“Then, we question the voyeur and figure out why he blackmailed Timothy and who gave him the package,” Lauren says.
“Well, Williams, you are quite the go-getter,” Stewart says. “You might be just what Rodriguez needed.”
“Tobias is pretty persistent too,” she says.
“Mmm…not so much. Not since the Delray massacre,” Stewart says. I glare at him, but as always, he’s oblivious to my rising anger.
“The Delray massacre?” Lauren asks, glancing over at me. I keep my clenched fists under the table and stare down at my silverware. A waitress walks up to us.
“What would you guys like to drink?” she asks. Lauren orders water while Stewart and I get beer.
“I forgot that you haven’t been in Detroit for too long, Lauren,” Stewart says. For the first time, he glances over at me. “I can’t believe that Rodriguez wouldn’t tell you about the massacre though. It was huge around here.”
“What happened?” she asks. I keep my jaw clenched as I stare at Oriental decorations on the wall. Stewart grimaces.
“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you,” he says. “It’s…it was a terrible thing. It’s the kind of thing that makes you a firm believer that humans are inherently evil.”
I see Lauren glance down at her phone. I’m sure that she’s itching to look up the massacre on it.
“Were you there?” Lauren asks me. I try to remember how to breathe.
“Yeah,” I say. The waitress returns with our drinks. After she leaves, I take a sip of my beer. “It happens in this line of work. When you get the badge, you should always have some kind of expectation that you’ll get hurt.”
“Were you hurt?” she asks. I shrug.
“I had a bullet in my pelvis,” I say. “It wasn’t too bad.”
I sip more of my beer and she seems to get the idea that she needs to back off. We eat our Thai food in awkward silences and random comments about the case. Stewart leaves early when he gets a call from Officer Peak about a robbery case. Lauren and I poke at the remains of our food.
“Are we going to talk about the massacre?” she asks.
“No,” I say. She nods and bows her head over her food. She was so vulnerable when she told me about her parents’ deaths, and I can’t even show her the same vulnerability. The waitress stops by with the check and two mints. I take it.
“How much was my meal?” Lauren asks.
“I got it,” I say, pulling out my wallet.
“Come on, we’re partners,” she says. “I can pay for my meal.”
I shake my head and put two twenty-dollar bills on the check. “You can pretend that this is your welcoming meal.”
She puts her straw between her lips and I watch the liquid flow up to her mouth. “Next time, you can just try to be a nicer person.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because you will be my last partner,” I say.
“Because…you’re quitting?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “Because we’re going to stick together and nothing is going to happen to you.”
She watches me as I stand up.
“You just jinxed us,” she says, echoing my own words.
~~~~~
“He looks like Bono,” Lauren says when the sketch of the man who was seen taking professional, pornographic photos of Timothy and Jasmine flickers onto the TV screen.
“Really? He looks like a grungy Brad Pitt to me,” I say.
“Have there been any calls?” she asks. I turn my chair.
“Hey! Richmond!” I call out to one of the patrol officers. “You’ve been helping to man the phones. What have you gotten so far?”
“I have…a lady who thinks her cat needs to be exorcised. A woman who thinks that her—and I quote—stinkin’, cheatin’, no good husband is the man in the sketch except her husband has been in prison for the last six years for dealing drugs. I also have a man who confessed to being the man in the sketch and when I asked him what he was confessing to, he said that he robbed four banks. There are a few police officers checking out that one right now. And then I had three different people tell me that the man was Bono.”
“Told you so,” Lauren says.
I turn back to her. “Why do phone tip lines never work?”
“Because it’s a bit like saying Hey, have you seen this average height, average weight, average looking person before? And everyone wants to feel like they are contributing,” she says. “Besides, possessed cats are a problem.”
I sigh. “So, we’re back to not having any leads?”
“Other than Bono? No.”
The phone rings beside Richmond. He picks it up. I rub my temple.
“Oh, God, if that’s another senile geriatric, I’m going to tear out the phone lines,” I groan.
“Marcus O’Dell? Why do you think it’s him?” Richmond says into the phone. “Mm-hm. Okay. Okay. Yep. We will check it out. Thank you.”
He hangs up. Lauren pulls up Marcus O’Dell’s criminal record. It isn’t an exact match to the sketch—the nose is a bit bigger and the cheeks are wider—but it’s close enough to check out.
“He recently got out of prison for bribery and extortion. He was also accused of selling child pornography,” she says.
“He’s a professional photographer,” Richmond says, reading from his own computer screen. “For a company called Dalliance, which is a pornographic website which features young women. That’s why he was accused of child pornography. There were a few underage women on his website.”
“It doesn’t fit the profile of the killer, though,” Lauren says.
“But it could be someone the killer hired…or blackmailed,” I say. “Should we go see Mr. O’Dell?”
“Absolutely,” she says. She picks up her badge. As we walk out, she grins at me. “I would have preferred it was Bono.”
“Next time,” I say. “I promise.”
~~~~~
Marcus O’Dell looks ten times bigger than his driver’s license makes him appear. His dark hair flecked with gray doesn’t make him seem old. It only makes him look like an alpha wolf, which is amplified by the fact that his teeth are bared when Lauren and I step into his photography studio.
“Ladies!” he yells out. “I need sensual, not constipated. Try to look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Two naked women are stroking each others’ thighs in front of his camera. Their smiles are forced and they glare at Marcus every time he glances away from them. The camera flashes as Lauren and I approach him.
“Mr. O’Dell?” I ask.
“You can wait,” he says, waving his hand to dismiss us. I scowl.
“Mr. O’Dell, I am a detective at the Detroit police department,” I say. “And any amount of time I wait for you will be time that I’m thinking about what I can charge you with.”
He looks over his shoulder. He focuses on Lauren.
“Now, she can’t be with the police,” he says to me. To her: “But you could be in this photo. Let me tell you, two women are good for business. Three women are good for pleasure.”
I take his camera off the tripod. He eyes me warily.
“What are you doing?” he asks. I toss the camera from my right hand to my left hand. He jerks forward, panic in his eyes.
“What does this camera cost?” I ask. “Ten? Twenty dollars?”
“Nearly two thousand,” he says, trying to snatch the camera from me. I take a step back and throw it higher up in the air.
“Really? That much to take nude photographs?” I ask. “Let me tell you…the men that look at your photographs aren’t looking for high-definition. They just want the general idea.”
I step out of reach again as he lurches forward to grab the camera. I turn toward the naked women.
“You two should grab a blanket or something. This is going to take awhile,” I say. The women nod and scurry for their clothes. Marcus grabs the camera, but I don’t let go of it.
&n
bsp; “What do you want?” he demands.
“Do you know Timothy Wood?” I ask.
“No. Why?” he asks. “Is he a jealous boyfriend? Angry dad? These girls give me their consent, so I did nothing wrong. You can tell him to go fuck himself.”
“Well, do you remember taking a photo of a man and an underage prostitute?” I ask. He shakes his head.
“What? No. My business is legitimate. I don’t deal with prostitutes,” he says. I let go of his camera and he cradles it in his hands.
Lauren pulls out a photograph of Timothy Wood. She shows it to Marcus.
“Have you seen him before?” she asks. He shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “I haven’t. He looks like something I would wipe off my shoe.”
“Well, we have someone who saw a guy that looks like you taking photographs of this guy with a young prostitute in his car,” I say. “Are you sure you don’t remember?”
“Where did I supposedly take these photos?” he asks.
“Near the corner of Seminole Street and Norfolk Road,” Lauren says.
“That’s interesting,” O’Dell says. “Did you know I was arrested for extortion?”
“Yes, I’m aware,” I say. “We didn’t come here on a whim. We read your criminal record.”
“Well, you missed the part where it says I have to wear an ankle monitor,” he says, raising his pants leg. The ankle monitor—usually bulky on most criminals—looks minuscule on the giant. “I can only go to my studio and to my house. That corner is about five blocks away from either place. I’ve been wearing this monitor for over a month.”
I turn to Lauren. “What is going on with this case? It’s like every time we take a step forward, we’re actually taking two steps back.”
“The sketch wasn’t an exact match to O’Dell,” she says. “It must be someone else.”
“We don’t even know if this sketch will lead to the killer,” I say. “It could be some random pervert.”
“I vote on the random pervert,” Marcus says. “You would be amazed at how many of those there are.”
“I know,” I say, glancing at him. “I’m looking at one.”
Marcus points his camera toward the two women.
“Let’s get stripping, ladies!” he shouts. I turn to Lauren.
“We should go back to our apartments,” I say. “Give our brains a break. Hope for a breakthrough. Maybe have a breakdown. Do anything that doesn’t involve being here.”
She nods. We leave the studio and get into my Taurus. As we drive away, the sunset smudges orange and red along the horizon. It makes me want to keep driving until I reach the vivid colors, but I know I never could. I glance over at Lauren and I feel a flame inside of me that burns brighter than anything I could see. This is good enough.
~~~~~
Lauren
ON SUNDAY, I wake up to my cellphone vibrating. My hand has to wander across my bed stand until I accidentally knock the phone onto the floor. I yank my covers off and set my feet on the carpet. I pick up my cellphone. It’s Tobias. It also happens to be 6:44 a.m.
“Hello?” I mumble.
“Turn on your TV. A news channel.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Turn. On. Your. TV.”
I shuffle into my living room, rubbing my eyes. I find the TV control in between the cushions of my loveseat and I click the Power button. The TV flickers on and I scroll down to Channel 10 News. A man in a black suit and a puke-brown tie stands in a playground.
“This is where young Tiffany Fletcher found the white balloon that had gotten stuck underneath this slide. When she grabbed the balloon, she was shocked to find that a skull and crossbones was drawn on it. She ran to her mother, Amy Fletcher, who took the balloon and found a note attached to its string. One side of the note states To: Detroit Police, 10th Precinct. The other side says Play my game. You have three lives—two of them are not your own. For the first level, place $10,000 in a black suitcase with a Master lock on it on a plane to New York City. Do it tonight using the flight that leaves at 11:15 p.m. at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. If you fail to do this, you will lose a life.” The newscaster faces the camera with a somber face. “It is currently unknown how the Detroit police intend to react or if the person who left this threat is a danger to the whole city.”
“Lauren?”
I realize the phone is still lingering near my ear.
“You think this is the PVP killer?” I ask.
“They showed the balloon earlier,” he says. “It’s definitely the same drawing as on the balloon that was tied to Aubrey Morrison’s wrist. Some patrol officers are going down there now to start looking for evidence.”
“It could be a copycat…”
“We never showed the balloon to the public,” he says. “It’s him.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Catch this son of a bitch.”
“No, I mean…are we going to give him the money?” I ask.
“Lauren, you’ve been in the station. Does it look like we have $10,000 hanging around?”
“We have to do something,” I say.
“We will,” he says. “We’ll fill a suitcase with newspaper, send it on its way, and tell the NYC people to stake out the baggage claim there.”
“What do we do?” I ask.
“Wait until the New York City cops return with our killer,” he says. “Maybe gather some evidence while we wait to make sure that we have this guy by the balls.”
“Charming,” I say. I hear paper crinkle on the other side of the phone.
“Unless you want to stay home on your Sunday,” he says. “I can take care of everything here.”
I groan. “I’m coming. Don’t be an ass.”
“It’s how I was born,” he says. “I can’t help it.”
I hear a click as he hangs up. I throw my phone onto the coach. Sunday may be a blessed day after all.
~~~~~
I yawn as Tobias and I wait for the New York City police to call. The flight landed at 1:15 a.m. our time and it’s 1:20 a.m. now.
“What do you think the New York police are like?” I ask.
“Probably pretentious assholes,” Tobias says, circling anything important in the autopsies of the killer’s victims.
“So, you’d fit right in,” I tease. He pretends to glare at me. I glare back. The phone rings. We both reach to grab it, but I have quicker reflexes. His hand ends up lying over my hand on the telephone, but he quickly withdraws it. I pick up the phone.
“Detroit police, 10th precinct,” I answer.
“Yeah,” a gruff voice says. “The suitcase isn’t here.”
My face must betray my confusion because Tobias takes the phone from me.
“Hello?” he asks. His eyes shift back and forth as he listens. “That’s impossible. Our people had it checked at the airport. Were you there the whole time? Are you sure nobody took it?…No, I’m not questioning your team’s capabilities, I just don’t see how the killer could have taken the suitcase…look, can you just check the airport’s surveillance cameras? We need this guy caught…Yes…okay, tha—”
His nostrils flare and he slams down the phone.
“He hung up on me. Who does that?” he snaps.
“You do,” I say. “This morning. To me.”
He slams his fists down on the desk as he stands up.
“Maybe he works at the Detroit airport somehow,” I say. Tobias shakes his head.
“There’s no way,” he says. “Airport jobs are too unpredictable and he always kills at night or early in the morning. He has a menial job like the rest of us.”
“I’m sure some airport jobs have normal schedules.”
He picks up the phone again, his finger hovering over the buttons. He takes a deep breath and looks over at me.
“Could you look up Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s number please?”
I take out my phone and search for the number on the Internet.
; “If I had known that missing the chance to get a serial killer would make you polite, I would have—”
“Lauren.” He looks over at me, his knuckles white from gripping the phone.
“Sorry,” I say. “I joke when I’m stressed.”
I squeeze his hand that rests on his desk. I’m surprised, and happy, that he doesn’t pull his hand away.
~~~~~
Captain Ray Stewart tells everyone to be vigilant and not go anywhere that isn’t necessary. The killer threatened to take a life if his “level” wasn’t completed, and as soon as he sees that the suitcase doesn’t have any money, he will be pissed. We all know something is going to happen that we can’t control. This is making everyone a mixture of cranky and crazy, evident by the fact that I’ve watched Tobias pull out his hair, strand by strand. It’s made even worse when I arrive at the station and find the entrance swamped with cameras and newscasters with Tobias in the middle of it.
“Look, it’s an ongoing investigation,” he says. “We cannot release any new information yet because we are not stupid enough to show our hand.”
“Or maybe you’re not releasing any new information because you’re failing this city!” a newscaster shouts out.
“We thank you for your patience with the Detroit police department,” Tobias says, forcing a smile before walking into the station. The newscasters and cameramen look around, searching for new prey, when they see me. They rush over like a herd of buffalo—except with a lot more noise.
“What can you tell us about the case?” a newscaster in a bright yellow outfit asks as she shoves a camera near my mouth. “What was that threat about? Is it someone dangerous? Should the public take extra precautions?”
“The public should always be cautious,” I say. “But this person’s grudge is with the Detroit police, not the public.”
“If you could say anything to this person, what would it be?” another newscaster asks.
“I would ask him to turn himself in,” I say. I try to push past them, but it’s like wading through sludge.
“How dangerous is this person?”
“Have they already committed crimes?”
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 5