a few more moments of Nicole’s hand wandering south, he could be not just aroused, but satiated as well.

  “What was that for?”

  Nicole shrugged. “You’re pretty damned sexy when you’re profiling.”

  Good to know.

  “I don’t think anyone is in the overnight room,” Nicole said. The room had several bunk beds and was used by officers or detectives who didn’t have enough time or energy to go home. Normally, Kent would have taken her up in a heartbeat for having moderately high-risk-for-exposure sex.

  Unfortunately, today was not the day.

  “Sorry to be such a prude,” Kent said as his body ached to follow Nicole wherever she led. “But I think our guy is sexually repressed.”

  Nicole trailed her finger down Kent’s chest. “So maybe I was helpful? Getting you all sexually frustrated?”

  “You know I wouldn’t say no to you unless it had to do with the case.”

  She put her hand over his excitement and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah, I’m not feeling insecure at all.”

  With that, she gave him another long kiss just as Joshua rounded the corner.

  “Damn, where is my video camera when I need it?”

  Nicole pulled away from Kent. She’d already had a rather risqué video of her handcuffed to her Mustang that had made the rounds on YouTube. Clearly, she didn’t want another.

  “What is it, Joshua?” Kent asked. He, on the other hand, didn’t mind a little internet exposure.

  “I just wanted to get you all that info you asked for.”

  The morgue assistant handed over a large file to Kent. He’d expected it to be involved, but not Tom Clancy novel length. Joshua had been thorough. Maybe a bit too thorough. However, the information in the file should help him stalk the killer’s next victim before he could get to her.

  “I’m off then,” Kent said, giving Nicole’s hand a squeeze.

  “Don’t wait up, right?” Nicole said with a grin. He didn’t even bother to answer.

  * * *

  Yvent hadn’t been more resentful of his religion’s Sabbath rules since he was a teen. No radio, no TV, no internet. There was a murderer out there. And Kent was after him, yet Yvent had to sit here and “reflect” on God’s love.

  Didn’t God want him to solve this case? Didn’t he want Yvent to save lives?

  Yvent had decided that yes, God did. So he was spending his “reflecting time” to reflect on the case.

  Before the sun had gone down completely and put the ban on all “work,” Yvent had laid the crime scene photos out in order. He’d also gotten a large map of the city.

  In theory, there was no technology in use. And he made sure to think of God at least every minute and pray for guidance to catch the murderer. To Yvent, that made his efforts in line with God’s plan.

  He studied each photo of the victims. Kent was right. With the exception of the prostitute, they did look like they were “good girls” from his temple. They weren’t unattractive, yet no one would call them “hotties.”

  Yvent made sure to say a quick prayer after that. His mother would be most disappointed with him if he didn’t. Not even keeping up the family hobby of rare orchid collecting would help her spirit rest in peace if he were breaking the Sabbath.

  He looked to the variety of flowers blooming right now. The understated but beautiful Bulbophyllum acutiflorum, better known as the butterfly orchid. That plant line had been kept up since his great, great grandmother. His grandmother had kept the orchid alive even during her time in the concentration camps.

  Then there were the more recent plants that he had collected. One far more flamboyant then the butterfly. It was one of his prize possessions. Yvent was one of the few horticulturists who had been able to grow Dracula chimaera domestically. It was in its dark phase right now, which meant its leaves were blood red.

  How had he done it when no other could? He’d gone back to nature. Most orchid enthusiasts took orchid breeding into their own hands. They collected orchid sperm from the plant’s male pollen and transferred it to another plant’s female stigmata surface, thus artificially inseminating the plant.

  Even though all of that technically sounded great, it yielded very poor reproductive rates. So Yvent had gone old school, placing the delicate plants out on his patio during high pollen season. He allowed the bees to naturally transfer the semen to the female reproductive organs of the other plants.

  Did the flowers require the weight of the bee on their leaves to stimulate proper reproduction? Yvent didn’t know. All he knew was that he had five of the highest award-winning Dracula orchids in the world.

  He’d applied reverse science to the problem. He’s used his scientific knowledge of the plant’s natural breeding strategy to avoid scientifically breeding them to get better results.

  It was almost the equivalent of Kent’s method. To just about any outsider, the profiler’s techniques seemed backwards, at best. To go after the next victim instead of the killer
sounded ludicrous to most. Yet Kent proved his technique over and over again. He used reverse science. Just as Yvent could fluently recite how to artificially inseminate an orchid, it did not mean that he had to use the technique.

  Kent was well aware of current profiling techniques. Hell, he’d written half of them. But then he went back to the source. The victims. The profiler, however, had his highly refined instincts to go by. Yvent did not. So he was using science tonight.

  He would leave the victimology to Kent. No, tonight he was doing geographical profiling.

  He had plotted each of the dumpsites. They were scattered all over the city. There was no common pattern. Some were close together. Others were far apart.

  But what did a dumping ground usually imply?

  His cat, Neshika, jumped onto the map. She arched her back and petted herself against his shoulder, then, like her name, butted him on the nose, then licked him. She was the strangest cat. She was more like a dog, preferring to give kisses than purr.

  When he didn’t respond, the cat flopped over onto the map, sprawling herself across the paper. He gently pushed her off, but of course she saw that as a pet and got up, repeating the self-pet, nosing, kissing ritual.

  “Girl, I’ve got—”

  Yvent stopped himself short of saying the word, “work.” In theory, there was no work performed on the Sabbath. And Neshika seemed to know that, as she wove back and forth, asking for pets. Like keeping the cat satisfied wasn’t a job in and of itself.

  At least he could see the map as she rubbed the side of her face on his arm.

  He thought of dumping grounds and why a killer would use one. It certainly could be a forensic countermeasure. Not having the primary crime scene did make it more difficult to solve the murder. However, the women’s methods of death had been pretty straightforward, and the bullets had been collected out of both bodies. The slugs hadn’t shown up on any database.

  “So, if you aren’t covering up the method of killing, why dump the body somewhere else?” he asked the cat rhetorically.

  She got up on her back feet, though, and patted his cheek with her paw, as if encouraging his line of thought. Petting her all the way from the top of her head to the tip of her tail, he picked her up and set her on his lap. Perhaps she would be satisfied with that. Then she walked over to his Eria orchid and petted herself on its planter. Of course, the delicate plant almost tipped over.

  After he shooed her away from there, she kneaded her paws against his leg as Yvent surveyed the map. Another reason to use a dumping ground was to cover up the actual location of the murder sites. Many times, serialists liked to kill within their comfort zone. Usually, that was close to where they lived or worked. By concealing the murder site, they were protecting their private life.

  Yvent had an idea. However, he had absolutely no way to get it to Kent. Either it would have to wait until tomorrow evening, or he would have to hoof it.

  “Do you want to go for a walk?” Yvent asked Neshika. She jumped down from his lap and ran to grab her leash. Like he said. More dog than cat.

  CHAPTER 8

  Kent stayed low in the car seat. He didn’t want to stir up any interest as people made their way down the street. Okay, not ‘people,’ but hookers and their johns.

  He was staking out the area that the dead prostitute had worked, trying to get a feel for how the killer felt as he stalked her. It must have taken the guy a while to find a sex worker who was up to his standards. The rest of the women and trannies were decked out in tacky animal prints, pink boas, and six-inch neon heels.

  Clearly, that was not something that appealed to the killer. He liked his women a bit homely. Trying to find a hooker who used that as her brand was a bit challenging. But Trudy could dress down, since her thing was the rooftop sex. She had cultivated a following, and wasn’t so much about picking up random guys on the street corner. Trudy had her regulars.

  Kent opened his phone—well, not actually his phone, but a phone—and dialed a number.

  A very groggy and pissed off voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Jimmi, I need you to search all traffic and ATM cam footage for a two-block radius around Trudy’s murder site for the several weeks before her death. We’re looking for a newer model car with a clean cut john.”

  “Yeah, sure thing, in the morning.”

  “No,” Kent said. The killings were getting closer and closer together. He needed this information now. “Tonight.”

  “Dude, do you realize it is 11:55pm?”

  “Yes,” Kent answered. “I do. Do you realize the killer is set to strike in less than forty-eight hours?”

  “Ugh,” Jimmi groaned. “I should know there’s no arguing with you.”

  “Yes, that would make all of this easier,” Kent said. Nicole had submitted to his genius, why shouldn’t Jimmi?

  “But who the hell is Paggie?”

  “Long story,” Kent said not wanting to explain how he got Ruben’s girlfriend’s phone. “Text me if you come up with anything.”

  Kent closed his phone as another prostitute stepped out onto the curb. Unlike the rest of the messed up women with daddy issues walking the street, this one did not look strung out. Her eyes appeared to be properly dilated, and her teeth didn’t look like they were about to fall out at any second.

  Kent got out of the car and strolled up to her, passing several other woman who offered him things that would have made Ruben blush.

  “Appreciate the offer, doll, but I’ve got my own handcuffs,” he said to the six foot tall Latina woman in short shorts with a nice big Adam’s apple.

  He finally made his way to the woman in question. “Hello.”

  “Nice try, Five-O,” the prostitute said. “But you ain’t entrapping me.”

  Kent smiled. He liked an observant witness. “I could care less how you make your money or whom you do it with,” he said as he shrugged. “Personally, I think as long as porn is legal, basically filming people having sex for money, having sex for money should be legal.”

  “Exactly!” the prostitute said as she extended her hand, “Natilda at your service. What do you need?”

  “I want to talk about Trudy.”

  “What, a cop taking an interest in a hooker’s death? There’s got to be more.”

  Kent nodded. “While we think her death was most likely an accident, we believe that the man that was there has gone on to kill other women.”

  “You mean non-hooker women. Women in the suburbs or women who have husbands. So now you care.”

  “Look, we can discuss the disparity in social strata all night long, and I mean all night long,” Kent explained. “Or, we can try to figure out what happened to Trudy and save some lives.”

  Natilda sighed. “It just ain’t fair.”

  “No, it’s not,” Kent agreed. “Did Trudy have a handler?”

  Natilda shook her head. “Naw. Neither one of us have a pimp. Johnny Boy has got most of the girls on this street, but he gets them hooked on whatever poison they like to keep them tame. He keeps seventy percent of the trick. For what? You’re the one on your back, and he takes seventy percent?”

  “So Trudy was clean?” Kent asked. It was unusual—most prostitutes were addicts, using the drugs to cover the pain of their lives. He did remember seeing in the report, though, that no drugs had been found in her system. Now it was confirmed that it wasn’t just a fluke, but a lifestyle choice.

  “Both of us,” Natilda said. “With no habit to feed, we can work shorter hours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We only hit the pavement between 11pm and 2am,” Natilda stated. “Our guys know our routine. Gives us less exposure out here.”

  Kent nodded and opened his phone. He dialed Jimmi again. Again, the tech answered surly. “What?”

  “Well, if you were up doing as I asked, I wouldn’t have woken you again, now would I?” Kent asked. People, think things through.

  “Fine. I’m up now.”

 
“Great. You can narrow your search time to 11pm to 2am for the dates in question.”

  “Lucky me,” Jimmi said, then hung up.

  What had gotten into the tech? Maybe it was that whole illegally hacking into the private school’s computer thing. The guy really needed to learn how to let things go.

  Kent turned his attention to Natilda. “So if you’ve got regulars, why are you out on the street?”

  The woman shrugged. “Attrition. The wife finds out. He loses his job. Or, more likely these days, he loses his unemployment benefits and can’t afford to take a girl out on a date.”

  “So you need a fresh stream of strangers?”

  “We try to be careful with newbies,” Natilda said. “We take a picture of every new guy’s license plate and send it to each other for insurance.”

  Kent perked up at that. “Did you get Trudy’s last customer’s license plate? I’m pretty sure he was a newbie.”

  “Sorry, no,” Natilda said. “I was out on a date when she left. She should have texted me the pic, but never did.”

  Kent leaned back against a light pole and pondered what this meant. Did Wallflower know Trudy’s routine well enough to either stop her from taking the pic or somehow charming her out of sending it? This really upped the unsub’s social skill set. Or implied an extremely long stalking phase. Either way, this guy was smart and careful.

  A pain in the ass set of skills for Kent to try to decipher.

  * * *

  Ruben walked Paggie down the street past a row of brownstones. This was an older part of the city. The architecture was original. No graffiti. No gangs. Hopefully, no stalking serial killers.

  “So, what was up with this afternoon?” Paggie asked.

  “Sorry, it was just awkward.”

  “What? Because I’m not cool enough to hang with you detectives?”

  Ruben shook his head. “No, because you are too sane to be around their dysfunction.”

  “So you are trying to sell the fact that you didn’t tell anyone about us to spare my feelings?”

  Ruben chuckled. He knew how it sounded. But it was true. “Look, you don’t know Kent. You would have found him in your shower or something. And Nicole would have run your background and credit check. I’m worried she still will.”