by Rick Murcer
She smiled a sad smile. “Not to me, Big Boy.”
When Chloe used his wife’s nickname for him, his mind raced to Louise’s face, the curve of her lips and the shape of her nose. How she laughed. The way she held him had always felt like they fit together. Like God had ordained it.
“I’m married to a wonderful woman. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Not to mention, I said some vows I meant. In front of people I care about and God.”
“Wait. I’m not asking you to break those vows or leave your wife, especially after three days. Really. I only want you to know that . . . that if something happened . . .” her voice trailed off.
She straightened her jacket and smiled. “Or if you decide to get rid of that Boy Scout thing, I’m here.”
Manny put his hand on her warm shoulder and just as quickly, removed it.
Really, really, not good.
“Chloe, that’s the best offer I’ve had since Louise said ‘yes’ to me.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I meant every word.”
“So did I.” He grinned. “Okay. Are we good?”
“For now, and as long as you don’t touch me again. You’ve been warned.”
“It’s a deal.”
Chloe stepped back as the elevator door opened, and Max strode toward them from the interior. Just then, the other SUV screamed around the corner and slammed to a searing stop just short of where Manny, Chloe and Max stood, sending them scrambling.
Sophie jumped out of the driver’s side. “Wow. These things can move. I gotta get one.”
Josh and Alex got out, both as pale as the walls of the parking garage.
“Never again,” said Alex. “And I mean it this time. She’s crazy.”
Josh laughed. “We need to hire her to train our other agents. I never saw anyone drive like that, text her husband, and put on fresh makeup all at the same.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d been in the front seat, I would’ve shown you one more dimension of my multi-tasking skill,” Sophie proclaimed, winking at the special agent.
“I bet you could.”
The stink of burning rubber and puffs of gray smoke still emanated from the tires of the SUV Sophie had parked. Manny motioned the others away. “Damn girl. That unit’s going to need new rubber.”
“No problem. We got a little money,” said Josh.
“I’ve heard that. So, anything different about the Mercedes murder?” asked Manny.
Alex shook his head. “Not really. He’d been dead maybe two hours. Same desecration of the groin area. Three shots in the chest, one in the head. Black-leather bindings. The body posed in similar fashion as the others.” Alex leaned against the truck. “I did notice a couple places that looked like stab wounds, so we’ll check that out once we get into the lab. Other than that, we collected hair samples, fingerprints, a cosmetic fingernail, and anything else that looked like it could help.”
“Wait. We think we figured out how the first victim might have been dumped behind the White Kitty, but not really dumped,” said Sophie. “There was a lot of blood on the hood, but even more in the back seat.”
“So the first victim, Morse, could have been killed in a car and then dumped behind the garbage bin?” asked Max.
“Yeah. That’s what we think.”
“Makes sense,” said Manny.
Alex held out his hand showing a small piece of paper in an evidence bag. “Of course, the obligatory ‘note up the left nostril’ had to be extracted. The letter ‘I’ was on this one.”
Josh looked at Manny. “How about you? What’d you find?”
“Nothing different than you. I think this was Stella’s last victim, and she seemed to be a little more in a hurry. But the MO was identical except for the back-stomping part.”
“We got the letter ‘T’ out of Boogerland,” added Max.
“Boogerland? Uck.” snickered Sophie.
“Wait. You got an ‘I’ from his nose, we got a ‘T’. The other three letters were ‘J-U-S’, right?”
“Yeah they were,” said Sophie.
“That’s the first five letters of JUSTICE. My God; they were going to kill enough men to spell out the Club’s name.”
The implications left the others silent, contemplating the possibilities.
Manny ran his hand through his hair. “How did this get so nuts? Gavin, Stella, Dana’s fiancé, and five other murder victims, all within a couple of days. That’s six months worth of homicides for Lansing.”
“This shit is getting deeper and deeper. We need to stop them.” Alex threw up his hands.
Just then, Manny noticed the other small evidence bag in Alex’s right hand. He bent closer, squinting in the florescent lights of the garage. He’d seen that style of cosmetic fingernail before.
“Alex. Open that bag.”
“What?” I can’t do tha—”
“Just open the damned bag, now.”
“Okay, okay. Hold on to your shorts.” He pulled a latex glove out of his pocket and then Alex unzipped the seal as the others squeezed closer.
“You and latex . . . I just don’t know,” said Sophie.
Manny took the nail from Alex and rotated it in his fingers. Even though it was cracked, the teal background contrasting the tiny star and moon shapes running vertically up the nail were unmistakable.
“I know who this belongs to,” said Manny.
“Who?” asked Sophie.
“Don’t you remember?”
Sophie frowned, the wheels turning. Then her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “That belongs to Evelyn Kroll. The manager of the White Kitty.”
Chapter-55
Frank Wymer waddled out of the twenty-four-hour convenience store with an extra large soda in one hand and an open bag of cheesy twist puffs in the other. It had been a long night so far, and only two things were mandatory when he was up late: eating and more eating.
He stuffed a handful of twists in his mouth and washed it down with a long draw from the soda. Better.
Ross had been on his case, really on his nerves, all day so he suggested they split up and cover more ground. But he really just wanted to get away from her and knew she felt the same. He wasn’t sure which of them was more irritated, the bitcher or the bitchee. Either way, the break was necessary. He hated it when she got like this. He didn’t think it was him this time. She’d been more on edge lately, probably fighting with that loser boyfriend of hers. People went through things, he got that, but enough of the moody-ass personality for now. Besides, they were covering more ground. Ross was faster, but he moved pretty well for 320 pounds, at least his wife said so.
One more drink drained the soda, and he tossed the empty snack bag in the trash, wiping the yellow-orange residue on his slacks.
They needed to be cleaned anyway.
He continued down the south side of the street, looking for any lights coming from the windows of the above-the-store condos. So far, he hadn’t gathered much. The three condos he’d visited weren’t any help. All of the residents claimed to have heard and seen nothing. Two young ladies were freaked out that a cop was knocking on their door, and the other one, a drunk male, told him to get a warrant and slammed the door. He’d remember that one when this was over.
Neither of the two storeowners he’d spoken with saw anything out of the ordinary, although one had seen a hot-looking chick hurrying past while he was out having a smoke. He admitted he was too busy watching her walk away to notice anything else. Best walk of the shift.
She may have been carrying a case, but he just couldn’t remember. He said it wasn’t all that unusual for students from the law school up the block to show up at anytime, toting anything you could imagine.
Frank knew that the law school’s library was open twenty-four/seven, so it seemed a logical place to go next.
He turned the corner heading west and stopped as quickly as someone like him could stop. A woman was walking toward him from across the street, moving at a
fast pace. Too fast. When she flashed under the street lamp some thirty yards away, he noticed she was on the phone, her light-colored hoodie coat flapping behind her, with something red streaked down the front.
Squinting his eyes as she moved under the next light, he zoned in on the woman’s jacket again. His eyes got bigger. No doubt, this time. The splatter pattern could be blood.
But whose?
Frank drew his Glock .40. “Hey. Stop right there. I want to talk to you.”
The woman, only ten yards away, spun on her heels and turned back the way she’d come, sprinting all out, and dropping the cell phone in the process.
“I said stop! Now!” he yelled. He broke into a run and stopped ten steps later, breathing like he’d just run a quarter-mile sprint, sweat popping out on his forehead as he put his hands on his knees.
Maybe Manny and Ross are right. Maybe I need to lose a couple pounds.
He looked up just as the woman disappeared around the corner of the next block, heading away from downtown. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember everything about her: her height, her hair, her posture, and her shoes. It wasn’t like having her in cuffs, but it would have to do.
The phone’s screen reflected light from the mercury lamp while the added reflection from the setting moon gave it an eerie glow. He took out a slightly stiff handkerchief and grunted, plucking the phone from the sidewalk.
The black casing had web-like cracks running up one side, leaching over to the screen. He touched the power button and nothing happened. Damn it. He’d have to get it to the CSU. The CSU could pull the memory card and see if it was any help. The phone was exactly like his partners, like Kathy Ross’s phone, and it had a memory card.
Just like Kathy Ross’s.
The sick feeling in his stomach crawled up to his throat as he turned the phone over and read the initials “K.R.” monogrammed into the lower corner of the casing.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Frank scanned the street, up and down both sides, and started to move. “Ross! Kathy Ross! Do you hear me? Kathy, where are you? Talk to me girl.”
No sign of the partner he’d sworn to protect, to always watch her back. Nothing but silence. The damning kind.
Running in the direction he’d seen the woman go, he let the adrenaline take over. No stopping this time.
After a block and a half, he reached the alley on the side of the street where Ross had been canvassing and stopped. The opaque shadows covered one side of the dirty half-street. The other basked in the late-night moon’s silver glow.
The alley is a perfect place to . . .
His imagination ran wild, not something a man like Frank Wymer allowed to happen. But this was different, like the night was speaking to him in a voice born of pure fear.
Taking out his phone, he called for backup, pulled his gun, and began to move into the alley. This was crazy, but what if she was hurt? He couldn’t wait.
“Kathy, you there?” he asked. Voice quiet, shaking.
He moved two steps. “Ross? Answer me.”
Frank took three more steps before he remembered the small, powerful flashlight in his back pocket. Taking it out, he flipped it on and watched the shadow side of the passage come to life. His eyes darted to both sides of the alley, then fixed on rapid movement. His skin started to crawl.
Huge brown rats scurried away from the light’s accusing aura. He jumped back in something just less than panic.
Good God. I hate those things . . . in particular, the big ones.
As he took another step back, the flashlight’s beam ran across a sheet of dirty cardboard that wasn’t just dirty. It was the color of dark blood.
He swallowed hard. There was something under the remnant, something stirring.
“Ross? Is that you?”
Inching closer, he watched the cardboard slide away in slow motion, revealing its hidden secret. Ross’s right arm materialized from beneath the covering. Not hesitating, he tore the rest of the cover away.
The cheese twists rose up through his gorge, stopping just short of splattering onto the alley floor.
The siren from the LPD cruiser wound to a stop, and two doors opened and closed in rapid succession.
Wymer barely heard the two officers call his name. He was far too busy kicking at the hungry rats gnawing on his dead partner’s face.
Chapter-56
“You’re sure she’s not there? What time? Got it, you’d better be right.” Manny clicked off his phone.
“The security goon said Evelyn left for her supper break and never came back. He was all pissy because she was supposed to help him clean up and then lock up at 3:30. He said her car was still there, though.” Manny grabbed the safety grip dangling above the SUV’s door, knowing what was coming next. “He said he’d wait for us.”
Sophie hit the gas screeching around the corner onto Cedar. Alex pounded the door with a thud.
“Hey, the Feds are following us, take it easy,” complained Alex. “And now I’ll need surgery on my rotator cuff.”
“Damn. You’re such a sissy. Relax. I taught Josh a thing or two. And what did the guard mean by ‘clean up’? Like in the theater?”
“Yeah. I suppose so. Why?” asked Manny.
“Ew. I don’t think I want to know what that means.”
“Oh man. Me neither,” said Alex.
“Concentrate on driving. I still want to get to the White Kitty in one piece.”
“Have I ever let you down?” Sophie glanced at Manny and smiled. “Don’t answer that.”
“Just get us there. We need to get a good look at her car.”
“You think it may have been used in the first murder?” asked Alex.
“I believe there’s a chance. If she did what we think she did, she may not have known what would happen when someone bleeds out. She probably did her best to clean up.”
“One of my best friends will be able to tell,” said Alex.
“You gonna get more latex gloves out of your pants? You seem to spend a lot of time in those pockets.”
“What? No, I don’t. And I meant Luminol. It’s a CSI’s go-to magic potion. And why all the cracks about latex gloves?”
“Hey. You’ve been keeping them closer than your wife since the cruise. Never mind the conversation you and Max had in St. Thomas. I think you’re a closet latex groupie. You get off on how smooth it feels, don’t you?”
“You’re a sick wench, you know that?”
“Hell, yeah, but at least I admit it.”
“As much as I’d like to hear the rest of this conversation, we’re here,” said Manny. “Whip in the back. Should be empty this early in the morning.”
“A little creepy with Evelyn being involved,” said Sophie.
“Yeah. I think so too. But who sees more depraved men than someone like her?” He thought about the day they interviewed her. She had played her role perfectly, fooling them both in the process. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of stressor she had experienced to send her down this path. But he also knew people, if they really wanted to, could justify anything. Stella had. And it bothered him to think he almost understood how it could happen. Maybe he understood too well.
Sophie slammed on the brakes, sliding sideways just enough to position the bright headlights in a perfect direction. The girl was scary, but good. The truck’s beams basked the White Kitty’s security guard in artificial daylight as he stood between two vehicles. The security guard was even larger than Manny remembered.
Manny got out just as the second SUV arrived.
“Thanks for waiting.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her. I don’t like cops; and I need to be here so you don’t finger her for something she didn’t do.”
Manny frowned and moved closer. “Why would you say that? I didn’t tell you we were investigating her for anything.”
The guard blinked and looked away. “Why else would you be here?”
“You think she’s involved
in something, don’t you?” asked Manny.
“You’re freakin’ nuts. Just do what you gotta do so I can get the hell out of here.”
Manny leaned in close and whispered. “If I find out you knew something, anything, you’re going to like me a hell of a lot less.”
The guard stepped away, his defiance replaced by an uneasiness Manny recognized. It had to do with people hiding something.
“Which vehicle is Evelyn’s?” asked Alex.
Manny pointed to the Chevy Blazer.
Alex reached for the passenger handle and looked surprised that it was unlocked.
“I don’t think I’d leave it unlocked in this neighborhood . . . not in any neighborhood these days,” Max said.
“I had spare keys, so I unlocked it,” said the guard.
“Did you touch anything inside?” asked Manny.
“No. Just pushed the remote so you clowns could get inside. Do what you gotta do, and then you can leave her alone.”
Max went around to the driver’s side back door, and Alex opened his case, taking out a flashlight and two small glass spray bottles.
Manny was always fascinated at how fast Alex could turn on the CSI thing. Max was a mirror image in concentration. If there was something there, it was as good as found.
Josh moved beside Manny. “Sophie said you think this could be the first murder scene.”
“Maybe. If she didn’t know how shooting someone played out in the physical, she may have messed up.”
“Got something here,” said Max, ducking out of the back seat. “These look familiar?” He was holding up two black-leather straps.
“Same stuff used to tie the victims?” asked Manny.
“We’ll check them out at the lab, but I say yes to that.”
“That ain’t all. We’ve got blood on the seat and carpet. Lots of it,” said Alex. “And these.”
Alex was holding a Blackberry PDA and a DVD in a clear plastic case. “I bet, when Buzzy tears this PDA apart, it’s the device used to jam the cameras at the White Kitty and at headquarters. God knows what’s on the DVD, but I bet it’ll be interesting.”