Compromised (16 page)

Paying the rent? You were writing traffic tickets? Shit. Let the meter maids do that.”

He shrugged. “What can I tell you? Some white-shirt decision came down from on high and now our unofficial quota has become an official quota—no one gets a pass.”

“Jesus, what a waste of resources. So, anyway, I presume that you heard screams and ran around the corner with your summons book drawn, is that it? Then what?”

He chuckled. “I saw a man down. I checked for vitals and radioed for a bus. I didn’t see the perp.”

“Witnesses?”

Steigler pointed to a small group of people milling about in front of the Shinto temple. “They’re waiting for Lido to take their statements.”

“Any of them get a good look at the assailant?”

“One guy saw the perp running straight at him.” He pulled out his notepad and read back his notes. “Heavyset Asian male, black leather jacket, crew cut, tattoo on the left side of his neck.”

“Sounds like the witness got a pretty good look at the perp. What kind of tattoo was it?”

“He wasn’t sure. He said it could’ve been a red serpent or an animal head of some kind sticking out above the guy’s shirt collar. He already offered to work with a sketch artist.”

“Don’t you just love helpful law-abiding citizens?”

“Yeah, Chalice, I love ’em to death, and to show my heartfelt appreciation, I just issued tickets to about thirty of them. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

“You know it.”

“Another witness said he saw the victim come out of the temple. The perp came up behind him and slit his throat.”

“ID?”

“I was waiting for Lido to check it.”

“Mind if I have a look?”

“You and Lido are kind of one and the same, right? Help yourself, Chalice. Just put everything back the way you found it.”

I slipped on blue gloves and introduced myself to the lead crime scene tech before checking the victim’s wallet, which was already in an evidence collection bag. His business card stated that his name was Aguri Maeda, a sushi chef at a restaurant called Kanpeki. I had just made a note of his address when I spotted the CBS news truck coming up the avenue, and I didn’t want to be in a position to be questioned by a nosy reporter. I put his card back into the wallet and the wallet back into the evidence bag. I stepped outside the police tape and waited for Gus to finish his initial investigation. He was taking quite a while so I walked across the street to Starbucks and grabbed a cup of unleaded.

Gus seemed much calmer than before he’d checked the scene.
Maybe he’s over it,
I thought.
Nah, it’s too soon—he’s just cutting me some slack. Maybe he’s preoccupied. Yeah. That’s it. He’s preoccupied.

“Thanks so much for adding another case to my workload.”

Guess I spoke too soon. He’s still being sarcastic. I guess that’ll last a while.
“Sorry.”

“What did you hope to find?”

“I really don’t know. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t Harry. Guess I have a guilty conscience. He’s just trying to help me, and I don’t want him to become the next victim.”

“You know that you really shouldn’t be encouraging him, Steph. He could get brought up on charges for vigilantism. Even if the charges don’t stick, it could ruin his career in Japan.”

“Trust me, he’s much more concerned about avenging his brother’s death than he is about his career. You know all that stuff they say about the Japanese and their sense of honor?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s all true.” I took a moment before dropping the next bomb. “Besides, he’s in the wind.”

“What?”

“He’s doing things his own way. He played nice for the first couple of days, but then he went his own merry way. He’s got a friend over here, and they’ve become some kind of Batman and Robin team. Actually he implied that he’s got several associates over here, so I guess he’s forming his own Justice League.”

“I don’t get it, Steph. He thinks he can accomplish more on his own than he can working with you?”

“Yeah. That’s the gist of it. I’m yesterday’s news, a wounded lady cop who can’t take charge of her own vendetta. He told me his friends wouldn’t cotton to working with an interloper. Actually the word he used was
gaijin
. It means foreigner.”

“You?” He laughed. “You’re about as foreign as apple pie.”

“Yeah, I get that, but I’m not Japanese. He said that his friends are touchy that way.”

“But you can contact him if you need to, correct?”

“Yeah. I gave him a burner phone, and I’m hoping he hasn’t tossed it.” I turned to take in the crime scene in front of the temple. The crime scene unit was still taking blood spatter measurements. “I think I’ll let Harry know about the stabbing.”

“And why do you think he’ll give a shit?”

“Just a hunch, but something tells me he will. One of the witnesses said the perp had a tattoo on his neck, rising out from under his shirt collar.”

“So?”

“Harry’s friend is a tattoo artist. Maybe he’ll be able to recognize the handiwork.”

“From an artist’s sketch? That’s a long shot, babe.”

I’m sure it meant little to Gus, but he’d called me “babe,” which was what he normally called me. I was probably making more out of it than I should have, but it did seem as if some of his venom was gone and it made me smile inwardly. “You’re probably right, but it can’t hurt to keep him in the loop. Besides, it gives me an excuse to check in on him.”

He cranked the engine. “Go to it,” he said with a shrug. “Next stop, home . . . Max, Ma, and spaghetti Bolognese. It’s chow time at the O.K. Corral.”

Gus was correct.
My return home was akin to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. No actual bullets, of course, but lots of stink-eye how-could-you? glances and petty cheap shots at my expense. Fortunately, Max was not one to hold a grudge. He delighted in playing with me, ate a huge lunch, left an impressive specimen in his diaper, and went down for a nap so that the grown-ups could have at it.

“I’m going to get you an ankle bracelet,” Ma swore.

“With charms and lockets?” I kidded.

“No. A goddamn tether like the ones they use for house arrests.”

“A ball and chain works just as well and costs a hell of a lot less. Oh, wait,” I said, turning to Gus. “I’ve already got one of those.”

He flipped me a tiny little bird.

“She’s going to be all right,” Ma said. “She’s just as feisty and rude as ever.”

I sneered at her. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Now explain the hair,” she snapped. “What the hell were you thinking? Your beautiful long brown hair.” She did the biting-the-knuckle-utterly-exasperated thing. “I think you’ve lost your mind. It’s a wonder your son even knows who you are.”

“He’d know me if I were bald. Besides, he likes me with flashy blonde hair. Kids are like fish—they’re attracted to shiny objects.”

“
Madonna
, you’ve never heard of a wig? For God’s sake, Stephanie Marie Chalice, I hope you donated your hair to Locks of Love so that some poor sick child benefits from it.”

It was a great suggestion, alas one that hadn’t occurred to me while I was in the throes of clipping my hair. “You’re right. That would’ve been the right thing to do.”

“Bah,” she said with irritation, then walked into the kitchen and returned with a huge bowl of pasta. She placed it next to a dressed salad that was already on the table. “I’m warming garlic bread in the oven. Let’s sit down to a good meal and talk like a family ought to.”

“I’m all for that,” Gus said. “Especially the good meal part.”

“Amen!” Salad is always eaten last in a traditional Italian household, and my folks had always eaten their courses in that order. Gus had no complaints because it meant he could dive right into the pasta without wasting time on the salad, which for him was tantamount to mealtime foreplay, and Gus was a let’s-get-straight-to-it kind of guy. I dished out three heaping servings of spaghetti.

“Um, so good,” I said with a mouthful of food. In our house, talking with your mouth full wasn’t considered rude, not when the meal was so delicious that you couldn’t help but offer praise.

“Attitude—check. Appetite—check. My girl’s back,” Ma said with a robust smile. She pushed the garlic bread my way. “I want to be mad at you, but I’m just so happy to see you eating with such gusto.
Mangia
, my pretty little blonde-haired
gavone
.”

A strand of spaghetti was hanging over the edge of my dish, which for some reason reminded me of limp wiener. “Hey,” I began with exuberance. “Why doesn’t the GEICO gecko have a wife or children?”

Ma and Gus looked at one another. They turned to me and shrugged, but they were already smiling.

“He’s suffering from
e-reptile
dysfunction.”

Gus snorted, and wine came out of Ma’s mouth. She pounded the table with the palm of her hand. “That’s my
girl
.”

We ate the rest of our meal with smiles on our faces.

“I’ve got a present for you,” Gus said.

“A puppy?”

“Better. It’ll keep you busy all day, and it won’t pee on the carpet. I brought home the evidence box on the Nina Stoffer homicide.”

“Oh, great. Thanks. Seriously, though . . . no puppy?”

He’d finished his pasta and was eyeing the salad dispassionately. “I never asked you. Did you get anything useful out of the Eldridges?”

I shook my head. “No. I hit them on a bad day. It was the anniversary of their daughter’s death. I spent the entire visit trying to calm Mr. Eldridge and apologizing for the New Jersey Police Department’s lack of efficiency. Then I did my Joe Cocker impression of ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,’ and there went that.”

“Don’t you mean ‘She Conked Her Head on the Coffee Table’?” Gus sniggered.

Ma cackled.

“Terrific. I’m at the dinner table with Lennon and McCartney.”

“Couldn’t help myself,” Gus said with a grin. He nabbed the last piece of garlic bread. “Anyone want this?”

Ma and I shook our heads.

“I’ll requisition the Eldridge evidence box as well, but it might be a couple of days getting here from New Jersey.”

“Great. That’ll give me plenty to do.”

Gus narrowed his eyes. “And keep you out of trouble.”

“I miss Joe Cocker,” Ma said with a sigh. “Although it was so hard to watch him perform, always twitching and gyrating the way he did.”

I gnarled up my hands and arched my neck like Cocker used to and began to sing. ‘“I get by with a little help from my friends. Gonna try with a little help from my friends.’”

Ma took hold of our hands. “Of course you will, dear. We’re way more than friends. We’re family.”

I dove into the Nina Stoffer evidence box right after our meal.
If I was right, she had been the killer’s first victim—correct that, she was the first victim the police were aware of. Many serial killers have been able to take lives for quite some time without showing up on law enforcement radar. It happens more often than we care to admit.

Poor Nina had been brutally assaulted. She’d been found latched to a Louis Vuitton double wardrobe trunk inside a Queens warehouse near a commercial pier, bound and strangled with exquisite Anne Touraine printed silk scarves. An ornate Alexandra Sojfer parasol had been used to tighten the tourniquet around her neck.

I found a manifest in the file that listed the contents of the wardrobe trunk and was once again surprised to see that the killer hadn’t dressed his victim in one of the eight pairs of Jimmy Choo pumps found within the trunk. Apparently, our boy preferred his women barefoot, or maybe the shoes were just too small. Judging from what I knew of high-priced luggage and accessories, the cost of that kill was up there at around fifty K. Stoffer had been a clerk for a freight forwarder at the pier and made less than that as her annual salary. The trunk was the property of an NFL star’s wife. The diva’s goodies never made it to Ibiza where she was spending the winter. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?

While I reflected on the irony of the killer’s first tableau, I again phoned Harry and again left a message for him to call, without leaving any specifics. I had no idea where he was or what he was doing, but I was getting pissed off over his lack of courtesy. Then, of course, I began to feel guilty, wondering if he was in trouble and unable to answer the phone. Guilt and I had become closely acquainted of late, and it was not a feeling I enjoyed.

“Can I get you anything?” Ma asked, entering the dining room with Max in her arms.

I was set up at the dining room table with the Stoffer case file, but dropped everything, reached for my son, and held him in my arms. “You haven’t heard what’s going on in here? The garlic bread is repeating on me—I’m setting consecutive world records for the loudest burps ever recorded.”

“I’m so
very
proud of you,” she said. “You should probably go for a walk or something. You’re not getting as much exercise as you’re used to.”

“Maybe later. I want to get through this evidence box first.”

“See anything in common?”

“Only the killer’s MO. So far he’s used an expensive wardrobe trunk, a cheap worn-out actor’s trunk, and an unfinished pine blanket trunk. He’s neat and efficient, leaves no DNA evidence, and chooses locations without security cameras or disables them in advance.”

“So still no idea why you and your partner were shot?”

I shook my head. “Sadly, no, and still no clear direction on the Serafina Ramirez homicide either.”

“So what now?”

Making a silly face, I said, “It’s a good time to tickle Max.” I made him giggle like crazy. “Funny how this wipes all the misery out of my mind. This little guy is Mommy’s best antidepressant. Aren’t you?”

He attempted to tickle me back. I overacted dramatically, but the effect my son had on me was absolutely genuine. For the moment I didn’t have a care in the world. Max was getting a little out of breath after a while, so, much to his chagrin, I stopped and put him down. He was at that stage of holding onto furniture and almost ready to start toddling. I watched him shuffle along, gripping the end of the dinner table like a cat burglar clinging to a rooftop ledge for dear life—one misstep and . . . yup. He fell on his bum, pulled himself up, and went at it again. “My boy’s a tenacious little bugger.”