Deadly Guild (Detective Sarah Spillman Mystery Series Book 3)

by Renee Pawlish

  “Oh, good Lord,” I muttered.

  “Listening to police scanners,” Todd said.

  “That’s Deborah North, from Channel Seven,” Ernie said. “I swear, she has some kind of homing device that attracts her to the dark deeds in the underbelly of the city.” Sarcasm oozed like oil from his voice.

  I stared at him. “That’s very poetic, in a disturbing way.”

  He didn’t laugh, just continued to frown at the news people. “I hear she’s ladder-climbing, but this story won’t help her. It’s a prostitute: no one cares. It won’t make the nightly news. The best she can hope for is the noon broadcast.”

  Ernie went to tell the reporters to move back around the building where they couldn’t see, and Todd got to work. I was about to join him when Spats came around the corner of the motel and waved as he approached.

  “Speelmahn,” he said with a big grin. Why he pronounced my name like that, I’ll never know. “Rizzo let you take this one?” he asked. Spats usually wore a suit and tie, but now he was uncharacteristically dressed down in khakis and a polo shirt. He had gotten his odd nickname from a former partner who thought the style of suits and ties Spats wore were reminiscent of a gangster from the Thirties, the type with flashy clothes, wing-tip shoes, and yes, spats. I’d seen Spats wear the flashy clothes and even wing-tip shoes, but never spats. And I rarely saw him as casual as he was now.

  I nodded. “What’s going on with the motel manager?”

  Irritation flashed in his eyes. “I’ve been talking to him. Well,” he threw up his hands. “He doesn’t want to say much. I started asking him questions, and then he was interrupted with a phone call, and he made me wait. Can you believe that? When I finally got back to questioning him, he just kept telling me he didn’t know there was a problem until the cops arrived, that he didn’t see or hear anything, and no one told him about a body out back. He went to look and saw the woman, but he had to get back to the office. I haven’t run across anybody that obstinate in a long time.”

  Ernie had sidled up. “Obstinate. Now that’s a good word.”

  “Yeah, it’s from my word-of-the-day calendar.” Spats smirked.

  “Let’s stay focused,” I said. Inside though, I was feeling good. I missed this kind of banter.

  “I tried with the guy, but he’s staying tight-lipped,” Spats went on.

  “Distrust of the police?” Ernie asked.

  “I think he’s from somewhere in the Middle East,” Spats said.

  “So much government and police corruption there, so it doesn’t surprise me you got the reaction you did.” I pointed over my shoulder. “Spats, you take over here. The forensics team is working the area, and I don’t think they’ll find much. Do you have a portable fingerprint kit with you?” He nodded. “Get prints of the vic so we can run them through the system, see if we can ID her. And the coroner should be here soon. Then we can get the body out of here.”

  “It’s obvious how she was killed,” Ernie said. “The coroner’s just a formality now.”

  I gestured at him. “Let’s talk to the manager.”

  Spats nodded. “I’ll handle things here. Good luck with that guy.”

  Ernie and I started toward the front of the motel, then I turned around. “What’s his name?”

  “Ahmed.” Spats spelled it. “He’s got a thick accent. I hope you can understand him better than I could.”

  Ernie hefted up his pants and we headed to the motel office. On the way, Ernie pulled a cheap cigar from his coat pocket, bit off the end of it, and jammed it into the corner of his mouth. He rarely ever smokes the cigars, just chews on them.

  “I thought you were quitting,” I said.

  He shrugged. “It’s hit-and-miss. Right now I need to think, and the cigar helps me.”

  I had heard that before. As far as I was concerned, if it kept him focused, I was fine with the cigar.

  “How do you want to play this?” he asked. “I don’t think good cop bad cop is a good approach, if he’s fearful of the police.”

  “True. Why don’t you take the lead, be nice. I’ll hold back and see what he does. Let’s hope he doesn’t get obstinate.”

  “Obstinate.” He wagged his head. “Word of the day.”

  I grinned. Then Deborah North stalked toward us as we neared the front, and my smile vanished. She shoved a microphone in my face, and her cameraman focused on me.

  “What can you tell us about the body found in back of the motel?” she said in a serious tone.

  “No comment,” I said.

  “Who was the victim?”

  “No comment,” I repeated.

  I rarely said anything to the press unless instructed by Rizzo to do so. The department had people to handle the press. If I talked, it would only lead to trouble. Deborah pleaded one more time for something, and Ernie growled at her and told her to back off. She finally stepped away from us.

  At the front of the motel, the neon sign above the office doorway lit up the sidewalk. We walked inside where a dark-complexioned man sat at a stool behind a counter. An old coffeemaker and cups sat on a small table in the corner. Loud music blared from a laptop nearby, something with a Middle Eastern flare with strings and percussion. When he saw us, he frowned. He quickly tamped out a cigarette and waved away smoke.

  “I don’t want trouble,” he said. As Spats had said, his accent was thick.

  Ernie pointed at the laptop and spoke loudly to be heard over the music. “Would you mind turning that down?”

  Ahmed quickly complied and tapped the laptop. The music abruptly stopped, the silence refreshing.

  Ernie eased up to the counter and smiled. “Ahmed, right?” Now his voice was soft, no threat in it.

  The man nodded, ran a hand over curly dark hair turning gray, and stood up. He was tall, probably at least six-six, and bigger than he had seemed when he was perched on the chair. Ernie looked up at him, then made a motion with his hand. “Nah, sit down, make yourself comfortable. I’m Detective Moore, and this is Detective Spillman.”

  Ahmed eyed him, then sank slowly back onto the stool.

  Ernie put an elbow on the counter. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “I tell that other man, I don’t know anything,” Ahmed said.

  Ernie nodded knowingly,

  “I hate to bother you again, but the thing is,” Ernie said, “we need to have some questions answered.” He drew in a breath and let it out noisily, as if he didn’t want to talk to Ahmed at all. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble, and I’d like to get out of here myself, go have a cup of coffee.”

  Ahmed glanced at the coffeemaker, but didn’t offer any to us. “I tell other man everything.”

  “Which was what?”

  Ahmed remained quiet. Ernie glanced at me, and I stepped forward.

  “I think we’ll be able to wrap up our investigation quickly, as long as we know what went on. It looks like that woman’s body was dumped in the alley. However, if she was killed in one of the rooms, I’ll have to get a forensics team to go through every room with a fine-toothed comb. That could take a lot of time and attract a lot of attention.”

  That touched a nerve. Ahmed didn’t want any attention himself, and I’m sure he knew that whoever owned the motel wouldn’t want the attention, either.

  “I only know what other police tell me,” Ahmed said. “A woman is dead out back. That’s it.”

  I didn’t buy it. I made a show of looking around the tiny office. The walls cried out for a coat of paint, the Formica counter had pieces peeling from it, and two chairs next to the door were threadbare. The overhead light was dim, but it couldn’t hide the despair throughout the room.

  I put my hands on the counter and immediately regretted it. I removed my hands, subtly wiped grime off them, and put them in my pockets. “Did you know the woman, the one in the parking lot?”

  “The dead one?” Ahmed pointed out the door. “I told other man I don’t see or hear anything until cop cars arrive.”


  I nodded slowly. “You did go out back to look, so you saw her?”

  He shook his head. “Just her hair. She’s a blond. Lots of women around here are blond.”

  “You didn’t recognize her clothes or shoes?”

  Another head shake. He crossed his arms. “I tell the truth.”

  Ernie took a turn, his manner still easygoing. “Have you heard the name Pixie?”

  Ahmed’s eyebrows shot up. “That is who it is?”

  “Describe her to us,” Ernie said.

  Ahmed hesitated. “I don’t know her good. A lot of women come and go.”

  “Give it a shot,” I said.

  “She have the blond hair.” He raised a hand to his own head, as if running his hand through longer hair. “She skinny, too. Like so many that come here, she don’t look good.”

  His description probably fit a lot of women that hung around the motel. “What else?” I asked. “Anything to set her apart from other women?”

  He pointed at the inside of his left wrist. “She have a tattoo there. I can’t tell what it is, a rose, maybe.”

  Ernie and I exchanged a glance. Ahmed caught it.

  “It is her,” he said.

  “What do you know about her?” I asked.

  He gave me a blank look. “I know nothing.”

  Ernie’s easygoing manner slipped a little. “You have to know something about her. What’s her last name?”

  “Dust.”

  Ernie scowled. “What?”

  The look on my face must’ve been priceless. “Her name is Pixie Dust,” I said skeptically.

  Ahmed hesitated. “That’s how I know her. They don’t use real names.”

  Ernie laughed at the name. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Ahmed shrugged. “These women, they don’t want people to know them.”

  “You’ve never heard her called by any other name?” I asked.

  Ahmed glanced between us. “Tell me,” I pressed him. He knew more. “And we’ll let you finish your shift in peace.”

  He held up his hands. “I think one time I hear another girl call her Nicole.”

  “No last name?” Ernie said.

  Ahmed shook his head. “I tell you, I don’t know any of them. Usually men pay for a room, and they stay for a little while. Later on, I see women leave the rooms, go back to the street, and the men drive away. You know how it is.”

  “What about a woman with a scarred face and black hair?”

  He shook his head and averted his eyes, and I could tell he knew her.

  “Tell me about her,” I said.

  “She around, that’s all.” He clamped his jaw shut.

  “What about the other girls around here?” Ernie asked. “Do you have names of anybody else we could talk to, someone who might know more about Pixie or this other woman?”

  Ahmed hesitated, and I gave him a sympathetic look. “She was murdered. Don’t you want to find out what happened to Pixie? Don’t you want justice for the poor girl?”

  Ahmed wasn’t moved by that. “I don’t want trouble.”

  “Then help us out,” I said, equally as matter-of-fact.

  He shook his head. “I stay out of it.” He gestured at the door. “I let them do their thing, I don’t pay attention. It’s better for them, for me.”

  “So you won’t give us names of other women who come around here?” I asked.

  Ahmed stared at me blankly.

  Ernie took a turn with Ahmed. “Don’t you know anything about Pixie? Does she have family, friends?”

  His face remained expressionless. “I don’t know.”

  Ernie tapped the counter. “Was she in any kind of trouble? Did someone want to hurt her, you know, like enemies?”

  “Enemies?” he asked. Then he answered his own question. “How would I know that? I don’t talk to her, I just see her around.”

  “Did she drive here? Take a bus?” Ernie fired off the questions.

  “I don’t know,” Ahmed repeated.

  “You don’t know much,” Ernie said sarcastically, his cool gone.

  Ahmed blinked at him. “No.” He wasn’t insulted by it, he knew it was better to not know.

  “Did you hear anything?” I asked again. “A gunshot?” A head shake. “Did you see someone or a car that made you suspicious?”

  Ahmed tapped the laptop. “I have music on, and I read.”

  If he had heard or seen things, he was accustomed to not making note of it. It was better for him to stay out. I wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth, so I continued to press him, hoping if I rattled him, he might give us some answers.

  “Do you know if Pixie went to a room with anyone tonight?”

  Ahmed shook his head. “I don’t know she’s around until this whole thing.” He frowned. “You can’t look in rooms, okay? It will scare customers away.”

  “Not right now.” I’d have to get a warrant to search rooms, and I didn’t have reason enough to ask for one. I had no idea whether Pixie had been in a room or not.

  “Is there anybody she sees regularly?” Ernie asked.

  Ahmed shrugged. “I don’t pay attention.”

  “And even if you did, you wouldn’t tell us, right? That way you stay out of trouble, you stay safe,” I said. He didn’t respond to that. “I get it, but I wish you’d help us. That girl has a family who needs to know what happened.”

  Ahmed locked eyes with me, and even though I’d tried appealing to him emotionally, we both knew I was right: The less he knew or said, the better off he would be. If word got around that the manager talked to the police or anyone else, customers would vanish. A place like this stayed in business by being safe for all the illegal activity that went on.

  “I don’t want trouble,” Ahmed said. “I can tell you no more. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” I repeated, then shook my head. “This poor woman deserves your help.” One final try that went nowhere. His expression didn’t change. Ernie and I glanced at each other. At this point, we were wasting our time.

  “What’s your contact information, in case we need to talk to you again?” I pulled out a little notepad. I was old-fashioned and didn’t use my phone to take notes.

  Ahmed told me his last name, and he gave me his address and phone number. I thanked him for his time, and Ernie and I headed out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  “Oh, thank you,” I said as Ernie brought a cup of coffee to me.

  “We’re going to need it.” He sat down at his chair, and the chair did its usual squawking at his bulk. He pulled himself up to his desk and logged onto his computer. He bit into one of the breakfast burritos that he’d bought from a vendor outside the station, and talked as he chewed. “Let’s see what we can find on Pixie Dust. We won’t get very far without knowing who she really is, and we can’t contact any next of kin, either.”

  “Lord, you’d think she could’ve picked a better name than that,” I said. I unwrapped one of the breakfast burritos he’d given me, and bit into it. I was famished, and it tasted delicious, with plenty of jalapenos and cheese.

  “Like Bambi?”

  I raised eyebrows. “Choosing an orphaned deer? His mother was shot, you know.”

  “And why would a female prostitute choose a male name?”

  “Good point, unless it’s a male prostitute?”

  Ernie looked down his nose at me. “You ever hear of a male prostitute named Bambi?”

  “Um, no. It should be Bam-bo for a guy, something like that.”

  He laughed. “Oh, it’s good to have you back.”

  After we had finished questioning Ahmed, we’d left Spats along with the officers to canvass the neighborhood to see if anybody had seen or heard anything suspicious near the motel, and to see if anyone had information about Pixie Dust. They were also going to find out what they could on the woman with the scarred face, and on Steve Gibson and Madison McCann. The Easy Bar wasn’t open yet, but I’d have someone follow up on that
later to verify that Steve and Madison were there when they said they were. Even though it was the middle of the night, time was critical. I didn’t envy Spats having to wake people up, but it had to be done.

  In the meantime, Ernie had stopped at the gas station where the 911 call had originated. The man working the counter had told him a woman with a scarred face had come in and begged to use the phone. The man let her, but he denied knowing who she called. Ernie tried to get the surveillance video, but the employee said he didn’t know how to operate the equipment, and that he’d have to check with his boss before he could let the police view the video. I put that on a list of things to follow up on in the light of day.

  I had wrapped up with the crime scene techs, who hadn’t found anything noteworthy in the parking lot. The coroner had preliminarily determined that the woman had died from the gunshot wounds. As we thought, he also surmised as we had that she may have been killed somewhere else and dumped in the parking lot. Beyond that, he wouldn’t say much. It was typical of a coroner not to make conclusions. I’d have to wait for a full autopsy to know more. After he had left, I had come back to the station to see what we could learn about Pixie Dust. Ernie was working his way through a couple of breakfast burritos while he went through our arrest records, searching for women with the alias Pixie Dust, who had a strawberry tattoo. I was investigating Steve and Madison. I typed Steve’s name into a database and immediately found arrest records.

  “Well, shocker,” I said. “Steve has been picked up several times, mostly for petty drug charges, and he also has a few petty theft charges.” Ernie glanced at me. “No gun charges?”

  I shook my head. “If either was the killer, they could’ve easily bought a stolen gun.”

  “True.”

  Some other detectives walked by, just beginning their day, and I waved at them, then turned back to my computer. “Madison doesn’t have an arrest record; she’s clean.”

  Ernie snorted. “Well, clean of charges, maybe. That woman had a serious relationship with drugs.”

  My laugh held no humor. “No doubt about that.” I sat back in my chair and finished the burrito. “Back to Steve and Madison. I don’t figure either one of them as murderers. I do think they know more than they’re telling.”