The Red Hot Fix (27 page)

Felicia nodded. “It killed me. But it was all a pose. I was the one he loved, not her. He was going to leave. We talked about it all the time. We were going to have a life together. Just the two of us.” She lowered her eyes. “We even talked about starting a family.”

“That why he packed you up and shipped you out?” Mort shifted his weight. “Because he was so deeply in love? Call me crazy, but if I’m interested in a woman, I invite her for a burger and a beer. I don’t call Two Men and a Truck.”

Felicia pulled herself straighter in her chair. Her left leg bounced. “We’re passionate people. Given to extreme demonstrations. That was one of the ways we kept it so hot.” She got up and sashayed toward Mort. “A lover’s quarrel. That’s all it was.” Felicia held him in a teasing stare. “I had what he needed.”

Mort stepped clear. “What can you tell us about his death, Felicia?” He took a seat next to Micki.

“All I know is what I read. He called a hooker.” She shrugged. “Reinhart isn’t the type of man who can go long without sex, and I’d been gone a few days. You can bet he wasn’t getting any from that dried-up prune sitting out on Mercer Island.” She looked aside. “Poor guy called the wrong number.”

“He was murdered, Felicia.” Micki pulled a photograph from her file and placed it on the table. “Brutally.”

Felicia glanced at the grisly image of her lover on the floor of their onetime love nest. She looked away, but returned her attention to the glossy print. Her shoulders sagged. Her face paled. She slid into her chair and pushed the picture back to Micki.

“I don’t need to see this,” she whispered.

“Why’s that?” Mort asked. “I’d think someone so deeply in love would want to know what happened.”

“I know what happened.” Felicia’s voice was regaining its strength. “That Trixie creature killed him.”

Micki pulled the crime scene photo close and examined it. “Pretty gruesome stuff.” She leaned forward and pointed. “See here? His head was so smashed his brain oozed out. Can you
imagine what might drive a person to do that?”

Felicia swatted the picture away.

Micki shrugged. “I mean, talk about your crime of passion.” She looked over to Mort. “Some might call it an ‘extreme demonstration,’ don’t you think?”

Mort nodded. “You could make a case.”

Felicia glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A young woman—excuse me, I believe your term was ‘beautiful young woman’—set up in a castle in the sky, getting used to a certain way of life. Next thing you know, she’s out on the street and the guy paying the bills ends up dead. Who you think is going to be the target of any fingers that get pointed?”

Felicia shoved herself away from the table, jumped up, and clamored to the far wall. “Is that what this is about? You’re trying to pin Reinhart’s murder on me?” She spun around toward Micki. “Is that Ingrid’s revenge? Frame me for what was your serial killer’s doing?” She sounded terrified. “This is fucking bullshit, okay? I mean, you’ve got Trixie in custody. Ask her yourself.” Her pleas bounced between the two investigators sitting silently at the table. “Are you insane?” Felicia released a long wail. She inched her way to the corner, never pausing for breath. She slid to the floor, curled into a pink velour ball, and sobbed.

Mort and Micki glanced to the two-way. Jimmy was getting an eyeful.

Nine long minutes later Felicia began to wear out. She sniffled, wiped her hands over her tear-streaked face, and turned wet eyes toward them. “You can’t possibly believe this.” Her voice was weak. “I’m just a girl. I got caught up in Reinhart’s world. He’s a powerful man. I was vulnerable. I trusted him when he said he loved me.” She crawled across the floor to Mort, stopped at his feet, and pressed her cheek against his leg. “You’ve got to help me.”

Mort pushed away and resumed his spot against the wall. Felicia pulled herself into his chair and reached out to Micki. “Please. Can’t you see what she’s doing? Ingrid’s got the power. She’s trying to punish me. I got nothing to do with Trixie. Ask her yourself.”

Micki reached for her file. “We’re just following leads, Ms. Fatone. We were wondering if you had any ideas how Trixie might have gotten into Mr. Vogel’s apartment.”

Felicia blinked five times in rapid succession. She breathed through her mouth and blinked again. She looked over her shoulder to Mort and back to Micki. “You think I set this up?” She crossed back to her original seat. “That I got Trixie in so she could kill Reinhart?”

“We’re not jumping to any conclusions here.” Micki slid the photograph back into the folder. “I mean, might you have seen Trixie hanging around the lobby? Maybe in a coffee shop Mr. Vogel might have frequented? Really, anything you might know would help.”

Felicia was quiet for several moments as she steadied herself. She stood, smoothed a hand over her workout gear, and brushed the hair out of her face before pointing a finger first at
Micki, “You,” then at Mort, “and you.” She turned to the two-way and pointed. “And however many yous are back there.” Felicia slipped her bag over her shoulder. “You can all go fuck yourselves. The answer is I’ve never seen Trixie before I saw her mug shot on the front page of yesterday’s paper.” She pointed to the file of crime scene photos. “You have no right traumatizing me. Leading me to think Ingrid was out for revenge. No right at all.” She threw her head back in a defiant move Mort was confident she rehearsed often in front of her bedroom mirror. “You have any questions for me, speak to my attorney.”

She crossed the room, threw open the door, and stormed out.

When the echoes of her footsteps disappeared, Jimmy entered. “Now, that, my friends, is what I call entertainment.” He tossed four thick envelopes on the table.

“Not one for subtlety, is she?” Micki turned to Mort. “I’ll follow up. See if she has an alibi for the time Vogel was killed. We meeting at your place for the game?”

Mort nodded. “I don’t see why not. Trixie’s not going anywhere and whoever killed Vogel’s not apt to go on a spree. Swing by around six-thirty. Bring beer.”

After she left, Jimmy sat on the edge of the table and gave his friend a long appraisal. “You sure you’re up for entertaining tonight?”

Mort pointed to the envelopes. “What do you have there?”

“What you wanted for your meet with Trixie. Took the team most of the day to gather this stuff.” Jimmy shoved the stack aside. “I’m on this, Mort. Like you said, the bad guys are either locked up or laying low. Go home. I’ll get with Mick and we’ll catch the game at the Crystal.”

Mort hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he was teetering on the side of a very steep cliff. His only daughter. Living with a drug lord. Sharing intimate details of her life with a thug like LionEl King. He wondered if Allie missed Robbie’s little girls. If she knew her mother was dead. If she had any idea how desperate he was to tell her to just come home.

He reached for the top envelope and scanned the first few items. “My house. Six-thirty. You bring the pizzas. I’m calling Larry, so make sure one’s that chicken and potato thing he likes.” He knew he could count on Jimmy not to push the topic further. “I’ll swing by the jail, have a chat with Trixie.”

Jimmy waited until Mort reached for the second envelope to leave.

“Where have you been?” Trixie cooed when Mort entered the interview room. “You bring that bottle of Pinot?”

Mort set an evidence box beside him. He took a seat across the table from the woman who’d killed and mutilated at least eight men and meant his son to be number nine.

“No hello, Mort?” Trixie struggled to look relaxed despite the heavy chains anchoring her wrists to the table and feet to the floor. “Is that any way to greet a lady?”

He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “You want me to call you Connie? Or would you prefer Constance?”

He enjoyed watching her pose of superiority melt away. He reached into the box, pulled out a high school yearbook, and turned to the first of several pages marked with yellow tabs.

“Constance White. Graduate of Madison West High School. Here’s a picture of you, Connie, standing next to your French teacher.” He flipped the book and Trixie’s eyes locked onto the twenty-year-old black-and-white photo.

“Your hair’s a different color, of course, and you’re a much healthier weight now, but there’s no mistaking that face.” Mort swung the book back around. “You had the face of an angel, Connie. Shame what you’ve grown into.”

“Where did you get that?” Trixie yanked at her chains. “I have a right to know.”

“You’d be surprised how few rights you have.” He turned to the next marked page. “And you’d also be surprised what we know about you. No more secrets.” He showed her another yearbook page. “For example, right here where all the other spirit-minded West High Regents have their senior photos, you don’t have one. What was it? Avoiding any photo trail even as a teenager? Or was it that your mama didn’t feel like shelling out the cost?”

Her jaw flinched. A faint shine of sweat moistened her upper lip. Mort flashed on Robbie, unconscious in the back of that Camry, and didn’t worry about offering her a tissue to wipe it away.

“Must have been tough for a pretty girl to go so unrecognized.” Mort set the yearbook aside and pulled a file out of the box. “Must have been even tougher having a whore for a mother.” He opened the file and read. “Stella White. A.k.a. Stella Black. A.k.a. Stella Rose.” He paused. “Not very creative, was she?” He flipped through pages. “Busted eleven times for solicitation by the Madison PD. Even longer rap sheet in Chicago. Couple of shoplifting entries, two petty thefts. If my math’s right, your mother plied her trade all the while you were growing
up.” He tossed the file on top of the yearbook. “Madison’s an academic town. Lots of overly involved parents making sure their kids excel. Mommy’s career couldn’t have made you very welcome at birthday parties.”

Connie swallowed hard. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“Wrong again. I know your mother was killed when a Madison Metro bus backed up and smashed her head into the pavement. City handed you a check for three hundred fifty thousand dollars five months after you graduated high school. That what you been living on? How you’ve been able to avoid a work record?”

Connie lifted her chin, recovering a bit of her earlier swagger. “You’d be surprised how easy it is for a good-looking woman to find men willing to take care of her.”

LionEl’s description of Allie and the drug lord flared. Mort forced himself back to the moment. “You slipped up, Connie. We have your fingerprints now. DNA. You’ve been in custody, what? Little more than twenty-four hours?” He sifted through sheets of paper. “You may not have been popular back in Madison, but a whole lot of people want to get next to you now. Here’s an invitation from Wheeling, West Virginia. Seems your prints were all over the Dairy Queen bathroom where a local prom queen was found stabbed seventeen years ago.” He glanced up. “You would have been a teenager yourself. Was that your first? Maybe getting even with all those kids who didn’t have time for you back in Wisconsin?” He shifted to another sheet. “The honor of your presence is also requested in Corpus Christi. Four prostitutes got their throats slit nine years ago. What was that? Mom stuff? Trail went cold when the fingerprints at the scene matched nothing in the databases. Man, I know that feeling.” He shook his head. “They give the needle in Texas, Connie. And those Rangers don’t stop till there’s someone to shove it into.” Mort leaned in. “Did that scare you? That why you changed your M.O.? Did you think you’d throw us all for a loop switching from knives to rope?” Mort set the reports aside. “We got you now, Trixie. Tell me where the next fax is going to come from.”

She said nothing. The smallest smile tugged at her full lips.

“You think it’s over?” Her smile blossomed. “Remember that bet I made you? A thousand dollars I’d never see the inside of a prison? What do you say we make it more interesting? Say … ten thousand. Can you cover that, Mort?”

“You threatening suicide? That your way out?” Mort returned his items to the box and called for the guard. “We have you so locked down you won’t be able to hiccup without ten monitors going off. You’re not leaving this life until you’ve memorized every square inch of a very small concrete cell.”

Three armed escorts entered the room. Two held Connie’s arms while the third unlocked her chains from the floor and the desk. Connie ignored them as they pulled her to her feet.

“You like movies, Mort?” She turned her head and laughed when he ignored her. “Get
ready for the final scene.”

Lydia bent on one knee, held Maizie’s hands, and looked her square in the eye. “You can do this. You’ve done tougher.”

Maizie looked over her shoulder. “But there’s so many of them.”

Lydia glanced into the reading room of the Langley library. Nine kids, mostly girls, chattered and picked their spots as a woman dressed in flowing velvet robes called them in for story time.

“I don’t like being read to.” Maizie focused on her feet. “Can’t we just go for a walk and have a picnic?”

“You like it fine when I read to you.” Lydia ran a finger comb through Maizie’s tangle of curls. “Besides, it might be fun to hang with kids your own age, huh? Do you know any of them?”

“That one in the green slicker was in my grade. I saw her eat paste once.”

“And I’ve seen you lick ice cream off a rock. Already you two have something in common.” She spun the girl around and gave her a gentle nudge. “Try it, kiddo. I’ve got a special lunch packed. You give this a go and we’ll hike anywhere you want.”

Maizie looked unsure. She shifted her attention to the mothers saying their goodbyes.

“Can you stay?”

Lydia squeezed Maizie’s shoulder. “This is just for kids.” She pointed across the library. “I’ll be right there. Come tell me all about it when you’re done, okay?”

Maizie mumbled a halfhearted agreement and shuffled into the room. She chose a spot removed from the other kids and looked back when the storyteller urged her forward. Lydia nodded encouragement and stayed until Maizie leaned in, captured by the talented velvet-robed lady’s tale.