The Body Counter (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries Book 2)

by Anne Frasier

  “That’s easy to say, but I might have been able to help if I’d known she was suffering. This job . . . It swallows you whole. It’s not good for relationships.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever be in another?” She couldn’t imagine such a thing for herself, but Uriah . . . Yes.

  “Right now, no. I can’t. Not when I know I can’t give a hundred percent. When I might not be there for her.”

  They found Professor Masucci sitting on a bench feeding pigeons in the grassy area across from Northrop Auditorium. From where they stood, Jude could see a silver section of the Weisman Art Museum, which overlooked the Mississippi.

  He wore the same suit he’d been wearing the other day. Did he have something more for winter? And was she so very different from him? Sometimes Jude feared she was barely holding it together and it wouldn’t take much for her to scream at people to run. After all, she’d purchased the house where she’d been tortured. And she’d even spent the night there.

  “I thought I might be hearing from you.” He threw a piece of white bread to the nearest bird, then handed a slice each to Jude and Uriah. “I saw the news last night.”

  “Your theory does seem to hold some weight,” Jude told him. Now that they all had bread, more birds were descending.

  Uriah broke off a piece, gave it a toss. “We’re just checking in to see if you have anything else to add. You deal with math every day. You kind of have your finger on the pulse of the math world here on campus. Have you heard or seen anything suspicious?”

  “That bird”—Professor Masucci pointed—“she’s the dominant one of the bunch. Look how fat she is.” He admired her for a few moments, then, keeping his eyes on the birds, he twisted the bread bag and tied it closed. Was he saving it for himself? “I wish I could help you,” he said, putting the bag aside, his focus finally shifting from the birds to Jude. “You know it’ll be eight people next time.”

  Her stomach dropped. She did know. And she hoped he was wrong, hoped they caught the killers before that happened. “Do you remember ever having a student who was fascinated with the Fibonacci sequence?” she asked. “Or someone you maybe just met at random?”

  “That would be a lot of people.” He tipped back his head and admired the orange leaves above his head. “I find it fascinating, don’t you? And to bring death into the sequence . . . It’s a lovely idea.”

  Jude and Uriah looked at each other in alarm. Could he be involved in some way? He was a frail man, but then, she herself had said that with enough adrenaline, a small person could have committed the crimes.

  And there were documented cases of killers actually helping the police with an investigation.

  “It takes the nature of the sequence to an entirely new level by adding a human component,” the professor said.

  “Doesn’t that ruin it?” Jude asked, watching him closely. “It’s no longer nature then.”

  “But isn’t man always looking for ways to control nature?”

  “Often to his detriment,” she said.

  “Exactly. The deaths are an art form.”

  Uriah jumped in at the mention of art. “Do you recall running into anybody who was an artist with a fascination for the Fibonacci sequence?”

  Professor Masucci seemed to look inward. “I’ve known several over the years.” His face clouded. He picked up the bread and put it down again, seeming agitated.

  Uriah raised his eyebrows in silent question and Jude responded with a slight shake of her head. Don’t push him.

  “It was good seeing you.” She gave her remaining bread back, and Uriah did the same. Then she pulled out her card and handed it to him. “I think you already have one of these, but just in case . . . If you want to talk to me, or if you ever have anything to tell me, just give me a call. It doesn’t even have to be about the case.”

  “I hope you find it.”

  “It?”

  “What you’re looking for.”

  “We’re looking for a person or persons.”

  “I mean you.” He glanced at Uriah. “Both of you.”

  They nodded their good-bye and left him there, sitting in the late-September sun. Jude thought about what the kid in the yard had said about math and an unstable mind. And she wondered which came first.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was late, six hours after their visit to the professor, and Jude was heading back to her apartment. She needed to feed Roof Cat. Take a shower. Try to catch a few hours of sleep. Her skin felt hot and tight, and her muscles ached. Any bed, any pillow, would be welcome right now.

  After parking in the underground garage, she took the stairwell to her fourth-floor apartment and found a sticky note stuck to the door. Expecting it to be something about a failed delivery attempt or something from Elliot, she peeled off the note.

  Your cat escaped when we came inside to fix your shower. The foyer door was propped open, and I think he got out of the building. Sorry.

  Sad face? Really?

  She tried to reassure herself. Roof Cat had been feral, so if he’d managed to escape the building, maybe he’d be smart enough to avoid traffic. She hadn’t had him long, and he’d never really acclimated to being an indoor cat. Part of her had wondered if he’d be better off back on the street, but in truth he hadn’t been all that able to fend for himself. He’d been scrawny when she’d first spotted him on the roof, which had prompted her to feed him. Later, when he quit eating completely, Uriah had helped catch him. That had resulted in a trip to the vet, dental surgery, and recovery in her apartment, where she’d fed him warm milk while insisting she didn’t want a cat. She’d tried to give him to Uriah, but he’d told her his building didn’t allow cats. A lie, she guessed. Uriah had it in his head that she needed a friend, even if that friend was a feline. And so she’d become an accidental and reluctant pet owner. But with news of his absence, she had to admit she’d liked having him in her apartment when she came home. Now, when she stepped inside, she felt his absence acutely. He tended to hide under the bed, in the hole he’d made in the box spring, and didn’t sit on her lap like cats were supposed to do, yet she always felt his presence. She’d liked that he was aloof and only slightly less suspicious of her than he was of anybody else.

  Growing up, she hadn’t had pets. Her mother was allergic and her father hadn’t liked animals of any kind. Probably for the best, all things considered, since many killers began with animals. There was her old boyfriend’s dog, but it had died while she was in captivity, so the idea of bonding with an animal was relatively new to her. And the sense of loss she was feeling was even newer.

  She dropped her messenger bag on the couch next to another note, this one on a sheet of typing paper. It instructed her to not use the shower for twenty-four hours. She opened a window to air out the space and get rid of the scent of sealant. A cool night breeze rushed in, along with conversation from the street below.

  She searched the building, from the basement to the roof, calling his temporary or nontemporary name even though she was pretty sure he didn’t know it. Like Uriah had said, Roof Cat wasn’t really a name, and she usually spoke it only to herself, in her mind.

  The cat was gone.

  Just a cat, she tried to tell herself. He’d be okay, she tried to tell herself.

  Back in her apartment, she paced and wondered what to do. He wasn’t a missing person. Calling the police didn’t seem practical. From below her feet came the sound of faint music. Elliot. She left her apartment, ran down the worn marble stairs, and knocked.

  “Have you seen my cat?” she asked before he’d finished opening the door.

  His hair was messy and his face was the kind of puffy that hinted at sleep. He was wearing faded jeans and a faded T-shirt with another band name she didn’t recognize.

  He must have been one of those people who left music on all night. Then she had an awkward thought. Maybe he did it to cover the sound of her screams.

  “No, sorry. Your cat’s missing?” She saw How in the hel
l does that happen in an apartment building on his face.

  She explained, and told him to let her know if he saw anything. He was already grabbing his coat, slipping it on. “I’ll help you look.”

  “That’s not necessary. I was just checking to see if you’d seen him.”

  “I want to help. Come in while I find a flashlight.” He vanished and she stepped inside.

  She could see nothing through the half-closed bedroom door, but in her mind she pictured a broom leaning against the wall for those times he pounded against the ceiling. He returned a moment later with a flashlight, and locked up after they stepped into the hall. “What’s the cat’s name?”

  She thought about what Uriah had said about Roof Cat not being a real name. “He doesn’t have one.”

  He frowned, puzzled again. “How long have you had him?”

  “A couple months.”

  “That’s weird,” he said. “That he doesn’t have a name yet.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Then she confessed. “I call him Roof Cat. But I don’t know if that’s good enough. Maybe I need a version of it.”

  “I guess it would be tasteless to call him Roofie.”

  “Yeah.”

  They spent two hours searching outdoors, starting small, then expanding. A few people joined in, but by two o’clock Jude called it quits.

  “Let’s go back to the apartment and I’ll make a PDF, take it to a twenty-four-hour copy shop, and get flyers made to put up,” Elliot said. “I’ll just need a photo of your cat, and your phone number for the flyer.”

  “I don’t have a photo.”

  He gave her that look again. “You have a cat and you don’t take photos of him? I’ve had a cat less than a week and I’ve already posted at least twenty photos on Instagram.”

  “I don’t have Instagram.”

  “You should have Instagram.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s fun. And you can share things with other people.”

  “I don’t need to do that.”

  Standing in the middle of the dark sidewalk, he pulled his phone from his pocket, moved closer so she could see, and began scrolling through photos. They were all of his new cat, a black long-hair. “His name is Blackie.”

  Not much better than Roof Cat. “I’d never do that,” she said. “I’d never put myself out there like that.”

  “Because you’re a detective? I think it would be good PR.”

  “I don’t want to share myself like that. With strangers.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Contrite. Recalling her history and the reason she might have for not wanting anything to do with people in general. He put his phone away. “Not every stranger is an enemy, though.”

  They were walking again, getting very near their brick building. Streets were empty, and the city was relatively quiet. Her ears picked up a strange sound. It took her a moment to realize it was the occasional plop of rain against a fallen leaf. It sounded unusually loud in the semisilence.

  “Let’s go back to my apartment and do an online search,” Elliot said. “We’ll find a cat that looks like yours.”

  She surprised herself by agreeing.

  Five minutes later, as they sat side by side on the couch, staring at Elliot’s laptop screen, she decided on a yellow-and-orange tabby cat while Blackie watched them with suspicion. She wished it was this easy when dealing with sketch artists. “Good thing he’s so generic looking,” she said.

  “Could call him Orangey once he’s back home.”

  “You’re very literal, aren’t you? Orangey’s not dignified enough. He has a lot of dignity.”

  “Sir Orangey.”

  She actually laughed, then got herself under control. The walk, the impromptu time spent with another human, followed by actual laughter, had pushed her close to overwhelming fatigue.

  Elliot must have noticed. “I’ll take care of this,” he said. “Go upstairs. Go to bed. I’ll design a flyer and have it ready in the morning. Stop by before you leave. Or you know what? I’ll do it. You’re dealing with those murder cases. I saw it on the news. Glad you weren’t shot. I saw that too. But I actually kind of like the pink hair.”

  Normally she’d never accept a stranger’s help, or anybody’s help but Uriah’s, but her brain was shutting down. Even her words, when she could figure them out, were getting thick. She gave him her number. “Do you need money now? For the copies?” She looked around, as if her bag with her billfold would magically appear.

  “We’ll figure it out later.”

  “Okay.”

  She went upstairs. She couldn’t take a shower, but she probably wouldn’t have attempted it anyway. Without removing her clothes or brushing her teeth or getting a drink, she dropped across the bed and fell asleep. When the dream came, she was too exhausted to scream.

  CHAPTER 25

  We gotta get outta here.”

  Blaine Michaels stood hunched behind the homeless shelter, shifting from foot to foot. It was dark and the temperature was dropping, but he was more nervous than cold. The rehab center where Detective Fontaine had sent him hadn’t been one of those places where they locked you up, so once everybody was asleep, he’d left and hitched a ride back to Minneapolis. Nobody was supposed to step outside the homeless shelter once the doors were locked for the night. He’d texted Clementine and she’d met him at the back door. It was against the rules to even open it, like she’d done.

  When she didn’t respond to his plea to leave, he spoke her real name out loud, something he’d been forbidden to do.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “I’m done with this town,” he said. It had been good at first, but lately . . . No. He wished he could turn back the clock. “You need to come with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her outside.

  She jerked away. “Stop it!” She sounded scared. He was scared too.

  “I’ve gotten myself in a mess. I have to get out of here. You need to come with me. I can’t leave without you.” To his humiliation, he started to cry the way he’d started to cry the other day when he was talking to the detective.

  “Shhh.”

  “We’ve done bad things. I’ve done bad things.” It was the drugs, he’d tried to tell himself. He never would have done anything like it if he hadn’t been so high. Half the time when Blaine woke up covered in someone else’s blood, he couldn’t remember what had happened the night before.

  “I know,” she said.

  He wiped at his nose with a shaking hand and tried to get himself under control.

  He and Clementine had run away together, and he felt responsible for her. “We have to go,” he said. “Now. We’ll hop a train back to California. Come on.”

  She pulled in a shaky breath and said, as if coming to a big decision, “You’re right about this place. And getting out. I’m afraid of what Leo might do when he finds out we’ve left, but I’m more afraid to stay.” Before Blaine could express how happy she’d just made him, she added, “Wait out here while I get my things.”

  She closed the door behind her. Blaine exhaled in relief. Everything was going to be okay. They’d go back to California and forget about the bad things that had happened. They should never have left the West Coast. But some train hoppers had talked about Minneapolis like it was the best, and a buddy had said he’d show them the spots to dumpster dive. Where was that person now? Probably back in California. And the fucking winter. Holy shit. No way anybody back there would believe what winter was like here. He’d actually looked forward to snow. It was one of the reasons he’d come. And then he experienced it and he hoped he’d never see the shit again.

  How long had Clementine been gone? Had she changed her mind?

  He paced and smoked. Rain began to fall. The soft plop on the leaves made him feel safe. It must have been a sign, because he heard the click of the latch and there she was with her backpack.

  “That all you have?” he asked. When they�
�d run away from California, they’d had sleeping bags.

  “I didn’t want anybody to notice,” she whispered, letting the door lock quietly behind her. No going back. Good. She skipped lightly up to him, took his arm, smiled into his face. Her eyes were clear. Her long blond hair smooth and shiny and clean. This was how it should be. Just the two of them again.

  She gave his arm a tug, urging him forward. He stumbled, caught himself, then fell into step beside her, their footfalls echoing on damp brick, sometimes muted by wet leaves. And he realized a heart could actually soar.

  She was quiet, hardly responding when he said something to her. Normally chatty, she seemed focused on getting to the place where the track turned sharply and the train had to slow to cross the river. It was raining harder now. When they were near the spot, they climbed under an overpass where it was dry, sitting with feet to ass, knees to chest, and waited.

  They’d given him naltrexone at the rehab center, but he was sweating and his stomach was making gurgling noises. The trip would be rough, but it didn’t matter. They were going home.

  He felt a rush of guilt. Detective Fontaine had believed in him and had given him a chance, even when her partner had been against it. Not many people had ever believed in him, and he was letting her down.

  Clementine jumped to her feet. “It’s coming.”

  The sound was buried by the pouring rain, but he could hear a low rumble that seemed to come from deep in the ground.

  They grabbed their things. Bent at the waist, the two of them hurried toward the tracks and a giant concrete footing that supported the bridge. They’d hide behind the footing, watch the train cars, find the right one, then run like hell. They adjusted their backpacks. Just like the old days.

  The rhythmic clacking of the train wheels grew louder, and suddenly cars were flying past. They were so close he could feel the heat, and the draft blew his hair back.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  As rain pelted down, they ran. Adrenaline raced through his veins, the train almost close enough to touch, their feet flying. He was panting, Clementine in front of him. Coming up beside them was a freight car with a sliding side door and metal steps with a handle to grab. It would be tricky in the rain.