“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Callie laughed.
I took my eyes from the computer screen and rocked back in my chair. “It’s too expensive, though.”
“We’ll just look.”
“Fine.”
“What time are you going to be home?” Callie asked.
“I have some old files that I want to dig into that won’t be at the station until the end of the day. Probably seven or so before I’m home.”
“Okay. I’ll already be gone for class.”
“What time until?” I asked.
“I’ll be home at like nine or so.”
“Sounds good. I’ll make you dinner tonight,” I said.
“Can’t wait. Love you. Be safe.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up and dialed the Clearwater PD.
Chapter 6
I spoke with a Sergeant Withers over at the Clearwater Police Department. While they hadn’t received any notifications of a missing person, he was going to check with his beach patrol guys, as well as his parking enforcement, on any vehicles that had been sitting in the area. He also got the word circulated through his ranks to be on the lookout for any kind of abduction attempts.
Hank walked through my office door and took a seat.
“I called the prison—essentially what the major said. They can go back years on visitors now, but that’s now, not then. They saved records for the year in their office, then transferred them to archives for a year, and then shredded them. We’re about seventeen years too late on getting that.”
“Worth a phone call. You never know,” I said.
“Did Ed get back to you on the tox screen?” Hank asked.
“About a half hour ago. Fluticasone and salmeterol.”
Hank shrugged in question.
“Used for asthma or COPD,” I said.
“Does that help us?” he asked.
“Not really. Prescription but very common.”
Hank clasped his hands in his lap. “Are you still trying to get away for the weekend?” he asked.
“I doubt it now. We’ll see. I just wanted to get out of town and go fishing,” I said.
“Weren’t you just out of town?”
“Getting shot at, up north in the cold, doesn’t qualify as a vacation.”
“But you went to California after.”
“For two days.”
Hank shrugged. “Where were you guys trying to go?”
“Rodman Reservoir. It’s a little southeast of Gainesville. They have a campground there, and the place is supposed to be great for bass fishing. I figured Callie and I could paddle around on the kayaks and see what we catch. The bass are spawning, so it should have made for good fishing.”
Hank nodded. “Were you planning on leaving tomorrow?”
“No. Just overnight Saturday. I can’t leave Butch alone for more than a day.”
“Is it okay for Callie to be doing that kind of stuff when she’s pregnant?”
“Kayaking and fishing? I don’t think anyone has told her not to. Trust me, she may be the world’s most informed expecting mother. She spends hours a day researching pregnancy. That and house shopping.”
“How is the house shopping going? You haven’t talked about it in a few days.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s trying to get us set up to look at a place on Saturday now. It’s out of our price range, though.”
Hank lounged back in his chair. “You’ll find something sooner or later.”
“It needs to be sooner if we want to be in before the baby,” I said.
“Did you give her the ring yet?”
“You already know I didn’t. I’m waiting for the right time.”
“Don’t wait too long. You’ll run the risk of her getting sick of you before you ask.” He dug a pair of granola bars from his shirt pocket. Hank held one out toward me. “Power bar?” he asked.
“Nah.”
“Karen got me a box of these. They’re organic.”
I shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
Hank jerked his head back. “Difference? You’re kidding, right? They’re organic. Organic foods are so much better for you. Karen and I have been trying to limit our intake of genetically modified foods.”
I rolled my eyes. The organic thing sounded like one of Hank’s wife’s ideas. I changed the subject. “Speaking of Karen, how is she adjusting to puppy motherhood?”
“Ah, yes, Porkchop? What a little terror,” Hank said.
“Porkchop. Great pet name, by the way.”
“Thanks. We love the little bugger. Minus the constant cleaning of poop and pee.”
Hank and his wife had picked up a little bulldog a few weeks back. Hank showed me photos of the puppy almost daily. From what he’d said, the dog sounded like a handful. “Teach him any tricks yet?”
“I’m working on it. Baby steps. The main one I want him to learn is to not piss in my shoes. I don’t understand why he chooses that spot, but I’ve probably slipped my foot into a pee-filled shoe at least a dozen times.”
I smirked. “The joys of a puppy,” I said. “Anyway, so you’re saying we can check the prison logs off the list?”
“Checked off as nothing to get there. What do you want me on?”
I glanced at the time on my watch. “Get with the tech guys and get them hunting online for sales and purchases. Anything having to do with Redding, I want to know about.”
Hank furrowed his eyebrows. “Are we getting ahead of ourselves here? I mean, this could just be an isolated incident of some wack-job.”
“It could, and I’m not necessarily ruling that out. Yet the level of dedication is impressive—in a bad way. If this person took the time to get every last detail right, I’m betting that the body count will rise until we catch the guy.”
My desk phone rang.
I scooped it up. “Lieutenant Kane.”
“Hey, it’s Rick. Archives just called. Your boxes from the Quilter case will be here in ten minutes.”
“Great. I’ll be down shortly.” I hung up.
“Our boxes on Redding will be here any minute. Go talk with the tech guys and meet me over in the forensics lab when you’re done.”
“No sweat.”
Hank stood and left. I walked next door to Captain Bostok’s office, gave his door a tap, and walked in. He was sitting at his desk.
“How was your meeting?” I asked.
The captain took his attention from his computer and pushed his reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “We got ironed out what we needed to iron out.”
I didn’t press. If whatever the topic he and the major had discussed involved me, they would have invited me to the meeting.
“I talked to the guys over at Clearwater. They will be keeping their eyes open and will let me know if they get anything.”
“Good.”
“Rick says my evidence boxes should be here any minute. I’m going to head down there for a few hours and start digging in.”
“Well,” Bostok checked the time on his watch, “don’t stay too late. It’s almost five now. Try not to keep anyone after seven. We’re a little tight on hours.”
“Sounds good.”
The captain went back to typing and looking at his computer screen. “Let me know if you get anything,” he said.
“Will do.”
I closed his office door and took the elevator down to the forensics lab on the first floor. Rick was in his office. Four brown cardboard file boxes sat on the corner of his desk. I rapped my knuckles on his glass door and entered.
“Is this everything here?” I asked.
“Those are your files, everything archives had on the case.”
“Are you sticking around for a little bit? A trained set of forensics eyes could help going through everything.”
Rick shrugged and patted his pockets. “Sure. Let me go have a smoke quick, and I’ll lend a hand.”
“I thought you were trying
to quit with the gum?” I asked.
“The gum wasn’t doing it for me. I have an appointment with the doc for some prescription stuff. We’ll see how that goes.”
I nodded and grabbed one of the file boxes from his desk. “I’m going to take these out to one of the workstations. We’ll have a little more room and better lighting that way. Rawlings is going to be giving us a hand as well.”
“Works for me.”
I lifted the first box and carried it from his office. Rick went to go have his cancer stick while I grabbed the other three. Hank walked in as I was pulling the covers off and going through them.
“What are we looking at?” Hank asked.
“This box here is all from the trial. That one”—I pointed—“looks to be everything on Redding the person. These two here are from the case itself.”
Hank scratched the side of his head, where more gray than normal was coloring his temples. “Looks like we’ll be here a while. I should probably call Karen and tell her I’ll be late.”
“What’s up with your hair on the sides?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The gray.” I squinted my eyes at him. “That’s more than normal. Not that I take long, gazing looks at your personal appearance or anything, but something is up.”
“Oh. Um. Yeah, just getting more gray, I guess.” Hank’s tone of voice sounded like a lie.
“You’re full of it.” I smirked. “Does Karen have you dyeing your hair gray on the sides?”
“Dammit!” Hank said. “I told her it was too much.”
“Why in the hell does she want you graying the sides of your head?”
Hank rocked his head from side to side and let out a breath in shame. “We went to the movies the other night, some sappy movie she wanted to see because she has the hots for the main actor. Well, he had graying temples, and she comes up with the idea that I should try it out. I think she got carried away while she was doing it.”
I shook my head.
“What? It’s not that bad. Distinguished looking, Karen says. Do you think it looks bad?”
“No, no. It’s very distinguished looking. I’m just upset with myself that I didn’t notice it earlier. I could have been having fun with this all day.”
“Whatever. How do you want to start with this stuff?”
“Each box has a contents inventory sheet under the cover. Grab a box and a table. Make sure everything that’s supposed to be in there is in there first.”
“Sure.”
Hank took the box about Redding’s personal life and headed for the adjacent workstation. Rick joined us a moment later and did the same with the two boxes that had case evidence in them. I took the box that contained everything about Redding’s trial. We went through the lists of inventory for each box. Nothing was missing from our evidence. We spent the next half hour cycling through everything and taking any notes we felt might be significant to our case. When we finished with our boxes, we cycled them to the right. In that way, I skimmed over page after page regarding Redding, the case, the evidence, and his trial. The more I looked the files over, the more I felt like we were just wasting time.
I cracked my neck from side to side and glanced toward the analog clock hanging at the back of the lab. It was nearing seven. “Okay. History time is over. Anything standing out at you guys?”
Rick took his eyes from a folder in his hands. “Old files, old evidence, old case,” he said.
“Hank? Anything?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m learning about something that happened thirty years ago. I’m not really sure it’s doing anything to help us find who skinned the guy in the park this morning.”
“I agree. I’m thinking we’ll have to wait until someone reports a missing person. Once we have someone around the same height and weight reported, we’ll have to start there and work backward.”
Chapter 7
Angel and Carmen were parked at the curb in front of the Wesley Chapel house. The ivory-colored home stood two stories, with a three-car attached garage at the front. The front door was surrounded by pillars supporting a covered porch above. Professional landscaping surrounded the property. A dense woods sat just beyond the home. Angel figured it for some kind of nature preserve, from the walkways leading into the area. The house belonged to Herb LaSalle. Mr. LaSalle was number four on her list of seven. From what they had learned, Herb was a widowed sixty-five-year-old man, who lived in the house alone.
The last remaining minutes of daylight ticked away, and the time came for them to act. Angel grabbed her props from the passenger seat, opened the driver’s door of her silver Ford sedan, and stepped out. She leaned back in. “I’ll call you as soon as we’re ready, Mama.”
“Okay, baby,” Carmen said.
Angel closed the door and started up the driveway. The sidewalk leading to the front door turned to red brick. She stood at the home’s purple front door, pressed the doorbell, and heard it chime inside.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open. A short man in his sixties stood in front of her. He was clean shaven with short white hair. Glasses rested on his nose. His face and body were round. He wore a light-blue polo shirt and khakis. His face said he was unsure why Angel was standing at his door.
“Hi,” she said. Angel smiled widely.
“Hello,” he said.
“Sorry to bother you, sir. My name is Jesse Stone, with the Florida Water Treatment Association.” Angel tapped her homemade nameplate with its phony logo, which she had pinned to the breast pocket of her gray blazer. “We’ve had a couple complaints in the neighborhood here about the water quality. Our headquarters has sent me to get a few random samples.” Angel held out the water-testing strips she’d purchased online. “If you could just run one of these strips under your kitchen faucet, it should be all we need.”
“I haven’t noticed anything wrong with the water,” LaSalle said.
“Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be something you would notice. We found a few neighboring properties with some unsafe levels of nitrates. We’re just trying to see where we are getting these levels so we can follow it back to the source. It should just take a second. The directions for using the strip is written right here on the package.” She held out the packaged strip toward him.
LaSalle took it from her grasp and looked over the directions. He adjusted his glasses and squinted at the fine print. “Um, did you want to just come in and do it?
“If you’d like me to, I can,” Angel said.
LaSalle waved her inside.
Angel took a step into the home and closed the door at her back with the heel of her shoe. She held the testing strips in her left hand and reached into her pocket with her right, to feel the handle of her scalpel.
LaSalle spoke over his shoulder. “The kitchen is right through here.”
She followed him down a tiled hallway, past the dining room and a staircase leading to the second level. LaSalle made a right into the kitchen.
“Is it just you residing here, sir?” Angel asked. She pulled the scalpel from her pocket and flicked off the plastic blade cover.
“It is, yes. The faucet and sink are there.” LaSalle nodded toward the sink, and took a seat at the breakfast bar. He spun the stool he sat upon toward her.
Angel yanked her arm back and slashed at LaSalle’s throat as soon as he turned around. The strike was perfect. His neck opened, and blood spilled to the tile floor. Herb LaSalle reached for his neck, his eyes bulging. As his hands came to his throat, blood pumped from between his fingers. Herb slipped from his stool onto the floor. The blood began to pool under him.
“Let it bleed,” Angel said. “It will be faster if you don’t try to fight it.”
LaSalle tried making words, but he couldn’t speak. Blood bubbled from his mouth and ran down his chin.
“Don’t try to talk. Nothing you say can help you now.”
Herb stared back at her with panic in his eyes.
; Angel looked at the watch on her wrist. “You’re taking a long time to die. Let’s see, what should we talk about until you do…” Angel curled her finger against her lips. “Do you remember Henry Pullman?” she asked.
Her question didn’t receive a response.
“He was one of the men who you had jury duty with all those years ago—you know, when you sentenced my father to death. Do you remember my father?”
LaSalle kicked his feet and flopped over onto his stomach. He tried to claw his way to the phone on the wall.
Angel leaned against the breakfast bar and watched. She rolled her eyes. “You’ll be dead before you get there,” she said. “Do you want to know what we’re going to do to you after you die?”
LaSalle’s right arm reached out to pull himself forward one final time. Then he collapsed to the tile, dead.
“Guess not,” Angel said.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Carmen in the car.
“Ready?” Carmen asked.
“Ready, Mama,” Angel said.
She hung up. A minute later, Angel heard the front door open.
Carmen walked into the kitchen with a duffel bag draped over her shoulder.
Angel observed Carmen looking at the man lying dead on the kitchen floor. “Did I do good?” Angel asked.
“Very good, dear. Let’s go get the garage set, and then we’ll drag him out there.”
Angel scooted herself from the stool and went to go help Carmen prepare.
Chapter 8
I got home around eight after a stop at the store for a few groceries. Callie claimed to love my homemade spaghetti and meatballs, which was good because it was about the only dish I had confidence in making without screwing up. If I timed everything right, it would be done right around the time she got home from her class. Butch sat on the barstool across the breakfast bar, watching the preparation of the meatballs. He ran his little sandpaper cat tongue around the corners of his mouth.
“You’ll get one when they’re cooked,” I said.
He hopped off the stool and came over to weave around under my feet.
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