Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘I interviewed your man,’ he said.

  ‘Tattoo Face? He’s still here?’

  ‘We had to let him go.’ He sounded frustrated.

  ‘You didn’t have any reason to hold him?’

  ‘Judge Pierce refused to sign the search warrant until this morning.’

  ‘What did you get a search warrant for?’ I took a seat and peered up at him.

  ‘Turns out he was their pimp.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘All the girls that were killed, he was their pimp.’

  I felt my mouth dry and my pulse speed up. Their pimp? ‘Why would he kill his means of income?’

  Trent raised both shoulders. ‘After we got the warrant we searched his apartment. We found a shirt in the wash. It had blood on it.’

  ‘Could be anyone’s blood,’ I said, but I was feeling light headed.

  ‘That’s what I thought. Put it straight in for forensics, we should have the results this afternoon.’ He stood up and headed back out the front, leaving his dirty coffee cup sitting on my desk. Typical bloody detective.

  I passed the day in a state of high nerves, partly because of my date that night and partly because we potentially knew the identity of the serial killer. We were all hanging on the results of that shirt and when it came back positive for Lizette’s blood I sat down and put my head between my legs.

  ‘You all right?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Uhuh,’ I said, wondering if there was a paper bag anywhere in the station. Was it possible it was over? Would I really be able to live my life without having to look over my shoulder?

  ‘He’ll be singing a different tune,’ Trent said when he came out for more coffee.

  ‘You’ve got him?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘How do you think he knew who I was?’

  ‘He knew that Lizette came to you for help. Maybe he followed her.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘Said she told him she came to you because she saw the killer.’

  That was weird. Why would Lizette tell him she’d come to me if he really were the killer?

  ‘He said that she saw the killer come in while she was here and ran away.’

  I stared at him. ‘She saw the killer here?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Well he was obviously lying.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Trying to deflect the heat.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Daniel had wandered over to my table to listen in on the conversation. ‘If only we had DNA to tie him to the crime scene,’ he said.

  I smacked myself in the head. ‘But we do,’ I yelped. Jesus where was my head at? So much had happened since the fire had led to a dead end, I had forgotten about the cigar butts.

  They looked at me blankly. ‘The butts,’ I said.

  ‘Whose butt?’ Trent said.

  I’d forgotten he hadn’t been here for the majority of the investigation.

  ‘The cigar butts Roger and I found at the scenes.’ I thought it only fair that I get a little of the credit. They both looked at me blankly. ‘The Hula Girl cigar butts.’

  Trent burst out laughing. ‘You’re pulling my leg?’

  I shook my head. ‘No seriously. We found one at every scene. They all came back with the same DNA on them. We just never had anyone to check it against.’

  Trent tensed, his limbs going from long and relaxed to coiled, like a feline predator ready to pounce. ‘Daniel, find the DNA results,’ he said. ‘They should be in the register.’

  He was gone as soon as he’d finished speaking, leaving his empty coffee cup on my desk, again.

  ‘What do you think he’s doing?’ I said.

  ‘Getting a warrant to obtain DNA from the suspect.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Right. Hey how did they get the blood results back so quickly? I thought it normally took days.’

  ‘More like weeks,’ he said. ‘A serial killer is a priority case. The DNA testing can be done in a few hours, but there’s a huge backlog.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I asked. I was pretty sure we hadn’t covered that at the Academy. And I certainly hadn’t come across it during my studies since.

  ‘I’ve got a degree in forensic science.’

  ‘Wow. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Thought I could make more of a difference on this end.’

  ‘How’s that working out for you?’

  He laughed and headed back to his desk. ‘When I’m a detective it’ll work out just fine.’

  Damn, the man had a ten-year plan. I didn’t have a ten-day one.

  They still hadn’t found Tattoo Face when I left work that afternoon. I was already running late, having to write up some paperwork on a flasher Mark and I had brought in, and only had an hour before I had to meet Roger.

  ‘Chanel,’ Daniel called as I headed out the door.

  I thought about pretending I hadn’t heard him, but with his sincerity and those coke bottle glasses I just couldn’t lie to the guy. ‘Yes,’ I said, sticking my head back through the door.

  ‘I can’t find those DNA results.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The cigar butts. I can’t find them in the register.’

  ‘They were nearly a month ago,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve gone right back to when we got here.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose making his eyes appear huge in comparison to the rest of his face.

  ‘I’m seeing Roger in an hour,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask him where they are.’

  He smiled in relief and nodded his head.

  ‘You staying?’

  ‘Extra shift.’

  Huh, why was I the only one not getting extra shifts? Not that I wanted to work a double shift. But the fact that I wasn’t getting them stunk of…well I wasn’t sure what it stunk of, but it stunk of something.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll ring in the information.’

  As I walked home I considered driving to the Fook Yuen. My internal dialogue went as follows:

  If we drive we can spend an extra fifteen minutes doing our hair.

  But if we drive we’ll have to count our drinks.

  Maybe that’s not such a bad thing – you know.

  I know what?

  Well if we drink too much we may not say no if he asks to walk us home.

  I’m counting on him walking us home. It’s dangerous out there. And besides, it’ll mean we get to spend more time with him.

  That’s true.

  And he can kiss us good night on the doorstep.

  That would be romantic.

  Well that’s settled then. We walk.

  And we say no.

  Of course.

  I’ve always been a bit of a pushover.

  ***

  There was a handbag sitting by my door when I got home with a note on it. I picked it up and read the note.

  This is a much better size. Love Mum.

  Although it was a gorgeous shiny coral it was smaller than my other handbags. How was I going to fit everything in? But I guess that was the point. I was going to have to cull so there’d be fewer things to get in between my hand and my gun when I needed it the most.

  I rushed the shower, took my time with my hair and makeup, and then threw on a little black Ralph Lauren dress. The shoes took me longer to decide on. Sexy or sensible? I resented the choice and was looking forward to not having to consider the negative implications of my sexy shoes. But as it was I strapped on my sensible shoes with a sigh. At least they were black.

  I tipped the contents of my bag onto my bed and sorted through it, reluctantly putting aside the hairspray, four lipsticks, my spare brush, some clips and bobby pins, one of the bottles of perfume and my compact mirror. Into the new bag went my wallet, gun, phone, handcuffs, perfume, lip gloss, baby wipes and at last second I threw the compact mirror back in. I was counting the perfume as a weapon – if I wasn’t close enough to spray it I could always throw it.

  By the time
I had done that I only had ten minutes to get to the restaurant. I ran down the stairs, feeling smug about my sensible shoes, and up the street.

  I’m still not sure if it was my incredible good luck or my incredible bad luck that allowed me to hear the noise. If I hadn’t paused in the mouth of the alley next to the Fook Yeun, digging around my gun and hand cuffs for my dusty pink luscious lips lip balm, at the precise moment there was a total absence of traffic noise – which in itself is a rare and unusual thing – I wouldn’t have heard it at all. As it was, with only the noise of my own frustrated breathing I barely heard it.

  A muffled scream cut off abruptly into a low gurgle. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end. I licked my still balmless lips nervously and looked around for a police officer before remembering that shit, I was a police officer. Sighing, I recommenced my digging, this time pulling out my Glock and taking it off safety.

  I felt only marginally better with the weapon in my hand. It’s one thing to have a gun but you still have to aim straight, and that had never been my strength at the Academy. But I started off down the alley, wishing it weren’t so dark, and that my heart wasn’t beating quite so fast. I was scared. I don’t think I’d ever been that scared before. My hands were clammy and my steps trembled, but I fixed the dead faces of Leticia, Rosie and Lizette in my mind and I continued down the alley.

  If I were correct in my assumption, I was willingly walking through the dark towards a ruthless and merciless killer. The Chanel of a year ago would have turned tail and run, as it was I barely managed to keep myself going. The urge to flee was overwhelming.

  The heavy traffic noise had recommenced behind me and I felt cut off from the rest of the world. No-one would hear my scream and come to my rescue if this didn’t go well. I could see the end of the alley, the walls lined with rubbish dumpsters from the restaurants surrounding us. Dim light emitted from those same restaurants, illuminating some areas, but throwing much into shadow. Faint music and exotic scents that normally would have made my mouth water tumbled into the alley. I was too scared to be hungry, too scared to feel anything but the deep, dark paralysis of fear creeping into my mind and limbs.

  I inched further down the alley, my arms held out in front of me, my finger on the trigger. And then I started to think. Why was I here? Why was I alone? Even though I’d made good time to the restaurant Roger would have been there already. I could go back and get him and we could call for backup. Chances were the noise I had heard was nothing; the cry of a cat in a fight.

  I had started to turn when I saw her body lying in a shaft of dim light. It was strewn across a pile of garbage someone had been too lazy to put into a dumpster.

  I tried to convince myself she was a homeless person asleep in the alley, but I knew different. It had been her cry I heard from the street. The last sound she ever made had reached my ears. Clenching my courage around me like a cloak I moved towards her.

  Of all the dead bodies I’d seen, this one disturbed me the most. It wasn’t the vacant eyes, or the ragged cut at her throat. It wasn’t the blood pooled in her long blonde hair. It was the fact that I knew, somewhere in the dark shadows, the killer lay in wait.

  The memory of Tattoo Face’s hard glittering eyes haunted me. Was he watching me? Was he even now planning my death, imagining the feel of his blade slicing through my skin?

  I held my gun with my left hand while I searched for my phone with my right. If I could ring Roger, tell him where I was, he could be here in under a minute. That thought was foremost in my mind when I heard a noise, a shoe scraping over rock, and I froze.

  He was there. Watching me. I knew what a gazelle felt like when a lion approached. I wanted to flee, I wanted to scream, but my body wouldn’t move. An involuntary whimper came out of my mouth.

  What had I been thinking? I was no match for a psychopath.

  Another noise – rustling – came from back down the alley. Good God. I’d walked past him. Right past him.

  The noises continued. Coming closer. Each one winding me tighter and tighter. I stared towards the sounds, terror bubbling inside, horror crawling over my skin. A shadow morphed in the alley taking on human form. A scream formed in my chest, worked its way raggedly up to my throat and then Roger stepped out of the shadows.

  I sagged, dropping my gun back in my bag and starting to cry. ‘Thank God it’s you,’ I said, walking towards him.

  ‘Who did you think it would be?’

  ‘Look.’ I gestured towards the woman.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘not another one.’ And then he pulled out a cigar and lit it with a glove covered hand.

  It took a few seconds for the synapses in my brain to connect the dots. When they did the horror was almost too much.

  ‘You,’ I panted, unable to comprehend it. ‘You?’

  ‘Poor sweet Chanel,’ he said, walking towards me. ‘So trusting, so desirable.’ He ran a hand down my cheek and I shuddered and backed away.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ I said.

  ‘Or what? You’ll scream?’ I could see his sneer in the dim light from the restaurant.

  ‘No,’ I said, taking my gun back out of my bag, ‘I’ll shoot.’ I tried to sound brave, but my voice shook, and my hand trembled. Even though I was the one holding the gun I was terrified.

  He backed away from the barrel as he shook his head. ‘Tsk, tsk, Chanel,’ he said. ‘You brought your gun home from work.’

  ‘If you didn’t want me to start carrying my gun around you shouldn’t have sacrificed a rabbit on the bonnet of my car.’ I took my phone out of my bag and waved him towards the end of the alley, away from any chance of escape. I really didn’t want to try and shoot him if he fled.

  ‘How did you do that?’ I asked. He raised an eyebrow at me and suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. ‘That’s why you said you’d meet me out the front of the hospital,’ I said. ‘You’d already been released.’

  ‘Clever, clever,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know how you thought you were going to do this and still meet me for dinner.’

  His smile hardened, taking on a vicious edge. ‘Oh Chanel, you were never going to make it to dinner.’

  ‘Why me?’ I felt ill. Discussing why Roger wanted to kill me had not been in my plans for this evening.

  ‘You’re far too curious for your own good.’

  And then I really understood. ‘The killer in London you told me about, it was you, wasn’t it?’

  He smiled and raised the cigar to his lips. ‘You’re not as stupid as you look.’

  His insult had an effect he hadn’t considered. It helped turn my fear into anger. Don’t get me wrong, I was still mind-numbingly terrified, but my limbs were no longer paralysed. Before I had felt like a mouse with a cat, now I had turned into a terrier.

  ‘Hula Girl cigars?’ I said.

  He lifted the cigar, examined it and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘What can I say? I like the coconutty flavour.’

  ‘Why’d you have to kill the tobacconist?’

  ‘His blood is on your hands, not mine.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘If you hadn’t stuck your pretty little nose into the case I wouldn’t have had to shut down the lead.’

  I felt sullied. Manipulated and sullied. I had admired this man and, if I was totally honest, had been falling in love with him. All this talk made no difference. He was a psychopath and it wasn’t my job to try and make him see the error of his ways. It was, however, my job to stop him.

  ‘Tell that to the judge,’ I said, shaking my head. I looked down at my phone for a second, scrolled to work and hit the ring button. That second of distraction was all the time he needed.

  He struck like a snake, his movements a blur to my peripheral vision. He grabbed my right arm and twisted rapidly, karate chopping the outside of my elbow.

  I heard the crack a couple of seconds before my brain registered the pain. Two blissful seconds before agon
y raced from the wounded joint, ripping from my throat in a raw scream. The gun fell from my hand, my injured arm unable to support its weight.

  Roger leapt forwards and kicked the gun away from me. I turned and ran, sprinting towards the road. My jolting steps banged my ruined arm against my side, bringing tears to my eyes.

  If I thought I could have gotten away from him I was mistaken. He was much faster than me. He caught me by my ponytail and ripped me back, flinging me to the ground at his feet. I tried to stand but he kicked me in the stomach, and then smashed the back of his hand across my cheekbone.

  I doubled over and fell, catching myself with my good hand, the phone falling from my fingers. My stomach protested at the rough treatment and I heaved a few times before rolling to the side and crawling to my feet. Before I could run he grabbed my damaged arm, wrenching the ends of the broken bone against each other as he threw me against a dumpster. I screamed with pain and felt a second crack as my back hit the hard metal. Sharp pain radiated through my chest making breathing almost impossible.

  He pulled me upright with one hand, the fist of the other smacking into my cheek. My head snapped back and before I could recover, he slapped me as hard as he could.

  ‘Nosey bitch,’ he growled, slapping me again.

  I shrieked and put my left arm up to protect my face. He moved to my stomach, punching me again and again until finally I collapsed onto the ground, my useless right arm collapsing under me. As I panted and cried and retched I saw the light glint off the metal of my gun. I rolled and lunged towards it with my left arm, feeling the cool metal slap into the palm of my hand just before he threw me back again. I landed with my back against the bin and shakily raised my left arm, the barrel of my Glock once again trained on his chest. He backed away, his arms held up.

  For a second we stared into each other’s eyes. I took pleasure in the shock that I saw there, the uncertainty. Then I pulled off the first shot without even thinking.

  It wasn’t at all like in training. In training I had been calm and collected, had had time to aim. I hadn’t been terrified. My eyes hadn’t been clouded with tears. I had been aiming at a piece of cardboard, not a real breathing person.