by Jenifer Ruff
Rivera smirked. “So you didn’t touch anything except what you touched. Got it.”
Sully snorted, repressing a laugh.
The young officer spoke again, his face now almost as red as his hair. “We were told to wait here until the Feds—until you came—because this guy is special.”
“Yes. He was.” Rivera headed toward the small kitchen and the reason they were all huddled inside the small home—the victim—Todd Meiser.
Light filtered in through a dirty window over the sink, casting a ray of dancing dust specs over the kitchen table and two chairs. The Range Rover key fob sat in plain sight on a small Formica topped island. The smell of cigarettes mixed with the smell of the meal that was still sitting in the microwave.
Victoria scanned the room, taking in the sad, gory scene. Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, Meiser lay on the worn linoleum, legs bent to one side, as if he’d been on his knees praying before he was knocked sideways. Dark stubble coated his chin, and his mouth hung open in the shape of an O with his lips pursed, a shocked grimace. A blood-soaked woman’s silk scarf, black with gray and pink flowers, covered his right eye and drooped down across his nose. A chunk of his skull was missing on the left side of his head, exploded into the mess of bone chips, brain matter, and blood now covering the kitchen floor, with bits plastered against the cabinets.
Victoria tiptoed around the perimeter of blood and pulp, studying the victim and his surroundings. “The last time I saw him, he was a nervous wreck, wringing his hands and pacing around the FBI office, when he wasn’t excusing himself for another cigarette. But his behavior was understandable. He was a key witness for the prosecution of Raymond Butler.”
“I know we’ve been after Butler and his organization for years.” Rivera’s eyes moved slowly and carefully over the corpse.
“Not sure how you missed out on all that fun, but now is your chance to get in on the messy tail end.” Victoria placed her hands on her hips. “This is not what I expected to see.”
“I know,” Rivera answered quietly. “Someone got the job done . . . and dead is dead, but this doesn’t look like a professional hit.”
“Right.” Victoria frowned. “Looks like the scarf was used as a blindfold. Strange to blindfold someone if you’re going to kill them, isn’t it?”
“Maybe the kill started out as just a threat for him not to testify.”
Victoria crouched close to the body. “And what’s this about?” The number two was scrawled in black ink above Todd’s left eyebrow. Directly below it, the word LIAR. “Written after he was shot. And whoever wrote it must have stepped in his blood while doing so.” Balancing as she squatted, Victoria used her phone to snap a picture of Meiser’s head. She leaned forward to study the shoe track marks in the blood and took another picture. “Let’s keep that info from the press and public for now. About the writing.”
“Good call.” Rivera walked into the next room. Sully was on the phone but covered it with his hand as Rivera addressed the officers. “Hey, guys. Don’t say a word about the number or the writing on his head. Make sure no one else does either. That will be the thing we keep under wraps.”
Sully nodded. “Got it. We were thinking the same.” He returned the phone to his ear.
One of the officers followed Rivera back to the kitchen and waited until Victoria glanced up. “So, this guy is involved in the Butler case? That’s why you guys were called in?”
“Yes. Well, he was.”
“What’d he do?”
“He unwittingly helped the Butlers traffic illegal goods for over a year. He was key to putting Butler away.” Victoria sighed. “Poor guy. He couldn’t wait to get through the trial, start his new job, and leave his past life behind him. Only a few more days and it would have happened.” Victoria dropped her head and stared at what was left of Meiser’s face.
“Hey. I know what you’re thinking.” Sully shook his head. “But it wasn’t you who got him into the whole mess and it wasn’t you who murdered him while he microwaved his lunch.”
“I know.” Victoria offered a sad smile. She also noticed the slight tremor in the detective’s hands, the flush on his light skin. “Who found him?”
Sully gestured back toward the living room. “Neighbor. She’s in the next room. Hope you don’t mind smoke.”
“Let’s go talk to her.” Rivera walked past Sully toward the living room but stopped after a few steps to wait for Victoria.
An old woman in sweatpants and a sweatshirt sat on one end of a ratty couch. She wore white slip-on shoes. Purple rollers wound her gray hair into tight cylinders around her scalp. Her wrinkled cheeks sunk inward as she pulled long inhalations off her cigarette and stared with a blank expression at the stained carpet. On a side table next to her sat an ashtray overflowing with butts.
“Ma’am, I’m Agent Rivera and this is Agent Heslin. We’re with the FBI. Can you answer a few questions for us?” Rivera took a small leather-bound notepad out of his pocket.
The woman’s cigarette dangled from her mouth. She mumbled, “You’re the Feds?” Her gaze traveled from agent to agent, up and down their bodies.
“Yes.” Rivera nodded. “And your name, ma’am?”
“Shirley Woodard.”
“Ms. Woodard, please tell us how you came to find the deceased.”
She took a drag on her cigarette, turned her head, and blew a long white stream toward the window. “I heard a gunshot, so I came over here. The door was unlocked.”
“Just one gunshot?” Rivera asked.
“Two. One right after the other.” Shirley fidgeted with the hem of her sweatshirt.
“And you came over here and entered the house by yourself after hearing a gun go off?”
Shirley’s eyes darkened. “Guess I ain’t got much to lose no more.”
“And what did you see?”
“I saw him . . .” she cocked her head toward the kitchen, “. . . on the floor, just like he is now. I didn’t touch him. Didn’t touch nothin’. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a special agent to figure out he was dead. I called 911 and I sat here until the cops came. Helped myself to his cigarettes, they was right here on the table. He won’t be needing them now.”
Rivera jotted something down with his pen. “Anything else you saw or heard?”
“No.” She blew out another lungful of smoke.
“A car driving away? Someone running down the street?”
“There weren’t nothin’ else I heard or saw to tell ya. He was just lying there dead and I expect whoever it was killed him was long gone.”
Victoria clasped her hands together, elbows tucked by her sides. “How much time elapsed between when you heard the gunshot and when you left your house to come over here?”
“I don’t know.” She took another puff of her cigarette, her face growing even more haggard.
“An estimate.” Victoria shifted her weight. “A few minutes? Ten?”
“I was getting out of my shower when I heard a bang. I came over to have a check on things after I got dressed.”
“After you put your hair in rollers?” Victoria asked.
The woman patted the rollers above her temple. “I have to go out this afternoon.” She frowned at Victoria. “I came over, didn’t I? We got other neighbors younger than me. I don’t see any of them here, none of them came rushing over.”
Rivera put his notepad away. “Could you lift your shoes up off the floor, so we can see the bottoms?”
Shirley rolled her eyes but leaned back against the couch and lifted one foot at a time. There was no sign of blood on her scuffed, smooth soles.
Victoria clasped her hands and leaned her head slightly forward. “Ms. Woodard, sometimes the authorities need to keep certain pieces of information about a case from the public. The information we withhold can be critical in helping us identify the killer. We’d appreciate if you wouldn’t share any of the details about Todd Meiser’s death. You can say you found him, but that’s all we’d
like you to share until we’ve found out who shot him.”
Shirley nodded. “I know. Cops already said so. I got it. And I can keep my mouth shut real good.”
“Thank you for being a good neighbor.” Victoria reached into her pocket and withdrew a business card. She handed it to the woman. “Please call us if you think of anything else that might be helpful in finding whoever killed Mr. Meiser.”
“That mean I can go now?” She stood up, pinched her cigarette between two fingers, and dropped it on top of the other butts.
“Yes, you can go home now.” Victoria walked back to the other officers. “Can one of you escort Ms. Woodard back to her home so she won’t be bothered on the way?”
The young red-haired cop stepped to her side. “Right this way, Ma’am.”
After Ms. Woodard left, the agents scanned the outside area through the grime-streaked living room window. A small crowd of onlookers stood on the edge of the muddy lawn, blocking the sidewalk. “Let’s go talk to some of those other neighbors,” Rivera said. “See who else might be out there.”
The police activity had attracted attention beyond the neighborhood. A local news van had parked behind Victoria’s Suburban. Amanda Jones, the ubiquitous young reporter from Channel 14 News was putting on a sweater. The tall brunette looked like she’d just stepped off the beauty pageant circuit. Her equally young cameraman stood next to the van, scanning the area. Amanda spotted the agents, alerted her cameraman, and rushed forward. As the agents walked down the front path, Amanda met them, holding her microphone outstretched. “We heard there was a murder and FBI agents were called in. Can you tell us who you are and what the FBI is doing here?” She spoke in such a rushed tone; her words almost ran together.
Instead of waving Amanda from their path, Victoria stopped to answer. “I’m Agent Victoria Heslin and this is Agent Dante Rivera.”
“Thank you for speaking with us, Agent Heslin.” Amanda’s tone was more relaxed, like she’d just realized she didn’t have to spit out all her questions in one burst. “We know this is the home of Todd Meiser and that he was dead. Murdered. Can you tell us what happened here today?”
“We can’t share information at this time. But, if anyone has information that could help us with this case, please call your local police department.”
“We’ve also learned that Todd Meiser was a—” Victoria raised her hand, but Amanda continued. “—witness for the prosecution against Raymond Butler, a notorious drug smuggler and money launderer. Did you know Meiser’s life was in danger? Shouldn’t he have been in witness protection?”
Rivera approached the cameraman. “You’re not going to air that yet,” his voice was low but authoritative, a voice that people were used to following. “Give us some time before you include that. We’ll make it worth your while when we can. We still have to notify his family.”
The cameraman lowered his equipment.
“But—” Amanda frowned.
“Thank you very much for your cooperation.” Victoria held the reporter’s gaze and then the cameraman’s. “We’d appreciate a copy of your footage, so we can check out the crowd.”
Chapter Four
Beth held her shoe upside down under the bathroom faucet. Diluted trails of blood ran in pink rivulets from the treads down the sides of the white sink.
“Damn, woman. I really didn’t think you’d do it. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Intruding on her personal space in the small bathroom, Danny snorted, the way he did when he begrudgingly said something almost nice. Like when he called her kitten—go to the store and pick up a case of Bud, kitten. How long had it been since he called her kitten? Didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t have to be his errand girl any longer.
She felt his rough hand patting her on the back. “You might have more guts than I thought. Or you really, really can’t bear the thought of rotting away in jail. I gotta say, you’ve surprised me.”
Yes, she had. She most certainly had.
Meiser had been easy to find. He only lived a few miles from the Sonesta Hotel. People locked their doors at night, when they went to bed, but not always during the day. That was her advantage. And yet, Todd Meiser didn’t seem all that surprised when she entered his back door with a gun. Terrified—yes. Surprised—not so much.
When he was on his knees, his features contorted with shock and disbelief, a surge of power coursed through her veins. Now she knew how Danny felt when he knocked her to the ground and watched her crawl under a table, apologizing and begging for him to calm down and back off. Too many men from her past had made her feel that way, starting with her own alcoholic father—get your ass out of my sight before I make you sorry, Beth. It was long past time she turned the tables.
And she had to admit, she liked how it felt once the tables had been turned. She couldn’t help it.
But she didn’t like all of it. Meiser’s fear and raw vulnerability were all too familiar. They crept in, poking away at the armor she erected for the big moment, ruining her power trip, reminding her that she’d spent more of the past years cowering in fear than she ever intended. She couldn’t look away from Meiser, but she couldn’t bear to see those pleading eyes another second. She’d yanked her scarf off her neck, threw it at him, and yelled—tie this around your eyes! Do it now! And because she’d been weak, her scarf got ruined, sodden with the horrific mess that exploded from his face. She’d had to leave it behind.
Danny rubbed her mistake in. “You left something of yours behind at a murder scene? You know that show about stupid criminals? That’s going to be your claim to fame, Beth.”
She desperately wanted to shower and wash away the disconcerting sensation gnawing away inside her, the lingering image of Todd Meiser’s terrified face, his desperate eyes. But Danny was in the next room now, still going on about the scarf, everything she still had left to do, and how she better hurry. She tried to block out his voice. She wasn’t going to let him ruin everything for her. She had done it. And despite Danny’s recriminations, he was impressed. And that, in itself, was something. A big, fat, huge something to be proud of.
But can I do it again?
“I’m going out to take a walk. I need to. It will help me concentrate.” She edged past him to grab stretchy pants and a T-shirt from her bag. Danny was all for telling her to exercise, practically every day, while managing to ignore his own steadily expanding gut. You got to get rid of that damn cellulite, those ugly dented cheese holes, before it spreads and takes over your whole ass. At home, he insisted she walk on the treadmill. The tiny Vista View gym had water dripping through the ceiling and yellow tape across the door. She’d have to go for a walk outside.
“Make it fast.” He pointed. “You have to take care of the rest of them. Tick tock, Beth. Tick tock. You’re running out of time.”
“I know that.” She was just procrastinating, putting off the inevitable, but she didn’t care. Shouldn’t the small milestone moments be celebrated too? Like their three-year anniversary? Ha! Some vacation it was turning out to be. She deserved a break to settle her nerves before she had to go out there and eliminate another name from her list.
She scurried out of his reach and back into the bathroom. If he was trying to drive her crazy, it was working. She changed her clothes and studied herself in the mirror. Lifeless eyes stared back, like there was nothing behind them. She patted concealer around her bruise; she didn’t need to advertise the deep purple ring. Her lips were pale gray, like a cadaver. They desperately needed color. She rifled through her stuffed purse for her lipstick, pulling out tissues, a wallet, pens, receipts, a comb, pain pills, tossing everything to the side and yanking the inside of the lining forward.
Where was it? Where was her damn lipstick?
A jolting current shot through the center of her brain then branched out in alarm-inducing tendrils. She froze, overcome by a wave of unexplained terror. Her knees grew weak. A dark cloud swelled around her sight, closing in, squeezing her vision smaller and smaller,
down to nothing. She grasped the corner of the sink, but her hand slipped off as she sank to the floor. “Danny,” she moaned as her head smacked the edge of the bathtub.
She woke moments later on the hard tiles, covered in a sheen of sweat, aware of a painful lump above her ear. Crawling up the side of the tub and then the wall for balance, she stood and exited the bathroom with cautious steps in a cloud of confusion. Her head felt foggy, her body shaky. “Danny? Are you here? Danny?”
She walked on unsteady feet toward the window, stopped and started again, focusing on the bit of space between the curtain panels and the floor, searching for shoes, socks, or toes. She cautiously pulled the curtain all the way back to one side, bracing her body for a blow. Ridiculous, but she had to make sure.
No one was hiding there. Her shoulders relaxed a bit. “Good riddance,” she whispered, in case he could somehow hear her, like if he was hiding in the closet, which he did once to spy on her. Who did that, right? Danny did. She should have checked there first. But when she slid open the closet door and jumped away from it, she found it empty.
She straightened, managed to push her shoulders back, feeling stronger. He was gone, and that was good, mostly, except for the all-encompassing loneliness. Like she didn’t quite know what to do next without him around to tell her. A glance down at her T-shirt and exercise pants rekindled her plan to go for a walk. She’d feel better after a walk.
Outside, it was no longer raining, but the air was still nice and cool. She tried to pretend everything was normal. Walking down unfamiliar streets toward the town center they had driven through earlier, she absentmindedly rubbed her forearms. They had cramped earlier from the recoil of shooting Meiser, or maybe just from gripping the gun so tightly.
She tried to free her mind of all the stress building up around her, focusing on counting each division between the sidewalk squares. But without warning, Todd Meiser’s desperate pleas came rushing back, filling her mind. Up until the last minute, she wasn’t sure if she would go through with killing him. Even as she parked her car a block away and snuck into his backyard, even as she crept into his kitchen, she still wasn’t sure. But then he convinced her she had no choice.
