Bad Moon Rising (26 page)

“Fuck me sideways, Travelli. I’ve already received an
irate call from the mayor and Senator Strong, and you’re in here wanting a
favor from me? You’re lucky I’m even allowing you to step foot in my office.”

“I’m not asking you for a favor, Killroy. I’m telling
you. I want an APB put out on Shana Corvasce. The FBI wants her found. Now.”

He cut his gaze to J.D. “Imagine. John Damascus cozying
up to Carlos Cortez’s bit of stuff. Once upon a time you would have minced her
up like ground beef and slam-dunked her so deep into a state prison cell she
wouldn’t have seen the light of day for fifty years.”

“Don’t talk to me about the company I choose to keep,
Killroy, considering the bullet hole in your shoulder.”

They glared at one another as Anna looked from one to
the other. “Am I missing something here?”

As Killroy rubbed his shoulder and sank back in his
chair, J.D. shook his head. “You’re going to put out an APB on Shana, not
because you owe me big-time, Killroy. But because you owe it to this department
and yourself. For the last four years you’ve gone to hell personally because
you’ve been so full of guilt you can’t stand to look at yourself in the mirror.”

Leaning forward J.D. jabbed one finger toward Killroy.
“The trouble you’re in now is going to be nothing compared to what you’re
going to face if you refuse to cooperate in finding Shana Corvasce. If
anything happens to her, I’m going to dog you for the rest of your life. You
won’t have a pot left to piss in after I finish with you. Then I’ll represent
your wife in court when she divorces you for adultery. You’ll have to take a
part-time job as a night guard just to pay the damn child support I’m going to
ream out of you.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. An officer
glanced first at Killroy, then at Anna. “We’ve got the information you
requested. The printout on the released cons coinciding with the recent
killings—cross-referenced to those matching your profile of our unknown
subject.”

Anna left her chair and took the file from the
officer, flipped it open, and studied it a moment before nodding. “These
characters should be checked out. Where they’re living. What they’re doing. Put
a car on them if you have to. I want to know what they’re up to every minute.”

As the officer turned to leave, Anna slammed a hand
down on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Looking back at Killroy, she
said, “Do it, chief, or I will.”

Killroy said through his teeth, “Just who the hell is
in charge of this department anyway? The NOPD or the FBI?” He glanced from Anna
to J.D. “Hell, put an APB out on Shana Corvasce. She’s to be taken into
protective custody and notify myself or Agent Travelli as soon as she’s picked
up.”

J.D. joined Anna in the hallway. “Thanks.”

“Not necessary. I love castrating asses like Killroy.”
She smiled sympathetically. “You okay?”

“I will be as soon as we find Shana.” They moved together
down the corridor. “I spent most of the night at Melissa’s, hoping Shana would
show up. I’ve called her cell phone and she’s still not picking up.”

“Jerry and I want you to stay with us tonight. It’s
safer until I can arrange with the agency for you to have protection.”

“I can take care of myself.”

She stopped. “I don’t think you quite get my drift, Damascus. Your photograph with Shana has, by now, sent every drug provider in this country
scrambling to find her. The last I heard she has a two-million-dollar price on
her head. The troops crawling their way to New Orleans would put Operation
Enduring Freedom to shame.”

“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir, Anna. I’ve been
forced to carry a gun on me since I worked as prosecutor. I know how to watch
my back.”

“I’ll have you locked up in police custody if I have
to.”

He flashed a glance at Killroy’s closed door. “I’d be
safer on the streets.”

“Travelli!” Detective Mallory lumbered down the corridor,
a half-eaten burger in one hand, a file in the other. “Fax in from Quantico on my desk. Damascus, we got a witness who says she saw Melissa Carmichael on the
night she went missing.”

As Mallory entered his office, Anna and J.D. followed.
Mallory tossed the file onto his desk, beside a stack of onion rings swimming
in ketchup and piles of loose papers. He shoved the fax toward Anna and sank
back in his chair, the springs squeaking from his weight.

“It’s bedlam in this place. We’ve had to bring in
off-duty uniforms to handle the calls since you went public this morning about
the killings. Three nuts have already confessed. Everybody wants their fifteen
minutes of glory, I guess.”

He ripped off another bite of burger and chewed, his
gaze locked on J.D. “Some hooker named Belinda says she spoke to Melissa on her
way to meet her john. Mentioned she was concerned. Some dude on a bicycle had
been tailing her for a while. Would never approach her.”

J.D. frowned. “Shana mentioned to me once that she was
being followed by a biker—when she was staying at Melissa’s.”

“Maybe thought she was Melissa.”

“Or maybe our UNSUB’s form of transportation is a
bike,” Anna said, redirecting her gaze from the file on her lap to Mallory.

Mallory nodded. “Would explain why he doesn’t relocate
the bodies when he’s done with them.”

She shook her head. “He wants the bodies found. No
doubt about that. Part of his power trip. A bike gives him better ingress and
egress. No traffic problems. Parking problems. No plates to ID him.”

Sitting back in the chair, her long legs crossed, Anna
fell silent, her eyes growing a little dreamy, her gaze fixed on the wall above
Mallory’s head. “He’ll reside close,” she said, her words breathy. “Maybe a
five- or ten-minute bike ride to the district. He’s not a student. But dresses
the part while prowling—to blend in. He’ll carry a bag of some sort with him.
Maybe a backpack—something easy to transport while biking. He carries his
necessities there: knives, wire to bind her ankles and wrists, maybe a change
of clothes. After he’s decapitated the victim, he tucks the head into the
backpack and rides off into the night.”

Mallory had ceased chewing as Anna spoke. His cheek
bulged and his eyebrows appeared frozen in high arcs on his forehead as he
stared at her.

She blinked, took a deep breath, and relaxed. “Advise
your officers on night duty to investigate any bikers thoroughly. Get names
and home addresses. Knock on their doors, and if they won’t admit the officers,
then attain search warrants because they’ve obviously got something to hide.”

J.D. frowned. “So you believe Melissa is his newest
victim?”

“She doesn’t match the usual M.O.,” Mallory said. “He
always kills his victims in their apartment.”

“Not always,” J.D. reminded. “He murdered my family in
a park.”

Anna nodded and gave him a sympathetic glance. “But we
both know there are possible extenuating circumstances in that instance.”

Anna left the chair and paced. “Melissa was on her way
to meet a john. It would help if we knew who she was meeting and where.”

J.D. and Mallory exchanged looks.

“I know the john,” J.D. said, his gaze still locked on
Mallory, who tossed the remainder of the burger down in obvious disgust and
irritation. “And I know where she was going to meet him.”

Anna stopped, hands on her hips as she stared and
waited.

“It was Chief Killroy.”

“You’re kidding me, Damascus.” Anna laughed, then
looked at Mallory, whose bulldog face showed no amusement. “Killroy?”

“Melissa was to meet him at a warehouse. She’d left a
message on Shana’s cell phone describing where she was going. She was nervous,
obviously, since she was already aware that she was being stalked. When Shana
arrived in town, she went there immediately—only to discover that Melissa hadn’t
made her appointment. She hung around a while, then the john showed up.
Killroy. Seems our illustrious chief of police is into kinky Darth Vader fantasies.”

Anna rolled her eyes and bit back a smile before focusing
her thoughts again. “So Melissa never made the appointment. Something happened
between her apartment and the warehouse.”

She moved to the wall where photographs of the murdered
women stared back at her. Her gaze roamed their faces, but J.D. knew Anna well
enough to realize that her mind, once again, was formulating the scenario.
Melissa walking the dark street, perhaps cutting down an alleyway, taking a
shortcut to meet her john, glancing back over her shoulder nervously.

“He was following her again,” Anna said. “Instead of
running this time, she decided to confront him. After all, where could she run?
If he was on a bike, he could obviously catch up to her quickly. She ducked
around a corner and waited. When he approached, she stepped out to meet him,
face-to-face.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. “Confrontation.
A struggle.” Turning slowly to Mallory, she said, “Melissa’s not dead.”

“Yeah? What makes you think that?”

“No body.” She moved to his desk. “He wasn’t prepared
to kill her that night. He was enjoying the sport of stalking her. Making her
afraid. Once he overpowered her
...
She has to be close. In the immediate vicinity. It’s not like he could take her
far on foot.”

Mallory gave a grunt and looked at J.D. “There’s a
shit-pot full of supposition flying around this room all because a couple of
hookers were followed by some jerk on a bike.”

He fingered an onion ring then licked ketchup off his
thumbnail as Anna and J.D. stared at him in silence. “So what makes you think
he didn’t haul her butt off someplace and cut her up?”

“Maybe he’s waiting. Allowing the tension to build.
Remember, it’s the power issue with him. He enjoys the game. Puts him in
control. Or maybe he’s getting his rocks off on the drawn-out torture.”

Planting her hands on the desk, she leaned in close to
Mallory. “Now that he has the public’s attention, and fear, he’ll be ready to
play his hand. I want officers combing every vacant building between Melissa’s
apartment and the warehouse where she was to meet Killroy.”

“That covers a lot of territory, Travelli.”

“Then you better get on it, Mallory.”

He scratched his head. “I gotta run this by the chief
first.”

“You do that. And if he gives you any grief, just tell
him I was never a big Darth Vader fan.”

Tyron wasn’t pleased to
find
Honey outside his
door, looking like a
half-drowned mewling cat. In fact, he felt royally pissed about it. He had
plans to make. The last thing he needed to interrupt his train of thought was a
used-up old hooker who was obviously in the throes of a meltdown, judging by
her shaking body and sweating face.

But what the hell. Now was as good a time as any to
give her the goods. The cocktail DiAngelo had delivered him would put her out
of her misery and he could get on with the business at hand. Not that he
particularly cared to do it himself, but the man gotta do what the man gotta
do, and by God, he was the man. If he was gonna step into DiAngelo’s shoes,
there was no better way to start than with Honey.

Crouched on the floor, her knees pressed against her
scrawny breasts, Honey rocked and looked up at him with raccoon eyes. “Where
the hell have you been, Tyron? I’ve been waiting here two hours.”

“Takin’ care of bisness, bitch. What the hell do you
want? As if I didn’t know.” He slid his key-card into the door lock.

“You promised you’d fix me, Tyron.”

He shoved open the door and gave her a thin smile,
stepped aside as she scrambled into the penthouse on all fours.

“Damn, woman, you’re a mess.” He gently closed the
door and locked it.

“I’m hurting bad, Tyron.”

“No joke.” He laughed and stepped over her. “What you
got for me, Honey?”

“You know the johns won’t touch me. How am I supposed
to work like this?” She stood unsteadily, her thin arms clutching herself. “A
couple of hits, and I’ll be fine. That’s all I need. Just a good bang, and I’ll
be good as new.”

“You’re already into me for three grand. Why should I
spot you for any more? Specially lookin’ like you do. Ain’t no way I’m gonna
see my investment back.”

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a V8 and
topped it with a dash of Tabasco sauce.

Honey moved up behind him. “I got something better
than money, Tyron,”

“Bitch, there ain’t nothin’ better than money.”

“I got Shana Corvasce.”

He slowly lowered the drink to the countertop, then
turned, looking down into Honey’s tortured eyes. “What did you say?”

Honey lowered her face, covered it with her bony
hands, and began to weep so hard her shoulders heaved.

“God, oh God, I can’t believe I’m doin’ this.”

Tyron grabbed a handful of her greasy hair and jerked
her head back. “What do you mean you got Shana?”

“Ow! You’re hurting me, Tyron.”

“I’m gonna do more than that if you’re bullshittin’
me, Honey.”

“I ain’t. I swear it. You fix me, Tyron, and I’ll tell
you where she is.”

“How about you tell me where she is first or I’ll
break your stupid neck.”

“You show me the stuff, and I’ll tell you.”

Gritting his teeth and trying to keep his excitement
in check, Tyron shoved her away. “If you’re lyin’ to me—”

“I ain’t. I swear it.”

Tyron deliberated a moment. Stupid bitch would do
anything for a fix, even lie.

He moved to the refrigerator and opened the freezer,
extracted a Ziploc bag containing a small, black ball of tar, waved it in front
of her face as her eyes locked on it and her body shook even harder.

“You wanna ride on the horse, baby? Here it is. Got
your name written all over it. This stud will take you right to la-la land. I’ll
even shoot it for you. But first you gotta tell me where Shana is.”

Honey backed away, chewing her lower lip so hard blood
began to ooze.

Tyron followed her, knowing in that moment that Honey
wasn’t lying. No way would she back away from the horse unless she was
struggling with her conscience. His heart beat double-time as he grinned,
thoughts ricocheting from one side of his brain to the other. He couldn’t
believe how easily his plans were falling into place. The risk of DiAngelo
getting his hands on Shana first and cutting him out of the deal vanished,
filling him with glee.

“I—I can’t do it,” she wept, shaking her head. “I
thought I could—”

“Sure you can, baby. You can and you will. Just think
how appreciative I’m gonna be. I’m gonna forgive you for bein’ such a miserable
failure. I’m gonna take care of you, Honey. Gonna get you back on your feet.
Maybe even take you off the street. Set you up in someplace nice. You’ll be my
number one girl. Save you for the money johns. Class all the way.”

“You’re lying, Tyron.”

“No I ain’t, baby. When have you ever known me not to
reward my girls for a job well done? You know I’ll take good care of you if you
deserve it.”

“I don’t trust you.”

Her resistance was beginning to erode his patience. “Okay.
I’ll mix it myself.”

He retrieved a razor and a spoon, extracted the tar
from the bag, and shaved it, the dust falling in fine particles onto the spoon
into which he added water. Then he took up a lighter and held it beneath the
spoon as Honey watched, her willpower evaporating as he prepared the pure
heroin. This sweetheart would send her to la-la land all right. She would never
know what hit her.

He opened a kitchen drawer and took out a syringe and
an elastic band, which he tossed to Honey, eased the fluid into the syringe,
flashing Honey
a
wide,
trust-me smile as he thumped it to remove any air. As if it would matter, but
best to assure her.

“All ready, baby.” Holding it up before her face, he
waited.

Her resistance collapsed like a house of Lucky Lady
cards. Hands trembling, she tied the elastic band around her arm so tightly the
skin blanched, causing the old nee die mark bruises to stand out like blotches
of purple paint.

He gripped her arm, positioned the needle against the
thin thread of a dark blue vein. “Where is she?” he asked softly.

“My place,” she replied in
a
dry, defeated voice, her gaze
locked on the needle.

“You know if you’re lyin’ to me, you’re gonna suffer.”

“I
ain’t lying.” Her shoulders shook as she wept. “God, I’m
sorry, Shana.”

It occurred to Tyron, as he slid the needle into her
vein and looked into her eyes, that she knew she was a dead woman
...
and didn’t give a damn.

News about the hooker murders hadn’t affected
business much along Bourbon Street, but J.D. could sense a difference. Women clustered together—they were safer
in numbers. Their occasional glances at prowling men were more cautious. They
dressed more conservatively, jeans instead of shorts, despite the miserably hot
night.

He cruised the Mustang, top down, into the district
where the streets were virtually empty. The men who normally frequented the
area looking for hookers were sparse. The news of the murders would affect them
as well. The last thing a john needed was to be hauled in by the force as a
potential suspect. This, of course, would not sit well with Tyron. No doubt the
son of a bitch was biting his nails over his financial losses.

As black-and-whites cruised the area, J.D. spotted
just as many unmarked cars parked in the alleys, as well as the occasional
undercover cop loitering in the shadows.

Again, J.D. reached for his cell phone, checked his
voice mail, frustration mounting that Shana had not returned his many phone
calls. There were several messages from Anna and Jerry, who were not happy
because he hadn’t shown up at their house as directed.

He had taken the necessary precautions. Phoned May to
cancel all his client and court appointments, directed her to shut the office
down and take a few days off. He had spoken to his mother, assuring her that he
was fine; he’d even gone so far as to lie to assuage her worry by telling her
that Anna and the force had assigned him protection. That would come, of
course. Anna would see to it, but tonight he would utilize what privacy he had
left to continue his search for Shana.

There were calls from Beverly. At least every half
hour. He would call her back, eventually, but not now. Considering everything,
the last thing he wanted was to listen to her “I told you so’s.” She would use
this stinking mess to insinuate herself into his business, just as she had for
years. Not that she was totally to blame. He had allowed it. His using her as a
crutch to lean on had encouraged her unfairly.

J.D. parked the Mustang along the curb and glanced up
into the rearview mirror as he sank deeper into the seat, listening to the
stereo music drift into the humid night air. A full moon hung over the
dilapidated buildings, its bright white light casting shadows like black
fingers over the streets.

He waited, his gaze locked on the mirror.

A car slowly turned the corner and eased toward him,
lights on dim, engine purring. He reached for the gun on the seat beside him,
sank lower into the seat, finger sliding over the trigger in preparation as he
held his breath, sweat rising to his brow, heart beating in his throat.

The Camry drew close, eased alongside him, the driver
glancing his way briefly before moving on. J.D. slowly released his breath,
glanced back over his shoulder before exiting the car and sliding the gun into
the waistband of his jeans.

The group of apartments where Honey resided was in bad
need of demolition. Most were vacant, some occupied by the homeless. There was
a murmuring of voices in the night as he moved down the black alleyway to Honey’s
place—not for the first time. Twice since Shana had disappeared, he had come
beating on Honey’s door, hoping she might have heard from Shana—to no avail.
Again, he banged with his fist, the sound echoing along the long corridor.

“Honey, are you in there?” he shouted. “It’s Damascus. Open up.” Nothing.

He banged again, his anger mounting as he imagined the
woman strung out and too paranoid to respond. He thought briefly of kicking the
door in, but instead, sank one shoulder against it and sighed in frustration.

Now that her cover was blown, Shana wouldn’t hesitate
in searching out her old acquaintances. She could be anywhere, holed up in one
of her old haunts.

So what was he supposed to do now? Nothing? Close
himself up with Jerry and Anna and simply wait? For what? News that Tyron
Johnson or the mob had taken Shana out?

Christ, this was all his fault. If he hadn’t pressured
Shana into accompanying him to his mother’s dinner party, she wouldn’t be in
this predicament. If anything happened to her
...

The thought made fresh fear rush through him and pain
stab through his stomach. He wouldn’t survive losing her. He wouldn’t want to.

“What the hell are you doing? You act like a
man with a freaking death
wish, Damascus. I was just about to call the cops.”

Anna glared at him while Jerry poured J.D. a drink. “Back
off him a little, for Christ’s sake. You sound like a damn FBI agent or
something.” Jerry gave her a warm, warning grin. “Can’t you see the man is on
the edge? Jesus, have a little compassion, Anna.”

“Compassion, huh? Let’s see how you feel when your
friend shows up in an alley with his head blown off.”

Jerry handed J.D. the drink. “No luck, huh?”

He shook his head and dropped onto the sofa. “I don’t
know where else to look.”

“Good.” Her hands propped on her hips, Anna glared at
him. “Maybe now you’ll lay low and let the cops do their job.”

“Right.” He took a deep swallow of his drink.

Anna sank down beside him. “Sorry. Look, I know how
you’re feeling right now. We both do.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly know, Anna. I didn’t
think my nightmares could get any worse. For four years I’ve partly blamed
myself for my family’s murder. Had I been more attentive. Had I not stayed out
of town longer than necessary. Now, because of me, Shana is out there somewhere....”

J.D. swallowed, then cleared his throat. “It’s been a
hell of a long time since I last felt this way about a woman. Maybe never. I
cared for Laura. But I never loved her. Not like I should have. But Shana
...
I can’t explain it.”