Painted Beauty

by J. M. LeDuc

  The officer whistled his appreciation. “A 1952 Panhead,” his eyes opened wide in excitement.

  Sin gave him her full-wattage smile. “You know your bikes.”

  “Hell, every Harley fan knows the ’52 Panhead. And if not,” he lifted his head and winked at her, “they should be riding a Honda.”

  Sin laughed—a sweet, flirtatious laugh—and swept her manicured nails through her thick, black hair.

  The officer pulled a card out of his shirt pocket. “Officer Keith Jones,” he said. “A bunch of us ride every Sunday. We start here at seven a.m., grab some breakfast, and head,” he shrugged, “wherever the road takes us.” He cringed at his own words. “That sounded pretty cliché, but if you’d ever like to join us, we’d love to have you.”

  Sin reached into her saddlebag and pulled out her own card. She handed it to Keith and told him that she was only in town for a little while, but she would try to make it. Smiling again, she thanked him for not giving her a ticket, and drove the hog away. In her rearview mirror, she watched Keith look down at her card and do a double take.

  She smiled almost the entire way to the coroner’s office, but seeing the sign that read “Medical Examiner” erased the smile from her face.

  Concentrate O’Malley, she thought, you’re here to catch a sick son of a bitch, not to go on some joy ride.

  The autopsy was fairly routine—routine for this case, anyway. The only difference was the lack of embalming and the metal cage that the killer had welded onto the victim’s head. Sin took photos from every conceivable angle before Quincy cut the helmet off. And once he did, he was able to get to work on removing the paint.

  There was no surprise once the paint came off. What appeared to be a beautiful girl was actually a plain looking one.

  They cleaned up and sat in Quincy’s office, drinking coffee and reviewing the autopsy. A few minutes had passed when they heard a knock. Jack walked in, his complexion blanched.

  “I have a feeling you’ve seen the body,” Sin said.

  “Yeah,” he made the motion of putting a helmet on with his hands, “and the head-thing . . . that’s just weird.” He took a deep breath, exhaled through pursed lips, and shook his head. “This case just keeps getting more bizarre.”

  Quincy poured him a cup of coffee and pointed at a chair. “Have a seat, Jack,” he said. “It’s been a long morning for all of us and it doesn’t look like the day is going to end any time soon.”

  “We were just about to open the envelope,” Sin said. “Drink up and we’ll do it together.”

  Sin watched as Quincy fumbled through papers scattered over his desk. “What are you looking for, Doc?”

  “My X-acto knife. With everything that’s been happening, I’ve been amiss at keeping my desk clean. It’s in this mess somewhere.”

  Sin reached into her pocket and pulled out her pearl-handled straight razor. “Here, use this.”

  Quincy looked up from his mess and whistled. “That’s a beauty,” he said as she placed it in his hand.

  “Be careful. It’s as sharp as any scalpel you’ve used.”

  Quincy opened it with a flip of his thumb and studied the blade. “The edge is so sharp, it almost disappears. What is it made of?”

  “Titanium,” Sin answered.

  “Government issued?” Jack added sarcastically.

  “Gorilla issued,” Sin smirked.

  He put his hands up in mock arrest. “I don’t even want to know.”

  Quincy, still enthralled with the razor, rotated it in his hand until the overhead light hit the cutting edge just right. He said nothing—his smile said it all.

  He eyed the envelope and then Sin.

  “Cut it open, Doc,” she said, “we’re burning daylight.”

  With the slightest of pressure, Quincy cut through the envelope and then handed the blade back to Sin. “I need to get one of those.”

  Sin snapped the blade closed and pocketed the razor. “I’ll see what I can do. Now read the damn note.”

  Quincy removed the note with gloved hands and laid it on top of the envelope.

  “And Jealousy a human face.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Jack mumbled.

  “I don’t know,” Sin said, “but I might know a way we can find out.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Sin met with Jack and Alejandro back at the office and organized their next steps. Jack was going to follow up on George and get his reaction to the words left behind by the killer. Gonzales was going to do the same with Ashley. Evelyn was given the victim’s fingerprints and picture in order to use all the resources at the Bureau’s disposal to establish an ID.

  Sin had other plans. She was headed to the one place where she could find information that was otherwise hard—or impossible—to find. She was headed for the Keys; more specifically, to the Johnson place.

  Two hours later, she rumbled down the overseas highway enjoying the warm wind in her hair and the sun toasting her skin to a golden brown. Sin was lucky in that she had inherited her mother’s Cuban complexion and not her father’s fair Irish skin.

  She snaked her way through traffic and was soon rolling past Marathon—the unofficial half-way point in the Florida Keys.

  Sin slowed to a crawl as she rode past the building that used to be the Church of the New Son. She flashed back to the mission that’d brought her home, and couldn’t help but smile as she witnessed the construction crews hard at work.

  What was once an evil location was now being turned into something good.

  Dad would be happy, she thought.

  Wiping the memories from her thoughts, she twisted the throttle and thundered toward her destination. The Johnson place was the name given to the abandoned mansion that blanketed the shoreline five miles north of Key West. Once owned by the Johnson family, and built by Henry Flagler, this was the largest home in the Keys. Sin had recently learned that Charlie, her long-time friend and mentor, was the last descendant of the Johnson line and the owner of the home.

  She pulled off the Overseas Highway onto a shell rock road which led to the house. The road was buffered in mangroves and wound back toward the Atlantic Ocean. But soon the path opened up and the sheer majesty of the property rose up to greet her.

  The grounds were overgrown with sand dunes and sea grass as well as scrub pines and mangroves. Charlie refused to trim or cut back any of it. He thought the disheveled appearance helped to keep people away.

  Sin rode up to the mansion, used her key, and opened the garage. She was soon inside the kitchen brewing a pot of Cuban coffee. Most of the house was kept exactly the way it was originally built back in 1914, but Charlie had renovated the kitchen, bathrooms, and the library. That was where Sin was headed as soon as she filled her mug.

  In the library, Sin found a laptop on the desk with a note.

  “Sinclair,” she read, “I figured you might stop by at some point during my travels. I placed all of my pertinent software on this laptop. Sort of a traveling library since you always seem to be on assignment. Happy Birthday. Love, Charlie.”

  Sin lovingly slid her hand over the cold metal, and smiled. “Thank you, Charlie,” she breathed.

  She sat at Charlie’s mahogany desk, slid open the top drawer, and depressed a hidden button mounted on the underside of the desktop. The bookshelves in the front of the expansive room rotated revealing a wall of monitors. She then hit the other button and the green leather writing blotter on top of the desk flipped revealing a keyboard. A tap of the space bar brought the monitors to life.

  Sin leaned over and grabbed her backpack, which lay by her feet. She took out her wallet and removed her license—not her real driver’s license but the one Charlie had made for her.

  When he told her he was leaving on his trip, he had also sent her this license with a note. To anyone else, everything Charlie did might seem like the actions of a crazy person, but to Sin it was pure magic.

  Sin ran her fingers over the top of the card and tho
ught back to the first time she met Charlie.

  She was fourteen years old, a freshman in high school, and constantly harassed by the boys. Sin was so angry after one of the altercations that she stormed out of the school, jumped on her Honda SL 100 dirt bike, and rode to the nearby airport. She released her emotions by digging up the infield with donuts. As her aggression subsided, she’d sat down and started to cry. That’s when Charlie had walked up, sat down beside her, and started what would become a life-long friendship.

  Sin tapped in Charlie’s password and a blank space appeared on the monitor. She typed in the license number on her fake ID and the monitor went black. Sin’s breath caught in her throat as she stared wide-eyed at the blank screen, but soon the monitor blinked back to life and, Welcome Sinclair, was written across the screen. Letting out a sigh of relief, Sin grinned at Charlie’s thoroughness—or his conspiracy-filled mind, depending on how you looked at it.

  The message disappeared and a new one popped up. All it said was Crime and Punishment. Sin immediately knew what it meant. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment was Charlie’s favorite book; he owned a first-edition.

  Sin walked over to the glass-enclosed bookcase at the far end of the room. All of the Johnson family’s first editions and antiquarian books were kept in an enclosed, climate-controlled case. She unlocked the doors and found the book she was looking for. Peeking out of the spine was a sliver of paper. Sin gently slid the page out of the tome, opened it, and found Charlie’s encryption codes. Locking up behind her, she walked back to the desk.

  With the help of the codes, Sin was able to scroll through the folders until she located the one she was looking for.

  Sin entered Miranda Stokler’s name and a long list of sites came up concerning her work, but not much in the way of a biography. She tried a few other searches but nothing went back any further than 1978, when Miranda started teaching at the newly-opened Water’s Edge Academy.

  Sin refilled her mug with thick, black coffee, sat back, and pulled her legs up under her body. This doesn’t make any sense, she thought. Why doesn’t Miranda’s life go back any further? Hell, Ashley was born in 1979.

  Sin punched in a long alphanumerical code and opened a list of links to secure and top-secret government sites, as well as a few international clandestine ones. The list seemed endless. She clicked on the Social Security Department and searched Miranda Stokler. Again, she was baffled. There was a list of people by that name, but none matching her Miranda. The Miranda she was looking for seemed to be a ghost before 1978 had rolled around.

  What the fuck?

  Sin rubbed her eyes trying to erase away a headache that was beginning to take up residence in her forehead. She was having a hard time concentrating and decided to lie down on Charlie’s couch. Sleep came moments after she closed her eyes.

  Waking, Sin glanced at her watch and realized she’d been asleep for two hours. She went to warm up a cup of coffee and search the kitchen for food. She stopped short as she entered the kitchen, studying the place setting on the table with a note propped up against the glass.

  “I stopped by to check on the place for Charlie and found you sleeping. I wanted to stay but had to leave to pick up Maria. Stop by before you leave the Keys. Love always.”

  Sin lifted the note to her face and inhaled. The paper smelled like lilacs. It belonged to Carmelita, the only other person she loved unconditionally besides Charlie.

  In the fridge she found a homemade dinner and a pitcher of iced tea.

  The next few hours were spent gathering all the information she could find on the case. She searched both George and Ashley, investigating the writing found in the notes left by the killer, and the killer’s MO. Her findings were varied.

  Nothing of importance came up on the Stokler children.

  The words left by the killer were the first two lines of a poem; A Divine Image, written by William Blake over a hundred years ago. The more she searched, the more the MO didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

  Why am I having such a hard time figuring out this killer, she thought. Does the poem have something to do with his MO, or is he just a fan of Blake.

  Sin printed out what she needed and turned off the computer. Instead of going black, the monitor brought up another message from Charlie.

  “Go by the hangar before you leave. Be safe and call this number if you need me.”

  Sin committed the number to memory. If there was one thing she’d learned over time, it was that Charlie didn’t do anything without a reason.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sin woke up early the next morning and rode to her dad’s house. Even though he was gone and she’d transferred the deed to the property over to Carmelita after he died, she still thought of it as his.

  Carmelita had been the one to take care of her after her mom passed, and had stayed by her father’s side when he was diagnosed with cancer when everyone else in Tumbleboat deserted him for the riches promised by the now notorious Prophet Jeremiah Heap—the deceased leader of the defunct Church of the New Son.

  The house was quiet when Sin arrived, so she placed her things on the couch and wandered down to the beach to watch the sunrise.

  She sat on the sand cross-legged and stared out at the incoming tide, watching the sun as it began to rise over the eastern sky. She sat, twirling her pearl-handled Balisong. With each flick of her wrist she opened the knife, flipped it around her index finger, and then snapped the handles closed once again. In her peripheral vision, she saw Carmelita walking toward her.

  Carmelita, now in her early sixties, was still stunning. Full-figured and always a lady, she exuded a rare mix of sensuality and class.

  Carmelita sat down next to Sin and glanced at the knife before looking out at the sunrise. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Sin eyed the Balisong, barely cognizant of the weapon in her hand. With a final snap of her wrist, she closed the blade between the two handles and held it in her fist. “In the wrong person’s hand, very,” she answered. “I find it calming.”

  Carmelita held out her palm. “May I?”

  Sin placed the knife in her hand, sliding her fingers over Carmelita’s, callused by years of hard work.

  Carmelita turned it over in her hand and she spoke as she studied the weapon, “I watched you yesterday while you napped. It wasn’t a peaceful sleep.”

  Sin unwrapped her legs and hugged her arms around her knees. “It’s nothing, just the case I’m working on.”

  “The case of the Painted Beauty Killer.”

  Sin dropped her head and sighed. “The damn news,” she said. “Does Maria know?”

  “Un poco, mi hija, muy poco.”

  “How little?”

  “Just enough to be frightened for you,” Carmelita said.

  “I’ll talk with her before I leave.”

  Carmelita handed the knife back to Sin. “Si, that would be good.”

  Maria was a little girl—a victim of the human trafficking ring from Nicaragua who had been adopted by Carmelita.

  Sin could feel the woman’s eyes on her as she gazed at the waves. “Whatever you need to say, Madre, say it. Nothing is ever wrong when said in love.”

  Carmelita smiled. “You remember your mother’s words,” she nodded. “I like that.”

  Sin turned and looked into the big brown eyes of the older woman.

  “Very well,” Carmelita said, “I will tell you what I think. I think from what I have seen of you on television that you are afraid—”

  “Afraid? What are you talking about?”

  Carmelita held up a finger and pointed her manicured red nail at Sin. “Let me finish. I am afraid you don’t know how to act playing by the rules, and I’m not just talking right now—this case. There has been something . . . not right, since you agreed to go back to the FBI.”

  Sin threw her head back, and grunted. “This is crazy. I—”

  Carmelita placed her hand on Sin’s arm to calm her. “You are like a caged animal, pacing and gr
owling at everything and everyone. You have lost the essence of who you are.”

  “And who am I?” Sin asked.

  “La Perla Angel de la Muerte.”

  A lump formed in Sin’s throat.

  She was called the Pearl Angel of Death, because of her affinity for pearl-handled weapons and for the bodies she tended to leave in her wake. But this was the first time she had ever heard Carmelita use the title.

  Carmelita arched her brow. “You have always fought for the underdog. Channel your anger and frustration toward what you do better than anyone—helping those who can’t help themselves.”

  Sin leaned over and kissed Carmelita on both cheeks. “Gracias, Madre.”

  The two women walked back to the house, woke Maria and the three of them made breakfast together; chocolate chip pancakes. Maria’s favorite.

  By nine-thirty, Sin was headed back to Miami. She hadn’t forgotten to go by Charlie’s hangar; she just didn’t have the time. From Charlie’s cryptic note she figured he had left her a birthday present, but she would have to come back and get it later. Evelyn had called and told her they’d identified the latest victim. Duty called.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sin was ten minutes from the office when her phone started to ring nonstop. She pulled off the side of the road to check her voicemail and was taken aback when she heard the pert reporter’s voice coming through the line. Tiff from Action News seemed to be in trouble. With each message left, her ‘frantic’ meter seemed to be going out of control. Not knowing whether it was worry or curiosity, Sin called her back and they agreed to meet at the Sand & Street Café in South Beach.

  Sin was greeted by Jinny, the familiar girl who’d served her the last time she was here. “I saw you on the news,” Jinny said, walking Sin to her table. “We all did.”

  “Who’s we?”

  Jinny looked over her shoulder; Sin’s gaze followed. It seemed as if all the restaurant’s personnel were watching them.