Judas Kiss

by J. T. Ellison

  She grinned. Marcus always knew just the right thing to say. “I know you can, Marcus, and I appreciate the offer. It feels good to be out and about, you know?”

  “I know. Management definitely puts a crimp in your style. No worries, LT. I’ll handle the warrant and let them know you’re coming in, then I’ll get back to your mystery man from last night. I haven’t found anything yet, but I’m early into it. This Wolff stuff derailed my morning. I’ll let you know. Now, there’s something else. About the rabbit.”

  “Oh yeah. Tim can go do it later.”

  “He sent Keri McGee. She just called me. There’s no rabbit.”

  “Of course there is. I saw it. I put a flowerpot over him. Did she go to the right house?”

  “Yeah, she did. The flowerpot is on the side of your house, and the rabbit was gone. Maybe one of your neighbors cleaned it up thinking they were helping?”

  Taylor thought about that. A logical explanation. So why was the hair on the back of her neck standing on end?

  “You’re probably right, Marcus. I’m sure that’s the deal. I’ll ask around when I get home. The folks next door have a couple of dogs, they were probably making a ruckus, smelling something dead. Tell Keri thanks for trying for me.”

  They hung up. Taylor took the Charlotte Avenue exit and cut through Hillwood into the Wolffs’ neighborhood. She pulled into the cul-de-sac and parked behind Tim’s Metro Crime Scene truck.

  Tim was sitting on the front porch swing, unmoving, his back so straight that it didn’t make contact with the seat back. He hopped to his feet as soon as Taylor exited her vehicle.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself. Sorry to drag you back out here, but you need to see this in person before I start disassembling.”

  “Disassembling what, Tim? Now that I’m here, clue me in.”

  He blushed and looked away, eyes cutting to the right. Oh, good grief. Old-fashioned Southern men, they actually believed in respecting women. Her curiosity won out over teasing him. “Fine. Just show me if you’re too embarrassed to talk about it.”

  He nodded once, then whipped around and headed into the house. Taylor followed. He went directly to the basement stairs, headed down without a word. The air smelled cool and musty, similar to the day before. When they reached the bottom, Taylor saw Tim’s light rigging set up, the five-hundred-watt beam pointing to a spot on the wall.

  He was talking again, his words jerking out of his mouth rapid fire. “I was moving some of the boxes, looking for anything I might have missed. A box fell off the stack here.” He pointed to a cardboard bankers’ box, the contents spilled on the concrete floor. Plastic jewel cases, the kind that house music compact discs, were spread across the floor, the flash of the silver contents catching the light from the stairwell.

  “Were they bootlegging CDs? Let me guess, there’s cartons of cigarettes too. The Wolffs are working for Al-Qaeda.” Taylor threw Tim a smile to let him know she was kidding. Poor boy was so serious all the time.

  “It’s worse than that, LT.” Tim walked around the spilled box and went to the back wall, the one that was painted. He knocked on the cement. Instead of making no noise, a sharp clang rang out. Raising an eyebrow at Taylor, he pushed. The entire wall swung away, opening into a dark gap.

  “A secret chamber. Cool.”

  Tim just shrugged in answer and disappeared into the wall. Taylor followed him. The air changed in this room, there was no must, no humidity. It smelled of Clorox.

  Tim hit the lights, and Taylor sucked in her breath. Her first impression was medieval torture chamber. The second was film studio. Tim stayed quiet, giving her a moment to process. There was a double bed in the center of the twelve-by-twenty-four-foot space made up with white sheets and a white down comforter. Fluffy pillows completed the ensemble. To the right was a peg board, filled from top to bottom with various…well, the only thing she could think to call them was accessories. Sex toys, whips, a dominatrix hood and rubber merry widow, gag balls, dildos, vibrators. It was a veritable sex store, all tucked neatly away in the basement of the suburban family home. Taylor had seen plenty of these accoutrements on various crime scenes. What she hadn’t seen was a sex chamber equipped with two professional video cameras, a boom, four different mikes and strategically placed lights.

  “They’re making pornography?” Tim asked, the tremor in his voice belying his normally staid demeanor. Tim was horrifically discomfited, that much was evident. A good churchgoing man, he wouldn’t be a big fan of the Wolffs’ sideline.

  Taylor walked around the space, looking. “Good assumption. One of them was, at least. It’s certainly possible that Todd was running the show and Corinne didn’t know, or vice versa. But I doubt that. Something this elaborate, it would be hard to hide from your spouse. I’d like to look at the boxes out there again.”

  She left the room, made her way back to the boxes. She started to reach for one, then stopped. “Tim, have you printed this stuff yet?”

  “No, ma’am. I just backed out and called you.”

  “Are they labeled?”

  “Only with dates. They go back a few years.”

  Taylor sighed. “Well, we’re gonna have to process this entire setup. I’ll poke at a couple of these discs, see if I can find anything recent.” She looked around the basement one more time. “I daresay you’ll find both Todd and Corinne’s prints down here. I want to know if you find anyone else’s.”

  Taylor picked through the CDs with a pencil, selected a few at random with dates that ranged from 2005-2008, waited for Tim to print their jewel cases, then took the contents with her and started for Baptist Hospital. Tim had called in backup; it was going to take all afternoon to process the sin den, as Taylor had named the Wolffs’ playroom.

  In the meantime, she still needed to speak with Corinne’s doctor.

  What in the name of hell was Todd Wolff doing with a mini movie studio in the basement of his house? And just how many more secrets could there be, hidden behind the façade of the Wolffs’ perfect life?

  Seventeen

  Taylor pulled under the portico entrance to Baptist Women’s Health facility, flashed her badge at the valet. He pointed to a spot at the front, and she left the car there.

  The directory listed Dr. Walberg’s office on the seventh floor. She pushed the up button on the left side of a bank of elevators, the doors to one opposite her slid open. Once inside, Taylor glanced in the smooth, mirrored wall surface and cursed. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and shook it, turning upside down and running her fingers through as a makeshift comb. The humidity coupled with the threat of rain had created a riotous mass of baby curls around her face, which caused her hair to get wavy and stick out in all directions. She flipped back up, gathered the mess into her left hand and wound the holder back into place. She was swiping on Burt’s Bees pomegranate lip balm when the doors clanged open.

  A hugely pregnant woman appeared, her belly distracting Taylor from noticing anything else about the woman. Well, she was in the right place. Taylor held the elevator doors for her. The woman waddled in and gave her a tired smile.

  “Damn Braxton Hicks. I thought this one was for real.”

  Taylor tried for sympathetic as the doors slid closed, then grimaced. Not her idea of a fun day, that. She hadn’t felt the tug, the desire for motherhood yet. And pushing thirty-six, she was going to have to think about it. But not right now. She’d had a scare a few months prior, and that had been enough to convince her that she was not, by any means, ready.

  On the seventh floor, she went a few feet down the hallway and entered Suite 702. The door opened into a large space full of comfortable chairs and baby magazines. Dual receptionists looked up in unison.

  Before Taylor could say a word, the woman on the right stood and waved her toward a door that said PRIVATE. Taylor crossed the waiting room, ignoring the looks from the curious. She opened the door and the receptionist greeted her.

  “You must be that
policewoman the doctor said was coming over.”

  “How did you know?” Taylor asked, shaking the woman’s hand and handing her a card.

  “Honey, I know all our patients. We aren’t scheduling new clients these days. Dr. Walberg’s practice is full up. And the gun is a bit of a giveaway. Who do you see?”

  “Oh, um,” Taylor started, and the receptionist just smiled.

  “Make sure you get your annual and a Pap, dear. And don’t forget your monthly breast exam.”

  “I did. I won’t. I mean, I will.” Taylor shook her head. “Is Dr. Walberg—”

  “She’s waiting on you right now. Here you go.”

  The receptionist knocked once on a wooden door, then opened it. A small woman with dark gray hair and wireless glasses sat behind a massive mahogany desk.

  “Dr. Walberg? Lieutenant Jackson is here.”

  The doctor popped out of her chair with a litheness that belied her age, came to the door and shook Taylor’s hand. “Thank you, Darlene.” She nodded in dismissal at her receptionist, then closed the door behind her.

  “Hello, Lieutenant. I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances. Most of my work involves happiness, not murder. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Good. Here, let’s sit. I have Corinne’s file. Your colleague faxed over the warrant, so I’m free to discuss anything you need to help solve this case.”

  “I appreciate that, doctor.” Taylor sat, crossed her legs and rested her hands in her lap. “My first question is, did you prescribe lorazepam for Corinne? We found therapeutic levels in her bloodstream.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Taylor was taken aback. “Really? I thought that it wasn’t good for pregnant women.”

  “Considering some of the alternatives, lorazepam is the best choice for pregnancy. Especially in the third trimester. Corinne was having episodes, panic attacks. She asked for something benign to help take the edge off. I also gave her the name of an excellent psychologist who was working with her on some behavioral therapies. Panic disorder is something that can be conquered, and Corinne was making great strides.”

  “Did anyone else know about this? Her husband?”

  “I doubt it. Corinne was horrifically embarrassed by the…lack of control, she called it. She’d always been a major overachiever. She was an athlete, a world-class one for a while. Ever since she was a teenager she had a presence of mind about her that I don’t usually see in women twice her age. Everything she set her mind to, she accomplished. Excelled. Grades, sports, boys. The panic attacks were not on her game plan. Of course, I don’t think getting murdered was on her agenda either.” Sadness crept across the doctor’s features. She cleared her throat, and Taylor got the impression Walberg was holding back tears.

  “You’ve been treating her since she was a teenager?”

  “Yes. Though her mother probably doesn’t know that. She started coming to me right after her sixteenth birthday, before she became sexually active with a boyfriend. She wanted to go on birth control pills and get instructions in the proper way of handling condoms. I nearly laughed that first time. She was so matter-of-fact outwardly, but you could tell that inside she was scared to death. That was Corinne, though. She would never let anyone see anything but the calm, cool, rational, successful side.”

  “Except you.”

  Dr. Walberg nodded. “I was frank with her, treated her with respect, then told her not to go to bed with the boy. That she’d have plenty of time to get to the physical side of life. She lost her virginity that weekend.” The doctor’s face softened, and she smiled. “That girl was more stubborn than any mule. Tell her not to do something, tell her she couldn’t do something, and she’d do it just to spite you.”

  “You liked her.”

  “Yes, I did. I’d like to think we were friends as well as doctor and patient. She was a lot of fun. Girl like that, so driven, so composed, she reminded me of myself at her age. I took that sass to medical school. Corinne could have done anything she wanted, instead decided to go the marriage track. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just saw her changing the course of humanity with her drive. It was a shame that she settled.”

  “And the lorazepam? What was giving Corinne panic attacks?”

  The doctor looked out the window. “She wouldn’t tell me,” she said softly. “Just described the symptoms, said it was getting to be more than she could control, and was there something that could help. She wouldn’t tell me a thing. And now we’ll never know. Damn her.” The doctor took off her glasses, wiped a hand across her eyes.

  “The therapist?”

  She put the glasses back on and raised an eyebrow. “You’re welcome to try. I sent her to Dr. Ellen Ricard. She’s downtown on Broadway, by Arby’s. In the same building as Dr. Wang’s LASIK enterprise.” She scribbled a number on the back of a card, then handed it to Taylor. “Here. Call ahead. Ellen’s usually booked all week. You’ll have to see her after hours. Tell her I sent you.”

  “Thank you.”

  The doctor was tensed in her chair, obviously ready to get back to her patients. Taylor paused for a moment, then asked, “Doctor, you said Corinne started coming to you at sixteen. After that first sexual partner, did she confide in you about any others?”

  The doctor stared at Taylor, brows knitted as if she were making a great decision. Taylor waited her out. There was a battle raging behind the doctor’s eyes. She finally smiled, the gesture not reaching her eyes.

  “Lieutenant, I’ll tell you this. Corinne liked sex. That was another reason I was surprised she settled down so young. Once she had it that first time, nothing could stand in her way. She was hyperactive sexually all through high school and college. She wasn’t giving it away, mind you, she just practiced an overly healthy version of serial monogamy. Before she married Todd Wolff, she’d had dozens of sex partners. Though according to her, when she did marry Todd, that was it. She didn’t cheat. Said it would be tacky. I hoped it meant she’d grown up.”

  Taylor stuck out her hand and the doctor shook it, her own cool and dry to the touch. “Thank you, Dr. Walberg. You’ve been a huge help. And I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “You’re welcome, Lieutenant. If you need anything else, you know where I am.”

  Taylor left the woman standing at her plate glass window overlooking downtown, lost in thought.

  Taylor called the number on the psychologist’s business card the moment she exited Walberg’s office. She let the number ring and punched the down button on the elevator. If she could reach Corinne’s therapist, she was only two minutes from her office. After four rings, an answering machine came on with instructions to leave a message. Taylor did, asking for Ellen Ricard to call her back as soon as possible.

  She stepped in the elevator and glanced at her watch. If Walberg was right, Ricard wouldn’t get back to her until after five or six at the earliest, when her normal day’s schedule ended. It was four o’clock now. Plenty of time to get back to the office, go over her mental notes about Corinne’s background, check in on the Wolff crime scene and secure a warrant for Dr. Ricard’s records. Then she could start combing through the home movies she’d brought from the Wolffs. Joy.

  The sun was back out, the storm clouds dissipated. It had rained while she was inside, hard, from the looks of it. The air had a bite to it; the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees in the wake of the storm. She shivered as she got into the Impala. Crazy weather.

  She’d left the radio tuned in to JACK FM and when she turned the ignition, one of her old favorite Duran Duran songs, “Hungry Like The Wolf,” spilled from the speakers. Singing along, she turned right on Charlotte Avenue, crossed under I-40, then exited onto James Robertson Parkway. The roads were still wet and slick. There would be plenty of accidents clogging up the highways tonight.

  Five minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of the CJC. Streams of workers were exiting the doors, the day shift ove
r. At least it would be quiet in her office, for another hour or so. She might even have a moment to make a call to Baldwin, see how his day was shaping up. She could bet that he hadn’t seen some of the items she had today.

  Smiling to herself, she took the back stairs, slid her keycard through the mechanized device and pulled on the door as soon as she heard the lock disengage. She stopped at the soda machine for a Diet Coke, then walked the thirty steps to the homicide office.

  Marcus and Lincoln were sitting quietly at her desk, their heads bent together at a conspiratorial angle. They didn’t hear Taylor enter the room, didn’t move. Their eyes were locked on a laptop placed on top of Taylor’s desk.

  “Lucee…I’m home.” Both men jumped in surprise. Taylor smiled at them. They didn’t smile back. Taylor felt her heart do a quick shuffle. She’d never seen the two of them look so serious. Or bleak.

  “What’s wrong with you two? Lincoln, why are you here? I thought I gave you the rest of the day off.”

  Marcus looked at her, face distorted as if he were in pain. “I called him in, LT. I needed his help. It’s…” He trailed off, bit his lip.

  Lincoln took a huge, deep breath. “Tell her.”

  “Tell me what? Did I get fired while I was out? C’mon, you guys, you’re freaking me out.”

  Marcus turned the laptop around. He whispered, “I’m sorry,” then left the office.

  Lincoln walked around the desk and put his hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “This is my personal laptop from home. Hit play. Don’t turn the sound up. When you’re done, we’ll be here.” He stepped out of the office, pulled the door closed behind him.

  Taylor stared after him for a brief moment, then sank into her chair. She pulled the laptop onto her lap. The screen was frozen on a black background. A large white box was centered on the screen with a smaller black arrow indicating “play.” She clicked on the arrow.