Some Degree of Murder (19 page)

“Okay.” Lindsay wrote down everything I said. “Who is this guy? A suspect?”

“Maybe. Don’t get ahead of yourself, though, Lindsay. Okay? Just run the check for me and stick with it until you get some answers.”

“Will do.” He gave me a fraternal clap on the shoulder and headed back to his desk.

I sat down and looked at my case files, turning the pages but not reading. My mind was whirring.

Virgil Kelley was Fawn’s father. He’s some sort of criminal, a leg-breaker or something. He got the article from Andie Taylor at his PO Box in Sacramento. The mail would take a day or two to get it there. By then, the murder would’ve been four or five days old. Then how long goes by before he checks that post office box? Either way, it took two weeks for him to get up here.

I picked up my phone and called Billings at his desk. He answered on the third ring.

“Billings,” he said in a bored voice.

“Ted, it’s Tower.” He didn’t say anything, so I continued. “I need you to check something for me on this case.”

“I’m kinda busy,” he muttered.

“On a homicide?” I asked him.

“No,” he sighed. “Go ahead.”

“I gave Lindsay a name. I need you to check that name and any aliases he finds for a PO Box in Sacramento, California.” I gave him the box number.

There was a long pause. Then Billings said, “Are you kidding me?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Do you have any idea how many PO Boxes there must be in a city that size?”

“Probably a lot.”

“Yeah, no shit, a lot.
”

“I need it done and I can’t do it myself.”

“Well, I’ll put my world on hold then,” he said and slammed the phone in my ear.

I replaced the receiver. It rang almost immediately.

“Detective Tower.”

“John? Matt Westboard.”

“Yeah?”

“You left me a message to call you.”

“I did? Oh yeah. The Field Interview on Serena Gonzalez.”

“You’re investigating that one, huh?”

“Yeah. I was just wondering if you actually had her hooking or just walking through the area looking like a hooker.”

He paused, thinking. “I don’t remember her ever contacting cars or anything, if that’s what you mean. She was dressed slutty, but she said she worked at the Club Tip Top. At the time, I didn’t believe her. She was too good-looking for that place.”

“Did she say anything about anyone bothering her? Anyone suspicious?”

“Nah. She was a little pissed that I stopped her. Told me she wasn’t a
puta
. I did the FI, anyway.”

“You stop anyone out there stalking the working girls?”

“No. Just the usual creeps looking for a date.”

“What about the Brotherhood? How active have they been on your shift?”

“Kinda quiet, really. At least until this guy Sammy G. turned up dead. Now everywhere they go, it’s in a swarm of bikes. Three or four at a time.”

“I meant with the girls, though. Any of them suspicious?”

“Not that I saw,” Westboard said.

I thanked him and hung up.

I picked up the phone and called Renee.

“I know it’s a long shot,” I told her, “But can you run the moniker of M? I’m looking for a black male, twenties.”

I heard the tapping of her keyboard. “What’s the connection?”

“The hooker that came in, Toni, told me that Fawn had a boyfriend that supplied her crack. Or hooked her up with a dealer. Something. Anyway, she called him M.”

“M, huh?”

“Yeah. Why? You get a hit?”

“No, no hit. Well, actually about twenty-seven hits, with another forty-two variations. M is apparently a popular letter.”

“Money. Money starts with M.”

“Exactly. Murder, too. But here’s something else interesting for you. On Wednesday of last week, the Sheriff’s Department had an assault out at the Denny’s on Edward Road. A young black male was beaten badly and is still in a coma. He had a little bit of a drug history.”

I brought my fingers to the bridge of my nose and rubbed, knowing I wasn’t going to like the rest of this. “What was his name?”

“Malcom.”

After I hung up the phone, I leaned back in my chair and stared at the white rectangles on the ceiling. Things were coming into focus and I walked myself through the process silently.

Virgil Kelley gets the clipping about his daughter’s death.

He comes to River City and contacts Andie Taylor. What did she tell him? What or who did she give him that she didn’t give me? Or did he just get different results with the same leads?

Either way, he finds out about M. Malcom. He gets what he needs from Malcom and then
beats him senseless. The assault doesn’t even make a blip on my radar screen. It’s in the County, not the City. It’s not a murder, not a female and not in the Corridor.

Then what? Virgil skulks around East Sprague and gleans information from the hookers and crack heads out there. I knew for sure that he talked to Grace. I wondered who else I’d interviewed that he’d also talked to. Probably more than a few people, I guessed.

How did he find out Toni knew about Fawn? Someone must’ve pointed her out. She tells him about Sammy G. He must’ve figured Sammy G. would know who killed Fawn. Maybe he thought it was Sammy G. that killed her. Hell, maybe it was.

No, I decided. A guy that won’t smack a woman in the face for business reasons is not my killer. Too practical. Not sociopathic enough.

When Virgil finds Sammy G., what happens? Something bad, because Virgil killed him. But what did he tell him first?

Did he tell him about Rowdy? Because that sick bastard was on my short list.

I felt a tinge of shame. Browning was working the Sammy G. case and had zero leads. Here I was, ten feet away, with a pretty damn good idea who iced his victim and I wasn’t saying a word. I could help out the County detectives with their Malcom case, too, but I wasn’t saying a word. I had two dead girls, almost assuredly killed by the same sick individual who was not going to stop but would undoubtedly kill again, but I wasn’t saying a word. I had a vigilante who was responsible for a death and a good beating, who was certainly planning to kill at least one more person before he was through, but I wasn’t saying a word.

Because this was my case. My responsibility.

I woke up to the smell of coffee brewing. My eyes adjusted to the light coming out of the bathroom, which illuminated only a portion of the room. The various signals of pain were still there on my body. I ran my fingers over the cuts and bruises and the improvised stitches.

“Hey,” I said softly, my voice strangely hoarse.

Gina leaned her head out of the bathroom.

“You awake?”

“Yeah,” I said and pushed myself up in bed.

“Want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

Gina’s head disappeared in the bathroom. A moment later she walked out with a cup of coffee and carefully handed it to me. She was wearing a faded pair of Levi’s and a WAZZU sweatshirt.

“Where’d you get the clothes?”

“From home. After you fe
ll asleep, I took off and grabbed a change of clothes before coming back.”

I looked around the room. “Did you spend the night here?”

She smiled at me and crossed her arms.

“Did we…?”

“Like you could have?”

I shrugged
and then took a sip of the coffee. The hot liquid slashed against the broken teeth in my mouth and I almost dropped the cup. “Goddamn it,” I muttered.

“Your teeth?”

“Shit, that hurt,” I said and put the cup down on the nightstand.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I got hit by an aircraft carrier.” I pulled back a bandage on my left arm and touched the stitches holding the razor cut together. “Good job on the sewing.”

She pointed at the stitches. “That’s
the grossest things I’ve ever done.”

“But you did it.”

“I almost puked.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did you?”

“No, I said almost.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I’m not a nurse or a doctor. I sewed up your back, your arm and your leg. I refused to sew up that gash on your face.”

My fingers gingerly touched my cheek and felt a bandage. “Was it bad?”

Gina nodded at me.

“Let’s see. Torn up face, fat lip, broken teeth.” My fingers wiggled my nose. “At least that’s not broken.”

“You’ve got a black eye around your left one. You’ve got a good sized cut through your right eyebrow. Bruises all over your body. There’s an especially nasty one near your kidney.”

I touched my back and thought about Mikey’s fist hammering on my kidney.

“Those cuts should really be checked out by a doctor.”

I shook my head. “Can’t do that.”

Gina sat down on the bed next to me. “What are you going to do next?”

“Lay here for a while and lick my wounds.”

She smiled softly at me. “After that?”

“I don’t know. I guess that depends on what’s going on with the Brotherhood.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means, three of their crew are dead in a hotel room down on Sprague.”

Gina’s eyes never changed. She must have come to terms with the killings last night.

“Would you turn on the TV? Find a local channel and let’s wait for the news.”

She grabbed the remote, flicked the button until she was on channel 2.

“You want some breakfas
t?”

“Yeah.”

She tossed the remote on to the bed next to me. “What sounds good?”

“An Egg McMuffin.”

Gina crinkled her nose. “From McDonalds?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Only for you.”

“There’s a wad of bills in my pants from last night.”

“Not anymore. That’s what you gave me to buy the supplies to clean you up.” She softly patted my leg. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

I read the entire Monday version of the newspaper, finished off two Sausage McMuffins, two hash brown patties and two cups of coffee before I ever climbed out of bed. With each bite and each sip of coffee, I was careful to avoid the broken teeth in my mouth.

When I finally stood up I had to steady myself on the wall.

“You okay?” Gina asked and came to my side.

“Shaky.”

“You look like hell.”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

I shuffled into the bathroom and checked myself out in the mirror. Bandages and
Band-Aids covered my entire body. What wasn’t covered was black and blue or swollen red.

After I took a shower, Gina helped me change the bandages. She watched me carefully shave and helped me get in to a pair of black slacks and a grey button-down shirt.

When I was finally dressed, Gina kissed me soft on the cheek. “I’ve gotta run. If you want, I’ll be back later.”

“I’d like that.”

She smiled and hurried out of the hotel room. When the door closed, I checked behind the television cabinet and found all three guns were still there. With a careful pull, I freed one of my Glocks. I stuffed it into the back of my pants and grabbed my jacket.

Downstairs, I walked over to the payphone and watched a tall, thin socialite gab away. She must have been in her early sixties, but looked like she’d spent a fair amount of time with a plastic surgeon. The skin around her face and neck were pulled tight and she wore a short
haircut that did its best to hide any scars from surgery. The gal was in dark blue slacks with a yellow blazer. Big, gaudy rings covered a number of her fingers while a shiny silver bracelet wrapped itself around her left wrist.

I grabbed a seat nearby and waited for her to finish her conversation. After several minutes, she hung up and hurried away. I walked over to the phone, lifted the receiver and tapped out what seemed to be an endless stream of numbers.

“Bobo’s House of Chicken,” the familiar thick voice announced.

I put my arm on top of the phone and rested my head on my shoulder. “Jay, it’s me.”

“Virg?”

“Yeah. I’m at the same number as before.”

I hung up the phone and continued to rest my head on my shoulder.

When the phone rang, I snatched it off the cradle. “This is Virgil.”

“What the hell are you still doing up there?” Irritation laced Mr. Saccamano’s voice.

“I’ve almost got it wrapped up.”

“Almost?”

“I’ve found her killer.”

Saccamano was quiet for a moment as the information sunk in. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer. “Then he’s dead?”

“He will be.”

“Make it quick, kid.”

“Yeah,” I said softly and hung up the phone.