Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  Tseng nodded, relieved that his assessment had hit the mark. He’d been fearing such a thing might happen, the worries confirmed the moment Sturgis told him about the wounds.

  “How would you like me to handle this?” Tseng asked.

  “Can you keep it quiet?”

  Tseng shook his head in silent protest before glancing outside. At just 4:03, the sun was still a couple of hours from rising, the world dark and quiet. Every bit of him wanted to say there was no way it could be kept quiet, though he knew there was no point in saying it.

  The governor was going to do what he wanted to anyway. His asking the question only proved that.

  “I’ll do my best,” Tseng said as he stared out the kitchen window into his darkened yard.

  “Do better than that,” Randle said, clicking off without another word.

  Tseng looked at the phone. Again, he shook his head, an expletive filled string of words filling his mind. If not for his wife sleeping two rooms away, he would have screamed every last one of them, all aimed at the pompous little man climbing back in bed across town.

  “Bastard,” Tseng managed, scrolling through the call log and pressing send.

  The time of day no longer mattered. If his night was ruined, a couple others were going to be as well.

  “Get up, and meet me at Ala Moana Beach in a half hour. We’ve got two more.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was tension in the car as Kalani wound through the desolate streets of Honolulu.

  “You didn’t have to come,” she said quietly. The words weren’t meant as an apology, though they sounded that way as she said them.

  “I know,” Rip said, his gaze aimed out into the darkness, focusing on nothing in particular as the city slid by.

  “I know it’s early, I just figured if I didn’t call you...” Kalani’s voice tapered off.

  “You did the right thing,” Rip said, shifting his focus an inch or two. “I’m not upset about the hour. I was awake. I’m upset because that storm yesterday brought with it the best waves we’ve seen since December.”

  Unable to help it, Kalani laughed. What she had mistaken as hostility for dragging him from his slumber was actually surfer’s remorse. Once upon a time, she would have felt the same way on a day like this, waking up before dawn, listening to the wave forecast on an ancient AM radio, getting to the breaks by first light.

  “So we’ve got two more?” Rip asked, taking the conversation into less stinging territory.

  “That’s the word. Tseng called and said two bodies were found at Ala Moana this morning, same profile as the one at the capitol.”

  “Two this time,” Rip said, a statement, not a question.

  Kalani nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing since getting the call, that whoever was doing this was working his way up. Whether that was the plan all along or in direct response to the first one being handled so quietly, she could only guess.

  “Pregnant?” Rip asked.

  “I don’t know. I assume so, but he didn’t say.”

  “Who found them?”

  “I don’t know that either,” Kalani said, turning into the beach park and following it as it looped along the shoreline. At 4:30 in the morning, the park was empty, the first stragglers of the day hopefully still hours away. The only patrons were some scattered homeless people, their shopping carts and makeshift shelters just visible in the darkness. “I got the call, called you, washed my face, pulled on jeans, and hit the door.”

  “Hmm,” Rip grunted, shifting his focus to the unmarked cruiser sitting alone at the curb ahead. Kalani spotted it at the same time, coming to a stop a few feet short. On the opposite side of the road she could see the hulking shape of an SUV, Walter Tseng crossing the street toward them.

  “He doesn’t look happy to be here this morning,” Kalani muttered.

  “Are we?” Rip asked, wrenching the door open and climbing out. He circled around to the front of the Jeep and waited for Kalani to join him, the pair approaching Tseng together.

  “Morning,” Kalani said, her voice neutral. Beside her Rip nodded, but said nothing.

  “Evening,” Tseng said, a scowl in place. He returned the nod to Rip.

  It was about what Kalani had anticipated, all things considered.

  Following Tseng’s lead, they turned off the sidewalk into the sand, walking three across to the water’s edge. Ahead, they could see a single silhouette waiting for them.

  The questions Rip was just asking came to Kalani’s mind as they approached, though she refrained from voicing a single one. The odds were, Tseng knew little more than she did at the moment, the man with the answers standing silent ahead of them.

  “Sturgis,” Tseng said, waving a hand as they made it halfway across the sand.

  “Chief.” He waited until the trio arrived, his face just barely illuminated.

  Kalani had never directly worked with Jake Sturgis, though she knew him by reputation to be gruff and no-nonsense, a throwback who still believed in turf wars among the various departments. Something deep inside told her he wasn’t going to be too pleased with what was about to take place, though there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.

  “What have we got?” Tseng asked, his voice terse.

  Across from them, Sturgis kept his hands in his pockets, the sleeves of his rumpled blazer bunched around the wrists. A growing paunch extended out between them, matching a doughy face.

  “We’ve got a double homicide,” Sturgis said, letting his annoyance show in his voice. “And we’ve got to get a team in here to process this thing now so we can get to work on it.”

  Kalani felt her body go rigid, her earlier concerns confirmed. With just one sentence he had already tried to take control of the scene, and left no doubt that he felt this was his case to solve. She drew in a long slow breath, waiting for Tseng to take the bait and assert his control over the situation.

  To her surprise, he held off for the time being.

  “That them?” Tseng asked, nodding with his chin to two dark shapes sprawled in the sand nearby.

  “They damn sure ain’t sea turtles,” Sturgis said, annoyance and insubordination both obvious.

  Again, Tseng ignored it, extracting a small flashlight from his pocket and clicking it on. A wide arc of white light illuminated the sand in front of them, revealing two girls lying side by side. Tseng took three steps toward them and stopped, pulling up just short of the bodies, Kalani and Rip a step behind.

  Sturgis remained in place as they moved, turning to watch them.

  “Just like I said, two girls, cut up pretty badly,” Sturgis said. “No blood here. Looks like a pretty obvious dump job.”

  No one responded as they stared down at the scene, processing as much as they could from where they stood.

  On the left was a young Asian girl in her early 20s. She was barefoot, in a denim skirt that covered nothing below her hips, and a top that had once been pink and white, but was now crusted with dark blood.

  Beside her, a second girl looked a bit older, her body much heavier. She wore a black skirt that reached mid-thigh, and a dark tank-top hiding the slash they knew existed across her stomach.

  Each girl’s throat was cut, wicked trenches that tore away most of the flesh.

  Just as Sturgis had said, there was nothing else at the scene consistent with the injuries. Not a single drop of blood was in the soft white powder, not even lines in the sand indicating the bodies had been dragged.

  At first glance, it appeared the girls had been dropped into place, just the same as Lauren Mann a few days before.

  Kalani drew in deep breaths, biting back the spinning sensation she was feeling. They were the first bodies, the first blood, she’d seen outside the ME’s office since Jacobsen’s months before. She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand and squeezed tight, letting the stinging sensation keep her focused and alert, not allowing dizziness to overtake her.

  Beside her she could sense Rip inch
closer, careful to maintain a bit of distance in the presence of Tseng and Sturgis.

  “Seen enough?” Sturgis spat, distaste rising in his voice. “Can you now sign off on a beach closure?”

  Once more, Tseng ignored him. “How’d you find them?”

  Sturgis let out an angry sigh. “Informant. Guy I use likes to come down here sometimes, take a nap in the sand, grab a shower at the outdoor stalls in the morning. Stumbled across them about an hour ago, walked out to the payphones and called me.”

  “Where is he now?” Tseng asked.

  “Over by the snack stand with Li,” Sturgis said, agitation rising even further in his voice. “Hey, Chief, what the hell’s going on here?”

  Finally, his tone, his words, were enough to snap Tseng’s attention up from the bodies. He turned out the flashlight and stared at Sturgis before turning toward his car.

  “Thank you, Detective. We’ll take it from here.”

  “You’ll what?” Sturgis asked, remaining rooted in place, watching as Tseng headed to his truck.

  Kalani waited a moment before turning and following after Tseng, Rip behind her, jogging a few paces to close the gap.

  “He’s going to be pissed about this,” she muttered, keeping her voice low.

  “He’s already pissed about this,” Tseng said, his words clipped, his tone clear.

  “Can we do this?” Kalani asked, ignoring the sand spilling into her shoes and grinding against her feet.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Tseng said, walking in long strides until he reached the sidewalk. Once there he stopped, looking back at them.

  “He’ll piss and moan for a while, but I’ll remind him he has the case of four children missing all their teeth that needs his attention. In the meantime, gear up, both of you, and start processing this scene.”

  Kalani felt her jaw drop open. She’d been a patrol officer most of her career, was just on the cusp of making lieutenant when the shooting occurred. Never once had she processed a scene.

  “Don’t worry,” Tseng said, seemingly sensing her discomfort, nodding toward Rip. “I know he’s run a few of these before, and I’ll be right behind you just as soon as I call Tripler and tell them we’ve got two more coming in.”

  “Jannie’s going to love that,” Rip said, the first words he’d said since arriving.

  Tseng raised his hands, walking backward away from them. “Be sure to tell her it wasn’t my doing. This whole damn mess is on the governor.”

  Behind them, they could hear Sturgis mumbling in the darkness, his feet dragging through the sand and scattering it across the ground as he headed to his car.

  “Don’t suppose we can tell him that, too?” Kalani asked, nodding at Sturgis.

  “Nope,” Tseng said. “Now get moving. We have until first light to find out what we can and get these girls out of here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Good morning, Mr. Cruz.”

  The voice came as a surprise to Danilo as he stepped through the airlock door into the underground lab. His head snapped up, knowing already who it belonged to, but still not expecting to hear it. After years of working for the man, there was no fear, no heart palpitations or sweaty palms, merely surprise at his presence in the lab.

  “Good morning, sir,” Danilo said, pulling himself up tall, his newest order in his hands. The shapeless plastic it was wrapped in shined beneath the overhead lights, the warmth passing through like some sort of perverse pizza delivery.

  In all the years Danilo had worked for Thomas Zall, it was one of the few times he had seen him out so early. As far as he could remember, it was the very first time he had ever been in the lab. There was no way to know for sure what brought him down this morning, especially at such an unusual hour, but it most likely wasn’t good.

  An unexpected visit tended to mean somebody had screwed up. If that somebody was Danilo, it might mean putting the vow he had sworn in jeopardy, the only thing that he truly feared.

  Adding to his apprehension was the apparent state of the man standing before him. For the first decade he had worked for him, Zall had hardly aged a day, his hair thick, ever so slightly changing from blonde to silver, his skin taut. In the last couple of years, though, he had started to deteriorate rapidly, his hair now almost white, the skin around his eyes and neck starting to sag. While his appearance was maintained as much as his fortune would allow, the combined effects of age and stress were beginning to take their toll.

  “Mr. Cruz! Excellent!” Saiki exclaimed from the back of the lab, firing a hand in the air and speed walking toward the front. His white lab coat twirled around him as he approached, a childlike grin on his face. He circled around Zall as if the man wasn’t even there, headed directly for the same stainless-steel table he’d used just a few days before.

  “Please, please,” he exclaimed, gesturing to the package in Danilo’s hands and pointing down at the table.

  Danilo flicked his gaze to Zall, who seemed to be watching with detachment, then crossed over to the table and laid it down, stepping back as the doctor went to work, opening it with a pair of shears.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, this will do nicely,” Saiki said, almost salivating as he pulled back the black plastic revealing the still-warm fetus. No less than an hour or two removed from the womb, its flesh still showed pink, its body glazed with a thin coating of amniotic fluid and tissue. The umbilical cord was coiled on top, the end clipped clean from its host.

  “Oh, it’s exquisite,” Saiki said, looking up at Danilo in wonder. “Wherever did you get it?”

  His face, his words, his enthusiasm, all made Danilo’s stomach turn. Death and destruction, he could handle, an inhuman amount of pleasure derived from it, he could not.

  “Different place this time,” Danilo said, keeping his face impassive. He did not want to display outright hostility in the presence of Zall, but wanted his tone to be clear just the same. “You shouldn’t have any problems.”

  Whether that was true or not, he couldn’t be certain. The only girls he knew to be clean were the kind who would also be missed. Taking a chance on an impure specimen was a small price to pay for keeping their operation clandestine.

  “Ha!” Saiki said, clapping his hands together in front of him in excitement. Danilo watched before making a face and turning away, taking a few steps toward the door.

  “That’s a good idea,” Zall said, joining Danilo as he headed for the exit. “I’d like to have a word upstairs.”

  “Of course,” Danilo said.

  “Doctor, you have everything you need down here?” Zall asked Saiki, the doctor still ogling his newest acquisition.

  “Oh, yes,” Saiki said, staring down at the fetus. After a moment he raised his head abruptly and said, “Though I could use a few more teeth if possible. Some of the last batch were adult teeth, which don’t help me.”

  Zall shifted his attention to Danilo and said, “More teeth. That a problem?”

  “None at all.”

  “You got it,” Zall said over his shoulder. Together, he and Danilo left Saiki to his work and emerged on the main floor of the house, Zall leading the way into the staged living room.

  These days, most of their meetings took place over the phone. There was no way to know what had brought him out this morning, but something told Danilo it couldn’t be good.

  Zall settled into a stiff armchair and folded his right leg across his left. “I just want to talk to you about a few things. Please, take a seat.”

  Danilo glanced out into the hallway, checking to see if any guards were eavesdropping nearby, before stepping to the sofa and sitting down.

  “I take it from your delivery this morning that everything went well?” Zall began.

  Danilo nodded. “Yes, it was no problem at all.”

  “Where is the girl now?” Zall asked, propping an elbow on the arm of the chair.

  “I left them on Ala Moana Beach a couple of hours ago,” Danilo said, his voice even, reciting what he knew. “Yo
u said somewhere public.”

  “Them?”

  The corner of Danilo’s eye twitched. He’d gotten lazy, forgetting that he’d gone off script in picking up Cherry before reaching his ultimate goal. “Yes. I had to secure one girl to gain access to the other.”

  “Hmm,” Zall said, sniffing slightly. He paused, contemplating the new information. “And there were no problems?”

  “No problems at all,” Danilo repeated.

  His relationship with Thomas Zall had begun many years before, on the east coast of the mainland. Through a friend of a friend, he had been brought on to a private landscaping crew, hired to look after the Zall family property. Over the course of several years there he ascended in rank, rising to take over the crew, before being promoted to handling special projects for Zall personally.

  Over three years before, when the decision to relocate to Hawaii was made, Danilo was asked to come along. At first, he had balked at the invitation, waiting until the proverbial Godfather offer was extended before opting to go.

  After more than a decade and a half, his job description had again recently taken a sharp turn. He understood the reasoning behind it, even agreed with the motivations for it, but it still didn’t keep him from having moments of uncertainty.

  Not in his ability to carry out his duties, but in the fallibility of the project as a whole.

  “I stopped by this morning to see how the work has been proceeding,” Zall said, watching Danilo. “Dr. Saiki tells me things are progressing rapidly, that we should be ready quite soon.”

  Danilo remained silent, not hearing a question, waiting for Zall to continue.

  “I just wanted to let you know that I, we, appreciate what you’ve been doing recently,” Zall said. “I realize the things asked of you haven’t been easy.”

  The acknowledgement came as a surprise to Danilo. While his employer had always been fair, he had expressed his gratitude through compensation. Rarely, if ever, were compliments doled out.

  “And to let you know that in addition to the teeth, he told me he will need one last specimen to complete the first round of work,” Zall said.