“Detective Holden? Please come into the living room. It’s more comfortable than here in the foyer. Gerald can get you something to drink. Can’t you, Gerald?”
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Barnes.” Jennifer strode into the living room and tried not to stare at the tasteful original artwork peppering the exposed brick walls nor the fluffy lamb’s wool throw rug on the floor in front of the soft beige leather sofa. Remembering what her mentor told her years ago when she first became a detective, she did not dally and delivered her message.
“I’m very sorry to tell you Mrs. Barnes but your daughter was found dead early this morning. She was murdered. If you would like to come down to the morgue and ID the body I can take you, or, you can follow me there. Either way, I will make sure you get home safely.”
Jennifer watched as Mrs. Barnes’ eyes glazed over. Gerald took four long strides and was by her side before she collapsed onto the soft rug. He dragged her to the sofa and made her sit. Still standing, he took several ragged breaths himself before a keening sound came from his parted lips.
“Mr. Palmer? What was your relationship to Ms. Barnes?”
In a faraway voice, he said, “She was my girlfriend. I was going to ask her to be my wife when she got home last night…”
He blinked once then again and sunk to his knees as the first of his sobs began. Kyma’s mother was pale and not a sound could be heard from her. Jennifer panicked. She took out her phone and dialed 9-1-1. Paramedics were needed…stat!
With the emergency response call completed, Jennifer found the kitchen and filled two glasses with water. She rushed back into the living room. When she tried to offer them water, she realized that they were both in deeper stages of shock than when she had left the room. She set the useless glasses of water on the coffee table and stood unsure of what to do with her hands. Gerald was now doubled over with his forehead on the fluffy rug bawling and pounding his left fist on the floor slowly. However, Kyma’s mother was worse. Her eyes had rolled and only the whites were showing. Jennifer sprinted over to her and checked to make sure her tongue was not hampering her breathing.
“God-damned ambulance. Hurry up!” She made a face as she pinched open the woman’s mouth by squeezing her cheeks.
Belatedly realizing she should have brought back-up, Jennifer hoped that she could manage the pair until the paramedics arrived. Just then she heard the whirring of the ambulance’s siren. Breathing a sigh of relief Jennifer held down the fort for the next 5 minutes. She went between both family members and made sure that they were breathing and did not injure themselves.
***
The second ambulance’s doors slammed enclosing Gerald Palmer’s drugged form in a cocoon of tranquility. Mrs. Barnes had to be more heavily sedated as she began to jerk and writhe on the sofa within moments of the EMT personnel arriving.
“You did pretty okay in there Officer,” said the male paramedic.
“It’s Detective, Detective Holden. Thanks…my first solo notification, no less.”
He whistled and shook his head.
“And you had two of them. Wow. Good thing they didn’t flip out on you. I’ve seen some families take it out on the messenger. You’re pretty darned lucky. You following, us or what?”
Jennifer stood and stared wide-eyed at him. It had never occurred to her that she was in any danger. Forcing air back into her lungs, she nodded.
“Yeah, I’m following. Didn’t get anything out of them. I’ve got no other leads and they’ve got to know something.”
He nodded sympathetically and ambled around the side of the EMT emergency vehicle while calling over his shoulder, “Hope so, for your sake. See you at Methodist.”
***
After being a permanent fixture at the hospital for thirty-six hours, Jennifer was finally cleared to talk to Gerald. Her eyes flicked past the red-plastic covered mini Bible under his hand on top of the stark white hospital sheet. He clutched it and hid it from her view when he noticed her staring at it.
She nodded towards the now hidden book.
“You get comfort from that?”
“Don’t you?”
She shrugged, “I asked you, first.”
He frowned. Then, his lips turned up sardonically. “I’m finally in a situation where I need my faith and what happens? The one sent to help has not a drop of it.” His eyes held no jaded mirth or sympathy for her. They simply contained a hint of accusation and a heaping load of dejection. “Well, let’s get on with it, Detective. Religion and State don’t mix, right? What do you need of me?”
Unnerved, Jennifer lowered her eyes and fiddled about trying to gain her composure before starting her questions. Clearing her throat, she pulled her small notebook out of her side pant leg pocket and flipped it open.
“Need a list of all of her friends — work and personal. Need her past lovers, if you know who they are. Need any disputes you and she had in the last year, and any other disputes you know of that she had with others in the past year…”
“I get it. Did I do it? Or, did a disgruntled ex-lover kill her knowing she was about to be off the market. Understood.”
Jennifer gave him a curt nod and he gave her a list of friends, colleagues and a basic rundown of Kyma’s life and habits. Armed with those lists Jennifer thanked and promised him justice for Kyma. She was turning away when Gerald stopped her.
“Detective Holden?”
She paused but didn’t turn around.
“I may be stepping out of bounds here. I also may sound extremely stereotypical, or racist, even, but I have to ask. You’re in charge of my girlfriend’s case…I need to know if —”
He paused. Jennifer turned around to look at him.
“I need to know if you will do everything in your power to find whoever did this to her.”
It wasn’t what she expected and she was relieved.
“Mr. Palmer, I will do everything in my power to make sure Kyma Barnes’ killer is brought to justice. Of that, you can be sure. If there’s one thing I believe in, above all else, its the power of jurisdiction.”
Gerald noted her eyes and countenance as she spoke. He heard the fierceness in her tone and smiled for the first time.
“I believe you. Thank you, Detective. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. And, please keep me abreast of any new developments.”
Not trusting herself to speak, she simply nodded and exited the hospital room.
After a quick check with the nurses’ station, Jennifer found out that Mrs. Barnes was still under sedation. Her pressure kept fluctuating and her doctors refused Jennifer’s persistent requests to question her.
Frustrated, Jennifer raced through every red light on her path from Park Slope back downtown to the precinct. She wanted to check on the status of the evidence. Twelve plastic-bagged and tagged items of evidence were taken at the scene and she needed to know the results.
It was now a little over seventy-six hours and Forensics had better have something to show for all that time.
“Whatcha got for me, Babs?”
“Hi Holden. How ‘ya doing? Got anything poppin’ in the boyfriend category yet? How am I? Gee, I’m fine — ”
“Yeeaah, whatevs. What did the results say?”
As Detective Barbara Strickland read off her findings, a huge smile spread across Holden’s face. The evidence showed that her instincts were spot on.
About an hour later when the bullpen grapevine news reached him, Yearwood came over to Jennifer’s cubicle.
“So, little Ms. ‘Ner-Do-Well is hot stuff right now according to the bullpen.”
“Is that right?” Jennifer said, her feet up on her desk, while drinking a double latte. “What’d you hear?”
“That your call about the saliva on Barnes’ boob and the perp’s stuff on her hand hit the bull’s-eye,” he screwed up his face before continuing. “Not for nothing, but Holden, you haven’t been anybody’s first-string pick in the whole time you’ve been on the fo
rce. Were we all missing the boat? Or, did something change?”
Cocking an eyebrow, Jennifer looked up at him. She grinned enigmatically then shrugged.
“There’s nothing I can say that will make any sense to you, or anyone else. For some people the time has to be right for them to shine. Now’s my time. That’s how I see it.”
She took another slurp of her strong coffee and waited. She had to wait several minutes before he spoke again.
“But…but here’s the thing, Holden. You’re…were, so bad at so many basic things we learned in cadet school, we all wondered how you got onto the force. Man, you couldn’t even collect and bag evidence by the book until I showed you how 3 years ago!”
He blurted out the last bit in a rush and his cheeks colored as soon as the words tumbled out. He looked away and fiddled with his hands before getting the nerve to look her in the eye and continue his thought.
“You can’t just tell me it’s your time. Shit, nobody’s time comes so suddenly and out of the God-damned blue like that!”
The Fury moved imperceptibly to the fore so even Jennifer had no inkling she was no longer controlling the conversation.
“How do you know it was out of the blue? Whatever that means. What if I just didn’t want play ‘whose got the bigger dick’ with you bozos? What if I found watching the paint dry on my nails was more fascinating than seeking out the most efficient way to collect bodily fluids from stiffs, hmm? You know, you guys don’t make it easy to be a regular average woman ‘round here. You have to be a blonde bombshell like Babs in Forensics, or a smart bitch like Betty Feinster with a mean left hook to gain your collective pious respect. I didn’t feel like playing to the tune of your pied piper. How ‘bout that?”
As she was speaking, Jennifer took her feet down and rose out of her sitting position an inch at a time until she was in Yearwood’s face. He refused to back down even though the red-hot waves of anger emanating from her were enough to stop his heart. He stood his ground. This appeased the Fury and she pulled back allowing Jennifer to take the helm once more.
Jennifer looked confused for a second when she realized she was kissing distance from Yearwood and blinked a couple of times and pulled back quickly.
Trying not to do a double-take, Yearwood’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah…yeah, I see how you may have wanted to opt out but to hide your intelligence and your observation skills so completely? And make us all think your lottery and gambling schemes were more important than protecting and serving? It’s a bit much to swallow…”
The Fury came back.
“I don’t give a rat’s hairy God-damned arse what you think! This is my life and if I want to play ball now I will because I damned well feel like it. Get out of my cubicle if all you’re going to do is piss me off.”
She plopped back in her chair, yanked open one of her metal drawers and snagged a can of Red Bull and chugged it down. She burped for good measure, pulled up to her computer, opened up the Barnes file and started working on it clearly dismissing him.
Yearwood opened his mouth a couple of times to say something but the right words wouldn’t come. He shook his head and walked away realizing his hopes for getting closer to the enigmatic detective were dashed yet again.
***
November 3 -7th
Detective Holden was meticulous. She had started making the rounds the same day Gerald gave her the list. Her first stop was the salon Kyma had worked in. Even then, three days after her death, the tone was still somber. Jennifer could see everyone was genuine and had truly liked their former manager.
Nothing here.
Sighing, she thanked everyone and left with no additional leads. She got in the squad car and reviewed Gerald’s list. She had then decided to drop in on a few of Kyma’s friends at their jobs to see if she could shake anything loose. It took a couple of days to contact the six women and two men listed as Kyma’s close friends. And Jennifer still had a big fat sum of zero. But, there was a slight ping. One of the men — Herman Billings — was head over heels in love with Kyma. However, from her other interviews on the short friend list, Kyma had never noticed him at all. While there was plenty of angst with him he was no killer. He was too afraid he’d ruin his manicure.
“God I hate metrosexuals!” She looked down at her own badly bitten nails and shoved them in her pockets as she rode down the elevator stewing in frustration. The particularly posh Upper Eastside building elevator with its floor to ceiling mirrors, tasteful high-wear carpeting and varnished cherry wood did not help her mood.
None of Kyma’s friends could be suspects; they were not even remotely subverting any laws other than the law of physics. The boob jobs on two of Kyma’s friends were extreme, to put it mildly. The elevator ticked past the 34th floor and kept up an even keel descent. Sighing, Jennifer nibbled on her bottom lip while watching the numbers slip by on the lighted panel above the doors.
That leaves a complete stranger; or someone on the outskirts of Kyma’s life. But how would she have met that someone?
She checked the list again and realized that Gerald hadn’t put down a lot of her favorite haunts. He only had down the typical places a high-maintenance New York City woman frequented, which included: Bliss 57, Jeunesse, Kiehl’s, Ohm, Great Mother Jones and Spa Castle in College Point. Gerald was quick to point out that Spa Castle was only frequented rarely. He ensured Holden that Kyma had had to do what was necessary to maintain herself even when commissions were not optimal. Jennifer barely managed not to roll her eyes when he imparted that bit of additional information but the detective in her duly noted it.
Snob factor — past twenty-five in the Richter scale…
As for her shopping haunts, that list was much longer. On it were, of course, Bloomie’s, Bergdorf, H&M, Zara, Century 21 and a host of shoe stores that Jennifer wished she could shop in including Jimmy Choo, Steve Madden, Christian Louboutin and the like.
Where did Kyma get all that money anyway? Gerald didn’t look especially loaded and neither did her Mom. Middle-class, sure. Upper middle, maybe. But rich? Naahh.
Shaking her head, Jennifer jotted a note to follow Kyma’s money. In that moment, with the crap load of nothing she held onto this well-worn piece in the detective toolbox looked pretty good to Holden. She headed back to the bullpen dejected and testy.
She prayed Babs would find a match for the perp’s saliva and blood in the database. It was about time Forensics had gotten back to her. A week had passed since Kyma’s death. Jennifer’s hopes that she would find the killer quickly were almost as dead as her victim. The lab’s report would either break open the case, or shut it down cold. But Babs told her that the database run would take 4 to 5 days. Hardly containing herself, Jennifer gritted her teeth and couldn’t’ wait for the next day.
November 8th, 9:07 A.M.
“So you mean to tell me out of all the God-damned perps in our database this one’s not in there?”
Jennifer screamed into the phone making the cops in her area turn to look at her. “Yes, I do friggin’ want you to run the prints and the saliva again ‘cause, yeah, I think you missed something. This is not the first woman this guy’s killed, Babs. And I bet your pretty little ass it won’t be the last. So, do us all a God damned favor and run them again. You had twelve friggin’ pieces of evidence sent to you! You even got a few strands of his hair! There are other states and Canada’s not that far away, either. Did you think to check them for a match?”
She paused to hear Babs’ reply and ran a hand through her disheveled hair which had already fallen out of its bun.
“So, this case doesn’t warrant the use of those types of resources without the Chief’s approval, huh? Well I’ll get the God-damned approval, you just start the work!”
The bang of the phone to the handset made everyone flinch and swivel back to their desks as Jennifer stormed her way towards to the Chief’s office.
***
Betty sauntered into Jennifer’s cubicle within the b
ullpen and plopped herself onto the cheap padded folding chair.
“That damned dog is at it again.”
“Moxie? The Pit?”
“The one and the same.”
“Thought you were gonna shoot it the next time it peed on your lawn?” Jennifer asked smirking.
“No, uh-uh. It didn’t pee! It destroyed my purple cabbage plants! And I really liked those. It was one hedge plant that was not too difficult to keep alive,” Betty grumbled.
Trying to hide her smile, Jennifer failed miserably and simply nodded to commiserate. She looked up a minute later when Betty still hadn’t said a word.
“My purple cabbage plants? I love them? Got nothing to say to me, Holden? You went with me to Home Depot to pick them up.”
Jennifer scratched her chin and recalled the laborious work of loading the shitload of pots into Betty’s truck. Pulling a complete blank on the appropriate response, the Fury stroked Jennifer’s mind.
“Uhm, maybe you can pick up some roast beef?” Betty gave her a withering sidelong glance.
Jennifer’s light brown face dissolved into giggles more befitting a teenager than a twenty-eight-year-old cop. The laughter rippled through her body releasing the long held tension of the past week.
“The image of you chasing that damned dog with a broom then picking the cabbage plants up and making a stew…I’m so sorry! I just —”
“Yeah…just shut up, smart ass. Wait ‘til you get your own piece of land…you’ll see!” Betty grumbled and leaned back in the rickety chair watching Jennifer with a peculiar glint in her eye.
“At least I’m doing some real work,” Jennifer said puffing out her meager chest.
“Like I’m not? Just taking a breather from the multi-precinct sting on Frank Gerimo. The mob boss a/k/a The Dandy? It’s a pain in the ass. So many fingers in that pie that it’s hard to get a real handle on the deets, you know?”
Fury From Hell Page 3
