The Last Good Place

by Robin Burcell

  “Ignore me? He didn’t even call me back yesterday.”

  “Because it was over the phone. Trust me. You show up in person? He’s going to listen. Cops like talking to pretty girls. Especially girls they’ve kissed.”

  Jenn eyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The added blond highlights gave her hair a slight shimmer, bringing out the blue in her eyes. The hair she liked. The makeup…not so much. She wasn’t used to eyeliner, thick mascara, and blush. “The lipstick has to go,” she said, reaching for a tissue.

  Taryn slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch.”

  “A girl shouldn’t have to be all made-up to get someone to listen to her.”

  “In a perfect world, true. But when it comes to getting someone’s attention to those cases, do you want to leave it to chance? Or do you want to use every tool in your arsenal?”

  “Tools? Hardly.”

  “You have no idea what you’re sporting, do you?” Taryn shook her head, grabbed the makeup bag, then started pushing Jenn from the bathroom into the newsroom. “Watch what happens. Go tell the boss where you’re going.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Not what you’re doing there. Just where. Give it a try.”

  They stopped in front of his office. “Larry?” Jenn said. “I have to head to the Hall of Justice. I might be gone an hour or two.”

  Their editor looked up. “Don’t you have—” His gaze widened slightly, and it was a moment before he finished. “Take all the time you need.”

  “Thanks,” she said, hiding her surprise. After the way he’d gotten on her about crashing the press conference, she fully expected him to order her to stay clear of the PD.

  She started to turn away when Marty walked up, saw her, and nearly dropped his coffee mug. “What the—”

  Momentarily stunned, she was glad when Taryn grabbed her arm, leading her back to her desk.

  “Was that Jenn?” he asked the editor. “Sizzle, sizzle…”

  “Get back to work, Marty.”

  “See?” Taryn whispered.

  And Jenn might have believed it herself. Except the heels definitely sucked. By the time she arrived at the Hall, then walked the two blocks from the parking garage, she felt like a kid wearing her mother’s shoes. Somehow she managed to keep her upright bearing long enough to inquire if she could speak to Sergeant Kellog about a homicide. The officer at the desk smiled at her. “I’ll check for you. Name?”

  “Jenn Barstow.” She decided to leave off her affiliation with the press, which never seemed to go over well.

  He called upstairs, and she was glad when he simply asked, “Kellog in…? Yeah. Got it. Thanks.” He hung up, gave a slight shrug. “Sorry, miss. Not in. But they said they’re expecting him back anytime. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The elevator bank, she decided, was her best bet of catching him, and she found a spot just inside where she could watch the doors that led to the parking garage as well. She checked the time, wondering how long she should wait. At least her editor wasn’t expecting her back anytime soon, and she figured she could give it at least thirty minutes before the shock of her appearance wore off and her editor realized she was someplace she was told not to be.

  About twenty minutes later, just when she was certain her feet were going to fall off from the damned shoes, she saw Casey and his partner in the breezeway near the morgue. They pushed through the glass doors then walked straight to the elevator.

  She hurried over as the elevator door opened. “Sergeant Kellog?”

  Casey’s partner stepped onto the elevator, and she thought for a moment he was going to follow. But when he saw her, he stopped. The elevator door closed behind him. “Jenn…”

  “Hi.”

  His gaze swept downward, then back up. “You look nice.”

  A warmth flushed through her cheeks at his tone. Hoping he didn’t notice, she gave him her best business smile. “Thanks. I was hoping you had a few minutes.”

  “I wish I could. But you’re the press.”

  “Please.”

  He took a deep breath, as though weighing his decisions. “Five minutes. You mind if we talk outside?” He held out his hand, indicating the area between the lobby and the morgue. “Fewer people around to interrupt.”

  “Sure.”

  He held the door for her, and the moment she stepped out, she crossed her arms, trying to ward off the chill, wishing she’d had the sense to wear something a bit warmer than a dress without a coat.

  “So, Miss Barstow…”

  “Jenn.”

  “Jenn.”

  “I know you’re busy.” She gave an apologetic smile. “And I’m being presumptuous to even assume that no one has looked into any similarities. But with the recent attention to these newer cases, I was hoping you—or someone in your office—would look into that case I mentioned the other day at the press conference. The murder of that prostitute? She was strangled like the other victims.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why the interest? Are we talking journalistic or otherwise?”

  This was it, she realized. She had to tread carefully. Make the right impression. “I—I knew one of the victims. Bella Orlando.”

  “How?”

  “My sister.”

  “The prostitute?”

  She wasn’t sure if she imagined the slight step back on his part, but she knew she couldn’t let him walk away. Not now when she was so close. “A few nights before she was killed, she told me something. I should have listened. I mean, I did, but—”

  Although his tone was polite, his posture shifted to a stance that told her his attention was waning.

  “The last time I saw her, she—she’d been attacked by someone. It scared her. I was scared for her. I thought maybe she’d go to rehab after that, but—” It was a moment before Jenn could get past her thoughts. “It was the last time I saw her before she was killed.”

  “And what was it that happened?”

  “She said that someone tried to drag her into the alley by her hair. She might not have gotten away if not for two, um, men who happened to be there. She said that one of them pulled a knife and scared the guy off.”

  His brows raised. “By her hair? Was there a police report?”

  “No.” Jenn shivered as the wind bit into the thin fabric of her blouse. “I tried to get her to call. She said it wouldn’t matter anyway. Who was going to believe her? She was, um, high, and well…” Jenn shrugged, not sure what else she could say. “I just want someone to look into it. She was strangled, and it was around the same time and—And that’s it.”

  He studied her face a moment, then pulled out a small notebook from his breast pocket of his suit. “I know you gave me your card, but let me get your info again.”

  She recited her desk and cell phone numbers, which he wrote down.

  “You realize that case was before my time in Homicide? I can’t promise anything,” he said, walking her back into the lobby. “But I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Thanks.”

  He left her at the elevator, and she continued on and out the front doors, calling Taryn on her cell phone. “You were right. He talked to me.”

  “See? It was the clothes. So what happened?”

  “Besides that I froze my ass off?”

  “And looked good doing it, right?”

  “He said he’d check into it. Then he took my phone number.”

  “So it all works out in the end.”

  “Unless of course he discovers I may have been…less than truthful about a few things,” Jenn said as she walked out to the street. She flagged a taxi. No way was she walking the two blocks to the parking garage in these damned heels. “Like befriending his mother to get to him and—Well, it’s not important. If I’m lucky, he won’t find
out. Besides. I can’t get in that much trouble, can I?”

  TWENTY

  Sergeant Haynes followed Casey onto the elevator, then up to the fourth floor.

  “So who was the woman I saw you talking to outside?” Haynes asked as they walked into the Homicide office a few minutes later.

  “No one,” he said, dropping a file folder onto his desk, then glancing into the lieutenant’s office to check if he was there, maybe even listening. Last thing Casey wanted was for anyone to know he was talking to the press—even if he wasn’t really giving her information. The lieutenant was in, and the door was open.

  “Definitely a head-turner,” Haynes said.

  “Aren’t you married?” Casey asked, more to shut him up than anything else.

  “A guy can look.”

  Casey ignored him and strode across the room to the Cold Case office, needing to have a look at those cases Jenn Barstow had mentioned. If, in fact, they were related, it could be the break they were looking for.

  He knocked on the open door, and one of the investigators, Pat Correa, glanced over.

  “I have a favor,” he asked her.

  “Shoot.”

  “You know anything about an old hooker murder? Strangulation. Happened in the Tenderloin a few months before the first Landmark case. Victim was a Bella Orlando.”

  She pondered the question. “Now that you mention it, I remember a couple of prostitute murders. Why?”

  “Some reporter thinks they’re related to the Strangler. Told her I’d check into it.”

  “You’re welcome to look. Bottom shelf. That’s where Timms asked us to put any unsolved strangulations.”

  He glanced over at the bookshelf against the wall, the industrial-brown metal scratched and gouged from years of use. There were ten black binders on the bottom row. “All of them?”

  “Only two. The others are definitely not hookers. But they are strangulations.”

  “Has Al gone through these?” Casey asked.

  “All I know is that we pulled every cold case strangulation, wrote up a report, and submitted it to him. You can have a copy of that, too.” She accessed something on her computer, hit the print button, and a moment later, the printer whirred to life, spitting out several pages.

  He took the report and the two murder books to his desk. Al was not in the office, which gave him enough freedom to take his time without worrying that he’d crossed some line by assisting a reporter who wasn’t even assigned to the crime desk at her paper.

  The victims, he saw at a glance, showed “prostitute” as the occupation. The first one had been killed almost a year ago, and Jenn Barstow’s sister around seven months ago. Other than that, not much to go on, except that they were strangled. Not a landmark in sight.

  Which meant what?

  Autopsies, he thought. That should tell him something.

  “Earth to College Boy?”

  Casey looked up to see Al staring at him. “Yeah?”

  “I asked if you’d finished the who’s-screwing-who report from your contact with the real estate agent.”

  “On the printer,” Casey said, eyeing the summary of the cold case strangulations that Correa had printed for him. He picked it up. “Hey, Al. Remember the reporter from the lobby?”

  “Church mouse?”

  “The one,” he replied. “She’s the woman who stopped me at the elevator.”

  Al whistled. “You’re right. She has changed. So what was she doing here?”

  “Asking about the prostitute murders again.”

  “I don’t care how good-looking that reporter is. The last thing you need is a reputation of talking to the press out of turn.”

  “The victim in this case was her sister.”

  Al looked down at the binder, then back at him. “That’s sort of big. Why would she keep something like that to herself?”

  “Does it matter? What does is that I took a look at the cases, and I think I found something in the autopsies. You remember Melton telling us that maybe the real Strangler was using a carotid hold? Well, that might have been the case with her sister. Like the guy was holding something against her neck. A piece of pipe. Asphyxiation with an instrument.”

  “What about the other hooker?”

  Casey opened the second binder to the crime scene photos. “It doesn’t fit the Strangler MO. One, she was killed inside a motel room, and witnesses heard arguing for several minutes beforehand. Two, broken hyoid bone. A lot more violent in comparison to the others cases, even the Presidio victim.”

  “So what do you plan to do about the one you can’t rule out?”

  Casey leaned back in his chair, trying to determine if Al was serious. The man’s expression never wavered. “Look into it. The FBI profiler suggested the Strangler probably killed before. Hookers are easy prey. Of course, there’s this whole landmark thing. There isn’t one cited in the case.”

  Al slapped the topmost binder. “Can’t hurt to look.”

  “Exactly.” He took the copies of the cover sheets and the witness lists from the murder of Jenn Barstow’s sister and slid them into his portfolio notebook. Grabbing his keys, he started for the door.

  “Where you off to?” Al asked.

  “You just said it can’t hurt to look. Thought I’d drive out there.”

  “Take a backup. I don’t care how long ago it happened.”

  “You busy?”

  “Very.”

  Casey looked around the room, nearly empty except for Haynes and Zwingler. Deciding he didn’t want to field any more questions about the reporter from Haynes, he asked Zwingler, who said, “You’re gonna owe me for this.”

  “We’ll start a tab.” He gave him a rundown of the homicide on the elevator ride down and on the drive over.

  “I remember this case,” Zwingler said. “Not a lot to go on. You have any idea what you’re looking for?”

  “Not a clue. Figured we could do a little knock and talk with some of the witnesses. Maybe we can turn up something that was missed the first time around.”

  “Sounds good.” Zwingler looked over the pages of involved parties that Casey had printed. “Got a few witnesses who live in the area—assuming they’re still there. The security guard who found her, Francis Dunmore.” He laughed. “Who the hell names their kid Francis anymore?”

  “Hit him up first?”

  “Nah. He doesn’t live in the city, and the company’s all the way across town. That leaves Gladys White and Samir Singh.”

  “Probably a waste of time coming out here anyway,” Casey said, recalling what he’d read in the report. “Singh’s store was closed at the time, and he said he didn’t hear anything.”

  “They all say that. Funny what some of them remember at times with the right encouragement.”

  Casey found parking about a block away on the next street over. “So,” Zwingler said while they walked, “what made you pick this case from all the cold cases sitting in there?”

  “That reporter from the press conference. She’s apparently been following the cases,” he said.

  “The nerd girl?”

  “Not so nerdy anymore.”

  “She’s the one we saw you talking to in front of the morgue?”

  “We?”

  “Maybe you were so wrapped up in the conversation you didn’t see us watching you from the lobby. You want my advice? Getting in bed with the press, literally or figuratively? Not a good idea.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping with her?”

  “About half the guys who saw you talking to her. Besides, I’ve seen it a million times. You’re single. She’s single. Why else would she have gotten all gussied up?”

  “Not going to happen,” he said as he and Zwingler walked to an L-shaped alley that ran alongside and behind a small market and other businesses. The
alley was unremarkable. Dumpsters up against the walls, broken glass on the ground, and an assortment of cigarette butts and used condoms. He thought about Zwingler’s comment earlier. What was he even looking for after all this time? Something everyone else had overlooked that pointed to the killer?

  Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice. Waltz in, solve the serial killer case of the decade in one day.

  “Where was she killed?” Zwingler asked.

  “Here, behind the market, beside the Dumpster.”

  “Good place for it,” Zwingler said. “Protected from view from either direction unless someone’s looking out that back window of the market. And at that hour? Not likely.”

  They left the alley and walked out to the street in front of the market. Three boys, probably late teens, stood on the corner across the street. One looked up, saw Casey and Zwingler, said something to the other two—undoubtedly pegging them for cops—and they all took off in different directions.

  “So much for that drug deal,” Zwingler said. He eyed the witness list. “Let’s go see what Gladys has to say.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Gladys White’s apartment was located on the second floor directly opposite the market and the massage parlor. Judging from her age at the time, mideighties, Casey hoped she’d still be living there and not in some nursing home—assuming she was still alive.

  But alive she was, and very much in charge of her faculties. When she opened the door, her deeply lined face lit up when Casey told her why they were there.

  “Come in, come in,” she said, holding the door wider. “About time someone started investigating that case. Poor girl.”

  “You remember what happened?” Casey asked.

  “There isn’t really much to remember at all,” she said, tottering over to a battered floral armchair in front of the window. She sat with some difficulty, her hands shaking as she gripped the chair’s arms. “I was sitting right here when I heard someone screaming.” She nodded toward the window. “There. Across the street. I saw the woman running from the alley, crying.” Gladys looked up at Casey, her smile more apologetic. “I’m afraid by the time I got out of my chair and made it to the phone, I heard sirens. So you see, Sergeant, I don’t know much about the murder at all.”