The Body Counter (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries Book 2)

by Anne Frasier

  With his phone to his ear, Uriah shot Jude a look of curiosity, his expression a nice break from the pained one that had made her wonder how much longer he was going to last. On the light-rail ride from Minneapolis, it hadn’t been hard to see that Uriah had been on the verge of a meltdown. As shops on University Avenue flashed past their window, she’d tried to talk him out of working the phone bank again. “You’ve done enough.” But he’d insisted. Tonight they were selling gala tickets for one hundred dollars a plate, the event to be held the same night as Uriah’s upcoming on-air interview. This fund-raiser was important.

  “I’m committed to seeing this through,” he’d said.

  But now, thirty minutes later, she noted the strain on his face and the stiffness of his shoulders. And there was no way to miss those surreptitious glances at the clock on the wall, the raised eyebrow of surprise at the slow passage of time, the wondering if he’d been there long enough to excuse himself. To maybe go to the restroom and never come back. That’s what she’d do. It was hard not to feel Uriah was being exploited, and that he’d been guilted into doing something mentally unhealthy. As far as she knew, he didn’t drink himself into oblivion anymore, but this could be a trigger.

  Ever since her abduction, she’d had enough of reporters in her face. She normally went out of her way to avoid them except for the required press conferences, but she’d agreed to answer phones so she could keep an eye on Uriah. If things got too bad, she’d force him to leave while politely making some excuse. They were detectives. They always had a reason to be elsewhere.

  Standing up, Jude inched past volunteers to swap seats with the young man who’d told her about the personal request. A dozen humans packed into a tiny room almost had her running. It wasn’t just her ability to read people that had become more acute in her basement prison, where she’d learned to decipher every nuance of her captor’s face and body; her sense of smell still hadn’t adjusted to the onslaught of odors in the world. The alchemy of shampoos and deodorants, lotions and hair products, combined with the odor of tech equipment and the buzz and flickering of the overhead lights, was unnerving. Homicide detectives sometimes had to wash the stench of death out of their hair and clothing. Her return home would require the same kind of purging.

  She sat down in the vacated chair and picked up the receiver, trying to ignore the strong smell of coffee from the cup the young man had forgotten. She answered with the prepped response they’d all been given. “Crisis Center telethon. Thanks in advance for your generous donation.”

  At first it seemed the caller might have hung up or been accidently disconnected, but finally someone spoke. A girl who sounded like she could be anywhere from fourteen to eighteen, speaking in a breathy, nervous whisper. “Are you Jude Fontaine?”

  Just those few hesitant words told Jude this wasn’t a donation call. She pressed the receiver closer to her ear. “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “My name’s Clementine. At least, that’s what people call me today.”

  So, not her birth name. Jude understood the desire to revamp your name and life and become someone else. “What can I do for you, Clementine? Why did you want to speak with me?”

  “I thought you might understand.”

  This was not a suicide hotline. Few in the room had been trained to handle a crisis call, but Jude quickly assessed the situation, mentally logging it as a possible plea for help. “I think maybe you should talk to a specialist,” she told the girl. “Someone more qualified.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  Jude fell back on training she’d received years ago. “Are you thinking of harming yourself?”

  Heads in the room swiveled. Jude adjusted her hips in the plastic chair, turning her back to the camera, elbow on the table and arm shielding her face.

  “Not right now, but I think about it,” the girl said. “Sometimes. And I was flipping through channels and saw you. I thought you might understand.”

  “Have you been abused? Is someone harming you?”

  The girl hesitated before saying, “He makes me do things I don’t like.”

  Jude fumbled for a pen. “Why don’t you give me your phone number in case we get cut off.”

  “No!”

  “Is he in the room with you?”

  The voice dropped. “Yeah.” A pause, then louder and with indifference she said, “We want a large pineapple and mushroom pizza.”

  “Smart,” Jude said. Pretending to order pizza. “Why don’t I give you my cell number so you can call me when he’s not around. Pretend you’re writing down an order number.”

  “Okay.”

  Jude shared her number and heard the scratch of a pen across paper.

  “Tell me where you are,” Jude said. “I can come for you. Just me. Nobody else.”

  “No, thanks. All I need is the pizza.”

  “Also, please consider calling the national crisis hotline. They can help.”

  The girl’s voice faded as she spoke to someone in the room. “I’m just ordering pizza.” She hung up.

  The telethon room came back into focus. The ringing phones. The drone of scripted conversations. The odors. The face of a concerned Uriah from the other end of the table. Jude stood up, told the young man thanks, and moved back to her seat.

  “What was that about?” Uriah asked.

  “I’m not quite sure.” She related what the girl had said.

  His eyes lost focus and she knew he was thinking of his young wife, who, as far as they knew, had never reached out for help before her death. “Maybe you’ll hear from her again,” he managed to say.

  “You should leave,” Jude said, noting the tension in his face. “We’ll be fine here without you.”

  He nodded. “Meet me in the bar around the corner when you’re done and we can ride back to Minneapolis together.”

  Relieved that he was getting away from the source of his anxiety, she nonetheless gave him a distracted nod, her thoughts still on the girl named Clementine.

  CHAPTER 8

  Sitting cross-legged, Clementine watched Jude Fontaine on the motel-room television screen. She was talking to a good-looking guy in a suit and tie. He was a detective too. Uriah Ashby was his name. He was watching Fontaine with concern.

  “How was that?” Clementine asked the man standing beside her. “Was it what you wanted?”

  “That was great, babe.” Leo settled himself on his knees behind her, the bed dipping.

  “I’m surprised she believed me, but I think she did. Pretty sure she did.”

  “That’s because you believed what you were saying. Right? Like I told you. That’s how you fool people. Even someone like Fontaine can be fooled if you believe. People pass lie-detector tests because they believe their own lies.”

  He wouldn’t tell Clementine how old he was. Older than her by several years. Wavy, shoulder-length hair that was almost black. He might have been thirty. Or fifty. Hands with long fingers that were strong when he used them to cut a throat or hurt her when she was bad. She’d never been invited to his apartment, but she’d imagined herself there, cooking his meals and doing his laundry. Maybe they’d have a cat or a dog. Or a snake. She’d stood on the street, trying to see him through the window, but he was never more than a shadow behind a curtain.

  “We can’t be seen together,” he’d explained.

  It made sense, but she wanted to be a bigger part of his life.

  What he’d said about her being convincing was true. When she was talking to the detective, she’d felt her own fragility. And yes, it was probably true that a part of her wondered if things would be better if she’d never met Leo, but being without him was unthinkable now. He understood what it meant to be alive, and he understood her. He’d chosen her.

  “Life is performance art,” he always liked to tell her.

  “Are we going out tonight?” she asked now, half hopefully, half with dread.

  “We have to practice.” He smoothed her hair, leaned close, inhaled t
he way he had the first time they’d met, in the shelter, where he’d come to teach a class. He’d rescued her and her boyfriend, along with some other homeless people, brought them to a motel, bought them clean clothes, fed them. Their savior. It hadn’t taken long for Clementine to become his favorite, so much his favorite that he sometimes invited her to motel rooms to spend time alone with him. Tonight they’d turned on the TV to the telethon, and there was Jude Fontaine. She wondered if it had been his plan all along. For Clementine to call the detective while he watched.

  Performance art.

  “We’ll stay here at the motel,” he said, “then go home in the morning.”

  “A shelter isn’t a home. I wish I could stay with you. All the time.”

  “You can’t. Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “Someday.” And then he told her how they’d move to New Mexico and he’d buy a parcel of land where they could roam naked all day. She was beginning to wonder if it was true and if it would really happen.

  “You always say that.”

  “Don’t you believe me?” The hand on her head moved to grip her blond ponytail. He tugged so hard her eyes watered, but she didn’t make a sound.

  “I do. I’m sorry.” She hated it when he was mad at her.

  He relaxed his grip and she tried to blink away the tears. On the TV screen, she noted that the guy was gone, but Jude Fontaine was still there, a receiver in her hand.

  “Are you going to kill her?” Clementine asked.

  “What?”

  “That’s what you want to do, right?” She twisted around to look up at him, hoping he would say yes.

  “Fontaine’s just part of the show.”

  She didn’t like his face when he talked about the detective. It seemed like he had a crush on her. And Clementine was supposed to be his crush. But then, half the world was fascinated by Fontaine. For a while, you couldn’t turn on the television, or go through the checkout at the grocery store without seeing her face looking back at you from a magazine.

  She wasn’t that special. She wasn’t even pretty. And so what if she’d been held captive for three years? That could have happened to anybody. Anybody. And so what if she’d escaped? Other people who weren’t cops had escaped from captivity. If Fontaine was so special, she should have been able to get away a lot sooner. Three years. It took her three years.

  Not special.

  People called the detective haunting, ethereal, otherworldly. A tragic beauty. That was stupid. She’d chopped off her hair and people started comparing her to Joan of Arc. Anybody could chop off her hair. Clementine could chop off her hair if she wanted to, if she was mental enough. That’s all Fontaine’s hair said. Crazy on board.

  Leo gave her hair another tug, harder this time, pulling back her head. His leather bracelet rubbed her cheek, and she felt cold steel against her throat. She smiled up at him, swallowed a whimper, and hoped he wouldn’t kill her.

  CHAPTER 9

  Early the next morning, before heading downtown, Jude pulled to a stop on a familiar residential street. Straddling her bike, she turned off the engine and secured the vehicle on its stand before dismounting.

  She removed her helmet and strode toward the house, taking in details as she walked: cracks in the sidewalk, tree limbs cut by the power company, rust on the chain-link fence, street trash trapped in corners against the crumbling foundation.

  The house was typical of Midtown Phillips, a neighborhood located north of Powderhorn and east of Whittier. Red trim, cream stucco, one and a half stories. In need of repair. Rotten wood, chipped paint, broken window in the attic, a yard that had been mowed by the city. She could tell because of the weeds in the fence and the pale, thick grass stems, indicating the lawn had gotten out of control at some point. But the property didn’t stand out as being much worse than any other on the block.

  Hopefully she’d acted surprised when Detective McIntosh had handed her the flyer, but she’d known the day the auction announcement showed up on the house’s front door, because she stopped here a lot. That day, she’d approached with caution until she was close enough to read the details, close enough to commit the auction’s web address to memory. Once back in her apartment, she investigated more thoroughly, and then she began to plan.

  She’d assumed nobody else would know about the sale, at least no one in the department. Now she could see that assumption had been foolish. Everybody was watching her. Some out of curiosity. Others, like McIntosh, were waiting for her to crack. Even Uriah, as supportive as he was, worried. No missing that. And that subconscious input, the awareness of being watched, had a hand in shaping her new persona, the person she’d turned into after her escape. It drove her to become closed off and secretive in everything she did and everything she thought. Sometimes she wondered how different she was from the killers she chased. They all had their private lives and their public personas. And their secret obsessions.

  A homeless woman shuffled toward Jude on the sidewalk, her gait slow, her attention on the ground as she leaned into a small shopping cart packed with everything she owned. A few feet away, the woman stopped. “A murderer lived there,” she said. “He tortured some girl. I walked past here every day and I never knew. I never knew there was someone in there who needed help. Because I would’ve helped. I would’ve busted in and told that man to leave her alone.”

  Jude pulled out her wallet, extracted a twenty-dollar bill. “I like to think any of us would’ve helped.” She spoke as if she herself felt sympathy for the victim in the house.

  For years she’d been kept in a box in the basement, naked, in the dark. Now that she was free, she marveled at how she’d lived through it, but people adapted. People were resilient. They became who they needed to be in order to survive. That was the takeaway. That was what she’d learned. That was what she knew.

  “I’m not a beggar.” The woman’s bloodshot eyes flared at the money.

  “I just want you to have it.” Jude didn’t drop her extended arm. “A meal on me.”

  The woman relented. “Who would buy that place?” she asked, tucking the money somewhere inside her clothing. “What kind of crazy person would buy that place?”

  “Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” Jude asked, ignoring the question. “A shelter?” Fall in Minnesota was breathtakingly perfect, but it could snow in late September, and come November temps could drop below zero.

  “I have a place. How ’bout you? Ever since the blackouts, you never know. Shelters are full of people who don’t look like they should be there, but they lost their homes in the street riots and arson fires. We find places where we can.”

  She was right about the shelters being full. And not just the shelters. The Twin Cities were divided by lakes and a river, and many areas were dense woodland. River camps had always existed, but there were many more people now living in tents in those undeveloped areas.

  “You got a place to sleep?” the woman asked.

  “I do.” Jude smiled. “Thanks for your concern.”

  “If things take a turn, I’m at the shelter downtown, on Washington Avenue. Look me up. Ruthie Logan. I might be able to help you.”

  The name sounded familiar. “Did you have a home before the blackouts?” Jude asked.

  “I’ve lived on the streets for ten years, long before the blackouts. I like it.”

  Jude was being nosy, but the detective in her couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do before?”

  “I was in real estate.” The woman laughed, probably because of the idea that she used to buy and sell homes, places for people to live, and now she was homeless. No wonder the name had seemed familiar. Jude recalled seeing her ads on bus-stop benches. She pulled a business card from her leather jacket and passed it to Ruthie. “I’m Detective Jude Fontaine, the person who was held captive here.”

  She’d managed to surprise the woman, probably something not easily done. “Oh, you poor dear.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. I jus
t want you to have my contact information in case you need anything. If you ever want to get back into real estate, maybe I can help.”

  “To hell with that, honey. I’m enjoying my freedom.”

  Jude didn’t point out that she was getting older and wouldn’t always be able to live on the street. She could connect Ruthie with the right people. “We have to look out for one another,” she told the woman, then said good-bye and headed downtown to the police station.

  CHAPTER 10

  They should make a trail mix that only contains good stuff,” Jude said.

  She and Uriah were in one of the smaller break rooms. Uriah was lying on his back across a row of padded chairs, knees bent, one arm slung across his eyes. Jude sat at a round table, a gaping bag of trail mix in front of her, and a tea bag in a cup that said Hennepin County Coroner.

  “That would be called M&M’s,” Uriah said without moving his arm.

  It was early afternoon, and the day had already been grueling, with another press conference along with several interviews, one with the theater owner and many with family members of the three theater victims. Two tips had resulted in arrests and very quick releases when both suspects’ alibis were confirmed. No wonder Uriah had a headache. Then it was a meeting with the task force set up by Ortega and headed by a new hire from Chicago, a guy named Dominique Valentine. Now they were taking a break before returning to the crime scene in hopes of spotting something they’d missed the first time through.

  Jude slipped out of her chair and cut the overhead lights until the room was dim shadows. At the sink, she wet a paper towel with cold water, squeezed out the excess, and carried the towel to Uriah. “For your head.” He fumbled blindly and found the towel.

  She didn’t like the number of migraines he was getting. “Have you slept at all the past few days?” she asked.