Act of Betrayal (4 page)

“Hey,” Millie said. “You got no call to talk like that. I was only trying to show you I was sorry for Rick, you old fossil.”

Resolve solidified in PJ. Her feelings had been shifting like the continents over molten magma, but now they had formed a crust and taken a new shape. If the victim had been her son, she wouldn’t rest until justice was done. She would see to it that the killer never took another life. And that’s exactly what she would do for Schultz.

She reached over and snatched the toothpick from his hamburger bun and slipped it into the pocket of her trousers. Out of sight. Then she leaned over the stool between them and spoke softly close to his ear.

“We’re in this together, Leo. Every step of the way.”

Halfway through his meal he announced that someone had to tell Julia. As soon as he said it, PJ was mortified that she hadn’t thought of notifying Rick’s mother and quietly taken care of it herself. But studying his face, she knew how important it was that he be the one to do it. At least she could be next to him.

“The phone’s right over there,” said PJ. “I’ve got some change, I think.”

“I have to make the phone call,” he said. It sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. “Before she finds out some other way.”

He dumped his change on the counter and pawed through it. Unbidden, Millie coasted by and emptied her pockets of the tips she had held out that morning, adding to the pile for the pay phone. Evidently she was thinking way ahead of both of them.

PJ tried to rise from her stool and follow him to the phone, thinking she would be quietly supportive as he talked, but some deep, surprising reluctance kept her rooted in place.

Schultz’s fingers were steady as he punched in the phone number. He felt he was holding up very well, once the body was taken away from the kill site. There had been that ridiculous flag on a toothpick gimmick that Millie pulled, but he wouldn’t let anything like that take him by surprise again. He knew Millie’s heart was in the right place, but the sight of that tiny flag had been unbearable.

He made a pact with himself that when he was with others, and there was work to be done, he would hold together. He couldn’t help the fact that his son’s death was a public display—a police matter, too—but from now on he could control when and how he would do his grieving.

A man answered. Schultz had never spoken to or even seen Julia’s live-in partner. When she had suddenly left Schultz, it was to move in with her sister in Chicago, but that hadn’t lasted long. Within a few weeks, she had another man in her life. The only thing he’d done on the home front during that time was grow mildew in his shower stall.

Glassup. James Glassup, that was his name. Schultz couldn’t bring himself to call the man by his first name. It was too comradely. Too understanding.

“Mr. Glassup, this is Leo Schultz. Is Julia there?”

“Hold on a sec. She’s just out of the shower.”

It’s ten-thirty on a Monday morning. Doesn’t anybody there work for a living, or is it just a perpetual love fest?

He heard mumbling in the background, and he pictured Julia standing there, hair dripping, a towel loosely draped around her, smiling as the phone was held out to her, then changing expression when she learned who it was.

“What’s wrong, Leo?”

No
How are you?
or even a simple
Hello.
She knew that he wouldn’t call unexpectedly unless it was an emergency. She’d been a cop’s wife too long.

PJ and Millie were huddled at the counter, trying not to watch him. He saw his own pain reflected in their faces, especially in PJ’s. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Rick’s dead.”

There was a thump. He hoped she hadn’t fallen down, but then he heard the bedsprings squeaking. She had sat down heavily on the bed, dripping hair forgotten. He waited a few moments. There was a sharp intake of breath.

“You there, Julia? I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.”

He wasn’t there to put his arms around her. Just like all the other times in their marriage that she’d needed him.

“God, no… how?” Her voice was small, and tugged at him.

“He died several days ago, probably the same day he got out of prison. The body was found this morning.”

“Oh God, oh God… he wasn’t killed in prison? It was an accident, then?”

“It was a homicide.”

There was a silence so long that he thought she had hung up.

“Are you sure it’s him? You haven’t seen him for months. Prison could have changed him.” There was the smallest lilt of hope in her voice.

“He had his release papers and his initial ring, which aren’t conclusive by themselves. But he also had the tattoo.”

A vivid memory: Rick on his twenty-first birthday, the ring new and shiny on his finger, suddenly dropping his trousers for the two of them, showing off the tattoo he’d gotten as a rite of passage. Schultz’s own face forming a reluctant smile, Julia’s eyes opening wide and her hand flying up to her mouth…

She dropped the receiver and fumbled for it. “Leo, you have to tell me. You have to. How did he die? Did he suffer?”

They always ask that,
he thought. And most of the time he told parents what they wanted to hear, which was some variation of the truth that didn’t sound so bad. Eventually they would find out the real details, as they should, but on the first contact he tried to find some way to soften the blow. No one ever faulted him for it. He wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do in this case. It didn’t feel right keeping things from her. She was his wife, or had been. There was no use trying to hide things from her and have her find out from somebody else. Schultz cleared his throat, shoved the images of the third-floor apartment away, and settled for a compromise.

“He was killed with poison gas. He probably never knew what happened.”

He was batting .500, and that wasn’t a bad percentage for the truth.

“IT’S CHIP’S CASE, AND
as long as I’m on this project I get to work it.” Schultz stood with his hands on his hips, his words hanging in the air in front of PJ like the odor of yesterday’s fish fry.

PJ, Schultz, Dave Whitmore, and Anita Collings were all in PJ’s small office in the downtown St. Louis headquarters building. In the office’s former life as a utility closet, it had never seen so much excitement. When all the members of the Computerized Homicide Investigations Project were present, there was barely enough room to breathe.

PJ tapped a pencil on her worn wooden desk. The fluorescent light in the ceiling was turned off because of the loud buzz it produced. She had a bright desk lamp, and at the angle it was shining on Schultz he looked like a bad flash picture. There was a large and sinister shadow on the wall behind him. He would be dismayed to realize that his shadow gave the impression that he was bald. PJ knew that Schultz was sensitive about the U-shaped ring of hair that left the top of his head bare, and especially about the few long strands he combed over the bare spot. She had an impulse to reach out and muss up the long hairs, but managed to keep her fingers occupied with the pencil. It was not the time for sentimentality, and she wasn’t even sure what the sentiments were that made her want to reach out to him.

The office door was closed to keep out the noise from the men’s room across the hall, and in the confined space Schultz’s physical and emotional presence took up more than his fair share of space. Feeling as though she was being pressed against the wall and suffocated, PJ reached over to a side table and switched the fan on high speed. The moving air helped restore some of the balance in the room.

Dave and Anita were doing a good imitation of wallpaper.

“This isn’t negotiable,” PJ said. “You’re not working on this case. Surely you see that you couldn’t do an objective investigation.”

“Objective, hell. I’m motivated, and that’s all that counts.”

The door opened and Lieutenant Howard Wall stuck his head in. The room went silent at his entrance, words and emotions ricocheting off the walls and coming to rest at their feet.

“Schultz, I need to talk to you,” Wall said.

“So talk,” Schultz answered. He didn’t bother to swivel to face the man who was his boss’s boss.

“In the hall.”

“Yeah, coming.”

Schultz levered himself out of his chair with a heavy hand on the corner of PJ’s desk and left the office, slamming the door so hard the pencils danced in their cup on her desk. The three of them strained to hear the low, muffled voices outside. At one point the wooden door rattled in its frame. Schultz had smashed it with his fist. In less than a minute, Wall opened the door again.

“Schultz is taking the rest of the day off,” he said. “He’s going directly home. It might be nice if one of you spent some time with him this evening.”

So that was that. PJ wondered what Wall had said to him. It must not have been the reasonable approach she had tried. Schultz might report to PJ on the computer project, but Lieutenant Wall held the administrative strings, and he had apparently jerked them. Hard.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” PJ said, drawing the group back to the investigation.

Dave spoke up first. “Not a whole lot. Zip on the fingerprints. The killer must have been wearing gloves. It would have taken several trips up to that place to get all the supplies in, so we’re talking about a careful person who planned over a period of time. Not to mention one who didn’t mind sweaty hands.”

“Speaking of supplies, where do you buy those chemicals? There couldn’t be too many sources,” PJ said.

“Au contraire, Boss,” Anita said. Normally Anita exuded cheerfulness, so much so that PJ expected the air around her to sparkle. Since the events of the morning, the sparkle had gone internal, a little fire of determination warming her eyes and giving off heat with every toss of her head. “There are hundreds of chemical supply houses,” Anita continued, “and the quantities we’re talking about here wouldn’t ring any bells, especially if the order was split.”

PJ sighed. It was going to be a frustrating case, compounded by the personal aspect for Schultz. She had a feeling that he wasn’t going to keep his fingers out, no matter what Lieutenant Wall said.

Was that a bad thing? Should a father seek justice personally? In Schultz’s case, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure he was intent on bringing in the criminal to face trial. That wasn’t a kind thing to think about a coworker and friend, she realized, but it somehow rang true to her.

“Let’s assume the killer wouldn’t store this stuff for a long time, so the purchase would be recent,” PJ said. “We’ll have to start canvassing those chemical supply companies, looking for purchases in the last couple of months. For now, we’ll look only in Missouri and across the river in Illinois. If the killer is that careful, he—or she—wouldn’t take chances with long-distance transportation.”

Dave grinned. “I’m just picturing the jerk hitting a pothole on Interstate 40, having the chemicals bounce around in the back seat, and giving himself a fatal whiff.”

“Too bad that didn’t happen,” Anita said.

“Since he lived to make use of them, he must have had some safe method of transport,” PJ said. “Maybe he made one trip for the cyanide and one for the acid. That might be something to check for—not just combined purchases.”

“How about the restraints?” Anita asked. “Anything unusual?”

“Leather belts from discount stores,” Dave answered. “So far, we know Wal-Mart carries them, and most likely others. Probably hundreds of thousands of belts sold all over the country. They were all men’s belts, so that’s a vague indication that the killer is male. Doesn’t have to be, though. A lot of women shop for their men.”

PJ opened her mouth to ask another question. Dave raised a finger to forestall her.

“The plastic that was tacked up to form the tent seems to be the kind used by painters. Held up with masking tape, a brand that’s widely sold.” Dave made spray-painting motions with his hands and accompanied them with sound effects.

“Again, common items with many sources,” PJ said. “At least we can learn one thing from that: the killer didn’t go at this casually. Careful planning went into it. We’d be better off focusing on the chemicals than on belts, tape, or plastic, I think. I’ll talk to Wall about getting help assigned. We’re going to need more than the three of us.”

As if he had been outside the door listening for his name, Wall came into the office. He flopped into the chair vacated by Schultz, his arms and legs akimbo, like a doll set down by a giant.

“I just heard back from the chief. You’ve got half a dozen officers to help out with the grunt work. We’ve had to beat off other volunteers with sticks, just to keep other cases staffed.”

PJ couldn’t help wondering where those officers had been when she and her small team were overwhelmed with work on other investigations. The murder of a member of a law enforcement officer’s family brought the other officers running like soldier ants when the nest is threatened. A flash of bitterness surfaced, but she dismissed it. She was grateful for the help, and knew that more would materialize if she could justify it.

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” she said. “We can sure use the help.”

“Any leads?” he said.

She shook her head and summarized the discussion for him.

“Somebody had to see something,” Anita said. “I can’t believe nobody noticed the new tenant carrying weird stuff up the steps to the third floor. Don’t people wonder about those things? What about the landlord? Didn’t he ever see the person who rented the apartment?”

“I’ve already checked that out,” Dave said. “The owner himself lives in the building, kind of unusual these days. Most times there’s a manager on site and the owner is some guy who’s been in the building maybe once or twice, or lives out of state and has never even seen the place in person. It’s just a line on a tax form. Anyway, the apartment was rented entirely by mail in response to a sign on the lawn, in the name of Ginger Miller. Didn’t even ask to see the place first. No signed lease, just month to month. The payments came in cash at the first of every month since February. The owner doesn’t have the envelope from any of the payments. When I asked him if all that wasn’t a little strange, he said he didn’t care as long as the tenant was quiet and paid the rent on time. Doesn’t even know for sure that his tenant was a woman. Or that there was only one person involved.”