Nicole kind of respected her for that. Bridget not so much. She seemed to be a fairly cold and calculating person. Nicole wasn’t all that fond of that. She had one of those for her very own. Kent was enough of a handful. She didn’t need another one.
The thought of having to run interference between Kent and Bridget sounded like getting a root canal without Novocain.
“You’re really going to let them follow you around during a case?” Nicole asked Kent.
“Oh hell, no,” Kent said. “But it’ll be fun keeping ahead of them.”
Wasn’t that typical Kent?
Always surprising her.
Why fight when you could screw around with someone’s mind.
She would have expected him to throw a big hissy fit. Something a kindergartener would really have been impressed by. But he was too smart for that. A tantrum would not go over well with the mayor. But pretending to go along, then going about his business was the far smarter move.
Which meant that Kent was far more in control of his emotions than he let on.
Good to know.
CHAPTER 3
Ruben drove up to the carousel crime scene after putting the warehouse disaster to bed. It really was amazing how many forms you had to fill out after wiping out an entire gang crew. It simply added insult to injury. But he had finally dotted all the “I’s” and crossed all the “T’s.” Then sent copies of it to every department who had requested one, which was quite a long list it turned out. Homicide, the Gang Unit, Vice, and even for some reason Homeland Security.
The only thing he was missing was Nicole’s report to the shooting team, which she would give in the morning and, of course, Kent’s statement. That one he didn’t expect for weeks. He would have to harass and harangue the profiler before Kent would deign to write the statement. And even then sometimes Kent didn’t turn it in until moments before the grand jury. The prosecutors had gotten used to it by now.
But if Kent was really in a mood then Ruben would get Kent’s statement texted to him, line by line. For joy.
It was late, but with such a prominent crime scene, he figured that Nicole might still be lingering around and hopefully be able to catch him up on the case. He hated feeling left behind.
Which was a common occurrence these last few years. Nicole was so wrapped up in keeping up with Kent that it left her very little time to catch him up. And when you were the guy responsible for doing all the paperwork that left you running to catch up all the time. But so was his lot in life. Glick kept reminding him how lucky he was to be working with such a prestigious team. That Ruben got credit for every collar in his record as well and that would look excellent when Ruben went to climb the bureaucratic ladder.
This captain did know him. Ruben wasn’t destined to be a detective forever. He was already eyeing the lieutenant’s exam. One day he wanted Glick’s position or even higher.
Was this indignity at the hands of Kent worth his future promotion? For right now it seemed it did. For all his complaining, Ruben had yet to put in for a transfer. The thought of starting over at another precinct truly was depressing. And knowing that he would have to field a thousand questions about what it was like to work with Kent downright gave Ruben a stomachache.
Better to work with the bastard than have to explain working with the bastard.
The phone at his hip vibrated. A text message from Paggie asking when he might be coming home.
Ruben hit the “dial” button rather than texting back. If he was going to give bad news, he’d rather say it rather than type it.
“Sorry, we’ve got another Buzz Kill victim,” Ruben said. There was no point in sugar coating it.
“Oh no, that’s horrible,” Paggie said. “So I won’t wait up.”
“Don’t even try,” Ruben said as he surveyed the multitude of crime scene vehicles and personnel. He was going to have to account for each and every one of them. “I’ll try to be quiet when I come in.”
“Okay, be safe, love-bug,” Paggie said, her voice already sounding sleepy.
“I will, snuggle-bunny,” Ruben said quietly so the other officers didn’t hear him.
As the phone disconnected, Ruben realized how lucky he was. Paggie never complained about his late hours or got jealous like many of the other officer’s significant others did. Would that change after the wedding? Would she become tired of his schedule and more possessive of his time once they were man and wife?
He hoped not. They had a pretty perfect thing going right now.
As he passed the crime scene officer, Tandy he thought, Ruben was blinded by camera lights. Ruben raised his arm to protect his eyes. What the hell was a news crew doing inside the tape?
A tall, Amazonian woman came at him with a mic pointed at him. “Detective Ruben Torres?” she asked even though it was pretty clear that she knew who he was.
“Yes, and you would be?”
The woman extended her other hand. “Bridget Fairweather, host of Infinite Justice.”
Ruben’s brain scanned the name. It sounded like one of those docudrama shows on cable. Then the bells went off. The Captain had him sign some waiver last week. Glick had mentioned that there would be film crews. He just left out the crime scene part.
Ms. Fairweather’s hand was still extended. Ruben shook it cautiously. She seemed about as trustworthy as a snake in the grass. He straightened his tie. Thank goodness he still had one on.
“And tell our viewers what your role is in the department.”
“I am Detective Usher’s partner,” Ruben answered.
“Really?” Ms. Fairweather said as her well plucked eyebrow went up. “I thought that Special Agent Kent Harbinger is her partner.”
“No, no,” Ruben explained. “First he is a former Special Agent and technically Nicole and I are still partners on homicide squad.”
“But they are romantically involved? Lovers?”
Ruben suddenly didn’t like the bright lights and the line of questioning. “You would have to ask them about that.”
“Detective Nicole Usher is wearing his engagement ring, isn’t she?”
You mean the one he gave her at a funeral? Ruben thought but did not say. “If you say so,” Ruben said trying to get past the host to get to the actual crime scene.
“So you’re late on the scene,” Ms. Fairweather stated.
“I was finishing up another crime scene across town,” Ruben replied not liking the tone the woman used. “Six gang bangers were taken down.”
The host’s eyes dilated at that. “Six? You took down six all by your lonesome?”
Crap, why had he brought up the warehouse? “Well, not exactly. It was former special Agent Kent Harbinger and Detective Usher.”
“You mean the two that aren’t partners?” Ms. Fairweather stated, apparently trying to bait Ruben. Well, Ruben had two long years of getting used to the odd arrangement and Kent’s constantly taunting him about it. This host didn’t rise to Kent’s manipulations.
“That is correct,” Ruben stated smoothly.
“So they left you to clean up the paperwork while they rushed over to the high profile crime scene?”
Even though she was accurate, Ruben wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of him affirming it.
Instead he brushed past her and the cameraman and made his way to the crime scene. Someone had placed a bucket next to the carousel that said “For the pussies.”
Ruben wasn’t quite sure what all of that was about.
That was until he made his way through the animal seats to find possibly the bloodiest, goriest crime scene he’d ever seen and he’d seen a lot. Bile tried to come up, but he forced it back down. He did not want him puking into a bucket labeled “for the pussies,” being filmed thank you very much.
Instead he thought of baseball and puppies. Anything but the scene in front of him. He tried very, very hard not to think of how the body came to be this way. That someone was actually alive when the process was started. Thankfully
the coroner assured them on previous victims that after the second or third strike, the victim could not possibly have been alive.
A very, very thin silver lining.
“Well, what are your thoughts?” Ms. Fairweather asked, sticking that stupid mic in his face again.
“I think we should back up and let the crime scene analysts do their job.”
“So you aren’t familiar with the case then?”
“I am completely in the loop,” Ruben retorted getting more than a little tired of the host and her camera.
“Then your thoughts on this being male?”
“The victim is a male?” Ruben blurted out before he realized his err.
“I thought you were up to date?” Ms. Fairweather stated with a smirk. This is how this chick got her ratings. Usually making the police look like fools.
“I think I’m done talking,” Ruben said, walking away.
“Just as well,” Ms. Fairweather stated, “Since you have little to add to the conversation.”
Then she winked at him. Winked.
Jesus, was she related to Kent?
* * *
Kent had not only ditched the camera crew but Nicole as well. He had some serious thinking to do. And he could only do that alone. And even better alone at a greasy spoon restaurant. His new favorite greasy spoon restaurant.
“Want another piece, lovey?” the well-past middle-aged waitress asked.
“No,” Kent replied, “I’m good.” He shoved the clean plate to the edge of the table. Magg whisked the plate away as only a waitress of thirty years could do.
For a moment he regretted not ordering another piece. That really had been the best cherry pie he’d ever had. Not to say that the restaurant had the best pies. They didn’t. The apple pie was too sweet. The pumpkin pie was a little lumpy and the rhubarb pie was a little too rhubarby.
But the cherry pie? Ah, the cherry pie was perfect. The crust was as buttery and flakey as it should be. The cherries were just tart enough to hold your interest without overwhelming the sugary syrup they floated in.
Perfection.
Which was why he didn’t tell Nicole about the place. She would come in and want a la mode and then proceed to eat the crust off the back of the slice, ruining the perfect balance of savory and sweet.
No way, José. This was his place. His pie.
He only came here when he was stymied. He hated being stymied. Three murders in let you know you had a serialist but didn’t give you enough information to actually catch him.
Tomorrow morning, he would be expected to give a profile and explain the murder board and what did he have?
Nothing.
A whole lot of nothing.
And people expected a whole lot of something from him. He’d trained them to be accustomed to his brilliance. He wanted them to rely on it until, like now it was failing him.
Kent pulled the crime scene photos, which really showed nothing but splotches of blood. Almost a Rorschach test of blood and guts. There was nothing really illuminating about them at all. Normally the crime scene gave you something. It was usually a window into the murderer’s soul.
Not this one. It might be a window, but it was painted black. Opaque. Probably like the serialist’s soul. You couldn’t have any empathy and do what Buzz Kill did.
Most people thought there were normal people and then there were psychopaths when really there was a spectrum of psychopathy. Just like autism there was a spectrum of empathy. Buzz Kill was at the rank bottom of that scale. But did that help Kent catch him?
No. Unfortunately not. Sophisticated psychopaths could pass. They had learned to fake their empathy. To pretend to the world that they cared as they planned their next vicious murder. This would not be a person who was smelly at the back of the diner, picking wings off of flies.
This would be a clean, apparently upstanding citizen like the guy in Dockers over in the corner. The serialist would look like your Joe Blow. Just an average guy sitting having an average meal at an average diner.
Yes, Buzz Kill had switched to a man, but that to Kent that was a forensic countermeasure not a true evolution of the killer’s MO. And yes, the killer had gone more public with the body display, but again, that was not a common escalation.
If anything the staging of the latest victim, if you could call him that after what Buzz Kill did to him, only boded poorly. This killer was just getting started. Clearly he was beginning to enjoy himself. The hesitation and nerves were gone, now he was just living the life, a serial killer’s wet dream.
With no forensic clues whatsoever, Kent felt like he was back in the 1800s trying to solve a crime by his instinct alone. From experience, Kent knew that it did not end well.
Unfortunately he was going to have to be patient. Wait for other deaths. Wait for the killer to reveal something to Kent. Something about his victims before Kent could hope to intersect him.
Or did he have enough already?
Kent put the crime scene photos back in his pocket, before the waitress noticed them and fainted. Instead he took out the pictures of the first two victims. The ones that could be sisters.
Nothing else bound them though. They had nothing in common. Living in completely different parts of the city, living completely different lives.
Kent stared at the first victim. She should tell him the most about the killer. Many times the first victim was known to the killer. That one day the killer’s murderous rage just boiled over and they took it out on the person they blamed.
Some trigger happened. Getting laid off, divorce, the death of a parent or child. Then boom. The lid blew off and the victim was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the second murder did not hold up this theory. The killer went after an archetype. A person with very similar features. Which usually meant they didn’t want to kill the first victim for who they were, but for what they represented. That the first victim did not necessarily have to be known to the killer. That they could have been picked out of the crowd based on their phenotype, their external features.
So the killer wanted to kill a prominent female figure in their lives. Mother, sister, teacher, lover, wife. Someone who was mentally or physically abusive to them.
They couldn’t kill this woman usually for one of two reasons. The first being that the person was already dead and the release of killing them had been stolen from the killer or they didn’t have the balls to actually kill their abuser. They were working up to it.
Kent seriously doubted if that second reason fit Buzz Kill. After going at a body with a chainsaw, Kent didn’t think the killer would be intimidated by anyone.
No, more than likely whoever this brunette woman with dark eyes and a button nose was already dead. Whether by the killer’s hand or natural causes the archetype was dead.
The problem with that scenario was the killer could never get satisfaction they so desperately craved. The proxy he killed could never satisfy his lust for revenge. The killings would go on until he was stopped.
Kent put the pictures side by side. He’d already run a full DMV check for anyone who had similar facial features and had come up empty.
He got his phone out though and dialed a number.
“Yes? Captain Glick?” the groggy voice on the other line asked.
“Nah, Jimmi. It’s Kent.”
“Jesus,” the tech cursed. “Do you know how late it is?”
“Sorry, doing some brainstorming.”
“Ugh,” Jimmi responded. “Which usually means a whole hell of a lot of work for me.”
“Hey,” Kent said. “I can call Joshua and see if he can help me out.”
“No, no,” Jimmi rushed in to say. Kent wasn’t above leveraging the two’s competitive streak to get him what he wanted. “I just need to know. Do we have a warrant this time?’
“We don’t need one,” Kent explained. “I want you to pull all of the pictures from the obituaries that look like our first two victims.”
“
How long back?” Jimmi asked.
“Five years.”
“Oh, is that all?” Jimmi snorted. “Tell Joshua to have at it.”
“Fine. How about six months, then?” Kent tried.
“I’ll try to work out some kind of facial recognition on the newspapers online obits, but I’m not promising anything.”
“That’s the spirit,” Kent said, hoping that his sarcasm dripped through to the other end.
“Maybe if you called during business hours, you’d get a slightly more excited response.”
Kent clicked the phone off before Jimmi could drone on.
“Your winning personality making you another friend?” a voice called out from behind him.
Damn it, he was busted and it was Nicole.
He turned to find her walking down the long narrow aisle of the restaurant to his booth in the back. She had a Cheshire cat smile. She was even beautiful when she was gloating.
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“I’m a detective, a damn good detective, remember?”
Kent cocked his head. “I only pay cash and I take a different taxi company here each time.”
Nicole slid into the booth across from him. “Oh please, I just looked up a few cop foodie sites, and found the restaurants that said they had the best cherry pie.”
Damn those bloggers. Always ruining a good thing.
“How many did you hit before you found me?” Kent asked.
Nicole shrugged. “None. I figured out of the three listed, there was no way you were going to the downtown one with all of those hipsters hanging around writing their latest screenplay. And the other only served Pepsi products.” She took a sip of his Coke then smacked her lips. “That soda is from Mexico, isn’t it?”
“Of course,” Kent said. “They use real sugar rather than corn syrup.”
“Um, you can taste the difference,” Nicole replied, this time taking a nice long gulp.
The waitress came over. “You want anything for yourself, darlin’?”
The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection) Page 63