ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (2 page)

But the look in her eyes suggested otherwise. Frank didn’t consider himself handsome, not with his hawk-like nose, but certain women found him attractive, women who liked flirting with danger, women who sensed his dark side. But this one was in show-biz, working for the media.

Aware of the cameras, he flashed a quick smile, said, “Take care of yourself,” and followed Miller, a former LSU middle linebacker, who plowed through a mob of reporters lobbing questions at them. They fought their way to an unmarked Crown Vic idling at the curb and piled inside.

As Miller merged into the early evening traffic, Frank’s heart gradually resumed its normal rhythm. He took a pack of Baby-Wipes out of the glove box, held one to his aching cheek and brushed dirt off his trousers with his other hand. One pant leg was ripped, another pair for the trashcan.

“
Thanks, partner. I owe you one. The guy outweighed me.”

“
Pip-squeak compared to me.” Miller ran a hand over his hairless pate, which he’d recently shaved to eliminate a widening bald spot. “Didn’t your daddy tell you never to pick fights with guys bigger than you?”

“
Hell, no. When a damsel’s in distress, my father expects me to slay the dragon, no matter how big it is.” Judge Salvatore Renzi expected his only son to uphold the family honor at all times. Now, more than ever.

“
Dragon slayer?” Miller rumbled a bass chuckle. “Frank, we just a couple of NOPD homicide dicks on a task force loaded with State cops and FBI agents. Boss-man wants us to re-canvas the vic-three neighborhood, catch folks at home after work, ruin their dinner, we best get on it.”

Miller cracked his window and lit a cigarette. They’d been partners for two years and got along well for the most part, but he wished Miller wouldn’t smoke so much. He’d quit ten years ago. The craving was gone, but the memory was tempting: sharing a smoke with a partner after a near disaster.

An image flashed in his mind, a little girl sprawled on a filthy carpet, tears glistening like diamonds on her Hershey’s chocolate skin, eyes wide and staring, killed by a cop’s bullet, his or his partner’s. Four years later, the vision still haunted him. He’d never told anyone, not the Boston PD shrink they sent him to, not his partner, not the guys he played hoop with, not even his wife. When he’d still had a wife.

“
Media blitz brings out the freaks,” Miller said. “Now we gotta waste time writing up our go-round with that three-hundred-pound sack of shit.”

“
She said he’s been stalking her for a week.”

Grizzly wasn’t the Tongue Killer, but ever since the first murder two years ago violent crime against women had increased dramatically, as if the Tongue Killer now served as a sick role model for men who thought they had a license to batter, rape and kill women.

“
Well, he got his ten minutes on CNN.” Miller turned onto a tree-lined side street and looked over, eyes mischievous. “Good lookin babe, seemed like she was coming on to you.”

“
I noticed.” He also noticed the lime-green Dodge Neon behind them, clocking the wing-mirror as the car settled in a half-block behind them.

“
So? Give her a call. She’s not married.”

“
A reporter? No way.” On the job twenty years, he’d dealt with plenty of media types. Reporter or not, when it came to women, he went with his gut. It hadn’t prevented his marriage from going in the toilet, but he knew how to read most women. He also knew a tail when he saw one. The lime-green Neon, operated by a black female, was still behind them, mirroring their every turn. “Someone’s following us.”

Miller’s eyes flicked to the rearview. “The Neon?”

“
Yes. Can you get behind her so I can make the tag?”

“
You bet.” With a gleeful expression, Miller zoomed past a Rite Aide and turned into Prescription Drive-up at the rear of the building. Avoiding the line of cars, Miller circled the building in time to see the Neon join the Drive-up line. He kept going and pulled up behind a row of parked cars in front of the store. Seconds later the Neon sped past them, slowed to a crawl and stopped near the exit thirty yards away.

Frank got on his cellphone, called in the tag and got put on hold.

“
Maybe she’s a secret admirer. You been playing around?”

Miller stared at him, aghast. “You shittin' me? You know what would happen if I was playing around and Tanya found out?” He drew a finger across his throat in a slicing motion.

“
The average guy thinks about sex ten times a day.”

“
Not me. Get up at six, drive two kids to school, work all day and half the night, get home at ten if I’m lucky, who’s got time to think about sex?” Miller waggled an eyebrow at him. “You best get yourself a girlfriend, Frank.”

He refused to take the bait. He wasn’t about to discuss his love-life with Miller, or anyone else for that matter. To most cops gossip was sport, a diversion to keep them awake on stakeouts.

DMV came back with the information, which he relayed to Miller. “The Neon’s registered to Rona Jefferson, no wants on her, no moving violations.”

“
Fuck all!”

“
You know her?”

“
Woman writes a column for the
Clarion Call
that manages to piss off half the town.” Miller grinned. “The white half.”

“
Good looking? Not that you’re interested, of course.”

“
If you like barbed wire with attitude.” Miller’s grin faded. “Frank, I been a cop long enough to know that having a reporter on your ass can be a problem.” His cellphone chimed. Miller pulled it off his belt, took the call, listened for a bit and said, “How’d you get my number?”

He glanced at Frank and rolled his eyes. “I don’t care what kind of tip you got. I’m not meeting you alone, you got that? Hold on.” Lowering the phone to his lap, Miller said, “It’s Rona, says she’s got a hot tip about the Tongue Killer, wants to tell me about it. Alone. Ain’t gonna happen tonight. We re-canvas the vic-three neighbors, be ten o’clock by the time we finish.”

Irritated, Frank snapped. “So?”

“
And get home at midnight?”

“
You think she’s angling for an inside scoop?”

“
Not necessarily. I don’t know her that well, met her at an NAACP banquet once. But she’s written some good articles. Rona’s got her sources.”

“
And we’ve got three dead women and no leads.”

“
Rona’s not gonna tell us anything that can’t wait till tomorrow.”

“
Jesus Christ! I’ll do it myself then, help you interview the vic-three neighbors till nine, meet Rona at nine-thirty.”

“
She don’t want to talk to you, she wants to talk to me.”

“
I don’t give a fuck what she wants. Tell her to be at Café du Mond at nine-thirty. I’ll take it from there.”

Miller looked over, his dark eyes full of resentment, lower lip jutting out. “Suit yourself, Frank. But she’s gonna be pissed.”

CHAPTER 2

“
Time to confess, Dawn. You enjoy leading men into temptation. Don’t deny it. You know you do.”

Spread-eagled on the bed, naked, she strained against the plastic rope that imprisoned her wrists and ankles, nostrils flared, her moans muffled by the duct tape that sealed her lips. Fueling his sinful desire.

He unzipped his fly and took out his magnificent erection.

Dawn’s moans grew louder, a grating sound that offended him.

“
You enjoy teasing men, don’t you?”

Aroused by the terror in her eyes, he rolled on a condom. Disease was not his concern; evidence was. Leave no semen for police to analyze. He had learned a great deal from the books those FBI profilers had written. God might be on his side, but God helped those who helped themselves.

He took out the garden shears, six-inch blades, very sharp with pointed tips. She scrunched her eyes into slits and began to sob. He pressed the tip of one blade against her nipple, drawing a spot of blood.

“
You enjoyed teasing me, didn’t you?”

A tiny nod. Excellent. Now she was following the script. “You wanted to lead me into temptation. You wanted to have sex with me.”

Sobbing, she strained against her bonds, fighting to escape. But she couldn’t. He had the power, she had none. The realization drove him wild, and he ejaculated. Red-faced with shame, he turned away. It was all her fault, arousing him, forcing him to commit sins of the flesh.

In the privacy of her bathroom, he removed the condom, flushed it down the toilet and pulled back the latex glove to check his wristwatch. Mickey Mouse smiled at him. Mickey was always smiling, always glad to see him, unlike his miserable excuse for a father. Mickey’s white-gloved hands pointed at nine-thirty. He’d been here an hour.

Better hurry
, warned the insistent voice in his mind.

Using the tube of coral-pink lipstick from his tool kit, he printed his message on the medicine cabinet mirror. SINNER!

When he returned to the bedroom she watched him, hair matted with sweat, eyes filled with dread, anticipating the worst. Everyone knew about his Absolutions. She knew what came next.

The telephone rang, shattering the silence.

Rage boiled into his throat. How dare someone interrupt his sacred ritual? He glared at Dawn, who gazed with desperate longing at the princess phone on her dresser. Did she think some miracle was going to save her?

The machine clicked and Dawn’s voice said, “Hi. I can’t come to the phone now, but I’d love for you to leave a message.”

And after the tone: “Hey, Dawn, it’s Mario. I’m getting us a pizza. I dunno about you, but I’m starving. Be there in ten minutes.”

Mario. Dawn hadn’t told him about Mario. Another transgression.

She wants Mario, not you
, said the voice.

She looked at him, eyes glazed with fear. Without warning, she wet the bed. He recoiled as urine spread over the sheet in a widening yellow stain. Disgusted by the pungent odor, he pulled the pillow out from under her head and pressed it over her nose and mouth, watching her eyes bulge. Her face turned crimson in her frenzied struggle to escape. But she couldn’t.

He leaned on the pillow, harder and harder, watching the light fade from her eyes as her frantic struggles grew weaker minute by minute. After what seemed like forever, her body went limp. He reached for the shears.

Mario will be here in ten minutes
.

His heart jolted in sudden fear. But without the glorious finale, his sacred ritual was incomplete. A failure.

Forget it
, said the voice.
Get out now
!

The sinner obeyed.

_____

Hot, sweaty and frustrated, Frank dashed across Decatur Street to Café du Monde, a popular 24-hour tourist stop in the heart of the French Quarter. He and Miller had struck out with the vic-three neighbors. The second round of interviews had elicited no new leads, just the inevitable question: Why can’t you catch this guy?

A jazz trio on the sidewalk outside the cafe competed with traffic noise, led by a skinny black man playing
Satin Doll
on tenor sax. Inside a large tent, young wait-staff in white aprons and hats delivered chicory-laced coffee and beignets—squares of fried dough piled high with powdered sugar—to a diverse assortment of patrons clustered around small wrought-iron tables.

Frank spotted a black woman in the rear corner of the tent, rail-thin in a loud magenta blouse and a slim black skirt: Rona Jefferson, frowning at her wristwatch, then sipping her coffee and toying with a box of Marlboros on the table beside her purse. He snaked through the narrow aisles to her table, introduced himself and pulled up a chair.

Her dark eyes bored into his, no smile. “Where’s Kenyon?”

Hostility oozing from every pore. She wanted to talk to Miller, not his ofay partner. Too bad. “Some kind of family emergency. He’s married, you know? Got a wife and two kids.” Fibbing to let Miller off the hook.

She gazed at him, large eyes in a narrow face, thin lips and coal-black skin, not beautiful, but attractive in an edgy sort of way. Her lip curled, but not in a smile. “And you’re married to the job?”

He touched his aching cheekbone, working to suppress his irritation. “It’s been a long night, Rona. Who’s your tipster?”

“
I’ll talk to Kenyon tomorrow.” She picked up the box of Marlboros and dropped it in her purse, clearly intending to leave.

“
Hold it. You got information, give it to me now. We’re working these murders twelve, fourteen hours a day. Tomorrow won’t be any different. Who’s your informant?”

Her lips quirked in annoyance, but she stayed seated, her eyes dark pools of distrust. “Kitty Neves. Three years ago I did a feature on prostitution in the French Quarter. Kitty was helpful and we kept in touch. She called me yesterday. All this hype about the Tongue Killer is freaking her out.”

Frank waved off a young Asian waiter approaching the table with an order pad. “Is she black? White?”

“
Why? Does it matter?” Nostrils flaring with indignation.