“I’m not sure how.”
I tapped my fingers on the top of my desk. “Let me make a few calls. If I can provide you with an officer, to just keep an eye on you and not interfere with your daily life in any way, would that be acceptable?”
“Somehow, I have a feeling that you are going to do that anyway. Am I right?” she asked.
“Probably,” I said.
“Fine, then.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flores.”
“What was your name, again?”
“Lieutenant Kane.”
“Lieutenant Kane.” She drew out my name as she spoke it. “Are you always this stubborn?”
“Usually.”
She chuckled. “I’ll be watching for your babysitter, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She hung up.
I tried dialing Jones’s desk. He didn’t answer. I wanted him to get in contact with the out-of-state jurors as well. I stood from my chair to try to get a look out through my office blinds into the bullpen. Jones was at his desk with an older man I assumed was Ronald Braird. I dialed Donner, who was sitting at his desk, one over from Jones.
“Donner,” he answered.
“Hey, it’s Kane. Get on the line with whatever local police departments patrol the area that our out-of-town jurors reside in. When you’re done with that, make contact with the jurors themselves. I don’t want anyone involved with this, out of state or not, unaware that they may be targeted.”
“Okay, no problem. Um, I was going to ask, what time do you want us on until?”
I hadn’t even thought about that. They’d worked all night, and then I called them in after they were home for just a few hours. The night-shift detectives had been working nine-to-five nights while we worked nine-to-five days. Anything in between in the morning was ours; in the evening, theirs. With that day being a Friday, I was cutting into their weekend time.
“Just get that taken care of and bring me anything you and Jones have. You guys can take off after that.”
“Sounds good, Lieutenant.” Donner clicked off.
Chapter 17
After getting a monitor set up for Maria Flores with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department, I got a call from Major Danes. We’d gotten word back on Carmen Simms’s bank records—or lack thereof. She hadn’t had a checking account or a credit card since sometime in the nineties—a bust.
Hank entered my office. “I got in touch with Marcy White about that restraining order. She’s on her way in now.” Hank looked at his watch. “She wanted to do it over the phone, but I figured it was best that she stopped in. She should be here in a half hour or so.”
I waved him in from the doorway to take a seat. “What did she say was the reason for the restraining order?”
Hank slid back a guest chair and plopped down. “I guess Simms was stalking their house.”
“For?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I asked what it was for, and she just said, ‘stalking our family.’ She seemed kind of vague about it. We’ll see what the story is when she gets here.”
“Okay.” I glanced at the clock. “We’ll need to get everything from everyone together for the major so he can decide what he wants to do for this press conference.”
“Sure. Do you just want me to bring you everything?”
“Yeah, and tell Jones and Donner to do the same. Danes wants this stuff in a half hour.”
Hank nodded, stood, and left my office. My desk phone rang as Hank was walking out, and I scooped it up.
“Lieutenant Kane.”
“It’s Donner.”
“I just sent Hank out to you guys, to bring me what you had.”
“Okay. I’ll get it over to you in a second. I just got something, though.”
“Shoot.”
“Both out-of-state jurors—one in Maryland, one in South Carolina—were reported missing last week.”
“Shit.” I dug my palms into my eyes. “Did they have homicides involving skinned victims in the areas?”
“They did.”
“Son of a bitch. So Simms got to them before she started here.”
“It looks like it.”
“Did you tell whoever you talked to what is going on down here?”
“Just an outline, but yeah.”
“Do you have the contact numbers for the police departments you spoke with?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“Okay. Bring them to me along with whatever you and Jones have.”
“Now?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” He clicked off.
I leaned back in my chair. Carmen Simms had taken four of the seven jurors’ lives. We needed to make damn sure she didn’t take another.
Jones and Donner walked into my office, and Jones handed over the file of the jurors’ information they’d been working.
“All the juror’s names, sheets, current addresses, and information are in there,” Jones said.
“The out-of-state juror’s names, as well as the contacts I made at the local PDs are in there as well,” Donner added.
I thumbed through the folder. “Thanks. Jones, what’s up with Maggie Carpenter in Clearwater?”
“Still waiting to hear back.”
“Call the Clearwater PD back and have them get a hold of Bostok or me as soon as they make contact.”
“Okay. Anything else?” Jones asked.
“Nope. You two can take off.”
“Are you sure?” Jones asked.
I nodded. “Enjoy what’s left of your weekend, guys. Thanks for the help.”
“If you need us for anything, call,” Donner said. “I don’t know about Jones here, but I don’t mind the overtime.”
Jones shrugged.
“I will,” I said.
The two left my office, passing Hank in my doorway. He walked in and handed me the file he was working on. I arranged his with the others and slipped inside what I’d written down from my talk with Simms’s parole officer. Then I handed the file back to Hank. “Make a copy of that and take it over to Danes.”
He left to do that.
I checked the time. We had twenty minutes before Marcy White showed. What the interview would do for us in terms of the investigation, I didn’t know. I stood and walked next door to Captain Bostok’s office to give him an update.
He sat behind his desk, typing at his computer’s keyboard. I tapped my knuckles on the sill of his door.
“Where are we at?” he asked.
“I just had Hank take everything we had over to the major. We know a little but, unfortunately, nothing that tells us where she is at the moment.”
“What’s the little we know?”
“She’s targeting the jurors that were on the Redding case. From everything we found out, it looks like she’s killed four of the seven. We have one of the three under protection, one being monitored by the HCSD, and one we haven’t made contact with yet.”
The captain removed his glasses and ran his hand through his white hair. “Four of seven?”
“Yeah.”
“We know nothing of her movements? No house, no car, no cell phone? Did the major get the bank records?”
“There’s nothing there on any of them. She’s a ghost.”
Bostok cleaned the lenses of his glasses with his gray patterned necktie. “Anything from her past that we could look into further?”
“We have a woman named Marcy White coming in that had a restraining order filed against Simms a handful of years back. She should be here in maybe fifteen minutes or so.”
“What was the order for?”
“Stalking, Hank said. He was the one who looked into it. There were two restraining orders. The other older one was from Jack Redding’s wife.”
“Hmm.” Bostok put his glasses back on. “So this Simms was around Redding years ago?”
“It looks like it. I also spoke with her parole officer. Apparently, she’s psychotic as well.”
Hank knocked on the captain’s open door, and Bostok waved him in.
Hank took a seat beside me and handed me back the file he carried under his arm. “I just dropped a copy of everything off with Danes. I gave him an overview. He’s going to give the press everything. Carmen Simms’s face will be all over the news by tonight.”
“Good,” Bostok said. Do you guys have anything until the restraining-order woman arrives?”
Hank looked at me.
“Waiting, Cap,” I said.
Bostok pursed his lips and rubbed his mustache. “Okay, well.” He paused. “This is going to be odd timing, but I figure I should tell you guys sooner rather than later.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Major Danes is retiring, and I’m in line for the promotion to major.”
“Hell, Cap. That’s great news,” Hank said.
“Yeah, it is. When is this happening?” I asked.
Bostok held his palms out toward us. “Now, it’s not a done deal yet or anything, but it’s looking like this should all go through within a few weeks here.”
“Again, congrats. When is the party?” Hank asked.
“I’m sure we can put something together,” I said.
“Well, you guys may want to hold off on that.”
“Um. Okay, why?” I furrowed my eyebrows. “Are we being fired or something?” I asked.
“Well, you may want to plan something for a couple people. I’m recommending you, Kane, for the empty captain’s chair when and if this happens. Rawlings, if Kane ends up getting the spot, you would be in line for lieutenant.”
Hank smiled ear to ear.
“Shit. I don’t really know what to say, Cap,” I said.
“Well, you can say yes if it ends up getting offered to you. You know the deal, though. Testing and going through the oral boards.”
I nodded.
“I just wanted to touch on the subject. We’ll get into it further in the next week or two. Right now, find this woman and get her off the streets. I need to get back to what I’m working on here.” The captain motioned for us to go.
“Come on, Hank. Let’s grab a coffee before she gets here.” We left the captain’s office. I dropped the case file back in my office and headed toward the lunch room.
Hank placed a cup in the single-serve coffee machine and started his coffee. “Lieutenant Rawlings.” Hank scratched his chin with his free hand. “It just has a certain ring to it.”
“Well, don’t fall in love with the idea of my job until it’s available. You know how these things work. You know how the oral boards work. Screw up there, and bye-bye promotion.” I started a cup brewing in the other coffee machine beside him.
“Ugh. Oral boards,” he said. “I don’t understand why they feel it necessary to go in front of your peers and try to impress them with your well-thought-out answers to why you’re a good fit for the position. It’s stupid. I mean, everyone on the panel already knows if you can handle the job or not. It’s like being good at public speaking is more important than being good at being a cop.”
“Part of life, Hank. If this all develops into anything, I’ll coach you up on what you should be prepared for.”
“Appreciate that,” Hank said.
His machine beeped, signaling it was done. Then the PA paged him to the front.
“That’s probably her,” Hank said. “I’ll go grab her. Are we headed to one of the boxes?”
I shook my head, took my finished coffee from the machine, and went to the refrigerator in search of some creamer. I looked over from the open refrigerator door at Hank. “Nah, bring her over to my office.”
“Okay,” Hank said. He took his coffee and walked from the lunchroom.
I splashed in some about-to-expire creamer and walked to my office. I took a seat at my desk and took a sip of the coffee. Hank walked past my front window with a middle-aged woman in tow, and they entered.
Chapter 18
The last bits of skin were removed from the couple. Carmen had taken the man, Angel the old woman, Maggie Carpenter, but Carmen oversaw Angel’s work. The couple’s bodies hung upside down from the garage ceiling, their midsections wrapped in gauze. Blood covered most of the garage’s floor. Angel and Carmen were bagging the skin in two black garbage bags that Carmen had brought.
A series of knocks came at the front door, followed by the chime of the doorbell.
The two women looked at each other in shock.
“Should I go see who it is?” Angel asked.
Carmen shook her head. “No. I’ll do it. Just sit tight. Keep bagging.” She left the garage.
Angel filled her bag with the rest of the man’s skin, tied off the top, cleaned the blood from the outside, and began with the woman’s and the other bag.
Carmen reappeared in the garage doorway.
“Who is it?” Angel asked.
Carmen put her finger over her mouth for her to be quiet. “There’s two cops outside.”
Angel’s eyes bulged. She shook her head. She spoke just above a whisper. “What? Cops? What the hell are we going to do?”
“We’re going to finish getting this bagged up,” Carmen said.
She walked to Angel and began helping.
“What if they don’t leave, Mama, or what if they come in?”
“Then they die,” Carmen said.
Angel’s face showed a look of worry.
“Don’t worry yourself, baby. They don’t have any reason to come in.”
“Why are they here?”
Carmen shoved an armful of the woman’s skin into the bag. “They must know we’re after the old jurors. It’s the only thing I can think of.”
The doorbell chimed again, followed by another knock.
“Shit,” Angel said.
Carmen tied off the second bag. “They will leave soon. Relax. Here, clean the blood from the outside of this.” She pushed the plastic bag toward Angel.
Angel began wiping off the blood that had ran down the bag’s exterior. “If they start looking in windows, they’ll see all the blood. Were those front blinds closed?” Angel asked.
Carmen went to the doorway leading back into the house. She could see the open blinds. She followed the view from the front window to the blood pool in the living room. “Shit.” She looked back at Angel. “Hurry up and change.”
Angel did as she was told. She removed her gloves and stripped off the blood-soaked clothing she wore. Angel wiped the blood from her body and changed into the clean clothes Carmen had brought inside the duffel bag.
Carmen walked to her, licked her own thumb, and rubbed away some blood from the side of Angel’s face. “There. Clean as a whistle.”
“Hurry up and change, Mama.”
Carmen shook her head. “I want you out of here first. Put your bloody clothes in with the skin and go out through the back.”
Angel shook her head. “I’m not leaving you here.”
The doorbell chimed again.
“Get out of here before they see that blood.”
Angel stuffed her bloody clothes into one of the bags and tied it off. “What if there are cops in the back?” Angel asked.
“I’ll check the front door and tell you when to go. There was only one car outside—one car with two cops. If they are both out front, you should be fine back there. Go straight through the backyard to the golf course, walk a few houses down, and cut back to the car.”
Angel looked at her with question. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure you get away.”
“Don’t go after the cops, Mama.”
“Baby, please, you have to leave now.” She herded Angel toward the door leading into the house, and then the patio door at the back of the kitchen. “I’ll make sure they are both out front. When I give you the signal, run. Don’t look back.” Carmen grabbed a baseball cap sitting on the kitchen table, and she snugged it down on Angel�
�s head. “Tuck your hair into that.”
Angel did.
“Remember. No one ever takes us alive,” Carmen said. She rubbed the side of Angel’s face.
“I know.”
“You’re such a good girl.” Carmen hugged her, let out a breath, and went to the front door. She put her eye to the peephole, turned back to Angel, and mouthed the word go.
Angel slid the patio door open with the tips of her fingernails so as to not leave any prints. She heard an odd snapping sound but paid it no mind. Angel looked right to left. No one was in the backyard. She looked out to the golf course and saw a few golfers teeing off in the distance and a few more standing on a nearby green. It didn’t appear as though anyone was watching. She tossed the two bags of skin over her shoulder and jogged to the edge of the golf course. She turned right and ran two houses down, taking in everyone that could be seen—no cops, and the golfers didn’t appear close enough to notice her. Angel cut to the right through a backyard when she spotted her car through the gaps between houses. She stopped at the edge of the home on her right and looked up the street. The officers’ patrol car was still parked in front of the Carpenters’ place. She couldn’t see the cops themselves.
Angel’s silver Ford was parked at the curb directly in front of her. She dug the keys from her pocket, held a bag of skin under each arm, and casually walked toward her trunk. She thumbed the button to pop the trunk and glanced right over at the Carpenters’ home.
She froze. The two cops had their guns drawn. Carmen stood a few feet from the home’s front door. The butcher’s apron and clothing she wore were covered in blood. For a split second, Carmen made eye contact with her.
“Dammit,” Angel muttered.
Angel placed the bags in the trunk and walked to the driver’s door. She opened it and took a seat behind the wheel. She stared out through the car’s windshield at Carmen and the police. Carmen appeared to be talking with the two officers. Angel started the car and made a U-turn in the street.
“Goodbye, Mama,” Angel said.
The sound of gunfire came from behind.
Chapter 19
“Marcy White, this is Lieutenant Carl Kane,” Hank said.
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