Murder Stalks (24 page)

“
Liza told me some jerk
got real close to the stage the last night Arisa danced. He grabbed
her thong and almost pulled her off stage.”

“
Dang, that’s not
cool.”

“
Liza thought the jerk
hurt Arisa fairly bad.”

“
The manager told me
nothing happened. I wonder what he told the police.” Tony stopped
at a red light and turned his head to watch Marissa talk. His hand
automatically reached out to stroke her hair. The silky strands
felt good against his skin. She read on, ignoring his
touch.

“
The bouncer wasn’t where
he was supposed to be and two cowboys had to drag the guy off of
Arisa. One of them ended up carrying her back to the dressing room.
By that time, Arisa had lost her thong.”

“
So some cowboy rescues
her. Now we have at least two suspects from the club. Did she give
you a name for the cowboy?”

“
Yes, though he’s probably
not your killer. He showed back up at the club the next night. He
wanted to see Arisa, left his name and number. Another dancer has
the information. Her name is Crystal Climbs. That has to be a stage
name.”

“
Do you have Crystal’s
phone number?

“
No, but I know where she
lives.”

“
Oh, please tell.”
Anticipation rippled through Tony. They were one step closer to
finding the truth. He could feel it in his veins. Something was
about to break on this case.

“
She lives in the
Riverdale apartments, just around the corner from the high
school.”

“
I guess that’s our next
stop.”

“
Liza did mention that
Crystal dabbled a bit in freelance performances. She may or may not
have gone home last night.”

“
Freelance
performances?”

“
A polite way of saying
she accepts payment for sex.” Marissa’s cheeks flamed with
heat.

“
You’re beautiful when you
blush. Did Liza mention if Arisa did the same?”

“
Why, yes, she did. Liza’s
pretty sure the only men Arisa dated were on a payment plan. So the
cowboy showing up and wanting a real date was a big
occurrence.”

“
Great, that opens up our
suspect list to include twenty percent of Juniper’s
population.”

“
Twenty percent? You
really think that many men pay for sex?” Marissa cheeks were still
tinged red.

“
Sweetheart, I was
guessing low. When girls like Arisa start selling, it makes the men
a bit more accepting of buying. She’s a performer, not a hooker, so
they aren’t really doing anything wrong. We’ve busted more than one
man who used the excuse that he was just getting his money’s worth
from the club. She put it out there for him to taste so he should
be able to sample her.”

“
That’s sad.” Marissa
stared out the window. Her hand was raised to her mouth as she
butchered one of her fingernails with her teeth. Tony wanted to
reach out and stop her, tell her he understood how she
felt.

“
Anything else?” Tony
asked, deciding Marissa’s fingernails were her own
business.

“
The bouncer, Tug, felt
real guilty about Arisa getting fondled up on stage. After beating
the heck out of the guy, he took down the license plate
number.”

“
Good. We’ll need to get
the number. I’ll have Rex look it up.”

“
Apparently, Tug doesn’t
like cops. I’ll call him, but I wondered what angle I should take
with him.”

“
Tell him you were
attacked by the same jerk that killed Arisa. That should open him
up.”

Tony pulled up in front of the Rivercrest
apartments. A few splotches of grey primer dotted the outer walls.
There were no paint trucks in the area and no ladders propped
against the building. He wondered if the manager had given up on
the small, eight-unit structure.

“
I’ll start with number
one and you go for eight,” Tony offered.

“
Sure, what do I tell
her?”

“
Go with the same story
you told Liza.”

Apartment number one was an old man who had
no idea if Crystal Climbs lived in one of the units. Number two
belonged to a woman with four screaming toddlers. She wasn’t
Crystal. Tony hoped Marissa was having better luck on the other
end.

“
Tony,” Marissa called out
from a few doors down.

“
You got something?” he
asked as he approached her.

“
The guy in number six
says Crystal lives in number four, but she’s not here today. Says
she drives an old green Honda. He didn’t want to talk so I lied. I
said I was working with her family and we wanted to find her. She
dances early at the club, has her clients come in for her final
number, then they go and party until morning. The guy says that’s
how he met Crystal. He’s the manager of the complex.”

“
He was rather talkative
for someone who didn’t want to talk.”

“
Yeah, once I said family,
he started to salivate. He asked about reward money, I said I’d get
back to him.”

“
So Crystal’s not so clean
either.”

“
Where to next?” Innocence
and purity blanketed her face. She may not be a child, but she had
such a sweet spirit. He wanted to protect her from this ugliness.
He had talked about cases with her before, but she’d never been
immersed in one.

“
I can take you back to
the motel if you like.”

“
Why would I want to go
back there and sit alone, waiting for God only knows
what?”

“
I don’t want you involved
in this. It’s messy, it’s bad, and someone is bound to get hurt.”
Tony pulled at a strand of her hair and let it slip from his grasp.
How could this guy elude the police for so long? Four dead bodies
and more to come had Tony feeling lost. He wanted to keep Marissa
close, but this case was dirty.

“
I’ve already been hurt,”
Marissa reminded him.

“
I am so sorry I’ve
brought this on you.”

“
Tony, you didn’t bring
this on me. It’s not your fault. You can’t predict when every sicko
is going to go over the edge. Life isn’t guaranteed, we both know
that from Ashley’s death.”

The truth hit like a rock, knocking the air
out from under Tony’s argument. Both of them were in this together.
They had both suffered greatly and now they could do something to
change that.

His eyes locked onto Marissa’s upturned
face. A twinge of anger pulled at his thoughts but he ignored it.
He had to make things right with her.

“
Okay, you can come with
me, but you have to stay near me. From here on out, we stick
together. Got it?”

“
I got it.”

“
First we eat lunch. You
call Tug while I order the food.”

The call to Tug was short. He’d tracked down
Ronald Dalton and happily gave Marissa the address. Anything to pay
the guy back for the way he’d treated Arisa. By three in the
afternoon they had driven out to Ronald’s house. He had no idea
Arisa was dead. His hospital admittance papers proved he couldn’t
have been involved in Arisa’s death. The guy still looked like
hell.

They were back to square one. Next was the
search of Arisa Fink’s house. The police would have already cleared
any evidence and taken anything that pointed to a lead, but Tony
wanted to see for himself.

“
That’s
interesting.”

“
What?” Tony asked as he
pulled to a stop at the end of Arisa’s driveway. He and Marissa
climbed out of the car.

“
Look how far it is to a
neighbor's house. She could have screamed all night and no one
would have heard her.”

“
The other murders
happened in the city,” Tony said, unsure if the new location would
change the profile he and Spade were working on.

“
Yes, but all of the women
were alone the night they were attacked.”

“
You would have been too
had I not decided to come see you.” Tony stared at the ground. He
couldn’t meet Marissa’s gaze. He shook off the thought of what
would have happened had he not shown up. It looked like Marissa was
having similar thoughts. Her eyes glistened and she sniffled before
she crossed over the yellow police tape and headed for the door.
Tony tried the knob, it wouldn’t turn.

Marissa went to the large flowerpot at the
corner of the patio. She wrapped her arms around the pot to lift
but Tony pulled her away.

“
Let me do
that.”

He moved the pot but didn’t find a hidden
key.

“
Maybe she has one
somewhere else,” Marissa said.

“
Maybe we should give
up.”

Tony moved down the steps and under the
police tape. Marissa didn’t follow, instead she was staring at a
light fixture that looked lopsided.

“
Tony, what about
this?”

“
What about
it?”

“
It looks strange. See
that palm print at the top of the glass? Why would there be a palm
print up there?”

Tony came back up the steps and felt around
at the top of the metal lamp. His fingers grazed a small key. “Pay
dirt.” He slid the key from its hiding place. The air sizzled with
triumph and he pulled Marissa close, but his touch changed her
demeanor. She ducked out of his arms and took the key from his
hand. The door popped open with a flick of her wrist and they were
in.

Arisa’s house was clean. The team had dusted
for prints, but Tony doubted any had been left behind. The floors
had vacuum marks and no dust accumulated on any flat surfaces,
other than the fingerprint dust.

“
Her house is clean,”
Marissa commented.

“
We think the killer does
it.”

“
That’s bizarre. Why would
he clean their house?” Marissa asked as she checked in a
closet.

“
I don’t know exactly, but
Jackson Spade seems to think it points to how organized this guy
is.”

“
Tony, let’s get out of
here.”

“
Sure, something
wrong?”

“
No. Yes... I don’t know.
Just a weird feeling being in this house.”

Tony circled around slowly. He felt it too.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up like it had at the first
murder scene. He had felt the same strange feeling at the beach the
other day and another time recently. His shoulders quivered and he
shook off the sensation. “Sure, let’s go back to the motel and
we’ll order an early dinner. Then we can go over the case.”

“
Sounds good.”

Marissa looked over her shoulder twice
before they made it to the car. Tony wanted to glance back too but
kept his eyes forward, scanning the tree line. A chill spread over
his body. Someone or something was out there spying on this house,
and he didn’t want to stick around to find out what had caused his
strange feelings. Especially not with Marissa beside him.

****

The car had spooked him. Running out of the
house and to the copse of trees at the back of Arisa’s property had
saved him a lot of explaining. He could have made up some excuse,
but he didn’t like excuses. The truth or nothing.

He pulled his high-powered Cannon binoculars
out of his pack. Marissa hadn’t stayed away from Tony, of course
she was weak, she was Tony’s wife. If he wanted to end this now he
could pull out his rifle, train the scope on Tony and blow him away
now. But that wouldn’t teach Tony the lesson he so needed to learn.
He would be patient. He would watch and wait.

With the loss of Marissa, he needed to find
a new target and soon. The delay was unacceptable. He would choose
someone more valuable, someone who would cause Tony and Marissa to
feel shame. He wanted them both to feel shame for interfering with
his perfect plan.

If he were truthful with himself, he would
admit Marissa had been chosen solely because she belonged to Tony.
He should have made a better choice, someone who fit his targeted
profile. It wasn’t wise to mix revenge with the plan. Work the
plan, that’s what he had to do. He would find a new target, one who
fit.

Chapter 23

Ally’s arms ached and her mind had gone numb
a while ago. Four hours in the pool had only put a dent in the
layers of old worries. She thought of Marissa and how she must feel
with what she was going through with Tony. Ally understood
desperation. She had lived it for years, never fitting in, not
knowing how to live as a woman. She had been born with all the
right equipment, but her father hadn’t wanted a girl. Anger rose
but she pushed it aside. She needed to stop thinking about how her
father had made her into a boy. She couldn’t be a man anymore, it
was too dangerous. She did stupid things when she was a man.

Ally blushed in embarrassment. At one point
she had believed she was gay, but she couldn’t get used to the idea
of touching another woman. She had tried it, but always left the
exchange unsatisfied. A penis is what she needed. A strong penis
slamming into her, then she would feel better.

She didn’t like admitting she had bought
one. No one knew about the harness she used to strap her piece on,
pretending it was really hers. It felt good, powerful actually, to
walk around with an erect penis in front of her. Then she’d found a
flaccid replica she could strap on and wear under her clothes. She
wore it around town sometimes, letting herself be what her father
wanted, a man not a woman.