Deadly Guild (Detective Sarah Spillman Mystery Series Book 3)

by Renee Pawlish

  I ended the call and parked in a space nearby, where I could watch the Hyundai. The man inside had his window rolled down, and rested his elbow on the door. He appeared to be waiting for someone, alternately doing something on his phone and watching the building entrance. I watched for a minute, didn’t feel that he was a threat, so I got out and approached the car. I heard rock music coming from the vehicle as I neared.

  “Chuck?” I asked.

  His head jerked around, and he squinted into the sun. “Do I know you?” He hit a button and the music died.

  I stood by the side of his car and showed him my badge. “Detective Spillman, Denver homicide.”

  His gaze went to the badge, then to the gun on my hip. His jaw dropped, then he looked back toward the building. He started to put his right hand down and I said, “Put your hands where I can see them, on the steering wheel.”

  “I wasn’t doing anything.” His voice warbled as he did as instructed.

  “Let’s just play it safe. What’s your last name?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “Okay, then we’ll go down to the station.”

  “No, I can’t! It’s Ames.”

  I gestured at him. “Let’s see your license.”

  He held up one hand. “May I?” I nodded, and he carefully reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. His hand shook as he handed me his license.

  I confirmed his name and quickly memorized his address. I handed it back.

  “What’s this about?” He dropped his wallet in his lap and put his hand back on the steering wheel. His jaw locked tight.

  “Tell me about the woman at the Princeton Motel.”

  He glanced at me. “Man, my wife is coming out soon. I’m supposed to take her to lunch.”

  I leaned against the car. “You better start talking then. Or, if you’d rather, we could go downtown and talk there.”

  He shook his head quickly. “I don’t know anything.”

  The lie was lame, not to mention unimaginative, and he so obviously looked guilty.

  “The clock is ticking,” I said. “What’s going to happen if your wife comes outside?”

  “Okay, okay.” He threw up his hands, realized what he’d done and placed them back on the steering wheel. “I was with a girl, you know, the other night.” His face went red with embarrassment. “After we had, you know, we were leaving the room and we saw a car stop and dump that girl’s body out. I didn’t want to get involved, so I left.”

  “You left Lola to deal with it.” I couldn’t hide the contempt in my voice.

  “I can’t let my wife find out,” he said. “It’ll destroy my marriage.”

  “You think?”

  He peered through the windshield at the office entrance. “What else do you want to know? Please, I can’t get caught.”

  “You’re telling me the truth? How do I know you and Lola didn’t cook up something and kill Nicole?”

  “Nicole?” He looked puzzled. “Oh, the hooker. It’s preposterous that I would do that. Someone would’ve seen us.”

  I tended to believe him. “Tell me about the car you saw.”

  “It was a black BMW, four doors. It looked newer, a nice car. That’s it.”

  “License plates?”

  He shook his head. “It happened too fast, I didn’t see anything.”

  “What else?”

  He thought for a second. “Someone reached over to close the door, after the body was pushed out. I swear the person I saw was wearing a wig because it kind of got caught in their hoodie, and I saw long gray hair underneath.”

  “What color wig?” I fired the questions at him, not giving him time to think.

  “Black, and curly.”

  “A hoodie?”

  “Yeah, a black one. I didn’t see his face.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know, it was dark.”

  “Was he wearing gloves?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Gloves, that’s right. And I think maybe sunglasses, although I can’t be sure.”

  “You saw his face?”

  “No, just a brief glimpse.”

  “Did you see the interior of the car?”

  He stared at the office building entrance and thought. “There might have been seat covers on it. Like the dashboard was black, the interior of the door was black, but the passenger seat was white. It didn’t fit.” He looked as if that had just occurred to him, and I couldn’t disagree with his logic. Tires screeched, and a horn honked somewhere. Chuck shifted to look at me.

  “Did anybody else see you leave the motel?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe the manager. I was parked on the side of the motel, so he might’ve seen me.”

  I made a mental note to check with Spats to see if he remembered the white Hyundai in any surveillance video.

  “Did you know the dead woman?”

  He shook his head. “I think I’ve seen her around once or twice, but I was never with her. I never talked to her.”

  “Did you see her having an argument last week with another man, shouting and yelling at each other?”

  “No.”

  I crossed my arms and stared at him. “You left Lola to take care of things.”

  He blushed with humiliation. “I know, it was a crappy thing to do. I can’t get caught.” He turned, then gasped. “My wife’s coming,” he hissed.

  A tall slender woman in a gray pant suit emerged from the office building. She had short hair styled to perfection, dangling earrings sparkling in the sun.

  I glanced at Chuck. “Why would you be seeing hookers when your wife looks like that?”

  “Looks aren’t everything,” he muttered. “Can you leave me alone now? I don’t have anything else to tell you.”

  The woman walked up to the car and looked over at me curiously. “Hi,” she said hesitantly.

  I smiled pleasantly at her. “I was just talking to your husband,” I said.

  “Oh.” She opened the car door and glanced inside.

  “I’m sorry. I thought I knew him from high school,” I said. I looked down at Chuck. “I guess I was wrong.”

  “Yeah, guess so.” Chuck didn’t return my gaze.

  His wife returned my smile. “That happens.”

  I nodded. “Well, sorry to have bothered you.”

  “I doubt it,” he said quickly. He started the car, and I waited as he backed out. As he drove off, I heard something about, “… no idea who she is.”

  I waited until he drove out of the parking lot, then walked over to Lattimore’s car. His wide face and dark eyebrows were easy to recognize. I’d seen him around the station before.

  He nodded in greeting. “How’d it go?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “He says he didn’t see the killer.”

  “I don’t know much about your investigation, so I can’t speak to that,” he said gruffly.

  “I know.” I was thinking through the conversation, of Chuck’s description of the driver. Things were coming together. The street sounds faded away.

  “What’s going on?” Lattimore stared at me. “You okay?”

  I turned back to where the Hyundai had been parked. “He said something about a wig, and long gray hair.” I stood for a moment.

  “Spillman?”

  I looked at him. “I need to go.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Marilyn logged onto the internet, but her mind was elsewhere. She didn’t hear the classical music she had playing, and she didn’t pay attention to the Scotch that sat on a coaster on the desk. She wasn’t happy that the detective had come to talk to her. That wasn’t a good sign. She stared at the screen, her mind on her deed. She thought through the other night. Had she missed something?

  Once she had decided on a prostitute, she spent time figuring out where specifically in the Denver metro area you could be sure to find one. Everyone knew they hung around parts of Colfax Avenue, but she’d never checked that out in person. Late o
ne night, when her husband was gone, she decided to find out. She went to a stretch of Colfax east of the Capitol where women seemed to linger around. Women of the night, as the expression went. As she studied the women, a Beethoven sonata played. After watching the street for a while, she determined it was too crowded, too many people around besides the hookers. That wouldn’t do. So she’d gone west on Colfax until she passed the Princeton Motel and the Easy Bar. There she saw women that she was sure were working in the sex trade, and even a few men and boys. They lingered on the sidewalks, walked up and down the street in revealing clothes. Some men approached them on foot, and they’d talk. Sometimes the couple would go to the motel, other times they would walk off. Cars also stopped, and the prostitutes would bend down and talk through the passenger window. Bartering for what they would do, Marilyn thought. Then some would get in the car, and the car would drive away. Others would turn and walk away. Marilyn also saw a few drug transactions, and one fight between two women. There was no shortage of drama, so different from her life. She didn’t know who she would pick, though.

  She parked and watched. A couple of hours passed, and no one paid any attention to her. Traffic and business for the prostitutes died down. She nodded in satisfaction. This would be a good time and a good area to pick up her victim. She drove home and got on the internet. She was careful in her research, but knew her research couldn’t implicate her; it wasn’t a crime to look at things on the internet.

  She learned what she could about prostitution. It was amazing what people would pay for, and how little some sexual favors cost. She also learned that a lot of prostitutes were drug addicts. In Marilyn’s social circle, this was nothing they talked about. All this was new to her. She’d only seen things in the movies, she had no idea what it was like in real life. It was fascinating. As she read stories and articles about prostitutes, she felt no pity for them. As far as she was concerned, they didn’t have to be doing what they were doing. They’d done something to get themselves in those situations. It was their own fault.

  She went back to the same area of West Colfax several more times and watched the action. Then she’d seen the woman she decided to use. She was young and blond, with a thin nose and way too much make-up. Her slinky clothes hung on skin and bones. Who knows when her last good meal was, Marilyn thought. As per the rules, Marilyn had no idea who the prostitute was. She briefly wondered about her background. Where was she from? What had she done to end up in this kind of life? She was too young for it, for that kind of degradation. Marilyn slowly came to the idea that she would be rescuing the girl from a future filled with nothing good. Another thought occurred to her. Would a prostitute hop in the car when she realized a woman was driving? Marilyn wasn’t sure, but she’d have to try. Money would be a powerful lure. It would work. That night, after Marilyn decided on her victim, she felt such a satisfaction, she could hardly describe it.

  After that, she put the rest of her plan into place. She could pick up the prostitute in a car, just like so many of the johns did. She had to be absolutely certain the crime could not be traced back to her, so she knew she couldn’t use her own car. She’d thought about renting a car, but knew that wouldn’t work. Too easy to be traced back to her. Same with buying a cheap car. She couldn’t take a taxi or Uber, that could again lead back to her. She’d have to borrow a car. But whose? She’d have to figure that out.

  The other thing she had to think about was the gun. Her father had been a gun collector, and she’d been to gun ranges herself. She needed a small weapon, a .22 or something similar, but how to find one that was untraceable? That piece resolved itself when she saw something on the news about illegal guns. She learned enough, and then with the help of the internet and some chat rooms, she found a contact in downtown who got her a gun. It had cost her a decent amount of money, but it was worth it. The gun was untraceable.

  She googled the area around the Princeton Motel and found a nearby park that was surrounded by some office buildings and a few houses. One night she spent hours watching the park. It remained quiet the entire time. It would work for her purposes. She bought cheap clothes and a black hoodie, along with a black wig, dark glasses, and black gloves.

  She wanted to tell the Guild she was ready, but she hadn’t resolved the car situation. She hadn’t been sure what to do about that, and then the solution presented itself. Her neighbor mentioned that they would be out of town for a month. While they were gone, she had access to their house, could check on things for them. She knew from going out with them that they kept the car keys in the kitchen. She could borrow the car, take off the license plates, and then afterwards she could clean it and bring it back to their house. No one would be the wiser. Once they had left, it was perfect. Her husband was out of town as well, so she had volunteered to do the next deed.

  Once the time came, her deed had gone without a hitch. She sneaked through the gate that separated her backyard from her neighbor’s. Both yards had a lot of tall trees, and she didn’t think anyone in nearby houses would see her. If, on the off chance someone did, what did Marilyn have to do with it? She was already in her disguise, so a police report would describe only someone in a hoodie. She let herself in the back door of the neighbor’s house. She had gone into the house earlier that evening, after all help was gone, and disabled the alarms. If anyone asked, she would say she forgot to re-arm the system. She got the BMW keys and went into the garage. She had purchased seat covers, and she put them on. She couldn’t figure out how to disable the dome light, so she put tape over it. Then she drove her neighbor’s car out of the garage. No one was on the street as she left the neighborhood. The guard at the gate was glued to his phone, as she’d often observed, and didn’t even notice her leaving.

  She drove west toward the Princeton Motel, and as she approached it, she saw the young blond walking down the street. Now that she knew the girl was working that night, Marilyn drove into a nearby neighborhood and stole the license plates off a parked car. She drove several blocks away, stopped, and switched the BMW plates with the stolen ones. Then she headed back toward the motel.

  Marilyn pulled slowly to the curb and rolled down the window. The girl had looked in, her eyes widening when she saw it was a woman. But just as Marilyn had surmised, when Marilyn had offered her a hundred dollars, the girl had accepted. She’d gotten in, and Marilyn had driven off. The street was empty, and the only other prostitute was a block away.

  As per her plan, she drove to the park. The girl didn’t seem to care. The park was empty, the neighborhood quiet and dark. Marilyn parked and the girl asked what she wanted to do. Marilyn asked her to turn away. When she did, Marilyn pulled the .22 from her hoodie pocket. Her heart was racing, and her breaths came in little gasps. She smelled the woman’s body odor. Marilyn quickly pressed the gun to the girl’s skull and pulled the trigger. Then for good measure, she shot again. The girl slumped down, her head resting on the dashboard. There had been little blood from the shots, but if there was any splatter, the seat covers would help. Marilyn sucked in a huge breath and glanced around. She didn’t see anyone. Her body was a mix of exhilaration and fear. The girl didn’t move, didn’t appear to be breathing. Marilyn wanted to check her pulse, but she didn’t want to touch the girl’s wrist because she’d read somewhere that they might be able to get fingerprints from the body. Before she could think or feel more, Marilyn put the rest of her plan into motion. She drove carefully out of the park and back toward the Princeton. She figured it would be better to leave the body somewhere besides the park, that this might throw off the police. And she wanted to make sure the body would be found soon.

  Marilyn stopped once to slip a ring with a fake ruby onto the girl’s finger. She’s bought the ring with cash at a Walmart far from her house. There was no way to trace it back to her. Then she drove into the parking lot behind the motel and slowed to a stop. She quickly reached across the dead woman’s body and opened the passenger door, then pushed her out. She shut the door, and drove
out of the parking lot. She saw no one. It had taken seconds.

  She headed east on Colfax. When she was a good distance from the motel, she turned down a side street, parked, and quickly put the BMW license plates back on. She drove to a different neighborhood and took off the seat covers, then pulled off the hoodie and the wig, sunglasses, and gloves. She headed down an alley and tossed the gun into a dumpster, then a little farther on, the seat covers and hoodie into another. Then she drove east toward her house. On the way, she dropped the sunglasses out the window. Finally, she turned down another alley and dumped the stolen license plates, wig, and gloves in other dumpsters. She saw a few cars, but was sure no one could possibly know anything about what she’d done. She passed the guard at the gate, just gave him a quick wave with her head turned away. Past experience told her he would recognize the car and open the gate. If he bothered to think about it, he’d think the Hackenbergs were coming home late.

  When she drove down her neighbor’s street, she turned off the headlights. She knew her neighbors well enough to know that no one would be up now. She pulled into her neighbor’s drive and parked the car in the garage. She went in the house, got paper towels and cleaner, then wiped out the car and took the tape off the dome light. She was certain there were no traces of her deed. She pocketed the used towels and put back the cleaner, then left the keys where she’d found them. She sneaked out of the house and back through the gate to her house. She put her clothes in the washer and donned a robe. Then she tore up the used towels and flushed them down the toilet, the last piece of evidence that could be tied to her.

  She continued to stare at the screen. Then she shook her head. It was a perfect crime. And yet the police had come around, asking questions. What had she missed?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I raced to my car, my mind still putting things into place. Chuck had said the person he’d seen had long gray hair. It hadn’t clicked for me right then, but when I was talking to Lattimore, I thought about the doorbell cam video. That figure had seemed a bit on the slender side, not a strong person. The whole time, I’d been assuming the killer was a man. More than likely a man would have been with a prostitute, not a certainty, but the odds were high. But what if it had been a woman? I thought about the people we had interviewed, the ones with access to James Hackenberg’s car. I peeled out of the parking lot and headed north. I called Ernie, but he didn’t answer. I left him a message to call me back. Then I tried Spats. He answered right away.