Bones of the Lost (36 page)

“Will you let me finish?” Slidell snapped.

My sigh conveyed impatience equal to his.

“Turns out one of these little shelters is SayDo.”

That got my attention. “The Passion Fruit Club.”

“The Passion Fruit and four other massage joints. Names are real magic. I’ll spare you.”

“Holy shit.” Facts were winging. John-Henry Story. The US Airways club card in Candy’s purse. The Passion Fruit.

“Yeah. Holy shit.”

“How did we miss that?”

“It took time to untangle the mess. The guy I had working it got diverted to another case. And I got sidelined with the damn MP.”

“Now what?”

“Now I figure out how to get to Archer Story.”

“Just bring him in.”

“I do that, he’ll lawyer up tighter than a frog’s nuts.”

I ignored the metaphor. “You can’t even question him?”

“Based on what? He owns skin joints and we think maybe the personnel director offed one of the hookers?”

“What about a nasty habit called human trafficking?” I felt like screaming.

“The raid turned up dick.”

“Of course it did. Someone tipped Tarzec, so she moved the girls and sanitized the place.”

Silence.

“Will you at least check out the other massage parlors?”

“I got nothing to get a warrant. And, needless to say, my credibility took a nosedive after the fiasco at the Passion Fruit.”

“Jesus, Slidell. These people killed Candy. And D’Ostillo. They’ll kill again if they feel threatened. These girls mean nothing to them.”

Slidell was silent a moment.

“There’s a SayDo joint up in NoDa. I’ll swing by tonight. Unofficial like.”

“Keep me looped in.”

“If it makes you any happier, I dropped in on Rockett for a little more face time.”

Slidell didn’t seize the opportunity for humor on that. Good sign.

“And?”

“He told me I could suck his dick.”

When we’d disconnected, I went upstairs for a long, hot bath. And
realized I still hadn’t seen Birdie. I’d been distracted by Slidell’s call. Then Ryan showed up. Then Slidell phoned again.

Had the scamp slipped through the open door while Ryan and I were on the sidewalk? Stupid not closing it. He loves to sneak out, I suspect mainly to get my attention. I always find him in the shrubbery, within inches of the foundation.

Cursing, I trudged back downstairs and out the front door. Called his name. No cat.

I circled the building, my annoyance increasing each time my summoning went unanswered. Eventually, I expanded my search onto the grounds.

After fifteen minutes, I gave up. Told myself to relax. He’d done this before. He’d come home when hungry.

The bath was a bust. I lay in bubbles up to my chin, sadness and worry foreclosing any relaxation.

Lily, dying before her twentieth birthday.

Ryan, excluding me in his time of sorrow. Forever?

Katy, fighting in Afghanistan.

Pete, marrying a bimbo with a boob size exceeding her IQ.

D’Ostillo, trying to do right, getting murdered and mutilated.

Candy, perishing on a two-lane, alone and terrified.

How had Candy ended up on that dark stretch of road? Was she trafficked? Lured by someone she trusted? Stolen and caged like stock?

What fate awaited her had she lived? To be brutalized, her body a commodity exploited until its value was gone? What then?

Were others out there suffering the same hell?

My mind was in overdrive. I had to do something to squelch the terrible thoughts and images ping-ponging in my skull.

I got out, dried off, and pulled on sweats. Yanked my hair into a pony and headed downstairs.

I shouted through both the front and kitchen doors. Shook a bag of his favorite treats. Still no Birdie. My annoyance was joined by a tickle of apprehension. Why?

Ping.

Blanton had mentioned my cat. He’d been waiting just a block from the annex.

Paranoia, Brennan
.

I brewed coffee, went to the study closet, and pulled out a large
erasable board I use for structuring lectures. Then I got Scotch tape and a marker from the desk.

After propping the board on the mantel in the parlor, I collected every picture I’d accumulated over the past two and a half weeks. Snapshots, crime-scene photos, Polaroids, printouts, mug shots.

I started by taping up a picture of Candy, the hit-and-run victim whose real name we still didn’t know. Beside it I placed one of the snapshots I’d liberated from John-Henry’s Tavern. Pictured was John-Henry Story, the man whose US Airways club card Candy had inside her purse lining.

Using the marker, I drew a line between Candy and John-Henry.

Next I posted the second “borrowed” snapshot, Dominick Rockett at the tavern with John-Henry Story. Rockett, the smuggler who traveled to South America and made mysterious trips to Texas. Rockett, customer or maybe more than a customer at the Passion Fruit Club, owned by John-Henry and his brother, Archer, via SayDo. And employer of Candy.

I drew lines connecting Candy and Rockett, Rockett and John-Henry Story.

After jotting the name Passion Fruit on the right side of the board, I drew lines connecting the massage parlor to Candy, Rockett, and John-Henry.

Next in the lineup went the mug shot of CC Creach. Creach’s semen was found on Candy. Creach was a patron of the Passion Fruit, and said Candy and the other girls were afraid of Rockett. And of Ray Majerick, who was often there.

I added Majerick to the row. Majerick’s semen was also found on Candy. Majerick had a history as a sexual predator.

I drew lines between Candy and Creach, Candy and Majerick, Majerick and Creach, Majerick and Rockett, Majerick and John-Henry Story. Then between both Creach and Majerick and the words “Passion Fruit.”

I paused to consider.

Majerick had been seen at the Passion Fruit and had sex with Candy. Did that mean he knew John-Henry Story? I erased parts of that line, converting it to a dotted connector.

The last photo to go up was Rosalie D’Ostillo. My stomach still tightened on seeing the hideous mutilation.

D’Ostillo saw Candy at the Mixcoatl. The taquería was located close to the Passion Fruit. Like Creach, D’Ostillo thought Candy and the other girls spoke Spanish. D’Ostillo was murdered within hours of talking to me. Her tongue was left on my doorstep.

I drew a line from D’Ostillo to Candy, a dotted link to the words “Passion Fruit.”

Then I stepped back and surveyed my work.

The board showed a maze of interconnections. Which ones were meaningful? Which were spurious? Was Candy’s killer one of the men whose pictures I’d posted? Was I staring at his face right now?

How did the lines link up?

I moved my eyes from photo to photo.

Candy, lying on her morgue gurney. How did John-Henry Story’s US Airways club card end up in her purse? How did semen from Creach and Majerick end up on her skin? Turning tricks? Voluntary sex? Rape?

Dom Rockett and John-Henry Story sharing a beer. The two were partners in S&S. How had Rockett acquired the money to invest? Aware of his illegal trafficking in antiquities, did Story approach Rockett about doing the same with humans? Rockett was a smuggler, knew the routes, the cops and agents who could be bribed, the border-crossing points most easily breached.

Or had it gone the other way? Had Rockett proposed a moneymaking scheme to John-Henry, knowing Story had the infrastructure to make it work?

I thought of something. Jotted the identifier citizenjustice on the left side of the board.

The bearer of that name had sent threatening e-mails to me. Had that same person murdered D’Ostillo and delivered her tongue as a warning?

I stared at D’Ostillo’s ravaged face. Wondered. Who was the man in the hat and upturned collar she’d served in the taquería? Rockett was only a best guess.

Ray Majerick? Someone of whom we were unaware? A male counterpart to Mrs. Tarzec?

I jotted Mrs. Tarzec’s name and drew lines to Candy, John-Henry, and the words “Passion Fruit.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Pinched the bridge of my nose.

A tiny itch in my brain kept pestering. Asking to be scratched.

What was I missing?

The lines were crisscrossing like an Etch A Sketch pattern gone wrong. What threads were important? What intersections?

Clearly the Passion Fruit. A lot of lines converged there. Candy. Creach. Majerick. Story. Rockett. D’Ostillo. Tarzec.

Ditto for Candy. Every line led to her.

Still the itch.

What was the subliminal memory I couldn’t call up? What hidden data byte dozed in my id?

I stared at the crazy quilt of photos, names, and lines, willing the answer to make itself known. Stared at Candy’s bloodless face, frustrated, desperate to fulfill my promise to her.

What was eluding me?

Rockett. Why did he make trips to Texas and come back empty? Or did he?

John-Henry Story. Why was his lounge card in Candy’s purse? Was Story really dead?

Discouraged, I got a hand lens from the study and started moving from picture to picture.

Candy, face bruised and fractured. Blond hair bound by the little-girl barrette.

No. No tears
.

I sipped some coffee, now tepid, checked on Charlie, then turned back to the photos.

Story and Rockett at John-Henry’s Tavern, neither man smiling. Story rodent-lean. Rockett’s mangled features shadowed by a hat pulled down to his brows.

I moved the lens across the snapshot, taking in details.

A brass rail paralleled the right edge of the bar, a strip of brightness lighting the curvature of its surface.

“Camera flash,” I muttered to no one.

Beyond the table, a jukebox. On the wall above, three or four decals, none larger than a man’s palm.

No, not decals. Military patches. I hadn’t noticed them on my visit with Slidell. The patches were similar to the ones I’d seen at the Green Bean at Bagram.

Was that the heads-up my hindbrain was offering?

I raised and lowered the lens, trying to make out unit totems or names. The image quality was too poor. Tomorrow I’d take the photo to the MCME and view it under higher power with the dissecting scope.

My eyes continued tracking across the magnified image.

Suddenly stopped.

I nearly dropped the glass.

The photo’s upper left corner caught a section of the old mirror in the main eating area. The glass was angled, not flush with the wall. I guessed it hung by a horizontal wire placed a bit too low.

The mirror reflected a ten-foot bubble of space in front of the table at which Rockett and Story were seated. In it stood a man, arms raised, elbows flexed, face largely obscured by a small box camera and the sunburst of its flash.

The man’s body was visible from the neck down. He was in jeans and a dark T-shirt. And had a tattoo I’d seen before.

I felt adrenaline start to seep into my blood.

All my theories skidded sideways.

I
MPOSSIBLE.

Yet there he was.

Coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidence.

But how did he work it?

Didn’t matter.

I retrieved a brown corrugated file from the study, emptied the contents onto the dining room table, and began reading every page.

It didn’t take long.

How had I missed it?

Oblivious to the possibility.

Careless?

Sudden realization. Another possibility overlooked?

I went to the parlor, took Candy’s photo from the lineup, and studied it again under magnification.

The dusky skin. The dark-rooted blond hair.

Rosalie D’Ostillo spoke Spanish to the girls but got no response. Fear of their handler? Or another explanation?

My mind was on fire now, spitting data forgotten since the time it was stored.

I raced upstairs and snatched a photo from the bureau. Sat on the bed. Placed the bureau photo on my knees beside the morgue shot
of Candy. Looked from one to the other, forcing the lens steady in my hand.

Holy shit.

I flipped the bureau photo. Read the handwritten list on the back.

Holy free-flying shit.

I grabbed the phone and dialed.

Got Slidell’s voicemail.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

My eyes flew to the clock. 10:40. Slidell was probably at the massage parlor in NoDa.

I left a message. Call me ASAP. It’s urgent.

I disconnected. Tossed the handset onto the bed. Got up and paced.

Everyone carries a mobile. Why couldn’t Slidell keep his turned on?

10:45.

Come on. Come on
.

More pacing.

10:50.

Keep busy
.

I double-stepped down the stairs and made myself more coffee, knowing caffeine was the last thing I needed. To keep my mind occupied, I returned to the papers covering the dining room table.

Verified.

Thought about the implications.

Of course. That had to be it.

11:05.

Where the hell was Slidell?

I ran to the study. Punched speed dial on that handset.

“ ’Lo.” Pete sounded groggy.