ABSOLUTION (A Frank Renzi novel) (4 page)

“
Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”

He got busy on his lunch. He hated fish and didn’t much care for garlic smashed potatoes either, but he aimed to please Patti so he cleaned his plate. When she brought his check, he said, “Nice chatting with you, Patti.”

He left a big tip and strode down the aisle past the hostess station, past Roxy in her slutty dress. Forget Roxy. She was heartless like Nanny, Nanny and her calculated cruelties. Even now, twenty-seven years later, he could still picture that evil face, the pinched lips and those ice-blue eyes. How sweet it would be to punish Nanny.

Propelled by the exquisite ache in his groin, he left the restaurant.

He could hardly wait to hear Patti confess.

_____

Kitty Neves lived two blocks off the French Quarter in a tiny cottage with faded-pink siding. It reminded Frank of a dollhouse for discarded Barbies when he arrived at one o’clock. Rona was waiting for him across the street in the shade of an oak tree, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“
How come Kenyon isn’t here?”

“
He’s covering our taskforce assignment. You’re lucky I’m here. We’re working our asses off, another murder to investigate.”

She regarded him silently, irritation glinting in her large dark eyes. Then, in an abrupt decisive motion, she stepped off the curb and started across the street, saying over her shoulder, “You’re the lucky one, about to hear something that will crack this case wide open.”

He hoped she was right, four hours sleep last night, another long day ahead. He waited on the sidewalk, swatting away a swarm of gnats as Rona mounted four steps and rang Kitty’s bell. The rickety stairs had seen better days, and grime streaked the tall windows on either side of the front door.

A bottle-blond with a haggard face and wary eyes opened the door.

“
Hi, Kitty,” Rona said. “This is Frank Renzi, the investigator I told you about.”

Not mentioning he was an NOPD cop, Frank noticed.

“
Pleased ta meetcha,” Kitty said in a voice husky from too many cigarettes. A raspberry-red caftan hid her body, but no amount of pancake makeup could hide the lines etched around her mouth or the dark circles under her faded-blue eyes.

Rona had said Kitty was thirty-five. He would have guessed fifty.

She led them into a dim-lit room with two Victorian settees done in ruby-red upholstery and dangling gold fringe. The air was cool but thick with incense. Black-and-white photographs lined the walls, black jazz musicians, nude women in provocative poses, and, oddly, a 1906 poster from the Grand Palais des Champs Elysees.

“
Y’all want some iced tea?” Kitty asked. “I got bourbon if you’d rather.”

“
Nothing for me, thanks,” he said, blown away by the décor. A floor lamp gave off reddish light, and a bowling-ball-sized globe of clear glass sat atop a crimson pillow on the table beside him. Another table in the corner held a Ouija board and Tarot cards.

He took a seat on one of the matching settees facing the women.

“
Tell him about the weird john,” Rona said.

Kitty pulled out a pack of Marlboros and a Bic lighter. Her nails were long and painted vermillion. She lit a cigarette, puffed hard and blew a cloud of smoke. “He was a bad hombre, I can tell you that.”

Rona shot him a look that said: Wait till you hear this.

Kitty appeared to gather her courage, tensing her neck as she gazed at him with hollowed eyes. “He picked me up in the Quarter and I brought him back here.”

“
When was this? Can you give me an approximate date?”

“
Two years ago maybe? My son’s five and it was right after his third birthday.” Her face softened. “Joey stays with my mom when I’m working. Yeah, right after his birthday in October. It was raining. Damn cold, too, as I recall. After we got here I asked if he wanted his fortune told.” She gave him an arch look. “I can do that, you know. Tell things by looking at people.”

Just what we need, he thought, a witness thinking she’s psychic.

“
You don’t believe me, but it’s true.” Her eyes bored into him as she leaned forward and clasped his hand in an iron grip. “Somebody dumped you and you’re still not over it.”

She released his hand, leaned back and gazed at him, somber-eyed.

The hackles rose on the back of his neck. He was the one who could read people. Now Kitty was reading him. Was his lingering emotional turmoil that obvious? “Tell me about the john. What did he look like?”

“
He was a young guy, baby face, dark hair. A white guy.”

Rona shot him a triumphant smile.

“
Was he tall? Short? Fat, thin?”

“
Taller than me and I’m five-six. And not fat. He was in good shape.”

“
Any distinctive marks? Scars? Birthmarks? Moles?” When Kitty shook her head, he said, “Okay, tell me what happened.”

“
He didn’t want his fortune told so we went in the bedroom. He’s hot to trot, so I undress, lie down on the bed and hand him a condom. But he don’t put it on, just hops on top and comes all over me.” She made a face. “I hate that, but I figure it’s an easy trick, so I say ‘Gee, dawlin, you’re a quick one.’ Then he got mad and called me a sinner.”

Nothing new there, Frank thought. The sinner-message the killer left on the victims’ mirrors had been well publicized.

“
That’s when it got weird. He asks me how many men I’ve had sex with and did I enjoy it. I played along at first, but as soon as I answered, he’d ask another question.”

Recognizing the telltale pattern, Frank leaned forward and locked eyes with her. “Like he was using a script?”

“
Sort of like that, yeah. And then he got another erection. Pissed me off. I told him it’d cost him for another round. That’s when the
really
weird thing happened.” Her hand trembled as she puffed her cigarette. “He told me to stick out my tongue.”

The room went dead quiet.

Kitty wheezed as she took a deep breath, a look of stark terror on her face. If she was making this up, she deserved an Oscar.

“
So I stick out my tongue and all of a sudden he’s got these motherfucker shears. I don’t know where the hell they came from. Then he tried to grab my tongue, scared the shit out of me. I rolled off the bed onto the floor. I got a good set of lungs, and I was screaming bloody murder, lemme tell ya.” She went silent, staring into space.

“
Did you ever see him again?”

“
No,” Kitty said, hugging herself with her arms to her chest. “Hope to God I never do.”

“
I’d like you to do an Identikit with a sketch artist.”

“
I ain’t talking to no cops.” She turned to Rona. “You promised. Last time a john beat me up the cops wouldn’t gimme the time of day. Worthless shits.”

“
I’ll have the artist come here,” he said, hoping Miller knew one that made house calls, one that would keep quiet.

“
Okay,” Kitty said, “but no cops. I don’t want nobody putting my name out there. If my name hits the news, I’m dead meat. He’ll kill me.”

Frank gave Rona a stern look. “We’ll keep it quiet,
won’t
we, Rona.”

“
Of course.” Rona put her arm around Kitty in a protective gesture.

Eager to escape the bordello-like atmosphere, Frank left the room, depressed by the dim lighting, the prostitute photos and the dank odor of incense, depressed most of all because Rona’s hot tip wasn’t all that hot. Kitty’s story about the weird john seemed credible, but her description of the man, if in fact he was the Tongue Killer, was useless.

The women came out of the room, arguing, Kitty saying to Rona as they joined him at the door, “I know he won’t believe me.”

Rona gave him a look. “Yes he will. Tell him.”

Kitty ducked her head, eyes fixed on the floor, and said in a low voice, “I think the guy was a priest. Before he ran off, he made a sign with his hand the way priests do, you know? Like he was absolving me or something.”

_____

To avoid the media ghouls, more frenzied than ever now that there was a new victim, Frank parked behind the command center. Miller was waiting for him, seated in the shade on the cement steps outside the back door, smoking a cigarette. Frank recapped the interview with Kitty, but skipped the part about the priest. A staunch Catholic, Miller had two kids in parochial school, and Kitty’s notion that the john was a priest was pure speculation.

“
Can you get a sketch artist to work with her?” he asked. “Someone who’ll go to her house and keep quiet about it?”

“
Sure. No need to say it’s related to the Tongue Killer. I’ll get Monica. She’s good and she’ll keep her mouth shut.” Miller smiled faintly. “How you doing with Rona?”

“
Let’s hope she keeps quiet, too. She was pissed you weren’t there.” Adding with a sly grin, “I told her you had a hot date.”

“
Like hell you did,” Miller said, laughing. “Right about then I was filing our reports on that three-hundred-pound sack of shit. He’s still in the lockup, caught a woman judge. She set bail at a half-mill, said he was a risk to the community.”

“
Good for her,” he said, watching a dark sedan with two FBI agents pull into a reserved front-row spot thirty yards away. “Too many stalkers get out of jail and kill their target.”

The FBI agents climbed out and headed their way, looking spiffy in their regulation dark suits. Miller saw them and rose to his feet. “We better go in. Norris wants to talk to us.”

Damn. He hated one-on-ones with Norris and avoided them whenever he could. “Shall we tell him about Kitty?”

Miller turned his back on the approaching FBI agents and said in a low voice, “Tell him about Kitty, we gotta tell him about Rona, and he’s no fan of hers, the way she roasts him in her column. Was this prostitute credible? Maybe she’s looking for a piece of the reward.”

“
No doubt in my mind she was scared, but I’ll check her priors, see if she ever tried a scam like this before.”

Miller stabbed his cigarette in a butt-filled urn and opened the door. “Right. Check her sheet, see how the composite turns out, then tell Norris.”

_____

A white Melamine board on the rear wall of the taskforce command center held timelines and significant data printed in blue Magic Marker above photographs of each victim. Dawn Andrews was the latest. Now there were four and the cavernous room vibrated with urgency, phones ringing, faxes humming. Separated by low partitions, taskforce members worked phones or gazed at computer screens. Ten FBI agents occupied the prime real estate beside the windows, eight from the New Orleans office. Norris had brought two more with him from Atlanta, along with a female media coordinator and a male staffer to supervise a 24-hour hotline monitored by local police.

Frank saw the looks directed at them as they made their way to Norris’ office, a glassed-in cubicle in the far corner. Politics was the norm on any police force. The taskforce was worse, a volatile mix of FBI agents, local and state police detectives with oversized egos. Anyone getting a private audience with the head honcho was viewed with suspicion and envy.

Visible through the glass, Special Agent Burke Norris sat hunched over a steel-gray desk that stood right-angled to the door, a telephone clamped to his ear. The desk was perfectly positioned to allow Norris to keep his back to the wall and keep an eye on his troops in the main room. He waved them inside and pointed at two padded folding chairs facing his desk.

Frank took a seat and studied a large framed photograph on the wall: a beaming Norris at the Marietta Country Club, holding a big shiny golf trophy. Norris was married, but no family albums graced his desk. The only photo featured Norris at the country club, mounted on the wall opposite the door where no one could miss it.

“
Absolutely, sir,” Norris said, his forehead creased in a frown.

The mayor, Frank wondered, or the governor? Desperate to get the killer off their streets, the politicians were hounding the man tasked with this responsibility. Norris looked the part: a square-jawed six-footer in his fifties, iron-gray hair and steel-blue eyes, a commanding presence to face the media.

Norris jutted his chin, a quick reflex motion to free his jowls from his too-tight collar and necktie. “Yes, sir, I’ll make that clear at today’s briefing.”

Watching him, Frank had a hard time reconciling the man’s uptight behind-the-scenes demeanor with his assured public persona.

“
Yes, sir. I’ll be in touch.” Norris slammed down the phone. “Jesus, I got every damn politician in Louisiana hassling me. After the Baton Rouge case, you’d think they’d understand that it takes time to find a serial killer.”

During the 1990s several women in the Baton Rouge area had been brutally murdered. An FBI agent profiled the killer as a white male in his mid-thirties who had problems relating to women. But later, Derrick Todd Lee, a black man known to be a womanizer, had been convicted of the crimes after DNA evidence linked him to the murders.

“
The families upped the reward to fifty grand,” Miller said. “Maybe that will get us a lead.”

“
It better, because right now we got zip.” Norris raised his chin, jutted his jaw. “Two of my agents grilled the man who found Dawn Andrews, but he stuck to his story.”