Blind Spot

  She went down beside the corpse, her knees at the top of Stannard’s head. She ran her eyes over the length of the body. The woman wore white anklets, dotted with red that was undoubtedly her own blood. Her legs were bare. The bathrobe was wrapped around her upper body and tied with a belt, but the robe had fallen open below the knot. She was wearing baggy cotton briefs, not the kind of thing women usually wore under their jeans. Too bulky. The panties sure as hell weren’t worn for a romantic encounter, either. They were the kind of comfortable clothing women slept in, especially when combined with ankle socks. Stannard might have willingly let Quaid into her place, but she hadn’t been expecting him. She was getting ready to hit the sack.

  Bernadette looked over at the bed and its linen, so frilly and feminine. It had to be the woman’s bed alone, her apartment alone. Had she and her husband split up? Was it over the drugs? How had Quaid gotten involved? Why was the wife targeted in addition to the husband? Were both tangled up in narcotics? Or did Quaid go after them for something unrelated to the OxyContin?

  Peering down into the woman’s face, Bernadette noticed there were no cuts or bruises around Stannard’s eyes or on her forehead. All the blood came from the mouth. A lot of blood for a cut lip, or even a knocked-out tooth. She leaned forward and looked down into the woman’s gaping mouth.

  Garcia materialized in the doorway. “Neighbors didn’t hear squat. No yelling or screaming.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she muttered while her eyes stayed focused on the woman’s mouth.

  As he holstered his gun, the sound of sirens again peppered the night air. “You know, we don’t even know if it was him. MO is all wrong. No rope. No missing hands.”

  Bernadette sat back on her heels. “No tongue.”

  He stepped into the apartment. “No shit?”

  Bernadette scanned the floor around the body. “I wonder what he did with it?”

  “Why would he start in on tongues?”

  She glanced back at the dead woman’s face. “Maybe she said something he didn’t like. Something sacrilegious. Sinful.”

  “Doesn’t sound serious enough for our holy man. There’s gotta be more to it. Quaid’s set his revenge bar higher than that—he’s been going after killers and sex fiends. And how does her killing tie in with the husband’s murder?”

  Bernadette folded her arms in front of her. Sirens sounded right outside the apartment’s windows. “The money in Quaid’s apartment—how about the obvious? She paid Quaid to kill her husband?”

  Garcia held up his hand. “Stop. How do we know the wad was from her?”

  “The stink on the envelope in Quaid’s apartment. I smell the same perfume here.”

  “Why does she have Quaid kill her husband?”

  “Who knows what marital turmoil they had going on.” Bernadette threw her hand toward the bed and the apartment beyond it. “Obviously, if the woman had her own place, they were having problems. Maybe he had a girlfriend. She had a boyfriend.”

  “Then the murder-for-hire arrangement turns sour. Holy Man comes over here for more money and doesn’t get it.”

  Bernadette: “I still don’t think this was about money.”

  “Okay. Comes over for something else and doesn’t get it. Whatever. Fights with Mrs. Stannard. Kills her. Cuts out her tongue.”

  The thump of feet down the corridor. Bernadette and Garcia looked toward the open door while whipping out their identification. A big blond uniformed cop with a square haircut stuck his head through the door without stepping into the apartment. He eyed their badges and photos. “Hey, FBI.”

  Bernadette and Garcia together: “Hey.” They closed their wallets and stuffed them back in their pockets.

  The blond cop struggled to focus on one of Bernadette’s eyes, gave up, and looked at Garcia instead. “Got a woman in the squad. She was getting out of her ride while we were pulling up. She’s all worked up. Might have had a little something to drink, too. Says she owns one of the shops downstairs.”

  Garcia: “Tell her the stores are okay. She can come back in the morning and check for herself.”

  “That ain’t why she’s worked up.” The blond cop’s eyes went to the floor, but he didn’t say anything about the body.

  A second officer—a young guy with red hair—poked his head into the apartment. He spotted the woman on the floor. “Damn. She ain’t significant no more.”

  Bernadette: “What?”

  The blond cop: “The shop lady says her ‘significant other’ lives up here.”

  The agents looked at each other. The right side of Bernadette’s mouth curled into a crooked grin. “There’s our boyfriend. Except she’s a girlfriend.”

  Garcia to the blond cop: “What’s the shop lady’s name?”

  The officer reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a notepad. Looked at it. “Cynthia. Spelled with a ‘y.’ Holmes, like in the detective books.”

  “Do me a favor,” said Garcia. “Take Sherlock’s sister to the station and park her in a room for us. Give her a cup of coffee. Would you do that, please?”

  The redhead, his eyes still on the corpse: “What should we tell her?”

  Garcia: “Don’t tell her a thing. We’ll deal with it. Okay?”

  The blond shoved his pad back in his pocket and gave them the thumbs-up. He and the redhead turned around to leave.

  “Hold on, guys,” said Bernadette.

  The two officers pivoted back around. The blond: “Yeah?”

  “What’s the problem?” Garcia asked her.

  Bernadette to the cops: “Bring her up here. Don’t tell her anything. Just bring her up. And don’t let anybody else come up. Not our people or yours. I want you two and the shop lady and that’s it.”

  The redhead’s brows went up. He glance down at the body again, and up at Bernadette. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  “Whatever you want,” said the blond. He patted his partner on the shoulder, and the two of them turned around and thumped back down the hall.

  Garcia: “You think Sherlock’s sister is involved?”

  “Up to her significant eyeballs.”

  Thirty-nine

  Cynthia Holmes backed out of her lover’s apartment, fell to her knees in the hallway, wrapped one arm around her gut, and vomited. She was a tall reed with olive skin and short black hair that hugged her head like a bathing cap. She was younger than Chris Stannard by a dozen years and was decked out in a younger woman’s accoutrements: Biker jacket and tight jeans. Doc Martens on her feet and a layer of makeup on her face. With her head down—hiccupping and crying and puking—Holmes looked like a teenage boy sick after his first drunk. She smelled like a drunken teenager, too. The pink vomit reeked of fruity alcohol.

  The redheaded cop stood on one side of the kneeling woman, and his blond partner stood on the other. The officers were stone-faced while Bernadette and Garcia questioned Holmes.

  Bernadette: “What happened here, Ms. Holmes? Who killed your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Holmes said to the floor. “I don’t know her.”

  Garcia: “What happened, Cynthia? We’re here to help.”

  “I don’t know,” the woman hiccupped. She raised her torso and looked into the apartment. She folded back down, vomited a second time, and resumed her crying.

  Bernadette stepped through the doorway into the hall. She stood at the sobbing woman’s head. “Sit up, Ms. Holmes.”

  “Nooo,” sobbed Holmes.

  “Sit up and look at me,” Bernadette said to the top of the woman’s head. Holmes stayed bent, her shoulders shaking.

  Garcia walked out of the apartment and stepped next to Bernadette. The sympathetic dad’s voice: “Look, Cynthia. You screwed up. Tell us about it and we’ll go easy on you. Let the county charge it out.”

  Bernadette: “Make us work for it and we’ll nail your ass to the wall, Ms. Holmes. Federal charges. Federal time. Federal prison. Big law.”

&nb
sp; Garcia: “Your choice, Cynthia. Tell us what happened. Maybe it wasn’t your fault. This was all Mrs. Stannard’s idea. You went along for the ride. Hell, you even tried to talk her out of the scheme.”

  “That’s not what Mr. Stannard told us, of course.” Bernadette eyed Garcia, waiting for him to jump in with a contribution.

  “He said this was all your doing,” said Garcia.

  Holmes’s shoulders stopped shaking. She wiped her nose with her hand and then wiped the hand on the thigh of her jeans. “He’s alive?”

  Bernadette: “Your hired hand didn’t finish the job.”

  Garcia, getting into the yarn: “Mr. Stannard knew about you, Cynthia. He knew about this apartment. He’d followed Chris here once.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Holmes snarled. “He didn’t know jack.”

  “Then how’d we know to come here?” asked Bernadette.

  Holmes hiccupped once and slowly righted herself, until she was sitting on her heels. She twined both arms around her middle. She kept her eyes closed and her head turned to one side while she spoke. Her mascara had run, and a black line sliced from the bottom of each eye down to her cheeks. “Chris hated his guts. She wanted to get rid of him but still keep his money and his house. It was her plan. I told her we didn’t need to take him out, that we didn’t need his money. But my girl likes to buy stuff.”

  Garcia: “How’d your girl recruit help?”

  Holmes opened her eyes but kept her head turned. “She met this woman in the hospital. A patient.”

  Bernadette interrupted: “The patient’s name.”

  “Anna something,” Holmes said, sniffing. “Last name started with an ‘F.’”

  Bernadette: “Go on. We’re listening.”

  “This Anna person told Chris about a priest who went after bad people. Punished them the way they’re supposed to be punished.” Holmes turned her head and looked up at the two detectives. “If you know what I mean.”

  “The priest’s name,” said Bernadette.

  “Reg,” said Holmes. “Reg Neva.”

  Garcia frowned. “What?”

  “It’s Danish,” said Holmes. “At least, that’s what he told Chris.”

  “How did Chris convince this Reg that her husband was bad?” asked Garcia.

  Holmes offered a small, satisfied smile. “When I was working as a drug rep a few years back, I heard about a pharmacist. In Florida or California or someplace. He got rich watering down cancer drugs and reselling them. Real asshole. Beat his wife and daughter. On top of all that, he was an addict. Stole prescription meds.”

  Bernadette looked at Garcia. “There’s the OxyContin.”

  “Keep going,” Garcia told Holmes.

  “Not much else to tell,” said Holmes. “Chris lifted the story and made it her pussy husband’s story. She turned around and told it to this Reg Neva.”

  “Only problem is, looks like your hired hand found out about it. Figured out you used him. A couple of geniuses, you and Chris.”

  “This Reg,” said Garcia. “Think if we pulled together some photos you could pick him out of the lot?”

  “Never laid eyes on him.” Holmes looked from the face of one agent to the other, and then at the cops flanking her. “This was all Chris’s doing. She met up with him. Set it all up.”

  Bernadette stepped off to the side so the dead woman on the floor was again in Holmes’s direct line of sight. “How fortunate for you that Mrs. Stannard is dead now. Can’t defend herself.”

  “Fuck you! I loved her!” Holmes yelled. She crawled to her feet and stumbled backward, hitting the wall.

  “You loved her so much you went out and started celebrating her husband’s death without her,” said Bernadette. “Isn’t that right, Ms. Holmes?”

  “He is dead? You fuckin’ liars. You pieces of shit. You played me. You fucking…” Holmes halted her diatribe and glared at Bernadette. “You got a weird look, lady. Somebody punch you in the eyeball?”

  Bernadette threw out her own jab. “Were you and Reggy in on this together? Are you supposed to meet him somewhere later? Or maybe he was your drinking buddy tonight. Your bed buddy. You a switch hitter, Ms. Holmes? Were you screwing him on the side?”

  Holmes reached into her jacket and pulled something out, drew back her right arm, and lunged for Bernadette. “FBI cunt!”

  Bernadette grabbed Holmes’s raised wrist with her left hand. The two cops moved in to help. “Back off,” barked Bernadette. “This one’s mine.” The agent plowed her right fist into the woman’s stomach. Holmes gasped and dropped what was in her right hand—a hunting knife. Bernadette kicked the blade off to the side, twisted the woman’s wrist, spun her around, and slammed her face into the wall. Bernadette forced Holmes’s wrist up toward her shoulder blade.

  The woman hollered into the wall: “Get off me! FBI cunt! I want a lawyer. You hear me? I want a lawyer! I’m not saying shit until I talk to a lawyer!”

  “Take the lady to the station and hold her for us,” Garcia told the officers. “Tell the rest of the crew they can come up and do their deal. And tell the crime-scene guys we’re missing a tongue.”

  “A tongue,” repeated the redheaded cop.

  “A tongue?!” Holmes howled.

  Bernadette said into the woman’s ear: “That’s how your hired killer repaid his lying clients.”

  “I didn’t hire him!” Holmes started squirming.

  Pushing the woman’s wrist tighter against her back, Bernadette said: “Don’t move.”

  Holmes froze. “Okay, okay.”

  Bernadette let go of the woman’s wrist and stepped away.

  “Behave yourself,” the blond officer said to Holmes’s back. He snapped the cuffs on the woman’s wrists and spun her back around. He and his partner each took an arm and walked her down the hall.

  “I want a lawyer,” Holmes bellowed.

  The agents turned around and together looked through the open doorway at the corpse on the floor.

  “We sure this Reg Neva is really Quaid?” asked Garcia.

  “Spell it backward,” said Bernadette. “It’s too easy. He must have thought the gals were really stupid.”

  Garcia ran the letters through his head. “Arrogant scumbag.”

  Bernadette: “Let’s put out a bulletin for Quaid and post some people to watch his apartment.”

  “You think he’s headed back to the Vatican?”

  “Doubt it,” she said. “The earlier killings were planned. This thing with the woman is clearly a cluster: broken glass on the floor, booze everywhere, tons of blood. This one could have him worried. If he’s got a brain in his head, he won’t go home.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  She took a bracing breath and slipped her hand inside her jacket pocket. “I’ll have to go see.”

  Garcia folded his arms in front of his chest. “I want to watch how this works, Cat.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, to fight him on it. His expectant expression made her change her mind. “Fine,” she said brusquely.

  “What do you need? What can I do?”

  She eyed him. He was serious; he really wanted to help. “You think that priest pal of yours would open up shop for us?”

  Forty

  Reg Neva is on the run. Bernadette sees his fists locked around his steering wheel. Those big hands of his are bare; he’s removed the killing gloves. Quaid’s attention keeps shifting from the view through the windshield to his rearview mirror. He’s worried about being followed or stopped. He slows and brakes as the rig in front of him stops. Blinking signal lights on the semi tell her the truck is hanging a left, but the driver must wait for opposing traffic to go by. With yellow lines running down the middle, and vehicles braking to turn, this isn’t a freeway. The semi trucks and steady traffic indicate it’s not a side street, either. Must be a highway. Quaid drums his fingers on the steering wheel while waiting for the truck to turn. He looks in his rearview mirror and to the right, steers around the semi, an
d resumes his drive. His eyes dart to the dashboard. He’s monitoring his speed, because too slow or too fast would draw attention. Quaid’s in a hurry, but he’s being careful.

  What borders the road he’s driving? Woods, maybe. Too dark to tell. Doesn’t help that he’s focused on driving instead of sightseeing. Ahead is an illuminated area. A city? A sign is coming up by the side of the road, just outside this place. The name of a town or a village? Quaid pays little mind to the sign, so she can’t make out the words as he rolls past. Not a very large place, whatever it is. Could be nothing more than a collection of businesses at an intersection. She finds nothing familiar or telling about the buildings. Quaid cruises through, and now the place is in his rearview mirror.

  Traffic has thinned. Bernadette sees no headlights from opposing cars. She spots no taillights from vehicles in front of Quaid. This has to be a rural area, she thinks. He’s relaxing. He’s stopped checking his rearview mirror and has increased his speed. His right hand leaves the steering wheel to fiddle with the radio buttons. Maybe he’s listening for news reports on the killings. No. He pushes a CD into the car’s player and cranks up the volume. Clearly he’s more relaxed—and cocky.

  Slowing to make a right turn. Quaid’s headlights shine down a driveway. Before she can get a decent look at the surroundings, he brakes, puts the car in park, and snaps off the lights. He stays sitting in the car, blackness all around him. She knows this blackness, remembers it from her childhood. It’s a blackness impossible to find in the city. Quaid’s frozen behind the wheel for such a long time, Bernadette thinks he intends to sleep there.

  He throws open the driver’s door and swings his legs outside. Standing up, he raises his eyes heavenward. He’s looking for stars, but there are none visible. This is a cloudy night. Windy, too. She can distinguish the tops of the trees, skeletal arms swaying and reaching for the sky. Turns around and digs under the driver’s seat, searching for something. He pulls it out and examines it by the car’s dome light. What is it? A handgun. Quaid puts it in his pocket. More rummaging under the seat. A flashlight. Good, she thinks. Better to see. He shuts the car door and walks with the flashlight, punching it on and aiming it yards ahead of him. Where in the hell is he? Heading for a house. Bernadette wonders: Whose house? Where? No address on the front. He’s looking around him as he heads for the steps. It’s an older two-story home surrounded by trees. He’s hiking up the front stoop, shining the beam ahead of him with one hand and fingering something else with the other. What is he fingering? Keys. Quaid shoves them in the lock, pushes the door open, and steps through.