“Hey, I am vicious,” I say, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t you forget that.”
She laughs. The intercom crackles.
“Hello?” a man’s voice asks. I press the button.
“Pizza delivery,” I say.
“It’s 9 a.m. in the morning,” he mumbles. I glance at my watch.
“It’s almost noon,” I say. There’s a pause.
“Oh,” he says. “Sorry. I was taking a nap…But I didn’t order any pizza. You must have the wrong address.”
“I think the name left for the order was Shaila,” I say.
“Shaila?” the man asks. “Oh. That’s my fiancée. Okay. Weird. One minute.”
The door to the apartment unlocks. I open the door and let Lauren walk through. As we walk up the stairway, I search through my pockets.
“What are you looking for?” Lauren asks.
“My lighter,” I say. “Did you hear him? He couldn’t be the killer. His IQ might say he’s a genius, but if he’s letting strangers into his house because they say they have pizza for him, he’s a moron.”
“He has to be connected somehow,” she says. “And you never know…maybe he’s only good at planning things. This is a surprise. He could still be the killer. You don’t need to burn down the apartment.”
We reach the door. Lauren knocks. I keep my hand inside my coat, my fingers gripped around my gun. The man opens the door, a wad of cash in his hand. His forehead wrinkles.
“You’re not the pizza man.”
“Timothy Wood,” I say. “Please put both your hands on the wall so that I can check you for any weapons.”
“What?” he asks. “I already told you guys. I didn’t kill anyone.”
I grab him and shove him against the wall. I pat down his body. Lauren walks in and closes the door behind her. I spin Timothy back around.
“Timothy, your fiancée bought a wedding dress within the last month. Can you—”
“Whoa, did you guys find it?” Timothy asks, his face brightening. “Thank God, because we didn’t have enough money to buy another one and Shaila’s father was pissed. At least this is one thing that’s going—”
“Timothy,” I interrupt. “What are you talking about? The dress went missing?”
“Yeah,” Timothy says. “It was stolen from inside this apartment. I know I wasn’t supposed to see the dress until our wedding day, but Shaila has five cats in her apartment. Five. With sharp claws.”
I look over at Lauren. “I am going to kill this guy.”
“Wait, what?” Timothy says. “Me? What did I do? I just—”
“Not you, Timothy,” I say. “I’m talking about the PVP killer.”
“The PVP killer? You’re still going on about him?” he asks. “Wasn’t his last kill awhile ago?”
The public doesn’t know that Jasmine’s, Ray’s, or Richardson’s murders were committed by the PVP killer—we don’t want them to panic when they find out that we have let this many murders slip through our fingers and two of them were policemen. I close my eyes.
“Timothy, did you have an engagement ring missing as well?” I ask.
“Uh, no,” he says. “That would be harder to steal, considering it’s on my fiancée’s finger. Wait. Shaila. Is she okay?”
“I’m sure she is,” Lauren says. “Can you tell us anything more about when your fiancée’s dress was taken?”
“I reported it to the police,” he says. “It happened about a week ago. It was nighttime and I was here when it happened, but I never heard anything. I woke up and it was gone.”
“This guy is quite good at getting in and out of houses,” I tell Lauren. “Is that in a game as well?”
Lauren ignores me. “Timothy, who knew about your engagement?”
“We had an announcement in the newspaper,” he says. “Why would the PVP killer even want a wedding dress?”
“Because he’s delusional,” I say. “Do you remember anything else from that night?”
“…There was something that I thought was weird, but nobody else did,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“Well, he smashed one of my photographs that was framed and on the table,” he says. “Shaila and the cop I told about the robbery told me that he likely just bumped into it and the photograph fell, but the dress and the table were on opposite sides of the room.”
“Can you show me where it was?” I ask. He leads me to the living room. The apartment is nicely furnished with vintage furniture and decorations. The table he is talking about is made of oak and there are rows of framed photos on the table. He picks up one that has a frame but no glass. I look at it. It has Timothy with his arm wrapped around an older woman.
“That’s my mom,” he says. “We’re really close.”
“I can see that,” I say. I set the photograph back down. I point to the corner diagonally across from the table, where there’s a window and a steel sculpture of a swan. “So, the dress was over here?”
“Yeah,” Timothy says. “So why would the killer walk all the way over to the table and knock over one photo?”
“Delusional,” I repeat. I pretend that I’m the killer. I take the dress from one corner, but why would I walk over to the other corner? I can see the photographs from the corner the dress was in, but why would I smash that photo? “Does that photograph frame have secret compartments or anything?”
Timothy shakes his head. “No. That would be bizarre.”
“Maybe it was just a distraction,” Lauren says. “Maybe he did something else over there and he smashed the picture to draw attention to it.”
I look at the other photographs and around the table. There’s a bunch of baskets under the table, but nothing else is notable.
“This is crazy,” I say. “I don’t understand any of this.”
I walk over to Lauren and bow my head, keeping my voice low.
“How certain are we that he’s not the killer?” I mutter. “Maybe he’s making this whole thing up?”
“And smashing his own photograph?” she whispers. “That seems a bit odd.”
“Maybe he wanted us to think it was a burglary, so he broke something,” I say. She shakes her head.
“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have enough evidence,” she says.
“We could arrest him for something,” I say. “And see if anything happens while he’s in prison.”
“Tobias, we are not framing him for anything,” she says.
“You’re no fun,” I mutter, winking. I turn to face Timothy. “We might have more questions later. Stay in town.”
He nods. “Should I be worried about this PVP killer?”
“Well, he’s contacted you twice and you haven’t died,” I say. “But I would keep your doors locked. Maybe get your fiancée’s five cats over here and use them as tripping devices for any robbers.”
Lauren punches me in the shoulder. I mouth ow.
“Do you guys at least have the wedding dress?” he asks.
“It’s evidence right now,” I say. “But as soon as it’s no longer evidence, we will send it right back to you. Try to keep your future father-in-law happy until then. We’ll see you sooner or later, Mr. Wood.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Wood,” Lauren says.
We walk out of the apartment and I take out my lighter. Lauren snatches it from me.
“Keep your pyromania in check,” she says. I kiss her.
“Maybe I need a new addiction,” I say. She wraps her arm around my waist. This one moment of peace and quiet is more than I could ever ask for.
~~~~~
Tobias
“THERE IS SPECULATION that the murders of Captain of Police Ray Stewart and Officer Lionel Richardson were committed by the serial killer known as the PVP killer,” a newscaster says as he stands in front of the police station. “The Detroit police department refuses to give any answers. The police, who have a long history of being incompetent and letting murderers walk free, are clearly out of their depth, but the
FBI has also been seen strolling in and out of the 10th precinct, so could it be that they can’t even catch this killer?”
“How can they even call this news?” I ask Lauren as we sit on her couch. “They haven’t said anything factual yet.”
“Well…we haven’t caught the killer,” she says. “That’s true.”
“You’re not helping,” I say. She puts her hand on my knee.
“You know what will help?” she asks. “Liquor.”
I laugh. “I’ll go get some.”
“It’s in the pantry,” she says. I get off the coach and walk into her kitchen. As I get the whiskey out of her pantry, I notice a ripped strip of newspaper. I kneel down to pick it up. It’s from the Sunday comics. As I’m kneeled down, I see part of the drywall under the shelf is sticking out, and it’s too precise to be caused by old age. A cold draft grazes against my arm. I try to push the fractured wall back together again, but something solid keeps it from closing. I pull the broken part away from the rest of the wall and put my hand behind the drywall.
“Tobias?” Lauren asks. “Did you find it?”
“Yeah,” I call out. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
My hand wraps around something cold and hard. I pull my hand out from behind the wall to find a semi-automatic pistol.
Looking at it more closely, I can see that it doesn’t have a serial number on it. It’s also a Smith & Wesson double-action. It looks like a .45, which is the kind of gun Geoffrey Black, Aubrey Morrison, and Captain Ray Stewart were shot with.
The obsession with serial killers. Making the connection that the serial killer was posing the murders like video games. She happens to come around two months after the killings begin and she happens to want to become part of the 10th precinct. The serial killer getting into her apartment. The death of the FBI agent right outside of her apartment. The article she wrote supporting the PVP killer. The way she insisted that she had to be part of the investigation of the PVP killer even when I refused to take her as a partner—she was keeping tabs on the investigation.
The fact that she already had a juvie record, in which she tried to murder someone.
I walk out to the living room. Lauren is smiling until I set the gun down on her coffee table.
“What are you doing with this?” I ask. She tucks her hair behind her ears.
“It’s for protection,” she says. “That’s what happens when a small town girl moves to Detroit.”
“It doesn’t have a serial number on it.”
She shrugs. “I got it from my grandfather after he died.”
I stare at her. She tilts her head.
“Why are you questioning me? Why did you even take that gun from the pantry? I have the right to bear arms.”
“I wanted to fix a draft,” I say. “And you have the right to bear arms as long as the gun is registered. Is this registered?”
“Why do you care?” she asks. I get my utility belt and take the handcuffs off it.
“Walk over to the wall and put your hands on it,” I say.
“What?” she blurts. “Are you kidding me? You’re arresting me for owning an unregistered gun?”
“Among other suspicions,” I say. She stands up, glaring at me, and puts her hands on the wall. I pull her arm behind her back and lock her wrist in the cuff. The sound of the cuff locking seems to echo through the apartment.
~~~~~
Lauren
IT’S DIFFERENT BEING in the interrogation room when you’re the one being questioned. Tobias sits across from me with his index finger tapping against his lips. He scratches his jawline.
“Can you tell me where you were the night of October 7th?” he asks.
“October 7th? That was almost a month ago. How am I supposed to know that?” I ask. “What does this have to do with the gun?”
“This isn’t your interrogation,” he says. “I’ll be the one asking the questions.”
“October 7th…” I say. “Isn’t that the day before Jeff Patton died?”
“Well, Jeff Patton was murdered around midnight,” he says. “So, it could be October 7th or October 8th”
“…You think I killed Jeff Patton?” I ask. “Why would I kill him? The PVP killer killed him. His PVP marking was there.”
“I’m sure that the PVP killer did murder him,” he says.
“Then, why are you questioning me?” I ask. “And asking me about October 7th?”
“Remind me why you came to Detroit,” he says, ignoring my questions. “And decided to work for the 10th precinct.”
“I can’t believe you’re interrogating me,” I say.
“Remind me,” he repeats.
“I knew there was a high rate of unsolved murders and I wanted to decrease that rate,” I say. “I thought this was a place serial killers would gravitate toward and I’ve always found serial killers interesting—”
“Right,” he says. “Let’s talk about your fascination with serial killers. Why are you so obsessed?”
“I’m not obsessed!” I say. “I just find them interesting. They are like a different species of human. They are humans without humanity.”
“So, you’re telling me that you aren’t interested in serial killers because you relate to them?” he asks. My breathing goes shallow and my cheeks burn red.
“Of course not,” I say. “Why would you think that?”
“Maybe because you stabbed another girl when you were thirteen,” he says. “And then changed your name.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face.
“How do you even know about that?” I ask. “My juvie record is sealed.”
“The FBI is occasionally useful,” he says, his expression blank.
“Well, you know what my record doesn’t tell you?” I ask. “Motive. Do you want to know why I stabbed that girl?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says.
“It does matter,” I tell him. “The motive always matters. A wife who shoots her husband because she wants his life insurance is a hell of a lot different than a wife who shoots her husband because he has beaten her for the last two decades. That girl was trying to stab me. She was trying to stab me because she thought I was trying to steal her boyfriend. I had my hands around her hands, trying to stop her from plunging the scissors into me, when her hands slipped…there was no longer any resistance against me and the scissors went into her chest. But the girls at the sleepover were more her friends than mine and they sided with her. Why would the police believe me? I wasn’t the injured one. My fingerprints were on the scissors. So, don’t tell me that motive doesn’t matter.”
His expression barely changes except for a slight muscle twitch at the corner of his lip.
“Ballistics is testing your gun right now,” he says. “Is there anything that you want to say to me before they tell me what they found?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I want to tell you that Anna was right to warn me about your emotional baggage. Our relationship is not worth your paranoia. You need help.”
“Well, sticks and stones may break my bones,” he says. “But words can be used to lie. You were hiding an unregistered gun. And people seem to die after they meet you.”
With my hands still in cuffs, I use my arms together to take a swing at him. My knuckles graze against his jaw before I stumble into the table.
“When they come back with ballistics,” I say. “You should just remember that motive matters. And that there is nothing you could say that will make this better.”
There’s a knock on the door. Ballistics.
Tobias opens the door and takes a step out of the room.
~~~~~
Tobias
BENJAMIN, OUR FORENSIC analyst that specializes in ballistics, hands me a piece of paper. “That gun is a match to the bullets that shot Geoffrey Black, Aubrey Morrison, and Captain Ray Stewart.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“All firearms leave marks on bullets that are like fingerprints,” he says.
“It couldn’t have come from any other gun.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe it.”
He hands me the evidence bag with the Smith & Wesson in it. I flip it in my hands.
“This is crazy,” Benjamin says. “One of our own…”
“I can’t believe it,” I repeat. “Could the gun have been planted?”
He shrugs. “Any evidence could be planted…but the gun was hidden. How would anyone else know where the gun was hidden?”
I nod. I open up the door to the interrogation room. Lauren sits up straight. I put the gun down on the table.
“Explain,” I say.
“I can’t,” she says. “I told you everything that you need to know.”
“What?” he asks. “That whole story about why you stabbed that girl? That motive matters?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Then tell me your motive,” I say.
“I can’t,” she repeats. “You’re a detective. Figure it out yourself.”
Someone opens the door and a man in a black suit walks in.
“I am Miss Williams’ lawyer,” he says. “She will not be answering any more questions.”
Lauren raises an eyebrow. I grind my teeth.
The lawyer and I stare at each other until he turns away to look at Lauren. He leans down and whispers something into Lauren’s ear. She nods, understanding rippling over her face. I stand up.
“Then I suppose we will all have to talk later,” I say.
~~~~~
I strike my thumb against my lighter’s spark wheel. The flame leaps up and lights my cigarette. I breathe in deep. I need to remind myself to exhale.
News programs from all over Detroit are aiming their cameras at Tom Powell, lieutenant of the 10th precinct. The various bright colors of the news anchors compared to the dark gray environment of Detroit reminds me of fall leaves clogging up a weakening river.
“Miss Lauren Williams was questioned for a case, but she has not been charged with anything. The 10th precinct is simply flipping over every stone. The Detroit police department is not going to protect their own if a crime was committed—we owe it to the public to treat our policemen the same way we would treat any other suspect. A small piece of evidence came up and we are making damn sure that nobody in our department is guilty. Let me emphasize that we are only being vigilant and honest to all of you.”
Do You Want To Play: A Detroit Police Procedural Romance Page 12