I glance over at Lauren. Her head is tilted and her eyes are scanning his face, trying to find a lie in his expression. I turn back to Timothy Wood and open up a manila folder. I take out the surveillance photo of him.
“Then explain to me why you were delivering a message from the PVP killer,” I say. “Does your new route to happiness involve being a courier?”
Timothy stares down at the photo. His face goes red.
“That…that’s what this is about?” he asks. “I had no idea that…the PVP killer was…I just received a note that told me to deliver it…I didn’t know…”
“So, you receive a note to do something and you just do it,” I say. “No questions asked? Should I ask you to do my dry cleaning?”
“I…” He closes his eyes. “I want my lawyer.”
“You call a lawyer now, the full force of the police will make sure you get put in prison for killing five people,” I say. “In my line of work, you see someone asking for a lawyer, that’s as good as admitting you’re guilty.”
“I’m not guilty!” he says. “I was…Jesus H. Christ, I was blackmailed, okay? The note said that if I didn’t deliver the package, some….some private information would be disclosed to the public about me.”
“What private information?” I ask. Timothy’s face burns.
“It can’t be worse than multiple homicide, Timothy,” Lauren says. He mumbles something.
“Speak louder, Timothy,” I say.
“He had photographs of me with a prostitute,” he mutters.
“A prostitute?” I ask. “That’s worth delivering an envelope that you have no idea what’s in it?”
He looks up at me with pathetic desperation. “She looked like she was sixteen.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Sixteen is the legal age of consent in Michigan. God, give me the grace to not smack this man.
“Where did you get the note and package?” Lauren asks.
“At the Greyhound station on Howard Street,” he says.
“They have surveillance,” Lauren says.
“Like you said, the killer is smart,” I say. “He would have chosen a time when the place was swarming with people.”
“Do you still have the note?” Lauren asks Timothy. He shakes his head. I let my head drop.
“He told me he would be watching me and when I finished delivering the package, I should leave the note where I found it.”
“Which either means the killer took the note or a janitor has taken care of it,” I say. “I hate this guy.”
“We can still get the surveillance footage and see if there is anything on it,” Lauren says. I slam my hand against the table. Lauren and Timothy flinch.
“What is the point?” I snap. “If he made damn certain that Mr. Wood didn’t know who he was, he knew we would track down Mr. Wood, so he’s not going to happen to walk in front of a surveillance camera with his face showing.”
“We could ask people who were there if they saw somebody—”
“Saw somebody put a piece of paper and package down?” I ask. “Because hundreds of people don’t do that at a bus station?”
“I don’t think anybody would have seen the killer put it down,” Timothy says. “It was tucked in between two chairs. Anybody could have pulled it out without being seen.”
“Great,” I say. “That’s fantastic. Good job, Timothy, you helped out a serial killer for the sake of making sure the public didn’t know you were a pervert.”
“I think you need to take a break, Tobias,” she says. She opens the door. I snap the folder shut. I take it with me as I walk out. Lauren follows me to my desk.
“You need to calm down,” she says. “Nobody will ever tell us anything if you’re freaking out.”
“I have been on this case for over a month,” I tell her. “The killer is taunting us now and I can’t waste time on his games.”
“Maybe it’s not a waste,” she says.
“You heard him. He doesn’t know anything.”
“Maybe it’s not about what he knows,” she says. “It’s about what the killer knows. How did the killer know that Wood was with an underage prostitute?”
I suck in a breath. “He had to know the prostitute or Wood.”
“Exactly,” she says. She gestures toward the interrogation room. “Should we question our current lead in order to figure out who our new lead is?”
I let out a breath. Lauren rests her hand on top of mine.
“This is the break that you’ve been waiting for,” she says.
“We’ve been waiting for,” I correct. Her smile is enough to make me forget to breathe again.
~~~~~
Lauren
THE PROSTITUTE, NOW sixteen years old, hangs out around Greektown Casino. She goes by the name Jasmine. She’s 5’3”, has bleached blonde hair and deep ocean-blue eyes. She’s wearing jean shorts and a tank top that is two sizes too small. I have no idea how Timothy could have thought she was sixteen years old when it doesn’t look like she has hit puberty, but we looked into all of Timothy’s associates and none of them looked like they could be the killer’s, so she’s our only other lead.
“You must be Jasmine,” I say. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye as I approach her, every muscle in her legs tensing as she prepares to run. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to bust you for anything. I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?” she asks, thrusting her chin up in defiance. I show her a photograph of Timothy Wood.
“This used to be one of your johns. Do you know anyone who knew about the two of you?” I ask. She smirks.
“Lady, do you think I go advertising who pays for me?” she asks.
“Well, Timothy said he didn’t tell anyone about the two of you either, but someone found out,” I say. “So, one of you had to have told someone or someone must have seen the two of you.”
She purses her lips together and takes another look at the photo.
“That’s the real smart guy, right?” she asks. I nod.
“Yeah, he and I used to do the deed in his car in front of his apartment,” she says.
“Where does he live again?” I ask. “Southwest Detroit, right?”
“West Outer Drive,” she says. “It’s the red brick building that’s slanted.”
I jot down the information. “Thank you, Jasmine.”
“No probs,” she says. “Can I ask what you’re investigating?”
“Murder,” I say. “So I advise that you stay away from that area.”
“If I avoided every area that had a murder, I would have nowhere to work,” she says.
“Well, this is a serial killer,” I say. I take out my wallet and pull out a few twenty-dollar bills. “Find yourself a place to stay tonight…and if I find out that you used that money for drugs, I will arrest you and give you the longest sentence possible.”
She takes the money, her bottom lip sticking out. “Thanks…that’s really nice of you.”
“Avoid being alone at night,” I say.
She smirks again. “Funny. I’m never alone at night. I’m only alone in the morning.”
“Maybe that can change,” I say. She shrugs and walks away from me. I got back to Tobias’ Taurus. I get into the passenger side and he starts the car.
“I don’t understand why I couldn’t be out there,” he says.
“You’re a man,” I say. “Why would she trust you when she has only ever been used by men?”
“She doesn’t need to trust me, she just needs to tell me the truth,” he says. “What did you find out?”
“Well, Jasmine says that she and Timothy used to have sex outside of his apartment in his car—”
“Gross.”
“—so I’m thinking maybe a neighbor noticed someone taking photographs, or it could have been a neighbor that took the photographs.”
“Or the prostitute could be lying,” Tobias says. He flips on his turn signal as he stops at an intersection.
&
nbsp; “I don’t think so.”
“Because of your faith in humanity?” he asks.
“No, because I’m one of the few people who treated her like a person instead of a commodity,” I say. He nods.
“You’re a good person,” he says. I glance over at him.
“And what are you?”
He shrugs. “Considerably less than a good person.”
~~~~~
Tomorrow, Tobias and I will canvass the neighborhood where Timothy Wood lives. As I step out of the police station, a woman with crimson hair and a pencil skirt that displays her long, lean legs stands on the stairs. Tobias’ body tenses, but the woman is calm as she walks up to him.
“Anna,” Tobias says. My eyes widen and I take a small step back.
“Tobias,” she says. “Since you refused to see me, I thought I’d stop by.”
“Your thoughts never lead you in the right direction,” he says. “So I would suggest that you stop doing everything that you think about.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “My thoughts led to you.”
“Then apparently at some point you stopped thinking of me,” he snaps. “When was that? Was it as soon as we moved in together? Or when I was promoted to detective? When did you decide that I didn’t matter?”
“I never decided anything,” she says. “I was drunk one night and slept with him. Then I…I couldn’t stop. I just kept—”
“You couldn’t stop,” he says. “That’s your best defense? You just felt forced to keep sleeping with him? Telling him that you loved him?”
“I was confused,” she says. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted. But now I am. I want you. I want to get back together.”
I can see Tobias’ eyes soften and his body relaxes. Anna takes a step closer to him, cups his face in her hands, and kisses him, so softly that their lips barely touch.
“It could be like how it was before,” she says. She kisses him again and he closes his eyes, as if he were remembering a time when things were simpler. Her eyes flicker over to me as she kisses the side of his neck. Her look is clear—she sees me as an enemy and intruder. I turn away. I can still hear her whisper, “I could make you forget every little stress. Just give me an hour. Or two.”
Tobias opens his eyes and for the briefest moment he glances over at me. His gaze returns to Anna. He puts his hands on her shoulders and gently pushes her back.
“I understand,” he says. She smiles. “I didn’t know what I wanted before too. I thought what I wanted was you, but I was wrong. We were always wrong for each other, Anna. I may still be angry about it, but the truth is that the fact you confessed to me that night is the best thing that could have happened.”
Her whole face crumples. “No, Tobias, come on. We deserve a second chance. You can’t just…I love you. You can’t do this. I love you so much, and I will never act like I did before. I promise.”
Tobias takes her hand and squeezes it.
“You should go home,” he says. “Be safe.”
He releases her hand and turns to face me. Anna’s lower lip is trembling, but she seems to be trying to keep it together. Our eyes catch and her cheeks turn pink.
“Are you ready?” he asks. I nod. We begin to walk toward my apartment. I want to say something about what just happened, but I honestly don’t feel like it involves me. It’s a closed chapter in his life and now he’s beginning a new one.
“I hope you can deal with all of his baggage!” Anna screams to me, her voice breaking on the word baggage. I try to ignore the implication in her statement because I know Tobias has made peace with how she betrayed him. Still, I can feel that he is still weighed down by something that I don’t know about. I know that some chapters don’t simply end—they bleed into all of the other chapters until every page in your life is stained.
~~~~~
I knock on the door directly across from Timothy Wood’s apartment. It’s one of the few houses on the block, though, like the others, it is Victorian-style. Tobias and I have already questioned Timothy’s apartment neighbors, the occupants of another apartment beside it, and the store owner of a shoe shop on its other side. Tobias cracks his knuckles.
“I don’t know how honest that shoe store owner was being,” he says. “I don’t trust him.”
“Do you trust anybody?” I ask.
“My mother,” he says.
“You’re just a psychologist’s gold mine, aren’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah, I except I turn into a land mine if they get too close,” he says. I take a tiny step away from him as the door swings open. A man in his twenties glances at the two of us, his light brown hair in disarray as if he just woke up.
“We don’t want whatever you’re selling and we don’t need religion,” he says.
“We’re cops,” Tobias says, showing the man his badge. “I’m Detective Rodriguez, this is Detective Williams. Can I ask what your name is?”
“George,” he says. “George Kellerman.”
“Do you live here?”
“Uh, not exactly,” George says. “My mom does. I moved in a few weeks ago because she has lung cancer and needs some help around the house. Hopefully, she’ll get better soon and I can move back into my old apartment.”
“Is your mother here?” Tobias asks.
“Yeah, um, come in,” he says. Tobias and I follow him inside. The house seems to be past its prime, with pale blue wallpaper peeling around the edges and the white tile floors tinted yellow. George leads us to the kitchen, where a bald elderly woman sits in a wheelchair at a table. As she turns, I see that she has a compressed-oxygen mask covering her mouth. She eyes us suspiciously as we walk in. George sits across from her.
“Hello,” Tobias says. “Are you Mrs. Kellerman?”
The woman lowers her oxygen mask.
“It’s Mary Kellerman, not that it’s any of your business” she says. “You’re the one in my house. You should be telling me who you are.”
Tobias and I exchange a look. We’ve interviewed about a dozen people, and an old lady will be the most volatile one.
“You have a neighbor named Timothy Wood,” Tobias says. He sets a photo of Timothy in front of her. She stares at it. “Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
“This man lives across the street,” she says.
“Yes, he does,” Tobias says. “What do you know about him?”
“He is a dirty man,” she says. She puts the oxygen mask back on and fiddles with the tank. She breathes deeply for a few seconds before sliding down the mask again. “He commits unforgivable sins in his car.”
“Yes, that,” Tobias says. “Have you ever seen anyone taking photographs of him doing these things in his car?”
Mary points a finger at Tobias. “You’re a pervert.”
“No, no, ma’am,” Tobias says as she slides the mask up her face. “This man was blackmailed and we need to figure out who was blackmailing him.”
She waves a hand at him impatiently. She slides the mask back down. “Nasty boy. All you kids are perverts these days.”
He looks up at me.
“I don’t think this is working out too well,” he says. “Should we try the next apartment building?”
I nod. “It seems like Timothy was keeping himself busy in his car, though. I’m sure a lot of people passed by and saw them. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people took photos and video too.”
Mary glares at me and I can feel her condemnation weigh down on me.
“Thank you for your time, Mary,” I say.
“I’ll walk you out,” George says. Tobias, George, and I leave the kitchen.
“So, you guys think someone was blackmailing that guy?” George asks as we reach the door.
“Yeah,” I say. “Did you notice something?”
He flushes. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything in front of my mother…I’m not into that whole voyeurism thing, but I’ve seen quite a few people around here who walk by his car to see if they can get
a peek. There’s not much to keep people occupied around here.”
“Have you seen anyone taking photos?” Tobias asks. George’s face turns a deeper red.
“Actually…yes. I mean, I’m sure others have taken photos with their cellphones, but this guy had an expensive kind of camera,” George says. “It was really bizarre because…he was taking them like a professional. I thought the guy”—he gestures to Timothy’s picture—”hired him for kicks. But I guess if you’re asking about it…it wasn’t for fun.”
“No, no, it wasn’t,” Tobias says. “Could you describe him to a sketch artist?”
George nods. “Oh, sure. I just need to make sure my mom is comfortable before I go.”
George walks into the kitchen as Tobias sighs.
“Thank God,” he says. “This means we don’t have to canvass the whole neighborhood.”
I shake my head. “Even if he gives a detailed sketch, we’ll have to canvass the whole neighborhood again to figure out who the man is.”
He claps his hand against my shoulder. “Don’t ruin my moment. We can send a patrol officer to do that.”
His hand slides down my back. It’s lucky that he’s already heading toward the door because I wouldn’t want him to see the shiver it sends through my whole body.
~~~~~
Tobias
“SO, THE SKETCH was sent to the news stations?” Ray Stewart, my captain, asks. George’s description was quite detailed—dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and thin lips—and the sketch artist was able to make a drawing that was a match to the man that George saw.
“Yep,” Lauren says, sitting down at the restaurant table. Stewart and I sit down on either side of her. “So, hopefully, someone will call the tip line to tell us who are mysterious voyeur is.”
“Do you think the voyeur is the killer?” he asks.
“It’s possible,” I say. “The killer is very careful about not getting caught, but I’m sure he didn’t think one of the neighbors in the area would notice him taking photos of Timothy Wood.”
“What if it’s not him?” Stewart asks.
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 4