The Tangerine Killer

by Claire Svendsen

  “So what were you planning to do about this slut who was ruining your daughter’s life?” Olin leant across the table. “Surely you had some plan to get her out of the picture. You couldn’t have Frank leaching off you indefinitely while his seed was being sown in someone else’s garden.”

  “I would never have done anything to hurt my daughter. She loved Frank despite all his faults and trust me, there were too many to count. If I had hurt him, then that would have hurt her. I couldn’t do that.”

  “Okay but Jill on the other hand, surely it would have been relatively easy to get rid of her? No more Jill, no more problems. You could all go back to being the happy family you once were.” Olin sat back and crossed his arms like he had it all figured out.

  I fought the urge to laugh. There were plenty of things Faye’s family had been but happy was not one of them.

  Olin reached out and took Faye’s hand in his. “You’re a clever woman. You couldn’t just stand by and let your daughter’s life fall apart.”

  “Of course not,” she swelled like a proud peacock. “That’s why I had Harvey threaten Frank. Rough him up a bit. You know, like they do in the mob.”

  I stifled a laugh. Harvey beat someone up? I mean sure, Frank hadn’t been in the best shape of his life but he could have easily swatted Harvey away like a giant, annoying bug.

  “You think that’s funny?”

  Faye’s face was red. She stepped closer to where I stood against the wall, her fists curled. I thought for a second she was going to hit me.

  “So did he do it?” I asked, my voice still not sounding very serious.

  “Of course he did. I send my boy to do something he does it, end of story.”

  I wondered if she sent him to put his hands on me the day we had lunch but thought better of mentioning it in front of Olin. Now wasn’t the time.

  “So what did he give Frank?’ I asked. “A black eye? A split lip? A suffocating bear hug?”

  “You little slut,” Faye slurred.

  She lunged at me, her sharp nails clawing at my face. I pushed her away but she kept coming in a cloud of chiffon and fury. Instinctively my fist tightened and before I knew what I was doing, it connected with her jaw bone. She let out a guttural roar and came at my throat with her bony hands. But before I had a chance to hit her again, Olin was between us.

  “Ladies,” Olin shouted. “Please. Settle down.”

  “Arrest her,” Faye screamed.

  “For what? I was standing right here. I watched you start this Faye.”

  She threw herself on the couch dramatically. Her fingers fluttered to her face and she felt her jaw gingerly. I socked her pretty good. It was going to hurt like hell later but she deserved it.

  “For attacking me,” she wailed. “And discrediting my son.”

  “Now you’re the one who was in the wrong here Faye. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you.”

  Olin was talking in a calm voice. The one people used to talk to crazy people. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. I knew it was best to just keep my mouth shut.

  “You don’t know her,” Faye pointed a shaking finger at me. “She’s a slut, a home wrecking whore just like Jill. She’s a killer too. Bet you didn’t know that. She shoots people in the back so you’d better watch out. She’ll fuck you then kill you, that’s what she’ll do.”

  “How dare you.”

  I started towards Faye, blood racing through my veins. Olin caught me before I reached her and held me tight.

  “Get off me,” I yelped.

  “You see,” Faye said. “She’s psycho.”

  “You think I’m psycho? You haven’t even seen psycho yet,” I shouted.

  “Is that a threat?” Faye asked.

  “No it’s a promise,” I yelled as Olin hustled me towards the front door.

  “We’ll be seeing you later Faye. Thanks for the lovely chat,” Olin called out.

  “Don’t bring that bitch back here again,” she shouted. “I’m getting a restraining order.”

  I was still shaking as Olin pushed me out into the sunshine.

  TWENTY NINE

  We were finally driving away and I was furious we didn’t have Faye shackled behind us in the back seat like the common criminal she was.

  “I need her,” Olin said.

  I crossed my arms. “What for?”

  “Surveillance.”

  “And what help will that be?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll lead us to the killer, maybe she won’t but it’s worth a shot. I can always arrest her later if that will make you feel better.”

  I knew he was joking but I was serious.

  “Yes it would.”

  “And you’re going to hold me to that I presume?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get back to business.”

  He may have thought the matter was closed but I was keeping a mental tally. A sort of game I played with myself. If he didn’t piss me off for one whole day then maybe I’d sleep with him. Maybe. Today wasn’t looking so hot for Detective Olin.

  “Fine. Where are we going now?”

  “To see Harvey.”

  “Faye won’t be very happy about that,” I grinned.

  “Exactly.”

  Only Harvey wasn’t home. The bleary eyed guy who answered the door swore up and down that he didn’t know where Harvey was. Despite his ruffled appearance and the fact that he looked as though he had just woken up from a long nap on the floor, he seemed pretty sincere. Harvey had gone out for drinks and never returned.

  “Can we really trust the guy?” I said.

  We sat out in the street, watching and waiting.

  “He seemed like the type who would sell out his friend. If Harvey had been there then I don’t think he would have had a problem turning him over to us,” Olin said.

  “I’m surprised he even remembered who Harvey was. He’d certainly been hitting the bong pipe a little too hard.”

  “Exactly. Maybe we spooked him.”

  We parked far enough down the street to be hidden from view. It was a rundown neighborhood full of dilapidated houses all in varying degrees of neglect and decay. Several had boarded up windows and cars resting on cinder blocks in the driveways. One even had a motor home with no apparent motor taking up most of their front yard. Apparently the overflow occupants from the house were living in it. Wires strung like Christmas lights sent electricity out to the fire hazard and also supported some freshly washed clothes.

  “Harvey sure has nice friends,” I sighed. “I wonder what his wife would think.”

  “Wife?”

  “Well when he hit on me he said they were separated but I don’t know that I necessarily believe him.”

  “He hit on you?”

  Olin sounded jealous but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was time to ruffle his feathers a bit.

  “Yeah, just before he threatened me.”

  “What do you mean he threatened you?”

  The jealousy or whatever it was had quickly turned to anger. His cheeks were flushed and face pale.

  “When did he threaten you?”

  He was serious. Now was apparently not the time to mess with him. Keep it simple. Keep it straight. Try not to tell a lie.

  “I don’t know. What day is it? We went to lunch, walked in the park and then he tried to strangle me. A couple of days ago I guess, I don’t know. I haven’t slept much lately.”

  “He tried to strangle you? Shit Sam. What the hell kind of partner are you?”

  “What? We’re partners now?”

  “Well yes, in a roundabout sort of way. That means I tell you everything and you tell me everything. No exceptions. Unless you want to get us both killed.”

  I wondered when exactly we had become partners. I knew he put his reputation on the line by keeping me part of the case. Cops didn’t take kindly to outside interference, especially from someone who killed one of their own.

 
“I thought you would have figured that out. I guess you’re not as smart as you look,” he said.

  “Very funny. So I went out to lunch to try and get some information out of Harvey, he started hitting on me and I rebuffed him. I crushed his fragile male ego and he didn’t like it very much. I would have socked him one but there were two little girls on the swing set just across from us and I didn’t want to make a scene.”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “Look, if it hadn’t been for those girls he would have had my gun shoved up his ass.”

  “Sam, you can’t just pull your gun out every time you feel like it.”

  “Because it’s for protection, not for threatening people?”

  He gave me a condescending look.

  “Not in my world,” I muttered under my breath.

  I’m sure Olin was just about to rebuff me when we heard a commotion from the house and pot head burst out the front door in a hurry. He clutched a bulging backpack to his chest and looked up and down the street like a scared animal before jumping into a dented brown truck and peeling out with a squeal of tires.

  “I think we spooked him,” I said.

  “Hold on.”

  Olin pulled out behind the truck, keeping enough distance between us so that pot head wouldn’t get suspicious. Despite being in an apparent rush he managed to stick to the speed limit and obey all the rules of the road. I suspected pot head didn’t want to get pulled over for something as trivial as speeding when he had a bulging bag of cannabis on the seat beside him.

  We tailed him from one neighborhood to another. Pot head didn’t seem to know where he was going. Finally he pulled into a gas station and went over to use the pay phone.

  “Do you think that pay phone actually works?” I asked.

  Olin shrugged, his eyes intently focused on the guy’s every move.

  He was dialing numbers from a scrap of paper and didn’t seem to be having much luck. Each time he slammed the phone down with increasing ferocity until he finally managed to reach whoever it was he was looking for. Then he hunched over the phone protectively, only animating the conversation now and then with a jerk of his arm. Finally he slammed the receiver down, went into the store and emerged a few minutes later with several packs of cigarettes and some beef jerky.

  I let out a sigh, realizing I was out and there was no way Olin was going to let me go in and get some.

  “No smokes for you,” Olin said.

  “What are you now, a mind reader? I’ll only be two seconds.”

  But pot head was back in his truck and we couldn’t afford to lose him. We fell in behind him again and I leant against the window, suddenly very tired and a little beaten down.

  “If we arrest him, I’ll let you take his. Okay?”

  “Really?”

  I perked up a little at the prospect of confiscating pot head’s cigarettes.

  THIRTY

  Pot head’s destination was a rundown shack off the side of a deserted road. As the brown truck pulled off into the sandy lot, Olin continued to drive past. Stopping now would look far too suspicious. Except for the tall scrub that surrounded the shack, the rest of the foliage was short and sparse. There wasn’t much around to camouflage a giant vehicle.

  “Now what?” I said.

  “Hold on.”

  He sped down the road until the shack finally disappeared from sight, pulling off onto the shoulder and bolting from the car on foot.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” I yelled.

  “Stay in the car,” he shouted back over his shoulder.

  “No way.”

  “Damn it Sam, just do as I say.”

  He ran off down the road, his gun drawn and held protectively against his side. Dust spiraled up around his ankles as he ran.

  So we were partners? Obviously not. If he expected me to wait in the car for him like a good girl, he was sorely mistaken. I followed his path back to the shack but I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was hot and the back of my shirt stuck to my skin. My grasp on my gun was slippery at best.

  It wasn’t nerves. It was the heat. That was what I kept telling myself but the staccato beat of my heart told me the adrenaline was pumping and I had to admit it felt good. This was what I loved, what I lived for.

  Hot air hung around the shack like a damp blanket. I waited as the pounding of my heart slowed and listened for a sign of life. At first I heard nothing but then the soft mumble of voices found its way out through the cracks in the wood. Two men deep in conversation.

  The dry grass crackled beneath my feet as I tried to quietly make my way around the shack, looking for some kind of entrance. I kept my eyes open for snakes but that was quickly becoming the least of my worries as the voices inside grew louder.

  “Fuck you ass hole.” It was pot head, his voice high and whiney.

  “Fuck me? Fuck you. You double crossed me you son of a bitch.”

  The second voice was deep and throaty. Neither one of them was Olin.

  Crouched in the dirt I held my breath, waiting for one of them to explode. A rather large banana spider crawled across my shoe and I managed to flip it several feet with a shudder. I wasn’t a big fan of things that crawled around on more than four legs.

  My patience was wearing thin. It was ridiculous. Why was I hiding and where the hell was Olin? Was he inside? Up on the roof? I had no clue but I was sick and tired of waiting around.

  The door to the shack was on the backside. Two pieces of peeling plywood stapled together and slathered with duck-tape for good measure. Olin wasn’t there. I pushed the makeshift door open only enough to leave a tiny crack to look through. It was so dark inside that I couldn’t see anything.

  “I can’t believe you came here.”

  The two men were calmer now, composed and almost civil.

  “What was I supposed to do man?”

  “Keep a level head, follow the rules.”

  “But.”

  “No. You blew it, plain and simple.”

  The older man walked around in an agitated manner. His feet made scratchy noises on the dirty floor.

  “So what do I do now?” pot head whimpered.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Nothing.”

  The gun shot ricocheted through the soggy air and I instinctively ducked. There was no place to go, nowhere to hide. If the shooter burst out of the shack then I would have to shoot him before he shot me. It was the only choice I had. I raised my gun and prepared to fire.

  “Come on.”

  Hot breath whispered in my ear and a steady hand grabbed my raised arm and pulled it away.

  “Run!”

  Olin pulled me away from the shack and down the road. As we ran he kept hold of my arm, yanking faster each time I slowed. I didn’t want to run away, I wanted to shoot the guy. I was on the right side of the law for once. What was wrong with that?

  When we reached the truck, I pulled my arm away angrily.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  “I told you to stay in the truck.”

  “And I thought you said we were partners. Partners watch each other’s backs. How can I watch your back if I’m stuck here waiting for you like some child?”

  “I didn’t need you to watch my back. I needed you to stay in the car.”

  He was yelling now. His shirt soaked with sweat like mine, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I noticed a tattoo I hadn’t seen before. Some kind of Chinese symbol. I wanted to ask him about it but I was too mad.

  I crossed my arms defiantly and glared at him. The warm fuzzy feeling I had when I realized he put his neck on the line to bring me into the investigation was long forgotten. It had been stupid to think for a second that we had actually been partners. I wasn’t a cop. I was someone who stuck her nose where it didn’t belong and usually ended up in a shit load of trouble. He hadn’t particularly wanted my help. He just wanted to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t mess anything up. I turned and walked away, feeling betra
yed and more than a little stupid.

  “Where are you going? Do you want to get yourself killed?”

  Olin tried to pull me back but I kept walking.

  “Get your hands off me. We’re not partners, you and I. We’ll never be. We’re two peas from different pods.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Why don’t you go and do what you do and I’ll go and do what I do and if somewhere along the line we meet in the middle then fine. If not, oh well. Now don’t you have to go and arrest someone, call an ambulance for the guy that got shot? Follow your precious protocol?”

  “Do you have a God damned death wish?” Olin yelled.

  “Maybe.”

  I stomped back to the shack. At this point I didn’t really care if the shooter was still there or not. If he was then I would shoot him. If he wasn’t then that was fine. Perhaps pot head was still alive. Maybe he would feel like spilling everything he knew if he thought his life was about to end. I wasn’t above using a death bed confession to get what I needed. After all, somewhere out there Jill was without a finger and who knew what would be next. All I knew was that when the killer was done with her, he was coming after me.

  The brown truck was no longer parked outside the shack. Had the shooter taken pot head’s truck or had he only been wounded and able to drive himself away? I picked up the pace, wondering if Olin was still following me. If he was, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around to look.

  I saw the explosion before I heard it. A giant orange fireball rolling up into the sky with splintered shards of wood from the flimsy shack flung skyward by the force. I turned to run but it was too late. The blast knocked me backwards. I hit the back of my head on the road and then heat engulfed me.

  THIRTY ONE

  I smelt burned flesh and hoped to God it wasn’t me. I couldn’t see or feel anything. I rationally theorized that I was either really fucked up or practically dead. Caught in some spiritual slip stream where any minute I would look down and see the paramedics pulling a white sheet over my scorched body. The fire still crackled in the distance, spitting and growling like a thoroughly pissed off cat.