by J K Franko
She would have to have acted fast, but the bleeding would have been manageable given that the man was already dead—no heart pumping blood to all extremities. Whatever the case, that was the only point at which she could have done it.
What the fuck, Suze?
There were other possibilities, but none seemed likely.
One was unthinkable. That Harlan’s body had somehow been recovered, and the penis removed. Unlikely, but not impossible.
Another possibility—which he hoped was the case—was that it was simply someone else’s dick. Someone taking advantage of the disappearance to send a message. But who knew that the boy was missing? And where the hell would you get a human dick? A morgue?
It could possibly belong to an animal of some kind. Were there common animals with dicks like humans? Maybe a sheep. Roy had heard about farmers screwing sheep because their vaginas were approximately the size of a woman’s vagina—in England, Ireland, Arkansas—these things happened, right? Roy knew this bordered on the absurd, but the other options were so improbable that he continued the train of thought.
If sheep vaginas were the size of human vaginas, it stood to reason that sheep dicks were approximately the size of human dicks. Maybe it was a sheep dick that had gotten nailed to the senator’s door?
He had absolutely no idea.
If it was Harlan’s dick, and Susie had removed it, there was a bigger question to be answered. How had she gotten it onto Harlan’s front door? It was impossible for her to have gone to Austin and back without him knowing. That meant that she would have had to have an accomplice in Austin. The most likely options there were Tom and Deb Wise. Who else would be motivated enough to risk nailing the dick to the senator’s front door? Who else would want to?
When Roy got home, Susie was in the dining room working at her laptop.
“Hey, babe,” she greeted him without looking up.
Roy watched her, but she didn’t look up to meet his gaze. She just kept tapping at her laptop.
“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked.
Susie paused her typing and looked up at him. He noted the look of concern on her face, and of understanding. She’d seen the news. She knew that he knew. And she had done it.
Shit, thought Roy. That’s not a sheep dick.
Roy glared at her. “I’m going to change.”
While he was upstairs changing, Susie came into the bedroom. Her body language was conciliatory.
“Sorry?” she offered.
“How the fuck could you, Suze?”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me. So, I figured I’d ask for forgiveness rather than for permission.”
Roy sat down on the bed. He rubbed his temples with both hands. “Have you got any fucking idea what you’ve done? Do you know what this means?” he asked, voice quivering with anger. “It’s going to accelerate everything. Now they know they’ve got a murder on their hands. Or, they will as soon as they confirm it’s his.”
Susie leaned up against the wall, arms akimbo.
“They’re going to turn up the heat on this whole investigation. He’s a senator’s fucking son, for Christ’s sake! They’re going to start identifying suspects. That means they start looking into Harlan’s last days, which means they’re going to start looking into David. And by association, that means Cruise Capital and me.”
“Babe, you planned the perfect crime,” Susie began, her voice calm, as if her husband hadn’t just told her that she’d put the whole plan at risk. “There is no way they’re going to get to us. Having the dick appear in Austin just confuses things even more. Think of it that way. It sends a message. It ties it all back to the rape. Who else would nail his dick to his dad’s front door? And what do we have to do with the rape? Nothing. If anything, it takes the attention away from us. Misdirection.”
She was probably right about that, but Roy was in no mood to make concessions.
“When did you decide to do it? How?” He glared at her.
This is where she had decided she would have to lie, a bit.
“Deb Wise called me. She had my contact info from Colorado. She called me from a payphone about a month ago. She wanted to apologize, for Tom—for both of them. She said that they’d been out of line. Too much stress. I told her not to worry about it. And I got her address. I told her I’d be sending her a package. That she’d know what it was and what to do with it.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“No, Roy. It’s true.”
“You’re telling me that this was your idea. That you, what—FedExed the guy’s fucking dick to Austin...”
“UPS. It was cheaper, and they didn’t ask about the contents. And I used a fake name. Paid cash.”
“Fine, you UPSed the dick to Austin, and you had no idea what she’d do with it? You just hoped for the best?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“Did you send a card, too? ‘With love, from the Cruises?’”
Susie laughed but she noticed that her husband was not amused. This didn’t surprise her. It was exactly what she’d expected.
“Look, Suze. I may not be the brightest guy in the world. And I know I have a blind spot when it comes to you. But this is one hundred percent bullshit.” He paused. “Why the fuck are you lying to me? Don’t you know that I would do anything for you? Hasn’t this whole mess proven that? What more do you need, Susie? I thought we were a team.”
There was genuine pain in her husband’s eyes, but she didn’t feel compelled to put her arms around him. It was best to wait it out.
Roy stood. “This whole thing is starting to stink. Right back from the beginning. Now I’m starting to wonder about all of it. We meet this woman ‘by chance’ in Colorado, and her husband asks us ‘by chance’ to kill someone for them. Out of the fucking blue!
“You push me and push me until I finally agree to do it. Then you insist on killing him before we throw him in the ocean—ice pick or Hefty. Because ‘we’ should do it, not the ocean!
“Then, she calls you out of the blue again, a month before we do the deed, and you ask her for her address, and tell her she’ll be getting a surprise package? And it’s all just a coincidence?
“Come on, Susie. Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”
He headed for the bedroom door but stopped in the doorway and looked at her. “You know,” he began, voice shaking with something Susie didn’t recognize, “after everything. Everything we’ve built. Everything we’ve been through. After Camilla. After this whole Harlan mess. I deserve better.”
With that he was gone, leaving her gaping after him.
Susie remained motionless for a while as she processed what she’d just heard.
Shit. She wanted a cigarette. He was right. She’d have to come clean. She needed to tell him more. Not everything. She wouldn’t tell him everything about her relationship with Deb. That was too much.
Still, she needed to clear the air.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Tom Wise was driving home. He had been on a construction site all day with a large crew, and with crappy cell reception. As he turned onto MoPac, his phone rang.
He frowned, sighed, and then answered. As he did, he unscrewed the top on a container of Pepcid chewable antacids and popped two more. Lately, these things were his main source of calories.
“Hello.”
“Hello, darlin’,” Deb answered.
“Hi, Deb. Finally on my way home.”
“Great. Traffic alright?”
“Not too bad, yet. We’ll see when I get to 290.”
Deb and Tom lived in an area called Tarrytown, located just west of downtown Austin; it’s an upscale neighborhood that is about eighty percent renovated or rebuilt. The remaining twenty percent is still original 1940s vintage. Tarrytown is locked between State Highway 1 on the east (which runs parallel to
the Missouri-Pacific rail lines, and which everyone calls MoPac) and the Colorado River to the west. Traffic into Tarrytown at rush hour is, consequently, hellish.
“Sounds good, Tommy. You hungry? I hope so, ‘cause I’ve got roast filet for dinner.”
Deb’s roasted filet mignon was a specialty.
“Yep. Always got room for filet.”
The two were dancing around the conversation topic that they both wanted to address. They were both just too cautious to discuss it explicitly by phone.
They had both been up since 4:00 a.m., though it was Tom who’d made the special delivery to the Harlan address. He had dressed in running clothes, then driven to Westlake and parked by Red Bud Isle—no security cameras, and about a ten-minute jog from the Harlan house. He’d worn a small fanny pack in which he’d carried a Ziploc with all that remained of Joe Harlan Jr. The fanny pack also contained two powder-free latex gloves, a small pin hammer, and two extra two-inch box nails, just in case.
Harlan Sr. was an early riser who left home for the office at 5:15 a.m. every day. Tom and Deb had gleaned this from an online article from a few years back profiling the senator, which made a point of the fact that he arrived at his office every morning before 7:00 a.m. after swimming at the Y.
The Wises simply backed into what time the senator would have to leave home in order to keep to that schedule. Then, Tom had gone running by the Harlan house on two occasions to confirm their estimate. He had seen the senator’s black BMW 7 Series make the turn onto Forest View Drive both times at about 5:20 a.m. He’d hoped that today would be no different.
It hadn’t been.
The senator had turned onto Forest View a little early, at 5:17 a.m. Once his car was out of sight, Tom put on the latex gloves (inconspicuous flesh-colored) and jogged down the street. Then, he casually walked up to the senator’s front door, opening the fanny pack as he approached. He’d unzipped the Ziploc, and, when he reached the door, brought out the penis in one hand and the hammer in the other. He had prepared for the moment by putting a two-inch box nail through the organ in advance, at the same time they had written “4 Kristy” on it.
He had positioned the trophy against the thick wooden door and given the nail two solid whacks. Then, he’d turned away, placing the hammer in the fanny pack, removing and placing the latex gloves next to it. After that, he continued his run. The whole maneuver had taken less than fifteen seconds.
Given the skill with which Tom executed this task, it would be easy to think that he had relished it. The reality was quite different. Tom wasn’t happy about the stunt. It seemed excessive to him. But Deb had insisted. He’d reluctantly complied, but was now sulking, trying to strike the fine balance between letting his wife know he was unhappy while at the same time trying not to piss her off.
The filet was her feeble attempt at an apology.
“So, everything good otherwise?” he asked.
“Yep,” Deb answered. “All good, Tommy. All very good.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Detective Art Travers texted his counterpart in Miami on Monday morning. The DNA results were back. They’d scheduled a phone call for later that afternoon.
“Go for Eddie.”
“Hey Eddie, it’s Travers. How’s it going?”
“Good. Good. Got a lot of good stuff here. Been working this baby hard! You?”
“We’ve made progress.”
“Cool. Hey, listen. I’m putting you on speaker ‘cause I got Rosa here with me—she’s still helping out some.” Art noted the change in audio when Eddie switched to speaker—more echo.
“Hi, Rosa.”
“Hello, Art,” the female voice echoed back.
“Okay. So, I’ll start,” Travers said. “The DNA is back. Positive. It’s Harlan’s penis. So, it’s definitely a homicide. The ink on the dick is just standard Sharpie permanent marker. The cut at the stump was clean. A sharp knife, probably. Interestingly, they also found traces of fish DNA and sea salt. So, probably a fishing knife.”
“Sh-it. So, he gets killed here,” Eddie said, “dick gets cut off and sent to Austin. Someone writes ‘4 Kristy’ on it in Sharpie, and nails it to the senator’s front door.”
“Yep. Well, that’s one scenario,” Travers answered. “There’s no way to tell if it was cut off when he was alive or dead. The cut was clean, like I said, meaning he likely wasn’t struggling, but he could have been drugged.”
“Okay. What else you got?”
“Now, come on Eddie, I showed you mine. Time for you to show me yours, right?” Travers asked with a smile, knowing the detective would appreciate the humor.
They were working the case together; they didn’t have a choice due to jurisdiction and geography. So, there was no real reason to get territorial. But old habits died hard.
“Sure. I’m not shy,” Eddie answered. “We got Harlan landing in Miami more or less on time per American Airlines. Then, we’ve got him on the hotel’s security camera a few times.
“We’ve got him at 2:27 p.m. at check-in. The airport’s about twenty minutes from the Intercontinental Hotel. There are no credit card transactions for transportation. So, he probably took a taxi. Probably paid cash.
“Then, we’ve got him leaving the hotel again at 4:14 p.m.
“Coming back to the hotel at 5:25 p.m.
“And we’ve got him leaving the hotel one last time at 5:47 p.m.
“That’s everything we have of Harlan on video. From that point on, there’s nothing related to him or the case until when the hotel manager let Detective Pérez into the room.”
“Okay,” Travers said. “That’s consistent with the credit card info we got. We’ve got him in an Uber from the hotel to Brickell City Centre at 4:12 p.m. He goes to Saks and buys a pair of boat shoes at 4:58 p.m. Then takes an Uber back to the hotel at 5:11 p.m.
“Boat shoes? Eddie—pull up that last video,” Rosa said. “The last time he leaves the hotel.” There was silence for a few moments.
“What do y’all see?” Travers asked, wondering what they were looking at.
“Hold on,” Eddie said.
Travers heard them talking on the line. Eddie asking Rosa, in a low voice, “What do you think?”
“Could be—definitely changes shoes—not what he was wearing in the prior video,” she responded.
Eddie said, “Looks like he may be wearing the boat shoes when he heads out. Hold on.” Travers heard paper shuffling. “Yeah, there’s no boat shoes listed on the inventory from the hotel room, either. We got a pair of Pumas and some loafers, dress shoes. No shoe box, either. Maybe housekeeping made a pass before we got there. I’ll check.”
“Okay. Good. So, he buys the shoes, then wears them to go out. What else?”
“That’s it. Depending on what we decide today, we’ll start canvassing. See if we can find any eyewitnesses,” Eddie answered.
“Okay. So, we went through his phone records. Some useful stuff—fills in some gaps. I’ll go through these in order of occurrence. First, about an hour after he checks in, he calls Sweet Miami.”
“Whoa. Hold on,” Eddie said. “Let me cover Rosa’s ears.”
Rosa rolled her eyes, but said nothing.
“So,” Travers continued, “apparently, he was booking some female company. Then, at 3:44 p.m., we have an incoming call from a Seattle phone number. Call lasts just over one minute.
“A few minutes later, he calls Sweet Miami again. I took the liberty of contacting them. They said they had no record of any calls. I tried to see if they had a booking or a cancelation in his name; they weren’t very cooperative.”
“I bet,” Eddie commented. “I can follow up with them. Although... escort services aren’t known for their record keeping. At least not here in Miami.”
“Great. Then, at 5:40 p.m., we’ve got an outgoing text from Harlan to David Kim.”
“The plot thickens,” Eddie commented.
“The text says: ‘Sorry you can’t make dinner. See you in the morning.’ At 7:57 p.m., Kim responds: ‘Joe. Did you mean to text me? What dinner? See you at 10.’
“We tried to get location data from the carrier, but Harlan had location services turned off. Normally, that would be unusual, but the guy’s already been accused of rape once. And he’s calling hookers an hour after landing in Miami. So, not that surprising, I guess.
“Also, in between those two text messages, he gets another call from the Seattle number—at 5:56 p.m. This one really short. Less than a minute,” Travers clarified.
“You got anything else on the Seattle number?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah, that’s interesting. We checked Harlan’s contacts by accessing his iCloud data. He had the Seattle phone number listed in his contacts as Marty McCall—the former roommate from Austin. Lives in Seattle now. So far, that makes sense—Seattle number, Seattle resident.
“Then we had the team pull all of Harlan’s iCloud back-up data. That way, we could see when the contact was created. According to his back-up files, that contact was created on May 2, 2018 at 3:47 p.m.—while he was in Miami.”
“So, he’s contacted by McCall for the first time while he’s in Miami?”
“Maybe. But that’s not all. When we checked the back-up data, we found that the contact was not only created that same day, but when it was initially created, he listed the contact as ‘Cruise Captain.’ Later that evening, at 8:12 p.m., the contact was edited to ‘Marty McCall.’”
There was silence on the line.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking. So, is it Cruise, as in Cruise Capital? Or is it Cruise as in a cruise—like a boat, like a cruise ship? There are dinner cruises here in Miami, ‘tour the bay’ kinds of things. There are also major cruise lines. That would put the two together.”
