Hothouse Orchid (16 page)

41

D
etective Jimmy Weathers was at his desk early, as usual. He had been there only a moment when his phone rang.

“Detective Weathers.”

“Jimmy, it’s Lauren Cade.”

“Good morning, Lauren.”

“We have another one.”

“Where?”

“On the Orchid Island golf course, north of Vero Beach, specifically, in a sand bunker beside the fourth fairway.”

“I’m on my way,” Jimmy said. He got his coat on and walked toward the back door, passing the desk of Chief Bruno’s secretary. “When the chief comes in, will you tell him that we’ve had another woman murdered, and I’m at the crime scene? I’ll call him when I’m done there and let him know the details.”

“Oh, God, not another one,” the woman replied. “I’ll tell him. He has an interview here at nine with a candidate for the deputy chief’s job.”

Jimmy got into his car and drove out to the Orchid Island Club, a beautiful gated community out past the Disney Resort. He showed his badge at the gate and was waved through. He had played golf here once with Bruno, who was a nonresident member, and he remembered that he could drive nearly all the way to the fourth tee without getting on the grass. He parked near the tee and walked the rest of the way toward a group standing around a bunker on the left-hand side of the fairway.

“Good morning,” he said as he walked up to Lauren.

“Not so good,” she said, nodding toward the naked corpse, posed in a kneeling position in the sand.

Jimmy held his position, not wanting to interfere with the forensics people and the ME, who were already in the bunker. “Looks a lot like the last one, only without the car.”

“Yeah, and we haven’t found her car yet. They’ve mostly been left in or near their cars. I can’t figure out how he got the body onto the golf course. He would have had to drive through the main gate, wouldn’t he?”

“No, there’s a second gate off Route five ten that members can enter with a pass card.” He paused for a moment. “Bruno is a member here.”

“Ahh,” she said.

There was a stand of tall evergreen trees behind the bunker, and a car could be seen passing behind them. “But that’s not how he got the body here,” Jimmy said, pointing. “There’s a road behind the trees there that runs alongside the golf course of the Windsor development, which is right next door. There’s a fence, but I guess he could get over that.”

“That would account for some cuts and scrapes on the body,” Lauren said.

“I guess it would,” Jimmy replied.

The ME stood up from his work and came over to where they stood. “Death by strangulation, probably around midnight last night. Raped anally and vaginally, like the others. I’m supposing she was doped first, like the others.”

Lauren nodded. “You find anything that might help us?” she asked one of the crime lab people.

“Not a thing,” the man said. He pointed to a rake. “There’s a rake in every bunker he could use to smooth over the whole area around the body and, of course, his tracks as he left.”

“Shit,” Lauren said.

Jimmy spent an hour with Lauren, walking the area around the bunker and checking along the fence behind the trees, but they found nothing else.

Jimmy was walking with Lauren back to where the cars were parked when his cell phone vibrated. “Hello?”

It was Bruno’s secretary. “Jimmy, the chief hasn’t shown up for his interview, and he’s an hour late. That’s unlike him, and he’s not answering either his home phone or his cell phone, and he always has that cell phone with him. I’m worried that he might have had a heart attack or something. Would you swing by his house and see if he’s there?”

“Sure, I will,” Jimmy replied. “See you later, Lauren; I’ve got to check by Bruno’s house and see if he’s all right; he’s late for a meeting, and he can’t be found.”

“Well, we can always hope, can’t we? If you find him, question him about his whereabouts last night, and see if he has an alibi.”

“Will do,” Jimmy replied. He got into his car and headed for Bruno’s neighborhood.

B
runo’s car was in the driveway, so why wasn’t he answering his phones? Jimmy got out of his car and rang the doorbell. He waited a moment, then tried the knob. The door was unlocked; he pushed it open and stuck his head inside. “Chief Bruno?” he called out. “It’s Jimmy.” He yelled again, but got no response, so he let himself into the house.

He walked down the central hall a few paces and called out again, then he looked into the study and saw a note on the desk. He walked over and read it without touching it. “Uh, oh,” he said aloud.

He left the room as he found it and walked down the hall to the rear bedroom. Bruno was lying peacefully in bed, and there was a Glock on the floor beside him. Jimmy walked over to Bruno and looked into his face. “My God,” he said.

He turned and walked out of the house and to his car. Once there he got out his cell phone and called Lauren Cade.

“Sergeant Cade.”

“This is Jimmy, Lauren. Bruno is dead in his house. Would you do me a favor and call the ME and the criminalist and bring them over here?” He gave her the address. “Maybe Hurd might like to be here, too.”

“Will do, Jimmy, and I’m on my way.”

Jimmy hung up and opened the trunk of his car. He lifted the lid over the spare tire and removed a paper bag, then closed the lid again. He took a roll of yellow crime scene tape from the trunk and walked back to the house. He went inside and walked down the hall to Bruno’s bedroom, then stood and looked around for a moment. He went to a closet and opened the sliding door. Bruno’s uniforms and some civilian clothes hung neatly inside. On the top shelf was a shoe box.

Jimmy put on some latex gloves and took down the shoe box, which was half full of some old photographs, some showing Bruno in army uniform. Jimmy opened the paper bag he had brought and shook the contents into the shoe box, then he put the top on, replaced it on the shelf and put the wadded paper bag in his pocket.

He went back outside and taped the entrance to the house, then he ran some more tape across the driveway between two trees. He went around to the rear of the house and taped the rear entrance as well, depositing the paper bag in his pocket in a garbage can by the door, under some beer cans. Then he walked carefully around the backyard, checking the ground.

He returned to the front yard in time to greet Lauren, who was followed shortly by the ME and the criminalist.

“Hurd’s on his way,” Lauren said.

Jimmy told them of his arrival at the house and the discovery of the body. “I didn’t touch anything,” he said, “so we’ve got a good crime scene here. Come inside, and I’ll walk you through where I was.”

He led them to the study and pointed out the note on the desk, next to the typewriter. “Read that,” he said, then waited while they did. “The bedroom is down the hall to your left. I walked inside, looked at the body and walked around the bedroom. There’s a Glock on the floor beside the bed and a shell casing on the floor between the bed and the chest of drawers. I’ll wait here while you do your work.”

Lauren looked into the room from the door but did not enter. “He ate his gun?”

“Looks that way,” Jimmy said. “Come on, let’s have a seat in the living room while they do their thing.”

As they sat down, Hurd Wallace entered the house, and Lauren briefed him while Jimmy called police headquarters and told the secretary what had happened.

“I guess you’re in charge, then, Jimmy,” she said. “Chief Bruno never got around to hiring a deputy chief, and you’re the senior officer. You better call the city council people and let them know what’s happened.”

“All right, I will.”

Hurd spoke up. “We don’t need a search warrant now, so let’s go through this place thoroughly.”

“What are we looking for, Hurd?” Jimmy asked.

“Any evidence that might connect Bruno to these murders. Jimmy, you take the kitchen; Lauren, you take the bedroom.”

“I don’t want to go in there, Hurd,” Lauren said. “I’ll take the study and the second guest room.”

“All right,” Hurd said, “I’ll take Bruno’s bedroom as soon as the body is out of there.”

42

J
immy went into the kitchen and carefully searched every cabinet, the pantry and the refrigerator, then he walked back into the hallway.

Lauren was coming out of the study. “Nothing I could find in there,” she said, “except the suicide note.”

They stood back and allowed the ME and a forensics guy to wheel the corpse past on a gurney.

“I’ll be right back and give you my preliminary,” the ME said.

Hurd, Lauren and Jimmy waited in the hallway. “What did you find?” Hurd asked.

“Nothing in the study, except the suicide note,” Lauren said.

“The only thing of any significance in the kitchen was half a case of Famous Grouse Scotch and a refrigerator with at least a case of beer in it. Looks like Bruno was drinking a lot.”

“There’s half a bottle of Scotch and a glass on the bedside table,” Hurd said.

The ME returned. “All right, death was by a single gunshot wound through the mouth, apparently self-inflicted; Forensics found the slug in the pillow, and he’s taken charge of the gun, the shell casing and the slug. He’ll run ballistics on all that today. I found some Ambien, a sleeping pill, in the bathroom medicine chest, one left from a prescription of twenty-five, and there’s a booze bottle by the bed, so my guess is I’ll find both of those things in the stomach contents.”

“Can you do the Bruno autopsy first, before the woman victim?” Hurd asked.

“If you like.”

“Call me when you’re done,” Hurd said.

“Call me, too,” Jimmy added. The ME left.

“Okay, time for the bedroom,” Hurd said. “Lauren, you can wait in the living room; Jimmy, with me.” He led the way into the bedroom.

“I’ll take the chest of drawers,” Jimmy said.

“All right.”

Jimmy began opening drawers and emptying the contents of each, one at a time, on top of the chest, returning them to the drawer after his search. He was on the bottom drawer when Hurd, who was searching the closet, spoke up.

“Jimmy, I’ve got something here,” he said. “Lauren, come in here!” he yelled.

Lauren came to the door. “I don’t want to come in there.”

“Get your ass in here,” Hurd said quietly. “I want you to witness this.” He set an open shoe box on the bed. “I found this on the closet shelf.”

Jimmy and Lauren came in close and watched.

“Give me an evidence bag,” Hurd said. “No, two, and big ones.”

Lauren opened her large purse and produced the plastic bags.

“We’ve got two, four, six pairs of women’s panties,” Hurd said, dropping them one at a time into an evidence bag. “We’ll want DNA from those.” He held up something the size of a staple gun with a small bottle attached to it. “And we’ve got a vaccination gun with a chemical attached.” He dropped it into the second bag, then emptied the shoe box onto the bed. “Nothing else but some old photographs,” Hurd said, poking through them. Finally, he returned them to the shoe box and replaced the cover.

“Ten to one, that’s a Rohypnol solution in the plastic bottle attached to the gun,” Lauren said.

“Right,” Hurd said. “Jimmy, we’re going to take charge of this evidence. We’ll log in everything, then photograph it all, test the panties for DNA matches with the victims, check the serial number on the vaccination gun against hospital records, then, since you’re the lead investigator, return it all to you to lock up in your evidence room.”

“That’s fine with me, Hurd,” Jimmy said.

Hurd took a small evidence bag from his pocket. “I’ll bag the suicide note. I think we’re done here for the moment.”

“Hurd,” Jimmy said, “We should get out a press release at some point.”

“Let’s wait for the autopsy, the ballistics and the DNA tests to be completed,” Hurd said. “I’ll write something up and fax it to you for your approval before I release it.”

“All right,” Jimmy said.

“One more thing,” Hurd said. “You’ve both seen everything I’ve seen. Did either of you find any indication that this might be a homicide, instead of a suicide?”

“No,” Lauren said.

“Me, neither,” Jimmy added. “It all seems straightforward.”

“Okay,” Hurd said, “the letter gives us his guilty conscience over the murders as a motive for suicide; he apparently took Ambien and booze, then shot himself with his service pistol. The women’s underwear and the vaccination gun are corroborating evidence. Anything to add?”

“No,” Lauren said.

“No,” Jimmy said.

“God,” Hurd said. “We might have just saved that last woman’s life, if we’d gotten to that tire recycling plant in time.”

“We did everything we could, Hurd,” Lauren said. “It was the delay in getting the search warrant that made us late, so the fault lies with the judge, if anybody, certainly not with us.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hurd said. “Lauren, post some do-not-enter notices on the front and rear doors, and let’s get out of here.”

J
immy drove back to police headquarters. The watch was changing, so most of the force roster was in the squad room.

“Let me have your attention,” he shouted. Everybody got quiet. “The information I’m about to give you is not for public consumption until you read it in the papers or see it on TV. Everybody got that?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“A couple of hours ago I was at a crime scene out at Orchid Island, where another female victim was found, left in a sand trap. While I was there, Gladys called me and told me the chief was an hour late for a meeting and he wasn’t answering his phones, and she asked me to go to his house and see if he was all right.

“I found the chief lying in bed, dead, with his Glock on the floor beside him. I summoned the ME and a rep from Forensics and Hurd Wallace and Lauren Cade, too. We found a suicide note, and Hurd found a box of stuff on a closet shelf that included half a dozen pairs of women’s panties and a vaccination gun, like the one stolen from the hospital. It appears from the available evidence that the chief was the murderer of all these women who have been found dead lately.”

Everybody started to talk at once.

“Quiet!” Jimmy said. “Like I said before, this is not for public consumption until it hits the papers. The chief never appointed a deputy chief, so for the moment, because I’m the senior officer here, I’m acting chief until the city council does something official. They’ve already been notified of what’s happened.

“I don’t want to answer any questions right now. You’ve been told everything I know, so let’s get on with the watch change and start doing our jobs again. Thank you.”

Jimmy walked back to Bruno’s office. “Gladys,” he called, “please come in here. I’m going to search the chief’s office, and I want a witness.”

Gladys came in and stood by the door. Jimmy searched the desk and the cupboards and didn’t find anything relevant to the murders, except a nearly empty bottle of Famous Grouse Scotch in a bottom desk drawer.

“Thank you, Gladys. That’s it,” Jimmy said. “Please close the door behind you.”

Gladys left, and Jimmy sat down behind Bruno’s desk. He was the chief now, by God, and Bruno was dead, with all the murders hung around his neck. The suicide note was a fake, and he figured Lauren Cade or Holly Barker for having shot Bruno, but he wasn’t about to pursue that. This was the best day of his life.