Rock Star Down (The Psychic Registry) (4 page)

Archer smiled and said
to Miller, "Where'd she come from?"

Miller shrugged,
doesn't
matter.

Archer said, "Come
on, I'll buy the coffee."

Nathan appreciated Laurel's spirit and
decided that she had potential. But brave talk was one thing. Actually facing
evil was quite another and he hoped she could handle it.

So they all got coffee
and Archer got a sandwich, and they took the stairs to a small meeting room on
the Superior Court level. It was a plain room containing a conference table and
chairs with a view of the street below. They sat at the table and Archer passed
Nathan the file. Then Archer ate her sandwich and proceeded to tell them a
long, sad, and horrible story. And the only good part about that story was when
she told them how she had arrested her suspect: Andre Michael Foster.

"He's smarter
than most," Archer said, tapping his photo with her finger tip. "He
covered his tracks. Used gloves and condoms. Sprayed the body with oven
cleaner."

"Wasn't his first
time," Nathan said.

"Yeah, I figured
that. I've reached out to the other agencies. Nothing so far, but you know how
many teenage girls go missing?"

"Lots of
runaways," Nathan agreed. "You say he pimps? I take it his other
girls aren't talking?"

"The ones that
will
talk say they didn't know her. I can't find anybody who ever saw her working
the street," Archer said.

"He didn't turn
her out because he had something else in mind," Nathan said.

"She was only
thirteen," Laurel commented to no one in particular.

"You didn't
recover any underwear at the scene? Are we sure this wasn't a body dump?" He
asked Archer.

"
That
was
the scene. And I'll tell you what, a girl like that, unless she's been out
turning tricks, she's gonna be wearing underpants," Archer replied.

"But he didn't
turn her out, at least as far as we know. Unless it was her first time and a
trick killed her? But how unlucky would that be?" Nathan wondered aloud.

"The girl was
clean, Miller. She wasn't turning tricks. This fucking pimp dirt bag did her
himself," Archer growled.

"But you've got
nothing, other than you can put them together in the days preceding the murder.
That and the fact that he's a piece of garbage— Unless maybe he kept a souvenir?"

"Like the
underpants," Archer agreed.

Nathan nodded, "Let's
hope. If we can get physical evidence, the judge will have to hold him. Then
you and the prosecutor can leverage a confession."

"Easier said than
done. He's taking his lawyer's advice and remaining uncooperative," Archer
sighed.

"Just get me in a
room with him," Nathan said.

"I can do that,
but I don't think he'll talk. He knows all he has to do is wait out the day and
he walks," Archer said.

"He doesn't have
to say anything," he replied.

Archer frowned. "Listen,
Miller. Much as I want this guy, we can't have any rough stuff, okay? Not here,
at least."

"I won't touch
him," he assured her.

"So, what? You
going to use your
mind powers
?" Archer asked, waving her hands as
if peering through the depths of an imaginary crystal ball.

Nathan smiled.
Although they had worked together before, Archer had never seen him do anything
special. From her point of view he was just an excellent interrogator and she was
desperate to keep her case afloat. Plus she liked making him jump through a few
hoops.
Fair enough.
But if Foster was the guy, Nathan would find out.
And hopefully they wouldn't have to watch Foster go free that day. Because if
so, Nathan might have to deal with Foster on his own and he really did prefer
to leave justice to the courts.

Nathan looked at his
watch; less than four hours left. "Let's do it," he told her.

Archer nodded and made
a phone call arranging to have Foster moved from a holding area to a secure cell
adjacent to the courtrooms. "It'll take five to ten minutes. Break time?"

Nathan and Laurel
nodded and they adjourned from the meeting room.

Following their break it was decided
that Nathan would go in alone. Foster relished giving Archer the silent
treatment but she didn't favor the idea of sitting out the interview. However,
there weren't any cameras in the cell as it was intended for attorney-client
meetings. Laurel was keen on following along as well and she suggested using
cell phones to listen-in. Nathan was fine with that. He wanted to be alone with
Foster – less background noise that way – but it would be easier if Archer and
Laurel could track the interview in real time.

They were seated in
the court room, when a deputy entered through a secure side door. "We've
got your guy, Archer," said the deputy.

Archer nodded, "Give
us a second."

Nathan punched up
Archer on his phone and she answered his call. "All clear?" he asked.

She listened and
nodded.

"Mute your
speaker," Laurel reminded him.

He did and then they
checked the sound again and it was fine. So off he went, his phone in one hand,
the case file in the other, through the secure door and past the deputy who
locked it closed behind them. Another deputy waited ahead in the corridor next
to the cell.

"He's shackled,
but he can move freely, so watch yourself," the second deputy warned
Nathan.

"Got it,"
Nathan assured him.

The deputy looked him
over and seemed to decide that Nathan could handle himself. Then he unlocked
the cell and opened the door. Nathan entered and paused just inside until the
door was secured behind him.

Andre Michael Foster
was not a large man, but it was obvious he was a strong one. Even the baggy
jail uniform could not hide his highly muscled physique. He was light complexioned,
mocha colored, not black, Nathan thought. A good looking guy, barely twenty,
his head and face clean shaven. He could be a salesman, a mechanic, or a
personal trainer by the looks of him, but he was a pimp.

Nathan understood why
some men became pimps and why some women embraced them. He understood why they
turned tricks and why johns sought them out. And for the most part he figured
it wasn't much of his business. But taking advantage of runaways? Killing kids?
And for what? The thrill of the kill? Whether damaged goods or just a bad seed,
Foster was an opportunistic predator, making sport of the weak and the lost.

Andre looked at
Nathan, then rolled his eyes and drew a loud breath through his teeth that
generated a faint
hiss
. But Nathan was already honing in on his
frequency. Then he could hear Andre's thoughts as if they were his own. Were it
not for the skill and discipline that he'd developed, Andre's thoughts would be
almost indistinguishable from Nathan's. It was an act requiring immense concentration,
willpower, and neurological conditioning, to differentiate between the foreign
signals and those native to his own nervous system. It wasn't mere mind
reading; it was reading the greater central nervous system, the brain included.
He could not maintain such an intense level of reading for long, so he backed
off once he'd acquired Andre's frequency. He'd been trained to use a scale of
0-10 to calibrate his efforts. At that moment he was reading at a 6.

Nathan sat across the
small table from Andre. He remained far enough from the table that he could
easily stand if Andre became aggressive. He set the file folder and his phone
upon the table. He simply watched Andre, studying his eyes, his face and hands.

Andre broke the
silence first, "I ain't talking, man."

"You don't have
to," Nathan said before he upped the intensity level of his read to a 9.

"How did you know
Nicole Broome?" Nathan asked. And he had to ignore the echo of his own
question in Andre's thoughts.

Andre said nothing.
But his thoughts confirmed the
relationship
.

"You called her
Little
Nicky
,"

That surprised Andre,
who wondered if one of his girls had heard something and talked. But still he
said nothing. And his thoughts held some discipline.

Nathan had more.

 "You already
know about the photos we recovered from her phone. The photos she took together
with you. You managed to kill the phone, but the memory card was more robust,"
Nathan pulled the photo prints from the file and held them up for Andre to see.
"Remember her? She's a pretty one."

Andre shrugged, but he
remembered her…

 She was so pale,
except for her tiny red nipples. Her hair was thin and ill-groomed, like she
didn't yet know what to do with it down there. A bit of dark stubble peeked out
from her armpits, too. But otherwise, so white and smooth. How sweet she
tasted, how she whimpered and cried as he got her hot. So eager at first and
then a little scared. But she braved the pain and was panting like a little
bitch in the end. There was a trail of bright red blood on the condom. Was she
laughing or crying?

How shocked she looked
while he was strangling the life from her. So weak and helpless beneath him as
he entered her again. He was close, but she was fading too soon! He gave her a
little air, a little reprieve, and she gasped. Relief and anger mingling with
the terror in her still glimmering eyes. But he didn't let go and she knew what
was to come. And he squeezed again until he was finished and the spark was extinguished
from her flesh. Then he kissed her goodbye. But she was just a warm piece of
meat by then.

Andre loved it and the
recollection had made him hard.

Nathan trembled, slogging
through thoughts of murderous delight. Choking the life out of a stupid girl.
Not his thoughts, not his memories. But his shame for looking and knowing. His
disgust for feeling Andre's triumph as if it were his own. Killing Nicole? Was
that happy or sad? Two sets of thoughts, two sets of emotions, threatening to
bleed together. His heart rate was climbing already. And his own groin was
stirred by Andre's excitement. Still, Nathan pressed on.

"She wasn't the
first. But maybe the best." Nathan said.

Andre looked at
Nathan, his eyes suspicious. Little Nicky
was
the best. So young and
hot. Fresh off the bus and unspoiled by the street. She was so trusting, so
needing, so
grateful
for his help and his friendship. Not the first, not
the last. But the best so far. And they didn't have nothing on him but a couple
of photos.
Or did they?

"No, Andre, she'll
be your last. I promise you," Nathan growled, the bile rising in his gut.

Andre let out a harrumph
and he turned away. Did someone see? Did he leave something behind?

"You made a big
mistake, Andre," Nathan said as he took out a set of crime scene photos. He
held up a photo for Andre: A dead girl, naked and burned by oven cleaner. Andre's
anxiety was rising and Nathan fought to remain still.

Andre studied the
photo. The severity of the burns both surprised and pleased him. Wouldn't get
no DNA off of
that
! Then he shook his head in feigned disgust, though he
was as hard as a hatchet handle. And he was looking forward to hitting up his
bitches as soon as he got out.

"You're smarter
than most, Andre. That's why they'll go for the death penalty," Nathan
said, trying to ignore the thoughts of Andre's stable girls.

But Andre wasn't
concerned. He was thinking about which one of his ho's to call when he got
released.

"You shouldn't
have taken the souvenir," Nathan said, knowing it was a gamble. But he had
to get the interview back on track.

Andre froze. Nobody
knew about
that
. And he kept the room locked. The box, too. Only sis and
him had keys to the house and she knew how to mind her business, didn't she?
Fucking Brenda! If she went snooping around, if she talked to the cops!

"Don't blame
Brenda. It wasn't her fault, it was yours. You know what we found in the box,
don't you?" Nathan said, relieved that his bluff was holding and that
Andre's thoughts of naked prostitutes had abated.

Andre closed his eyes and
lowered his head. Momma's jewelry box: the dull ivory, inlaid with abalone, a
tarnished mirror set inside the lid, the interior lined with well-worn red
velvet. Inside the box, a crumpled paper lunch sack filled with four different
pairs of underwear. The newest addition: the baby-blue briefs with a tiny brown
stain of blood. The ones that still smelled like baby powder and sweat.

"The blood on the
panties is going to match Nicole Broome," Nathan said, worried his voice
might crack. Andre's fear had Nathan's adrenaline flowing; disgust and
excitement pulling him in two directions. "And we'll check the other three
against all the cold cases in the area. We'll get DNA, yours and theirs."

Andre sighed. He knew
about DNA. He knew he was a goner. Too bad, really. He thought he'd get more
before they caught him.

"So you're
looking at the death penalty for sure. Unless you start cooperating."

Andre shrugged. Death
wasn't a big deal. Better than prison maybe. No bitches in prison.