The Garbage Man

by Candace Irving

  Given this bastard's savvy in everything else he'd done, Carole was undoubtedly correct about the SIM. Which probably meant there'd be nothing of note on Jason Dunne's land and cellular lines either.

  This case was going to come down to good old-fashioned grunt work.

  Kate set the refreshed mug on the counter instead of passing it to Lou. "I'd best get going then. I've got that meeting with Dr. Manning at noon." Afghan pottery or not, it was more important than ever that she speak to the shrink and anyone else at the hospital who knew Kusić and Dunne. "I'll get Dunne's address from Seth and search his place first."

  Anything she found could only help formulate her questions for the doc and anyone else who knew the victims.

  "Agreed." Lou resealed the cardboard box. "I'll have Owen run this over to the forensics guys first thing."

  "I'd appreciate it." Especially since the station was in the opposite direction from Little Rock.

  Lou nodded as he stood. "Between the search of Dunne's residence, your meetin' with the doc, and the task force setup, you might not be back 'til late tonight. What are you gonna do about Ruger?"

  He had a point. She couldn't leave the pet door unlocked. Not with that bastard potentially lurking around.

  "I'll phone Grant. He's off today." Since he'd offered his services yesterday, he shouldn't have a problem with her cashing in a raincheck.

  "If he cain't make it, you let me know. I'll be tellin' the men to include our homes in the patrols, especially yours. Whoever has this sector can always stop by to let him out."

  Given Ruger's lack of affection for most males, it wasn't her first choice. But if Grant couldn't stop by, Ruger would just have to deal with it.

  "Sounds good." Kate crossed the kitchen to retrieve her spare house key. "Just leave this with dispatch. That way, Grant or one of the guys can grab it. Also, since my liaison's been fired, would you have someone call the governor's office for me? I'll need someone to access both Kusić's and Dunne's military records and email them to me. Since the murders occurred here, I doubt there's a connection in their previous careers. But you never know."

  "Got it." Lou slipped her spare key in his pocket and hefted the cardboard box. She and Ruger followed him to the living room. He paused at the front door to stare down at her—hard. "You be careful out there. You even think you've spotted this guy, you call me pronto. Understood?"

  "I will. You be careful too. And make sure Della keeps the doors locked and that Mossberg 500 she keeps loaded with buckshot close by." It wouldn't hurt for everyone even remotely connected to the investigation to be vigilant.

  A crisp nod, and Lou was gone.

  Kate retrieved her phone from the bathroom, then headed for her bedroom to dress and don her shoulder holster and its comforting Glock. Given last night's unwanted guest, she added a backup piece above her right ankle and grabbed her Braxton PD jacket and cap, punching Grant's number into her phone as she and Ruger made their way to the kitchen.

  Grant's voicemail picked up as she poured the remaining coffee into her travel mug.

  Odd. Unlike Lou, Grant was an early riser. Even on weekends. If he'd decided to sleep in, wouldn't he have reached for his phone in case it was the hospital?

  Kate left a message regarding her spare key and asked Grant to let her know whether or not he could let Ruger out.

  She texted Seth next to request the address for Dunne's residence. Within moments Seth responded, following up with an offer to contact the apartment building's manager to have someone standing by to let her in.

  Kate sent Seth her estimated time of arrival and sincere thanks.

  Five minutes later, she was polishing off the final muffin from the fridge and grabbing her travel mug as she said goodbye to Ruger. Thirty more, and Kate had hit the dregs of her coffee as she greeted a gradually waking Little Rock.

  She parked her Durango across the street from the building corresponding to the address Seth had provided, and took in the ten-story facade.

  This was where Jason Dunne lived?

  While both victims' abodes abutted water, Dunne's commanded a mid-capital overlook of the revitalized Arkansas Riverwalk district. The gray brick and glass exterior purred loaded, prowling bachelor in a way in which that trailer's interior could only dream, and she hadn't even made it past the doorman. Bemused, Kate locked her SUV and headed for the silver-haired, sixtyish gentleman beneath the striped awning.

  The doorman's stare zeroed in on the shredded side of her face long before she reached him.

  She gave the man a courtesy moment to absorb the close-up before flashing her credentials. "Mr. Fisher? Deputy Holland, Braxton PD. A fellow deputy of mine gave you a call about one of your tenants—a Jason Dunne?"

  Silence.

  Kate pocketed her credentials. The doorman hadn't even glanced at them. He couldn't get past the scars.

  "Sir?"

  "Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to stare."

  "It's not a problem." It truly wasn't. Not if he let her into Dunne's unit quickly and without a fuss. "As I was saying, Deputy Armstrong gave you a call, roughly half an hour ago?"

  The man shook his head, but it wasn't so much a response as an effort to allow his brain to catch up to a conversation it still didn't seem able to register. "Sorry. It's just... Wait—I know where I've seen you. Holy shit."

  The man's cheeks turned ruddy as he realized he'd let the expletive slip.

  Again, she couldn't care less. Because his stare had finally reached her eyes. It was a start.

  He cleared his throat. "You're that soldier-gal. The one that made the papers a few years back. You took down a dozen of those bastards over there, all by your lonesome. Well, I'll be damned." He shook his head again, albeit this time with palpable amazement. "I never met a real live hero before."

  She had. And she wasn't it.

  She should know. She'd served with more than her fair share. All she'd done was kill eleven assholes who'd tried to kill her first. That didn't make her much of anything, except desperate and lucky.

  But try and convince this man of that.

  Kate accepted the man's jackhammer handshake and equally effusive thanks for her service. To argue would've insulted him. She backed off a pace as he released her hand.

  "Mr. Fisher, you did receive a call from Deputy Armstrong with the Braxton PD?"

  "I did indeed. Yes, your deputy said you'd be by. I did as he asked and phoned Mr. Marlette. He's happy to let you inside. I just need to unlock the place and wait while you look around."

  Kate frowned. She was hoping the bout of hero appreciation would afford her an hour or two alone with Dunne's effects. It might've if someone else hadn't been in the picture. "Am I correct in assuming Mr. Dunne sublets the condo from Mr. Marlette?"

  "Yup." The doorman ushered her inside the lobby. "Just how did Mr. Dunne die? I mean, he was young. An ex-soldier like you. Still used the gym almost every day. Good man too. Always a heartfelt greeting. Brings home the occasional girl. Real pretty ones too. Though I gotta say, he's been going through them a bit quick this past month, if you catch my meaning. And I'm not sure he was happy about it. Heck, the last one ducked outta here red-faced and in tears. Wouldn't even meet my eyes. For a moment, I could've sworn—"

  The doorman halted his diuretic assessment and glanced over Kate's shoulder, as if he was suddenly conflicted about how much he'd already revealed, and what he'd been about to add.

  Before she could prod, he shook his head. "As my wife would say, no sense gossiping about the dead. Did I ask how Mr. Dunne died? Your deputy didn't say."

  Kate noted the stack of newspapers beside the reception desk as they headed for the elevator. The doorman must not have read the article hugging the paper's upper fold, or he'd have known as much as she did. More if the article's nauseating title panned out. "Garbage Man Hacking Up and Dumping Little Rock Vets?"

  Lovely. They'd named the son-of-a-bitch. Every reporter in the state would be crawling out of the woodwork, trying
to one-up each other with every fact and/or speculation they could beg, borrow or outright steal from anyone connected to the investigation. She needed to get in and out of that condo, and over to the VA before one of them beat her to the victims' co-workers.

  "Deputy?"

  Kate spotted the expectation in the doorman's eyes as he paused beside the lift. Right—cause of death. "I'm sorry. I'm not authorized to say how Mr. Dunne died." She offered up an apologetic, one-worker-bee-to-another frown. "I'm just the one tasked with following up."

  "I understand."

  "When was the last time you saw Mr. Dunne?"

  "Oh, gosh. To be honest, it's been awhile." He appeared to give it some thought, and then, "Last Saturday. That's not unusual though, 'cause Mr. Dunne, he works nights." The lift arrived with a ping. The doorman motioned Kate through the doors as they opened. "After you."

  A buzzer sounded at the desk, causing him to hesitate before he could join her.

  "I can let myself in and look around while you take that. I promise not to touch anything until you join me."

  The buzzer sounded again.

  Hero appreciation had its rewards after all, because the man nodded. He withdrew a key from his suit pocket and tucked it in her outstretched palm. "Fourth floor, Unit D. I'll follow as soon as I can."

  "Take your time." Please.

  Kate punched the corresponding button as the doors closed, impatiently counting the passing seconds until the lift slowed and they reopened. Dunne's sublet was to the right, a corner unit that provided an expansive view of the river as she stepped through the door. Mindful of the doorman's arrival, she retrieved her protective booties and gloves from her pocket and swiftly donned them before commencing her walkthrough of roughly two thousand square feet of yet another man cave.

  As with Kusić's trailer, leather, technology and personal excess reigned. The living room and both bedrooms sported wall-mounted plasma monstrosities, and she even noted a dark satin-finished acoustic guitar in a corner. Not to mention a small, but drool-worthy home gym and a private jacuzzi that took up damned near half the man's covered balcony. All that was missing was the cat and evidence of the victim's military life.

  Scratch that.

  While the cat was still missing, she'd found the Army encased in a seven-inch electronic frame on the master bed's nightstand. The photos rotated through slices of what appeared to be Sergeant Dunne's tours of duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

  Kate retrieved the frame as a shot of Dunne and a buddy hamming it up in an outdoor Afghan souk filled the screen. Punching the button at the top to freeze the rotation, she studied the market stall on Dunne's left. The one displaying local tribal weapons and knives.

  She recognized the slightly out-of-focus vendor.

  In Army MP and CID circles, Hamid Kasi had been known for dealing in two categories of wares, those that were routinely displayed in his stalls, and those that weren't. Afghan black tar heroin fell into the second category...along with an impressive collection of black-market Soviet-era weapons and munitions. The AK-47 she'd found in Kusić's closet flashed in.

  Coincidence...or a connection?

  And was either one enough to have put both victims in the path of their killer?

  Though her gut still leaned toward a Fort Leaves link, Kate retrieved her phone and snapped a second-hand copy of Dunne and his buddy at the souk.

  She used the buttons at the top of the frame to push through the remaining photos at a faster pace, but none of the others caught her interest or her suspicion.

  She returned the frame to the nightstand and opened its drawer. Nothing of interest in there either. The nightstand on the opposite side of the bed yielded a MacBook Air and an iPad. She fired up the laptop, but the contents were password protected.

  The iPad wasn't.

  She checked the texts in iMessage, but again, nothing stood out. Neither did Dunne's saved documents or his email. Though, strangely, he'd cleaned out his "sent" and his "trash" folders. Who did that?

  Intrigued, Kate opened the iPad's browser and clicked on a random item in its history. A six-year-old article loaded from the LA Chronicle's On War page. She started skimming the article, then stopped when she realized she was already familiar with its contents. It concerned a local Afghan woman who'd claimed she'd been grabbed from behind and pulled into a bombed-out hovel off an alley in Kabul one afternoon by a US Army soldier. There, the soldier had raped her. Due to the obscuring burqa she'd been wearing, the woman hadn't been able to ID the soldier—just his unit patch.

  The same patch Kate had spotted on Dunne's uniform in one of the photos in that electronic frame.

  Had Dunne attacked the woman? If not, had he known the perpetrator? Could Dunne have been blackmailing a former unit mate all this time?

  Unfortunately, there was an excellent chance the answers had died with Dunne. Not only had a local Afghan Army interpreter come forward the next day to claim that he knew the accuser and had seen her coming on to his countrymen and foreign soldiers alike, but the woman had also vanished the next night. Evidently she and her brother had taken an evening stroll. It seemed that, at one point, the brother had turned a corner only to realize she was no longer beside him. By the time he'd gotten around to backtracking his steps two hours later, his sister had vanished. No further explanation had been offered by the curiously unconcerned brother—or the woman's remaining relatives.

  Everyone had wanted the matter dropped. Including the US Army.

  And so it was.

  Kate made a mental note to request the Army's file on the incident as she closed the iPad and returned it to the nightstand.

  Just in case.

  Guilt pinched in as she turned to canvass the contents of Dunne's dresser. She ignored it. She hadn't lied to the doorman. Technically, she wasn't touching anything.

  Her gloves were.

  Unfortunately, her gloves failed to find anything out of the ordinary in Dunne's dresser...until she reached the second drawer. A soft whistle escaped her lips as she moved the man's silk boxers aside to take in an impressive stash of tubes filled with steroid cream.

  A habit Dunne had fallen into in the Army?

  As with sleeping pills and prescription pain meds, steroid abuse had been on the rise among Uncle Sam's finest long before she'd gotten out, and still was. It also explained the impressive musculature and definition of Dunne's body—in the parts that had been strung out on that gravel road and in the photos that had been taken years ago in Afghanistan. Steroids might also explain that rape in Kabul.

  And something else.

  What had the doorman implied? That not only had the door to Dunne's bedroom taken on a revolving feel, but that his latest companion had left red-faced and in tears.

  Had Dunne displayed violence stateside too?

  If so, no charges had been filed as of this morning.

  According to the first victim's landlady, Kusić had fought with his girlfriend as well. Had the two investigations revealed an illicit drug connection after all—between the killer's victims? If so, could it explain that cash she'd found at Kusić's?

  Kate snapped a photo of the steroids and closed the drawer. She texted Seth, asking if the crime unit had unearthed evidence of steroid abuse at Kusić's trailer, then sent a text to the ME, requesting that Tonga add them to both victims' drug panels.

  She pocketed her phone as she headed for Dunne's closet. This time, her gloves came up empty. She moved through the living area next.

  It, too, was a bust. As was the kitchen.

  Last stop, the spare bedroom.

  She doubted anything there would stand out and it didn't—until she reached the windows. Unlike those in the living room and the rest of the condo which overlooked the river, these had a prime view of the streets to the west of the building.

  Along with Grant Parish.

  Kate rubbed her sleep-deprived eyes and refocused. That was definitely Grant. But why?

  What was her almost ex-lo
ver doing near Jason Dunne's condo at eight in the morning on a Saturday? She hadn't told Grant where she was headed, nor would anyone from the station. Even in the event of an emergency, Lou would've had Grant contact her via her phone, or called her himself.

  Kate checked her phone for missed calls. Except for the trio the sheriff made while she was comatose on her dad's floor, she hadn't missed one in days, texts included.

  She dialed Grant's number and watched as Grant paused at his SUV to retrieve his phone. A chill slithered in...because he didn't answer.

  6

  Kate stared down from Jason Dunne's window, stunned, as she watched her lover pocket his ringing phone and climb into his Bronco. Within moments, he'd started the engine and pulled into the street. As he turned the corner and drove out of sight, her second call of the day went to his voicemail.

  It didn't make sense. Why would Grant ignore her? Was he pissed she'd asked him to check on Ruger?

  Only that made even less sense since he'd offered to perform the favor twenty-four hours earlier.

  More importantly, what was Grant doing here?

  Yes, he might've read that article in the paper. But so what? She'd met Grant's friends. Dunne wasn't among them. And while both men were employed by the Little Rock VA, they'd worked across town from each other. Not to mention, Dunne had worked in admin. Grant was a surgeon. Even if they had worked out of the same hospital, he wouldn't have been asked to identify Dunne's remains.

  Besides, even if Grant had been asked to make an initial ID pending the arrival of a relative, wouldn't he have been more likely to take a call from her, even initiate his own? Because even if Grant knew about Dunne's death from someone at the VA and not from that article, he would still have known that the man's body had surfaced in her jurisdiction—and made the connection that the case she'd been called out on yesterday morning was part of the same investigation.