by Cat Connor
“Fascinating,” Kurt said. “We could be looking for a body.”
“Or a blind man who needs medical urgent medical treatment.”
“Yes, that’s a possibility.”
“You two need to be out here, Lee and I are in the office with the manager who is also the wife of our suspect. She says he usually uses the front door, but just in case ....”
Sam nodded. “We’re on it Chicky.” He looked around. “They’d have big freezers somewhere, yeah?”
“Maybe,” I said. “They’d at least have cold rooms for vegetables and meats. They make the pizzas with fresh ingredients.” I remembered reading that on the wall by the counter.
“Over there,” Sam said pointing to an alcove.
“Wait right there, I’ll get the manager.” I looked at Kurt. “On seconds thoughts, Kurt can you wait and Sam you come with me.”
Sam and I hurried back to the office. “You and Lee wait for whatshisname, Theodore. I need Caroline to accompany me.”
Worry lines creased her face. She followed into the kitchen area.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why do you need me?”
“I either need you to give me access to your cold rooms or to go get a warrant. It’d be simpler if you let us look.”
She faltered. “What are you looking for?”
“Can we look?” I didn’t want to tell her what we were looking for.
“We should wait for my husband?”
“I’d rather not.”
Her thought process was evident on her face. Patiently I waited for her to come to a decision.
“Okay. You can look.”
“Thank you.”
Kurt was across the room and gone from sight almost immediately.
Caroline and I walked over to the far side of the room and waited.
“How many cold rooms?”
“Two,” she replied. Her eyes fixed on the doors within the alcove.
Pacing would’ve worked for me but my nervous energy wasn’t going to help her at all. The wait was tiresome.
Noises at the front of the building attracted my attention.
Sam’s voice rang out. “SSA!”
That was my cue. “Stay here,” I said to Caroline. I banged on the door. “Kurt!”
He emerged.
“Problem?”
“Maybe.”
I drew my weapon as I moved with care through the kitchen to the sound of Sam’s voice. Motioning to people to move back to where Caroline stood, frozen to the spot.
Breathing slowly settled my heart rate. Kurt next to me settle it more. I pointed. Kurt left, me right. I went in first. Lee was doubled over by the desk. Sam had a male in handcuffs. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kurt holster his weapon and go to Lee. My focus was Sam and the man.
“What happened?” I wanted to know why Lee was hurt and the male wasn’t dead. He didn’t look great but he was in better condition than Lee.
“He threw a knife from the door,” Sam said.
“And he is?”
“Theodore Romano.”
Kurt looked up. “Like knives do you Mr. Romano?”
The man said nothing.
Nothing at all. His face remained neutral. Kurt called for an ambulance. Sam removed Romano from the room.
“You okay, Lee?”
“Yeah Ellie, it’s a flesh wound.” He didn’t sound okay.
“Kurt, did you find anything out there?” I asked.
“I found the body of a male in a box. He had no eyes.”
It would have to be a big box.
“Why would someone kill, store the body, and use the eyeballs, all at their place of work?” I said. They both looked at me but knew not to answer. Thinking out loud. “They wouldn’t. Too easy to get caught. Makes no sense.”
But something else made a lot of sense.
“How many police complaints have there been from or against the pizza place down the street, what’s it called, Pisa Pizza or something?”
“Yeah it is Pisa Pizza,” Kurt replied.
Lee winced and held out his notebook. Kurt handed it to me. I flipped through it looking for a contact number for the Metro detective following this case. I couldn’t hide my joy at finding out who it was. Josh Konstram. He’d made detective. Well that explained why he asked for our help. Josh and Delta had a long history of working together.
I made the call.
“Josh, its Ellie Conway. We might have found your missing male, not good news though. Nothing is making sense. I need some background.” I told him where we were and asked him to come down.
“What are you thinking?” Kurt asked.
“Pizza wars. I’m thinking someone else killed Timothy and one of the staff here added his eyeballs to the pizza. They wouldn’t have known whose pizza it was.”
I took my thought out to the kitchen and to Caroline.
“Who here was hired most recently and maybe worked for Pisa Pizza down the street?”
“Kristofer.” She looked around. “The one washing vegetables over there.”
“Thanks.”
I figured the best way to approach him was outright. Sam was watching my back. His prisoner was on the floor, cuffed and out of harm’s way.
“Kristofer, I’d like a word.” He started to move away. “I wouldn’t if I were you. I have questions and you are going to supply me with answers.”
His shoulders sagged. He seemed to fold inward.
“Come on over here,” I said, holding out my arm to direct him.
Ten minutes later, I had a confession from Kristofer. Sam has that effect on people. He had indeed doctored the pizza. He not only used to work for the other company but also was related to the owner. A tentative cousin connection. Apparently that’s all you need in the pizza business. By the time Josh arrived, I had everything he needed to arrest the owner of Pisa Pizza for murder. Theodore would be arrested for assault on a federal officer. I’d be pushing for malicious wounding and the full ten-year jail term. No one throws knives at my team and walks away. No one.
The other pizza guy had followed Theodore to his rendezvous with Timothy. It wasn’t the first time. Poor Caroline had no idea her husband batted for both teams. The owner of Pisa Pizza decided to frame Theodore and close his pizza shop in the process. Nasty. Sick. And not very bright.
And we wouldn’t be eating pizza for a long time.
Subway is our fast food of choice from here on in.
The End.
4. Bullet.
“Go left,” I said, my words flew away on a sudden wind gust.
“How far?” Lee asked as he adjusted his hold on his assault rifle and used the scope to scan the tree line. The wind dropped. Stillness descended.
“Past the stand of three trees and into the clearing.”
I used the scope on my rifle and swept it over the area to our right, looking for potential threats. Nothing noticeable. Didn’t mean there wasn’t anything. Our eyes are drawn to movement. Someone in a Ghillie suit could be lying among fallen tree branches and we wouldn’t notice until they moved. We weren’t after military linked Unsubs. We were looking for eleven missing young women. They’d disappeared over a four-week period from nine Christian Camps all across the state.
The last lead we found bought us to these woods. It was a long shot. A confidential informant thought he heard something after a meeting with someone we considered might be involved. Yeah we had nothing but conjecture. I opted to go in with Lee and do some recon. The rest of the team were following various angles thrown up by other agencies who were involved in the case.
“We’re good,” Lee said. He moved quickly and stayed low. Not easy for someone as powerfully built and tall as he is. I followed.
Remember to breathe.
Lee and I took cover behind the first of the three trees. Big old naked Oak trees had decent trunks and gave excellent cover.
“How far away is the cabin?” Lee asked.
I pulled out my cell phone and accessed the feed
from the drone above us. Tapping the icon on the screen gave me control of the bird. Another icon allowed me to zoom in with the drone camera on the trees we hid behind. If it hadn’t been early spring, we wouldn’t have been able to use a drone. But the abundance of leaf buds not leaves on the trees and the lack of scrubby undergrowth meant air surveillance was possible. I thanked whatever Gods were out there for technology and early spring.
“Wave at the drone Lee,” I muttered, moving my finger across the screen to find the cabin. “1-click north east.”
“See anything else?”
“Wait one …” I swept my finger back across the screen highlighting the area between the cabin and us. No sign of movement. No sign of anything except woods. I gave it a minute and did another sweep. Taking careful note of anything that may have changed. Nothing.
I swung back to the cabin and zoomed in. Two cars. No signs of life. As I watched, a chicken pecked its way across the yard and joined several other chickens near the cabin.
“We got chickens,” I said. “Two cars and a herd of chickens.”
“I don’t think they’re called a herd, El,” Lee replied, a smile bounced around his voice as he continued watching the area around us through his riflescope. “I think the collective noun you’re looking for is brood, clutch, or peep.”
“Herd sounds better,” I said watching the screen. The light changed near one of the windows. A shadow maybe. “A possible shadow moved inside the cabin. I think they’re inside.”
Two cars. Possibly five people in each car. Two of us. Ten of them. That was fair? Moving the drone to the far side of the cabin, I saw a dumpster. A big orange Waste Management dumpster. Looked like a tarp was secured on the top.
“Look,” I said handing Lee the phone.
“A dumpster in the woods. Now that’s new.”
“Isn’t it. Wouldn’t think there’d be enough crap in a little cabin for a dumpster.”
“What’s the road like into here?”
Fair question. We helicoptered in. Nothing like a little bit of fast roping to get the blood moving.
“Sealed, single lane in a lot of places.”
“So maneuvering a truck the size required to carry a dumpster isn’t the easiest thing ever?”
“Exactly.”
“A dumpster in the woods,” Lee whispered. “Why the hell would anyone need a dumpster in the woods?”
One last look at the cabin and the surrounding area. No movement except a few chickens. I tapped the screen in the upper right corner and gave control of the drone back to command central then pocketed my phone.
“I dunno, but I want a look,” I said. Shame the drone wasn’t capable of giving us a peek into the dumpster.
They’re clever but short of using an armed drone and shooting the shit out of the tarp over the dumpster, we were out of luck. Ours was rigged with cameras and audio surveillance equipment not missiles.
“We going?” Lee asked.
“Yeah, let do this thing.”
Single file. I stepped exactly where Lee had to minimize any noise from snapping twigs. Half a click out, we stopped, using some scrubby Dogwoods as cover. I accessed the drone again and checked the area. Two cars. Chickens. A big orange dumpster. Nothing but the chickens moving.
“Let’s get in there,” Lee said.
“Moving out,” I said. “I’ll take point.”
Lee’s jaw muscles tensed.
I smiled. He and Sam had this thing and they thought I didn’t know about it. They always took point. Protective. Usually I let them. Not today. This was my call. We were here because of my decision. If anyone’s walking into anything, it’s not going to be Lee. I moved in front of him and quietly made my way through another wooded section to the edge of a glade. Snow still lay in the shadows of the surrounding trees from a late storm that hit the area a week ago.
From the other side of the glade a twig snapped. My finger slipped onto the trigger of my rifle, held snug against my body by a three-point sling. My left hand came up into a fist. I felt Lee freeze behind me.
I dropped my hand, using it instead to steady my rifle as I brought the scope up to my eye.
“Shit,” I hissed. “They’ve put a patrol out.”
Jesus! How did I miss that? I didn’t look far enough?
Or maybe long enough?
I shook my head.
It didn’t matter how I missed it. What mattered was what I did next.
“I count two men carrying rifles,” Lee whispered. “One each.”
“We’re going to bring shit storm down on us if we get into a fire fight.”
That couldn’t happen. Not here. Not without backup. I tried settling the rising annoyance with a deep breath. The whole situation drove me crazy. What started out as fun now sent my blood pressure skyward. If there was nothing going on in the cabin except some old friends going hunting then there’d be no need for a patrol. My gut said our informant had good information.
“We’re going to have to go hand-to-hand here El?”
“I know. We’ll circle around and take them out.” I let the rifle go, it settled quickly into place. Right there if I needed it. From my belt, I unsheathed a knife. Lee did the same.
The KA-BAR was our knife of choice. If I absolutely had to use a knife then I wanted one trusted by our SWAT teams and military alike. I really hate knives. Really freaking hate them.
I took a breath and held it.
“Left,” I said on my exhale, calling direction and my target. “On three.”
Lee gave me a nod and a half-smile.
“Three.”
We separated. I came up behind my guy. He was heavier than me but I was two inches taller and had the advantage of surprise.
Surprise! I kicked him hard behind one knee. He tumbled forward, trying to turn as he did.
Managing to almost get his rifle around before I kicked again.
The rifle smacked him in the face. He hit the ground hard, rolled and came up swinging wildly. His movements felt exaggerated and slow. He struggled for breath and tried to call out. That wasn’t going to happen. I ducked under his flailing fist, got in close, slipped behind him and wrapped my left arm around his head and tipped it back hard and fast. My right hand pressed the blade into his throat under his jaw and sliced ear to ear in one long swift movement. Blood gushed. Messy but effective. He gurgled as he slid to the ground his hands grabbing at his throat. Hopeless. I checked him for communication equipment and only found a cell phone. Easy. I turned it off and dropped it into a pocket on my tactical vest. Didn’t want anyone calling it and giving our position away. There was a chance the phone might also contain useful Intel. Something to check into later. When I looked up Lee was walking toward me wiping his knife on his trouser leg.
Nice.
I stabbed mine into the hard earth twice. Then sheathed it. We carried on, moving with care. No more foot patrols. Ten minutes later, we crept up behind the dumpster. A faint but foul odor curled around me. Dumpsters often smell but this was several notches above unpleasant. I smelled death under a chemical blanket.
“Look?” I pointed to the ground under the dumpster. The dumpster was sitting over a pit on what looked like steel girders. The pit containing charcoaled remains of a fire. “Someone went to quite a bit of effort. Digging a fire pit, bringing in steel girders, and a dumpster.” I tentatively touched the metal bin. It was quite warm.
Lee peeled back a section of the tarp and peered in.
“Holy shit,” he muttered then turned away from the dumpster. His shoulders heaved as he retched several times.
Not a good sign.
“All right?”
“You know what sodium hydroxide and water does to a body?”
Yep, it turns it into a coffee colored oily liquid.
“Uh huh.” I did not like where this was going but it explained the stench. “What’s in there?”
“Goop,” he replied, gagging again.
“That a technical term?”
“Fuck yes.”
“And?”
“There is a lot of liquid in there.” He tapped the side of the bin with his hand. “Smells like …”
“Sodium hydroxide,” I finished for him. “Caustic soda.”
“Yes.”
“Not acid?” I was pretty sure it wasn’t acid. It took a lot more acid to dissolve a body than it did caustic soda. Caustic soda was easy to obtain. The purchase or theft of large quantities of acid would trigger an immediate law enforcement investigation.
“Not acid,” Lee said. “They’re dissolving bodies.”
“Ah crap, that’s why the pit and fire.” A horrible feeling we weren’t going to find the missing woman bounced around in my gut, making me feel ill.
Lee nodded. “Sodium hydroxide works best if heated to over 300 degrees. I doubt that was possible here, but, who knows?”
I stood on the edge of one of the girders and peered into the dumpster.
“Don’t breathe in,” Lee cautioned.
“Looks like they got it hot enough. How many bodies you think?”
“It’s a big dumpster,” Lee replied. He watched the cabin.
“So that’s what they’re doing out here, disposing of bodies.”
“I’ll call it in, El. We’re going to need forensics out here and back up.”
“You know what?”
“What?” Lee replied with his phone in his hand.
I lifted my rifle.
“Screw these assholes.”
Lee fell in behind me. I heard him talking on his phone. I signaled left and moved. Trusting that Lee went right. Two doors and windows on three sides. I headed straight for what I deemed to be the front door. Because fuck this shit.
I stood four feet from the door. For a spilt second I considered announcing my presence and thought better of it.
Knocking seemed like a polite thing to do. So, I shot at the door. Wood splintered and flew into the air. A yell from inside made me smile. It shouldn’t have. Sometimes I’m just not a nice person.
I called out, “FBI. Drop your weapons.”
Scrambling, sliding, people stumbling around. Sounded like at least one person fell over furniture.
Lee called out from the back, “You’re surrounded. Drop your weapons and move out through the front door.”