1 Twisted Perception

by Bob Avey

  “We never actually met, only talked on the phone a few times.”

  “Did she ever say anything that gave you cause to suspect she was in danger?”

  Ms. Roth seemed to consider the question, looking off into space and tapping a yellow pencil against her desk. “This is off the record, Detective. Most of what she communicated was confusion, but she did tell me she was afraid of her husband. But you have to understand, most of my clients say the same thing.”

  “What do you know about Harrison Zimmerman?”

  “Just that he’s a prominent business man.”

  “Has your firm ever represented him, or his company?”

  She smiled, aware of where Elliot’s line of questioning was going. “Not that I’m aware of.” She looked at her watch. “I wish I could be of more help, but I have a meeting to attend. Is that all?”

  After leaving Joyce Roth’s office, Elliot was unsure of his next actions. Checking up on someone like Harrison Zimmerman would be difficult. He wondered why he’d ever thought Lagayle Zimmerman’s murder was connected to the Porter and Stillwater killings. There were very few similarities. But he knew the answer. It was the necklace, nothing more. He was still reliving the details of his first encounter with Joyce Roth when he climbed into his car and picked up the mike to answer a call. It was Captain Dombrowski.

  Elliot wasn’t there to witness Dombrowski’s expression, but he could tell from the sound of his voice that if he could see him, his face would look as heavy as cement. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “It’s happened again,” Dombrowski said. “There’s been another killing.”

  Dombrowski’s words sent a feeling of helplessness running through Elliot. He laid down the mike and drove to the location, an empty house scheduled for demolition, somewhere off Yale Avenue. It was a wood-frame, probably built in the 1950s. An enormous trash dumpster sat on the front lawn.

  The uniformed officers at the scene looked like soldiers, unwilling sentries guarding a death house. The foreman of the construction crew had discovered the body during a final walk-through of the property, something he always did before tearing down a former dwelling. He often found people hiding in the old houses, but never anything like this. He had never before found a dead body.

  Elliot climbed the steps and entered the neglected house and what he saw inside ripped a chasm in his chest. Every cop’s life becomes a part of his dreams, but Elliot’s nightmares had just invaded his waking moments. The victim couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. Her face was unmolested, but that was much more than Elliot could say for the rest of her. She’d been stabbed thirty or forty times. And her throat was cut, with the marks leaving behind a hideous crimson-colored T. Once again visions of Marcia Barnes invaded Elliot’s thoughts. He had to fight to regain control.

  Elliot glanced at Detective Beaumont then stepped closer to the body. The victim was lying on an old mattress. She’d been staged with her hands on her thighs so it looked as if she were holding her legs apart.

  Beaumont spoke, his voice startling Elliot. “Take a look at that,” he said, pointing to the wall. “Looks like you got your blood writing. I guess you were right, but I sure don’t know how the hell you knew.”

  Elliot had already seen it, a message written on the wall above the body, and as he read the scribbled words the same cold shiver went through him as it had nine years earlier when he’d first read that blood-smeared inscription on the back window of Johnnie’s Mustang. And whether the memories were real or imagined, he was powerless to stop their painful flow. The message, written in the victim’s blood, said: In your stead, I take the heat of moist breath against my neck. The content was different, but there was no doubt in Elliot’s mind that the same hand had drafted the writings.

  Johnnie Boy was here.

  11

  In the department break room, Elliot stared at the bulletin board without focusing on any one item. Dombrowski had called him while he and Beaumont were still at the crime scene of Michelle Baker, the latest victim. The captain wanted to discuss some things, said it was urgent.

  Elliot went to the counter and poured two cups of coffee, then picked up a couple of doughnuts someone had brought in. After that he went into Dombrowski’s office.

  Placing one of the cups and a doughnut on the captain’s desk, Elliot leaned back in a chair and sipped his coffee, its heat soothing his nerves. Dombrowski smoked a cigar, puffing like a locomotive. His face was flushed, the tendons in his neck bulging.

  “What’s up?” Elliot asked.

  “Beaumont told me about the blood writing on the wall. I’m not sure what to think about it.”

  Yeah, Elliot thought. I bet Beaumont’s given you an earful all right.

  “The connection to the Oklahoma State murders is obvious,” Elliot said. “I plan to go to Stillwater and talk it over with the sheriff there.”

  Dombrowski drummed his fingers against the top of his desk. “We need to have a heart-to-heart discussion. We need to talk about Porter.”

  Elliot couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He found it odd the captain would bring up Porter instead of Stillwater, until he glanced at a notepad on Dombrowski’s desk where he saw written the name of Molly Preston.

  He had been betrayed.

  Apparently his talk with Molly was more than just a little chat between friends. It’d been arranged, and it had Beaumont written all over it. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Captain.”

  Dombrowski’s lips tightened into a straight line. “Beaumont did a little checking of his own. You were more than just an innocent bystander, you were a murder suspect.”

  Elliot rubbed his forehead. “That’s not exactly true.”

  “Maybe you ought to tell me just what went on there.”

  “There’s not much to tell. It was a long time ago, back when I was in high school. A couple of people I knew were found dead in their car parked outside of town one night. The chief of police questioned me about it.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Porter’s a small town. He questioned everybody who knew the victims.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “The case was ruled a murder-suicide.”

  Dombrowski was silent for a moment, his probing eyes intense enough to run a chill through Elliot. “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  Elliot hoped his face didn’t reflect that he wasn’t sure about that night, and he was surprised at how fast the answer came out. “No, I didn’t. I know the chief of police in Porter. If you want, I could have him call you, talk to you about it.”

  “That won’t be necessary. You were what, eighteen at the time?”

  “A senior in high school.”

  “I guess it must have been pretty rough on you.”

  Elliot thought of Carmen Garcia. Don’t do this, Kenny. “You’ve no idea, sir.”

  Dombrowski sighed. “Sorry to put you through it again, but Major Sullivan’s giving me a lot of grief. He’s all excited about it.”

  “Back-to-back murders would tend to do that.”

  “Yeah,” Dombrowski said. “Anything on Bill Morton?”

  “He did some time a while back.”

  “What was he in for?”

  “Burglary.”

  Dombrowski sipped his coffee. “Anything lately?”

  “Not unless you count drunk and disorderly.”

  “What about Zimmerman?”

  “His alibi checks out,” Elliot said. “But I don’t trust him.”

  “What have you got on him so far?”

  “He’s in the oil business. Runs Zimmerman-Caldwell Petroleum. He holds an influential amount of stock in several banks. He’s also into real estate. And here’s a kicker for you. He’s one of the investors behind the Village at Central Park, the condos where his wife’s body was found. Everything seems to be pointing his way.”

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Dombrowski said. “What is it, his alibi?”

&nbs
p; “Not really. Even if Zimmerman didn’t do it himself, someone in his position could certainly find a way to have it done.”

  “That thought crossed my mind too.”

  “I had a talk with Bernie Sykes,” Elliot said, “a local PI Zimmerman hired.”

  Elliot sipped his coffee. Something Harrison Zimmerman said had him thinking, and he didn’t like where it was going. Zimmerman had assumed someone from his wife’s world shook down Bernie Sykes. Elliot had been to one club, but it stood to reason Lagayle Zimmerman would have frequented other places the general public never knew existed. She didn’t wake up one morning bored and deciding to be female. She’d lived a major portion of her life as a male and she’d obviously been unhappy with it. Perhaps she’d tried to make a break from her problems by entering into a straight marriage only to have them catch up with her, taking revenge for her departure.

  “Why did Zimmerman hire an investigator?” Dombrowski asked.

  “To tail his wife, find out what she was up to. But there’s more to it than that. He asked Sykes if he knew of anyone who could help him with a little problem. He wasn’t specific, but Sykes didn’t like it. He got nervous and quit the case.”

  Dombrowski relit his cigar. “Sounds pretty convincing to me.”

  “I know,” Elliot said. “But Sykes doesn’t want to get involved, says he’ll deny telling me about it. He’s already gotten rid of the paperwork. It’d be tough.”

  Dombrowski blew air across his teeth. “Sounds like we’ve got ourselves two unrelated killings.”

  Elliot nodded, but he wasn’t sure he agreed. The captain’s logic made perfect sense. Lagayle’s throat had not been cut in the shape of a T, there was no message written in blood, and her body wasn’t staged. On top of that, she didn’t fit the profile of blonde hair and blue eyes.

  “Something about it still bothers me, though,” Dombrowski added.

  “It bothers me too,” Elliot said. “Like, why would the killer resurface after all these years, and why here and not Stillwater?”

  “Let’s not forget about Porter.”

  Elliot wondered if he saw a hint of accusation in the captain’s face. Yeah, he thought, let’s not forget about that.

  “And I’m not so sure,” Dombrowski continued, “that the killer has waited to resurface.”

  The captain’s eyes were flat, the color of lead. Elliot wondered what was coming next. “Sir?”

  Dombrowski shook his head. “Just thinking out loud.”

  “Well,” Elliot said, “it looks like we had the same idea. I did a little checking of my own, using hair and eye color, and the rest. Seems our boy’s been busier than we thought. I don’t have the details with me but there’s been at least three other similar murders in the Tulsa area, the first in 1999.”

  “Why didn’t we pick up on it?” Dombrowski asked.

  Elliot was pretty sure the captain already knew the answer, but he detailed it anyway. “They were botched attempts, more or less. But all of the victims fit the profile.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “Our killer’s delusional,” Elliot said, “that’s why he does what he does. He’s not that organized and things can go wrong, causing him to cut the job short, unable to finish to his satisfaction.”

  Dombrowski’s expression remained flat, unreadable. “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve done a little reading on the subject,” Elliot said.

  Dombrowski stared off into space.

  Elliot had seen the captain in a lot of moods, but he’d never seen him at a loss for words. However, the same weighty stillness had crept over Elliot, too. It was as if the verbalization of the facts had somehow made them more real.

  “I have more leads,” Elliot said as he stood to leave. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  Dombrowski nodded, but Elliot could tell by the captain’s expression that he was more than worried about the way things were going.

  12

  Elliot left Dombrowski’s office suspecting he’d lost something valuable—the captain’s complete trust. He’d seen looks of uncertainty flicker through Dombrowski’s eyes on occasion, but never before had he witnessed his expression reflecting such a measure of doubt.

  The next stop on Elliot’s list was Michelle Baker’s mother, Amy Harris. The neighborhood where Ms. Baker lived had been a good area at one time. Part of it—the deep interior that was protected by enough money to muster up a reasonable amount of social insecticide—still was. But Michelle Baker had lived with her mother on the periphery, where urban blight was a kind description. Some of the houses appeared empty, with doors and windows boarded shut, though Elliot suspected a few of them were lairs for heroine and cocaine users.

  Most of the other dwellings just lacked pride of ownership, with window dressings hanging loose or broken, and wood sidings that screamed for a coat of paint. Defunct automobiles, some with missing wheels and perched on blocks, decorated the curbsides, and kids with a mixture of fear and contempt in their eyes roamed in gangs. As was usually the case, though, a few of the houses clung to their dignity; gingerbread anachronisms, neatly maintained and fastened to manicured lawns, homes to grandmas and grandpas with Pekingese and Pomeranian companions.

  Such was not the case with Michelle Baker’s house. In that yard, a couple of toddlers scrambled about, clutching baby bottles and wearing diapers that hung nearly to the ground.

  Elliot found an empty spot and pulled to the curbside. Some of the older kids had gathered in one of the yards, gesturing and getting vocal. They quieted and backed away as Elliot climbed out of the car and let his jacket fall open to expose his shoulder holster. As he opened the small gate and started toward the house, a window curtain moved and Elliot slid his hand around the grip of the Glock. As he stepped onto the porch, the door slowly opened and a lady peeked out. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Are you Amy Harris?” Elliot asked.

  Her eyes darted back and forth. “Well, maybe I am, and maybe I ain’t.”

  “I’m Detective Kenneth Elliot. I called earlier about your daughter, Michelle Baker.”

  The lady hesitated then stepped aside. “Yeah, I’m Amy Harris.”

  Foul odors invaded Elliot’s senses when he went inside the house. Dirty dishes filled the sink and most of the countertops in the kitchen, and food stained the floor.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  Elliot shook his head. “This shouldn’t take long,” he said.

  She moved some items from a chair. “Have a seat.”

  Elliot didn’t want to, but he sat in the chair Amy Harris had cleared for him. Moments later, a dark-skinned boy who looked about thirteen walked into the room wearing baggy pants that hung low, exposing his underwear; he wore no shirt. He paused briefly when he saw Elliot then went outside.

  Amy Harris had already been informed of her daughter’s death so Elliot was spared the unpleasant task. “Ms. Harris, I’m sorry, but I have to talk to you about your daughter.”

  She frowned. “Yeah, I figured as much. And don’t call me Ms. Harris. Nobody calls me that. I don’t like it, makes me feel old.”

  Elliot thought about that for a moment. Ms. Harris certainly didn’t seem to be grieving. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “And while we’re on the subject, I’ll tell you something else, Mr. Law and Order. Maybe it’ll save you some time. I don’t know where Michelle was, and I don’t know where she’d been. She was a grown woman, and I didn’t keep tabs on her.”

  Elliot stared at Ms. Harris. He didn’t care for her attitude, and his body language must have told her that. She stopped talking, forced a smile, and sat in a chair. She was about four feet away from Elliot, and even at that distance the strong smell of alcohol on her breath was hard to take. The day had yet to reach its midpoint and Ms. Harris was well on her way to being drunk. It would’ve been nice to think it was the grief, but Elliot suspected her present con
dition was not that unusual. “I don’t appreciate your insolence, Ms. Harris. And it won’t get me out of here any faster. I have a job to do, and I fully intend to carry it out. Now, who was the young man that just walked through the room?”

  She paused, a puzzled look crossing her face, then said, “Oh, that’s just Darrell.”

  “Is he related to you?”

  “Yeah, he’s my son. I sent him out to watch the babies.”

  Elliot nodded. She was talking about the children he’d seen in the front yard. “Are they your children?”

  “No. They’re not mine. One of them was Michelle’s. I’m baby sittin the other.”

  “I see. Well, I need some answers. Maybe Darrell knows more about Michelle’s activities.”

  “He don’t know nothing. Look, I’m sorry, okay? Can we have a truce? I saw Michelle before she went to work that day.”

  “Do you mean Sunday?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. She was here. She was going on about taking a vacation, or some crap. Wanted me to drop everything and drive to Padre Island with her. Can you imagine that? Don’t know why she wanted to do something like that. Ain’t nothing down there but sand and water. I guess it’s too late for that now anyway, ain’t it?” She shook her head. “I told her not to go working in those strip clubs. Do you think she listened to me? I can tell you right now she didn’t. And I’m not trying to be smart aleck or anything, but I know you’re going to ask me anyway, so I’m going to tell you. Michelle didn’t have a clue where her no-account husband was, and I don’t know either.”

  “You’re quite perceptive, Ms. Harris. Could you tell me his name?”

  “Yeah, I can tell you. It’s Bill Baker. Can you believe that? She shook her head and snapped her fingers, as if mimicking a blues singer. “Won’t you come home Bill Baker, won’t you come home?”

  Elliot smiled. “I think that’s Bill Bailey…in the song, anyway.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I still don’t know where he is.”

  “What about his parents? Do they live around here?”