Slasherazzi (3 page)

The glass doors swung inward, and the cool breeze of the station’s air conditioning was a welcome relief from the hot, angry roads of Tampa. I strode inside, past rows of desks where groups of officers sat working on reports or talking about the latest cases. As I walked past, Officer Grady lifted his head and gave a quick nod.

I gave him the finger, and he snickered. Beyond the initial hub of activity, near the far wall closest to the kitchen area, was Tanya’s desk. She sat at her computer, flicking through various Internet pages.

“Jesus Christ, how many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that?” she said, then paused a moment before continuing. “More times than I can remember, that’s how many. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything between you and lover boy. I swear you’re better off away from him anyway.”

“Apparently, you do, because you keep falling for him hook, line and sinker. That boy’s only out to use you so he can further his career.”

“He’s not like that,” I replied, more to myself than anyone else. The fact that he had shown up again now, just as another body had been discovered, did little to abate the doubts in my mind. I wanted to believe so badly that Vince wasn’t that person, but he certainly didn’t make things easy for me. “So what have you managed to dig up on our vic?” I asked, attempting to change the subject.

Tanya gave me a hard look before turning back to her computer. She opened up one of her Internet tabs.
“Facebook?” I arched an eyebrow at her. “You’ve seriously been browsing Facebook?”
“Why not? Most people don’t bother making their profiles private. I found out a few interesting facts about Mr. Pearson. For starters, he spent a lot of time looking after his farm on here.”
I shook my head, grimacing as I did so. “God, I hate those farms. Anything useful?”
Tanya grinned. “Oh, yes. It seems he wasn’t too popular with some of the locals. Three months ago, a member of his congregation accused him of molesting her six-year-old daughter.”
“Anything come of the allegations?”
Tanya shook her head. “When questioned, the daughter denied the claims. There was no evidence to suggest there was a case, so it was dropped. However, our vic made a lot of enemies that day.”
I scratched at my chin as a number of possibilities floated through my mind. This kill was different from the rest. Why? Was our killer changing, or did it have something to do with the victim? Maybe this one held some sort of significance to him. But more than that, besides the physical similarities between the victims— they were all male and in their thirties—we now had a link between two of our bodies.
I opened my mouth to speak when Tanya butted in. “I know what you’re thinking. Five victims, and two of them were accused of child molestation.”
“And with the way he’s leaving their dicks, I’m willing to bet he was a victim himself once,” I said. “It’s like he’s playing out a fantasy, getting revenge on his abuser.”
“Yo, Beckman.”
My thoughts stopped in their tracks as three people came to a halt at the side of the desk. I took a deep breath, fighting back the anger that seemed to burn through my veins at merely hearing that voice. Fernando was a small Hispanic man who joined the homicide team around the same time as me, and since then, had taken it upon himself to make his feelings about my being bisexual known to me and everyone else around us. As always, his lackeys were with him, two uniformed officers who shared his bigoted opinions.
“What do you want?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice as calm as could be.
“Been looking for you. Heard you and that faggot journalist were seen together at the park this morning. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name, you know? Bad enough that you’re sleeping with the enemy, but you gotta let the whole world see on camera what a fucking queer you are? Man, it makes me sick.”
Any attempt at self-control then was lost. I locked my fists around the collar of Fernando’s black pinstriped shirt and pulled him in close, my heart beating wildly against my chest. Despite his small frame, he continued to glare up at me, the tobacco on his breath catching my nostrils.
“Shall we see how cocky you are when this fag sends you to the hospital? I’m sure your friends would find that hilarious.”
His dark eyes widened momentarily. I opened my mouth when a hand came to rest on my arm.
“Alex, leave him,” Tanya said calmly. “He’s not worth it.”
I narrowed my eyes at Fernando before pushing him away into his two faithful henchmen. As much as I really would have liked to teach him a lesson, Tanya had a point. The satisfaction of wiping the smug look from his face wasn’t worth the resulting investigations and disciplinary procedures that would be sure to follow. It was a damn close call, though.
Fernando straightened himself up, his lips curled and brow furrowed. “
Maldito cabrón
,” he said in a low voice, fully aware that the rest of the office was starting to take notice of us. “Lieutenant wants everyone in the briefing room,” he said, raising his voice. “We’re about to start.”
He turned, giving me one last venomous look as he left, his freshly-polished black dress shoes clacking against the floor. I took another breath, letting my muscles relax. God, he always seemed to get me so riled up. The fact that he was the deputy chief’s nephew made him cocky, like he was untouchable. Sadly, he was pretty much right, and his uncle shared his sentiments about me.
Tanya locked her computer and picked up a stack of papers from her desk. We walked into the meeting room, where Tanya began to hand out the information sheets on the latest victim. Lieutenant Boyd was waiting at the front of the room, leaning against the desk with his arms folded across his broad chest and his foot tapping impatiently. Since the third body showed up, he’d personally taken the lead on the case. The fact we had almost nothing to show for our investigations was driving him nuts. He waited until the tiny room was packed, with the last few stragglers having to stand against the back wall, and the door closed, before straightening up.
“Right, let’s get started,” he said, and the quiet murmurs filling the room died down. A color photo of the late pastor prior to his untimely meeting with our killer flashed onto the screen behind the lieutenant. “Around two a.m. this morning, Robert Pearson became our perp’s fifth victim. As you’ll see from the information sheets given to you, our killer’s evolving. He’s now keeping his victims alive to torture them.”
He paused to pace across the front of the room. “We’re getting a lot of heat from above to solve this case, and fast. There’s already talk of bringing in the FBI.”
I clenched my fists. Murmurs of disapproval sounded throughout the room. Calling in the feds was just another way of saying we had failed. I wasn’t about to let that happen if I could help it, not on my first big case since being promoted to detective.
“All right, settle down. I don’t want the feds in on this any more than you guys, but that’s out of our hands. We need a lead, something to go on. Any ideas?”
Tanya’s hand shot into the air. After receiving a nod from the lieutenant, she stood to address the room. She explained our theory that the killer might be after suspected pedophiles, in particular those who had so far managed to evade the law, since not one of them had any prior offenses.
“That’s only two out of five accounted for,” the lieutenant replied. “I think we need to take another look at our other vics, see if any of them were ever suspected of pedophilia or child abuse.” He began to assign officers to look into each of the victim’s pasts. “Grissom. Beckman. I want you two to head down to the church where Pearson worked. See what you can find out from the people there. Anyone else have any ideas?”
“I got one,” Fernando said from across the room where he stood against the wall. He smirked at me as my eyes caught his. “He always cuts their junk, right? Seems to me like he’s trying to say something, you know? Deliver a message.”
I gritted my teeth, preparing myself for what was about to come. From the glint in his eyes and the sneer across his face, I already knew he was about to take another jab at me.
“The second victim was gay, right? Maybe he’s punishing gays for their sins.”
Tanya was on her feet in a flash. “Oh, you’ve got some nerve, boy.”
The lieutenant held his index finger up to Tanya, silencing her before she could go on another of her rants. He turned his eyes to Fernando. “You have any evidence to support this theory? One victim being gay doesn’t make it a pattern, and we’ve already looked into this before. We found no evidence from their family members suggesting any of the other vics were gay, or even bi.”
“Yeah, well, if it were one of my family that was gay, I wouldn’t be telling anyone about it, you know?” He shrugged. “Never mind. It was just a thought.”
“Thoughts without any evidence to back them up aren’t going to get us very far,” I ground out.
“Okay, that’s enough.” The lieutenant said, raising his voice. “Grissom, Beckman, you’ve got places to be. So let’s get on it, people.” With that, he left the room, followed shortly after by everyone else.
Tanya winced. “That could have gone better.”
I cast a final look in Fernando’s direction, only to find him smirking at me. I could think of a much better way to end the meeting, involving my fist and his face.
“Looks like we’re off to church then,” I said, heading toward the elevator with Tanya in tow. Maybe I could confess my eternal need to beat the shit out of Fernando while I was there. “Your car or mine?”
“You kidding me, Alex? You’ve seen my car, right? Big old heap of rusty junk. I’m still finding bits of dirt all over the carpet from when I took my boys to football practice last month, and the air conditioning needs fixing too. So, hell yeah, we’re taking your car.”
I chuckled quietly to myself as I called the elevator.
“Beckman, my office before you leave,” a voice shouted down the corridor.
Shit. The captain
.
“He did not look pleased.” Tanya said, shaking her head. “Go on, I’ll wait for you in the garage.”
I walked to the end of the corridor, let myself into the large office and closed the door behind me. The captain sat in his chair, elbows resting on the desk in front of him and hands clasped. Scattered in front of him were numerous files and reports, the only mess in an otherwise immaculate room that would have been fit for a military inspection. He nodded to the screen to his left, showing a still frame of me with Vince at Gidden’s Park during the middle of my statement to the press.
“Care to explain?” Captain Blake asked, his eyes boring into me.
Somehow, I got the impression my answer wouldn’t be good enough for him. “Sorry, sir. I lost my cool with them. It won’t happen again.”
“You’d better hope so, Beckman.” He unclasped his hands and leaned back in his chair. “I have high hopes for you, but we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior in public. The department is getting enough bad reputation over the Slasherazzi case as it is, and we could do without outbursts like this on top of that.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll stay clear of making any more statements.”
“Good. Now, before you go, I want to talk about your relationship with this journalist. I can’t stop you from seeing him, and I trust you’re holding your tongue around him, but it does not look good for us when you’re caught on camera with him.”
I choked back a groan, feeling an unbearable heat rising upward from my gut. “You want us to keep our relationship a secret? With all due respect, sir, I’m not going to sneak around trying to hide my relationship with Vince. If anyone has something against it, that’s their problem, not mine.”
Captain Blake stood and moved to the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he rose onto his tiptoes and then back down again. “You’re a smart man, Beckman. You know as well as I do our job is as much politics as it is police work. We have a public image to maintain. If people don’t trust us, it makes it a damn sight harder for us to do our job.”
I wanted to argue, to spew some idealistic crap about how I shouldn’t have to hide, but whatever I said wouldn’t make a difference. Ever since graduating from the academy, I’d known my sexuality was going to be an obstacle to my career. Maybe one day things would change, but until then, I would have to smile and bear it.
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir. Was there anything else?”
“No. Just do me a favor and catch this bastard already, will you?”
I nodded and left the room quickly, heading straight for the elevator. First Fernando, now the captain. The place was stifling. I needed to get outside, and fast. The doors opened, and I stepped in, hitting the button for ground floor. A young, uniformed officer slipped in through the doors as they began to close, panting and huffing.
“Thought I wasn’t gonna make it there,” he said, taking off his hat and wiping his brow. He leaned back against the railing and gave me the onceover. “Hey, it’s you! I saw Detective Medina giving you grief upstairs. Man, that guy’s a jerk. The look on his face when you stood up to him, though, that was priceless. Someone needs to do something about people like him.”
I nodded, not wanting to dwell any more on the subject. Silence filled the small metal cab, the officer beginning to shift on his feet.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” he said quietly, avoiding my gaze.
“Depends what it is.”
“Well, I’m gay too, and—”
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors screeched open. I started on my way out, resisting the urge to correct his assumption about me.
“What’s your name?” I asked, pausing just outside.
“Michaels. Rick Michaels.”
“Do yourself a favor, Michaels, and keep it a secret for now.”
It hurt to say those words. I thought to myself it shouldn’t matter, but it did. In a world where the economy was plummeting and wars were being fought in the Middle East, people still had time to worry about the sex lives of others.
“What’s got you so down?” Tanya asked as I approached the car. I climbed in and shut the door with a loud bang. “Was it Fernando again? I swear when I see him next, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind. That boy needs knocking down a few pegs.”
“It’s not that,” I said, starting the engine. Tanya took up the passenger seat. She fastened her seat belt as I began to pull out of the garage. “Sometimes, life’s just a bitch. So where’s this church then?”
Tanya’s eyes remained fixed on me for a few seconds. She shook her head before taking a notepad from her pocket and opening it up to where she had scribbled down the address. “Cherry Creek. Not far from Lake Magdalene,” she replied. “Sure you’re okay?”
“I will be,” I said, putting the name ‘Cherry Creek’ into my GPS as we waited for an opening to turn onto the main road.
“Think we’ll find anything useful there?” Tanya asked.
I turned my head to arch an eyebrow at her. “Not a fucking chance.”
Whoever our killer was, he was too smart to leave a potential witness. He had yet to leave us a single decent lead, and somehow, I didn’t think he was about to start now.
We drove north up Lake Magdalene Boulevard, taking the turn off into a narrow road lined with neatly trimmed lawns and white bungalows. Palms and cypress trees lined the sidewalks, their canopies shading us from the sweltering heat as we began to cruise through the neighborhood.
“Should be somewhere around here,” I muttered.
We crawled to a stop at a junction when Tanya pointed to her right. “Think we found it,” she said. Sure enough, there was a small church not far down the road, with a large white signpost outside that read ‘St. Matilda’s Catholic Church.’
I turned in the direction of the building and pulled up just outside. I killed the engine and grabbed a small notepad from the glove compartment, which I shoved into my back pocket as I climbed out of the car and stood. The church was set back a little from the main road, a paved walkway leading up to the wooden doors, above which hung a large white cross.