Deceitful Moon (31 page)

Chloe stepped back as the elevator
door
opened
,
and Max strode
toward them
from the
interior
.
Just then, the other
SUV screamed around the corner and slammed to a searing stop just short of where Manny, Chloe and Max stood, sending them scrambling
.

Sophie jumped out of the driver’s side. “Wow. These things can move. I got
ta
get one.”

Josh and Alex got out, both as pale as the walls of the parking garage.

“Never again,” said Alex. “And I mean it this time. She’s crazy.”

Josh laughed. “We need to hire her to train our other agents. I never saw anyone drive like that, text her husband, and put on fresh makeup all at the same.”

“Yeah, well
,
if you’d been in the front seat, I would
’
ve show
n
you one more dimension of my multi-tasking skill,” Sophie proclaimed, winking at the
s
pecial
a
gent.

“I bet you could
.
”

T
he stink of burning rubber
and puffs of gray smoke
still
emanated from the tires of the SUV Sophie had parked. Manny motioned the others away. “Damn girl. That unit’s going to need new rubber.”

“No problem. We got a little money,” said Josh.

“
I’ve heard that. So, a
nything different about the Mercedes murder?” asked Manny.

Alex shook his head. “Not really. He’d been dead maybe two
hours. Same desecration of the groin area. Three shots in the chest
,
one in the head. Black
-
leather bindings. The body posed in similar fashion as the others.” Alex leaned against the truck. “I did notice a couple places that looked like stab wounds
,
so we
’
ll check that out once we get in
to
the lab. Other than that, we collected hair samples, fingerprints, a cosmetic fingernail, and anything else that looked like it could help.”

“Wait. We think we figured out how the first victim might have been dumped behind the White Kitty, but not really
dumped
,” said Sophie
.
“
T
here was a lot of blood on the hood, but even more in the back seat.”

“So
the first victim, Morse,
could have been killed in a car and then dumped behind the garbage bin?” asked Max.

“Yeah. That’s what we think.”

“Makes s
ense
,” said Manny.

Alex held out his hand showing a small piece of paper in an evidence bag. “Of course, the obligatory
‘
note
up
the
left
nostril
’
had to be extracted. The letter
‘
I
’
was on this one.”

Josh looked at Manny. “How about you? What’d you find?
”

“Nothing different than you. I think this was Stella’s last victim
,
and she seemed
to be
a little more in a hurry. But the MO was identical except for the back-stomping part.”

“We got the letter
‘
T
’
out of Boogerland,”
added
Max.

“Boogerland? Uck.” snickered Sophie.

“Wait. You got an
‘
I
’
from his nose, we got a
‘
T
’
. The
other three letters were
‘
J-U-S
’, right?”

“Yeah they were
,
”
said Sophie.

“That’s the first five letters of JUSTICE
.
My
God;
they were going to kill enough men to spell out the
C
lub’s name
.”

The implications left the others silent, contemplating
the possibilities
.

Manny ran his hand through his hair. “How did this get so nuts? Gavin, Stella,
Dana
’s fiancé, and five other murder victims
,
all
with
in a couple of days. That’s six
month
s worth of homicides for Lansing.
”

“This shit is getting deeper and deeper.
We need to stop
them
.”
Alex
thr
ew
up
his hands.

Just then
,
Manny noticed the other small evidence bag in Alex’s
right
hand. He bent closer
, squinting in the florescent lights of the garage.
He’d seen that style
of cosmetic fingernail
before.

“Alex. Open
th
at
bag
.”

“What?” I can’t do tha
—
”

“Just open the damned bag, now.”

“Okay, okay. Hold on to your shorts.” He pulled a latex glove out of his pocket
and then
Alex unzipped the seal as the others squeezed closer.

“You and latex
. . .
I just don’t know,” said Sophie.

Manny took the nail from Alex and rotated it in his fingers. Even though it was cracked, the teal background contrasting the tiny star and moon shapes running vertically up the nail were unmistakable.

“I know who this belongs to,” said Manny.

“Who?” asked Sophie.

“Don’t you remember?”

Sophie frowned, the wheels turning. Then her face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“That belongs to Evelyn Kroll. The manager of the White Kitty.”

Chapter-55

Frank Wymer waddled out o
f
the twenty-four
-
hour
convenience store with a
n extra
large soda in one hand and an open bag of cheesy twist puffs in the other. It had been a long night so far
,
and only two things were
mandatory
when he was up late
: e
ating and more eating.

He stuffed a handful of twists in his mouth and washed it down with a long draw from the
soda
. Better.

Ross had been on his case
, really on his nerves,
all day so he suggested they split up and cover more ground. But he really just wanted to get away from her and knew she felt the same. He wasn’t sure which of them was more irritated, the bitcher or the bitchee. Either way, the break was
necessary. He hated it when she got like this. He didn’t think it was him this time. She’d been more on edge lately
, p
robably fighting with that loser boyfriend of hers. People went through things, he got that, but enough of the moody-ass
personality
for now.
Besides, they
were
covering more ground. Ross was faster, but he moved pretty well for 320
pounds, at least his
wife
said so.

One more drink drained the soda, and he tossed the empty snack bag in the trash, wiping the yellow-orange residue on his slacks.

They needed to be cleaned anyway.

He continued
d
own the south side of the street
,
looking for any lights coming from the windows of the
above
-the-store condos. So far, he hadn’t gathered much. The three condos he’d visited weren’t any help. All of the residents claimed to have heard and seen nothing. Two young ladies were freaked out that a cop was knocking on their door, and the other one, a drunk male, told him
t
o get a warrant and slammed the door. He’d remember that one when this was over.

Neither of the two storeowners he’d spoken with saw anything out of the ordinary, although one had seen a
hot-
looking chick hurr
y
i
ng
past while he was out having a smoke. He admitted he was too busy
watching
her walk away
to notice
anything else. Best walk of the shift.

She may have been carrying a case, but he just couldn’t remember. He said it wasn’t all that unusual for students from the law school up the block to show up at anytime, toting anything you could imagine.

Frank knew that the law school’s
library was open twenty-four/seven
,
so it seemed a logical place to go next.

He turned the corner heading west and stopped as quickly as someone like him could
stop
. A woman was walking
toward him from across the street, moving at a fast pace. Too fast.
When she flashed under the street lamp some thirty yards away, he noticed she was on the phone, her
light-colored hoodie
coat flapping behind her,
with
something red streaked down the front.

Squinting his eyes as she moved under the next light, he zoned in on the woman’s
jacket
again.
His eyes got bigger.
No doubt, this time. The splatter pattern
could be
blood.

But wh
ose
?

Frank drew his Glock
.
40. “Hey. Stop right there. I want to talk to you.”

The woman, only ten yards away
, s
pun on her heels and turned back the way she’d come, sprinting all out, and dropping the cell phone in the process.

“I said stop
! N
ow
!
”
h
e yelled. He broke into a run and stopped ten steps later, breathing like he’d just run a quarter-mile sprint, sweat popping out on his forehead as he put his hands on
his
knees.

Maybe Manny and Ross
are
right. Maybe
I need
to lose a couple pounds.

He looked up just as the woman disappeared around the corner of the next block, heading away from downtown. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember everything about
her
:
her
height, her hair, her posture,
and her
shoes. It wasn’t like having her in cuffs, but it would have to do.

The phone’s screen reflected light from the
mercury
lamp while the added reflection from the
setting
moon gave it an eerie
glow
. He took out a slightly
stiff
handkerchief and grunted
,
plucking
the phone
from the sidewalk.

The black casing had web-like cracks running up one side, leaching over to the screen. He touched the power button and nothing happened.
Damn it
. He’d
have to
get it
to
the CSU
.
The CSU could
pull the memory card and see
if it was any help
.
The phone was exactly like his partners,
like Kathy Ross’s phone, and it had a memory card.

Just like
Kathy
Ross’s
.

The sick feeling in his stomach crawled up to his throat as he turned the phone over and read the initials “
K
.R
.
” monogrammed into the lower corner of the casing.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Frank scanned the street, up and down both sides
,
and started to move.
“Ross!
Kathy
Ross! Do you hear me?
Kathy
, where are you?
Talk to me girl.
”

No sign of the
partner he
’d
swor
n
to
protect, to always
watch
her back.
N
othing but silence
.
The damning kind.

Running in the direction he’d seen the woman
go
, he let the adrenaline take over. No stopping this time.