The Ninth Life

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Have you seen her since?” Hank asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But maybe one of the other residents did.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Was it just the one night that you all were together?”

  “That was the only time I was around her. I’m not sure if she got together again with the other girls.”

  “Can you think of anything else that she may have said?” Hank asked.

  “It was mostly just chitchat. She said she was just getting settled in. I asked her where she’d moved from, and she said Wisconsin. She just kind of asked about the area a little. Places to go out. What the nightlife was like around here. Things like that.”

  “Did you ever see Eve Kleeman driving a vehicle?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “The other women in this photo.” I pointed at the two on the phone screen. “Names, and where they live?”

  She gave them to me, and I wrote them down in my notepad.

  “And you’re sure that you haven’t seen her in the last day or two?” Hank asked.

  “I haven’t seen her, no.” She slumped on her stool. “Phyllis,” she said. She rubbed the back of her neck. “It doesn’t even make sense. What could she have done to make this woman come after her?”

  “We plan to find out,” Hank said.

  “Did Phyllis live here alone?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I think she was divorced a couple of times. She moved here from New Jersey maybe five years ago.”

  I pulled up my jacket sleeve and got the time—a minute or two before ten.

  “Okay,” I said. I looked at Judy. “Do you think that you could email me that photo? Do you have any more of Eve?”

  “Maybe another one or two from that night. What’s the email address? I’ll send them to you.”

  I gave it to her.

  She tapped away at the screen of her phone, sending me the photos.

  “Judy, where is the sales office here?” Hank asked.

  “Right in the clubhouse. Just go in and make a right down the hall by the pool table.”

  “All right,” I said. “I think I have what I need.” I looked at Hank. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “I think we’re probably good.” Hank took a card from his wallet and handed it to Judy. “If you think of anything else, or happen to talk to anyone around here that could maybe add to what you told us, give me a call.”

  “Sure,” she said. She took Hank’s card, looked at it briefly, and set it down in front of her on the bar.

  We thanked her for meeting with us and walked to the clubhouse sales office. We made a right at the pool table, as instructed, and walked the short hall. The lights were on in an office at the back. I saw a man and woman inside, both looking as though they were dressed for business. The man, wearing a dress shirt and tie, sat at a desk. The woman, dressed in a black pantsuit, slid a file into the cabinet in the corner. I gave the open door a knock, and Hank and I entered.

  “Hi, good morning,” the woman said. She slid the file drawer closed and walked to Hank and me. She was blond, forties, and wearing entirely too much perfume for the small office space. She held out her hand for a handshake. “Karen Tilly. What can I help you out with?” she asked.

  “Sergeant Rawlings,” Hank said. He shook her hand. “This is Lieutenant Kane. We’re from the Tampa Police Department.”

  I shook the woman’s hand.

  She stood and looked at us as if she had no idea why we were there.

  “I left a message this morning regarding a possible tenant. Eve Kleeman,” Hank said.

  “Eve Kleeman?” the man at the desk asked. “I leased her a condo maybe a week back. Moved here from Wisconsin if I remember right.”

  The woman turned toward the man at the desk. “Was that the taller blond woman?”

  “She is,” I said. “Neither of you have clicked on the news or seen a paper since last night, have you?”

  The woman said no.

  The man shook his head.

  “Or listened to your answering system?” Hank asked.

  “We just got in,” the man said. A plaque on his desk read Bill McBride, Leasing Manager. “What’s going on with this woman?” he asked.

  “She’s wanted in connection with a couple of homicides,” I said. “There’s been a warrant issued for her arrest.”

  “Oh,” the woman said. She furrowed her brow.

  “What can we do to help?” the man asked.

  “We need her unit number and some paperwork that says that is where she resides,” I said. “We can have a search warrant for the apartment within the hour.”

  “Let me get you what you need,” the man said.

  “We’ll also need access to Phyllis Boucher’s condo.”

  “Phyllis? What for?” the woman asked.

  “You’re familiar with her?” Hank asked.

  “She’s kind of a staple at the pool. We see her just about every day. But why do you want us to give you access to her condo? I mean, if you walk over there, I’m sure she’ll just open the door and invite you upstairs.”

  “Probably with a drink,” the man said.

  “She’s deceased,” I said.

  Both stopped what they were doing and stared at Hank and me.

  Chapter 24

  After we sent copies of the paperwork back to Bostok at the station, he got everything together and had our search warrant brought over by Officer Hart, a late-fifties patrol cop. We’d secured another warrant to enter the property of Phyllis Boucher. The two condos were directly next door to each other. While we had waited for the warrant, Hank, Officers Troyer and Hersman, and I had gone to the condos of the other two women in the photo and tried to make contact—neither was home.

  Our group walked from the clubhouse, past the pool where Judith Parker still sat at the bar, and across the parking lot to the teal building. We’d enter Eve Kleeman’s unit first.

  We gathered at the front door of the condo. Hank and I stood to the sides of the doorway. Patrol Officers Troyer and Hersman backed us up. Officer Hart would wait outside to make sure nothing funny happened while we were in the property.

  The leasing manager, Bill McBride, stuck a key into the door and unlocked it. I quickly thanked him and told him to go back to the clubhouse until we had the condo secure. I gave Hank the nod, and he pushed the door open.

  We didn’t get a foot into the house.

  “Shit,” I said. I stared down at a bit of blood on the landing at the front door. A pitcher with some red liquid inside lay next to the blood. My line of sight went up the stairs. The red liquid that was in the pitcher covered the stairwell carpet and walls. A pair of white flip-flops sat a couple of steps apart from each other. I had to have been looking at something connected to the Phyllis woman that I’d found outside of my condo. I kept my gun pointed up, and we entered. I pointed Troyer and Hersman to the left, where the front door landing opened up to what I figured led to a garage and a couple of other rooms by the hall disappearing off to the right. Hank and I took the stairs up.

  “Tampa Police! Search warrant!” I announced.

  I heard nothing as I neared the top of the stairs. A kitchen and living room came into my line of sight as I crested the top step. I saw the blood covering the tile of the kitchen, off to my left, as I took another step up.

  “We got blood,” I said.

  I reached the top of the stairs, and Hank came up a split second later. I swung the barrel of my weapon across the open-concept room from the living room, directly ahead of us, back toward the kitchen on the left, where I saw the blood. A cooler and a handful of beer cans looked as though they’d been dropped on the tile. Small puddles of water and beer covered the floor a couple of feet from the top of the stairs.

  We walked around the cooler and puddles toward the blood in the kitchen. I glanced at it briefly before swinging my weapon left. The right side of the kitchen held stainless appliances. The left held a long granite countertop with cupboar
ds above it. The back kitchen wall had a sliding glass door that led out to a small balcony. I could see the pool and the clubhouse across the parking lot. I swung my weapon back to the right. The living room was large and had minimal furniture—a gray couch, a chair, an end table, coffee table, and television that stood on a low walnut-colored wood credenza. Just the necessities. The kitchen and living room were the only two rooms on the level aside from a small half bath. We quickly cleared the bathroom, and Hank jerked his chin at the flight of stairs that went up.

  “Do you smell that?” Hank asked.

  I took in a noseful of air. I caught a faint whiff of decomp.

  I walked to Hank, and we started up the stairs to the third floor. The smell grew with each step up the stairwell. I noticed some blood drops on the light-colored carpet as we ascended.

  We reached the landing of the top floor. A hallway spread off to the left and right—open doors took up the ends of the hall in both directions. I looked at the ground, trying to see which way the blood went, but I couldn’t see another single drop.

  The room at the end of the hall on our left was filled with bookshelves. The room at the end of the hall to our right appeared to be the master bedroom. Hank poked two fingers in the air at a bedroom and a bathroom that stood in the hall directly across from us.

  We walked to the doorway of the first room, which looked like a spare bedroom that hadn’t been touched. The bed was made, and there wasn’t a scrap of anything out of place. We quickly cleared it and then entered the bathroom.

  I tried to get a handle on what I was looking at. Pink puddles covered the floor. A large claw-foot tub sat in the back of the bathroom. Stains from pink water ran down its sides. A pile of empty ten-pound ice bags, probably a good three feet high, sat near the toilet. The bathroom smelled off, but the stink of decomp wasn’t coming from within. The bathroom was clear, so we moved on. Hank and I went to the master bedroom. Some women’s clothes were scattered on the floor but nothing much of interest. We cleared the master bath and a walk-in closet before leaving the master bedroom and starting down the hall to the room filled with the empty bookshelves. I glanced to my right at the bathroom again as I passed, trying to figure out exactly what the hell could have happened inside of it.

  The smell of death increased with each footstep forward, taking my attention away from the bathroom and placing it directly before us. We were heading toward whatever the odor was permeating from.

  I neared the doorway. The bookshelves we’d seen through the open door continued to the right. Random knickknacks and a few books filled the mostly bare shelves. The room appeared to be a home library or den. I broke the plane of the door with my weapon and swung it right. A built-in desk surrounded by built-in bookcases filled the room’s back wall.

  A big black tufted leather office chair was pushed to the side. In the chair sat a female with her body square to us. Blood covered her purple sweatshirt. Her arms hung lifelessly at her sides. Her head rested against her chest. Dark brown hair concealed most of her face from our view. The front of her sweatshirt was filled with holes, and most of the blood covering her looked dry. She wore a pair of tight black pants and was barefoot—her feet were covered in dried blood. The woman could have been Billie Webber.

  “This was the same as in your file,” Hank said. “I remember the photo. Third victim, right?”

  I nodded. The third woman we attributed to Koskinen was found in her home office, dead in her office chair. I walked to the woman and stopped just a foot away. I used the sleeve of my suit jacket to cover my nose and mouth from the smell. I leaned in for as close a view as I wanted to get. I wouldn’t touch her. She was clearly dead. I moved a step to my right and got into a position where I could get a look at her face through her hair. I saw a nine on her forehead and another on her left cheek.

  “Hank, pull up a photo of Billie Webber,” I said.

  Hank took out his phone and had me a photo within a minute. He walked to me and held the phone out so I could see the photo. I looked back and forth just once and was about a hundred percent certain she was who I was looking at. The woman had a distinct nose—small, defined, and coming to a point at the tip.

  “Lieutenant,” I heard someone call.

  “Back here. Room with the bookshelves,” I called back.

  A moment later, Troyer and Hersman entered the room. Both stopped just inside of the doorway. I left the woman and walked back toward them. Both looked past me at the woman in the chair.

  “We, um…” Troyer said. He paused, still staring past me at the woman. “We found the BOLO Audi in the garage downstairs. Not much else other than the blood in the kitchen and whatever the hell was going on in that bathroom up here.” He still didn’t look at me.

  Hersman never said a word.

  I looked at Hank. “Call this in. Get everyone.”

  Chapter 25

  Eve pulled the battery from her phone and drove straight to the storage facility. Aside from the people at the condo, the Dana woman that ran the storage office was the only person who could identify her and directly interfere with her finishing her work—Eve needed to make sure that she didn’t, and that the police didn’t come to the storage facility, before she was ready.

  Eve pulled to the storage facility’s gates. She could see an open garage door in the service bay behind the front office. There were no vehicles outside, no police or patrol cars. Eve punched in the code and pulled her car through. She parked in front of the garage door on storage unit nine and stepped out.

  Eve started across the blacktop to the open bay door. She could see Dana inside near a toolbox at the back of the shop. Dana wore a different shade of dirty flannel shirt, jeans again, and a headband around her short brown hair. She was talking on the phone.

  Eve stopped at the open door. She caught a bit of Dana’s phone call, which sounded as though she was placing some kind of an order for auto parts.

  Eve stood in place. She debated walking in and sticking her knife in the woman’s gut, but as Dana held the phone to her ear with her left hand, she bounced what looked like a three-foot-long metal bar with a screwdriver handle on the bench top with her right. Eve had no intentions of getting hit or stabbed with what could easily become a weapon.

  Eve watched Dana turn toward her, notice her in the doorway, and smile.

  Eve stayed put at the door and gave her a wave. The woman must not have caught any coverage on the television. Eve didn’t spot any fear in her eyes.

  Dana held up her index finger as if to say that she’d just be a second on the call.

  Eve waited and looked around the shop. One of the smaller of the rental trucks was on a lift, elevated three or four feet off the ground and with the wheels removed. With a bit more eavesdropping, Eve heard that Dana was ordering brake pads for the vehicle.

  Dana wrapped up her call a minute or two later. She kept the metal bar in hand. “Hey, good morning,” Dana said. She tossed her phone on the tool bench and walked to a five-foot-tall red machine with a tire on the machine’s table. “Dropping off a load of stuff?”

  “Hey,” Eve said. “Yup. Second trip.”

  Dana stepped before the machine and lifted the metal bar. She jammed it into the bead of the tire where it met the rim. “So what’s up?” Dana asked. “Did you need something, or were you just popping over to say hi?”

  Eve was unprepared with a story or reason for being there, other than to kill Dana. “Um, I was just wondering if I could use the restroom,” Eve said. At minimum, it would give her a reason to be in the building—maybe Dana would set the metal bar down and show her where the restroom was.

  “Sure,” Dana said. She didn’t stop what she was doing and didn’t let go of the metal bar. “Right back there down that little hall.” She jerked her head in that direction.

  “Thanks,” Eve said. She walked inside, through the service bay, and down the hall to the restroom. Eve entered and closed the door at her back. She stood in front of the mirror, star
ing at herself for a good minute. Eve adjusted the knife on her hip, turned back toward the toilet, flushed it with her foot, and walked out. Eve left the hall and returned into the garage bay. She saw Dana look over.

  She walked toward Dana at the front of the machine. “What are you doing?” Eve asked.

  “Getting some new tires mounted up for the truck. I pulled the wheels and noticed that it’s probably about due for brakes. So I just got some ordered.”

  “You do all of this kind of stuff yourself?” Eve asked.

  “Yup. My dad taught me to turn a wrench damn near before I could walk. When I got older, he told me that guys would like it.” She chuckled. “Haven’t met one yet that didn’t think it was cool. So good old dad may have been on to something there. It still hasn’t got a guy to stick around, though. Or not be a careless jerk.”

  Eve scratched at her round cheek as she watched Dana work. Her eyes floated to a couple of nearby workbenches. She took in their size and wondered whether they were bolted down or screwed to the wall. Eve noticed Dana looking at her, waiting on a comment. “Yeah, I think my car mechanic skills begin and end with putting in gas,” Eve said. “And most guys are just jerks in general.”

  Dana gave her a smile but didn’t say anything.

  “You sell boxes here, right?” Eve asked.

  “Sure do,” Dana said. She wrestled with the tire on the machine and brought down an arm mounted to the machine with a small wheel on it. The tire spun around.

  “Like different sized boxes? Big ones, little ones? I think I should probably pick some up. I could probably use some bubble wrap too.”

  Dana set the metal bar on top of the tire and wiped her hands on her hips. She motioned to the hall at the end of the service bay that led to the front rental office. “Let’s head up front. I’ll show you what I’ve got.”