Strange Robby (15 page)

Spider nodded as she started to record the locations.

Carrie's comlink went off then. She knew why; Richards had been having her do a whole lot more of the legwork lately. She glared at her reply button.

"This guy picked a hell of a time to start offing people again," she mumbled.

Spider walked in, pulling on her shirt. "What's that, Babe?"

"I was this close," she said, holding up two fingers.

Spider laughed. "Duty calls."

"At times like this I wish we were meter readers."

Carrie punched the reply button. "Hello . . . you called me . . . " She looked at Spider and smiled. "Yes, I had just heard . . . No, I don't mind at all going out to the crime scenes . . . Just so happens I was up anyway."

Carrie slid across the seat towards her. "Something's not right with Richards. Lately he . . . Well, he used to be very hands on, and now it's like he's having me do everything important."

"Tell him it's too much," Spider said.

"I'm not complaining, in fact I like it," Carrie shrugged. "It's just weird, that's all."

"He's sick. His heart, I think," Spider said matter-of-factly.

"Come on! He just had his county physical. He's fine."

"If you say so." Spider let it go. She drove at a quick but even pace, no sense squealing the tires off when you were going to look at corpses. Especially when you were hoping you wouldn't find any evidence.

"What is it?" Carrie asked.

"What?" Spider didn't understand her question.

"Something's bothering you. Now what is it?" Carrie asked as she pushed Spiders hair back away from her face.

"Do you really think it's such a good idea for you to show up with me at six o'clock in the morning at a crime scene?"

"You mean because," she put a hand to her mouth, widened her eyes with a mock look of horror, and took in a deep breath, "someone might figure out that we're lovers!"

Carrie laughed at the disgruntled look on Spider's face. Spider didn't really like to be teased at least not about this.

"It's not funny, Carrie. I mean, you're the assistant DA, for God's sake. A lot has changed since the days when you could be fired for being gay, but the way most people feel still hasn't changed that much. Some day you could have a shot at DA if you don't blow it by . . . "

" . . . looking too gay," Carrie finished for her. Carrie just smiled and shrugged, undaunted by her mate's worries. "Someday I will be DA. Which is why I can't afford to have a secret life. People will only trust me if I don't lie to them. If I'm not ashamed—and I'm not—then I show people that it's OK to be gay. In fact, that may be my campaign slogan—Vote for Carrie for DA! After all, it's OK to be gay."

Spider laughed in spite of herself. "Catchy . . . But seriously, Carrie . . . "

"I'm dead serious, Spider. I have never been in the closet, and I'm not crawling in there now. I am a public figure, and I am just going to get more public, so you're going to have to come out, too. Are you ashamed of me?"

"Ah, come on, Carrie, you know that's bull shit." It was hard for Spider to get used to the idea that you could be open about your sexuality. "All right. If you don't care, I don't care."

"No, I do care. I want people to know."

"OK. Then I want people to know, too."

Tommy got to the first crime scene before Spider. He thought about the twenty-five dollars he now owed Spider, and gritted his teeth. He looked at the body, and then had the officer cover the face again.

He had really hoped that it was over, but it wasn't. The Fry Guy was back. It was his MO; scum ball with his brains fried in his head, no witnesses, and five would get you ten no evidence.

Spider had said he'd be back. Just once, he wished the bitch would be wrong. He didn't want to catch this guy, but he didn't feel safe hiding him anymore, either, and he knew Spider knew a lot more than she was telling him.

Spider drove up then. As usual, she was in no hurry. Carrie got out before Spider, and Tommy watched as all the ballistic boys and the detectives looked up and took notice. They were all staring and whispering, and he could guess about what. Carrie went to talk to the coroner as Spider walked up to Tommy.

Tommy smiled. "Tongues are wagging."

Spider shrugged. "Let 'em wag. If she doesn't care, why the hell should I?"

She walked over to the body and raised the shroud, then quickly lowered it. "Yep, that's our boy all right. FBI here?"

"Not yet," Tommy said. "I expect them in full force in the next couple of hours. We're spread a little thin right now, with crews at all six sites."

Spider started walking and Tommy followed. He didn't know what she was looking for. Hard to leave foot imprints in pavement, and this guy never left any fingerprints. Even if he did, it'd be hard to pick out in an alley full of prints and partials. DNA? Well he'd have to actually get involved in some sort of struggle with his victims to get enough of that to be detected, and this guy didn't get close enough for there to be a struggle. Without knowing what kind of weapon he was using . . . There were no casings, bullets, or poison to be traced. Even if they were really trying to find this guy, Tommy was sure they couldn't do it. Except of course he wasn't at all sure that Spider didn't know exactly who the killer was.

"So why six? It's been two months with nothing, and now all of a sudden we've got six corpses. Does that number mean anything? The amount of time in between?" Tommy asked.

"No. He saw someone he couldn't let slip through, and once he had killed one, thereby alerting the cops that he was back anyway, he might as well finish his list."

"His list?"

"He hasn't killed anyone in two months, but he must have run into lots of people who needed to be killed. Remember that our government decided the prisons were overcrowded. He wouldn't have forgotten about them. He would have made a mental list, maybe even worked at figuring out what their patterns were. You know—like when they went out, where they lived. After all, four of these scum were killed in their own apartments."

"We're on candid camera, Spider. Just because we're not tapped in yet doesn't mean that other people aren't. You've got to stop referring to the victims as scum," Tommy said, shaking his head. He looked away from any comlinks he could see and whispered, "We've got to start trying to solve this case."

"No, we don't. We just have to look like we are," Spider said with a smile. When she took a quick look around, everyone stopped talking and tried to look anywhere but at she or Carrie.

"Yes!" she screamed in a loud, clear tone. "Yes! I am sleeping with the assistant DA. In fact, I am living in the assistant DA's very lavish home. Yes, we do have sex, and, yes, she does look every bit as good naked as you all think she does. Now, do you think we could maybe get back to work? We've got six of these scenes to check out, and I'd like to get it done before the bodies start to rot."

Spider noticed that Carrie laughed, shook her head, and then went right on talking to the coroner as if nothing had happened. Spider started walking around again and Tommy followed.

"Oh! That was very tactful." Tommy laughed.

Spider shrugged. Then she smiled and walked up to the wall. She looked at the bloodstain.

"He started here tonight. I'll just bet that blood doesn't belong to our scu . . . victim."

"Our killer?"

"No. How's this scenario. This scu . . . uh the victim is roughing someone up. He was an extortionist, so that isn't too terribly hard to believe. Our killer sees the attack and he decides to stop the scum-ba . . . victim. He kills him, and once he had killed him he decided to clean up his list. Kind of like you make a list of things you have to do around the house, and you put them off, and put them off, but then once you've done one of them you feel compelled to do everything on the list."

Tommy looked at her with raised eyebrows.

"Well, I do, anyway." She turned her comlink on then. "Forensics, I want a man over here."

A man came over and Carrie followed him.

"What you got?" Carrie asked.

"Some blood on the wall there. I think the scum . . . "

Both Carrie and Tommy scowled at her.

"The victim may have been trying to extort money from someone. Then the Fry Guy saw that and killed the scu . . . victim. Whoever this guy was, he might have seen the Fry Guy. I'd like to take samples of the blood and run the DNA."

"That's a long shot," Carrie said. "There still isn't that much DNA on file yet, just criminals, municipal employees, and the military. You know what the odds are that you'd find a match?"

"True," Spider said. "But in the meantime we can look around the neighborhood for people who've taken a beating. Ask around. See who the sc . . . victim had been extorting money from. When we find him you can check to see if his DNA matches."

"Very good," Carrie said.

The forensics guy looked up from scraping the bricks. "Why don't you just run a spot on TV asking this guy to come forward? Offer a reward for information about the Fry Guy?"

"Because . . . " Carrie and Spider started at once.

Spider nodded and Carrie finished, " . . . the Fry Guy saved this guy from a beating. Maybe even saved his life. There is already a reward for information leading to the capture of the Fry Guy, and everyone knows that. If this guy was going to give the Fry Guy up, he would have left the crime scene immediately and called the station. As it is, a delivery man found the body."

"Isn't there a chance that this might actually be the Fry Guy's blood?" the pathologist asked.

"Well, duh, Flaggerty," Carrie said without much charity. "I have a weapon which fries people's brains in their heads at long distance, but I'm going to get close enough that you can knock me up against a wall. Get real."

She looked at Spider and Tommy's comlinks, obviously in the on position.

"Damn!" she muttered and walked away.

"I was just wondering," Flaggerty mumbled.

"It's OK, man," Spider said. "She's in a pissy mood. Comlink rang just before she reached climax."

"Jesus Christ!" Tommy cursed and stomped away.

"I hate it when that happens," Flaggerty said laughing.

The coroner's reports would prove that, indeed, the alley guy was the first one dead. The other crime scenes turned up no evidence and no witnesses. They were investigating the third crime scene when the FBI showed up.

Then there were the other guys. Two of them, from some agency they'd never heard of, but that the FBI seemed to know all about. The SWTF—short for Strange Weapons Task Force—turned out to be legit, and to have a higher clearance than anyone else on the scene. They hung around not really looking at anything. They didn't even ask any questions. They just stood around, watching and listening.

"Those So-what-if guys are giving me the creeps," Spider said.

Tommy nodded. "What the hell are they even here for? I expected to see them checking for weapon residue or something—anything. All they're doing is watching and listening to the rest of us. They don't even take their friggin' hands out of their pockets. There's something about them . . . It's all I can do to keep from walking over there and kicking their asses."

Spider nodded in excited agreement. "That's so funny! That's the way they've been making me feel all day. Listen, this is the last corpse. What do you say we go and see if we can find the witness?"

Tommy nodded and they left.

Carrie saw Tommy and Spider leave. The So-what-if guys watched them go, too, and then they started whispering. Carrie discretely called one of the policemen over.

Jacobs ran over only too willing to serve. "Sir?"

"I don't like the way those So-what-if guys . . . "

"So-what-if guys, Sir?"

Carrie quietly cursed Spider for giving them a nickname that was going to stick in her head better than their real one. "The SWTF guys. I don't like the way they're acting. They're spending more time watching our investigation than anything else. I want you to keep your comlink focused on them whenever possible. You understand? I want you to keep an eye on them while they're here."

"You mean spy on them, Sir?"

"It looks to me like they're spying on us. I think a little cautious scrutiny is in order. We didn't need them before this, so why are they suddenly here? I have a feeling that they know something we don't, so keep an eye on them. That's all."

He nodded and started to walk away.

"Jacobs!"

"Yes Sir?"

She pointed to her own comlink. "A link-eye, Jacobs. I want this on the record."

"Understood." Jacobs walked happily away. A personal assignment from the assistant DA! Acting on behalf of the DA! It wasn't every day that something like that fell in the lap of a rookie detective.