Roulette

by Don; Linda Pendleton

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah. Besides that, he has used great care to take away anything that could be incriminating. Get set for a long siege here, Rebecca. This one won’t come easy.”

  She said, “I’ve been getting that feeling, Ted.”

  “By the way, you are overdue a pat on the back for your great work with this case. Your reports have been spectacular.”

  “Thanks, I needed that.”

  Bonelli paused for an awkward moment, then said, “So what the hell is going on between you and Pete?”

  She showed him a sour smile. “I was hoping you could give me a clue about that. What do you think is going on?”

  He replied, “Hey, I always thought you guys had it together. Beats hell out of me what is going on. Is it true that he moved out?”

  “Bag and baggage, yeah. Pete has been under a lot of strain lately. I guess I have, too.”

  He told her, “Well, I guess it sometimes looks worse than it really is. You know, Rebecca, it’s tough enough for any cop trying to make a marriage work. With two of you living under those same tensions….”

  She smiled and said, “Thanks for nothing.”

  He smiled back and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Awe, just give it time. And give the guy some slack.”

  “I thought I was doing that,” she replied quietly.

  Bonelli did not seem to know how to respond to that. He showed her a sympathetic smile as he walked away.

  Sympathy was not what she wanted or needed. She needed her husband, and she needed him whole. But even more than that, Rebecca decided, she needed to catch a killer. She turned determinedly back to her task and tried to center her mind on the job ahead.

  Two hours later, she found one of those golden moments that made the drudgery worthwhile.

  She found it in, of all places, Oklahoma—nestled in a routine item from the FBI files. She found her “trademark.”

  An escapee from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester had used the term “Whorehouse Roulette” more than once during the commission of several brutal rapes. Moreover, he had killed one of his victims and was serving a life term for that murder at the time of his escape.

  She had the strongest sense of certainty—call it a gut feeling—that this was their man. “Identification” was only the beginning, of course, but as sure as night follows day, this guy was in the bag.

  Crazy, wasn’t it, but Rebecca was wishing that Peter had been the one to break it open.

  The wires between McAlester and San Remo had been buzzing with an almost uninterrupted stream of information concerning the McAlester escapee, one Robert James Martin. The physical description of Martin did not jibe completely with the established profile of the San Remo killer but, of course, the data from Oklahoma was more than five years old. Martin’s jail break had occurred some four years earlier and the prisoner had apparently not surfaced until the recent events in San Remo. A male Caucasian, his age was shown as thirty-eight, weight 223, height 6'1", eyes hazel, and hair light brown.

  Sergeant Storme blew in with his detectives while the wires were still hot and Chief Walsh arrived moments later. An electrical air of excitement was rippling through the detective bureau while Bonelli examined the Oklahoma fingerprints for a match with the one good latent from the scene of their second murder—victim number three, Kelly Baxter. A cheer went up when the ID man calmly announced, “We have a hit!”

  “Now let’s nail the bastard!” Sergeant Storme growled.

  Rebecca was flushed with an almost embarrassed smile as her partners descended upon her with praise for a job well done—even Peter, who forgot himself long enough to hug her warmly. “Class act there, kid,” he told her with uncharacteristic emotion.

  “I got lucky,” she said. “It was Bonelli’s print.”

  Her husband growled, “Don’t do that, Rebecca. It’s your hit. Enjoy it.”

  She was enjoying it, sure. But now the real work had only just begun.

  Apparently some sort of flash-point had been reached in this case. Suddenly the FBI was intensely interested in the San Remo killer, the Oklahoma authorities were preparing to dispatch a couple of men to the area, and the press appeared to be camping out beside the police department awaiting a rumored “big break” in the case.

  As far as Peter Storme was concerned, that was expecting too much too soon, and he would have preferred to have less of a circus atmosphere surrounding the events. But Storme was a realist, if anything, so he knew that he had to work the hand that was dealt him—without alibis, without complaints.

  If those people did not mind hanging around in the chill all night, then okay, but he did not have to invite them into his own space, and that was precisely the point he was making with Charlie Andrews when he told the guy, “No comment. Beat it. Who the hell told you that you could come in here?”

  “Give me a break, Pete,” the newsman protested. “It’s the hottest story in the country right now. Who is the man in Oklahoma?”

  “No comment. Do you leave like a man or do I heave your butt out of here?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be the kind to take it personally, Peter.”

  “Take what?”

  “I mean, you know—Rebecca told me that you two have split up, so

  I figured—I mean, you know, it was perfectly innocent.”

  Storme asked coldly, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Oh, well,” the newsman replied quickly, “I didn’t mean to—figured you knew—look, it was nothing. We just had some dinner and….”

  Storme got to his feet and fixed the reporter with a steely gaze. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, pal, but if you’re waiting for me to break your face, you’re almost there already.” He extended a stiff finger. “Out. Right now.”

  Andrews took a step backward but held his ground at that point. “You want me to file a story that you are threatening a member of the press?”

  “Whatever you need to file, pal. But do it outside. Do it now, Charlie.”

  The reporter knew that he had gone a step beyond. He smiled and turned away. “See you on Page One,” he said to the detective with an evil leer as he gracefully withdrew.

  “Fuck you, Charlie,” Storme softly replied.

  “No need for that,” Andrews rejoined from a safe distance, “—there’s always Rebecca.”

  The guy was out of there and moving fast before Storme reached the doorway. Which, he knew, was a good thing. He might have killed the bastard, and what would that accomplish?

  The guy was just trying to needle him.

  No way would Rebecca….

  Would she?

  Naw, naw. But maybe there was a tiny grain of truth to it.

  Maybe she wouldn’t now…but would she never?

  Never say never, the Sergeant’s mother used to say. Especially, never say it to a woman’s heart. In the ways of love, a heart can be very fragile. Sergeant Storme knew that much, sure. Just so many hurts, so many disappointments, so many betrayals—and then a love can die.

  Jesus!

  Peter Storme did not want Rebecca’s love to die. God no!

  So what kind of a jerk had he been?

  He went to find her, to tell her that he did not want their love to die.

  But Rebecca had already left for the night. She had left just a moment ago. She’d left with Charlie Andrews.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Actually, Rebecca had not left “with” Charlie Andrews. It was merely a coincidence that both had departed at about the same moment. She was several steps ahead of him crossing the foyer. He hurried on to overtake her just outside and called out, “Hold up, Rebecca.”

  She had been aware that he was behind her for just a split second before he spoke and had hoped to avoid him entirely but now she resignedly acknowledged his presence. “Hi, Charlie—good night, Charlie,” she called back without turning around.

  He fell in beside her with an injured air and asked
, “You mad at me, Rebecca?—and I thought we’d been getting it on so well lately.”

  She halted and showed him a solemn face as she replied, “Where’d you get an idea like that? I don’t like you, Charlie. I don’t respect you. You know that. So why the game? I am not required to talk to you and in fact I am not even allowed to talk to you without a Public Information Officer present. So bug off, huh?”

  “I thought we’d have a quiet drink together.”

  “You thought wrong.” She swung her car door open and slid inside. Andrews continued to stand there with an expectant smile. It was hard for her to stay tough with this guy. As rotten as she knew he was, he also displayed a certain vulnerability and almost puppy-like sense of expectation. Not that she bought into the routine wholeheartedly but still….he could be downright winsome at times. She relented but warned him, “If you came to pump me for information, Charlie….”

  He knelt beside her, with the car door still open, and soberly told her, “Maybe I could be valuable to you. Is it true that you’ve developed a suspect from Oklahoma?”

  “I can’t talk about this, Charlie.”

  “Sure you can. You need all the help you can get on this problem.”

  She said, with an unbelieving smile, “You just want to be helpful, huh?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe? Sure I want to help. We’re in this thing together, aren’t we?”

  “Are we?

  “Well sure. So why don’t you ask me what I know about Oklahoma?”

  “I’ll bite. What do you know about it?”

  “Hell, I was a journalist there. Didn’t I ever tell you about that?

  “I don’t remember everything you’ve told me, I guess.”

  “I guess you don’t. I worked the crime beats, prison systems, the whole schmear. So I could help with this. Don’t tell me you’re not interested.”

  She thought about it for a moment before replying, “Okay, sure, I’m interested.”

  “Let’s go talk about it. You say where.”

  “So let’s go back to the office.”

  “Not there, no. Those people don’t like me in there, Rebecca.”

  “I wonder why?” she asked sarcastically. But she had already bought the guy. And she hated herself for it as she quickly added, “Where do you want to talk, Charlie?”

  He said, “That’s my girl. There’s a nice little cappuccino place right up the street. You know the Coffee Bean?”

  She knew it, sure, but she allowed him to position his car before she turned onto the street and followed his lead. She would talk to him, okay, and she supposed that there could be no harm in it—but why did she feel so guilty about it? A lot of cops frequented that place, too. Maybe what she was feeling was that Pete would hear about it and take it wrong. Hell, she did not know what she was feeling. But it felt an awful lot like old fashioned guilt.

  The Oklahoma connection was producing more and more information as the evening wore on. The wires had been burning almost non-stop, the details of a long criminal career growing as local, state and federal agencies continued developing the profile of this killer.

  Sergeant Storme’s quiet excitement was fueled by a raw “gut” feeling that the case had already entered its terminal phase and that the whole thing was about to break wide open.

  Still, he felt strangely ambivalent about the progress of this case. Maybe he should hope and pray that the son of a bitch had become scared off and that they have seen the last of him in San Remo. On the other hand, he could not bare the thought of this lunatic escaping clean with the crap he had pulled in this town and that he would simply move on to another area and continue his despicable crimes under a new head of steam. He was warped, sure, but he was also obviously very clever and terribly dangerous. Storme wanted to nail the guy dead, right here, right now.

  So he was afraid that the killer would run and also afraid that he would not.

  He was worried about his own wife’s safety, too. She was a good cop, sure, and as sharp as they come but as a female she was also one of the potential victims in this area, and that was enough to give him pause.

  But none of this meant a damn thing. They had to catch this killer. That was all there was to it. They had to catch him.

  Storme’s first priority was to apprehend the suspect before other victims could die in San Remo. It did not seem to be enough to merely scare the killer off, allowing him an opportunity to resume his insane behavior elsewhere. With all the heat being generated in this area, it seemed likely that this guy would pull a quiet exit and fade into the woodwork the way he had apparently been doing since his escape from the Oklahoma prison.

  Martin had been on the loose for roughly four years. Where had he been and what had he been doing with his insane urges all that time? If not apprehended now, would he simply play it cool until the heat subsides?—or was he so deeply involved in his compulsions that he was truly out of control and growing more daring?

  If he was out of control, then Storme could only hope that the killer would become careless and that this would hasten his capture—but how many would have to die in the meantime? The suspect had been very cool and methodical to this point. How would he respond to the constantly building police pressures in San Remo? It was anybody’s guess.

  The Coffee Bean was one of those informal places where a patron could sit down and read the newspaper over a cappuccino, catch some television, play some darts or computerized games, or just sit and chat without pressure. That time of night, at least, the place was not filled with rowdy teenagers. No cops, either.

  Rebecca was feeling relaxed and pleasant in the company of her longtime adversary—the gentleman of the press—Charlie Andrews. The conversation was non-confrontational and easy. Not that she had any illusions about this guy, but she found herself more and more comfortable with him and actually enjoying his company. She was still on guard, however, when he began to point the conversation into a discussion of the case. She finally simply laid it out for him. “I don’t know how much you think you know about this, but yes, there has been a break in this case. It does concern a suspect from Oklahoma. I am not at liberty to say more than that but since you’re already partly there maybe you could help with this.”

  Andrews showed her a sober smile as he replied, “God, it’s like pulling teeth from you, Rebecca. I told you I could help. If you’re worried about confidentiality, okay, I will forget that we ever discussed this, but how can I help with a gag around my mouth?”

  She smiled grimly as she said, “Poor choice of words there, I’m afraid. If you don’t mind, I don’t want to hear about gags or kinky restraints.”

  “Sure, sorry—you’re right.—so what do we talk about?”

  She asked him with a sour smile, “Have you ever heard the term ‘whorehouse roulette’?”

  He grinned. “Yes, I’ve heard that.”

  “When? In what context?”

  He soberly observed, “So that’s it. That’s damn good police work, young lady. You nailed the guy on that?”

  “So it does mean something.”

  “You know it does, so stop playing games with me. Yes, I interviewed a fellow at Oklahoma Penitentiary some years back who used that phrase. You’re onto him, huh?”

  “Seems that way. Rape case, murder. The M.O. fits our killer. So you actually interviewed this guy?”

  He gave her a long, sober look before replying, “His name was Robert Martin. Twisted, really screwed up. That’s our man here?”

  She sighed and glanced guiltily about as she softly said, “Yes. I guess it doesn’t matter now. The whole thing will be on the early news tomorrow, I’m sure. But this is a two-way street, my friend. What can you tell me about Martin?”

  “Already told you. Poor guy, could have made a hell of a life for himself—brilliant journalist, learned it in jail—the hard way—I even once tried to get him some ‘parole points’ but he was too far beyond any help like that. You sure this is your man? Last I heard, h
e was still incarcerated and doomed to rot there.”

  “He escaped about four years ago.”

  “I’m not surprised. Told you he was a brilliant guy. So where has he been these past four years?”

  She replied, “I don’t know but I’m sure his whole sordid past is in our computers somewhere. Too bad it had to come to light here in San Remo. God knows how many victims are littering the landscape between that prison cell and this placid community of ours. When was it you met him?”

  “Hell, I don’t know—a year or two before I came to California. You know, it makes it tough—you get to know these cons and you learn to know them as ordinary human beings—the same dreams, the same fears that all of us have.”

  Rebecca looked at the reporter with new-found respect. “God, Charlie, you do have something resembling a heart, don’t you.”

  He snickered and told her, “That’s my secret. Remember, confidentiality works both ways. Between you and me and the gatepost though—sure, I feel for these guys.”

  “Even cops?”

  He chuckled. “Sure, even cops. Even, especially, sometimes female cops. Hey, it’s sort of like a war—isn’t it?—the balance between the need to preserve the Constitution and the need to protect the public against those who don’t give a rat’s behind about either?”

  Their discussion was cut short by the arrival of Lieutenant Jack Morgan, who also had opted for a quiet late snack at the Coffee Bean.

  But not before Rebecca had discovered a new dimension to Charlie Andrews. Imagine that, the bastard actually had a heart—or so it seemed at the moment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lieutenant Morgan joined Detective Storme and the Bulletin reporter at their table in the Coffee Bean. Morgan seemed a bit startled to find the two of them together in an obviously friendly discussion as the three of them exchanged greetings. He showed the reporter a questioning look as he commented, “What is this, a cease-fire between you two?”