Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  “So what? They’re fat-free.”

  “Chocolate syrup is fat-free too. Look at the calories.”

  He fished out the box he’d tossed and squinted at the nutrition panel. “Ah, hell. No wonder I’ve gained four pounds on this diet.”

  “You need to watch the carbohydrates, not the fat.”

  “Oh. These only have fifteen grams of carbs.”

  “Per serving. How many servings per box?”

  “Ah, hell.”

  A knock. I turned to see Officer Fuller in the doorway. Fuller was an ex-pro football player, tall and wide, and he towered over his companion, a short, balding man wearing Armani and too much Obsession for Men.

  “This is Marvin Pulitzer.”

  Marvin smiled, his caps unnaturally white, and offered his hand to me. I took it, and discovered he was palming something.

  “Pulitzer Prizes Talent Agency. Very pleased to meet you, Miss . . . ?”

  “Lieutenant. Jacqueline Daniels.”

  He held on to me a moment longer than necessary. When I got my hand back I saw he’d given me his card.

  “You’ve got great bone structure, Lieutenant. Do you model?”

  “I did Vogue a few issues back.”

  Pulitzer narrowed his eyes, then smiled again.

  “Joking. I get it. Funny. But seriously, I just landed this new account. They’re looking for distinguished, mature women. You should come in, take some test shots.”

  “What’s the company?”

  “Ever-Weave.”

  I confessed to never hearing of them.

  “They sell protective undergarments. You know, adult-sized diapers.”

  Fuller chortled, deep and throaty. I dismissed him.

  “Think it over. You wouldn’t have to pose wearing the product. You just have to stand there, looking embarrassed.”

  No kidding.

  “I don’t think I’m quite ready to delve into the glamorous world of modeling, Mr. Pulitzer. Come in and have a seat.”

  Pulitzer and Herb exchanged greetings, and then he sat in a chair between us on the right side of the desk.

  “So, where’s Davi?”

  Herb handed Pulitzer the mug shot.

  “This is Davi McCormick?”

  “Yeah. Oh, Christ, she’s in trouble, isn’t she? What did she do? Has she called a lawyer yet?”

  Pulitzer pulled out a cell phone the size of a matchbook and flipped it open, dialing with his pinky.

  “She doesn’t need a lawyer, Mr. Pulitzer. The county medical examiner found Davi’s severed arms in the morgue yesterday morning.”

  “Her . . . arms?”

  Herb handed him another picture. Pulitzer lost all color.

  “Oh shit! Those are Davi’s? Shit! What the hell happened to her?”

  “When was the last time you spoke with Davi?”

  “Four days ago. We did lunch at Wildfire. Right after that I had to catch a flight to New York.”

  “What did you talk about during lunch?”

  “The usual stuff. Upcoming gigs. Auditions.”

  “Did Davi seem nervous, or afraid?”

  “No, everything was completely normal.”

  Herb and I took turns interrogating Pulitzer. We confirmed his trip, and asked several dozen questions about Davi, her friends and family, her state of mind, her life.

  “She has no enemies. Not one. Which, in a competitive business like this, is amazing. She’s just a nice girl.”

  “You called in a missing person’s report yesterday.”

  “Yeah. She missed a shoot two days ago. Davi never missed a shoot. I called her. Even dropped by her place. She just disappeared. Jesus, who could have done something like that to her?”

  Pulitzer had to take a time-out to reschedule his afternoon appointments. While he was on the phone, Herb and I conferred.

  “Davi was a celebrity. She may have had stalkers.”

  “We’ll call Sure-a-Tex.”

  I added it to my notes.

  “We also need to call Davi’s parents, check with her friends, and try to pinpoint her movements for the last week.”

  Pulitzer finished his call and asked where he could get some water. I pointed him to the washroom.

  Herb took a sip of coffee, then reached for more sweetener. The pile of pink wrappers on his desk was almost as high as his cup.

  “If it’s someone who knew Davi, where do your handcuffs come in?”

  “Coincidence? They could have fallen out of my pocket, someone picks them up and pawns them?”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “It’s thin. But the only people with access to my office are cleaning people and cops.”

  The maintenance staff was carefully screened during the hiring process, and cops were, well, cops. I didn’t know anyone working out of the two-six with a grudge against me, and I especially didn’t think I had any murderers on my squad. The process to become a police officer included psych profiles, mental evals, and endless personality tests and interviews. Wackos were supposedly weeded out early on.

  “Maybe someone pinched them.”

  That seemed more likely. I didn’t carry a purse, and most of my outfits had oversized pockets to hold all of my essentials, cuffs included. Even a mediocre thief could have gotten them from me without much effort.

  “But why me?”

  I used Herb’s phone to call Fuller back into the office. He’d been particularly helpful on the Gingerbread Man case, and I needed an extra man.

  “Officer, I’d like you to cross-reference my previous case files with the names from County’s sign-in book. You know how to build a database?”

  Fuller snorted.

  “You think because I can bench three-fifty I can’t work a spreadsheet?”

  “You can bench three-fifty?” Herb asked. “I almost weigh three-fifty.”

  “It’s not that hard. Just a combination of diet, exercise, and supplementing.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m not getting results. I’m not supplementing.”

  I thought of a hundred things to say, but managed to keep a lid on them.

  Fuller walked next to Herb and leaned against his desk. The desk creaked. “I stack to boost my metabolism. Plus I use chromium, L-carnitine, CLA, and I protein-load before working out. If you want, I could take you through my NFL routine sometime.”

  Herb beamed in a way that he usually reserved for chili dogs. “That’d be great! Can I get a list of those supplements you’re taking?”

  “Sure. See, an ECA stack is a combination of—”

  “Officer Fuller,” I interrupted, “we could really use that database.”

  “Gotcha, Lieut. I’ll get right on it.”

  Fuller left. Herb gave me a frown.

  “What’s wrong, Jack?”

  “I wanted to stop the conversation before the two of you started flexing.”

  “Too much guy talk, huh? Sorry, didn’t mean to exclude you.”

  Herb said it without sarcasm, but the comment chafed. Being a woman in the CPD meant constant, unrelenting exclusion. It didn’t matter that I was the number-one marksman in the district. It didn’t matter that I had a black belt in tae kwon do. Herb wouldn’t ever think to ask me about my workout routine. Unconscious sexism.

  Or perhaps I was just being overly touchy because of the situation with my mom.

  Pulitzer returned, looking a little better.

  “I thought of something, but I don’t know if it will help or not.”

  We waited.

  “If Davi was doing anything illegal, it wouldn’t matter now, right? Because she’s gone? It’s silly, but I still feel protective of her.”

  “Drugs?” I asked.

  Pulitzer’s shoulders slumped.

  “Cocaine. Recreational, as far as I knew. It didn’t affect her work.”

  “Do you know where she got her drugs?”

  “No idea.”

  Again, we waited.

  “I really have no idea. I w
ant to help, but I’m not into that scene. I could put you in touch with some of my other models who might know, but I wouldn’t want them getting into trouble.”

  Pulitzer reached up to rub the back of his neck, exposing a bandage beneath the cuff on his right wrist.

  “How did you get that?” Herb asked, pointing it out.

  “Hmm? Oh. Mr. Friskers.”

  “Mr. Friskers?”

  “Davi’s cat. I hate that damn thing. Mean as hell. I went over to Davi’s apartment before I called the police. She gave me a set of keys. I figured, I don’t know, maybe she had a heart attack, or fell and broke her leg so she couldn’t get to the phone.”

  I felt Herb’s eyes on me. I kept focus on Pulitzer.

  “We’ll need to check the apartment. The keys would save us some time.”

  Pulitzer dug into his pants and handed me a key ring.

  “Be careful. That thing is like a little T. rex.”

  After assuring Pulitzer we wouldn’t pursue any narcotics possession charges with his models, he gave us the names of three who used coke.

  “Is there anything else? I wasn’t able to reschedule my afternoon meeting. Big client. I want to help Davi, but I really can’t miss this.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pulitzer. We’ll be in touch.”

  We shook hands.

  “Please catch the guy that did this. Davi is—was—a real sweetheart.”

  After he left, I stood up and tried to stomp some blood back into my toes, which felt frostbitten.

  “You up for a drive, Herb?”

  “Hell, yes. My nose hairs have icicles hanging from them.”

  “We can only hope those are icicles.”

  Keys in hand, we headed for his car to check out Davi’s apartment.

  The summer heat felt wonderful for the first five minutes. Then Herb cranked the air-conditioning.

  CHAPTER 6

  It’s a bad one.

  He looks around his office, a knuckle jabbed against his temple, trying to will the pain away.

  Does anyone notice? They must. His neck muscles are tight enough to strum, he’s drenched in sweat, and he can’t control the trembling.

  He’s never experienced pain this intense. Not even his injury hurt this much. It’s as if his head is in a vise, being slowly tightened until his eyes are ready to pop out. The pills he took earlier aren’t doing a damn thing.

  Maybe his wife is right. He should see a doctor. But the idea terrifies him. What if the doctor finds something seriously wrong? What if he needs surgery? He’d rather deal with the pain than let some quack poke around in his brain.

  “You okay?”

  A coworker. Female. Plain-looking, heavy hips, short brown hair in a spiky Peter Pan style.

  “Headache.” He manages a sickly grin.

  “Do you need some aspirin?”

  He decides to kill her.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  She walks to her desk. He imagines her, kneeling on the floor in his plastic room. She’s crying, of course. Maybe he’s taken a belt to her first, to loosen her up. Leaving marks on this one will be okay. Since she works with him, he can’t allow her body to be discovered.

  “Tylenol?” she calls over the cubicle wall.

  “Fine.”

  How should she die? Her haircut inspires him. He will draw his knife across her forehead, pull back the skin to expose the bone. Work a finger in there, then two and three.

  Skin stretches. His hands are large, but he should be able to get his entire hand between her skull and her scalp.

  “Like a warm, wet glove,” he says, shivering.

  “What’s like a glove?”

  She’s holding out the Tylenol bottle, one eyebrow raised.

  “I want to thank you for this.”

  “No problem. I used to get migraines. I would have killed somebody to take the pain away.”

  Me too.

  “You know, Sally, we’ve worked in the same building for a few years now, and I don’t know anything about you.”

  She smiles. Her front teeth are crooked. He can picture her mouth stretched open, screaming and bloody, as he practices some amateur dentistry with a ball-peen hammer.

  “I’m married, with two kids, Amanda and Jenna. Amanda is eight and Jenna just turned five.”

  He forces a grin, his hopes shattered. Who would have guessed an ugly thing like her had a family? He doubts he’ll be able to get her alone, and even if he manages, she’ll be missed.

  “How about you? Married?”

  “Yes. No kids, though. My wife is a model, and she doesn’t want to ruin her body. You know, hips spreading, stretch marks, saggy tits.”

  Ugly Sally’s smile slips a degree.

  “Yeah, well, it happens. But I think it’s worth it.”

  “Look, I gotta get back to work. Thanks for the Tylenol.”

  “No problem. TOSAP.”

  He inwardly cringes at the slogan. “Yeah. TOSAP.”

  Ugly Sally waddles away, and he works the cap off the bottle and dry-swallows six Tylenol. The throbbing, which abated slightly during his murder-fantasies, comes back harder than ever.

  He needs to kill somebody. As soon as possible.

  The pain-relieving properties of murder were discovered by him at a young age, when he was in his third foster home. Ironically, he’d been removed from his previous home for being neglected—the couple who had taken him in had also taken in eight other children, for the monthly check from the government. They would blow it all on drugs and let the children go without food. Well-meaning Social Services had whisked him away from the neglect, and handed him over to a psychotic alcoholic instead.

  After a particularly nasty beating with a car antenna, he and his younger foster brother were locked in a closet.

  He’d really been hurting. But along with the pain was a sense of helplessness, of frustration.

  He took that frustration out on his foster brother, in the dark, muffled confines of the closet. The more he hurt the smaller boy, the more his own pain went away.

  His new foster father went to jail for the murder.

  When the headaches began, he knew just how to deal with them.

  After four clicks of the mouse, his monitor fills with eligibles.

  He finds a girl, one who lives just a few blocks away. Address seems to be current. He calls, using his cell.

  A woman answers, her voice deep and throaty.

  Perfect.

  CHAPTER 7

  The doorman at Davi McCormick’s apartment building wore a heavy wool blazer, dark red, complete with gold epaulets and matching buttons. In this heat he looked positively miserable.

  “Last time I saw Ms. McCormick was Sunday evening, right before Murry took over. Murry works the six P.M. to two A.M. shift, and she left the building about fifteen minutes before that.”

  “Do you remember what she wore?”

  “A black cocktail dress, heels, diamond-stud earrings. Her hair was up. As I held open the door I told her she looked beautiful and asked where she was going.”

  “What did she answer?”

  “She said, Big date. Real big. And then laughed. Is she okay?”

  Herb gave him the news, then got the phone numbers for Murry and the morning doorman. He called them during the elevator ride. Neither had seen Davi since Sunday.

  Pulitzer’s key got us inside. I could have fit three of my apartments inside of Davi’s, with room left over to park my car.

  “I’ll take the bedroom,” I told Herb.

  Then we heard the scream.

  I tugged my .38 from the holster strapped to my left armpit, senses heightened.

  Movement, to the right. Both Herb and I swung our guns over.

  A cat, wearing a large disposable diaper, bounded out from under the dining room table and into the hallway, screaming like a train whistle.

  Herb exhaled. “I just had about four heart attacks.”

  “That must be Mr. Friskers.”

  �
��Either that or a small, furry toddler. Did you check out the diaper?”

  “Yeah. Talk about pampering your pets.”

  I tucked my gun back under my blazer and fished a pair of latex gloves from my pocket.

  “We’ve got an hour,” I told Herb, indicating when the CSU would arrive.

  Davi’s bedroom was the bedroom of a typical young woman, albeit one with money. Her unmade bed had a stuffed animal infestation, over a dozen of them swarming on top of the pink comforter. A framed Nagel print hung on the far wall. The near wall was obscured by a collage of pictures, most of them Davi, snipped from magazines.

  A large pile of clothing rested near the closet, and a makeup mirror—the kind movie stars have with bare lightbulbs surrounding the frame—hung above the dresser. Cosmetics rested on every flat surface in the room.

  On the nightstand, next to the bed, a phone/answering machine combo blinked, indicating twelve messages. I scrolled through the caller ID numbers. Four of them read “blocked call,” the last from 4:33 P.M. Sunday night.

  I played the messages. All were from Pulitzer but one: a long-distance call from Davi’s mother. The blocked calls didn’t seem to correspond to any messages.

  Davi’s walk-in closet was so crammed full of clothing I could barely walk in. Some of it occupied hangers, but most of it rested in large heaps on the floor. Rummaging through the piles yielded nothing but an empty cat carrier.

  A quick search of her drawers found more clothes, makeup, and a nickel bag of cocaine. I placed it in one of the evidence bags I always keep in my pocket. Then I pulled every drawer completely out and checked to see if anything was hidden behind them or taped under them. I’d been doing that ever since seeing a Hill Street Blues episode where a cop found a clue that way. Maybe someone somewhere saw the same episode.

  No such luck today.

  Under the bed I discovered two stray stuffed animals, a cat toy, and several years’ worth of dust. Nothing hidden between the mattress and box spring. Nothing behind the Nagel print.

  I returned to the phone and hit Redial, copying down the last number called and disconnecting before it went through. Then I copied down all of the numbers on the caller ID.

  “Jack!”

  I’ve been partners with Herb for over a decade, but had never heard such raw panic in his voice before. I rushed out of the bedroom, gun drawn.