Fury From Hell (16 page)

Jennifer could hear rustling and a computer whirring into life.

“Gonna log in and make sure I’m remembering correctly.”

“I’m in and already logged in.  Can I see?”

“You’ve got another day off!  What the hell are you doing in?  Oops.  Sorry — your first case!”  Babs laughed.  “Right, forgot that.  We all did it.  Okay, got the file.  Yeah, forgot to put it in the report.  Didn’t think it was important.  Dye job. 
Clairol Professional High Lift Golden
Blonde.
”

Jennifer whistled.

“Pretty good.  How’d you know that?”

“I follow all blonde colors.  I have to go with the look and shade that goes with my skin and age.  I’m considering this Honey Blonde shade for my next color job.”  A hint of pride snuck into her voice.

“And get away from the platinum blonde that doesn’t age you a bit?  Whatever for?”

“So you’ve got jokes about my hair color now?  Really?  You don’t wanna go there with me, Holy Holden.  If I could get a hot comb through those naps of yours I’d be one damned lucky bitch.”

Grinning, Jennifer leaned back in her chair and put her hands behind her head.

“See how easy it is to push your buttons, Strickland?  That’s nothing but music to my ears.  Now, back to my case — Babs, you may have given me something to go on!  I appreciate you checking it out for me so quickly.  Now go back and finish your beauty sleep.”

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

“For what?  Oh!  For giving ‘ole boy my number?  Yeah, we’re good.”  Affecting a deep Brooklyn accent she said, “Fuhgeddaboudit!”

“Good.  I’m going to get back into bed but first, I’m going to put my two cents in. If you haven’t already, call Chad.  He’s a keeper.”

Babs clicked off before Jennifer could retort.

With her lips pursed in an aggravated snarl, Jennifer put the phone back in its cradle while shaking her head.

Why am I fighting this?  I want to call him.  Babs wants me to call him, but I don’t want to call him

Refusing to pick up the phone yet again Jennifer abruptly shut thoughts of Chad’s firm chest and strong arms out of her mind.  She came in to channel her energy into work.

Now to figure out where my perp got his hair primped and preened.

Jennifer had yet another reason to hate metrosexuals. 

Well maybe except one…
She smiled as thoughts of the sexy Chad raced across her mind’s eye.

Dang it!  There I go again. WORK!

Jennifer pulled out Castleman’s report and poured over it again to make sure she didn’t miss anything before she called him in forty-five minutes.

***

“Detective Castleman here.”

“’Morning, Detective Holden, from New York, here.  Wanted to check a detail from one of your inactive cases from two years ago.  The rape/mutilation case?”

“Damn shame ‘bout that girl.  Wasn’t but twenty-four or twenty-five years ole.  Ain’t no way to die.  Damn shame.”

Hearing the pain in his voice, Jennifer pressed further.  “Did you know the girl?”

“Well, we ain’t a big place like New Yawk.  We’re over forty-three thousand and growing each year.  But, in my job, I kinda touch a lot of folks.  I knew the girl’s family.  She went to school with my daughter.  Even went to the funeral.  Casket was closed.  Her damned face was too messed up.  Bloody shame.”

She could hear him blowing his nose.

“Castleman, I’m sorry.  I know how tough it is for this kinda shit to touch your life personally.”

It took a moment for his composure to return. “Yeah, thanks.  How can I help, Detective Holden?  Anything I can do to put that bastard away, I’ll do.  It hurt really bad when I couldn’t find anything; made me feel like I let my own little girl down.”

Thanking Lady Luck, Jennifer made her request. “I caught a case that
may
be linked to yours.  My victim’s a bit older, late twenties, but fits the MO that your perp seems to like.  There’s mutilation like yours but no defecation.  The thing is we’ve got a match on the hair.  My victim had a strand of hair that matched the strand in your case.”

“Same perp.”

“Exactly.”

“You ID him?”

“Just like you — nada.  Didn’t see it in your notes, but did you find him in international?”

“Nothing.”

“So, we’ve got a ghost?”

“Seems like.  Wondered if it’s a wig.  That was my theory.”

“Pretty sure it’s human hair.  My forensics person is a fanatical fashionista.  She’s already ID’d the dye color; something from Clairol in the blonde family.”

He guffawed.  “It is New Yawk.  You guys would probably be more up on that kinda stuff than us down here.  We don’t get that many runway shows flocking to us.”

The two detectives shared a moment of camaraderie.

“Castleman, anything else come to mind that might help us to catch this guy?”

“Yeah, I remember he’s got an unusual foot size.  His shoe imprint was left in the snow near the body.  We measured it as an eleven narrow, uh double narrow, AA I think.”

She heard papers rustling, him grunting and a chair protesting being moved.

“Okay, no — eleven C.  Musta thought of my little wife’s foot.  She’s a double-narrow and wears a 6 and a half AA.  This guy’s got a longish foot but its skinny, you know?”

“I’m picturing it.  Any idea of his height?  We know he had to be on the big side because of the injuries our victims sustained.”

“From his foot imprint our forensics guy, Billy Sherm, surmised…uh…six foot one, at least.  Billy says he can’t be sure without more data to go on, though.”

Jennifer noted it down.  “This is more than I had so thanks!  Take my number and let me know if you remember anything else, all right?  I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.  Fair enough?”

“Sounds good.  Thanks, and Holden..?”

“Yeah?”

“You find this guy and make him pay, hear me?”

Something caught in her throat that made her sit up straighter. “Yes, sir.  I will.”

With a harrumph Castleman hung up.

Jennifer looked at the receiver for a long time wondering how many years Castleman had been on the force.  His concern had come through loud and clear.  Even in the short conversation she
knew
that if she had any issues at all she knew she who she could turn to.

She replaced the phone only to have it ring again.

“Detective Holden.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Feinster, I don’t answer to you.”

“You should answer to somebody.  You’ve been avoiding my calls.”

“What calls?  I don’t remember my phone ringing.”

She grabbed her cell off her desk and flicked through to her missed calls log.  Sure enough there were eight calls from Betty, two from Babs and one from Chad in the past twenty-four hours.  Closing her eyes, Jennifer willed away the nausea that threatened to come back.  She had no recollection of these calls; didn’t hear the phone ring nor felt it vibrate.  There wasn’t even a hint of a memory of ignoring the missed calls.  The low level panic she had pushed to the background rushed to the fore with a vengeance.

“Betty, we need to talk.”

“Surely you don’t expect to do so at work?”

“Aren’t you in today?”

“This is my one day off and I’m
not
stepping foot in that precinct.  Not all of us are so lucky to score three days in a row.  And not many of us would forfeit it and come in a day early.”

Ignoring her jibe Jennifer racked her brain.

“You live in…”

“Queens — Bellerose Park, to be precise.”

Hearing the smirk Jennifer immediately got mad.  “Fuck off.  I can’t remember every damn thing.”

“I see your two days off put you in grand humor…”

“How the hell do I get there?”

“I didn’t ask you over.”

“Cut the crap.  Train?”

“You’re not driving?”

“I don’t own a vehicle.  Isn’t that something you should remember?”

“Oh, thought you did.”

“Your turn to eat crow.  Train?”

“Railroad.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“It’s not that bad; only a thirty-five minute ride.  I’ll pick you up at the station.  Just text me your arrival time and I’ll come get you.  Seeing its only 9:30 in the morning we can have lunch.  Sound like a plan?”

In response, Jennifer grunted.

“Plan accepted. Lovely.  See you later.”

Jennifer slammed the phone down and could have sworn she heard laughter before the connection was cut.

Jennifer’s next move was to look up the top men’s hair salons in the New York City area.  She checked
TimeOut
magazine first for their picks and found several but none in Brooklyn.  Widening her search, she found Body by Brooklyn in Clinton Hill on Park and Washington.  No hair care but a load of spa services and sauna crap.  She added it to her list.  Gerald hadn’t mentioned this one.  She wondered if Kyma had a bad girl streak and stepped out on her devoted puppy dog that was Gerald.  Maybe Kyma could have met the perp at a spa; good cover for her normal self.  It was also easy to hide seeing another man if Gerald was the needy kind that wanted to know his woman’s whereabouts at every turn.  Jennifer had a distinct feeling Gerald was just precisely one of those.

In the next hour she found High Horse Salon in Williamsburg, The Heights Salon of Brooklyn — Kyma’s salon in Brooklyn Heights — Cocoro Hair in Carroll Gardens, Boy Luv Girl in Brooklyn Heights and about 5 others.  Her head reeled from the sheer number of salons all around her that she had never seen nor bothered to visit.  She flopped back in her flimsy seat and went to a new browser tab to check the railroad schedule.

She’d never make the 10:42 and planned on the 11:42.  She sent Betty a text with her arrival time and made some more notes about her salon findings.  The best, most sought after ones were in the City, but there were some respectable ones with good followings in Brooklyn, especially in the Williamsburg area.  With no clue as to her perp’s origins it was hard to get a feel for where he’d go.  Sighing she knew what she had to do; check them all.  With her meager description she doubted she’d get anywhere but it was a start.

“Shit!  I forgot to put the query into the database!”  She muttered to herself.  She had been so busy researching the salons entering the query into the international database had slipped her mind.  She thought about it and shook her head.  After all this time, a few more hours wouldn’t matter.  She would enter the query first thing in the morning.

Abatu wanted to press the host to enter the query.  It wanted to put as many feelers out for the killer as possible as quickly as possible.  However, the demon was reticent.  It did not want to provoke the host into any abnormal rages, or clue the host to its presence.  With the Jennifer host’s current fragile grip on reality any slight misstep could cause the host’s mind to tumble into insanity.  It remained in the background and simply watched.

Sighing, Jennifer headed off to the lockers pocketing her list and mentally plotted the route to Kyma’s salon.  She wanted to try there first.  Maybe, just maybe she’d get lucky and get another break in the case.

***

Sunday, November 11
^th
- Mid-Morning

Jennifer looked up at the statuesque Asian with purple hair highlighted with blonde at the ends.  This woman made Jennifer feel fat, short, dark and ugly.  The cop in her tried its best to ignore the desire to punch the perfectly coiffed bombshell in her throat.

“I know you said not many men come in here but I wondered if
any
come in especially ones that are about your height — with those heels on — wanting a dye job using Clairol Honey Blonde.”

“High Lift?”

Jennifer perked up.

“Yeah, I think.”

“We use dat here but, not for long time.  We use more da shimmery lites collection.  Owa clients like the highlights more.  You should go.  Two visit in one week no good for business.”

Looking into her glamorous symmetrical oval eyes smoked to purple pearlized perfection this early on a Sunday morning made Jennifer madder still.  Holding herself in check she asked another question.

“What about the other stylists and colorists?  Do they have male clients?”

“Yeah, sure.  You go talk to dem.  Dey come tomorrow.  You can wear street clothes like dis you wear today, right?  No good for business for you to come like we in trouble.  No good.”

Rolling her eyes, Jennifer snapped her notebook shut, gave the woman a tight smile and walked out without saying another word.

On the Long Island Railroad, Jennifer pressed her forehead against the window and stopped herself from sighing.  Looking sightlessly over Bed-Stuy as the train made its way on the elevated line towards the Jamaica hub station, the first stop in Queens, gave her time to go over all that had happened, or what she thought had happened.  Jennifer had to decide what she was going to tell Feinster and what to leave out.  Everything was so jumbled in her mind.  She almost didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.  The memory loss disturbed her but the unitemized receipt was even more disturbing.

“Damn it!”  She banged her head against the window making the person in the seat in front of her jump.

“Hey! Tryin’ to sleep here.  Could you keep it down?”

The man’s eye peered back at her.  He was staring at her through the space between the window and the high-backed fake leather seat.

“Sorry!”  She reined herself in and pulled her bag closer to her. “Shit!  I forgot to make the deposit again!” she hissed to herself.  The money was still tucked away in her bag.

The Fury poked out its head and looked around inside the host’s mind.  It was calmer.  Abatu relaxed.  The case was foremost on Jennifer’s mind — a good thing.  The weekend’s debauchery was still heavy in the host’s subconscious but the puzzling mysteries were enough to keep the host busy and not delve too deeply.  Abatu added its own distraction and infused the image of Chad into the host’s mind and faded into the background once more.

Remembering Chad, Jennifer sighed and looked upwards. 
Why do Babs and Feinster insist on this guy?  What does he have that I’m not seeing?  But, I must have drunk the Kool-Aid ‘cause I agreed to go out with him!