Jewels and Panties (Book, Four): Twisted Love

by Brooke Kinsley

  "I mean, they don't think the girl was killed here, do they?" I narrowed my eyes. "Or do you?"

  He set his notebook down on the bed and stood up to join me at the window. We both looked down at the basement's double doors.

  "It's not just the girl. Jet is what you called her, wasn’t it?"

  "That's right. She always preferred to be called Jet. Don't ask me why? They all come with weird pet names.”

  He pressed his lips together and thrust his hands into his pockets.

  “Not just the girl,” he repeated. “You know why they’re down there, don’t you?” he pointed down to the basement. “You know why you can’t leave this room yet?”

  I thought for a second with my eyes still on the scene unfolding below.

  “I don’t know a thing.”

  He gave me a sideways glance.

  “I think you know a lot more than you’d lead us to believe.”

  I said nothing.

  “Where were you last night?” he asked.

  “You’re not really doing this, are you? You know where I was. I was here with the girls.”

  “But not all the girls,” he said.

  “Well, no.”

  “Is it common for girls to break curfew? I know you’re strict with some of them.”

  I felt my heart begin to quicken against the notebook.

  “They’re all good girls but Jet… she was a wild one.”

  It felt awful to think of her in the past tense. She was always so alive, so vibrant and crazy. She was very much alive the last time I saw her. Then she wasn’t.

  “So you’re saying Jet, I mean Miss Danziger, frequently broke curfew.”

  “That girl had problems,” was all I said and his face remained tight lipped and expressionless.

  “I have to ask you about the little girl,” he said.

  “What little girl?”

  Still, his commitment to hiding his emotion remained unwavering.

  “The little girl who said she knows you said you kept her down there for months with several other children. She said you ordered the other girls in the house to take her places, take her to houses up in the west end.”

  Beneath my bathrobe, I shook with the realization that they were closer than they’d ever been to reaching the truth. I pretended to shiver and reached over to turn up the heat on the radiator, pressing my hands onto the metal in a show of warming my hands.

  “She’s lying, detective.”

  “She’s seven. Kids that age don’t lie about that stuff.”

  “The violence on TV these days is abominable! And with the internet and phones and all sorts, it’s a wonder she hasn’t come up with anything far worse.”

  “She said you took her to Judge Kennedy’s house.”

  Silence.

  There was nothing I could say to that, not with my throat closing up and my mouth going dry.

  “Liar…” I croaked up.

  “You’re saying she’s a liar. That’s it?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re saying a seven year old is lying about being taken to a judge’s house, a man who she knows by name, who she can identify from pictures, who can give a detailed description of not only his wife but of his housekeeper, of what pictures are on the walls of the spare bedroom, of the contents of the cupboard in the hall!”

  It felt like I was swallowing a tennis ball. The wardrobe in the hall. It held terrible things, strange contraptions I barely understood but the judge loved.

  “Look, I don’t want to know what the fuck is going on here, okay? And thankfully for you, just the mention of Kennedy’s name was enough for my chief to not want to know either.”

  His voice was now harsh and bitter.

  “As far as that’s concerned, there’s nothing I can do.”

  The tennis ball shrunk into a peanut. My breath came back to me as my cheeks regained their color.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” he confirmed, his hands curling into fists and his neck pulling itself so tight I could see the ligaments protrude like great thick ropes struggling to support a tumbling tower of muscle.

  Meanwhile, I edged away for fear of him exploding. I pressed my back against the wall and felt for the notebook. Judge Kennedy’s name was in there along with his address and phone number and what color hair he preferred. It was all written in my handwriting, my distinct and incriminating handwriting.

  He turned his head and with an exasperated sigh, sat down on the window ledge and looked down at the basement entrance. A person, their identity hidden by the paper suit and mask, looked up at Berger and raised his palms to the sky as though he was dumbfounded. Berger slid the window open and leaned out as the light rain blustered into the room.

  “There’s nothing down here, detective,” came the words on the breeze.

  “Bullshit,” replied Berger.

  “No really. Just termites.”

  The detective let out a low moan and closed the window.

  “If I had a choice I’d take you down to the station.”

  He almost spat the words out.

  “But luckily for you, you’ve got friends in high places so I guess I’ll see you around.”

  He opened the door and gestured for me to head back out into the house.

  “You’re free to go,” he said. “Thanks for the cookies.”

  As we reached the bottom of the stairs, he said goodbye and buttoned up his suit.

  “Are you not going to ask me?” he said as he stepped out into the rain.

  “Ask you what?”

  “Who killed Jet? Most people are desperate to know if we’ve caught the killer yet.”

  But I didn’t need to ask. I knew who full well who killed her. I did.

  Chapter Seven

  Etta

  Before he left, Lincoln said I could take any car I wanted and although he had the most dazzling array of choices, I took the vintage Buick with the matte gray finish. Despite its size, it was the least conspicuous thing he owned and I as I drove out onto the mountain road, I found myself struggling to control it around the sharp bends.

  Any day now I’d have to get back to work and resume my original life as nurse and life saver but that now seemed like an almost impossible task. Save lives? While living and loving someone who specialized in taking them away?

  I didn’t understand life anymore, didn’t understand how things that were previously so black and white were now so confusing, as gray and cumbersome as this damn car.

  As I entered the Broadwood area of the city I was pleased to see civilization again even if it was murky and dark. I’d missed the smell of the city, the people and all the places they rushed too. I didn’t, however, miss the Waters’ House which was where I was heading. It always managed to pull me back with its mystery and even now I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do when I got there. All I knew was that I had to see where Jet died.

  Pulling up outside the house, I felt its shadow creep across me, icy and insidious.

  The alleyway where her body was found ran alongside the house. I recognized it straight away from the news. Could almost smell the garbage through the screen and taste the wet cobbles of the street.

  It looked as though a whirlwind had fluttered through the house. Everything was in disarray with most of the girls out in the parking lot smoking and huddled together.

  A forensic team were packing away their things and piling boxes into the back of their pristine white vans. So far there was no sight of Phaedra and she was the last person on Earth I wanted to bump into.

  Making my way behind the crowds of people, I stepped around the corner to the alleyway. The scene had already been processed but the patch of ground where Jet's body lay was cordoned off with police tape. An officer stood on lookout to ensure the noisy neighbors and leftover camera crews stayed away.

  Stepping up to the tape, I gripped it and looked down as though I was peering over the edge of a skyscraper. The sight scared me, the darkness of the str
eet, the dirt and the grime, the fact that it all looked so normal but a few hours ago a body had lain here, discarded along with the trash.

  Jet was trouble and she had her problems but she was little more than a child.

  "Nineteen years old," I said to myself and a woman beside me looked up.

  Her hair was disheveled like cotton candy spun around in a storm. She wore glitzy but chipped costume jewelry and a fur coat that was matted with the rain. Her powder blue eyeshadow was smudged at the edges like it had been slept on. As she turned her head, I saw she'd only made up one eye.

  "Did you know her?" she asked.

  It was just the two of us up against the tape. Behind us, some of the girls from the house congregated with candles and flowers but so far were keeping their distance.

  "Yeah, I knew her but...not for long."

  She pursed her lips and we both stared out at the crime scene like we were looking out to sea. All the while the police officer stared straight ahead, unflinching, uncaring.

  "Did you live in that house?" she asked, nodding over her shoulder.

  "For a little while.Had a rough patch. I'm a nurse though. Going to be working back at the hospital soon."

  I didn't know why I felt so compelled to distance myself from the others.

  "A nurse is a good job," she said. "Always thought I'd like to work in the medical field myself. Of course, I had my children young though and never had much of a chance to go back to school."

  She finally let go of the tape but I still clung on.

  "You know I used to live in the house back in the days," she confessed with a sigh.

  "You did?"

  "A long time ago.After I left my first husband. He was a real son of a bitch and the house saved me. Gave me somewhere to go until I could get back on my feet or at least back out on the streets once the bruises faded."

  There was a terrible sadness in her eyes and in a strange way it made her beautiful, made her soul shine out from the specks of tired makeup.

  "I suppose you knew Phaedra when she was younger," I said.

  She froze and with her eyes still fixed straight ahead, she thrust her hands into her pockets and reached for a cigarette.

  "I'm amazed she's still here," she said. "I suppose you can live as long as you want when you're in league with the Devil. That bitch sold her soul a long time ago."

  "Eh?"

  I had so many questions to ask her about what life must have been like, if she knew anything about what the old woman was up to, about whether anybody ever thought to do anything about the rumors that circulated but I couldn't articulate it all at once. Instead, I just screwed up my face in surprise and gawped.

  "The devil?"

  "Beelzebub," she confirmed. "That woman... Someone should have taken her out to the woods and slung her up a tree somewhere."

  "Wait. I've heard things, seenthings and everybody seems to know what's going on but why doesn't it stop? Why has nobody done anything?"

  She sucked on her cigarette and pulled her coat around her chest. I noticed the hole at the edge of her sleeve where it looked as though she was eternally fidgeting and poking her finger through the cuff. Beside that lay a cigarette burn. I wasn't entirely convinced the coat wasn't an old rug.

  "Goes all the way to the top," was all she said as she turned on her heel.

  It was then, as I watched her walk away and her shoes clicked along the cobbles, that I realized she was wearing two mismatching shoes, one green, one red, both with heels of a different height. It gave the impression that she walked with a seductive though comicallyexaggerated wiggle.

  "Wait!" I chased after her. "You wanna grab a coffee?"

  Chapter Eight

  Lincoln

  When lunch time came I didn't like the idea of heading into the break room with everyone else and instead chose the solitude of my office. People huddled around me full of questions at the best of times but since the increasing presence of the Waters’ House in the news, I was becoming something of a talking point even if was only because my name was loosely connected. If only they knew the truth...

  But I was starting to not even know the truth anymore. Someone had killed Jet but it sure as shit wasn't me! Although she was, of course, on my list.

  Sitting back with an espresso, I turned up the music and Debussy's En Blanc et Noir began to float out from the speakers on my desk. The sun shone through the bay window and for the most fleeting of moments I was happy. Then a knock came on the door.

  "Who is it?"

  There was no answer. Instead, Detective Berger walked in like a bull on a mission and strode right up to me with his hand outstretched. I shook it and he reciprocated by almost breaking the bones in my fingers.

  Jesus, he even shakes your hand like a brute.

  "Well, this is a surprise."

  I was about to gesture for him to sit down but he had already. There was the faint smell of sweat around him and stale coffee covered in Old Spice.

  "Yeah, it is a surprise. I'm actually a little shocked I hadn't come to see you earlier."

  "Ah, well some of your officers had visited me initially after... after the first girl died."

  He looked into my eyes.

  "Is there anything I can help you with?" I asked, trying to stay jovial.

  "I don't know. Is there?"

  I wasn't in the mood for games or whatever this stupid role was he was playing.

  "I'm sorry this'll have to be quick. I'm expected back in surgery soon.

  "Oh, I can be quick."

  "I don't doubt that you can be," I retorted with a raised eyebrow.

  He flinched with anger and leaned forward on his knees, flipping open his notebook.

  "You knew the girl? Danziger?"

  I nodded.

  "Not well, but I did. It really is a sorry situa-"

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "Oh, erm, yesterday I suppose, maybe the day before."

  He scribbled frantically.

  "And what were you doing last night?"

  He wasn't mincing his words.

  "Woah, do I need a lawyer?"

  He didn't reply.

  "Are you really asking me for an alibi?"

  "I might be."

  I walked over to the door and pointed out into the foyer.

  "I was at home last night with my girlfriend. You can leave now."

  "Oh, your girlfriend who used to live in the Waters’ House like all the victims.”

  My chest tightened with anger.

  "You've certainly done your homework.

  "I have," he smirked. "Learned a lot of things about you recently. How your girlfriend also works in this very hospital."

  I shrugged.

  "Not particularly interesting is it?"

  "Not really," he shrugged back, his lower lip protruding like a grunter fish.

  He wasn't budging. Still had his fat head leaned over his notebook as he sat in my favorite Oculus chair. I'd had it designed especially to match the rest of my office but now he was in it, covering it in the fumes of his cheap aftershave.

  "Something’s interesting though," he said, looking up and scrutinizing my face insilence for a moment before he resumed flicking through his notes.

  "Well please don't rush to explain. The excitement's killing me.

  He smirked again and I had the overriding feeling that I wanted to punch the smile off his face.

  I swear to God one day he's going to find himself in my laboratory.

  With that smug grin still imprinted on his face, so wide it looked as though his meaty head was cut in two, he leaned into his pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag that was inside another larger evidence bag.

  For a brief second I was sure I was about to piss myself. I didn't need to be told what it was. I recognized the white lace with the name tag and the bag that was now scuffed up and mangled.

  "What is that?" I asked with the straightest face I could muster.

  "Oh, I think you kno
w what it is? Your prints are on the bag and your DNA's all over the panties."

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. This isn't happening. I thought Etta still had them!

  "You don't look very well," he said, standing up to wave the bag in my face.

  I said nothing, couldn't bear to even move a muscle on my face in case it was construed as guilt.

  "You see, when we arrived at the scene this morning, we combed the area and not too far from the crime scene, right in front of the house, in fact, this lay in a puddle.

  In front of the house, the place where I pulled up and saw Jet and Etta together.

  Shit!

  "Yeah, yeah, that's super interesting," I said and crossed my arms, leaning against the doorframe as though I was merely listening to him tell me about his weekend plans.

  "Yeah, aint' it interesting? Would you care to explain what you were doing with the victim's underwear? And why it was left discarded out the front of the house in the exact spot where you’re seen to park."

  "Look, detective, I didn't kill her!"

  "Never said you did."

  His smirk was growing. He was clearly enjoying himself.

  “So, I have to ask. Were you dating her? Girls don't give away their underwear for no reason."

  My heard grew so loud with the blood rushing in my head so fast I barely heard what he was saying.

  "No! I've never touched her."

  He shot me a skeptical look.

  "Oh, sure."

  "I mean it!"

  He sauntered over to me and stood a little too close for comfort.

  "Look, I get it. The bigshot billionaire who's also a prize surgeon, a volunteer, a fucking angel or whatever and you're being linked to a teenage hooker. I understand why you'd be reluctant to admit the two of you were... What were the two of you?"

  "We weren't even friends," I said.

  He took another step forward and tried to take one back but was blocked by the wall. Before I knew it, his fingers were pressing into my arm.

  "Would you care to come down to the station?"

  "Yes!"

  I yanked my arm away.

  "I would fucking care! I have patients to operate on. This is a life or death situation! I don't have time to fuck about in your failing enquiry. If you require further contact get in touch with my lawyer who you'll be seeing soon enough anyway as this is harassment. You can’t just walk into my office and accuse me of murder."