Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (42 page)

“Uh…hello?” I was confused. Had I misdialed?

“This is Detective Grayson,” she replied. “How can I help you?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m looking for Detective Spivey.”

“He’s off today,” she told me. “And I’m covering his desk. Is there something I can
help you with?”

I hesitated. I was hoping that I could talk Spivey into looking
up any record associated with Mimi Greene that might link her to Jed Banes. I was
pretty sure the young rookie detective would do it if he thought that the request
had come through Dutch, but the fact that he was off that day put a bit of a monkey
wrench into things.

“Ma’am?” Detective Grayson said. “You still there?”

I made a snap decision. She had the energy of someone you could trust, so trust her
I did. I identified myself and told her that I was a civilian consultant with the
FBI investigating a few leads connected to the bombing cases, and said that I was
running down a lead on a possible connection between Mary or “Mimi” Greene and the
retired detective Jed Banes.

“That old bastard’s involved in this?” Grayson said, but there was a touch of humor
in her question.

“You know Banes?”

“I do, although I haven’t seen him in a while. He got a bad rep and in my opinion
a bad rap for some bullshit that went down a few years ago. But he always looked out
for me, so I guess you could say I’m partial to the old geezer.”

“Did you know he’s currently in the hospital?” I asked.

“In the hospital?” she repeated. “Is he sick?”

“My partner and I went to see him last week and he wasn’t well. Emphysema, I think.
When we came back to reinterview him, we found him unconscious and in a really bad
way. He’s had a stroke and he’s now in a coma and isn’t expected to live much longer.”

Grayson was quiet for a time. “Well, damn,” she whispered. “The poor old geezer…”
There was a little pause, then, “You say you’re trying to run down a lead between
him and someone else?”

I could hear her fingers clicking on a keyboard. “Mary Greene,” I told her. “But she
went by Mimi. I doubt there’s a
connection, but we just want to make sure that we’ve covered all our—”

“Here it is,” Grayson interrupted. “Banes filed a report on a Mary Greene about a
year ago. Looks like she had made some sort of comment to a friend about wanting to
harm herself, and Banes was working some overtime out on patrol when the friend contacted
police. Banes responded to the call, checked on the girl, talked with her for an hour
or two, and determined that the threat wasn’t imminent. The report also shows that
he followed up with her two days later to check and see that she was okay, and to
drop off the name and address of a local support group. He says here that Greene was
distraught over a breakup with her fiancé.”

I was sitting forward on my chair, holding my breath, while Detective Grayson spoke.
When she finished, I said, “Is there anything else in the report?”

“Nope. It ends there.”

Holy freakballs. We’d just closed the loop, but with Banes in a coma, we were helpless
to get any more information out of him. He’d talked to Mary at length. He had to know
something about her fiancé—this elusive “Buzz.”

“Does it say in there who called in the report to APD?” I asked.

“No,” Grayson said. “It says an anonymous male caller phoned it in and that he refused
to give his name, saying only that he’d received a disturbing e-mail from a friend
of his named Mary Greene, and then he gave her address before hanging up.”

My skin tingled. I had a feeling that Buzz had been the “friend.”

“Can you send me a copy of that report, Detective Grayson?” I asked.

“Not without a formal request from the FBI.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll have my boss call you. Will you be at this number for a bit?”

“I’ll wait on the call, Miss Cooper.”

I thanked her profusely, hung up, and did a quick hobble step into Candice’s office.
After filling her in, we both called Brice, who promised to call Grayson. “It explains
why this Buzz guy may have called Banes,” I said to Candice after we’d hung up with
Brice. “He was the only person in this whole chain of people who took the time to
try to help Mimi.”

Candice tapped her finger to her lips. “But why call him at all?” she wondered aloud.
“I mean, if Buzz thought Banes had tried to help Mimi, then why call him to taunt
him with the threat of an explosion going off in two hours?”

I felt I knew the answer. “Because Buzz is creating a ritual. He was the one who originally
called APD to report that Mimi might harm herself, and Banes responded to that first
call.”

“How do you know that?” Candice asked me.

“It’s a gut feeling,” I told her, knowing deep down that I was right. “I bet he got
Mimi’s e-mail, sensed she was feeling depressed and guilty, and maybe there was even
something in there about wanting to die, so he called nine-one-one. We know that Buzz
has a history of keeping close tabs on the women he’s been abducting—I bet he was
watching Mimi’s apartment that night after he called, and I bet he tracked down which
officer responded to the call.”

My partner still looked doubtful.

“Buzz is repeating history, Candice,” I pressed. “He’s eulogizing Mimi by repeating
certain things that led up to her taking her own life. The two hours on the timers
of the bombs represent the two hours he waited for Mimi at the altar. The women he’s
choosing are all connected to her. The venues he forces them to go to are all wedding
vendors they may have used
for their own wedding. The call to Banes is just another part of that narrative.”

Candice sat quietly for a moment, taking all that in. At last she nodded. “We have
to find Salisbury,” she said. “If Buzz knows the photographer is one of the few people
that can identify him, he may try to kill him again.”

“Any ideas where to look?” I asked, already sensing she’d come up with a lead.

She held up a piece of paper. “Salisbury’s younger sister lives on the east side of
town.”

“What’re we waiting for?” I asked, already turning to head back to my office for my
purse and Fast Freddy.

We arrived at a low ranch home with burnt-orange shutters and white trim about twenty
minutes later, and the moment Candice put the car into park, we knew we’d hit pay
dirt.

In the driveway was a silver Ford F-150 with the license tag PHOTOG. “Well, hello,
Mr. Salisbury,” Candice whispered with a satisfied smirk.

We got out and approached the front door just as it opened and out stepped the elusive
photographer. He seemed truly startled to see us coming up the front walk, and I saw
him tuck a duffel bag behind him protectively. “Hey, Simon,” Candice called breezily.

“Who’re you?” he asked, his eyes darting warily between us.

“You don’t recognize me?” I asked. “Aw, Simon, and here I thought we shared something
special the other day.”

He squinted at me. And then he glared hard. “You’re the bitch that had me put in that
cop car and taken in for questioning.”

I smiled and placed a hand over my heart. “Guilty as charged.”

“This is harassment—,” he began, but Candice cut him off.

“Relax, buddy. We just want to ask you about this guy.” Candice
pulled out the rather generic sketch of Buzz and presented it to Salisbury.

He glanced at it before lifting his gaze back to us, but then I saw his eyes flicker
to the sketch again and the tiniest hint of recognition appeared on his face. “Don’t
know him,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

Liar, liar, pants on fire…,
went a small voice inside my head. “Bullshit,” I told him. “Who is he, Simon?”

Salisbury scowled at me, and I knew we’d never get him to cooperate. He was too mistrustful
of authority. “I said I don’t know him.”

I balled my hands into fists. “Oh, cut the crap! Who the hell is he?”

Salisbury shook his head and adjusted the strap on his duffel bag. “I gotta be somewhere,”
he said, attempting to move past us.

Candice stepped in his path and held up the sketch again. “Why would this guy send
a bomb to your doorstep, Simon?” she asked.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” he snapped, working to move around
her.

I stepped into his path too. “He’s the guy that strapped a bomb to a woman and told
her to go visit you, Simon,” I said. “Why would he try to blow
you
up?”

Salisbury looked as if he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable…. Also…increasingly
scared. “Get the hell out of my way!”

But we wouldn’t. Every time he tried to move around us, we double-teamed to block
him. Finally he moved to shove past Candice and she caught his duffel bag and pulled
it right off his shoulder. “Ow!” she cried, pretending to fall to the ground with
the bag. “Dude! You hit me with this bag!”

“Give that back to me!” he yelled, moving to grab the handle.

Candice swung out her leg and caught Salisbury midcalf. He went down hard and she
was on top of him in an instant. “How dare you attempt to assault me!” she said, pulling
his arms behind his back and securing them with her knee. Then she looked up at me
and added, “Call for backup.”

While I was on the phone with Brice, Candice pulled the duffel over to her and unzipped
it. All the while Salisbury struggled to get up, but she had her knee jammed hard
against his elbow, and every time he squirmed, the pressure threatened to dislocate
his shoulder.

I was giving Brice the address when Candice unzipped the bag, and I saw her hand fly
to her mouth. “Hey, hold on a sec,” I told Brice. “Candice, what is it?”

Candice lifted her chin to me and I could see a look of utter horror and abject disgust
on her face. She held open the bag and I saw that it was filled with photos. Photos
of young girls wearing all sorts of S&M paraphernalia but otherwise naked. The youngest
girl I saw couldn’t have been older than ten. “Oh, you son of a bitch…,” I whispered.

“That’s not my bag!” Salisbury shouted. “I was holding it for a friend!”

My stomach turned and I said to Brice, “We’ve got another problem…”

*   *   *

H
ours later we were still dealing with our encounter with Salisbury. Cox and Rodriguez
had come up with bubkes. When they got the warrant early that morning, they’d noticed
that the tape across the door of the photography studio had been tampered with, and
when they went inside, they discovered Salisbury’s computer was missing—along with
all his customer files.

Salisbury himself had completely clammed up, and wasn’t saying
a word until his lawyer got there. We all knew we weren’t going to get a peep out
of him about our unsub until some sort of a deal had been made on the child pornography
charges, but we were days away from assessing how many crimes Salisbury had committed,
and special teams from both the FBI and APD had been dispatched to his home and photography
studio in search of more child pornography evidence. In the attic and in a wall safe
in the back of the studio, they found plenty. The bastard.

The sun was starting to set when Candice came to wrap an arm around my shoulders while
I stared meanly through the mirrored glass at the slime bucket photographer. “Rodriguez
just got word that Mimi’s phone records will be available to us on Monday.”

I glanced up at the clock. It read quarter after five. “Leave it to the phone company
to take their time expediting critical evidence,” I grumbled.

Candice squeezed my shoulders. “Yep. But what it really means is that it’s finally
time for you to set this aside, Sundance.”

I squinted at her. “What do you mean?”

“You need to step away from this case and head off to the altar, honey. It’s time
to let it go and let us take care of it. With the phone records coming next week,
we’ll finally be able to put a name and a face to this Buzz by Monday afternoon. Tuesday
at the latest.”

I sighed and rested my head against her shoulder. Part of me wanted to continue to
work the case until Buzz was brought in, while another part of me wanted only to walk
away from it forever.

“Come on,” Candice coaxed. “Let’s get you dressed and to your rehearsal. Your sister
will kill us if we’re late.”

The wedding rehearsal was only slightly better than a well-orchestrated disaster.
Candice and I were late; Dutch, his brothers,
and Milo had hit happy hour a little early (and were thus in giggly, slaphappy form);
Brice had to skip the event because he was still hard at work on the bombing case;
and Cat was making everyone wince through the use of her bullhorn.

Poor Jenny Makeanote looked harried and was scribbling so fast on her iPad that I
thought she’d need to have her wrist checked for carpal tunnel later, and to cap it
all off, the minister arrived coughing and wheezing and in full chest cold mode. His
voice would never hold up through the ceremony the next day, but he gave his best
effort, and after only eleven practice run-throughs, Cat let us go, but she didn’t
look at all happy.

She approached me gripping her bullhorn with fire in her eyes. “We have a problem.”

“Only one?” I asked, maybe a
weensy
bit too sarcastically.

Cat glared hard at me and raised the bullhorn.
“I’m not in the mood, Abby!”

I winced—man, that thing was loud.

Candice came to my side in a show of support. “Hey, Cat,” she said. “Everything okay?”

Cat shoved a clipboard at me but replied to Candice. “No!” she yelled (thankfully
without the use of the bullhorn). “They’re predicting rain tomorrow and twenty-five-mile-an-hour
wind gusts! We might have to move the ceremony inside, which means no butterflies,
swans, or cupids!”

In that moment I’d never prayed so hard for rain in my whole life.

But Cat continued. “Also, I hear that some of the guests have been leaving messages
on Abby’s voice mail. I have
no
idea who’s coming and who’s not!”

Cat looked like she was close to having a meltdown. She’d been shouldering all of
the stress of the wedding for me and I started to feel really guilty—especially since
my cell indicated I
had something like twenty-two voice mails on it that I hadn’t bothered listening to.
“Okay, honey,” I said to her. “I’ll check it over. And don’t worry about the ceremony.
Inside, outside—what does it matter?”