by Bob Mayer
"What's the matter?"
"The money."
"What?"
"We found six dollars on her. If she'd been hooking wouldn't she have had more than that on her?"
"She was robbed."
"Then why didn't they take the six dollars?"
Sylvie laughed. "Chase, in three hours she could have made over four or five thousand dollars. Once the killer had that, would he care about the change from her cab fare?"
"Four or five thousand dollars? Are you kidding? They turn tricks for twenty-five bucks in Denver."
Sylvie shook her head. "Rachel Stevens was from Pine Brook Hills. She was beautiful, intelligent, and from what you've told me she had unsafe sex. Basically, Chase, she could name her own price and be selective about her clientele."
"If she was so smart why was she having unsafe sex?"
"Considering the type of men she was probably with, she wasn't taking that big of a risk. Not too many IV drug users will put out five hundred to a thousand dollars to get laid. They'd prefer to shoot the money in their arm. I don’t think she would’ve had to worry about gay men for her clients.
“Sometimes, Chase, you get to the point where you're willing to take a gamble for the payoff. Maybe Rachel was at that point. There're plenty of people meeting in bars here in Boulder and around the country every night and having unsafe sex. At least Rachel was smart enough to make some money off it. Check with her gynecologist."
"What?"
"She probably had a standing appointment." Sylvie frowned. "But she wouldn't go to her regular doctor. If she was careful she wouldn't even use anyone in Boulder. She probably went to Denver."
Chase remembered the phone numbers with no names in Rachel's address book. He mentally logged that in as something he needed to check again.
Sylvie wasn't done. "Her biggest worry must have been that she'd run into some husband from Boulder who knew her, but even then it wasn’t like he’d want to expose her. Like I said, she must have been very selective with her clients, which also would have helped on the disease angle too."
Chase wasn't convinced, but it was sounding plausible. Especially if Rachel had known about her husband and Miss Plunkett. "Can a housewife just become a call girl?"
"It's not like you have to have a lot of skills, Chase. Mainly you just have to have a good body and a willingness to use it. There are cathouses and escort services all over Denver a woman can contact and get work one night a week. Or in this case once every three weeks. Or she could advertise on-line."
Chase remembered her husband had said something about Rachel and sex. He would have to look it up. He wondered how Sylvie knew all this, but that was a question where Chase wasn't willing to accept some of the possible answers, so he didn't ask it.
At first the idea had sounded far-fetched, but Sylvie, and the evidence he had, made it more convincing. Chase knew where he had to go now.
When Chase walked out of the club he could see two guys sitting on the hood of his Jeep. One was tall, black, and had shaved his head. The other was medium height, white, and looked like a weightlifter with broad shoulders under his windbreaker. The bulky muscles spoke of heavy steroid use and his forehead had Cro-Magnon man stamped all over it. They slid off the hood as Chase approached.
“You been asking questions.” This was from the weightlifter. Chase was amazed he could even speak. The black guy was just watching, moving a couple steps away from his partner, flanking Chase.
“It’s my job,” Chase replied. “What’s your’s?”
Chase caught the blur of movement to his left and reacted instinctively, sweeping his left arm out in a middle block, catching the black guy’s turn kick on the bone of his forearm, but that was a lot better than his head where it had been directed. The arm stung as the guy pulled the leg back.
Chase backed up and drew his gun. He aimed at the black guy. He figured by the time Mister Muscles got all that weight moving, he could have changed his aim and drilled him with half the clip.
The black guy smiled. “Come on, man. A little test. Man to man. I won’t hurt you too bad.”
“Screw man to man,” Chase replied. “You just assaulted a police officer.”
“You green beanies are pussies,” the black guy continued. “Wear fucking girl scout hats. Did you sell cookies door to door, too? We used eat you guys for breakfast in the SEALs.”
SEALs were the Navy’s Special Operations people. The black guy had that competent, shit-together, look that most special ops people Chase had served with had.
“And now what do you eat?” Chase asked.
The black guy shuffled his feet, hands loose. “Let’s party.”
“Don’t think so,” Chase said, seeing no upside.
The ex-SEAL laughed again. “You think we didn’t know you were armed? You think we weren’t prepared? You got a rifle pointing at you right now, and you got five seconds to put the gun down.” He smiled revealing a row of perfectly straight teeth. The navy must have had better dentists than the army hacks Chase had gone to.
“One.”
Chase had never enjoyed gambling. He figured any form of bet was controlled by someone other than him, therefore the odds were against him.
“Two.”
This guy had no reason to bluff. There were plenty of places a man with a rifle could hide around here.
“Three. Look at your chest.”
Chase glanced down and saw the small red dot indicating a laser site was aimed at him. He lowered the gun before the guy could do four and slid it back into his holster.
“Very smart.” And then the SEAL came at Chase in flurry of snap kicks toward his midsection, which Chase blocked with his hands and forearms, while backing up, knowing this was just a prelude.
Then came a feint snap-kick, flowing into a reverse back-fist as the SEAL spun, arm extended toward Chase’s head.
Except Chase has seen the move coming in the slightest shift in the SEAL’s eyes and he ducked, grabbed the wrist as it went over his head with one hand and the SEAL’s elbow with the other, and he levered up on the elbow and down on the wrist.
The crunch of the joint giving way in the wrong direction echoed across the parking lot.
Chase had to give the man credit—he didn’t scream. A hiss of pain escaped the SEAL’s lips and he froze, his arm still in Chase’s grip.
“Your buddy going to shoot?” Chase asked, shifting so that the man’s body was between him and the direction the red dot had come from.
“No.” The word came thought teeth clenched in pain. “We just wanted to talk.”
“That’s why you came at me?” Chase asked. “What do you want?”
“For you to stop asking questions,” the ex-SEAL informed Chase.
“About what?” Chase could see Muscles trying to follow the conversation with a furrowed look on his brow, trying to think if he should charge. He must have been heavily coached even to ask that first question, mainly to distract Chase and give his buddy a chance to kick his head off.
“You’re not that stupid are you?”
“I seem to be lately,” Chase said. “I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now and you need to be more specific.”
“Just stop asking questions.”
Chase had the feeling the guy actually didn’t know what he was supposed to stop digging into. “And if I don’t?”
“You can’t beat us,” the ex-SEAL said.
“Just did. Still got your arm and I can make the surgery much worse if I twist. Who’s us?”
The SEAL shook his head, the security light reflecting off the shaved ebony skin. “See, you’re asking questions again.”
Chase let go of the man’s arm and drew his Glock, pressing it under his jaw, still keeping the body between him and the unseen gunman, even though he knew the human shield wasn’t adequate. The SEAL cradled his damaged arm with his good one.
“Truce,” the SEAL said. And now Chase could see the small receiver in the man’s ear. So
meone was talking to him. “You let us walk, we let you walk. He’s got you in his sights. And if it comes to it, he’ll shoot right through me to get you.”
“This isn’t over,” Chase said.
“It is right now,” the SEAL said. With that he turned and walked away, Muscles following.
Chase sat down on the hood of his Jeep and watched them until they turned the corner and disappeared. He could have called a black and white to grab them for threatening and assaulting a police officer but he didn’t. They were like the green scum on the top of a pond. He needed to know what was in the dark waters and he didn’t think those two had the answers he wanted.
First the CIA. Now this.
Unless they were two of the four who had killed Rachel, the questions they were referring to were the ones Chase had asked about the Patriots and/or the Barnes. There were only three people who Chase had posed such questions to: Tai, Masters and Colonel Thorne. The latter was the most likely to have ties to the Patriots, but it didn’t sit right that he’d send a couple of thugs to threaten Chase. Then again, he did run a magazine called Merck. He could have answered one of his own classifieds to hire these guys.
Tai was a possibility considering this was right outside his club. Chase had no doubt now that he dealt in information. He’d given Chase some and gotten some from Chase. Who knows who else he talked to.
On top of who had sent these bozos, Chase had to consider who had called in the CIA. And if these bozos were part of the Clowns In Action.
Chase got in his Jeep and drove away, not bothered by the traffic as usual, but deep in thought.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chase drove from the Silver Satyr back to Police headquarters. There were two things he wanted to do before calling it a night.
Chase dug through his folders until he found Rachel’s address book. He flipped the pages looking for doctors. By checking the phone book against her notations he found a local gynecologist. She had him listed under D. Chase copied the name and number onto his notepad. Then he listed out all the numbers in the book that had some sort of code next to them. There were three. All with 303 area codes meaning they were local. Chase used the reverse directory to look them up.
The first, labeled CC, was the Boulder Country Club. The second labeled F was a floral shop. Chase hit pay dirt on the third: CB. Although it had a 303 area code, the next three digits weren't listed in the Boulder Directory.
Chase expanded his search and eventually found it in the Denver Directory: Doctor Carl Bednarick, Physician and Surgeon, MD, Gynecology. Sylvie had called this one perfectly.
Chase left his desk and went down to the first floor to Boulder’s small vice and drugs division. At almost ten at night, most of the desks were empty as the occupants were out on the street doing their thing. Vice and drugs worked nights when business was good.
Chase scanned the few occupied desks looking for a friendly face. He spotted one in the far corner. It wasn't a friendly one, but it was a known one. Buck Rudolph looked like a typical redneck. And he was. He didn't just hate minorities, he hated everyone, except cops, equally. To him you were either a cop or you were scum. He was from somewhere in Alabama and Chase had no clue how he’d ended up here in Colorado.
Rudolph had busted more than his share of all strata of society as they partook in the various sins that laws classify as no-no's; because of that he'd learned that it didn't matter if someone wore a three piece suit or a cut-off t-shirt. To him everyone was just as dirty inside.
Chase could tell Rudolph was watching him approach from across the room. He was only about five foot seven and weighed no more than a hundred and forty pounds. He had scraggly black hair and a pinched face. He'd have looked good in a pair of jeans with no shoes up in the hills of his home state playing a banjo. Chase had worked with him in the past once and after the case they’d gotten drunk together. Chase didn't care for his personality, but he was good at his job and it paid to cultivate efficient friends. They’d exchanged favors as vice and major cases crossed paths more often than not.
"What brings you down here, Chase? Bored with the high speed cases and want to wallow in the pig trough?"
Chase rolled over a chair. "I got a body."
"What else is new?" Rudolph let loose a long line of tobacco juice into the empty coffee can on his desk. "You guys get dead bodies. We get bodies too, except ours are alive and yours are dead. So did one of my live ones become one of your dead ones? The only body I know of is recently is that Stevens’ woman. And the one you shot. And his family."
"This body screwed four men in less than three hours just before she was killed." Chase filled him in on the facts without adding Sylvie's idea. "What do you think?"
Rudolph gave Chase a tobacco-stained smile. "What do you mean what do I think? You're the major case detective. I'm not smart enough to figure out who-done-its."
Chase shook his head. "About the victim."
"What about her?"
Chase hated it when someone played stupid. It was Rudolph’s right to bait Chase though. He'd come down here. "What do you think she was doing before she got killed? Could she have been hooking?"
Rudolph spit into the can again. "She might have been. We get some of those. Usually though, these suburban housewives work the lounges of the nice hotels in Denver. We get some that work our nicer hotels too. They drive their mini-vans on in, sit around the bar and go upstairs with some out of town businessman. They get pretty good money, but I think a lot of them do it mostly for the thrill. Then you got all those who advertise in the paper saying they give full body massages. Hell, we even got a couple of them escort services here in town. And don’t even get me started on the crap you can find on-line.
"Honestly, Chase, we don't mess with them too much. They aren't hurting anyone. I like to think that they help the tourism industry of Boulder." He cackled bitterly.
Chase told him about the cab ride to Broomfield every third Wednesday.
Buck rubbed the stubble of his beard. "There ain't nothing I know of at that location you said the cabbie dropped her off at. At least off the top of my head. There may be a high-class house or something that's been set up recently there. Maybe she had an apartment she rented that she free-lanced out of."
Chase doubted that last bit. That would put quite a bit of overhead on an operation that apparently only ran one night every three weeks. On the other hand, maybe Rachel borrowed a house or apartment at that time from a friend.
"Could you check on it for me?"
"Check on which? The body or the location?"
"Both." Chase passed him the basic info on Rachel Stevens and a copy of her picture. Chase very much doubted that Rachel had ever gotten picked up for soliciting, but it paid to play the long shots. There was something else Chase wanted to bounce off him.
“You know the family that was killed the other night?”
“I can read, Chase,” he said sarcastically. “And I got ears. The word is you did good.”
Coming from Buck that was a compliment and it meant the grapevine from SWAT was positive. “Did you know the Barnes were dealing?”
“Both had been picked up a couple of times. Pled down and never had to serve time. They were lucky we never caught them with the major weight they moved. I arrested Trina once. Real bitch. Offered me use of her body if I let her go, then when I didn’t-- use her body or let her go-- cursed me out better than a sailor. I learned a couple of new phrases.”
“Why didn’t you bust her on the bribery?”
“Right. My word against her’s. The DA is real good at taking cases like that to court.”
“So the killings could have been drug-motivated.”
“This isn’t your case, last I heard.”
“I’m involved. I was the one on the scene and I killed Tim Barnes. Could there be a connection between the Barnes and the Patriots?”
Buck frowned. He looked at the door, then back at Chase. “I talked to Gotleib.”
The
Barnes were Gotleib’s case. He was nearing retirement and not the brightest light on the street. That told Chase the DA and Chief didn’t want any more dirt uncovered. “And?”
“They pulled the phone records at the Barnes’ house. Monday, just before the shots were fired, they made a call to a local hotel. Whoever was registered there also paid cash, bullshit name.”
“What are they doing about it?”
Buck snorted. “Nothing. Last thing Donnelly or the Chief wants is more trouble. If the Barnes’ deaths are tied to the Patriots somehow, they’d prefer to let it go since that’s out of our jurisdiction and the Barnes are dead. You know everyone in the DA’s office is scared shitless of fucking up once more.”
Chase thought of Hanson describing what had happened to the Barnes and their baby. Chase had several pieces but none of them fit.
“Who supplied the Barnes?”
“Don’t know. We’ve been trying to go up that chain for a long time with no luck. Someone’s bringing major weight into town and we have no clue who it is. It could be the Patriots, but how they’re distributing it, we have no idea.”
“How could the Patriots be getting it?” Chase asked.
“Through Canada. We’re so busy stopping illegal immigrants coming up from Mexico, it’s an easy stroll across the Canadian border, especially for guys trained like the Patriots to move cross-country. Not much border patrol on the north. And the Canadians aren’t as tight as the US letting stuff into their country.”
“So you’ve been shaking down dealers, trying to find their suppliers and the link to the Patriots?”
“We’re always shaking down dealers when we can, but we haven’t done anything special lately. The thing I don’t see is the Patriots distributing that kind of weight here. We’re missing something.”
“Who did the Barnes supply?”
“Several local dealers.”