by Karen Singer
“Shit!” Pierce exclaimed loudly. “Of course she’s involved. Every time I turn around she’s involved. Did you know she somehow managed to piece together a conspiracy that led to her own damn grandfather being murdered? She figured the whole damn thing out on her own. We made the arrests last night and the two people involved admitted everything. So that case is closed. But this morning I find a boat captain with his neck slit, the hotel night manager dead from a knife to his heart, and a little while ago I found a video of two very professional killers having at it with that manager. And to top it all off, the only other thing we found wrong, was Jenni’s room had been not just tossed, but basically destroyed. Thank God she wasn’t in it last night.”
“She wasn’t?” Robbie asked.
“Whoever that was, no! She stayed the night with her aunt instead.”
“Detective Pierce, this is Bosch. Jenni works for me.”
“Yeah, I know. And we talked once before.”
“That’s right. Is Jenni alright? Does she need any help?”
“Not as far as I can see, except of course if she needs something to wear. I’m standing outside her room right now while our crime scene people are in there. They slit the mattresses, and from what they say, they ripped all her clothes apart too.”
“Sounds dumb,” Robbie replied. “Why go to all that trouble?”
“You tell me. I’m just calling it like I see it.”
“Detective Pierce?”
“Yeah?”
“This is Special Agent Conifer with the FBI. You mentioned video of the assault?”
“Oh yeah! It’s not great, but you can’t miss the murder or the guys who did it.”
“Can you send that video up here so we can see it?”
“No problem. Someone from our crime lab should have it. As soon as we get back to Miami, I’ll have them send it up there to Philly. Will that work?”
“Perfectly,” Conifer replied.
“What are you doing down there now Pierce?” Philly asked.
“What am I doing? Trying to figure out what to do about Jenni. I sent the rest of the family out of here earlier, but I still have a few things I need to go over with her about her grandfather’s murder. After that, do I send her home? Or keep her here for another day to make sure there’s no loose ends. Gainesville is a hell of a long way away from here.”
It was Conifer who spoke. “I’m not sure that sending her back home is the best idea right now. After what we just heard went on last night, I suspect that she’ll be in even more danger up here. Someone tried to kill her boss and his wife last night, and they were asking about her!”
“Damn!” Pierce swore. “What the hell is going on?”
“We think it’s all about industrial espionage. And evidently, it was Jenni who figured it out.”
“Jenni figured it out? Before yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed you. Now? I don’t have a doubt in the world. So what do you want me to do with her?”
“Can you keep her safe down there for another day or two so we can look into things here?” Conifer asked.
“I guess so. She’s booked for another night still right here on the island. And since it is an island, she’ll be a lot easier to look after.”
“Makes sense,” Conifer replied. “Do it please. We’ll get back to you.”
“Yeah, you do that. And send me the details about what’s going on, cause I’ve got two related murders on my hands.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
Jenni peered into her hotel room. She couldn’t believe what she saw. Pierce was standing right behind her and a man from the crime lab was there to watch as well. Her Aunt Sally was standing behind all of them. The men who had done this had been looking for her. When they didn’t find her in her room, they had done…that. What would they have done to her if she had been there? She shuddered at the thought.
Very carefully, she took a step into the room. There were large pieces of glass all over the floor where the table and chairs should have been. The table and two chairs were not only knocked over, but the chairs had been thrown into the corner. And…it looked like someone had taken a knife and slit the seats of the chairs. Why? It made no sense!
She turned to face the dresser drawers that had been dumped out onto the floor. She reached down to grab one of her bras. She held it up, not believing what she was seeing. She pulled another one from the floor and stood up, holding them up. “They cut my bras! Why would they do that?”
She knelt down and tried to grab all her underwear that was strewn around her on the floor. Every last piece of it had been cut. “They ruined it all. Everything…is ruined!” And then she found something else, her other set of breast forms…or what was left of them. They too had been cut and sliced into several pieces. After a moment more of searching, she found what was left of her other special panty that held her butt and hips pads. She was down to one set now. And those things were expensive to replace!
Shaking a little, she went to the closet. Empty. But the contents that had been in there weren’t hard to find. They too were slit and cut and thrown on the floor. Even her nice sandals had been cut and ruined. “All my clothes. Everything! It’s all ruined,” she exclaimed. There were tears starting to fall from her eyes as she looked up at Pierce and her aunt. “Why?” she asked. She got no answer.
Crying now, she moved further into the room. The mattresses were both dumped off the bed frame and slit. All the toiletries she had left in the room were either dumped out or destroyed. As far as she could see, the killers had done everything they could to… “Wait a minute,” she said as she started to panic.
She looked through everything on the floor. “Where is it?” She even tried to lift the mattresses. The crime scene man helped her. Nothing! Not there. “Where is it?” she said again, totally panicking now.
“Where’s what?” Pierce asked.
“My computer. My laptop! I need that. I need it for my job. I do everything with it.”
“We didn’t see a computer when we went through the room,” the lab guy confirmed.
“They took it? They took my computer? What am I going to do?”
“What was on it?” Pierce asked.
“All my work stuff. Everything for all the cases I’ve worked. I need that computer to do my job. Without it, I can’t do any of what Mr. B needs me to do. Without it, I can’t get paid. I can’t afford a new one. I can’t afford new clothes. I can’t afford anything!”
Sally rushed forward and pulled Jenni into a hug and let her cry.
“What am I going to do Aunt Sally? I can’t do my job now. I can’t get paid now. I can’t replace my clothes. I don’t know what to do.” She cried bitter, heartbroken tears.
“Easy Jenni,” Sally tried to sooth her. “We’ll have to work it all out one thing at a time.”
“What am I going to do Aunt Sally?” Jenni cried.
“We’ll work through it Jenni,” Sally replied. “It may take a little time, but we’ll work through it.”
Jenni pulled herself away from her aunt and tried to look around again. Everything was such a mess. Everything had been destroyed. She couldn’t figure out why. She looked up at Pierce. “I can’t figure out why they would do something like this. It makes no sense. Were they trying to send a message or something?”
That last question raised Pierce’s eyebrows. “Perhaps, Jenni. Maybe that’s exactly what they were trying to do.”
“What message then? Cause I for sure don’t know. You said earlier that you think it had something to do with a case I had been working on before I left.”
“I don’t know any of the details of what that was,” Pierce told her. “You would know more than I do right now. I’ve asked for them to send me the files, but it will be a while before I get them.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Jenni said. “None of this makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me either, Jenni,” Pierce replied. “Yet! Now I just have to get more
information and find out why.”
He watched as Jenni turned in a circle again, looking at everything. He could see how bewildered she was, and he couldn’t blame her. “Come on out of here now,” he said to her. “Go on back to your aunt’s room.” He turned to Sally. “Can she stay there tonight too?”
“You want us to stay? Still?”
“The FBI asked me to keep an eye on you,” Pierce told them. “And I figure the easiest place to do that is right here on the island. Besides, you’re booked for another night still.”
“The FBI?” Jenni asked. “Where did they come into this?”
“I don’t know Jenni. I only talked with them this morning for a bit.”
Chapter 14
Jenni’s stomach growled. She and her aunt hadn’t eaten much late last night, and then no breakfast at all this morning. Her Aunt Sally had phoned and found out that since Jenni and she were the only ones staying in the hotel now, that most of the hotel staff was being sent home for the day and the restaurant wouldn’t be serving any meals. Instead, they could possibly order something light from the bar at the beach where the bartender would be working that afternoon to remodel part of the bar area. Otherwise, they would have to go off the island to find something. If they wanted something right away, she was told that even though the gift shop wasn’t going to be open today, someone was working in there right now and could help them out. Since the beach bar wasn’t open yet, Jenni volunteered to go down to the gift shop and buy some snacks.
Walking in, she noticed that there was a different woman tending the store now. An older woman. Had the previous one been fired? She hoped not. Jenni lived in fear of not being able to have a job. And now that her laptop had been stolen, she didn’t know what she was going to do. She needed that computer to keep working for Mr. B.
She grabbed several different snacks that she knew both she and her aunt liked. Not a lot, but enough to tide them over for an hour or so until someone would be down at the bar on the beach. She was going to pay for it all, when her eyes spotted something else. She looked around the store. The only other person there was the new woman, and she appeared to be busy with a clipboard and some boxes. Jenni went for a closer look.
Fifteen minutes later, Jenni was knocking on her aunt’s door to let her in.
“You were gone a while,” Sally noted as she let Jenni into the room.
“Yeah well…they’ve got someone new down in the store now. The whole place seems deserted with everyone leaving.”
“Is everyone gone already?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know. Probably. If not, I’m sure they will be soon.”
“We’re alone on a deserted island,” Sally said dramatically.
Jenni giggled. “And not a decent man in sight!”
“I don’t care if he’s decent,” Sally quipped. “In fact, right now, the more indecent the better!”
“Does that mean I’ll have to fight you for him?” Jenni joked.
Sally laughed as she grabbed one of the bags Jenni was carrying. “Two bags?” she noted. “How much did you get?”
“Just a little Aunt Sally,” Jenni replied. She held up the second bag. “Um…I bought a little something for me too.”
“Good for you!” Sally told her.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
It was a very nice house, in a very nice neighborhood, in what he was guessing was one of the nicer parts of the city. Monroe knocked on the door while Conifer waited next to him. After a moment, Monroe knocked again.
“Doesn’t look like they’re home,” Conifer noted.
Monroe shook his head and tried the door. Locked. “Try again later?” he suggested.
Conifer didn’t want to waste the time. He had been told by Proto Dynamic Industries that Fredrick Granger had been suspended, so he wouldn’t be at work. By the look of the house, the guy had money, so he could be anywhere. “Let’s check the back first,” he suggested. “If he’s out there, he wouldn’t hear the door.”
The two agents went around the side of the big house. The pool that came into view in the back seemed like a good possibility to both of them. But after going through the gate, they found no one in the pool. The house seemed quiet. Too quiet. Conifer was sure nobody was home. Before leaving though, Monroe knocked on the back door, then checked the door to see if it was locked. Surprised, he turned to Conifer. “Back door’s open,” he told him.
The two of them cautiously entered the house. “FBI!” Monroe yelled loudly as they entered the kitchen. Silence greeted him in return. “Mr. Granger?” Monroe yelled.
“Wait!” Conifer said as he now noticed something. He walked around to the other side of the kitchen island. There was a woman lying there. Dead.
Both men pulled their guns and started to carefully search the house. They found Frederick Granger’s body in his home office, sitting right behind his desk. A further search of the house found no one else there.
“Someone doesn’t want us looking into that hard drive,” Conifer noted.
“You think?” Monroe agreed.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“Where are we going?” Shirley asked as Robbie drove right past their office and continued on.
“Gun store,” Robbie replied.
“The gun store? What on earth for?”
“To get you a gun. And we’ll probably be spending the rest of the day downstairs on their range where you can take their safety course, and we can both practice shooting.”
“Why?”
“Because we both almost got killed last night. From now on, we’re both going to be carrying.”
“Robbie! I’m not going to walk around town with a gun in my bag. Besides, you know there’s no way I could ever shoot anyone.”
“Shirley, if you had a gun, and if you saw a man pointing his gun at me like that guy did last night, and you knew he was going to kill me, what would you do?”
“I’d shoot him.”
“I rest my case.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“Don’t…laugh!”
It was said so seriously, that Sally almost laughed at the way Jenni had said it. Jenni had disappeared into the bathroom to take a bath and shave her legs a while ago. Now it sounded like something else was going on. “Don’t laugh at what?” she called back through the closed door.
“Me!” Jenni replied.
“Why?” Sally asked.
The door opened, and Jenni walked out. And Sally nearly died. It was all she could do to not laugh. “You bought a bathing suit!”
Jenni said nothing. She just stood there sheepishly. “Well, I figured there was no one else on the island but you and me…except a few of the people who work here. And I don’t care as much about them. So…well…I saw it, and I liked it. So…I bought it.”
“Good for you!” Sally chuckled as she hurried forward and hugged her niece. “It looks very nice on you.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Sally held Jenni at arm’s length as she looked at her in that suit. It was a shiny teal color, one-piece suit. It was obvious that Jenni had left her breast forms out, and there was no way she could use the hip and butt pads she always wore as well. So what she was seeing, was Jenni. The real Jenni. Although to be honest, the real Jenni was the one with the breast, butt, and hip pads that made her look more like a woman. More like herself. But still. “Not too bad, dear,” she told her.
“Thanks,” Jenni replied sheepishly.
“Let me get my suit on and well go to the beach.”
“Thanks Aunt Sally.”
“For what?”
“Not laughing.”
Sally hugged her again. “If I do laugh Jenni, please don’t take it personally. You know how much I love you.”
“Yeah. And I love you too,” Jenni replied.
“Just give me a minute.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
The two men boarded the boat that would take them out to the island again.<
br />
The boat captain shook his head. “More police!” he said as he started the boat engine, knowing they would probably want to get to the island right away. “I’d think you guys would be done by now. Besides, with everyone pretty much gone from the island, I have no idea who’s left for you to talk to.”
“Everyone’s gone?” one of the men asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Everyone?”
“I don’t know,” the captain replied. “Seems like it. I was ferrying a lot of people off this morning. Not many went over.”
The two men looked worriedly at each other. “We still have…things to do there,” one of them said to the Captain.
“Of course,” the Captain replied. “Why else would you be here.”
One of the men merely nodded to him in return. Everyone gone? That wasn’t good. They hadn’t expected that.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
While Sally laid in one of the hotel’s lounge chairs, Jenni chose to sit on a big towel on the sand. She stared out at the water. A few boats went by in the distance, but none of them came near the island. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of construction from the bar area. She ignored it.
Everything seemed surreal. Her entire life seemed surreal. She was still trying to come to grips with the fact that someone had just destroyed most of what she had. Her mind refused to cope with the fact that someone had wanted to kill her. Why? All she had left in the world now were the few things she had brought to her aunt’s room last night. Which was really only a pair of her long shorts and a top. She had those, her nice dress she had been wearing at the time, and a pair of cheap flip flops. Things weren’t really that bad, but it seemed like it. She had other things at home back in Gainesville, but the truth was, she had brought most of her tiny wardrobe with her on this trip. Now that wardrobe was pretty much gone. They had even sliced up her panties and bras. What kind of sick person would do something like that? Were they sending a message? If so, what?
