Scent of Murder (14 page)

The first thing the other deputy had said when he met her was, “You're a cute little thing.” In reply, Claire hummed a note that caused Smarty to bark and snap at the startled deputy. The moron still didn't catch on.

After they'd gone through the list of suspects and talked to John Fusco about them, the road patrolman asked her if she had a boyfriend.

Claire said, “Maybe, why?”

He looked surprised at her answer. “I'm not used to answers like that from women.”

“What kind of answers are you used to?”

The tall deputy, who was a member of the SWAT team, and known as a serious player at all the local singles clubs, said, “It, I don't know, seems like a weird response to my question.”

Claire looked the deputy up and down and said, “I have a question for you.”

“What's that?”

Claire took a moment to assess his sense of humor and said, “A train leaves Chicago traveling west at fifty miles an hour…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” The deputy looked kind of like Smarty when he cocked his head to one side.

Claire patted him on the shoulder and said, “Don't worry, at least you're pretty.” She was afraid her sarcasm had been lost on the dim-witted muscle-head. At least she felt good about herself.

Now they were driving to the second address on their list, after having questioned one suspect who could prove he was at his job as a law clerk at a local firm. Tim Hallett had told her and Darren to stay alert because the interviews were important and sent a message the CAT could tackle any assignment.

Claire checked her rearview mirror to make sure the uniformed deputy was still behind her, then called back to Smarty in his rear seat compartment and said, “If you get a chance to nip this idiot who's following us, I won't be upset.” Smarty just looked at her through the cage, and she knew he understood. She parked in front of a duplex with a wide field behind it. Old, dried-out plastic lawn furniture was strewn across the front yard, mixed in with the weeds and exposed dirt. A quick scan of the neighborhood confirmed no one else moving around.

Smarty followed her out of the Tahoe as she attached a six-foot lead. The other deputy paused to make sure his fitted uniform shirt had no wrinkles and reached down to feel the handle of his pistol in his tactical holster. Then he strutted toward her until he remembered Smarty and froze in his tracks at the edge of the Tahoe.

Claire said, “You want to go around the back wall and I'll knock on the front door?”

“It's not like this guy's a fugitive. We're just gonna talk to him.”

“You never know what a convicted felon is gonna do.”

“That's why it's important he sees someone like me at the front door.”

Claire decided to treat this dope with maternal neglect and started to walk toward the front door with Smarty at her side. At least the dog kept the deputy a few paces behind her. As she stepped into the messy courtyard between the two front doors, she could see someone standing in the living room.

She knocked on the front door and heard a rustling inside and then a crash. She looked through the front window to see the rear door wide open and a figure running into the open field. Claire didn't hesitate to force the front door open. This looked wrong, and she wanted to know what was going on.

From behind her the deputy said, “I thought the guy that lived here was in his forties. The guy who just ran out the door couldn't have been more than twenty.”

Claire looked around the shabby two-room duplex, then ducked her head into the open bedroom door. A chunky middle-aged man lay naked on the dirty carpet with blood coming from his head and nose. He turned gray eyes up to her but didn't say anything. Claire kneeled next to the injured man. “Are you seriously hurt?”

The man gasped, “I don't think so.”

“What happened?”

“He called me a faggot, then just started to beat me. He took my money out of the dresser.” The man pointed at a shabby wooden dresser with the top drawer open.

Claire stood quickly, stepped into the main room, and said to the deputy, “Take your cruiser over to the next block on the other side of the field and don't get out until you hear me on the radio.”

She looked out across the field to see the young man running fast and about halfway across the open area. She yelled, “Stop. Police. I'm going to release my dog.” It was more of a formality. Called “broadcasting intent,” it was a chance for a runner to save himself some pain. Something she would be able to tell her supervisor she did later on. It got no reaction from the runner.

She kneeled down and unhooked the lead from Smarty and hummed a high a note, then said,
“Hol ihn.”
Which meant “go get him” in German. The dog sprang up and was in a full gallop in a split second.

*   *   *

Tim Hallett couldn't help but swallow as he stared up at a black man who was at least nine inches taller and two hundred pounds heavier.

The giant said, “What do you want?” His deep voice reverberated in Hallett's eardrums.

Rocky was uneasy but now stepped up to support his partner. Hallett never wanted to take bravery and loyalty like this for granted, but Rocky displayed it so often that he expected it more often than not.

Hallett looked down at his paperwork again and said in a shaky voice, “I'm looking for Roger Randall. You don't fit the description we had on him.”

The big man said, “Mr. Randall is resting. I'm his nurse.”

Hallett felt such a wave of relief, he thought he might need to use the restroom. But from behind him, the wiry deputy with leather gloves said, “Nurse? You look more like a professional wrestler.”

Hallett wanted to turn around and tell the kid to shut up, but the big nurse said, “Used to be. Way too tough on your body.”

As he was standing there, Hallett saw a middle-aged man in a bathrobe walk into the living room. “Who's here, Tyrus?” he asked.

Hallett stepped past the big nurse and said, “Sheriff's office, Mr. Randall. We're just doing our regular check.”

The man in a bathrobe stepped back and flopped onto the couch. “I wish I had enough energy to get into trouble again. As you can see, I'm so ill, Medicaid has to supply me a nurse full-time. You can check all you want.”

As soon as Hallett saw the man, he realized he'd been sent on a wild goose chase. His next stop was going to be at the detective bureau, where he and John Fusco would have a few words.

 

14

Hallett paused at the entrance to the detective bureau, where he saw John Fusco sitting alone at his desk, concentrating on reports and other information spread in front of him. Sitting on the floor next to him were two stacks of information sheets on sexual predators from the annual sweeps conducted by the sheriff's office.

As Fusco read a report, a low growl from Rocky broke his concentration. The detective lifted his eyes from the neatly typed page to see the dog less than a foot away, baring its teeth. Hallett inched back, Rocky's signal to drop the mob enforcer act. The dog quieted and sat down, but his eyes never left the shaky detective.

Fusco worked hard to keep his cool but couldn't hide his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard.

Hallett made it clear he was not happy as he pulled the dog back a few inches and said, “Did you think that was funny?”

“What are you talking about, Farmer Tim?”

“Sending me to check on the registered sex offender who's been too sick to leave his house for the last six months.”

“It wasn't meant to be funny.”

“What was it meant to be?”

“Look, Tim, if you want to talk about this, make your pooch back off and let's sit down and talk about it.”

Hallett didn't react right away. Then, slowly, he took a step back and grunted,
“Kalmeren,”
to Rocky. The dog sat right where he was and seemed to immediately lose all interest in Fusco. Then Hallett calmly shoved some papers off the chair next to the desk, sat down, leaned toward Fusco, and said, “I'm listening.”

“It wasn't my idea. I'm not sure I'd even have you working on this case.”

“Whose idea was it?”

“The sergeant thought it was best to keep you away from Ludner, but there were so many suspects out in his vicinity that we gave you the sex offenders farthest away.”

Hallett looked around the office and said, “Where's Sergeant Greene now?”

“I dunno. She's busy. But it's not really her fault. She's only doing what she thinks is right.”

“That doesn't change the fact that I really want to do something useful on this case.”

Fusco said, “One of the biggest questions I have about the Katie Ziegler incident is how the suspect knew her name. I could use your opinion on a few things like that.”

Hallett paused, considering the detective's request. Was it a bullshit way to placate him? Finally, he said, “My first idea is that Katie imagined he called her by name. A situation that stressful can do funky things to witnesses' perceptions.”

“I know, and her mother is no help. She distrusts the police and said her husband was in jail on trumped-up drug charges. You know how bikers can be.”

Hallett nodded. Everyone who had a brother or cousin in jail believed it was some kind of a setup or crazy police conspiracy. If that was true, who the hell was committing all the crime? It drove Hallett nuts that people were never willing to accept responsibility for their actions or the actions of their relatives.

Fusco said, “The first victims of this creep seem much more interested in forgetting the incident than trying to recall any details that might help.”

“Can you blame them?”

“I can't even have a sketch made because none of the girls actually saw their attacker. That makes the guy extremely lucky, extremely smart, or extremely prepared.”

“I hope the guy was just lucky, because eventually luck runs out. If he's smart and prepared, this could be a long case.”

Fusco said, “He's smarter than the average predator, who's usually driven by urges. They act without thinking and take advantage of situations, not planned encounters. But this guy seems to choose victims carefully and space them out. I've wondered if the guy had purposely planned to take the girls from different police jurisdictions, knowing it would be more difficult to coordinate an investigation.”

Hallett shook his head. “That would be good planning.”

He had been through the juvenile sexual offender classes required by policy, but it seemed like just a bunch of terms and labels to him. At the basic level this guy was a predator that needed to be put down like a rogue alligator or a lion in Africa that developed a taste for human flesh. Hallett didn't need some class developed by administrators to motivate him to stop a child molester. Every time he looked at his son he knew he had to get a monster like this off the streets as quickly as possible.

As he considered Fusco's sincerity, the alert tone went off on Hallett's radio. It was Claire Perkins calling for him to switch channels. Hallett acknowledged and was on the next band in an instant.

She said, “We have a runner at a house in Lake Worth, and Smarty is running down a suspect now.”

Hallett was out of the seat and headed to the door without another word.

*   *   *

Claire stood at the back door after broadcasting the chase over the radio and telling Tim Hallett what was going on. She watched Smarty rocket toward the fleeing man, then checked over her shoulder once more to make sure the victim she'd found on the ground was okay. She started to trot after the graceful German Shepherd as he zeroed in on his prey. At the far edge of the wide field, she saw the deputy pull his cruiser into position. He wasn't quite as stupid as Claire thought, because he stayed in the car. People believed the dogs could distinguish between uniforms and suspects not wearing uniforms, but once they were in a chase, any moving human could be a target. The more experienced patrolmen knew it all too well.

The fleeing man looked over his shoulder more frequently as Smarty got closer. Once Smarty was directly behind him, he made an extra bound, launched into the air, and grabbed the man by his inner thigh and twisted his whole body, throwing the man onto the ground like a wrestler performing a body slam.

Claire could hear the hard thud of the man when he struck the ground.

Just like he had been trained, Smarty left his jaws on the man's leg, not causing any additional harm but holding him in place.

As Claire approached, the other deputy came from his cruiser with his gun drawn. Smarty released the man and sat in the open field. The man was moaning, and when he turned, a geyser of blood shot up through the hole in his jeans. The stream of fluid was taller than Claire. She'd seen it before, but not with Smarty involved. It was a severed femoral artery—a risk for anyone fleeing from a trained police dog.

She was about to get on a radio and call for fire rescue when the other deputy stared at the diminishing geyser of blood and casually remarked, “You don't see that every day.”

She was glad she could entertain the troops once in a while.

*   *   *

Darren Mori was pissed off he'd missed Claire's chase and Smarty's bite. He'd been ordered to keep checking the sexual offenders on his list. He was less than two miles away but realized there wasn't much he could do after the guy had already been captured.

He knew this was important and was excited to be working something different. He loved the variety of assignments he got on CAT.

Now he was meeting up with the patrolman assigned to help. He knew the tall, lanky Puerto Rican from his days on the road.

The deputy parked next to Darren's Tahoe and stepped out of his cruiser to meet his friend. He looked down at Brutus on a six-foot lead and said, “Cute dog, Kato.”