“Entrepreneur in the sex trade, huh?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, he definitely is. We’d shut him down if we could. Technically, the guy is operating legally. Yet when the girls get a little too heavy into drug use, contract diseases, or things of that nature, they wind up working the street. Of course, we can’t prove he gets a cut of that, which I’m sure he does. The moon-and-stars tattoos basically mean they’re his girls. Last name is Knightley—the tattoos of moon and stars represent night. Night, Knightley—I’d venture a guess that is the connection.”
“Know where this guy is?” Tom asked.
“Probably at his house, in a club, or being chauffeured around somewhere between the two,” Ferris said. “I doubt you’d get anything from him if you did catch up with him, though. I think it would be highly unlikely that he would know what girls work for him. The guy is hands off. It’s how he keeps his nose clean and stays out of jail. He has about three or four lines of protection between him and the actual prostitution. You’d probably be better off going to one of his massage parlors and asking around. There’s a chance someone at the managerial level might get a little spooked by a couple of FBI agents and start talking.”
Detective Hardy piped in. “I’d say bring your wallet with you. You won’t get anything for free inside the places—that goes for information as well.”
“How far are these places from here?” Beth asked.
“Both about five to ten minutes away, one north, one south. The southern one is called The Orient. The other is called The Geisha.”
I wrote the names of the places down in my notepad.
“Um,” Beth said. “I have to ask: what should we be expecting when we walk into the parlors?”
“They’re going to be the upscale, swanky kind of lounges where you can go and get a hundred-dollar massage,” Hardy said. “Of course, the women will then ask if the clients would like some of their extra services if you know what I mean.”
Beth nodded.
“Does this Knightley have a sheet?” I asked.
“He did a few years for pandering in the early two thousands,” Hardy said. “Nothing since. Like I said, he distances himself from it now. A couple of guys will probably jump on the grenade, so to speak, before any kind of charge would ever get to him.”
“Well, we know that some of these girls worked for his franchise,” I said. “A few conversations may shed some light on when these girls were last seen. Maybe someone saw the last client they were with. It’s worth a shot.”
Detective Pierce entered the room. “Here’s everything we have on each of the victims. Hope it helps you guys. Um, Hardy, we’re actually going to need to run. I just got some news on that home invasion we’ve been working.”
“Sure,” Hardy said. He stood from his chair.
“Those copies of all the victim’s information there are yours to keep,” Pierce said.
“Thanks, Detective,” I said.
The two detectives left the room. I glanced at my watch—it was pushing two-thirty. We still had to stop in at those massage parlors, see who we could talk to, if anyone, and get out to the Nashville Medical Science building before it got too late. We thanked the captain and Detective Ferris for meeting with us, exchanged some contact information, and left the Nashville Police Station. We stopped at Tom’s car around the corner of the building. Beth was plugging away at the screen of her phone.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Just trying to see which of these is closer. Looks like The Orient is only about four miles south of here. Let’s pop in there, and then we can head to the other one. It looks like it will be somewhat on our way back to the Medical Science building.”
“Works for me,” Tom said. “You guys want a ride to your car?”
“Sure, what the hell,” I said.
We hopped in with Tom, took the block-and-a-half ride to our car and headed north with Tom following behind us.
Beth brought the address for the massage parlor up on the screen and followed the suggested route. We pulled past a standalone tan brick building ten minutes later. I looked out the passenger side window at the place as Beth flipped on her turn signal to make a right at the corner—the place appeared to have a small parking lot in the back. The building was a single story with a large yellow awning over the recessed front door that simply said The Orient. The two windows in the front both had neon lights in them. The left side read Open while the right side said Asian Massage. Beth pulled along the curb after making a right at the front of the building—she opted to park along the street as opposed to the back lot. Tom pulled in behind us. I grabbed the copies of the victims’ driver’s-license photos that Detective Pierce had given us, along with the one photo of the blond, deceased on the morgue table, and got out. We made our way to the building’s glass front door—stickers on it listed the businesses hours. The three of us walked in.
Soft music played in our ears. The lighting was dim—far dimmer than in an average business. The lobby we entered was red velvet, biscuit tucked on both sides, floor to ceiling. The ceiling itself was made up of colorful parasols. Running along the walls on both sides of the lobby were red-velvet benches—the benches were filled with women in various states of dress. Some of the women wore evening dresses, some wore lab coats, and some wore things that could be described as more provocative in nature. A counter straight out of a hotel stood at the back of the room, with hallways stretching off to both sides. The entrances to the hallways were separated by plum-blossom-printed panel screens. The back wall was mirrored. A vase of orchids sat at the front desk’s edge, directly to the left of a woman dressed in business casual attire and staring at us barely inside the entryway. I made eye contact with a few of the women sitting—they all looked away immediately. Some of the girls stood and disappeared from the lobby. I figured the women knew we weren’t there for their services and probably thought it best if they made themselves scarce.
Beth, Tom, and I approached the woman at the front counter.
“Miss.” I reached into the inner pocket of my gray suit jacket and pulled out my credentials. “Agents Rawlings, Harper, and Clifford with the FBI. We’d like to ask a few questions. Maybe there is someone here in charge that we could talk to.”
“Um,” she said. The woman, a tall, thin, brunette, appearing in her later thirties, didn’t budge. She stood as still as a statue, seemingly looking for words or a way to remove herself from the three FBI agents standing before her.
“Miss,” I said again. “Is there someone here we can speak with?”
Her eyes darted around the lobby, and she still didn’t respond, apparently stalling. Her head turned and looked down the hallway to her left—our right. I noticed the moon-and-stars tattoo behind her ear. A silent moment later, a man appeared from the hallway she stared down. He came and stood directly before us.
“Rick Spieth. Can I help you?” he asked. The man appeared to be in his forties. At a quick glance, he looked to be an inch or two taller than me—putting him around six foot four. The width of his shoulders said he either frequented the gym or was hired muscle. A thick gold watch wrapped one wrist, a gold bracelet the other. He wore a black suit with a white dress shirt and red tie that matched the room’s walls. His shoes held a high polish, and his black hair was slicked back on his square head. A bit of stubble covered his cheeks and chin.
The hostess disappeared quickly down the hallway to our left.
“Agents Rawlings, Harper and Clifford, FBI. We need to ask a few questions,” I said.
“I assure you we operate a completely legal business here.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“I’m sure you do,” Beth said. “Not the reason for our visit.”
“What can I assist you with, then? Looking for a massage?” he asked.
“I think we’ll take a rain check on that,” I said. “We have some questions about a few women that used to work here.”
“Well, I guess I’ll help y
ou if I can. I can’t say I remember every employee we’ve ever had, though. I’m not known to have the best memory.” The corner of his mouth turned into a bit of a smirk.
“Sure,” I said. “How about we just see what you remember, shall we?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said.
I motioned him over to the right-side lobby bench, and he took a seat. I handed the guy the driver’s-license photo of the girl Detective Hardy had identified as Megan Poe. He looked at the photo briefly and handed it back to me.
“Nope, she isn’t ringing a bell. Can I ask what this is about?”
“We’ll get to that in a second,” Tom said, standing to my right.
I handed the guy the driver’s license photo of the platinum-blond-wig-wearing woman, Candice Schwarz.
He held it in his hand longer than the photo of the first woman. He looked up at me. “What do you want with her?” he asked. “Are you guys going to tell me what this is about, or what?”
“You recognize the woman?” Beth asked.
“I’d recognize her more if you told me what this was about,” he said.
“She’s dead,” I said.
“Dead?” he asked. “How?”
“Murder,” Tom said.
Spieth let out a breath and leaned back on the bench. “Let me see the other photos you have there.”
I handed them over but kept the photo of the deceased woman I took at the Medical Science building in my hand.
He looked from one photo to the next. Then he scratched the back of his head and handed the photos back to me. “All dead?” he asked.
“Correct,” I said.
“They haven’t worked here in a while. Six months or more. They were fired.”
I figured the they were fired bit was him covering the parlor’s ass to avoid claiming they had prostitutes working there. “Which of these girls was fired?” I asked.
He handed me the photos of Candice Schwarz and Rachael Mendez. “I don’t know the others,” he said.
I wanted to see if the guy could identify the photo of the deceased blond I took. While I didn’t like showing people photos of dead bodies if I could help it, the guy seemed somewhat helpful, and I had a feeling he could ID her.
“It was Rick, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I have another photo here. The woman is deceased in the photo, meaning it’s actually of a dead body, but it’s taken just of her face. We don’t have an ID on her. Would you be willing to look?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if I want to do that,” he said.
I thought for a moment and looked at the photo. “What if I describe her?” I asked.
He shook his head and shrugged. “Sure,” he said.
“blond, tattoo behind her ear, found wearing a hot-pink skirt, fishnet top over a white shirt.” I paused for a second, looking for another detail. “Straight cut bangs.”
He ripped the photo from my hand and stared at it.
“Shit,” he said. He was quiet for a moment. “Roxy!” he yelled.
I looked around and then looked at Beth and Tom. Beth shrugged. I didn’t know if he was yelling the name of the girl or waiting on someone to come from the back. He yelled the name again.
A woman came from around the plum-blossom panel screen from the left-side hallway. She was a tall blond wearing a white lace sundress. Her hair was tied in a ponytail hanging over her right shoulder. She made eye contact with Spieth. He waved the woman over, rubbed his eyes, and passed her the photo.
Her hands trembled as she stared at it. She said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sound of a ringing cell phone filled the living room—the third time in the last half hour that the ringing phone had interrupted Richard’s television show.
Richard leaned forward and grabbed the cell phone from the old dented-up wooden coffee table. He jammed it into his sleeping brother’s stomach.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mark asked.
“Your cell phone keeps ringing,” Richard said. “Someone called like three or four times.”
“How long have I been out?”
Richard shrugged. “I don’t know… an hour or two.”
“What the hell, Richie! Why did you let me fall asleep?”
“I didn’t know it was my job to make sure you didn’t.”
Mark grumbled a response and looked at his phone. “Shit. It’s the station that’s been calling. Mute the television.”
“Go outside or something. I’m in the middle of my show.”
Mark flashed Richard a stern look.
“Fine,” Richard said as he muted the TV. “Just hurry up. The good part is coming.”
Mark clicked a few buttons on his phone and placed it to his ear. “Hey, it’s Chief Deputy Whissell calling back. What’s going on?”
Richard tuned him out as he talked with whoever he was talking to.
His brother clicked off from the call.
Richard immediately turned the volume on the television back up.
Mark lifted himself from the couch at his brother’s side. “I have to get back to the station. The damn sheriff wants to meet with me. Richie, I don’t know what exactly is going on with these feds, but until I know they are gone, I want you to stay put here. No going out, no more picking up whores, no more anything until they are gone. Even then, I need you to take a break.”
“Huh?” Richard said. He stared at the television, paying not much attention to his brother.
“I said I need you to stop what you are doing until I say differently.”
“I need to eat,” Richard said. He thumbed the volume on the TV a few notches higher.
“Dammit, Richie!” Mark yanked the remote control from his hand and turned the television off.
“Hey!” Richard said.
“I’m serious. Don’t leave the damn house!”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.”
Mark crouched to eye level with Richard sitting on the couch, stuck a finger in his face, and spoke in an authoritative voice. “You are not to leave.”
“Can I have the remote back?” Richard asked.
Mark stared down at him. “Where are the keys for the truck?”
“Come on,” Richard said. “I won’t leave.”
“Nope.” Mark shook his head. “You’ve got that look of defiance on your face. I’ve seen that same look a million times. You have food in the fridge and no reason to go out, but somehow I know you will anyway. I’m not risking you being stupid. Cough up the keys.”
Richard said nothing.
“Keys! Now! I don’t have time for this shit!” Mark dug his palms into his eyes.
Richard reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out his car keys, and tossed them onto the coffee table—he had another set in the kitchen drawer beside the silverware.
“Where are the spares?” his brother asked.
“Whatever,” Richard said.
“Where is the spare set?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Bullshit. I’m not that stupid.”
Richard rolled his head to the side. “Fine. They’re next to the silverware in the drawer by the sink.”
Mark scooped the keys from the coffee table and jammed them into his pocket. Then he disappeared from the living room. Richard could hear his brother opening the drawer in the kitchen and taking the spare keys.
Mark returned to Richard. “I’ll stop by tonight or tomorrow to check in on you. Clean this place up.”
“Mmm hmm,” Richard said.
Mark left the living room. Richard heard the screen door open and then bang shut in the kitchen. He stood and went to the back bedroom, fished through his sock drawer, and pulled out another spare key for the truck. He went back to the living room to look out the window and watch his brother leave. Mark got into his sheriff’s SUV and pulled out.
Richard walked to the basement door, opened it, and went down. He grabbe
d his mother and carried her back upstairs.
“Did Mark just leave?”
“Yeah,” Richard said.
“What did he want?” he heard his mother ask.
“He came to boss me around like usual. One of these days, he’s going to get it.” Richard set her on the couch and spread the window blinds with his fingers to make sure Mark was gone. “I’m going to gut him.”
“You don’t talk like that about your brother. He knows what’s best.”
“He doesn’t know shit,” Richard said. “Come into my house and order me around… I’ll show him.” He looked at the truck key in his hand and smiled.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We watched the range of emotions take over the woman, spending the better part of fifteen minutes watching her quietly as she cried. Neither Beth, Tom, nor I had yet to hear who the woman in the photo was. That question needed to be asked. Even though the woman was grieving in front of us, we needed to know who the woman in the photo was, what her relationship was to the crying girl called Roxy, and what information Roxy could provide us.
I cleared my throat. “Miss, what was your relation with this woman?” I asked.
Roxy choked away tears. Her bottom lip quivered. “She was my little sister.”
“Biological?” Beth asked.
Roxy nodded.
“What was her name?” Tom asked.
“Annie. Annie Darden.”
I pulled my notepad from my pocket and wrote the name down. “Did she work with you here?”
Roxy sniffed and shook her head. “I haven’t seen her in a few months. What… What happened?”
I couldn’t come up with the right words to tell her that her sister had been stabbed countless times, had her throat cut, and been dismembered, so I said nothing. Beth took the other photos of the woman and went to Roxy’s side. She said a few words quietly to Roxy and walked the girl to the far side of the lobby, where the two sat. Tom and I looked on as Beth seemed to be both equally consoling the woman as well as questioning her.
I looked at Mr. Spieth, still sitting on the bench. “Can you tell us anything about this Annie Darden?”
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