Exit Strategy (9 page)

“Might not be.”

“Then why connect them with a calling card?”

“Advertising.”

Evelyn cut in. “There are a few ways a hitman can make a name for himself, fast. One is to leave a calling card, preferably something only the mark’s associates will find and recognize. When Jack started, I wanted him to use the jack of spades—”

“Not my style.”

“You have no style, which is why you refused. The way I would have done it would have been subtle. That’s the key. Not like this Helter Skelter thing.” A twist of her lip. “This is crass. And reckless. He’s obviously doing more than working through a job list.”

“Maybe the point,” Jack said. “Advertise big. Advertise wide.”

I scanned the printouts on Joyce Scranton. Though the press conference had been held only an hour ago, people had already dug up and posted everything they could find on the latest victim.

I looked up from the pages. “How far is Pittsburgh from here?”

“’Bout…” Jack squinted, then looked at Evelyn. “Five, six hours?”

“And we pass through Ohio. Perfect. We can check out Kozlov’s town, then move on to Pittsburgh, see what we can dig up on Joyce Scranton.” I lifted the page. “She was living in Boston, but she’s a recent transplant. All her family is in Pittsburgh. We can ask around, get a feel for the woman and her life.”

Evelyn eased back into the sofa. “Waste of time.”

Jack glanced my way. I looked back, my face impassive.

He studied me for a moment, then pushed to his feet.

“Gotta start somewhere,” he said. “Dee? Grab your jacket.”

NINE

Norfolk was a city of about thirty thousand within commuting distance of Cleveland, small enough that every cop would know all the case details of Leon Kozlov’s murder, and small enough that a stranger could call the police station front desk, ask what time the day shift ended and get an answer without so much as a “who’s asking?”

There are two kinds of women who could show up in a cop bar and get the guys talking. First, the handcuffs-and-pistols groupies, women who start bar conversations with, “Have you ever shot anyone?” I don’t understand the groupies, so it’s hard to impersonate one. Besides, the guys don’t take such women seriously—not outside the bedroom anyway—and those who
are
interested will tell them anything to get them there, so the reliability factor is shot. I’d go with type number two. The female cop.

Evelyn had a cache of contact lenses, but I stuck with the ones Jack bought for me. All the cleaning in the world won’t make me use someone else’s contacts, though I did accept her offer of a new wig. I’m not keen on wearing another person’s headgear, but that platinum blond job had to go, so I’d taken a long-haired, dark brown wig and plaited it back.

When it comes to disguises, I know all the tricks. What shade of hair color or eye contact color works best on me. How to wear a wig so it doesn’t slide around. Where to add padding so it looks natural. All the cosmetic variations of skin tone, freckles, moles, scars. I’d mastered the nuances, too. Regional accents, altering stance and mannerisms, everything it took to become another person.

I owe a large part of that to my older brother. As a child, Brad had set his sights on an acting career. Every time our family entertained guests, he’d practiced his craft with a live performance. Being his only sibling meant being recruited into these plays and given multiple roles, so he could concentrate on the lead. He’d even bullied me into taking acting classes and joining the school drama club so my ineptitude wouldn’t ruin his performances. All this ended in ninth grade, when I got a role in the annual school play, and Brad got a place in the chorus. After that, Brad declared himself too mature for home dramas, and Mom declared my acting lessons a waste of money.

I found the bar easily enough. It was what I expected: a dark, decrepit pub with little to recommend it except that its unrelenting dinginess ensured the BMW and Prada crowd was unlikely to wander in and start ordering martinis. And, really, when it comes to a good cop bar, that’s the only qualification that counts.

When I stepped inside, I paused to let my eyes adjust to the semidark. A blond, beefy rookie at the bar was telling a story loud enough to drown out the television, earning him a few glowers from other patrons, but nothing more, as if they still remembered the day when they’d been up there relaying the tale of their first big takedown. The bar smelled of sweat, aftershave and fried food, with the faint scent of cigarette smoke wafting from the side hall, probably the bathroom—though in a place like this, it was just as likely to be coming from the kitchen.

I walked to the bar and ordered a beer from a grizzled, mustached bartender. A few sets of eyes followed me, more curious than anything. Lacking the requisite blue eye shadow and gelled-to-the-rafters hairdo, I was unlikely to be mistaken for a groupie but, to avoid any lingering misconceptions, I met each look with a polite, professional nod and took my beer to a booth alongside the bar. Then I pulled a law enforcement magazine from my purse, laid it on the table and began to read.

I flipped through the magazine, glancing up now and then. Approachable, but not screaming for attention. A trio of fortyish men stood at the bar. Detectives, judging by the department-store suit jackets draped over the back of their stools. When I caught them looking, I favored them with a polite smile. It took only a few minutes before they appeared at my booth.

The first one, a beefy redhead, gestured at the magazine. “What force?”

He injected a healthy dose of friendly curiosity in the question, but I knew it was more test than interest.

“OPP,” I said, closing the magazine. “Ontario Provincial Police.”

He nodded. I had details at the ready, but he didn’t ask. Canada was only a few hours’ drive north, but it might as well be Iceland, for all he cared.

“Mark Waters,” he said, extending a hand.

I smiled and shook his hand. “Jenna Andrews.”

The other two men introduced themselves as Chris Doyle and Brad Cox. Good small-town cop names, WASP-bland. They reflected their names—solid, average-looking guys, both with short brown hair and blue eyes, both bloodshot, either from overwork or overdrinking. For Cox, I was betting the latter. He was fast developing the watery eyes and sloppy gut of a cop who had a bottle stuffed in his locker and another in the glove box of his car.

Doyle’s bloodshot eyes didn’t look like anything a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure, but from the strain lines around his mouth, I doubted he’d be getting that rest anytime soon. It was him I looked at when I waved at the opposite bench and invited the men to join me. Waters, the ring-leader, claimed the seat beside me. Doyle slid into the opposite side, Cox beside him.

“Just passing through?” Waters asked.

“Visiting some cousins in Cleveland,” I said. “When the family togetherness started getting to me, this seemed like a good place to escape to.”

Waters laughed. “They won’t follow you here, that’s for sure. Pretty quiet tonight…though it sure wasn’t like that last week.”

He waited, a smug half-smile on his lips, as if his city’s recent claim to infamy was a personal accomplishment.

“The Helter Skelter killing.” I shook my head. “Helluva thing.”

Waters’s lips parted, needing only a word of encouragement to start expounding on the case.

“Bet the TV crews descended like vultures on roadkill, eh?” I said. “We had a serial killer up north, passed through our town, grabbed a girl. You couldn’t walk down the street without having a microphone shoved in your face.”

Cox leaned across the table. “I thought you Canucks didn’t have serial killers.”

“Everyone has serial killers these days,” Doyle said, his voice soft. He lifted his gaze to mine. “You’ve got one big case up there now, don’t you? Out west?”

“The pig farmer,” I said with a nod. “Gave some of the biggest parties around. Lots of hookers came. Not all of them went home.”

“What’s this?” Waters said.

Fortunately, this was one case I
did
know about. Although there was a publication ban, Lucy and I had discussed it on the weekend. She had a friend in Port Coquitlam who’d filled her in on the details, which she’d passed on to me, and which I now passed along to these guys, solidifying my credibility.

Doyle asked a few questions, and I focused my attention on him, leaning his way, making plenty of eye contact. This was the guy I wanted to talk to. Part of that had to do with the wedding ring on his finger—an easy excuse if he expected more than a friendly chat. And part of it was that if I had no other agenda in mind, this would be my choice, not a blowhard like Waters who probably wore his gun to bed, or a cop like Cox who’d surrendered to the bottle. I wanted the one who still cared enough to lose sleep over his cases.

After a few minutes, Waters seemed to notice the way the tide was turning. He play-punched Doyle’s arm.

“We’ll be at the bar,” he said, and jerked his head at Cox.

Doyle watched them go, then looked back at me. Uncertain, but not uninterested, as if it had been a long time since he’d been left alone with a woman in a bar, and he didn’t quite remember what to do next. Before I could say something, he grabbed my empty glass.

“Can I get you a refill?”

I nodded. “Miller, thanks.”

“Lite?”

“Never.”

He smiled, the worry lines around his eyes fading. When he returned, he’d recovered his nerve. We chatted for a while and, without any prodding, talk turned to the biggest news in town.

“When the uniforms called it in, the last thing I was thinking was that it was this Helter Skelter killer. I knew Kozlov. He killed that boy just after I transferred to this force.” Doyle looked at me. “You hear about that?”

“No. What happened?”

“Up in Cleveland. Kozlov held up a liquor store. Kid behind the counter grabbed a baseball bat. Kozlov slashed him up with a broken bottle and left him to bleed to death.” Doyle shook his head. “Kid was in his last year of college, working to pay for his tuition. Over a thousand people at his funeral. Dozens of classmates, all crying their eyes out. Only people showed up at Kozlov’s funeral had cameras.”

“And who’s the one people are going to remember?”

Doyle met my eyes, nodded. “Exactly. No fucking justice.”

“At least he didn’t die in his bed. There’s some justice in that.”

“Yeah.” Doyle sipped his beer. “When the call came in, saying he’d been shot, I thought ‘Sure, what do you expect?’ Guy like that bought himself a .22 to the temple years ago.”

“A .22? I read it was a .38…or did you just mean, hypothetically…”

“Nah, it was a .22. Reporters fucked up a few things on this one. First guy on the scene was from the local paper—just a kid. He scooped it, and a bunch of stringers followed his facts. I think some later reports got it right…but yeah, it was a .22. Hitman’s special.”

“Hitman?” I gave a half-laugh, as if testing whether Doyle was joking.

“Yeah. Feds are trying to keep it quiet, but that won’t last. What I heard, they were already suspicious, but this one sealed it.”

“But a hired killer? For a guy like Kozlov? Was there anything in his history to…?”

“Explain why someone would pay even a nickel to off him? Maybe back when he was with the Russian mob.”

“The mob?”

Doyle took a long draft of his beer. “I’ve heard rumors. Probably racist bullshit, you know? Guy’s a petty criminal, looks like a thug, Russian background. If it’s racism, he played it up. Used to talk big when he was in his cups, yammer on about his glory days with the mob.”

“Are the Feds checking this out?”

“Maybe. But even if it’s true, it’s ancient history, and it doesn’t explain how he wound up dead a couple of decades later. I thought about taking a peek but…” He shrugged. “No time to satisfy idle curiosity. This case I’m working on now takes up all my time. As it should.” He wrapped his hands around his mug. “Kiddie porn. Fucking sick shit.”

“There’s nothing worse,” I said.

“Big-city cops, maybe they get used to it. But me? I’ve seen some stuff before, but not like this. Nothing like this. My wife—” He stopped. Shrugged.

“You can’t talk to her about it.”

“Gotta play by the rules. I’m supposed to leave it at the station, not let it affect me, but, Christ, of course it affects me. Then I go home and I’m moody, snapping, she gets mad, and I…I can’t explain, right? So I left.”

“Ouch.”

“There’s more than that, but…” Another shrug. A gulp of beer.

Doyle nodded and we talked some more, about the case, about his wife. Any hope of circling back to Kozlov was gone, but I didn’t rush to leave. By the end of his third beer, he pushed the mug aside and smiled ruefully.

“Guess this isn’t going anywhere, is it?” he said. “My first shot, and I spend it talking about my marriage.”

I pointed at his ring. “If you’re still wearing that, you’re not ready.” I checked my watch. “I should be getting back soon. My cousins will wonder what happened to me.”

“I should go, too.”

I cast a sidelong glance at his two friends, still at the bar. “You want me to walk out with you?”