“Heard a lot about you, Agent Rogers,” Ferguson said.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Rogers said, giving Hardesy a sideways look. Then to Ferguson: “This is where you say, ‘Not all bad.’”
The PD detective managed a tight smile. “Well, it isn’t. Anyway, I read about you and your friend, Reeder—what you did last year, fine work. Brave as hell, too.”
“Stop or I’ll blush,” she said, kidding on the square. “The friend you’re talking to—is that who found her?”
“Yeah. Virginia Plain. Stage name. Same goes for the vic—Karma Sabich.”
“I kind of guessed that.”
“It’s those kind of detective skills,” Ferguson said cheerfully, “that makes the FBI so great. Anyway, Karma Sabich is really one DeShawn Davis. Virginia’s real name, Kevin Lockwood . . . but if you wanna talk to Kev, call him ‘Virginia’ or ‘Miss Plain.’ He won’t answer otherwise.”
Rogers nodded. “Transsexual?”
“No. He made a point of saying he was a transvestite. But still wants to be referred to as a ‘she.’”
“We’ll honor that. Or at least SA Hardesy and I will.”
Ferguson smirked. “What’s that, some FBI political correctness directive?”
Rogers shook her head. “No. Not that a little human decency would hurt any of us. But you know how it is, Detective—respect runs both ways.”
He grinned. “Not downhill, like shit?”
That seemed rhetorical, so she ignored it and asked, “Did Virginia tell you anything of interest?”
The big cop shook his bare head. “Nope, not really. Stays over sometimes. He . . . she . . . arrived, found Karma dead, upstairs, in the bathroom between bedrooms.”
Rogers let out a smoky breath. “Mind if I talk to her?”
He gestured to the door. “Special Agent Rogers, I am a lot of things, but a proud man isn’t one of ’em. About now, I’ll take any and all the help I can get. Please.”
She gave him half a smile. “Call me Patti.”
“And I’m Keith.”
“By the way, Keith, that kid at the cordon is looking a little overwhelmed. Might wanna get him some help before these neighbors stampede.”
He nodded and went down the steps, talking into his radio.
“Luke,” she said to her fellow agent, “you want in on this?”
He frowned in thought. “I do, but my gut says no.”
“That gut of yours again.”
He nodded. “I saw this guy, gal, what-have-you, being interviewed before, strictly by men, and whatever he/she/it is was clearly uncomfortable.”
“All right. I’ll handle it. By the way, did you attend that sensitivity seminar last quarter?”
Hardesy half smiled. “I hear you.”
“Listen, why don’t you head into the office. Take over the morning briefing—I may be here awhile.”
“Okay, boss.”
He went away, and she went inside.
As Rogers stood in the entryway, getting her bearings, a uniformed officer was coming down the stairs, headed for the front door. Going to assist the crowd-control kid, she figured. In front of her was the kitchen and a dining area. To her right, the living room.
The decor was like IKEA and a Salvation Army store had a baby. A newish blond coffee table, piled high with fast-food wrappers, squatted in front of a worn-out-looking sofa with mismatched replacement cushions, opposite which a medium-size flat-screen rode the wall. Most everything else, tables, lamps, chairs, looked like turn-of-the-century remnants. The upright La-Z-Boy recliner was newer but still looked frayed and tired.
So did its occupant, Virginia Plain.
Rogers had encountered her first transvestite in the service, back in MP days. After returning to Iowa, where she’d served as a deputy sheriff before getting the FBI nod, she had met a couple more. She learned a long time ago that people were just people—with all the good, bad, and ugly that went along with it. She could tell that the slender man—though he was seated—was a foot taller than her in those gold heels. Rogers could also see he . . . she . . . was in pain.
Virginia’s dark hair was a glorious mountain of curls, her smeary makeup probably perfect before the tears. She clutched at a tissue, several more wadded on a small table next to her. She was still in her faux-fur coat, though it was fairly warm in here, her sequined black cocktail dress nicer than anything in Rogers’s closet. Long neck, sharp nose, delicate cheekbones, wide fawn eyes red-rimmed from tears.
“Virginia, I’m Special Agent Rogers with the FBI. I thought we might talk. All right?”
A tiny nod.
Rogers pulled over a hardback chair and sat directly in front of her interview subject. “You found your friend?”
Virginia’s eyes went automatically toward the stairs off the entryway, and began to well. She nodded again, head still turned that way.
“Look at me, please,” Rogers said.
Slowly, tears brimming, Virginia faced her.
“Terrible thing,” Rogers said, “making a discovery like that.”
Virginia swallowed, nodded.
“You and Karma were close?”
“. . . Yes.”
Finally, a word.
Rogers asked, “How long have you been roommates?”
“Not roommates, not lately,” Virginia said, in a warm alto-ish voice. “Karma took me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go . . . when I first moved to DC. I’ve got my own place now, but I still crash here sometimes.”
“You could stay over whenever you wanted?”
She nodded.
“Karma sounds like a good person.”
“The best. I have an early call at my other job, in the morning, so I stay here at Karma’s those nights, because it’s a lot closer.”
“What’s your other job?”
“Waitstaff. I take an occasional shift at Bob & Edith’s. I’m supposed to work lunch today.”
Rogers knew the diner, not quite a mile northeast from here on Columbia Pike. She ate there occasionally, but didn’t remember ever seeing Virginia. It was the kind of all-night, no-questions-asked place where the late crowd would be . . . interesting.
She said to Virginia, “You better call in. You won’t be done here for hours.”
Virginia let out a tired sigh. “I will. I will. Just not right now.”
“Okay. Did Karma have any enemies that you know of?”
“No. Everybody loved her.”
That was a familiar refrain in homicide cases. “Can you tell me anything at all that might bear on what’s happened?”
Virginia let out a long breath, wiggling fingers in front of her face, willing herself to get composed. She sat up a little straighter, shrugged out of her coat.
“I’m thinking,” she said. “Gathering my thoughts.”
“Take your time. I understand you worked together? Maybe we can start there.”
“Yes. A club called Les Girls.”
“I’ve heard of it. Highly rated.”
Virginia nodded. “Last night, after work, I looked for Karma—thought we might grab a sandwich and coffee, which we do a lot. But she wasn’t around.”
“Didn’t leave a note or tell anyone to tell you . . . ?”
“No, it’s not like that. Sometimes we caught a bite, sometimes we didn’t. She might have a date, so I didn’t sweat it.”
“She date a lot? Anybody steady?”
A bittersweet smile came. “Karma . . . whoa, that one, she did like to party.”
“So, then—a lot of guys?”
“Some girls, too,” Virginia said, with a shrug. “She had . . . varied interests? But mostly guys, and she had a couple who liked to . . . you know . . . buy her things.”
“She was hooking?”
“No, not really. She just had friends, who, uh . . .”
Rogers said nothing.
Virginia shrugged again. “A little hooking maybe.”
“You know any of the joh
ns?”
“No! That is not my business, and not my thing. We keep that part of our lives separate. Kept, I mean. Hard thinking of her as something, someone . . . in the past.”
“See anybody here, at her house, ever?”
“No. No, wait . . . I’m wrong. I did see an older guy here a couple of times.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Older, white, nice suit, maybe even tailored. Successful. And, course, cheating on his wife.”
“What’s ‘older’?”
Virginia gave a really elaborate shrug. “I don’t know, you know, old . . . fifty, maybe?”
Rogers, in her midthirties, didn’t think fifty sounded all that ancient anymore. How old was Virginia? Thirty maybe?
She gave Virginia a warm supportive smile, then stood. “I have to go upstairs. That’s where she is, right?”
A nod, a trickle of tear. “Where I found her, yeah.”
“You sit right here. I’ll be back soon, okay?”
“Not going anywhere,” Virginia said, softly, bleakly.
Snapping on latex gloves, Rogers trudged up the stairs, eased past two EMTs who were playing games on their phones, leaning against a wall on the landing.
Holding up her credentials, she asked, “ME been here yet?”
Without looking, the older of the pair said, “Still waiting.”
She nodded. Not a surprise.
The bathroom was in front of her, two bedrooms on either side. She entered the bath, where Karma lay in the tub, clothed, with her back to Rogers. Curled fetally, the victim had two small nasty holes at the base of her skull; a trail of dried blood down her back; bits of skull, brain, and blood speckling the tile wall and far side of the tub.
Despite a close-cropped Afro appropriate for either male or female, Karma’s wardrobe put to rest any doubt about her chosen identity. She wore a cocktail dress similar to her friend Virginia’s, though hers was a hot-pink sequined number, her preposterously high heels a silver that matched bangly bracelets on both wrists and the rings on her every finger.
Her expression in profile seemed almost peaceful, makeup still perfect except for blowback teardrops of blood. Her wide brown eyes stared, her mouth seemed slightly puckered, as if about to kiss.
Why the tub?
Of the other four victims, none had been found in the bathtub. Rogers made a note to ask Ivanek about it.
Not a hell of a lot more to see. Crime scene unit would dust for prints and any other clues, probably to no avail.
But at least she now had no doubt there was a serial killer on the loose, or rather a multiple murderer, since Hardesy was likely correct that the shooter was a pro.
She went to the back bedroom first, larger of the two, likely Karma’s as the permanent resident. The queen-sized bed had not been slept in, a lavender comforter neatly in place, a stuffed unicorn leaning against the pillows. Next to a window sat a four-drawer dresser, with framed photos of friends and family on top.
Rogers went over for a closer look, thinking the “old” john might be among the photos; no candidates, though. She looked over Karma’s dressing table—a show-biz bulb-framed mirror, a ton of makeup, but nothing jumped out as a clue. The closet was home to clothes that ranged from thrift-shop blouses to higher-end dresses—courtesy of the generous old john, maybe? Only that seemed even the faintest clue to possibly identifying Karma’s killer.
The guest bedroom where Virginia sometimes stayed was neat, bed made, as anonymous as a motel room but for a pile of romance novels on the nightstand. No help.
She went back downstairs where Virginia was still in the upright La-Z-Boy, using another tissue.
“After these cops finish with you,” Rogers said, “go home and climb in bed. You’re going to be physically ill for a day or two. Trust me.”
Virginia managed a feeble smile. “Thanks. I’ll do that. What was your name again?”
Rogers told her, then handed her a card. “Anything else occurs to you, anything at all, give me a call, okay?”
“Yeah,” Virginia said. “Is . . . is this your case?”
“Right now it’s the DC police’s, but we’ll be looking at Karma’s death through our end of the telescope, too.”
“Good.”
“Seriously, Virginia, I’m not going to bullshit you. Finding Karma’s killer is going to be tough. Everybody on this thing needs all the help they can get—myself included—and right now you’re the most likely source. You and Karma were BFFs, right?”
“Right. Agent Rogers, if I think of anything, I’ll call you. You have my word.”
“Good enough for me,” Rogers said with a smile. “Listen, while you’re waiting for them to dismiss you, do me a favor—make a list of all of Karma’s friends. Maybe one of them can help. I’ll send a cop in with paper and pen.”
Virginia was nodding, all that beautiful dark hair bobbling. “Glad to. I need something positive to focus on, not just . . . what I keep seeing . . .”
“Give that list to Detective Ferguson. I’ll have him send a copy to me at my office. Can you do that, Virginia?”
“Absolutely.”
After a nod, Rogers turned, but the transvestite’s voice stopped her: “Agent Rogers—thank you.”
“What for, Virginia?”
“Treating me like a person.”
“No problem,” Rogers said, glancing back. “You didn’t deserve something shitty like this happening.”
“Neither did Karma.”
“And neither did Karma. Stay in touch.”
She found Ferguson on the porch and gave him a rundown of what she’d learned, requesting that he keep her in the loop, including that list Virginia was putting together. She gave him her card.
“If you don’t get me,” she said, “try Hardesy.”
“You got it.”
She was back in the car, about to pull out, when her cell vibrated again. Now what? Caller ID read: REEDER. She answered.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“So talk.”
“In person.”
“Where are you?”
He told her.
“Okay,” she said.
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
EIGHT
Sitting outside Bryson Security in his Prius, heat on and engine running—which defeated the purpose of having a Prius at all—Joe Reeder steamed like a tin lizzie radiator about to blow. He had suffered both injury and insult, the aches of the brawl’s aftermath followed by the affront of bystander status in his own case.
DC homicide detective Pete Woods, who Reeder had called to the scene, was finally buying into the probability of a staged “suicide” for Chris Bryson. That should have been cause for celebration; instead, Reeder boiled and brooded out here while Woods pursued the investigation inside the strip mall office.
Woods seemed even younger than Bishop had promised, somewhere barely north of thirty—short dark hair, steel-framed glasses, unimpressed green eyes, five ten, slender. His ensemble had a collegiate look—gray trench coat, maroon sweater barely showing the pale red-and-blue plaid shirt with navy tie, navy chinos. He struck Reeder as a refugee from a boy band back in daughter Amy’s middle-school days.
“I can’t allow a private citizen into an active crime scene,” Woods had said. “That includes you, Mr. Reeder. Sorry.”
“You’re here because I called you,” Reeder reminded him, with the fake calm he’d long ago learned to affect, “and one of the crimes committed here was an assault upon my person.”
“Changes nothing.”
“Well, something’s changed anyway. Now you don’t think Chris killed himself.”
The boy detective raised a forefinger. “I don’t necessarily think Mr. Bryson took his own life. You can wait outside or in your car. I’ll have someone take your statement in a while.”
Woods disappeared inside, leaving a uniformed officer to guard the door
in case Reeder decided to storm the fortress.
That was when he’d phoned Rogers.
When she pulled into the lot, Reeder played traffic cop, directing her to a place several storefronts down from his Prius, away from Bryson Security, where the cop on guard looked on in confusion—his orders had apparently not included stopping Reeder from leaving his car and going over to another.
He got in and slammed the door behind him, saying, “The bastard won’t let me in.”
She was just unbuckling her seat belt. “Which bastard would that be?”
“The Doogie Howser detective.”
“Who?”
Before her time.
He said, “That punk kid from DC Homicide.”
“Take a breath. Take two. Remember who you are—the hard-to-read, unflappable Joe Reeder.”
“Shit,” he said, but he took the breaths.
“Isn’t that better?” she asked. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”
He filled her in about getting jumped at Chris’s office.
“Shoulda had the guy,” he muttered.
“Shoulda coulda woulda,” she said. “Then, what? You called Woods and he finally buys your theory?”
He grunted a laugh. “That Chris was murdered is a ‘theory’ like climate change or evolution. But yes, he pretty much buys it now.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Patiently, she asked, “What makes him a bastard? Assuming his parents were married.”
Reeder frowned. “He’s a bastard because he won’t let me into that office to, you know, help with the investigation. You know the investigation I mean—the one I started?”
“I do. Must I ask you to take two more deep breaths?”
“No. No, I’m fine. Peachy fuckin’ keen.”
“Is that a real expression?”
“Minus the middle word it is.” He looked right at her. She was cool, calm, and collected—to invoke another old phrase everybody had forgotten but dinosaurs like him and his late friend Chris. He’d like to think part of her poise and self-confidence came from working with him. But he knew she was a natural.
“I need you,” Reeder said, “to pull rank and get me in there, so I can help find whatever my attacker was looking for.”
“Or,” she said, “if Woods finds it first, to make sure he knows what he’s found?”
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